I’m Amanda. I’ve got wide eyes, a smart mouth, and a MetroCard. And I’m not afraid to use them.
Freegans are individuals who prefer free food. Some of them only eat free food. And they’re not just hitting up grocery stores on sample days. They forage for food in dumpsters on a daily or weekly basis and then prepare it.
They’re not homeless, either.
I’ve blogged about my dating life in the past tense for almost a year now. It’s not that I haven’t seen new legs do the same dance. It’s not that I haven’t gazed at face after face, wondering which would become the most familiar. I just stopped writing about it.
Honestly, I hesitate to start again. I think some people might be critical of the evolving cast of characters and how leading men fall, understudies take over, and the orchestra occasionally goes on strike. I swear I’m not the only person whose romantic life looks like something out of “A Chorus Line.”
I had this brief thing - thing, because I don’t know what else to call it - at the beginning of the year with a filmmaker. He was so weird and different from anyone I’d ever dated. He brought a Flip camera on our second date, and I thought, “This is the next person I’m going to fall in love with.”
I love Cee Lo.
He’s quirky and fun, and this video beats watching anyone lip-sync.
I have a propensity for interesting interactions with strangers. My college boyfriend thought it was the product of being a young, wide-eyed blonde who made too much of things. Another person I dated figured I was a redhead hunting for something to write about.
But no, I really do think there is something about me that makes some people - usually men, I can admit it - open up. (Also: I’ve decided to leave my hair alone for the time being).
B. and I dated in March, and our relationship went in like a lamb, out like a lion. Overall, it was gentle. There were lots of movies, plates of seafood, strolls downtown arm-in-arm.
But something was off. And when I found out what it was - after waiting for B. to be ready to tell me what I’d started to figure out - I ended things. He’s the sweetest guy. Smart. Adorable. But he was emotionally distant and unable to trust me, and I can’t be with a person who can’t trust me.
When I told B. I couldn’t see him anymore, I was shocked at how upset he was. Tears. Bargaining. Then resignation.
Feeling inspired by a book I’m reading, I decided to organize the drawer in my living room/home office where I store my weekly to-do lists and old calendars.
I found this jotted down on my list for the week of September 15, 2008:
Put your arms around me and squeeze me like a book deal will come out of my ass. You have everything, and I want it.
Another thing Cade and I shared when we hung out at my apartment was one of my favorite Stephen Dunn poems called “The Vanishings.”
I mentioned it when we thought aloud about our compete lack of animosity towards each other. All that pain has been forgiven, if not forgotten. He’s just not on the top of my list of disappointing ex-boyfriends these days.
One of the things I found irritating about him when we were together was his disinterest in my media recommendations. Sharing specific books, songs, films, and so on is one of my favorite ways to show loved ones I care. When someone acts like they’ve been given a homework assignment and refuses to explore it, I feel rejected.
I think, “But I chose this just for you!”
When I mentioned the poem, I automatically went to my bookshelf. I had to make an offering - it was too perfect.
I read this excerpt:
In early January, I found myself sitting in my living room in the dark with my ex-boyfriend Cade, the one before TBID.
We’d had dinner and then picked up my computer from the repair shop. He carried the 50-pound tower up the three flights to my apartment. It was the first time he’d seen it, so I offered to show him around.
I walked him through the four rooms, mentally noting how much of it was unfamiliar - the couch, the table, the clothes strewn about the bedroom. And how much he’d seen before - the bedding, the pictures on the wall, the coat hook it took us an hour to hang where I used to live.
Eventually, we sat on opposite ends of the couch. I don’t know who started it, but soon there was music.
A piece I wrote called “The Accidental Chubby Chaser” is in this week’s NY Press.
Here’s an excerpt:
A few dates into what would become our relationship, I determined that the look John gave me was a sort of hungry admiration. Not that he ever let himself get too hungry. The guy had never met a cheese plate he didn’t like.
On Saturday, I was fortunate to get a free ticket to the Magnetic Fields concert at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). I’d tried unsuccessfully to buy a ticket at face value, so I resorted to the last-minute date thing. I found two different guys with a ticket they were hoping to put in the soft clutches of a lady who would be friendly, and hey, maybe even cute.
Anyway, both guys were real people with real extra tickets. I went with one, and shared an armrest with another. And they didn’t know each other.
This story might come off as a sort of highly coincidental Memoirs of a Geisha tale, but it turned out to be more like an episode of Three’s Company. (Don’t be gross - I don’t mean it that way).
