You'd have to be a drinker to understand

I found this article:

It looked promising. They are warning not to eat while reading it. Pink's pretty good at not hiding anything. I thought I found some good material to make fun of her.


At first I had a good laugh. It's been years and years since I drank so much I've thrown up. Pink is 26 and still doing it. Way to go on not ralphing inside the limo -- they'll charge you extra if you do that.

Then I remembered all the times I have thrown from drinking too much. No one has ever jumped out of a moving vehicle to hold my hair back. Humph.


Wait. Not only does he jump out of a moving vehicle to hold her hair back, but he offers to puke with her? No one's ever thrown up with me either! I think Drew once held me steady so I could get sick in his bushes, but that's it!

I get you, Pink. It is romantic. He jumped out of a moving vehicle to hold your hair back, then he puked with you.

Forget Prince Charming, that is true love.

When I was unemployed, I got really into watching reruns of "Judging Amy," the best show on at 1 pm. My favorite part of the whole series was when Amy was complaining to her mother after a break-up.

"I want someone who thinks I'm the meaning of life," she complains.

"Don't be so full of yourself," her mother retorts. "Find someone who doesn't care about the meaning of life and is happy enough with you."

That's the key. Don't build love up so much that no one can possibly live up to your expectations. I don't even think I would want a man who thinks I'm the meaning of life, sounds too clingy to me. I want someone who will puke with me, jumping from moving vehicles not mandatory.

It's official:

I had been living in Atlanta for exactly 30 minutes before I was accosted by my first homeless man. The first 20 minutes I sat on my couch and stared at my walls while thinking how much my legs hurt from moving everything. Then I got up and drove to McDonald's for dinner. I was at the second drive-thru window waiting to pick up my Big Mac when a homeless man walked in between my truck and the drive-thru window.

He leaned in, "You have any money so I can get a burger?"

I stared incredulously at him, he had an iPod dangling from his ears.

I don't have an iPod.

None of my friends have iPods.

Pictures from the newspapers flood my mind. Images of homeless men talking on cell phones, posing with their PO boxes. And now listening to their iPods. I already have sensitivity issues regarding the homeless as seen here and here, but this is too much.

"No I don't have any money," I said.

"But you're getting yourself a burger," he protested.

"I don't have any cash, I charged mine."

"Well could you get me one too?"

And this is what I wanted to say, but didn't: "Sure, for your iPod."

One of those moments where you realize you're a lot weirder than you originally thought:

Jamie: *Yawns*
Eric/k: And that concludes our conversation on "Superman 2," regardless of your yawns. I think we just spent entirely too much time talking about it.
Jamie: You know what I hate?
Eric/k: What?
Jamie: I hate it when you yawn and someone jabs his finger in your mouth. I mean, really. For my list of "Things that make me want to punch you in the face," it's up there.
Eric/k: People stick their fingers in your mouth when you yawn?
Jamie: Yeah, like 4 different people. (Pause) Wait. This has never happened to you?
Eric/k: No, I've never even heard of it before.
Jamie: What's wrong with me?!

Addams Family Values

So it turns out I'm moving tomorrow.

This fell upon me fast.

When I was looking at places last weekend, I told agents I wanted to move April 22nd. I'd have another paycheck coming in and I'd have time to organize myself for the move. The apartment I found had a special and in order to qualify for it, I'd have to take possession by the 14th. No big deal, I thought. I'll just move in the 22nd, because the 14th is Good Friday and no one is going to want to help me move Easter weekend. Then the leasing agent tells me on Monday that she's letting me have my apartment the 7th, tomorrow, at no additional charge. Okay. I revamped my plan to move this Sunday. After talking to my mother last night, she tells me that moving on Friday will be better for their schedule. My father and stepmother admit Friday would be better for them as well.

So I'm taking the day off tomorrow to move.

I am completely not prepared for this.

And if you promise not to tell anyone, I'll admit something to you. I didn't have any time to mentally adjust moving out from my father's house. I'm not only going to miss the home cooked meals, the maid, and driving my father's Mercedes convertible on the weekends, but I'm going to miss him and my step-mom as well. I've never lived with my father before. For the last 5 months, I learned more about him and my step-mom than I knew in my previous 25 years. It turns out they're good people. They were supportive of me with anything I wanted to do with my life. When I decided I'd rather live in Charleston than Atlanta and I went and stayed at the beach house and tried to get a job up there, they were all for it. When I was looking for an apartment here, they wanted to come with me and see what I was looking at, even though I've always chosen where I live on my own. While my mother is having a hernia over me living by myself in downtown Atlanta, my father and step-mother congratulate me. They tell me they're proud of me with everything I've accomplished since the disastrous events of last August.

I get along with them. Not once did they yell at me. Not when I drove over the flower pot or when after a night of drinking I parked my truck against the house.

We became a fixture in each other's lives for the first time ever. I don't want that to end when I move out, and I'm slightly afraid it will. We'll adopt new routines and I'll no longer be invited to the "other" family's outings.

It's going to require an effort on my part as well, one I'm willing to make. Visits with both sets of my parents have an expiration date of 3 hours ever since I was 18. 3 hours and I'm gone, any more time and I start getting anxiety attacks. Since I've been able to establish good memories with my father and step-mother, hopefully I'll feel compelled to visit more frequently and break the 3 hour barrier. I want to with them. I want to feel like a member of a family, even if I do have the Addams family.

Cybersexcapades

My e-mail address is very simple: it's my first and middle name. I had the e-mail address for about a year when I started getting e-mails that thanked me for my order at Avon Canada.

First of all, I don't shop from Avon. Secondly, I'm not Canadian.

I freaked out, thinking that someone had my credit card number and was using it to buy face cream. After several frantic e-mails with the company, I learned that someone else mistakenly entered my e-mail address. The only thing that separates our addresses is one of those underscores. She has one and I don't.

The other Jamie Sarah is very forgetful about this. Oftentimes, I find myself e-mailing her back her work attachments that she meant to send to herself, but sent to me instead. I still get receipts from Avon Canada. I never really gave it too much thought, just a minor annoyance.

Today I check my e-mail and a letter made it past my spam blocker. I didn't recognize the guy, but it didn't look like spam. I thought maybe I gave out my e-mail address to a guy when I was drunk and just forgot. I have a collection of napkins documenting unrecognizable memories, so I wouldn't put it past me.

I opened it up and this it what it read:


That, I would have remembered. Apparently the other Jamie Sarah has a membership to Adult Finder and enjoys naughty on-line chatting. This I didn't need to know.

And I didn't forward the e-mail to her.

Goin' to the Home Depot

"I'm an old man, you know. I can't keep helping you move every year," my father says. Sometimes I think he can't wait to grow old. "You need a boyfriend to help you with this stuff. And do better than the last one, you could lift more than he could."

"I tried to bribe someone with a case of beer and showers of manly compliments," I said. "But if that doesn't work out, I can always go down to Home Depot and get a Mexican."

My father chuckles, he knew exactly what I meant. I spoke as if I could go down the aisle and pick one off the shelf and put him in my cart. At the checkout, we'd scoot him over the scanner and then take him home with us.

In reality, you pull into the Home Depot parking lot and take your pick of "migrant workers" standing on every corner in small groups and pay them each $20 to move your furniture. I haven't done it, yet, but my friends have and swear by it.

Go to Home Depot and get a Mexican -- the statement struck me as odd. I'm sure you can also to go Lowes, maybe even a Pike Nursery. Roswell Road will also work. I said it matter-of-factly like it was the easiest thing to do, like it was as simple as taking one of the shelf. The truth is, it is.

So it looks like I won't be residing in my Explorer

I finally found it. Not just any apartment, but a kick ass place to live. It's in Midtown, but it still borders the parks: the exact location where I wanted to be. The amenities are stupid ridiculous: valet trash, valet dry cleaning, free movie rentals, free bike rentals, free 24-hour cafe (self-serve) with wi-fi and flat screen TVs.

The cafe

My apartment is small, but the layout is really space efficient and it's loft style, so the openness makes it feel larger. It's the nicest apartment I've ever seen and I'm completely in love with it! I put in A LOT of work to find the perfect place and I don't think I could have done any better.

My kitchen

Model living room. (I forgot to take a picture of mine.)

My bathroom

The best part is that I got the greatest deal on it, which made it $80 cheaper a month than everything else I looked at; they are even letting me take it a week earlier than we discussed for free. The only downside is I wasn't planning on moving next weekend so I'm completely not prepared. 90% of my stuff is still boxed from my last move, so it shouldn't be too terrible.

All house warming presents may be sent to my office.