Cats, Craig, and Car Accidents.

I have two cats. Or rather, they have me. I absolutely adore them and cheerfully identify as a crazy cat lady. I will never have human children; they are my kids.

Name: Mang
Alias: Mangmang, Mangersons, McMangersons, Chubber butt, Mangers.
Age: 13
Breed: Siamese and Manx.  She mostly resembles a Manx, with just a little Siamese coloring, and she definitely has the Siamese yowl down.
Occupation: Meatball.
Known for: She has big blue eyes and no tail, just a little fluffy nub that looks like a bunny tail.  She is the most laid back, relaxed cat in the world.  Seriously, she has the most unbelievably sweet disposition.  She is also the best snuggley cat, I love picking her up and holding her like a teddy bear after a rough day.

Name: Charlotte
Alias: Poop monster, fluffer butt, kitten mittens.
Age: 3
Breed: Something fluffy and cute.
Occupation:  Permanent kitten.
Known for:  She's afraid of ceiling fans when they're turned off and of Barry White.  I know, I don't get the fan thing, either.  She's a Hemingway cat, meaning she has extra toes, otherwise known as a polydactyl cat.  Her front paws look like oven mitts, or like little mittens.  She actually uses them to do things like open doors and drawers.  It's only a matter of time before she learns to hold things.  Once she figures it out I'm making her do my laundry while I'm at work.

This is Craig and me late last year, being dumb butts in front of the camera, because as a general rule, we are dumb butts.  He is all around awesome.  We've been together for seven years this July.  He loves ice cream, super spicy foods, and puts curry and cayenne on everything.  His special talents are that he does not freaking age and that he is constantly striving to better himself through diet and exercise.  He also has the nicest hair of anyone I've ever met, male or female, and it doesn't matter if he has it short or long.  He loves cats.  I think he might actually BE part cat, to tell you the truth. 

I was going to write something about my car accident last October, and how walking away from that without any serious injuries despite the car being totaled has made me appreciate my life and everything good in it that much more, but... that pretty much sums it up right there.  Makes me think of something a woman in treatment for breast cancer once said to me when I asked them how her day was: "Every day that I wake up is a good day."  Indeed.

B is for Bipolar Bunny

I'm seriously fatigued and have been all week.  I'm often fatigued and it's usually for any one of a million reasons.  These week it's simply from broken sleep and stress.  I've upped my vitamins and did some yoga and am generally just trying to relax and get by.  I take lamictal, a mood stabilizer, once a day, every morning, and have been for years, and I often suspect that it might have something to do with the fatigue.  It's still light years ahead of how I was before I started taking it.  Fatigue vs. being totally loony?  Yeah, I'll take naps.

In writing that, I find myself thinking back to when I was younger.  I was officially diagnosed when I was 21 (official diagnosis is bipolar type 1), but have been living with the disorder since the age of about 11 or 12.  After diagnosis it took my psychiatrist and I a few years to find the right medications, most of that being because the current medications that are the most successful for treating bipolar disorder weren't even on the market until about then.  I still consider myself lucky.  Yeah, my formative years really sucked but at least I wasn't born any earlier than I was, like when the only drug they had was lithium (which made me fat and cranky and I broke out so badly that I still have scars from it) or like when they still gave bipolar people excessive electroshock treatments or FREAKING LOBOTOMIES.

Again, I'll take naps.

Sitting here today, on this lovely morning, I find myself thinking how funny it is that all of this used to be such a big deal.  I've been pretty stable for years now, with a few breaks here and there, which is normal even for those who don't have a major mental disorder.  I take my little pill once a day and for the most part things are fine.  When I was younger I thought things would never get better, but they did, so now, no matter how rough or frustrated I might feel, I always remind myself of those days, and other time periods that were awful, and tell myself that things will always get better if I can just keep going.

Glass half full, my friends.

My other B today is Bunny.  Bunny is my boyfriend's nickname for me, which is hilarious because if you had never met us, you would never suspect us of being that cutesy.

Bunny kind of naturally evolved.  Craig was being silly and thanking me for something one day, and instead of just saying thank you, he quoted this commercial:




I don't remember ever seeing it as a kid, but Craig is about eight years older than me so there's a wee bit of an age gap that we deal with every now and again when it comes to stuff like that.

Anyway, so instead of just saying thank you he said, "Thank you Easter bunny!" in this cute little kid voice, and it cracked me up so he kept doing it, and eventually it evolved into him calling me Easter Bunny, and now it's become simply Bunny, or the even shorter Bun.  As in, when we have conversations he rarely calls me Amanda. I have a nickname for him as well, but that'll have to come in a later intro since the letter B isn't even in it.

A is for Amanda.

The alphabet starts with A.  So does my name.  How fabulously convenient!

There's a little bling bling for ya.

From wikipedia: 
"Amanda is a Latin female gerundive name meaning "having to be loved," "deserving to be loved," or, simply, "worthy of love."
The name "Amanda" first appeared in 1212 on a birth record from Warwickshire, England, and five centuries later the name was popularized by poets and playwrights.^[1]
In the United States, "Amanda" slowly became more prominent from the 1930s to the 1960s, ranking among the top 200 baby names.^[1] It jumped into the top 10 in the mid-1970s, likely because of Barry Manilow's 1974 No. 1 hit song "Mandy," a nickname for Amanda.^{[citation needed]}
From 1976 to 1995, "Amanda" ranked in the ten most popular female baby names in the United States. The name was most popular from 1978 to 1992, when it ranked in the top 4. At its prime, in 1980, it was the second most popular. In 2009, "Amanda" ranked number 166. It was still ranked among the top ten names given to girls born in Puerto Rico in 2009. The name is also currently popular in Sweden, where it ranked twentieth for girls born in 2009, down five places from 2008, when it was ranked fifteenth. It is also popular in Swedish-speaking families in Finland, where it ranked among the top ten names for girls born to ethnic Swedes."

I was actually named after my great grandmother, my mom's dad's mother, a woman that was, like me, tough.  She was also tiny at only 4'10", and slender throughout her entire life.  I lovingly blame the fact that I am shorter than all the other women on my family on her.  She was a lovely woman who passed away on Christmas Day of 1998, and because I happened to actually be visiting my grandparents in Missouri at the time, I was actually able to attend her funeral and say my goodbyes to her.  It was my first funeral and the only open casket funeral that I've ever attended.

Growing up there was always at least one other girl in my class with the same name as me, but I never minded because I knew I was a legitimate Amanda, because my name had been given to me with reason and love, not just picked out of a book of baby names.  In retrospect this was kind of a bratty attitude to have but I suppose I needed some way to feel special.

My family has always called me Mandy, but no one else does.  In fact, I feel weird hearing that nickname from anyone but family and strongly dislike it when other people try to call me that.  I've felt this way since I was a little kid.  I remember coming home from Girl Scout summer camp where my mother had cheerfully labeled all of my stuff "Mandy" instead of "Amanda" and telling her that I didn't want to be called Mandy by anyone but family.  I think I was seven or eight.  So to this day that's what they all call me, which is fine, just like my boyfriend calls me by his name for me and I call him by my name for him, but ultimately when I think of myself, I identify as "Amanda."

There are tons of famous Amandas out there, but because I'm a big old dork, my favorites are the one from Highlander, Amanda Tapping from Stargate and Sanctuary, and Amanda Palmer, the brilliant lead singer of the Dresden Dolls who also happens to be married to the equally brilliant Neil Gaiman.

Last, but not least, we have this song by Boston, but I will warn you that at this point I've had it sung to me so many times that it sadly no longer takes me by surprise and makes me realize...

Disorganized ABCs

So there's this nifty writing prompt project that involves the ABCs, and you're supposed to write a post every day of the week but one.  I happen to think that this is a fab idea, but I'll be the first to admit that doing things in a timely fashion is not exactly my forte.  Unless it involves things like finances or cleaning up cat puke.  So I've decided to go ahead and do it anyways, but I'm going to do it when I'm able to and just try to make up for the lack of timeliness by making my entries extra lengthy and... festive.  With links and pictures and such.  Entries with extra flair, if you will.  At least this way I'll have some sort of structure.  As opposed to the sentences in this entry, which are entirely lacking in it.  The grammar gods weep.

Here, have some funny.

Renewing old habits?

Once upon a time, in ye olde days of livejournal, I used to write thoughtful, meaningful posts on a regular basis.  Like, at least once a week.  Then came myspace and facebook and a period of time where I became far less comfortable sharing myself with the world, along with a general inclination towards, dare I say it, laziness.  I also happen to have the memory of a hamster, and it is only getting worse as I get older.  If I don't write things down right away I tend to forget them, sometimes even while I'm in the process of walking from one room to the next.  Hooray for bipolar disorder eating holes in the memory centers of my brain.  As if I wasn't already random enough.

Speaking of random, my boyfriend does a stellar rendition of Meatwad.  Just wanted to share that.

At any rate, I kind of miss writing.  More than kind of, actually.  And I think it might be a good idea to get back into it, to maybe help with the memory issue, if nothing else.  I don't have to share the deep, dark details of my life.  Though for the record, there isn't much that's deep and dark going on lately, anyway, except perhaps for this one corner of my closet where I throw the things that are missing buttons or don't quite fit properly. 

But we don't talk about that corner.  And if you ask me about it I will deny up and down that it even exists.

So yes, back to writing somewhat regularly.  I miss it.  I need it.  And so it goes.

Bunnies are awesome on Etsy!

 

Fancy Rabbit Khaki Field Bag

 

Bunny with Fez Art Print

Bunnies Deep V-neck Tee

 

3" Bunny With Red Heart

 Silver Rabbit Book Locket