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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]

I am, however, looking forward to the day when “home” means a house that we actually own, instead of an apartment that we rent. If you know me you know that for the longest time I was not at all worked up about the idea of home-ownership. In fact, I wanted nothing at all to do with it. I watched as people I knew bought houses just because it seemed like “the thing to do” and I just shook my head. Maybe it has to do with growing up with Realtor parents (well, from the late 80s on, anyway) but I think too many people get all excited about the idea of owning a home and don’t really stop and think about it. But, 3-5 years ago lenders were making loans to people who had no business qualifying and people were buying even though they weren’t really “settled.” That’s one of the biggest reasons I didn’t want to buy - I didn’t know whether I’d be staying in one city for any length of time! I didn’t want to tie myself down (mental pictures). Plus I wouldn’t be able to afford paying for all the stuff you have to pay for yourself when there’s no apartment maintenance man to call.

Now granted, sometimes the maintenance man is drunk, belligerent, and potentially violent, as happened at one apartment in Athens - the one where sewage was coming up in our sink. Sometimes the maintenance man is a nice guy but he just doesn’t have the skills to fix a particular problem. Sometimes the landlord is crazy. I am aware of all this.

But for me it was not worth it to just run off and buy a house. I always figured when the time was right, I’d know. Gotta trust my intuition. And now? I know! The time is right. I’ve enjoyed living in our loft in Decatur but it’s time to get out of there. The neighbors with their bizarre noises coming from the apartment above us; the weird smells in the hall; the people stomping through the hall at all hours; the yappy damn dogs; the Phantom Pooper; the dripping AC unit; starting off this morning with a clogged toilet and freaking out over getting germs on my hands when I couldn’t un-invert the plunger without touching it; all of this stuff, I’m over it.

And yes I know many or all of these things can happen when you own your home, depending on where you live. But that’s not my point. As I told Rusty this morning, it would be nice to live somewhere where everything works right.

Two exceptions: the ex and I never had problems (that I remember, anyway!) in our last apartment in Athens, where we lived for two years; and I loved my apartment in Texas. I was the first person who had ever lived there. It was one of the only things I liked about living in Texas!

I miss that green sofa. It was too heavy, though; I got rid of it because I was sick of nearly breaking my back every time I tried to move it anywhere. But now I kind of regret that.

Actually, how did I forget? My first apartment in Atlanta was great, too! I really enjoyed that apartment, but it wasn’t practical for me to stay after the second year - and it was probably good that I moved when I did, because it had been taken over by a new management company and was going downhill.

Maybe I just feel more annoyed now because I’m so ready to move. I don’t know. Things at our place just seem sub-par to me lately.

Anyway - after the first of the year, we will revisit the mortgage lender - assuming she still has her job, which I really hope she does, because we like her - do the pre-approval thing (we already got a pre-qualification letter back in September) and start actually going in houses with our Realtor and getting ready to make an offer. Our lease is up at the end of March so we’ll be out of the apartment by then at the latest, and hopefully a few weeks prior.

But enough about that. I want to document this process and my feelings on the matter, but when I blog too much about apartments and houses and stuff, I start to annoy myself. Yes, I know, old-school blogging FTW; but I start to get annoyed because I feel like I sound like those people who love to pontificate about real estate and how they’re going to get a deal and flip a house and blah blah blah, and think they’re big experts, but really they don’t know anything and they just sound like idiots.

So moving on.

This weekend my mom and I went to the cemetery to visit my dad’s grave. I hadn’t been since the funeral. My mom wanted to go because she wanted to see the headstone the VA put up, but she hadn’t been yet - I think she was waiting to go with me for moral support. We didn’t stay long. I think being there was a little much for my mom. I didn’t think I would get emotional but I did tear up a little - but I wonder if that was mainly out of sympathy for my mom? I don’t know. Anyway, we just stood there under an umbrella (it was raining lightly) for a few minutes, staring at the grave. We agreed that the headstone looked good; it’s very small, just a basic stone at ground level with his name, date of birth, date of death, and military rank. It’s smaller than most of the other headstones near it. My mom said, “Well, Dick, we’re just stopping by to say hello” and she got a little choked up. We stood there for a few more minutes, then she said “Well we don’t have to stay anymore” and then we left.

Also this weekend, I convinced my mom to start a blog. If she ever posts anything, I’ll link to it. It all started because there was a cover story in the Metro Spirit about the Surrey Tavern, which opened in 1978. Well it just so happens, it’s in the same location as a couple other bars where my mom worked in the late 70s. She said she’d never been to the Surrey Tavern, but she worked at Augustino’s and the Man of War, one of which was in the same location and the other was next door (and at one point they took down a wall and the two were combined). The article mentioned both those places briefly but seemed to get the chronology wrong; I showed it to my mom and she verified that it wasn’t right. The person who wrote the story is probably my age and just going off of conflicting things different people told her; but my mom has pictures from when she worked there, labeled with the dates on the back (yet another reason why it’s so important to label pictures!!), so she can say for sure. She worked at the Man of War when she was pregnant with me. I told her she should write in to the Metro Spirit with her corrections, and she said she would. Then we got to talking and I told her I thought she should start a blog and write about all the interesting/weird/funny things that happened while she was a bartender in the 70s and 80s. She could even scan some of the pictures and write about them. She got excited about that, so we went and got her set up with a blog on wordpress.com. Hopefully the motivation will stick and she’ll actually post something!

Guess I better stop for now. I’ve been writing this post off and on all day, since I’ve been so busy. Later I might write more about Augusta’s thrilling 70s nightlife! ;)

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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]

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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]

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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]

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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]

A conversation among (not “between!” between is for two people only! pet peeve!) Jenny, Niki, and I might as well be in a foreign language as far as third-party listeners are concerned, once we get going on inside jokes and shared history and such.

Anyway. Once again, I’m thinking that I really need to blog the way I used to, the way this blog started out. A post didn’t have to have a central theme. I didn’t delicately pick and choose my every word so as not to offend some theoretical reader showing up out of the blue. I didn’t feel so inhibited.

And while I don’t want to just keep putting up an endless stream of “why can’t I blog like I used to?” meta-posts, I also want to make it clear that I really do feel a sense of inhibition with my blog unlike anything I felt ~5 years ago.

When I first started my blog you could say I was too far in the opposite direction, honestly. Bless my heart. But then, nobody really knew about blogs in 2002 so it didn’t matter anyway.

In a few ways I feel less inhibited now, but I don’t want to get off on that tangent right now.

Speaking of titles. (Well, I was in the first paragraph.) Penelope Trunk says it’s important to write good titles for your posts. Obviously I agree, for SEO purposes and such. But one thing I love about Penelope Trunk is that she acknowledges the rather simple, common-sense (or should be common sense) fact that everyone’s blog has different goals. Not everyone blogs with the same kind of purpose in mind. If you’re blogging to draw attention to a cause or a business or an issue, or to spur conversation about a topic you’re interested in, or whatever, then yes, SEO is important and therefore you have to write good titles. Me, I’ve never been very good at writing titles. They’re usually an afterthought. I didn’t have titles on my blog in its first incarnation, and even once it was on the second database I didn’t always include them. I understand about SEO and all that, but for me and my blog, I just don’t care. I write my blog for me and if other people show up, fine, but that’s not the main point. As with everything else with blogging, social media, etc., I’ll just keep doing my thing like I always have, and not get caught up with all the earnest “trends” and whatnot. I went through a phase where I thought I should try to be what you would now see called a “thought leader” (I hate that term!) but it stressed me out too much and it wasn’t what I really wanted anyway - it was just BS. I know for people who are trying to use their blog for their business or whatever it’s different, but fortunately for me that’s not what it’s about.

So all this is to say I really need to take my own damn advice already and get this blog back to its roots, for realz! I can always ban asshole commenters, after all. There’s one guy I’ve been on the verge of banning for a long time because his comments don’t make any sense and they make me feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

This is one unfortunate fact about the internet… people feel entitled to make all kinds of proclamations and declarations about your life. I really don’t get it. I mean think about it, how freaking presumptuous can you be, waltzing onto somebody’s personal blog and telling them what they should and shouldn’t do? Several years ago I had a guy who used to come around and berate me for what he called “poor financial decisions.” As if he knew shit about dick! The latest exhibit is the guy who is obsessed with me and says I hate freedom - seriously, he said that. Sometimes you just have to strap on your lollerskates and roll along.

Today I was talking with my sis, Crystal, and we started hatching a plan to take a trip to Australia. Unfortunately I doubt we’ll ever do it. I don’t like to hatch plans like that if I don’t think there’s a chance of it actually happening, but somehow we got going. I would like to go to Australia, but that is such a long flight, and I don’t know if I really want to leave the country right now anyway. Maybe I’m becoming an old lady. I would like to see zebra finches in the wild, though. And it would be interesting to see if what they say is true, about the toilets flushing in the opposite direction. I would also be tempted to do a stint at a legal brothel like Kimberlee is now, but in reality I know that wouldn’t happen.

I’ve had a post in draft mode for a few weeks now titled “Pole dancing and Teh Menz.” I feel very strongly about the subject but it’s one of those ones I haven’t felt motivated to actually write, because of inhibitions. I’m afraid people will come around and tell me how I’m being so judgmental, and misinterpret my words, which to be fair probably won’t be all that well-chosen - hence the inhibitions, and round and round we go. But I’ll just throw it out here, and decide later whether to write more. A lot of people who don’t know what they’re talking about always frame pole dancing as being “for the men” or “a performance for men” or “catering to men’s desires” and all kinds of related nonsense. Let’s get it out of the way right now that most people have no fucking clue what they’re talking about when it comes to pole dancing, and I wish they’d shut their stupid faces because they always end up saying something idiotic and/or trying to make a dumb joke out of it, hardy har har. I don’t know how many times or ways I can explain that I pole dance for me, that it’s fucking HARD, and that there are no men present and only a small number of men have ever seen me pole dance - not because I feel like that would make me a dirty stripper and we can’t have that or because I’m afraid of what they’ll think or something, but because they’re ANNOYING. Yes, most men in my experience who watch while we’re pole dancing are just as annoying as all the people who talk out their asses about pole dancing! None of them have a clue, that’s what they have in common. At Lisa’s Halloween party, one guy said something like, “Now you don’t have to work out!” and I said, “This is how I work out.” Another guy said, “The pole is your lover” and I wondered if he knew what a moron he sounded like. Most of them have no appreciation for the difficulty of the various tricks and moves, the form, the strength needed, the practical and logistical concerns… and I just don’t have time for it. Just like people in general, as another symptom of our adolescent-mentality society when it comes to anything vaguely sex-related, have to always crack a joke about pole dancing… like “what are you wearing” or something… or joking about are there regulation dimensions and whatever… and then I explain, yes, in fact, a standard dance pole has a two-inch width. Brass is the best material because of its tackiness, hence your skin sticks to it better. This is also why being “scantily clad” is a necessity in pole dancing, especially for the more advanced moves: your skin is what makes you stick to the pole and be able to hold some of those positions. Stainless steel is the most difficult dance pole material, but if you can dance on that you can dance on anything.

All that being said, if I were a stripper I certainly would just pop my booty in their faces, because it’s not nearly as exhausting and I’ll make the same amount of money (or more) because they don’t care about the effort that goes into pole work, they just want to see T&A. Just like how that “Strippers Ball” at Trapeze wasn’t about talent at all, it was about spring break.

This is the part where I get nervous about what people will say because I’m afraid it will come off like I’m saying there’s something wrong with wanting to see T&A. Well, if you’ve known me or read this blog for any length of time, you know how I feel about that - I hate when the sexual is relegated as “less than” or not good enough. So you should know that’s not the point here. There! Now I’ve got that out of the way.

Last thing, I guess, in this back-to-basics experimental post… tonight I was watching Suze Orman with my mom, and I already said this on Twitter but I just want to reiterate, I do not understand some of the crap people spend their money on. And the elaborate justifications they must make in their heads! Why are you going to spend $2000 on a Chanel handbag - especially when you don’t even make that much money per month?! Not that I would understand spending $2000 on a handbag otherwise - that’s the kind of thing I will just never get. Now, you know I’m NOT the kind of person to hate on someone just for having money - if you know me, you know I really hate that, and I think it’s yet again filled with presumptions, and I’ll probably write about it at another time - but I do NOT understand the materialistic drive that so many Americans apparently possess. I never have. I just don’t get it. I cannot wrap my head around thinking you need a $2000 handbag or that that’s a good idea in any universe. Or wanting to spend $30k+ to install a swimming pool when that’s just slightly less than your annual income, and then you have to pay for maintenance, water bills, etc. - oh AND you’ve already got two mortgages on your house, in this market! I do not get it. Do. Not. Get. It. And don’t even get me started on the guy who was trampled to death in Wal-Mart on Black Friday. It’s beyond disgusting. No one needs a DVD player or a new duvet that bad. I can’t even begin to comprehend it.

Well, I guess I’ll turn off the spigot for now. I need to get some sleep - I’m going home tomorrow, yay!! I’ve been in Augusta since Wednesday and while I know it’s been good for my mom, and I’ve enjoyed being here in many ways, I’ll be happy to get home and see Rusty. Have I mentioned how THANKFUL I am that he’s in my life?? Well, I am!

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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]

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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]

That reminds me: if you haven’t already, be sure to sign the petition to get pole dancing added as an Olympic sport in 2012!

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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]

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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]

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[This is a post from Being Amber Rhea. If you are seeing it on another site, it is being used without permission.]