The Life of Amanda

I was born in California, lived in California as a buffer between living in other states, and I currently live in California. California is my home, but it's not my only home. Home is where the heart is, and I left part of my heart in two other states. One I don't remember, and the other one can suck it. I have lived in five states. This is one of my go-to fun facts, because "I broke my head when I was three" is something I work up to in real life. So I'm a Californian through and through. I hate weather and humidity; I wear a sweatshirt and shorts; I can drive in 70 mph gusts of wind but fuck me if there's three snowflakes on the ground. But my parents were in the military, and as a baby, I lived in Kentucky. Here, I was apparently addicted to Gomer Pyle, and I learned the word "golly" from him. It was my first word. I also developed a love for at the time brand-new show Small Wonder , and I picked up a little brother. But then my parents gave u...

It's amazing my parents had three kids after having me. My brother is one year and nine and half months younger than me, which means my parents must've felt pretty invincible after keeping me alive for a year. I didn't cry on airplanes, but I tried to die a lot. Apparently, one time I decided to abandon my family in a Sears. Sears, these days, are pretty freaking depressing. In 1985 Kentucky, it was the place my parents paid their car insurance, got oil changes, and apparently denied me one too many toys. Now, there's an allegedly in the title because it was a Sears in the 1980s. My parents may have been a little more on edge than they needed to be, or they could be absolutely correct. Either way, I was one and a half and I take no blame for this incident. I think my parents were doing that thing where they were handling their car insurance, and I was in a stroller. However, there had been a display with Big Bird, and I was a hardcore Big Bird fan, so I wanted o...

Children who grow up challenging Darwin do not grow up to be graceful adults. Case in point, in 2017, I got a concussion from my car trunk. This was not even the first time I fought a car trunk and lost. Way back in 1988, when I was about four and a half, my forehead was accidentally shut in a car trunk. The person who shut the trunk did not realize I was standing next to it, nor did they realize I was exactly the right height for that to be a problem. I slept it off at Grandma's. It was fine. I barely remember it, and the only reason I know it really happened is because when I got my first car at age 20, my mom got really nervous when I was showing off the trunk. But in 2017, I was a bit taller than I was in 1988. I mean, barely. I was a very tall child, but I stopped growing at 11. I also didn't have anyone else controlling the trunk. So, one may wonder how it is that a trunk managed to attack me a second time in my life at all. The damn Santa Anas. They're a fuckin...

I've had adventures other than almost dying. I mean, the amount of times I've almost died is probably more than average. My mom learned the baby Heimlich because I almost choked to death every single time I had cut up hot dogs as a baby. But this isn't a story about almost dying, because I should change it up a little. When I was 13, I broke a wall with my brother's ass. Then a few weeks later, he broke a window with my elbow. My family lived in Delaware in 1996 and 1997, and for some reason that was the year or so my younger brother and I just hated each other. I have two younger brothers, and the youngest one was smart and stayed out of it. But my brother I had the blood feud with was 11 at the time, and had expressed anger issues since birth. He Hulk smashed a pretty big and heavy dining room chair when he was eight. And when I was 13, I was all hormones. Add in the fact that we were latchkey kids and nobody was home to interfere when things got heated, things ...

I'm going to tell you a boring story about a boring family outing to a nothing water park. Just kidding, it's me. I almost died. It was the summer of 1993 in Buford, GA. I was 9 years old, and we had usually gone to Six Flags of Georgia in the summer, but in 1993, they had built a water park closer to home and we decided to go do that. Even I was amped about not having to be stuck in traffic and getting go down water slides. I can't swim, but that didn't turn out to be the issue. We didn't go down a water slide that had a super deep pool. I may have even actually had fun that day, but I can only remember the trauma. Okay, that might be a little dramatic, but I almost died. So, there was this one water slide that had rafts. It was enclosed and you had to wait your turn to go down. So you know how water parks wait until some one is completely out of the water slide before letting the next person on? That rule might because of me. When I got to the end of...

For a woman who fractured her skull as a three year old and promised that wasn't the first or last time she challenged Darwin's findings, you may wonder, "what is she like now?" So I think I would like to balance stories from when I was a kid with stories from when I was an adult. Not from right this second, because right this second I'm drinking a Chai tea latte and updating my blog. I'm a basic bitch, and I own it. Right now I'm going to tell you about why Fireball reminds me of a time I almost died and how it led me to a theory about party girls, and it is literally my most mundane story about drinking. And I didn't drink until I was 20. I was the late bloomer of my crew - my mom thinks I'm a lightweight, but that's because my mom hasn't been drinking with me. I think she forgets that my natural personality still has people believing I am under the influence of something at almost all times. I think my poor mom's brain is just li...

One might assume I'm cherry picking the most interesting story for my first entry. Yes, and no. Yes, in that it's a story even I believe is interesting and therefore would make a very good story to share. But no, because it happened when I was three years old and so this is the first major story of my childhood that, despite the head injury, I can tell without saying that my parents told it to me. This wasn't even the first time in my life I tested that whole survival of the fittest thing. And again, I was three. It was spring 1987. Well, it was anywhere between October 1986 and March 1987. I can't give you exact dates because I did not understand calendars as a three year old, and I was about to suffer a head injury. I do know it was a Friday, and I can tell you why I know that later. We were visiting my aunt and uncle, and my two older cousins. I'm not particularly close to these cousins anymore for reasons that I'm sure will be revealed eventually, but ...

Nobody thinks their life is particularly interesting. I have been told that my life is a little interesting. I don't like talking about myself and it's become a problem, and I want to try to get over that. But the snippets I have shared with people makes them wonder why I think I'm boring. I mean, to me, I am inherently boring. However, I do admit that my life is a constant stream of sitcom situations with location and "casting" changes when things get stale. For example, I've had my job for four years and I've had 7 promotions. They trained me from the ground up, and I don't stick out more than any one person in my company - it's just the way my life goes. My youngest brother says I'm lucky, but I'm really not. I've never won more than $100 in a lottery. I've had some very dark and trying times, as if the story needed stakes. I might be fictional. This is an existential crisis I have often. But because I want to get good at...