I’m Amanda. I’ve got wide eyes, a smart mouth, and a MetroCard. And I’m not afraid to use them.
Now I would never want to deter anyone from getting an English bulldog of their own. I love the breed for many reasons - gracefulness not being one of them.
So if you spook easily at a spazzy dog, do not watch this video of Annie at my parents’ house in Texas last week.
I repeat: Do not watch this video if you can’t handle your hot dog with extra spaz, hold the ability to follow directions.
A pigeon’s got to be pretty sick to let a person with a camera get this close.
When I was a kid, I’d sometimes explore the woods behind my house - they belonged to my uncle and were roamed by his four horses. There was a point where the mesquite trees and brush got so thick that the house disappeared. It didn’t take much; it was a small house.
I’d gaze into my backyard from afar and try to really look. The dog shuffled to her water bowl under the outdoor spigot. Our Siamese cat stretched in a tree. My sister carried glasses of iced tea from our kitchen to my dad’s office attached to the garage.
Looking at my home this way made me feel objective and appreciative and rich.
Raymond Carver’s poem “Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In” reminds me of those times:
I don’t know when it started, but at some point in what is still my relatively young adulthood, I decided I didn’t want children of my own.
I’ve been told I’ll snap out of it as I mature, as all my friends start settling down, as I get comfortable in my career and self enough to think, “I want more.”
I’m doubtful.
A story I wrote about my dad is published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Thanks Dad. It hits bookstores today.
The lawnmower man and I are on page 97.
Tonight my dad bailed me out of a problem that was my own fault.
Neither of us had planned on it, but this is one of the ways he says, “I love you,” and one of the ways I say, “I need you to.”
This poem is called “Lies I’ve Told My 3 Year Old Recently”:
One of my new year’s resolutions was to attend a free skin cancer screening. There are a few reasons this was important to me. For starters, my dad has skin cancer. As long as I can recall, he’s had biopsies and even skin grafting done as part of his treatment.
Lemme be more graphic: My dad has had to get cancerous chunks of skin cut off his arms and nose. It’s painful and expensive and I’m sure he prefers to keep his body parts where they normally go. Most of us do.
Then a few years ago, my dad underwent chemotherapy. He was weak and nauseous throughout. It’s really hard to see what’s supposed to be a treatment make someone you love even more ill.
Skin cancer is more common in people with light-colored eyes and fair skin. I have blue eyes and very fair skin with pink undertones.
Russian people at Brighton Beach have actually shielded their eyes when I took off my wrap and revealed two black strips of bikini and a whole lot more of “Goddamn, she’s a ghost.”
Saturday was Annie’s first birthday. My mom served her a ribeye steak to celebrate.
I see this ad every time I log in to my Yahoo! email account.
I know the face that boy’s making.
As far back as I can remember, my mom’s eyes have drooped long before the ball dropped in Times Square. Forget live music or noisemakers. She ushers in the new year by pulling out a fresh 3×5 index card and recording 10 resolutions.
“Some should be things you know you can definitely cross out,” she advised me at my initiation. “You probably won’t get to all of them.”
In high school then, I might have sarcastically asked, “Can I put breathing? How about buying a new shirt?”
