Wednesday, February 22, 2012

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

Thursday, February 16, 2012

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.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

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.