Pride Comes Before a Something Something...

Last night, as Jason and I were walking back from the gym, I mentioned that it was time for another redesign for Amalah.com. I’m worried that between the whole “Queen of Everything” theme and my somewhat (okay, very) cocky writing I’m putting some people off.

To which Jason promptly replied, “Well, yeah. I’m sure you are. I mean, I know it’s your schtick, but you do come across as pretty elitist.”

Of course I pitched a fit in response to this allegation but also secretly knew he was right. And I don’t want to put anybody off. I love every person who reads this site and I read about a bazillion sites a day that are much, much better than this one. And to prove that it is just a “schtick,” I’m going to drop it for this post (and this post only, bitches) and thoroughly embarrass myself for your amusement.

Here, in no particular order, are some of my Deep Dark Secrets of Mortification, Betrayal and Stupidness:

(Please be gentle.)

1) In the first paragraph? I lied. We DID go to the gym, but were actually walking back from the burrito place where I totally pigged out when we had this conversation.

2) And at the gym there was this big meathead muscled mustached guy who looked a lot like Tom Selleck, and I was confronted with the fact that I still think Tom Selleck is hot. I used to kiss my big sister's poster of him and make her declare us husband and wife.

3) I have broken up with exactly two boyfriends. I have been dumped by at least eight boyfriends, not including the one boyfriend I dumped and then got back together with, only to be promptly dumped.

4) One guy in high school asked me “out” over the phone at 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday night. We made out during lunch and then he “broke up” with me at 3 p.m. on Wednesday in front of the school bus. Mortifying.

5) This same guy, as I learned years later, was Jason’s best friend all through high school. He was the best man at my wedding. Also mortifying.

6) I was a huge dork in high school. Yooge. Colossal. I played the timpani in the band and wore braces and took drama way too seriously.

7) I once was dropped from the lead in a school play and replaced by the director two weeks before the performance. I cried and cried and cried and my mom called the director and made him give me my part back. I still had to alternate performances with my replacement.

8) My very first boyfriend went to a different high school. We dated for like, MONTHS and he was my first kiss. Then he transferred to my school. No one could believe a dork like me got a guy like him until he dumped me a week after classes started. By my locker. He then started dating some girl who rode on the same school bus as me and told the whole cross country team that I put out. I spent most of 9th grade locked in the bathroom to escape the mortification.

9) This same guy? ALSO one of Jason’s friends. Christ. Luckily, not past 10th grade.

10) I’m terrified of volcanoes. TERR. IFIED. It started with Reading Rainbow on PBS and they read this one book about a farmer in Mexico who noticed a bump in his field. And the bump got bigger and bigger and started to rumble and then it exploded and wiped out the whole damn village. And after reading this book? LeVar Burton WENT TO A VOLCANO that was ACTIVE and RUMBLING and stood around with these batshit crazy volcano “experts” and talked about how soon it would erupt. (Soon! And yet they STOOD NEXT TO THE OPENING. THERE WAS VISIBLE LAVA!) It did not help that I had a little crush on LeVar Burton. After watching this I would spend hours in my backyard looking for bumps. For YEARS.

And I had a panic attack during that movie about the volcano in L.A. and had to walk out. And the “volcano” show outside the Mirage in Vegas scared the crap out of me too. I hid behind my friend the whole time. And I will never, ever go to Hawaii because I KNOW that some dormant volcano will suddenly erupt while I’m there and I will be killed. Do not even try to reason with me about this. (I did some searching, and THIS is the guilty episode that started it all.)

11) I once submitted an essay to Salon.com and got rejected. I cried. And never read Salon again, those bastards.

12) I got a job as a reporter at Penn State’s Daily Collegian newspaper. It was a journalism student’s dream come true. I quit three weeks later. I tell people I quit because I hated the newsroom environment and disliked writing hard news. I really quit because I was too timid to call any of my sources on the telephone.

13) I was the Janet Cooke/Jayson Blair/Stephen Glass of several journalism classes. I sometimes made up sources and quotes and attributed them to my friends who would cover for me if the professor called them.

14) I have bought answer keys for tests and written papers from Cliff Notes.

15) I still think Spam and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese are delicious.