How men are like cars

                                                              RIP

Recently, I was forced to break up with my first car and shop for a new one to better my life. At the dealership I felt as if I were on a dating show while my mom bitched in my ear about how “this one is better!”, when in reality I wasn’t attracted to any and only wanted my old car back. And then it hit me, car shopping is like dating.

The types of cars and types of men

El Mercedes Benz, brode:

This one is simple; you have a celebrity crush right? Travis McCoy is mine. I will marry the shit out of his face. However, I’m not Katy Perry so I can’t. The transition from dating her awesome boobs to dating mine would make him cry. This Mercedes Benz is the one that you can only day dream and pretend you are riding. Then one day there will be an epiphany in your overdraft notice caused by a drunken attempt to buy gum that will say a Mercedes is not in your price range. Like Travis, I can always day dream about riding him, I mean, marrying him but one day but I’ll also realize that he is not in my dating range.

Yeah right, I see the way he looks at me at concerts.

The Volkswagen fling thing:

My first car was a Volkswagen 91 and boy was he handsome. Deep down I knew that Patrick, yes I named him, wasn’t going to be a long term car. My mom would argue with me about how I couldn’t fix Patrick no matter how much I begged my mechanic. Patrick manipulated me with his cute plaid seats, tried to convince me that he would be responsible for getting me to work on time and amazed me with how little gas he needed. He would even go topless for me on the weekends. Sound familiar? Yes it does. That ridiculous relationship where you are clinging like an annoying cat, with no good reason. Why, because he’s cute? Nobody likes annoying cats. Be a hawk, those mother fuckers know what is up. Being hawk-like will make you aware. You are well aware that the engine sucks, (personality sucks). You are well aware that its condition won’t last long (he’s not willing to commit). And most importantly you are well are you are wasting your money trying to fix its mechanical issues (wasting your time trying to fix him). Ladies rise yo’ hands if you feeling me. I’ve always wanted to say that.  With each time my car left me stranded and late for work I gave my crazy ass mom a point for being right. She gets a lot of crazy ass mom points. At the end of the day, Patrick had a leak that didn’t recover even when I replaced his top. He really didn’t care that he was soaking my ass every day. I couldn’t find where it was coming from.  Have faith in my insanity, readers, I have a moral here. Certain men will have leaks, and it doesn’t matter what you change on the asshole, because they will leak.

The car you’ll never appreciate:

 Why the hell do you keep comparing it to your first one? They weren’t made alike for a reason. It/he can be yours for long term. It/he is exactly in your price/dating range. It/he will never leave you stranded. Ladies, this is our main problem. Let’s call them crazy lady glasses. These glasses will never allow us to appreciate the good guy when he’s right in front of us. They also have little asshole attracting magnets on the legs of them. The glasses make assholes look like really good guys you can turn into prince charming. They make prince charmings look like boring frogs. Do we have a little masochist in all of us? It seems that way when we’re always attracted to all that doesn’t come easy and ends up shitting on us. Girls have the habit of putting a diaper on guys and saying “hey shit on me all you want.” Instead of throwing their ass out and saying “hey, I’m not putting up with shit.” It’s safe to say I’ve removed my crazy lady glasses and donated them to Goodwill for someone to stumble upon. If you think my comparisons are nuts, fine but stop giving the Volkswagen points for what it could have been and give the car you’ll never appreciate points for what it is.

A is not for Amy.

You know the question that goes something like “If you could have lunch with any person dead or alive, who would it be?” Well, I choose my mom, dead or alive--although "dead" would be a really depressing lunch hour. I would love to ask her what in the world compelled her to name me after my lunatic aunt, Amarilis.

My name has a background that would work romantically in a Lifetime movie somewhere, but not in my life-time. My aunt Amarilis was in Cuba when I was coming out of my dear mother’s Pikachu singing the baby version of “bad to the bone.” Naming me after her was like a dedication, meaning she was metaphorically "here" with us. Cute, right? Wrong.

If I could’ve spoken any coherent words at the time, I would’ve snapped my fingers and said “Girlfriend, I am not a baby to reincarnate anyone. That is a fucked up name! We live in the U.S of A, ya’ll. Ain’t nobody gon' know to pronounce that!” Don’t ask me why my infant self would’ve sounded like Lil' Kim.

Elementary school was a place for day-dreaming, drawing stick figures with odd shaped heads, and encountering people different from you. My second grade teacher Mrs. Stern was blonde, blue eyed, and red from how white she was. In other words--she couldn’t pronounce my Hispanic first name if her life depended on it. Right then and there, she dubbed me Amy. This defining moment made me believe if I could be Amy, I could be anyone. I didn’t go as far as wanting to be Wonder Woman, but I did get some ideas.

At four years old, my aunt arrived from Cuba. My duty of keeping her legacy alive was done. I set an internal alarm that would ring when I turned 18 to remind me that I can legally change my name.

While I've fantasized about being someone else or going going by another name, my family has served as a constant reminder of how much I do in fact act like my aunt. As you could imagine, this only adds fuel to the fire. Aside from 'Amarilis', my mom likes to call me malas pulgas--which doesn’t make any sense when translated to English: bad fleas. In Cuban slang, it mean "bad attitude" and sort of references my aunt's own behavior. It’s time to put on my big girl panties (not to be confused with my granny panties) and prove them wrong. If I don't, they'll call me Amarilis the second--like a renovated apartment--and continue to picture both of us as the evil twins from The Shining.

At this point, my name will not be legally changed to Emma or Charlie as I had planned since I was Gary Coleman’s height. That is a resolution I will have to build a bridge over, given that it has a tiny fee of $500. And I don’t have a wealthy grandpa waiting to die anywhere. Amarilis will continue being my first name and I will, in the fabulous words of Tim Gunn, “make it work.” Sure, I can never lie about my Hispanic heritage every time I answer a “What’s your name?” followed by a “That’s so Cuban.”

And in the end, so what if no one can pronounce it? Amarilis [ah·mah·ree·lease] noun 1. for person who has plans to change it, so do not make fun of her in the meantime.





With help from the lovely http://www.keepcalmandwriteon.com/

Epiphany in my ecstacy.

My memory is very similar to Dory from "Finding Nemo." However, there is a specific conversation that stuck, one I had while I wasn't sober. Nose bleed seats to a Katy Perry concert and a romantic song later, I was staring into the dilated pupils of my child hood best friend. As Disney princess pictures filled the walls from the worlds largest projector, and the words "when he's the one, I'll come un-done, and my world will stop spinning" filled our ears, I turned to her in all seriousness and asked "is that how you feel about (boyfriends name here)?" She didn't hesitate to put her arm around me and nod be a big "Yes." It was like a light bulb went on for me. I won't tell you about how I almost got on my knees and begged her not to get married after that, because that would ruin my fairy tale. When I'm not being uber cool and heartless, I secretly day dream of a love "like the movies." Katy said it better, cinematic and dramatic with a perfect ending.

I'm almost positive somewhere along middle school I subliminally trained myself to think lasting, romantic, crazy-about-each-other relationships are like unicorns.. "nice to imagine, but not really existent." (Julie Klausner) With all these dysfunctional couples around me, can you blame me? It's then that I got my second tattoo reading "amantes sunt amentes" translating to "lovers are lunatics".. so it was official. I was too cool to fall in love and would point and laugh at anyone who did. A few years later, I have this ink in my skin stating one thing, but thoughts in my head fighting to come out and disagree. What I'm trying to say is that It took me nineteen years to finally understand what someone meant when they said they could be with just one person for *dun dun dun*, the rest of their lives. 

Once upon a time, I found myself glancing all googly eyed at the person I was casually dating since middle school. I almost fell off my chair when I realized I couldn't find one flaw in him. Btw, this is what a nightmare on amy street looks like. So, what do I do? In the next 24 hours, I'm acting like a weirdo, not making any sense at all while choking up on excuses on why I think we shouldn't see each other anymore. That was the end of THAT. I know, on a scale from 1 to romantic I am.... an idiot. Let's take a u-turn on corny lane. All in all, after so much time invested in thinking my best friend is a total dweeb for giving her heart out (sorry), I'm going to need a refund on my harsh dating advice. Why, you ask? Because I was the opposite of right. Jokes on me, because truth is I am one big error message when it comes to.... you know the word.