Diet Coke Drama

One night last semester, I decided to clean my room because it had gotten particularly dirty. I cleaned my room because it was a disaster. It was like an inferno of death and destruction. It was Martha Stewart's personal hell. You couldn't even see my floor. I told my mom she would throw up if she saw it. She probably would actually throw up. My room is no longer a disaster, thankfully.

As I was hanging up the last sweater on my bed, I noticed I was kind of shaky.

I assumed I was just hungry, and kept cleaning.

I am hungry at weird times. I am definitely a bored eater, so I eat almost every time I sit down to my computer. Thankfully I have recently been able to control that, so I have been losing weight! Other than that, I usually don't realize I'm hungry until I have accumulated much hunger, and I sit rocking back and forth trying to quench my hunger but generally being far away from food and being unable. Life is so hard. #firstworldproblems

Fifteen minutes later, it was clear I was having a low blood sugar. I needed to eat something, and soon.

Of course I have nothing in my room other than some useless salt and pepper shakers, so I headed down to the food place behind my dorm to grab some dinner.

I ordered my food and walked to the back counter to get a drink. My hands were shaking so hard, I could barely get the cup.

I filled my drink and took it off the machine and spilled it everywhere.

I didn't even notice I spilled it.

As I reached for a lid, I stepped right in the spilled Diet Coke that was streaming everywhere. That step was a fatal flaw.

I slipped (in my bean boots!) and landed hard on my butt.

I was so embarrassed. Everyone in this joint Popeyes-Burger Studio-brandless salad place was staring at me. I quickly tried to stand up and get my food so I could leave. My pants were soaked in the blood of Diet Cokes spilled and I was dangerously close to tears.

I tried to stand up and fell again - this time, landing on my back in the pool of Diet Coke.

I don't understand how that much Diet Coke spilled on the floor. It was like I had just let the fountain overflow onto the floor for a couple days and then decided to swim in it. I don't recommend swimming in Diet Coke. It leaves you feeling pretty empty.

As I laid there on my back, I could hear people laughing at me. I knew that everyone in there was rooting for me to fall again. I was clinging to the edge of tearlessness, but quickly slipping.

I stood up, they called my number, and I walked over with my head held high dripping Diet Coke everywhere. The lady handed me my food.

I knew I had to make a joke out of it. I was embarrassed and hurt. So I turned around to the masses and said, "Don't try that at home!"

I walked through the crowd to the register to pay for my food, but made one last fatal mistake.

I walked straight through the Diet Coke, and fell again.

Swank Juice

The first time I flew on an airplane was from Los Angeles to San Fransisco. I'm not sure how old I was, but I couldn't have been older than in first grade, so I must have been younger than 7. My mom will be able to clear this up. I remember sitting on the plane in the row of three, with a stranger on the other side of my mom or dad (can't remember which one), and landing in San Fransisco thinking this was really cool. We got off the plane and went straight to the store because it was freezing and foggy and we hadn't brought coats. Good times.

Fast forward 15 or so years, and I have been fortunate enough to fly quite a bit. My dad used to get free airline tickets because he works in the air freight industry, so we were able to fly for family vacations. Those stopped, of course, right before I went to college, when they would come in handy the most.

I was able to travel home for Thanksgiving Break this year, with my sister. We left from Nashville on Tuesday night on Southwest. We both had a really good break at home, despite how short it was!

Anyway, all that to give you context for this stupid blunder that I am about to divulge.

To fly back to Nashville on Sunday we flew American Airlines. Now I have flown on American once before this, and it was by far the worst flight of my entire life. I thought I wrote a hate blog about it, but I realize that it was about a different flight. Here is the link to this New Years' Eve 2010 post: airplane seats are stupid

Emily (sister) and I got upgraded to first class this time on American. Can I just say, SWANKY. I felt like ROYALTY. They even have red carpet at the first class check in desk! It was amazing. So we got to board the plane first and sit in these really spacious comfy seats with tons of legroom. THEY SERVED US ORANGE JUICE BEFORE THE PLANE EVEN TOOK OFF. IN REAL GLASSES!!!!!!!!! what?!?!?!?!??!!?!?!?

So our plane took off and I am freaking out about how cool this is, and then they come by to take a drink order. I ordered cranberry juice.

Yum. I get the cranberry juice, and I pour it into the glass, and I sip my swanky juice from my swanky glass and try to cross my legs all swanky, but fail and kick the chair in front of me.

Well, when I kicked the chair in front of me, I jolted my glass of swankjuice. This, of course, sent a PANIC signal from my brain to my arm, and my glass went flying to the floor. Suddenly I am COVERED in cranswank juice!  Ice is slipping through the aisle. My pants are soaked and the magazine I was reading is dripping. I was so surprised! How could this have happened?

All of a sudden a swarm of flight attendants perk up. They, of course, have heard my glass drop to the floor. Seeing my panic and confusion, they OF COURSE refuse to do anything. They stand in the cockpit plane area and I CAN SEE THEM LAUGHING AT ME AS I DRIP IN SWANKBERRY JUICE.

Emily, gazing up from her magazine, just looked at me and shook her head.

I tried to wipe my cranswank soaked pants as well as I could, but the deed was done and I was too late. I thought, at least none of the other passengers saw it, right?

I looked over and the lady across the aisle is wheezing because of how hard she is laughing.

Those awkward middle school years

You know those awkward kids in junior high who have lots of acne and big bushy hair and glasses and you just have to hope they'll hit their stride in high school?

That was me in middle school. Welcome to my life.

(I just searched for a picture to post here, but I am just too insecure to let those years out yet. Maybe another time. sorry folks)

Anyway, I was awkward in junior high, to say the least. I am thankful for the people who were in my life who are still in it now (which, other than my family, is one person: my small group leader in 7th and 8th grade). I was just always doing stupid things and getting myself hurt in some way. It's not much different than now, but now I have friends who laugh with (at) me, and that makes all the difference.

The small group I mentioned earlier met every Wednesday night through 7th and 8th grade. The program now includes 6th graders that I have had the privilege of working with for the past three summers. Since I am only home for summers, I only get to join summer staff, but were I there all year round, I would join for good. I'm getting sidetracked. I just really love junior high ministry.

So one night in January of my 8th grade year (2006) I was getting ready for my small group (called D/C). Knowing my knack for injury, I should have seen it coming.

I reached for a pair of pants. I can't remember what they were, but they were probably light wash denim and probably way too baggy for me. I was a cool kid obviously.

I slid the pants on with my left leg first, which is abnormal. I have since learned the right way to put on pants, and it was not this way. As I reached my right leg in, my foot got caught in the crotch area.

I remember flying down, hurdling towards the ground.

I tried to cushion my landing with my hands, but that did no good. I bashed my face into the carpeted floor of my bedroom. My glasses flew off. If it were in slow motion, it would have been hilarious. It was probably still funny, though no one was there to witness it.

I immediately felt shooting pain in my right hand. I knew my thumb was broken.

I scrambled downstairs, pantsless, looking for my mom. On the way down the stairs, I went so fast that I slipped on the stairs and slid the rest of the way down on my pantless butt, which left me with uncurable rug burn on my buns.

I ran into the kitchen where my mom was making dinner; screaming, panting, crying with tears streaming down, holding my hand, with a flaming red butt and an already-forming bruise on my thumb.

Mom should have heard me coming, but when she turned around,  I think she was so overwhelmed at the state I was in that she just screamed.

Which of course, made me cry harder.

Accompanied with the flaming rug burn butt story, Mom was rightfully skeptical about this injury. I hurt myself a lot. This was no different, right? Mom told me to put my pants on and get ready for D/C.

I went the whole night embarrassed and in pain.

The next day, I got home from school and my thumb had swollen tremendously. We then went to the ER, to discover:

I had broke my thumb in four places and tore the tendon of the bone.

I broke my thumb putting my pants on.

buttcheek blues

I am still sitting here laughing about what I'm about to write.

In the room I share with my sister, she has this tall two-drawer piece of furniture that functions as her nightstand. I believe it also functions as a type of pantry, as there is always food inside of it. I have had it since my freshman year of college and have subsequently passed it on to her now.

Tonight, Emily went out to bring back dinner for the two of us. I was very thankful that I didn't have to go out in the cold, and she braved it for me. She's a good sister. So I asked her if she wanted a bag to carry the bag of food and drinks in (its easier to carry that way), and she said yes, so I began to search for a bag.

I went over by the nightstand and spotted a bag that would be perfect. I reached and bent down to get it...

All of a sudden, pain shot through my right buttcheek.

I stood up and realized I totally knifed my buttcheek on the nightstand.

There is a huge cut on my buttcheek. It's the size of my hand. I have three buttcheeks now. It actually really hurts. poor buttcheek :(

Like, seriously, who does that? I just bent over and all the sudden the nightstand was like BAM! and knifed me! Thats not cool! What am I supposed to do now? I am sitting on a towel now to soak up the buttcheek blood. There's not that much, but who knows. Anything could happen.

Anyway, I just thought you all would like to hear about how my nightstand sliced up my poor butt today.

Fearing the Worst

Everyone knows by now that last semester was by far my hardest in college thus far. If you need any more proof, read my last hate blog post about flashing my buns to the world.

Last semester I moved off campus into an apartment at the bottom of the hill at an apartment complex called The Gables. If this were a blog in which I reviewed apartment complexes, I would give the Gables a big fat thumbs down. It was not the most enjoyable experience. I think the worst part was that my room was half the size of all the other rooms, but I still had to pay the same amount of rent. Believe me, it made me very angry. But that is beside the point.

Because I was living off campus, I did a lot more driving last semester. I lived off of two roads, Creason St. and Russelville. Russelville Road kind of curved towards my apartment complex.

One day I was driving home from campus on Russelville Road at the curve. It was a pretty day. It was March 30. My old roommate had just had a baby a few days before, and I was caught up in baby fever and I really couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I lived with her, and she had a baby! That is crazy!

Anyway,

I was driving home from campus on the curve of Russelville with all my windows down. I'm sure whatever I was listening to at the time was streaming loudly through my car. It was probably Sufjan Stevens, I was on a Sufjan kick last semester. As I drove, I had no idea of what was coming.

If it had been a movie, I would have said, "What could possibly go wrong?"

All of a sudden, a bird, a pigeon perhaps? flew directly and straight in my driver's window and out my passenger window. It was so close to my face I could feel its feathers. I was pretty grossed out.

I slammed on the brakes. What the crap just happened? And I looked down at my lap, fearing the worst had come true, and it had.

The bird scared me so badly that I wet my pants.*

*Please realize that I am embarrassed about this, and this is the point of this blog. I hate wetting my pants. I am a grown adult.

The Tale of Cheeks and Freaks

Last March, I had a week that had so many stories I could write about in the hate blog. Here is a short list:

1. staying up 94 consecutive hours
2. trying to shut my car windows in hail
3. locking myself out of my apartment in the hail
4. falling down some stairs on campus

But this list does not include the event that wins by a landslide in the embarrassment department.
Sit, listen to the tale of cheeks and freaks.

It was a beautiful Tuesday morning. Not a cloud in the sky could be found when I finally peeked out my window around noon after the first of a week of all-nighters. It was, to say the least, a religious experience. I saw Jesus in that sun.

I checked the weather and the forecast was sun, sun, sun. To a native Californian, a sunny forecast in Kentucky is not something to be taken lightly. A sunny forecast is to be rejoiced about. Screamed about. Cried for. All of which I did.

I decided that in the spirit of winter being dead and gone, I would wear a dress. It was the first warm day of the year! Who can blame a girl? I'm not about to confine my legs to the jail of PANTS on a day like that. A day like that calls for a DRESS. And damn it, I wore a dress.

Being in the middle of a crazy semester of Picture Stories, I had to take care of a few things in the photo lab. I didn't have class on Tuesdays last semester, so going on campus was only to serve the purpose of accomplishing my photo lab goals. I drove to campus from my off-campus apartment and parked about 300 yards from the building that the photo lab is in.

I got out of the car, grabbed my backpack, put some headphones in, and I was off.

It was so delightfully warm, I could hardly contain my excitement. I was almost skipping. I don't skip. It was incredible. After a freezing winter of anger and many cold nights huddled under my covers crying, I was freaking out about warmth. Did i mention i was happy with the warm weather?

As I walked to the photo lab I noticed the air began to take on a slight chill. It did not worry me because I was NOT about to let some little CHILL in the air ruin my perfect beautiful day of warmth.

As I approached the doors to go inside, I reached down to fix my dress before I walked in. I felt around for the sides of my dress.

I couldn't find them.

Instant, sheer panic set in.

THE SIDES OF MY DRESS HAVE VANISHED AND NOW I JUST HAVE A FRONT AND BACK DRESS AND EVERYONE IS GOING TO SEE MY VAGIGGLE JAGGLE (honey boo boo reference) AND I AM NOT OKAY WITH THAT!

Once i remembered the laws of science and gravity and earth and realized sides of dresses do not just disappear, I dug around my back looking for the end of my dress.

It was bunched up in my backpack.

I literally walked across the entire campus flashing everyone and their mother my buttcheeks. You wonder what kind of thing our mascot Big Red is? He's a ball of embarrassment that formulated when he saw my buttcheeks hanging out for the entire world to see.

I pulled that dress down as fast as humanely possible. I do not use this term lightly - but I HAULED BUNS to get that dress down. Then I turned around.

THERE WAS A GIRL FOR REAL LIKE SIX FEET BEHIND ME.

Here is the thing:

1. WHY THE HECK DID YOU NOT TELL ME MY DRESS WAS SUDDENLY FULL OF HELIUM AND HEADED FOR THE SKY???? That is common decency, woman. I was exposing my lady buns to everyone on campus and you just stand behind me walking like nothing is happening. that is RUDE.

2. What was she doing that whole time? Like was she staring at my (obviously perfectly sculpted fat girl) buttcheeks? Were her eyes downcast? did she take a picture? WHAT WAS SHE DOING????

So I turned and I profusely apologized. I am so sorry, random girl. It was never my intention to hang my buns out for the world to see. Please forgive my slip of decency. I promise I am not that sketchy.

She just looked at me. Those eyes seared my soul. I still remember those eyes. They said, AmyLynne, that was not okay. Your butt cheeks are not okay.

I cried that day.

but I cry every day.

It's okay.

chuck norris

A few weeks ago, I took my grandma home from work. My grandma works in downtown Torrance, and she lives on the other side of PV by the Trump Golf Course. For those of you familiar with the area, you know this drive takes a while. It's about 45 minutes, for everyone else.

I had an assignment to shoot on the hill (on the side my grandma did not live on) and I allotted an hour and a half from the time I picked up my grandma to the time I met the man I was shooting a portrait of. I picked my grandma up at 2, and he was scheduled for 3:30.

I picked my grandma up a few minutes before two. My grandma works at the Volunteer Center, which SOUNDS like it would be a bunch of nice old ladies volunteering to run information booths on the 4th of July and owning hundreds of cats collectively.

WRONG.

The Volunteer Center is where you go when you've been court-ordered to do community service. So the entire downstairs floor is a bunch of thugs who have been dethugged (a.k.a. arrested) and now are required to go plant flowers or something. However, the second floor, where my grandma works, is the nice floor. Here they coordinate social functions. I'm not sure what else they do. All I know is that my grandma has way more of a social life than I do. It's sad.

Anyway. So I walk into the Volunteer Center in a lace top (I had come from work to pick her up, so I was dressed up) and I was immediately greeted by a man with grillz.



By the way if you would like to purchase some grillz here you go. They say PIMP and I'm sure you'll score with all the ladies. http://www.bigdawgsbling.com/

Anyway. I went straight upstairs to avoid further contact with GrillzGuy. My grandma was there. It is very strange to come directly from an experience with GrillzGuy to an experience with my grandma. It was a shocking change of scenery. My grandma could probably take GrillzGuy. I know she could outdrink him. She should challenge GrillzGuy in a drink-off.

Anyway

so Grandma and I leave the Volunteer Center and GrillzGuy and get in my car. I am feeling a little uneasy at the caliber of delinquents I have just come in contact with. Grandma is unfazed. That woman is like a rock. She could probably talk Ted Bundy out of killing her. Or talk Alec Baldwin into being a nice person.

Long story short, the drive was uneventful, and I dropped Grandma off at 2:45. It only took me 15 minutes to get where I needed to shoot, so I stopped at 7-11 and bought a Diet Coke and decided to lay on someones lawn and enjoy the gorgeous day.

Now, you may criticize my choice to lay on a random lawn. You might say, what if GrillzGuy lives there? What if he decided I looked at him wrong and GrillzGuy makes me dead? Well, to that I would say, listen to the rest of the story.

After a few minutes driving around I found an unoccupied lawn. I came, I saw, I laid down in the grass and drank my Diet Coke. Peace and freedom y'all. God bless America.

All of a sudden I hear a door open and a VERY ANGRY man voice comes out of it.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHO ARE YOU? GET OFF MY LAWN!! GET OFF! YOU RASCAL! WHO ARE YOU? WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH"

So I explain my circumstance, that I have a short break. The man was holding his chest like he was going to pull a gun right out of his chest. I bet he could have. Like Clint Eastwood or something.

After assuring him I mean no harm, I'm just an intern photojournalist..., he relaxed and shook my hand. Sweet! Is he gonna invite me in for coffee now or something?? (no)

He turns and says,
"I just get nervous because Chuck Norris owns this house, and people come looking for him all the time and only find me. And people get really serious when they can't find Chuck Norris."

Wait... what?

CHUCK NORRIS OWNS THIS HOUSE????

So I told him I didnt believe him. AND HE WENT AND GOT HIS RENTAL AGREEMENT. WITH CHUCK NORRIS' SIGNATURE ON IT.

I laid on Chuck Norris' lawn.

Here I was, hating on this man who was hating on me for laying on his lawn. And he rents his house from CHUCK NORRIS.

There are like a hundred thousand houses in PV. and I picked Chuck Norris'.

My life is a neverending stream of fun.