An Idea Worthy Of Einstein's Birthday

BrownsFan: And can I just say, marshmallow vodka....?

Me: I know. It's like, if you want your booze to taste like candy, then you probably don't really want booze.

BrownsFan: Says the woman who orders wine based on what tastes the most like candy.

Me: RIGHT. You know why? Because I don't REALLY want wine. Marshmallow vodka, no. Just make yourself some Kool-Aid, pour some vodka in there and be done with it.

BrownsFan: Or, couldn't you just pour the Kool-Aid packet directly into the vodka?

Me: .......I have to go email someone.

And Yet I Continue To Have A Job

BrownsFan: So where are you off to?

Me: Oh, I thought I'd head over to Charlotte Russe and see if they had any cheap underwear people can rip.

BrownsFan: You realize you're at work, right?

Me: Well, but...I mean, it's not like it's a real company.

Less than one minute later...

PCA: Have you ever been to see Buckingham Palace?

Me: Yeah, lots of times.

PCA: Do those guys really not move?

Me: They just stand there.

PCA: Could I dare you to show them something?

Me: You mean *show them something*?

PCA: Yes.

Me: .....You realize I'm a stripper for a hobby, right? Just saying, that's not much of a dare.

Note: Technically this is a real company, I just have a hard time believing that anyone willing to employ me could possibly be running a serious enterprise.

iNo.

I finally broke down and got an iPhone yesterday. This is the part where you all gasp incredulously and then yell "YOU ARE ONLY JUST NOW GETTING A SMART PHONE? THE HELL?" I know. I know.

The truth is I didn't really want a smart phone for a number of reasons. For one thing, I am already addicted to my iPad. ADDICTED YOU GUYS. And I have tremendous fear of becoming that person who never ever socializes at all even when out in public because OHMYGODTHEINTERNETSAREEVERYWHERE. Or the person that ruins every fucking bar room debate by immediately looking up the answer and ending the entire conversation. Those guys are assholes and I don't want to be one of those assholes. An even bigger reason is that iPhones tend to get stolen right out of people's hands. It happened to Mrs. Sizemore. A woman here in Chicago was even killed when an iPhone thief pushed her down the stairs at the Belmont Brown line station whilst escaping with someone else's iProperty. I didn't worry about using my phone on the train until today. No one was going to try to steal my flip phone. Now? Now I worry. There is also the much more stupid but nonetheless real reason where I am my father's daughter and oddly resistant to change at times. A phone doesn't need to be filled with apps and do 900 magical things, it needs to make and receive phone calls. That is what "phone" means. I may even have told a number of different people that I would get a smart phone when they pried the perfectly fine regular ass phone out my cold dead hand.

Still, the smart phone thing is long past reaching critical mass and when the bartender got one a couple of months ago I figured it was probably time for me to join the ranks of the Eternally Connected (for reference, two nights ago I patiently explained to him how to attach a photo in an email. For him to have a new thing before I have it is downright ludicrous). I was still reluctant. For help in overcoming this, I turned of course to the great and wise Fish, an early adopter of every technology ever and pretty much the only person whose advice I actually heed (sometimes), and asked him to convince me. "Do you like your iPad? Wish it were more portable? You have the ability to upgrade and you aren't? Why are you fucking this up?" was his typically withering response, so here I am one week later with an iPhone 4s.

I turned it on for the first time and was immediately not a fan. My mild OCD tendencies went into overdrive because the entire first screen was filled with icons. Like 20 icons, which is way too much for me to look at and I was overwhelmed and turned it right back off to catch my breath and regroup. And yes I know I can move and/or group them and have started doing so, but it requires a lot of work to figure out which applications I'm going to use in descending order of frequency and then group them accordingly and when I had a regular phone that only did phone things I didn't have to deal with this. But fine, that problem will be resolved eventually. Then last night while I was laying in bed awake at 3:30 am because my cat is an asshole, it dawned on me that I hadn't checked out Siri yet. (Oh by the way, that commercial with the idiot kid in the shitty band that wants Siri to call him rock god is fucking awful and makes me feel all damn-kids-get-off-my-lawn. Please, please let them stop airing that soon.) I decided to see what she was up to so I asked her "Siri, are you there?" and she replied with, "Wherever you go, that is where I will be." Which is a seriously creepy thing to say and now I am afraid of my iPhone because Siri is FUCKING STALKING ME, YO. I hope this gets better soon before it tarnishes Fish's thus far sterling record of advice giving.

Good News, Everyone!

As you can tell from my last post, I am all signed up for the zombie 5k in Indianapolis this June, which I will again be running with H-Town and this time we will be joined by her brother E-Town. This week I start training again, which I assume will suck just as much if not more than it did last time because I haven't run since the last race in October and despite this El Nino miracle weather going on, it is still way the fuck colder outside than when I last trained for this sort of stupidity in September/October. I have downloaded a shit ton more of The Prodigy from iTunes to help me in matching my running soundtrack to my white hot anger about the fact that I am running.

So what's the good news, then? Well, since you asked, the good news is that after June I am never doing this again. I know I said that last time, but this time it is for real because this time I have a completely legit reason. I was discussing how much I hate running with some of the other women in my dance class last night and as we were talking, the great Michelle L'Amour began making a grimacy sad face at us. "All right," she said in a tone of voice that indicated it wasn't remotely all right, "but please make sure you stretch really well before and after. Running really shortens your hamstrings."

RIGHT THERE. Did you see it? Running shortens your hamstrings. And I am a dancer now, and I need my hamstrings to be long and flexible so I can do cool sexy bendy things. AND I already sit at a desk all day long which is also REALLY BAD for your hamstrings. So you see? I should not be running. At all. Ever. My dance instructor told me so and that woman can bend herself into a very sexy pretzel. I am done with any and all running after June. Instead, following in the footsteps of Mrs. Sizemore, I will be starting trapeze lessons in the spring. Yes, yes I will.

Training Advice From Heather

H-Town:  hey - when are you going to start training for zombie time in June?

me: ugh, i think i should probably start next week actually
i need to be in at least decent shape a month from now because my friends in england have promised to chase me up hills

H-Town: and then reward you with sexy times

me: haha, well some of them

H-Town: tell them to stand nude at the top of said hills
that'll motivate you
"Here I am naked - sure wish someone would come up here and totally do me n stuff"

me: they'll be like "but it's march"
and i'll be like "do you want this piece of ass or not?"
and then they'll be like "it's arse you idiot."

H-Town: "We've secretly replaced Amber's bed with giant hills topped with hot naked people. Let's see if she notices."

me: oh my god we so need to film me not noticing the difference

Amberance: Camera Whore

So waaaaay back in August I did a calendar shoot at VaVoom Pinups. I had originally scheduled it for a project that had to be cancelled (email!), but I decided to keep the appointment anyway, mainly because I am a massive narcissist of long standing. I sincerely mean that. Where almost every other woman on the planet is ducking out of candid photographs telling you how hideous she is, I have never met a camera in my entire life that I didn't immediately jump in front of. I have loved having my photo taken from birth, which is obvious to anyone who has seen any childhood photos of me as I am standing in some sort of ridiculous pose in Every. Single. One. I have never outgrown this habit.

Me at age 7 posing in lingerie and a stupid hat.

Me at age 33 posing in lingerie and a stupid hat.

I obviously enjoy being looked at. In related news, I am now immortal: my amazing friend Charlie so loved the photos from the shoot I did prior to this one, he went and had one of them tattooed on his arm two weeks ago:

IMMORTALITY. Unless Charlie dies, that is.

That's beside the point really, I just felt like mentioning that I AM A TATTOO YOU GUYS.

But back to the story: for the more recent shoot I'd done 14 outfit changes, mostly based on suggestions from those of my friends who are known to be perverts. This made for photos that were a little more risque than the results of the the first photo shoot I did. When I got the proofs I sent them out to a handful of trusted advisers, among them MrTrivia. When I saw him the next day, I asked him what he thought of the photos. He looked uncomfortable. "Ummm...you know there's, like, full frontal in some of those photos, right?"

"Yes. I was there."

"Ok. I just, you know, wanted to make sure you meant to send me that."

I pointed out that my current aspiration was to take all my clothes off on stage in front of strangers and he conceded that I had a point.

I had the whole finished package shipped to me at work because I am ridiculous and because it's now almost a game to see how much I can get away with before they fire me (a couple months ago the CEO mentioned he was tired and I offered him the pillow from under my desk so he could take a nap. I still work here). BrownsFan suggested I put Post-it notes over the bad parts before she looked at it, by which she meant specifically my belly button because she thinks they're gross. Tits and ass, no problem. Navel, GTFO. She's awesome.

This is not the going to be the end of the "take awesome shiny photos of me" thing and here's why: one of the outfits I'd planned to wear for this shoot was Leia's metal bikini from Jabba's palace. There's a guy on the internet that custom makes them for way more money than any sane person would spend on a costume, but they are excellent and so I am getting one, but I didn't have time to get the order in before the shoot so OH WELL I GUESS I WILL JUST HAVE TO GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN. I really, really, REALLY like having my picture taken you guys.

Happy Overpriced Candy and Dead Plant Day

Allegedly, today is Valentine's Day. I know this because the bartender came in my room this morning and farted on me while yelling "Happy Valentine's Day!" I preferred the valentine I got from StereoNinja, mainly because he didn't get me one. "I was gonna send you an e-card," he told me, "but I fucking hate them so I didn't." Well played, my friend.

Anywhore, happy whatever, you guys. Call me in a month.

Epic Austin Weekend of Boobs and Cake

You may have noticed that I didn't get as out of control wacky over my birthday this year as I normally would and I have a very good reason for that, which is that I decided to make a big deal out of someone else's birthday the following weekend and so I planned an epic trip to Austin instead.

I should back up a bit. I have a friend from college named Ashley, who you may remember from this story involving several failed drunk dialing attempts and my keychain winding up in another person's crotchal area. In fact, prior to Epic Austin Trip, that was the last time I'd seen her. Well, back in October or so, I made some sort of offhand comment about coming to see her for her birthday (which is the week after mine) and that also the cake master (who you may remember from when she tried to invite me to go camping) and H-town (who you may remember from every cool thing I have ever done in my life) should come along too. I made this offhand comment on Ashley's Facebook page, where it was seen by Jil with one L (who you will not remember from previous stories because I hadn't seen her in 15 years) (also she has the same birthday as me) who responded with something to the effect of "Is this for serious?" and promptly booked a flight. Well at that point it was ON LIKE DONKEY KONG, so I then set about systematically eliminating every excuse the cake master and H-town could come up with not to go, coordinated the booking of flights and told Ashley it was done and done. "SWEET HOT BUTTERED TITS!" was her actual verbatim response.

I met up with the cake master at Midway airport Friday morning. The fun began immediately when we noticed a girl in a pink cowboy hat with a veil attached to it that nearly reached the floor and "Bride" written in glitter across the front. We hated her immediately, a hatred I accidentally expressed after we'd boarded the plane. She was one of the last people on and was looking around for a seat when a flight attendant yelled "there's seats back here!" just as she was standing next to the empty seat on my right.

"Not this one," I said.

"Oh my god," said the cake master while laughing hysterically.

"Oh, did I say that really loud?"

"YES."

On landing we were greeted by H-town, who had landed just a few minutes before us, and we all went outside to meet Ashley. On the way to her house we discussed the plans for the weekend: we were going "Texas" and planned to use the phrases "I'll tell you what", "That dog can hunt" and "Bless his/her heart" as often as possible. Also, we were going to replace the phrase "that's what she said" with "sounds like my first time" as pioneered by a friend of my cousin Kelly (my whole family is doing it now, it's brilliant. Try it). We got to her house, dumped all of our stuff, and immediately started going through old photos from college that H-town had the forethought to actually bring with her. After a few rounds of "remember that time when", Ashley hunted down her old photos which were mixed in with photos from high school (Ashley and H-town went to high school together also), some Glamour Shots and a dick picture the rest of us weren't meant to see.

Ashley and H-town both do improv comedy. Every Friday night, the Coldtowne Theater in Austin has a show called Cagematch where two improv groups face off against one another in a battle judged by the audience. Ashley had gotten them a slot, and so for the first time ever on the same stage they did a 20 minute set and TORE THE ROOF OFF THE PLACE, which you can see here. It really wasn't even a contest. Afterwards we went for a drink, did some shopping for snacks and cake supplies and then all went to pick up Jil from the airport, where they have a big picture of Texas on the floor which I alternately pretended to shit on and did cartwheels across. I am 34 years old.

Saturday morning, H-town and I woke up first and elected to go jump on/steamroll Ashley and Jil, after which we all got dressed and went on a mission to find a food truck called Biscuits and Groovy which sells, oddly enough, biscuits. An adorable kid with curly hair and a Texas accent took our order and told us "Y'all can go wait in yer car if ya want and I'll bring it on out to ya when it's ready." We dubbed him Biscuit Boy (bless his heart).

The bulk of Saturday was spent hanging around the house baking a somewhat ridiculous amount of cake. This was for the party we were attending at some friends of Ashley's who were all having a joint birthday party. The theme of the weekend was boobs, because Ashley has huge boobs, I had been tapped to strip at the party, the whole thing had kicked off with "SWEET HOT BUTTERED TITS" and mostly because boobs are awesome. So we made a boobs cake along with a sheet cake on which we ended up drawing Ryan Gosling's abs after watching Crazy Stupid Love while we waited for the cakes to cool. Then Ashley wrote the name of every January birthday person she knew over the top of Ryan's abs and we left for the party.

There was some sort of themed drink thingy going on at the party which we all quickly abandoned in favor of beer. We hung about the party until after the cake cutting, when I disappeared to go get dressed so that I could then turn around and get undressed in front of 60 people. Ashley introduced me for the first time as Poppy Coq "who has come all the way from Chicago to take her clothes off to music." Which I then did for my first solo strip tease performance of my life. Afterwards I was told by both Ashley and H-town they had overheard some girl say "My god, that ass!" while I was performing. When I was back in street clothes, I went and found the others who were now sitting in the front room drinking more beer and watching whatever crap movie was playing on the tv in there. As we didn't really know anyone else at the party, we elected to play a new drinking game we invented for the occasion called "Spot the Hipster", in which you drink every time someone comes in the room wearing black rimmed glasses, a plaid shirt, a decorative scarf, or a beard. We were wasted in 11 seconds. Also, I kept telling everyone who walked in the front door "You missed it. I was naked 10 minutes ago."

Back at Ashley's we were tired, drunk, hungry, and not at all ready to go to bed, so we sent Ashley out to buy us some frozen pizzas while we hung her bras from her ceiling fan and threw an exercise ball at each other up the stairs. Then when Ashley got back we dressed H-town up in heels and made videos of her walking around until we were all slap happy enough to think that me responding to Ashley's question "What time did we put the pizza in?" with "Your mom" was the most hilarious thing we'd ever heard. Which was about the time we realized we should probably go to bed.

Epic Austin weekend was truly Epic, and it is mad ridiculous that it took us 15 years to all get back in the same room at the same time. I can't imagine that it will take us another 15 to do it again. I've already started my campaign for Summer of Chicago 2013. If we get just one more woman to come I can even call it Summer of Chicago Epic Trip: Now With MORE BOOBS!

In conclusion, boobs. And your mom.

You'd Think They'd Have Learned To Stop Asking Me Questions By Now

The day before this conversation I had been accused of walking around the office with a shit eating grin on my face after I'd had a very nice chat with a boy.

The CEO: Are we still giddy today?

Me (giggling like a complete jackass): Yes.

The CEO (to BrownsFan): I hate it when she gets new ones.

You Can't Argue With This Logic

Mrs. Sizemore: Wand of truth?

me: yes, the wand never lies

Mrs. Sizemore: Oh?

me: never. it never lies. if you wave the wand the truth will be revealed

Mrs. Sizemore: Have you tested this?

me: wand of truth says "not exactly"
SEE?
IT NEVER LIES

Mrs. Sizemore: Hahaha

Having A Social Life Makes It Really Hard To Blog Sometimes

I was told this morning by StereoNinja that I am being a shitty blogger in 2012 so far. Which I know, but see, there's this thing where I'm busy at my job and travelling and other excuses both legit and complete and utter bullshit. One of them is that I went on an epic trip to Austin last weekend. And I really want to tell you all about it, but chronologically it doesn't make sense if I skip over all of December and my birthday. Also, personally it doesn't make sense either. I have never skipped December or my birthday, they are my favorite things. So herein I will attempt to briefly recap the last month and a half so that in the next post I can describe the most epic reunion of my entire life. Cool? Cool.

A Brief Recap of What Amberance Has Been Up To Since Early December, Minus The Parts That Are None of Your Business and You Don't Want to Know About Anyway (Trust Me)

• On December 10th, as advertised, I walked onto a stage at Martyr's with 16 other women and took off all my clothes in front of hundreds of strangers and it. was. AWESOME. Despite it being oddly disconcerting to be walking around in a bar all night in a nightie and a robe while everyone else around me was dressed, but whatever. The show on the whole was excellent. The girls graduating were amazingly talented and creative and their acts included a girl who stripped to the Imperial March as Darth Vader and left the mask on the entire time, two girls who did a number together to Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" in which one of them was the cowboy and the other one was her horse, and a girl who according to Michelle L'Amour said that she wanted to do a number in which "I do all of the things you always tell us we should never do", and so did a completely disinterested strip tease dressed in a ratty house coat with her hair a complete mess and a cigarette dangling out of her mouth, then finished with taking her bra off to reveal another flesh colored bra underneath to which she had sewn baggy tits that hung down to her knees and when she couldn't get the nipple tassels to twirl she just picked them up in her hand with a shrug and juggled them. It was the most hilarious strip tease I have ever seen.
• The bartender bought me an auto hammer for Christmas and I was filled with joy. I am a tool for tools. And puns.
• The next day I flew to Cleveland for two days because something is seriously wrong with me. I packed a backpack for the trip. My brother had also come to town, for four days, and had brought three huge suitcases and a garment bag, prompting me to ask my dad if it was weird for him that his son is his daughter and his daughter is his son (I did, after all, get an auto hammer for Christmas).
• I saw my brother again the following weekend when he came to town for the annual New Year's Eve party thrown by some friends of ours. My loving brother greeted me with a loud "Fuck you," when I walked in, due to my having worn an amazing tank top with chains and tiny handcuffs for straps that everybody but him loved, including all the women who were pregnant which was ALL OF THEM.
• The following week we had our work holiday party, to which I took the gorilla after giving me his word that he would behave himself. I shouldn't have worried, he was absolutely fine. It was me and my coworkers who were out of control, but it wasn't our fault - someone had brought a Shake Weight to the gift exchange which we were inappropriate about, and then we were under the minimum for the contract we'd signed, so the obvious thing to do was to order lots more booze which led to me teaching everyone how to twirl nipple tassels and shouting "It's PHYSICS" at everyone who tried to object.
• The following Monday I flew to Portland and didn't even try to kill my boss once!
• Which leads us to my Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Celebration Extravaganza: Now With MORE KELLY! weekend. This did not start out well. El Nino or whatever the hell the weather is doing had kept things pleasantly warm and dry in Chicago this winter, right up until the night of my birthday when it decided to drop 8 inches of snow on us overnight. This meant that only Charlie and Mrs. Sizemore showed up to my party at Tai's and got to see my Epic Cake which depicted me in not a whole lot of clothing.

  

  So hot it is literally on fire.

  This gave me the opportunity, after we had partially eaten it, to yell "WHO IS GOING TO EAT MY CROTCH?" at some innocent strangers for a totally legitimate reason. Earlier in the day, I had taken my pink princess wand to work with me in order to command people to do my bidding, such as wear hats and sing to me, and had ended up using it help my co-worker figure out what NOT to get his wife for her birthday by waving it at him after every suggestion and saying "No, that's stupid." Because of this, I decided to name it the Wand of Truth and then brought it to the bar and had a duel with the bartender and his magic wand because his Schwartz was as big as mine. The next day, Kelly and Mike showed up and we spent the weekend playing Pulse on our respective iPads and eating/drinking our faces off. Kelly ate some caterpillars. Lots more awesome things happened, but that is the thing that stands out - Kelly eating her way through a plate of caterpillars at Sticky Rice.

So that about brings us up to speed, and though I've missed some major things out (see bolded header), I feel better about blogging the Epic Austin Trip. Which I will do shortly to avoid further admonishments from StereoNinja. You don't want to piss off a ninja*.

*he is not a real ninja**.
*OR IS HE?