About Amanda
I’m a disgruntled LIRR commuter by morning, real estate journalist by day, insomniac by night, and cancer butt-kicker for life.
Where To Find Me
A Bad Dream Turned Reality
Published January 8, 2012 | A Writer’s Book of Days (01/08) – What I Do In The Middle Of The Night
The middle of the night is slightly more unusual for me than it is for most people. I get something called sleep paralysis. In a nutshell, my conscious awakes, but my body is still in a sleeping state. Many people experience it at least once in their lifetime – you feel like you’re awake, but you’re frozen and can’t breathe (even though you’re really still breathing). Sometimes it comes with hallucinations, perhaps feeling a presence in the room with you (which partly explains incubus and succubus folklore), and often times a feeling of flying or body detachment.
I first started getting sleep paralysis when I was 12. I was home sick with a fever, napping on the living room couch. Suddenly, it felt like there was a vise on my head. I couldn’t breath or move. I struggled to scream out, but nothing was coming out of my mouth. Suddenly, I awoke. Grandma and Mom were in the room with me, but not reacting to what just happened to me. They couldn’t see from the outside what I had been feeling in the inside and dismissed it as a bad dream.
It would then happen once in a while – sometimes I’d feel like someone was in the room with me, but I couldn’t scream out to anyone to come and help me. When I finally snapped out of the state, it was obvious that no one had been in my room. As my teenage years progressed, they began happening on a more usual basis – sometimes as much as every other day. It worried Mom to the point I was shuffled to a neurologist. He suggested an MRI and sleep study since he couldn’t immediately pinpoint what I was feeling.
It was 1999, and we had finally just got our first computer and a subscription to America Online. So I started to Google (which wasn’t called Googling back then) to see if this new-fangled Internet had anything to say. Continue reading
Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner
Published January 7, 2012 | A Writer’s Book of Days (01/07) – Once, When No One Was Looking…
104.3, advertisement. 97.5, talk show. 103.1, The Beatles., 94.3, alternative rock. 106.7, a bumper previewing the upcoming ’80s segment. I keep that station on.
I was driving down Sunrise Highway, on the service road. I don’t remember where I was going – perhaps South Shore Mall or Home Depot, two of the few reasons I’d drive the service road. It was a breezy summer day, so I kept the windows opened a crack instead of using the air conditioner.
Then I heard the haunting piano intro. She’s like the wind, through my trees… Patrick Swayze had recently died. The station was playing the song in his memory. How could I not sing along?
I was alone, which was good. I generally don’t like singing in front of people, especially cheesy ’80s music. No cars were around me either, so I started to belt it out, particularly the female duet. I was getting really into it.
No cars had been around me at the beginning of the song, but I had pulled up to a red light, oblivious that there were now cars all around me. Just a fool to believe I have anything she needs… The man to my right honked and waved. I snapped back to reality, slightly embarrassed.
But I realized he’d never see me again. He was making a right and the light was about to turn green. You bet your bippy I finished. Just a fool (just a fool) to believe (just a fool to believe) she’s like the wind…
Splish, Splash, I Love Taking A Bath
Published January 6, 2012 | A Writer’s Book of Days (01/06) – Write About Bathing
512 square feet. A California king bed. A separate seating area. One person.
And that’s just a hotel room (I think there are plenty of Manhattan apartments smaller than that). Yet it’s the one I booked for my upcoming trip to Las Vegas. I certainly could have gone for the twin bed, but that room (more appropriate and affordable for a woman traveling on her own) didn’t have a Jacuzzi. That bubbly tub of wonder stole my credit card number the first time I laid eyes on the room description.
I love baths. A hotel’s glass shower stall would not do.
It’s not a luxury I have at home. I do have a tub, but a small one. Not exactly one you can sink into without splashing bubbles and water all over the place. My arm, which doesn’t fit, has to hang cold and limply over the side. When I buy my own house, you bet it’s going to be one of those claw-foot giants.
So hotels will just have to do for now. Accommodations get bonus points (or that extra star on Yelp.com) if they have deep soak tubs like the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood, Fla., The Jefferson Hotel in DC, and The Wynn in Sin City. There’s nothing like covering your entire body with a warm, giant quilt of bubbles. It’s akin to putting the first flannels on your bed for winter.
But a Jacuzzi? Movin’ on up, girl.
I never stayed in a hotel room with a Jacuzzi before. In fact, if you asked me which ones have them, I can only think of seedy themed motels with giant heart-shaped or champagne glass tubs. (I presume the reputation of this Vegas casino-hotel means it will be properly cleaned and disinfected.)
You can be sure I’ll be in that tub at least once or twice, and that my toiletry bag (three-ounce bottles and under, since I only pack a carry-on) will have more bubbles, powders, and bath oil than cosmetics. I particularly like those scented fizzing balls with shea butter. That little complimentary bottle of hotel body wash doesn’t have the same effect.
So if you don’t find me at the roulette table, you know where to find me.
In the Gloaming
Published January 5, 2012 | A Writer’s Book of Days (01/05) – Write About A Day Moon
Dusk is my favorite time of day. The finalization of a busy day, yet a continuation of possibilities into the night. Some people call it twilight or gloaming.
Sometimes you can’t tell when evening’s going to come. Evening often creeps upon you quickly, especially in the winter. The sun sets with barely a warning. It almost feels like an entire day has gone before your eyes. Have you wasted it? You certainly didn’t stop to enjoy it.
Some days I’ll spy a day moon high in a bright, blue sky. It’s almost like the dusk of the dusk, reminding us that an uncharted night, followed by a brand-new day, is not far behind.
Those evenings, I remember to watch the sun, once sharing the sky with the day moon, disappear slowly into the horizon. The moon silently reclaims the sky as its own, reminding me there’s so much more ahead.
Enjoy it.
Helping Beyond the Grave
Published January 4, 2012 | A Writer’s Book of Days (01/04) – “A Year After Your Death…”
My remains are finally delivered back to my family after a prestigious university uses what it can of my body for research purposes.
As a former cancer patient and survivor, I was a goldmine of information for scientists looking for a environmental link between pesticides used on Long Island in the 1980s and 1990s and instances of blood cancers like Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
As a child, I would be playing outside and mosquito sprayers would drive down the street, helping to prevent another summer outbreak. (In the 1980s, there were no warnings to stay inside.) Some people suggested it might have been residue from the dust after the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11. The particles had been partially measure in the Bronx, where I was a freshman at college. A few other students were rumored to have cancer, but I never met them.
I became paranoid in 2005, the year my cancer was discovered, I underwent treatment, and went into remission. I stopped dying my hair. Using perfumes. Eating fast food. The constant restrictions on myself was difficult, and I realized I may never know what caused my cancer.
But that wouldn’t stop me from trying to help others. In my early ’30s, when I created my first will, I went through a long process of donating my body to science if I died. My family and friends could just have a small memorial service if they wanted, but I couldn’t justify the hoopla and cost of a traditional funeral when there were still people unexpectedly getting cancer and not knowing why.
A year after my death, there will plenty of evidence that there are environmental factors connected to blood cancer. Reform will be made on the governmental and business side. Blood cancer diagnoses and death will drop greatly. Although small, I’ve done my part.