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I think my life is maybe just a Paulie Shore movie.

Hi. I have been quite absent from this blog and I have no excuse. Well, moving across 3 states over the summer. That’s an excuse. Also, I’m lazy.

As you may or may not know, I’m writing a book. I’m not sure how much I plan on talking about it yet because I don’t want to jinx it, and I’m battling that voice that is very loudly yelling at me that I’m a fraud and nobody likes me. That’s a fun demon with which to co-pilot this trainwreck. So I’m trying to overcome that voice by writing really bad blog posts. I’m sure that won’t make it all worse. Like at all.

So, a couple of months ago, I moved away from the love of my life, Los Angeles back to my hometown of Denver. It’s a bit of a lot of baggage to unpack. I went from feeling like Link (Brendan Fraser) in Encino Man where I’m the weird but super loved new guy to being Crawl (Paulie Shore) in Son-in-Law when he falls in pig poops at the farm and everyone hates him and he’s barely wearing pants. It has been a good move and my family seems to love it and it will be a great thing for our future. However, no matter how many movies, holiday-themed or not I’ve seen on this subject of moving home, I wasn’t prepared.  Sweet Home Alabama taught me nothing.

While there are a LOT of things (people) I’m glad to be away from, there is SOOOOO much more that hurts my heart to have left. Like a bunch of my favorite people. And I’m struggling to get my creativity back. I feel like I’ve fallen back into a vacuum.

Los Angeles has this reputation of being a vacuous wasteland of plastic beauty, soul-less egos, debauchery, and drugs, and gang members harassing old ladies. And while that does all exist, it is a city so rich in personality and friendships, and lost people and found people. And everyone you meet has something they want to share. And they want to support you in your nonsense and you want to support theirs. And they all hug hello. And whether sincere or not, everybody wants to be your friend and share a bottle or 7 of wine with you over gossip and dreams.

I don’t know if I’m going to find that here. People in Colorado are very polite yet reserved and no one wants none of my antics.

And I am, once again, an outsider looking in.

My oldest son came home from school the other day and says, “Kids just don’t think I’m that funny here,” and then he shrugged and went upstairs to play Fortnite.

God, kid I KNOW, RIGHT?

I sound very dramatic. I realize this. I’m going to go have a glass of wine by myself and try to get back to writing the book.

And in case you were wondering, sobbing it out on the internet didn’t shut the mean voice up at all.

And I do love living in Colorado. I’m just going to drop in weird on everybody like Mork from Ork and make them love me.

Maybe this is the same mentality I need to conjure when I’m writing.

Nanu Nanu.

Portland

Okay so here I am in front of the fire, freezing all parts of my Southern California buns off, drinking Oregon beer and watching Jeopardy and realizing that I nearly forgot to blog today.

But guess what? Day 3, in the books!! And I read to page like, 27 in my book so, that’s better than yesterday, still not good enough to not get me beaten up by the book club, but I have a plan. Reading. I don’t know exactly when, but until I get my audible on, this is where we’re at, me complaining.

I am blogging from my phone because I’m too cozy to get up and find my laptop right now, but I promise all one of you reading this that tomorrow, I will take cool pictures and blog something interesting, but as of now, I have beer to drink.

Cheers!

The Doppelganger

“AMY!! Your doppelganger is here at Best Buy! I just walked up to her and said hello. It wasn’t you”

My friend texted this to me HOURS ago and despite my many demands for a picture, a description of her outfit, if she was wearing pants, if she was as nice as me, nicer???? If she was out there ruining my reputation in the community, I have been ignored. Left on read.

Let’s examine this for a minute. If I had an actual twin out there, what would be the ethical restrictions about actually having her stand-in for me like a stunt double? Would I have to pay her? I’m not paying her. I mean, it wouldn’t require inhumane things, just some things I don’t want to do. Some things that stand in the way of me looking up the latest drama in the One Direction fandom. It would be like the plot to an innocent 60’s sit-com episode. The typical motivation behind most of my big ideas.

She could go to the PTO meetings at school for me, she could go outside with my family so I could stay at home on the internet in peace. I mean, let’s face it, if she’s at Best Buy today anyway, there’s a good chance she goes outside. She’s already done better than me. Well, no I did go outside today. We went to the library. It smelled like poop in there. I was very uncomfortable the whole time and tried not to breathe. See? Maybe she could’ve gone in my place.

Maybe this lady would be a good stand-in for all those dinners with the ladies that I keep RSVPing for and then flaking out on because I’m awkward and I hate all my clothes. She WOULD have to have some grasp on my interests though or she would be caught out a fraud. We’d both be caught and if The Brady Bunch taught me anything, it’s that there’s gonna be a snag and it’ll be something dumb and we’ll both get caught and have to apologize and emerge better people. This is not what I’m trying to do. I’m going to make her wear a wire and and an ear-piece and I would communicate with her from a van parked down an alley, although this defeats my whole plan of being lazy at home without pants on. Okay, she’s just going to have to study my ways and wing it.

I would have to teach her to have a mild obsession with the paranormal and celebrity gossip. And when she has too much wine, she has to start talking about boybands and TMZ. And ghosts. She’ll have to start talking about ghosts. She would also have to report back on all dramatics that go down. I need to know who said what to who, who got mad, did anyone fight? I need to know about fights. Very important.

Do you think she would sift through and answer my emails for me? No, that actually doesn’t have to be her. I can have someone else do that. Or, realistically, my emails will eventually get so full that they’ll just stop. I will be cut off from receiving any new emails and I will be free. This is the better option.

Would she be willing to cook dinners? Get my children sandwiches every 20-23 minutes and listen attentively to hours long tutorials on Minecraft and Roblox? And grocery shopping! I need her to do that because a lot of times in the middle of a grocery trip,  I just want to lay down in the frozen foods aisle and somehow arrive home in my bed with a mug of tea. Maybe I’m carried off in a fancy stretcher by hot firemen, no one is even aware of how bad at shopping I am because the refrigerator is stocked with everything on the list, coupons were used so effectively, the store owed us money, everyone is happy with me, the house is cleaned, I have showered, Etc.

This is actually starting to sound like a cry for help.

Listen. I don’t even know that this Best Buy woman looks like me, to be honest. She could be Joanna’s version of me, and who knows what that is. She could be a monster. Plus, Joanna still hasn’t texted me back and for all I know, my monster twin killed her and the authorities now think I did it because of the doppelganger thing. Now, while this has the potential to get me out of all the activities that brought me to this double life fantasy, I wouldn’t have a whole lot of fun in prison. I’m kind of not that tough. I know I talk a big game but, I’m actually very fragile and it’s just not going to be a good fit. Plus, I don’t really want my friend to die. HOWEVER, house arrest. Okay, if doppelganger monster commits a crime, it has to be low level enough to not get me beat up or in prison and the punishment is just “House Arrest”.

The perfect excuse to sit around in my jammies and watch 60’s sit-coms while I scan the internet in peace.