Answers That Aren't 42 And Also A Thing About My Birthday

MIXED NEWS, EVERYONE! I have finished and turned in both of my papers (yay!) which I am pretty sure are both complete garbage (boo). But I'm back for now and I'm going to write some blog posts, starting with answering the questions you guys left for me in the comments:

exoticchemist said...

I'm curious as to what exactly triggers you to feel homesick. Is it just randomly wishing you were back in the US? Missing family and friends? Or is it specifically the differences between the US and UK? Maybe this is a dumb question...

It's not a dumb question, but it is a hard one to articulate. For one thing, I am now having a completely different cultural experience from the rest of my countrymen. While I don't miss snow (AT ALL), and I certainly don't want to be living in temperatures that can kill you in minutes, the whole polar vortex episode was hard on me because I felt...I don't know, left out. I still like to imagine that I am from Chicago and Chicago is my home and everyone at home was having this shitty but nevertheless collective experience and I wasn't there. And what made it worse was the UK was having a different collective experience with seriously damaging flooding seemingly everywhere, which is the experience I had, but it was the wrong one. And by the way, I'm crying right now. Sure I miss my family and my friends, but I can talk to them because the internet is magic. What I can't do is go back in time to when everyone was at the terrifying weather party and show up this time and be in on the jokes and know the stories.

Maya's comment was spot fucking on, and I really just wanted to post it and write "THIS ------>" next to it, but I'll elaborate instead. Maya said this: " I think, for me anyway, it was the fact that most things in the UK are so similar to North America that the differences, even the little ones, felt like a personal affront." I would say especially the little ones; the kind of things you never notice until they are different. In America, almost invariably, when you go inside a public building you just walk into it without breaking stride because the door is going to shut behind you. But in England where many of the buildings are older than my country, you walk into the building and you have to remember to shut the door behind you or it will just swing in the wind until the person at the desk gets up and closes it while glaring at you. There are no screens in the windows because there aren't that many bugs; you go shopping several times a week because the bread and the vegetables haven't been engineered to last for 2 months; the toilet doesn't flush the same way. I cannot fucking find wax paper at the store - grease proof baking paper is the closest thing. I know these things all sound dumb and petty because they are, but they add up into this sick feeling that this is not your home, no matter how much you want it to be.

Ok, that was sad. Let's do a different one:

Anonymous said...

44 degrees celcius here in Australia today, nature is bi-polar (and yeah that whole global warming thing). my question - did you ever choose a stripper name? or did I miss the big reveal in one of your posts?

Well anonymous, I'm pretty sure all of North America hates you right now, despite the fact that if it were 44 degrees there (111 F) they would be complaining that it was too hot. I did choose a stripper name and I did write a (half-assed) post about it. For the show I went with Phoebe Moon because I am a nerd. Now that I am in the UK however, I'll be using Poppy Cox because it's better and people get that joke here.

S said...

What have you learned about Brits/Britain by living here that you didn't learn by visiting?

Many many things, actually. I've learned that the words "noodle" and "pasta" are in no way interchangeable. In related news, I've learned that I'll need to bring a shit ton of Ramen back with me when I visit the states because the equivalents here are yucky in comparison. I've learned that people will fall over laughing if you pronounce squirrel as "skwerl". I've learned that driving students aren't allowed on the motorway, which means that when people get their first driving license, they have not learned to drive on one, which seems kind of dumb. Just last week I learned that when I say "look at those cans" no one realizes I'm talking about boobs. I've learned what stollen is, and that I hate it (raisins. why must everybody ruin perfectly good bakery with raisins? Knock it off already). I've learned that Christmas tree skirts aren't a thing here. I've learned that StereoNinja can't say prosciutto correctly. One thing that I already knew, but can't seem to get used to is being greeted with the phrase "You all right?". The American equivalent would be "How are you?". "You all right?" is what you would ask if someone just fell down the stairs or slipped on some black ice and landed on their head or just was walking around looking all sad. So whenever I'm asked that I immediately am confused about why they think I might not be all right. Gets me every time.

Thank you all for your questions. I like answering questions, so send more if you like and ask about whatever you want: stuff about me or why do Americans do that weird thing or where can I buy dildos or what is it about Patrick Stewart that makes him so sexy or Chris Christie, seriously, wtf is with that guy - whatever you want.

I'm not going to do a birthday wrap up post because it was overshadowed by paper writing and homesickness, but I did want to mention that StereoNinja bought me a telescope. HE BOUGHT ME A TELESCOPE. A FUCKING TELESCOPE. This feeling that I'm feeling is I think what it would be like for a normal person if their partner bought them a surprise Ferrari or a diamond as big as their hand. I HAVE A TELESCOPE YOU GUYS, and I live somewhere that I can actually use it. If it ever stops being shitty weather, that is.

A Question Deserves An Answer

Anonymous said... 

Where for art thou Amberance? 

10:49 PM 

Very good question, anonymous. It's been a rough couple of months. Moving to a new country, even one that you love, is emotionally more difficult than it is possible to prepare for. Christmas, which is normally my FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD, was mostly a nightmare, and my birthday, which is Sunday and which I would normally have been reminding you all about on a daily basis for the last six weeks is only being observed at all this year to appease StereoNinja, who has made it very clear that my strategy of hiding in the bedroom ignoring him (and everyone else) while failing to engage in any of my beloved hobbies (blogging, my birthday, gratuitous nudity) is no longer acceptable. Having now spoken to a number of people who have already done this, I've had to severely lower my expectations for the foreseeable future, as the collective wisdom of those who have gone before me is that I will continue to burst into tears at completely random intervals due to vicious and overwhelming homesickness for at least 18 months. I don't even want to talk about how miserable I was on New Years, though at least I managed to leave Devon the day before it disappeared into the sea.

I have two papers due in a week, so as I said in November, let me get those written and turned in, and then check back here as I plan to reward myself by writing the next Fifty Shades review and/or going to Prague (oh yeah, I've decided I want to spend a weekend in Prague though I have absolutely no idea what is actually in Prague or why I want to go there - my main motivation seems to be the ability to say "When I was in Prague over the weekend..." - so advice on what I should actually DO in Prague would be lovely). I've been ready to write it for a while actually, but have been putting it off because I felt that I was upset about the wrong things and was trying to adjust my rage to match my logic. It hasn't worked, so I'm just going to write it the way I'm feeling it and then pack my bags for my journey to Hades since I am a terrible person.

Where I am at this very minute is sitting in my living room looking out at the sea. While all you guys in the U.S. have been at the travelling Antarctica Experience exhibition this week (the first time I saw someone write "Chiberia" made me laugh much harder than was probably warranted), the U.K. has been dealing with its own disastrous weather since roughly Christmas, mostly in the form of massive rainstorms combined with extremely high tides and a recent habit of building homes on floodplains. In typical British fashion, this was described on the news in the most hilariously understated way possible as "unusual weather". Living on an island in the Thames as I do, it is impossible not to notice. The field directly across the river from us which is typically filled with sheep first became a lake (which I named Lake Titicacao because tits! and chocolate! and I'm a massive child!) and then a few days ago even that was swallowed up and now the whole thing is just part of the river. Our marina is entirely flooded, the water covering not only the gangway that goes around the outside of the marina but also the first two steps leading up to our garden It is an inch from covering the third, which would leave only two more stairs before we go from living on riverfront property to living in the actual river. There are two roads leading into the island, but only one road that leads away from it, and that road is also flooded, meaning I actually drove my car through the Thames twice this morning. I was lucky I made it through - on my way back, there were two cars stranded on the road who had tried to drive through the river but were too low profile to get through and were now stranded in non-working cars waiting for rescue. If the river doesn't crest today I may be stranded here all weekend. Every once in a while, a helicopter flies over and I imagine them looking down at us and saying "Yep, still flooded." I think I should write a really rude message for them or draw some tits so their day will be more interesting.

Anyway, give me a week to finish my papers and I will write you guys a scathing review about how E.L. James has apparently never been to a bank and being threatened with rape is super romantic. 

P.S. I have enjoyed answering this question. Feel free to send me more questions you would like answers to and I'll answer them in a future blog post. It will be like a conversation!

Party Game Review

As I mentioned previously, StereoNinja bought me the Fifty Shades party game for my birthday, and I thought it would be a good idea to familiarize myself with it a little bit before I brought it to Birmingham and London to torture the rest of you with it. Which I filmed because of course I did. THIS IS GOING TO BE EPICLY BAD YOU GUYS. I CAN'T WAIT TO MEET ALL OF YOU.

Birthday Wrap Up

HOLY CRIZAPPLE YOU GUYS. Thank you SO MUCH for all the amazing birthday wishes here and on Twitter, especially since I barely reminded anyone about it this year! And also greetings to my birthday twins Lola Cherry Cola and Cat Spinster - I hope you both had as wonderful of a day as I did. Because I did. You know why? Because StereoNinja bought me the stupid Fifty Shades party game we're going to be playing at the UK meet ups and you guys, YOU GUYS, it is FUCKING TERRIBLE. I made a video for you of me opening and examining the contents of the box. Let me tell you something, it is a fucking scene inside that box. Unfortunately it won't be ready for a few days because my esteemed video editor is doing actual work that he gets paid for, but that and the spare notes from 11-13 will be up soon.

Other things I got for my birthday:

• Books (good ones, not this "erotic" novel crap)
• Dalek socks (which I hope won't exterminate my toes)
• A giant Reese's peanut butter heart that I plan to crack open and eat the peanut butter out of with a spoon (THERE'S NO WRONG WAY TO EAT A REESE'S DAMN IT)
• A pirate Santa (I'll say that again. Pirate. Santa.)
• Drunk with my coworkers Thursday night, a night that culminated in my patented sleeping on the bathroom floor move, a raging hangover all day Friday, exactly zero desire to drink on my birthday, and no posts over the weekend (sorry). Also there were feathers EVERYWHERE.

VERY IMPORTANT NEWS

While I was in Cleveland a week ago, after a long day of visiting family and watching three hour long musicals and having dinner with a friend of my stepmother who told me she read all three Fifty Shades books in one weekend while I bit my tongue until it bled, I made a video of my spare notes from Chapters 9-10 in my parents basement. It's not my best work, I have to say - I was tired (see previous sentence), I really didn't have a lot of notes from those chapters because almost nothing happened in them, and I found a giant fish pillow which was very distracting.

 

 I promise the next one will be better. I have deliberately left some things out of my review because I wanted to yell about them on camera. And James packed the last three chapters with sentences that are so poorly constructed they should be taken out behind the shed and shot. It should be a good time.

In completely unrelated but VERY VERY important news, SATURDAY IS MY BIRTHDAY. I think I may have already gotten my best present already - the hockey strike ended this weekend and it seems there will be some games this year after all, great news since I have serious concerns about being able to watch hockey next season and it might be my last chance. Then again, StereoNinja is being very secretive about something he's mailed to my office, so maybe not. I hope it's sex toys. And of course, if anyone out there could convince Hannah Hart to tweet me a personal birthday greeting you would make my entire life. But just so we're all clear, the important part of today's post is that everyone is made aware of my upcoming birthday. Saturday.

More Lame Excuses

I've started writing a couple different posts for today, but one will never be finished in time (the next review, which will only cover two chapters because HOLY BALLS ALL OF THE STUPID), and the other one I got 90% finished with before I realized I wasn't emotionally prepared to post that announcement yet (or maybe I am, but I need to talk to a few more people so they don't find out the news from my blog instead of in person because they will be maybe not so pleased if I tell the entire internets first). So basically, you get a new review tomorrow!, a new video maybe tomorrow, but definitely soon (it's being edited), and a major life announcement whenever I stop dragging my feet and tell my family anything that goes on in my life.

In much more important news, there are ONLY 47 DAYS LEFT UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY.

NaBloPoMo = Amberance Is Out Of Excuses

NaBloPoMo is starting today, which means I have no choice but to cease being lazy and write some damn blog posts already. It is hard to come up with something to write every single day for 30 days in a row, which is why I will now FINALLY be getting around to reading that last Fifty Shades book on behalf of all of you. I'll also tell you about my trip which I'd promised to do a month ago, start talking about Christmas way too early for most of you, and repeatedly remind you that my birthday is a mere two and a half months away.

Today, I am happy to report that my best friend H-Town and her lovely wife and daughter who live in Baltimore are all doing ok after the hurricane. The power is back on at their house after being out about a day and a half, and they are in the process of helping out people who didn't fare as well, including this blog post from H-Town about things you can do to help.

One other note: I am probably being overly ambitious with this, but in addition to participating in NaBloPoMo on Bizzybiz, I am also going to participate elsewhere on the internets IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. If you do know what I mean, don't run over there right this second - I haven't written for today yet because, come on, I am at work you perverts. I'll work on something at Tai's tonight (hopefully without any creepy dudes looking over my shoulder) and post it tonight before I go to bed.

My sincerest apologies to Xenu for the extreme delay in doing any of the things I have promised to do this autumn.

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.

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?

Day Twelve And I'm A Bit Busy For This Today

This afternoon my fake cousin Kelly will be married to Michael, and with any luck, I will be drunk before dark.

More importantly, today marks two months until my birthday.

Priorities.

SOON! Well, Not Really That Soon, But Still.

My cousin(ish) Kelly, who is super awesome and loves me so much, had all these airline credits that she needed to use up before they expired. So guess what she did. Can you guess? She booked a trip to Chicago to come see me.

FOR MY BIRTHDAY.

Which is not only THE MOST EPIC BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER but also has given me a perfect excuse to talk about my mid January birthday in late July. You guys. This might be the best thing that has ever happened to me.

The planning, of course, began immediately. My party is officially called "Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Celebration Extravaganza: Now With MORE KELLY!" and features EPIC CAKE (to be announced), party hats for everyone!, possibly some partial nudity and some sort of THINGS! THINGS I tell you! It is not to be missed. Do so at your own peril, because later when everyone is like "Wasn't Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Extravaganza with More Kelly the best birthday party that has ever been held at any time on this globe?" you will have to be like "I don't know, I wasn't there" and then everyone will be like "Whoa, way to kill the mood there, Debbie Downer" and then there will be an awkward silence and it will be all your fault and they will think twice about offing you any leftover epic cake. So, you know, probably you should pencil it in.

The Post That Is More Of The "Holy Fuck It's Finally My Birthday" Variety

The holidays are officially over and that can only mean one thing: it's about to be my muthafuckin' birthday, y'all. In fact, it's Wednesday, but feel free to start getting your drink on RIGHT NOW. As Supreme Ruler of the month of January (because that's when my birthday is) I officially give you permission and encourage you to start celebrating my birthday right this minute, as well as retroactively back to the beginning of this year, and for the duration of this entire month.

As crazy as I normally am about my birthday, and as many of you know about my birthday celebrating, you can't stop me, you can only hope to contain me, this year I have been particularly looking forward to it ever since June. Why June? Because that's when my beloved Chicago Blackhawks won their first Stanley Cup title in 50 years, and almost immediately after that I made the decision to build my own confectionery Stanley Cup out of cake for my birthday (really it was almost immediately. Toews hoisted the cup, and passed it to Hossa, who shares my birthday like the fucking rockstar he is, and I looked at my birthday twin holding the cup over his head and thought, "I'm fucking eating that on my birthday." I don't know how my brain works, I only know that it does.)

Since then I've been doing a lot of research. The actual Stanley Cup is approximately a foot and a half wide at its base and about 3 feet tall. Duff made a full size replica Stanley Cup cake for a wedding on whatever the fuck cake making show he's on (I don't watch it, I just found a clip of it when I googled "how to make a Stanley Cup cake". They had the actual Stanley Cup brought into the bakery to use as a reference which is flat out fucking unfair, in my opinion) and was expecting it to serve 300 people. I don't actually know 300 people, nor do I have the kind of resources to make that huge of a cake (I had to buy a tiara and a princess wand so everyone would know it was my birthday, after all - I'm not fucking made of money people) so I had to scale it down. My cake will be 9 inches wide and about a foot and a half tall and I expect it to take 5-7 boxes of cake to complete. By the way, don't even think about getting up my ass about using boxed cake for this. I'm making the frosting from scratch because I make the best fucking frosting in the world and also, I'M BUILDING THE STANLEY CUP OUT OF CAKE which is a lot of work as it is, and I am not going to also make cake batter from scratch because believe it or not I have other shit to do, such as my job. Besides, boxed cake is moist and delicious and spongy and I have absolutely no reason to be ashamed.

Even scaled down that much, there's no way I can transport that tall of a cake from my third floor dwelling to Tai's and have it stay in one piece, so I'll have the additional challenge of having to assemble, ice and decorate most of it sitting at the bar. I've also had to work out a great deal of structural engineering for support, because anyone who bakes tiered cakes knows, if you don't secure them with cardboard and sticks on the inside, it will either start to resemble the leaning tower of Pisa or collapse in on itself like so many legendary Vegas casinos torn down in the interest of newer, shinier Vegas casinos. Keep it tuned here for photos, kids - this cake is going to be legendary, regardless of whether it turns out to be my greatest triumph or most soul crushing failure (it won't be - it's my birthday, and on my birthday there is no failure, only magic and rainbows and kittens).

But enough about cake - let's talk about the other things that make my birthday the most awesome day on the calendar. Such as the tea party I'm having at work on my birthday. BrownsFan suggested it jokingly when I mentioned I didn't want to make a cake for work because I am making such an enormous one for the bar. "You know, with scones. And cucumber sandwiches," she teased. She really ought to know better, because instead of being all "haha motherfucker", I gasped with joy and immediately began making plans to subject my co-workers to tiny cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. I will also be eating crab legs for dinner on Wednesday because that's what the bartender and I have for dinner any time it's one of our birthdays (or half birthdays. Or if we just found some money lying around. Or if one of us goes to Costco on a Saturday. We like crab legs, ok?).

And then there's the presents. The comic has had some sort of stroke or something and decided a birthday gift was in order, which I am suspicious of, because he rarely buys people things that aren't booze and it is obvious he's up to something. Also, the bartender keeps hinting at a gift that is going to trump my Christmas gifts (many of which actually were booze because my roommate totally gets me). As for myself, I've bought an ensemble of frilly red things, the aforementioned tiara and princess wand so everyone will know it's my birthday (the bartender: "Right. Because there's any possibility that people aren't going to know whose birthday it is.") and I am going to the toy store on my way home tomorrow for a new toy (or seven, you can never have enough toys). I will NOT be buying myself another 3000 piece puzzle, possibly ever again, because I can't build them anymore - the cat steals pieces out of the box and hides them and also she likes to knock the parts I've completed onto the floor as if to say "That's what you get. Now get your shit off my table." Even the TV executives wanted to get me something nice: tomorrow, on my birthday eve, Comedy Central starts airing new episodes of the brilliant Tosh.0 and it is totally because they KNEW it was my birthday and they wanted me to be happy (that is also why the new Social Distortion album comes out next week. For real). Fuckin' A.

I'll keep you guys updated on the progress of the greatest birthday cake of all time and about how awesome the next few days are going to be as time allows. I don't know if you heard, but it's my birthday and there will be too much awesome happening to really be online much. But don't worry, you'll be too busy celebrating my birthday to really notice.

Amberance: Nerdtastic

I just got off the phone with MrSteve. He was checking on the plans for my birthday party, seeing as how it's almost my birthday (there is another post coming which will be more of the HOLY FUCK IT'S FINALLY MY BIRTHDAY variety, don't worry). MrSteve has crossed over to the dark side into Grownupdom, what with his house and his family and his job having nonsense, and every time he calls I needle him about it because it amuses the crap out of me. While reminding him how hilarious it is that he does grown up stuff like commuting and lawn care, the conversation took a turn for the geek.

Me: Speaking of being an adult, 33 is the coming-of-age age for a hobbit, so according the the hobbits I'm going to be a grown up now.

MrSteve (with horror and disdain): Oh my god. I mean, [the actress] and I joke around about which one of us is the bigger nerd, but you are just...wow.

Me: Well I think it's because I have a variety of nerdery. I'm not just a sci-fi nerd, or just a iPad nerd. I have a lot of different nerd interests.

MrSteve: You're a broad ranging nerd.

Me: Yes. It's important to be a multi-faceted nerd. In increases your chances of meeting someone you don't actually want to date.

The Insanity Has Begun

It's getting to be that time of year when I go completely insane*. The two biggest events of the year are right around the corner: Christmas, the best holiday ever invented, and then the most glorious day of all days, MY BIRTHDAY.

Yes, I do know it's September and that Christmas starts in November** and my birthday is in January. I am running out of time! There is planning to do! For the inevitable Christmas cross-stitching marathon, I have patterns to design and thread to buy. More importantly, I have to brush up on my knowledge of structural engineering.

Why? I'm glad you asked.

Faithful readers of Bizzybiz, prepare yourselves for the Greatest Birthday Cake of All Time. Seriously. My volcano cake from a few years back? Child's play. The Flying Spaghetti Monster cake? Amateur hour. The Death Star cake and accompanying X-Wing and Tie Fighter cakes? Pure crap. This cake, my friends, this cake is going to be such a triumph you will cry tears of joy at the majesty of it. You will be at odds with yourself wanting to eat it because you know it will taste like love and rainbows but also not wanting to eat it because if you do you won't be able to look at it and bask in the glow of the heavenly light that surely will be shining down upon it. Provided that I can fortify this delicious monument to my birth enough to keep it standing up and to transport it from my kitchen to the bar - hence my needing a tutorial in How To Build Things That Don't Immediately Fall Over.

As I said at the beginning, it is that time of year.

*as opposed to my normal baseline level of insane.
**The 40 Days of Christmas, invented not by me but someone else (in all fairness someone equally as unbalanced as I am), begins on November 16th for those who have not been around in previous years to roll their eyes at me.

At Long Last, The Birthday Recap

The first rule of fight club is that you don't talk about the fight club. The first rule of birthdays, however, is that you get your ass on the internets and point out how ridiculous you are to the entire world. I will belatedly do that now, although I'm not certain I really need to. The event was summed up pretty well in this comment from the bartender late the following afternoon, "So, what time did you get off the bathroom floor?"

The day started with me going to work. I had brought mini cupcakes for everyone, since no one else can be trusted to make me a proper birthday cake (except, perhaps, Mrs. Sizemore, who no longer lives here). I left them in the kitchen, which I also decorated with confetti. At my desk I taped up a sign next to a stack of party hats: "Anyone wishing to speak with me on my birthday must first don a party hat. No exceptions. Come on, it's fun!" This rule was amazingly (and awesomely) followed by every single person in the office, including our outside web designer who had come in for a meeting with us and conducted said meeting with a slightly askew party hat on the entire time. I also insisted that pizza be purchased for a lunchtime birthday party, and that everyone sing to me before I blew out the candle I had brought and stuck into my first slice.

I repeated the demand for singing and hat wearing when I got home and scrounged up a couple of neighbors for a quickie party before the bartender and I got dressed to go out. Then we headed for Delilah's. Downstairs Pretty Sean was spinning hardcore, but paused long enough to make an announcement that it was my birthday and that everyone should clap and cheer because I am awesome. Upstairs, which is where we settled in for the night, my friend Machetti was tending bar and playing every single song I asked him to, because it was my birthday and on my birthday I get whatever I want. He also showed off his newest tattoos: a pair of Civil War era cannons, one on each bicep, intended to illustrate his "gun show". The bartender rolled his eyes, but I thought they were awesome. Our arrival was followed in short order by that of Eric (who works there), Corporal (the adorable skinhead/ex-Marine) and Ritchie the cop (who I had never met before, but had been invited to my party by the bartender because he lives across the street). This would prove to eventually lead to my downfall. You see, I was already drinking cider that was way more alcoholed than both normal cider AND the ridiculously alcoholed cider I normally drink at Delilah's. I was therefore in no shape for what I was about to do next, which was accept every shot anyone offered to buy for me. As I have stated many a time, shot drinking is against my normal policy both because I am a giant pussy and because I am not at all fun to babysit when I am uber drunk. Being as it was my birthday though, I chose to ignore this rule: It's against the law to be a huge pussy on one's birthday and too bad if my inanity needs to be reigned in by others, it's my birthday. So Machetti bought me a shot. Corporal bought me a shot. Eric bought me a shot. Pretty Sean, who kept coming upstairs to drink between sets thus providing me with brilliant birthday eye candy, bought me a shot. Ritchie bought me a shot. Machetti bought me another shot. Some total random at the other end of the bar who heard it was my birthday bought me a shot. The only person who did not buy me a shot was the bartender as he was already buying all my normal drinks and also he knows better.

Now, the thing I said before about people having to babysit me when I drink to extremes? This is mainly because I get lippy. I once went out with my pretend cousin Steve and a friend of his for a night on the town in Buffalo. At first it was fun for everyone: an ex-girlfriend appeared and had no idea who I was, a fact we used to torture her, and some kind of outdoor festival was going on - I vaguely remember saying really funny things about port-a-potties. At some point though, I got it into my head that what we needed to do was go find strippers. The boys thought not. I was shit-faced. The end result of this was us standing in the patio area of a bar getting stared at by everyone because I was angrily ranting screaming that it was OBVIOUS we should be at a strip club and the only reason they wouldn't take me was because I'm a GIRL and if MY BROTHER were visiting instead of me they would be at a strip club RIGHT NOW having fun, but NOOOOO, they were going to be TOTAL ASSHOLES because they CAN'T HANDLE IT that their FEMALE cousin wants to go to a strip club and GODDAMMIT I WANT A LAP DANCE. They took me home, Steve put me to bed, and they went back out, presumably to meet up with less crazy people who can control themselves in public.

I told you that story so that you might better understand why it was that after drinking a bunch of shots and escaping the bartender's watchful eye, I thought it would be a good idea to 1) Give my patented and extremely detailed lessons on hair-pulling to Ritchie, who I had known for an hour; 2) Vociferously advocate for anal sex to some girl that I didn't know at all; 3) Inform Machetti of where he could go to find a collection of my erotic musings and 4) Give him my number in case he wanted to provide feedback. I can't even imagine what else I might have gotten myself into if the bar hadn't closed and Jeff and I took a cab over to Tai's. Much less trouble is to be had at Tai's, because there everyone will babysit me.

I remember basically nothing from Tai's other than arriving and someone buying me a shot of sambuca. I have some fuzzy recollections of getting out of the cab at home and the bartender telling me he was going to go to the gas station and buy a paper. I have zero recollection of asking him to buy me string cheese for some reason - I was told about that the next day. Likewise I have no memory of going up the stairs or getting in my apartment. At some point, as per my now established custom, I woke up on the bathroom floor. I had pulled my towel over me as a blanket and there was a washcloth laying on the floor which I must have thought would make a nice pillow. I crawled to bed and stayed there until a quarter after 5 in the afternoon, when I only got up because I heard the bartender getting up.

Which is where I left off at the beginning with bartender asking, "So, what time did you get off the bathroom floor?" I had no idea, nor did I know precisely how many times I vomited while I was there. "See? That's why you don't drink sambuca," he told me, certain that the sambuca was the obvious problem and not the other nine shots.

I spent the rest of the evening on the couch with my back to the television and only got up to go back in my room and go to bed, thus proving that my birthday was a total success.

Coming Soon! My Birthday!

I can't believe how little I've been mentioning my birthday over the last month. Like seriously, what have I been doing, celebrating Christmas or something? It's a week from today, just so you know, and I will be 32, so if you want to get me 32 little presents instead of one big present I'd be cool with that. Hint: I have inadvertently started a Pez dispenser collection owing to MrSteve and Gene Honda buying me so many on other birthdays and Pez dispensers are cheap (plus if you want you can go ahead and eat the candy instead of giving it to me since I'm only after the severed head part).

Planning has begun in earnest and by planning I mean running around in a panic because I have no idea how I want to decorate my cake and hitting up every person who has ever met me for ideas. Those ideas were fruitless either because they were even more crap than my own ideas or because I am lazy and they seemed too ambitious to tackle, especially given that I work exclusively in buttercream now after last year's fondant debacle. Also, H-town suggested a Darth Vader helmet which would be perfect if I hadn't done the Death Star last year, but I don't want to come off as a one dimensional geek who only makes herself Star Wars related cakes. I am a geek on many levels thankyouverymuch.

My current best cake idea is a Flying Spaghetti Monster cake. This would be advantageous for a number of reasons: it would be relatively simple to do (i.e. noodly appendages are not hard to draw in frosting), MrSteve is almost guaranteed to show up just to see the cake, it gives me an excuse to wear an eye patch and a pirate hat (and also make others wear them) and any reason to use googly eyes on something is always a good reason.

I have also purchased my present to myself and am waiting for Amazon to send it. It is a 3000 piece jigsaw puzzle of Pablo Picasso's Guernica painting, which is all black and white. It is clear that deep down inside I despise myself and want to make my fun hobbies into a never ending hell of frustration and pain.

One week to go. The countdown has begun.

Airing Of The Grievances

One year at my birthday party (speaking of my birthday, which, as a reminder, is two months from yesterday)back when Cap, Kelly, Simmy and I were kids, we ran into a bit of a problem and being the bright and creative children that we were, set about trying to solve it with a ridiculous plan that only a group of crazy children could come up with.

The problem, you see, was that we wanted cake and ice cream and we were being made to wait what we felt was an outrageously lengthy amount of time. I think the issue was that we were waiting on a couple of relatives that were on their way, but hadn't shown up yet. We'd asked about it several times and kept being told, "Not yet, we have to wait for so-and-so to get here" and it was starting to get exasperating. As I recall, I don't think I'd opened presents yet either for the same reason, so we were all starting to get antsy on two accounts. The last time we asked, we were finally told no AND to stop asking. We retreated to my room to ponder another way to try and get our way.

What we came up with was that we would go on strike. I don't know what led us to the conclusion that this might work. For starters, we clearly had no idea what a strike even was. We weren't a union, after all. Hell, we weren't even responsible for any party time chores like dish washing that we could threaten to not do. We had absolutely nothing against which to leverage our demands. All we knew was it involved signs and marching, and that when the people on tv did it they seemed to eventually get their way.

We set about making our placards. We grabbed the markers and all of the poster board in the house that was meant for school projects and colorfully wrote on them things like "Presents NOW!" and "We want cake and ice cream!" Some of them we poked holes in the top and tied them together with yarn to make sandwich boards. When all was ready, we took our messages and marched down the stairs and into the dining room with them shouting "Kids on strike! Kids on strike!" certain that this was the answer.

It was not. The adults were not at all convinced that our efforts warranted dessert. What they were certain of was that we were fucking hilarious. They laughed at us until tears ran down their faces, and while normally we would have been pleased to have entertained everyone so well, on this occasion we were very put out by it because we were being absolutely serious. It was not the reaction we expected or wanted and when they stopped laughing long enough to say again "No, you're not getting cake" we turned and, defeated, trudged back up to my room. We didn't know what to do. We had no other plan. At some point we went downstairs and tried it again, hoping that they would give us cake because we were cute and hilarious, but we were told it was only funny the first time.

I don't remember much else from that day. We must have gotten the cake and ice cream eventually, otherwise I would REALLY remember that day as "the day I got fucked out of cake on my birthday". Oh and don't worry, on my birthday this year (in two months) you won't have to go on strike to avoid getting fucked out of birthday cake - I will have it ready and waiting when you show up with your pointy hats to sing to me.

It's Coming! It's Coming!

I wanted to let everyone know that today marks two months until that most glorious of days - my birthday. I just wanted to make sure that everyone has plenty of time to prepare. With Thanksgiving upon us and Christmas right around the corner, I understand how easy it would be to forget and let it slip through the cracks, but have no fear! I will make sure to update you periodically as my birthday approaches so you can ready yourself for the festival of cake and ice cream and plan your outfit around the color of the party hats I'm going to make all of you wear. And Christmas caroling is a great warm up for all the "Happy Birthday" and "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow" you'll be singing (I need to find a way to combine "Happy Birthday" with "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" so it will last longer. Whose idea was it to have such a ridiculously short song at birthday celebrations? Asshat). So again, let me just reiterate: There are two months until my birthday. Get ready.

May The Cake Be With You

My birthday, of course, was fabulous because by default my birthday is simply a fabulous day. But it was also good because I made everyone pay attention to me and wear stupid party hats. Also because I could finally unveil the great cake. Behold, the Death Star Birthday Cake:


That's no moon.

I had originally planned to have a more exacting replica by icing it with fondant, until I realized that fondant sucks, as was perfectly summed up in this conversation with Mrs. Sizemore:

Mrs. Sizemore: hallo miss lady
how was your bday?

me: It was great. Except here's what I learned:
Fondant? I hate fondant.

Mrs. Sizemore: ooo
yeah
fondant is a bitch
and it does not taste good
it's like an ugly chick that doesn't put out

Of course, since I am me, I could not simply settle for one awesome Death Star cake with delicious delicious buttercream frosting. I had to flank it with images of an intergalactic war:


For the non-nerds: TIE fighters, Death Star, x-wing fighter.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good piping bag at your side, kid. The epic battle between good and evil is deliciously sugary and goes great with milk.

My Birthday

I would be remiss if I didn't remind all my readers that Monday is my birthday. Particularly since I have been reminding all of my friends. Multiple times a day. Sometimes repeatedly in one conversation. My birthday. Monday. I'm still unclear as to why this major event is not a national holiday. My birthday, that is. Which is on Monday.

I have already begun the awesomeness (which will culminate on Monday in the form of my birthday) by:

• Buying myself the most freaking fantastic computer game ever created in the history of mankind (Shiv and Lemon does not qualify as it has never actually been created), which is called Crayon Physics Deluxe. I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for this game to finally come out and suddenly this week there it was. They must have known that my birthday is this coming Monday. Check it out. It is more addictive than Tetris and Sudoku combined, for serious.
• Planning out the most bitchin' birthday cake in the history of mankind. I don't want to ruin the surprise though, so check back some time after my birthday (Monday) for the sure to be stunning photographs of the most awesome cake of all time.

So, to recap: My birthday is Monday, and it will be glorious.