What Does This Sound Look Like?

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I have synesthesia. Specifically, in some sounds I can hear shapes and/or light forms, and I also have a spacial sequence form of synesthesia in which I have always experienced months and dates as being fixed points in space. I know right, what the hell am I talking about?

For most of my life, I didn't know this wasn't how everyone experiences the world. Then one day I made on offhand comment when I was watching a baseball game with my family that Tony Gwynn "has the roundest voice I have ever heard" (BECAUSE HE DOES) and a room full of people turned around and looked at me as if I had spontaneously sprouted a second head and said head was that of a giraffe. Of course, I now know that I have an amazing superpower as well as an explanation for my eerily good recall of dates. However, my ability to explain what it's like is basically limited to reciting my theory that the reason people use drugs like acid is so they can feel the same way I feel all of the time. It's not explainable. I don't see the space calendar, I don't see any shapes floating around when Tony Gwynn starts talking, it just is fixed in space, it is round. See, totally clear now isn't it?

Anyway the whole point of telling you this is that this video is amazing, and the sand thing provides a better example of what I'm talking about than my shitty explanations could ever approach and that's not even the best part of the video. The water, you guys. The water and the coil. Dude.

What It's Like To Live With Me

StereoNinja: What movie is the one with the Ewoks? Is that Empire?

Me: No, it's Return of the Jedi.

StereoNinja: Oh that's right. (pause, writes something on his phone) And what do you call those other little guys, at the very beginning, with the hoods?

Me: Jawas.

StereoNinja: That's it! (goes back to writing)

long pause...

Me: ASK ME MORE STAR WARS QUESTIONS.

Buying Apples in Essex Is Entirely Rational, So Shut Up.

You know your partner digs you when you announce that you need to go on a two hour drive for the purpose of buying apples, and his response is to book you into a bed and breakfast nearby.

For a country that is essentially one massive farm dotted here and there with cities, there seems to be dearth of decent farm shops, at least within a reasonable, non-crazy person distance of where I live. I recognize, of course, that growing up just south of Cleveland as I did, my access to Mapleside Apple Farm, where my family went at least once a year to buy Halloween pumpkins and a massive amount of baking apples for pies, and where I had at one time planned to get married, gives me a very biased opinion of what constitutes a "good" farm shop. Nevertheless, I feel like a farm shop where I ask "What apples do you have that would be good for baking?" and the woman sitting in the doorway of the dingy, decrepit barn that serves at the "shop" scowls at me and says "That one" while pointing at the only box of apples visible in the entire place could probably be topped. So I googled my face off, and the only thing I managed to find where they seemed to both know shit about apples and also grow more than one variety was a fruit farm whose address is listed on their website as being "near Frinton-on-Sea". I insisted on going.

"Near" Frinton-on-Sea is just over two hours away from here and halfway around the M25 (Hi, Americans. The M25 is an orbital highway that goes all the way around London, has only two rest stops, and is constantly rammed with traffic. Sometimes people don't know where to get off and go around and around it in circles until their family reports them missing to the police.), and as we left shortly after getting home from work without having eaten anything, we decided to stop for dinner in Colchester on the basis that it was a place we had both heard of. Turns out, Colchester is the oldest Roman city in Britain and was once the capital of Roman Britain. We had Italian.

The bed and breakfast StereoNinja booked us into for the night was not in Frinton-on-Sea, mainly because there is nothing IN Frinton-on-Sea. We stayed instead at the Chudleigh in Clacton-on-Sea, the most English bed and breakfast in all the world. When we called them to say we'd be in rather late, the woman's response was "Oh, yes, we just beginning to worry about you!" as though we were people they actually knew. The whole place smells like your grandparent's house in the best way possible and despite its recent renovation, the decor appears to have time traveled there from the 50's. It is amazing and has the world's fluffiest pillows. At breakfast the next day, when I ordered shredded wheat and toast, the woman serving breakfast spent a good ten minutes trying to convince me to order "something hot" because what I had ordered is apparently "not breakfast". StereoNinja had a plate of meat which seems to have been an acceptable choice. I'm going to be staying there every time I go to Clacton-on-Sea now, which will be a lot because it is the most perfectly stereotypical seaside town in all of the world, or as I described it to StereoNinja, "It's like Venice Beach without all the assholes and stupid crap."

The Park Fruit Farm is exactly what it claims to be: a fruit farm. And the farm shop I had such high hopes for is in a relatively small and nondescript barn, BUT that barn has a wide variety of apples, all of which have actual information about when they grow, when they're ready for use, how long they keep, what their apple heritage is, what uses they're good for and their flavor profiles WHICH IS EXACTLY HOW YOU SHOULD SELL APPLES. And! It smells exactly like Mapleside's farm shop, which is exactly what I wanted in a farm shop without realizing it. AND! They even had apples I KNEW, because they grow several varieties of apples that originate in America INCLUDING Johnagolds, which is one of the apples I used for pies back home. AND! fresh pressed applejuice, which StereoNinja managed to drink a quarter of the jug we bought before we even made it back to the car.

The whole trip was a resounding success really, and I'm already trying to figure out how to trick StereoNinja into going back there all the time. In the meantime, I'll just be over here making ALL of the pies.

Sorry, But You Knew This Post Was Coming

After that last post, you probably think I'm pretty miserable right now. But if you think that you'd be wrong: I am homesick; I am not, however, miserable. How could I be?

IT IS ALMOST CHRISTMAS YOU GUYS.

The one benefit to there being only a token nod to Halloween and no Thanksgiving at all is that Christmas stuff is EVERYWHERE. I've been in every kind of store from Nottcutts to Tesco to B&Q (rough American equivalents: Home Depot (the outside part), Meijer, Home Depot again (the inside part) and all of them have Christmas shit leaking out of every storifice (shut up, "storifice" is HILARIOUS). And the best part is, there is NO ONE AROUND to tell me I have to shut up about Christmas because "It's not Thanksgiving yet" or "For Christ's sake, Amber, can't we just enjoy Halloween right now" or "JESUS FUCK WILL YOU STOP SINGING FUCKING CHRISTMAS CAROLS IN MOTHERFUCKING JULY YOU ANNOYING ASSHOLE" (that last one may or may not still happen, but at least no one ever justifies it by invoking the fact that it's the 4th of July, so, you know, progress). And on the internet I found this and this and these and they are so amazing I CAN'T EVEN STAND IT. Oh yeah, AND, did you know that Seth MacFarlane put out a Christmas album this year? WELL HE DID, and his voice is like the softest, sexiest cashmere blanket and I want to have sex with it and then cuddle it forever.

Where was I? Oh yeah. CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

The Invasion Continues

I am hysterical right now.

I have mentioned before that this house has a spider problem. That problem is getting worse. StereoNinja sprays and sprays, and all that happens is they start showing up where he hasn't sprayed. Spray the corners? They move to the middle of the crown moulding. Spray the whole perimeter of the ceiling? They move down to the middle of the wall. Spray the walls? "Fine, we'll just crawl on the floor!" they laugh derisively.

It's a daily, multiple spider problem. I didn't write about it at the time because it was a happy post, but while I was cleaning the living room for my 4th of July party, I had to stop dusting just to the right of the television because just left of the television I could see four spiders clinging to the wall. Work ceased while StereoNinja eliminated those and the other ones he found that I hadn't seen on the adjacent wall and inside our wall sconce. I handled life fairly well after that, up until last week. One morning last week, I woke up at 6 a.m. for what seemed like no reason...until I lazily looked up toward the ceiling and discovered a spider hanging down over the bed, over ME, not three feet above my head. I slid out of the bed onto the floor and woke up StereoNinja. I must have used my OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO DIE voice because he woke up already in instant rescue mode. But then he had to coax me back into bed, because what if they were lined up somewhere I couldn't see waiting for their turn to try to GET ON ME while I was sleeping? What if they'd formed a colony behind the headboard and were going to swarm as soon as I closed my eyes? I didn't sleep the rest of the night.

Since then I've had to deal with spiders daily. I won't walk around the house without socks. I carry a can of spider spray with me everywhere I go, with the cap off, holding it in front of me like some kind of fucking sword. StereoNinja comes home every day to a report detailing where all the spider carcasses that I sprayed that day are so he can remove them and check the area for friends of theirs that might have come to mourn or to get revenge. I take lightening fast showers because I'm terrified of being in such an enclosed space. Today the fast shower didn't work. I had JUST got out and started drying myself when a spider decided to just mosey right across the door frame on my bedroom floor, no doubt laughing maniacally. Once it had passed, I ran out and jumped on the bed, where I had left my spider spray (I won't be making the mistake of not taking it into the shower with me again) and turned around... and then I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it because it was one of those skinny beige spiders with legs the thickness of human hair that like to hang out in bathrooms. And the carpet in my bedroom is, of course, beige. It is also covered in clumps of my hair because my hair is too long right now and when I brush it, it gets everywhere. All hairlike things immediately became suspect, as did my actual hair since if it got in my hair I wouldn't notice that it was ON ME until it was too late. It could be anywhere, and I was naked on top of the bed, clear across the room from my sock drawer. I texted "I'm trapped" to StereoNinja. And he called me and talked me into throwing the duvet on the floor to create a bridge to the door so I could escape. This was a less than perfect plan however, since beyond the door I still wouldn't be wearing socks and I didn't know what else was out there. Also my toothbrush was inside my bathroom which I a) could not get back to unless I was sure the spider wasn't in there and b) was terrified of getting trapped in. StereoNinja said to grab my toothbrush and go in his bathroom but I was adamant that I couldn't: "What if it went in the bathroom? It's one of those ones that likes the bathroom." I stood on the bed another five minutes psyching myself up. Eventually, I threw down the duvet and jumped on it like a drowning man who found a life raft floating by. And then screamed loud enough to wake up the entire island. The spider HAD gone into the bathroom and was already hard at work building a web from my counter to the door, and I had located my island of "safety" RIGHT FUCKING NEXT TO THE DOOR. I sprayed it and it took forever to die, but at least I knew where it was. Unfortunately, my toothbrush was behind the web it was building and it could have been ON my toothbrush for all I know. But I did at least get to grab some socks so I could go to a different part of the house.

The problem with the spiders is that the alarm response is cumulative, and every time another one appears it reinforces the idea that nowhere is safe. I checked the WHOLE bathroom for spiders before I got in that shower, only to have one attack me the moment I got out. Obviously vigilance will not save me. So when I say I'm hysterical right now, what I mean is, the entire time I've been typing this I am perched on the edge of the couch (that way I'm not touching the floor but can easily jump off if a spider crawls onto the couch - this has happened twice in the last few weeks) and I stop every few words to check, in this order: the perimeter of the ceiling, the rest of the walls, the floor immediately in front of me, the floor between me and the door, and the back of the couch behind me (with another look at the wall behind the couch and the ceiling behind the couch for good measure). I will do this in every room I go into, every doorway I go through, every time I get into my car, until a sufficient amount of time has passed between spider sightings that I eventually calm down. If I've seen one spider on one day this takes a couple of hours. If I've seen many spiders on one day it take many hours. If see some two days in a row it can take the better part of a week to calm down. If I keep seeing them, in multiples, for so many days in a row that I can't remember the last day I haven't encountered one...I don't actually know. I imagine it could take weeks. Which is where I am at right now.

I tried an app that is supposed to help with arachnophobia called "Phobia Free". It was developed by a psychologist who specializes in the area and features a pink cartoon spider with a bow in her hair called Itsy that barely looks like a spider to help you. I made it through most of the first three levels. But then it makes you play some games. In the first one you have to flick flies into a spider's web (not Itsy, a more normalish spider but still very cartoonish in shape and color) so it doesn't starve. I tried and tried but kept over shooting or under shooting until I finally realized that the only way to land the fly in the web was for your finger to go over the spider. That was as far as I got. I KNOW YOUR GAME, SPIDER APP THINGY, YOU CAN'T FOOL ME.

I came on here to write this hoping I could make it funny and that it would calm me down, but it hasn't really worked, and also does not appear to be all that funny. Not the way my other spider stories have been. This is not a joke anymore, you guys, it is EFFECTING MY SENSE OF HUMOR.


UPDATE: OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE. Since posting this at lunchtime, I have encountered seven, that's SEVEN, more spiders. The first was a huge one hanging out on the blinds at my therapist's office while I was in therapy. OH THANKS A LOT SPIDER DICK IT'S SO MUCH EASIER TO TALK ABOUT MY PROBLEMS WHEN MY BIGGEST ONE SHOWS UP AT THERAPY TO TAUNT ME. So I sat through an hour of CBT while staring at a thing in the corner lest it move and going over and over my escape plan if it did. So you know, I'm sure I made a ton of progress today. THEN, I left therapy and got in my car to go home. It's hot in my car because I need more coolant for my air conditioning, so I rolled down the window. And then rolled it right back up again as a startled spider I'd failed to notice dropped down and tried to get in my window, so the whole way home I was all FUCK NOW I'M TRAPPED IN MY CAR. Once comically removing myself from it (when the heat became unbearable and my choices were face a spider or actually die) I went in the house and found another five spiders, one in the kitchen and four in the living room. I haven't been back to my bedroom since this morning. I'm currently stress eating to pass the 4-5 hours before StereoNinja gets home. Sorry, MrBalls, I'm eating your american Doritos (I did warn you they'd get eaten if you didn't come rescue them).

SECOND UPDATE: Trying to do laundry. Laundry seems safe - I had StereoNinja check the laundry for spiders this morning, what could possibly go wrong? A SPIDER IN THE BOTTOM OF THE LAUNDRY BASKET, THAT'S WHAT. C'MON MAN, THIS IS NOT EVEN STATISTICALLY POSSIBLE ANYMORE.

THIRD UPDATE 7/24: StereoNinja went through the entire house when he got home that night, spraying things and killing dozens more that were hiding in corners I hadn't looked in. They're STILL HERE. Right this moment he is outside hosing down the house and spraying things and killing spiders he can't reach with a broom. He says he's killed about 100 on the outside of the house. Pretty sure I'm going to die.

They're Baaa-aack

I've been feeding the next door neighbors' cat all week because they are out of town. I say "neighbors' cat", but it's really a stray cat called Hissing Syd, who won't come within 10 feet of people, but who will sit exactly that distance from his food bowls and look around in judgement if they are empty when he gets there much in the way of a normal house cat. I grabbed the cat food and was about to walk through my back door when crumpled in the door jam I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in England. So big in fact, that I looked it over for some moments actually thinking "maybe it's not a spider. Maybe it's a scraggly piece of something that fell off of a bush." But nothing else in the world has leg joints in exactly those places. Nothing. I seriously didn't know they had spiders as big as this here. I think it must have followed me here from the U.S...from Texas probably (I'm made to understand everything is bigger there). It wasn't moving and looked as if it had been smushed by the door, so I made the assumption it was dead and closed the door on it. Then I grabbed the cat food, went out the front door (after very carefully checking the entire doorway for spiders, because if I missed something and then came back and there was one outside THAT door I wouldn't be able to get back in the house), walked halfway across the island to the common entrance to the marina, and then all the way back to their garden while muttering "ohgodohgodohgod" with my heart trying to escape from my chest the entire time to feed the goddamn cat. I am now back in my own house, have texted StereoNinja to inform him that I am NEVER GOING IN THE GARDEN EVER AGAIN. I am checking everything in the house for spiders before I touch it (I looked inside the Dorito bag) and experiencing a mild to moderate level of general panic that I know will subside gradually over the next few days UNLESS another spider appears.

What I hate about this phobia is not so much that it controls where I can go and what I can do - there are work arounds for that, obviously, as I've just walked clear across an island to feet a cat sitting 30 feet from my backyard - but the (I assume, I'm not a psychiatrist) post traumatic stress that I end up living with for days, sometimes weeks at a time. And the effect is cumulative: seeing another spider in that state doesn't just extend how long it lasts but heightens that feeling. I was already in that state before the incident today from a small spider I saw on the outside of my car a few days ago. I've walked the two miles into town twice since then rather have to face getting in my car. I tell myself I'm getting exercise, but I'm really just paralyzed by the thought that if it has gotten in the car I'll be trapped with it and no one can help me.

It's the worst time of year for me. Spring is when all the spiders come back, and just to reiterate, I live IN a river. In the past few weeks, I've seen StereoNinja lunge across a room to step on a spider I hadn't seen yet and go into the toilet and immediately come back out again to get the bug spray before going back in there calling over his shoulder "I didn't just see three spiders in there." I've seen two in my bedroom when he wasn't home that I had to spray myself before texting completely insane yet wholly serious messages to him: that I needed him to remove their dead bodies when he got home and then burn our duvet, or that I was moving to France. And now it's effecting him too. He used to see a spider and not have any sort of reaction at all but now when he sees one he has almost a fear response - not of the spider itself but more like "Oh god holy shit there's a spider in the house kill it immediately before Amber finds out AAAAGGHHHH".

Ugh. You guys. IT WAS SO FUCKING BIG and it was ALMOST INSIDE MY HOUSE. I don't know how to stop thinking about it. Even the "research" I'm doing on "extreme" pornography for my next paper isn't helping me. SINCE WHEN CAN I NOT CONCENTRATE ON PORN?

Tip Top

I had the BEST day yesterday you guys.

So we've bought a lot of IKEA furniture since moving here, since I sold all of mine (it is cheaper to buy everything again than it is to ship it, and given how long it took my not furniture things to ship I'd just as soon not be living out of a suitcase for three months anyway) and as everyone knows, when you buy IKEA furniture, you end up with a mountain of cardboard and Styrofoam you need to get rid of. Now, for all the Americans, let me explain something to you about England. There's no room here. The houses are small, the streets are narrow, the standard size refrigerator is  roughly the size of the one you took to college with you freshman year. And because there's nowhere to, say, bury a big pile of trash out in the vast desert (and also no desert), you have to recycle pretty much everything (I say have to, but you should be recycling crap anyway you bums). And this involves a visit to the tip.

Again, for the benefit of the Americans, the tip is pretty much the dump, except sorted for recycling to a degree our country isn't even aware of and you have to drive your junk there yourself. Top Gear did an episode where James and Jeremy go caravaning and spend the bulk of the episode either washing their caravans or throwing things away at the tip, including the Stig.

I am fucking in love with the tip. You just drive up to it, park, and run around throwing your crap into various absolutely enormous bins. If you're not sure which bin you crap goes in, there are friendly guys in orange vests who will direct you to the right place. The also have humongous metal claw reachy-thingys (technical term) that they use to fish out things people have already put into the wrong bin. I was so fascinated I almost forgot to throw my 7000 Coke cans into the scrap metal bin. And then an actual caravan drove up to throw things away and I almost peed my pants.

On the way there, we passed a sign saying they were selling real Christmas trees at this garden center practically across the street from the tip, so on the way back we decided to stop and have a look at their inventory. I've been growing more and more concerned with each passing day that I would be unable to get a suitable tree since I don't have a single friend who has ever bought one taller than about 4 feet, which is only half a tree and totally unacceptable. Not only did this place have Christmas trees that could actually reach my ceiling, but they also had a pet shop, which we went in to look at birds because StereoNinja loves them and also so I could try to have a conversation with the bunnies. We noticed a door leading to another part of the shop, and when we went through we discovered they were selling dishes and aprons and beers that were all Christmas themed. I was super psyched, picked up a Santa spoon rest and a gravy boat, took one last glance around the store and noticed a ramp leading to yet another store area above us...and it was twinkling. "OH MY GOD SHINY THINGS!" I shouted, for real, as I ran up the ramp to a GIANT CHRISTMAS STORE leaving StereoNinja in my dust and presumably shaking his head in frustration and wondering why he'd brought me there in the first place. You guys. It was a MAGICAL WONDERLAND. I may have said several times that I would go back there later this week and just sit in there the entire day.

I don't even remember what we did the rest of the day since all I could think about was the tip and the Christmas store and how everything was coming up Milhouse for me. It was the best day ever.

I Think I'll Just Take A Nap For A Week

I have just finished my paper and turned it in. I'm pretty sure it's fucking terrible, mainly because I have no idea what I'm doing. I've been assured by my classmates that their papers also suck, and by the stranger that all grad students think they don't know what they're doing.

It's a miracle I even got it done, actually. I had been at the kitchen table all morning revising and trying to relearn how to write references and in line citations since I'm in a different country now. I needed a break so I thought I'd fold some laundry. By the way, I do laundry now. So I picked up some things I had folded the day before to put on the table...

...AND A FUCKING SPIDER FELL OUT OF THEM.

An outside spider even, I don't know what the fuck it was doing in the house (yes I do, it was trying to GET ON ME). It jumped out of the laundry I WAS HOLDING IN MY HANDS and started running around my kitchen table and ALL OVER MY FUCKING PAPERS. I grabbed the raid and sprayed it. Like, seven fucking times because the motherfucker just would not die. Then I called StereoNinja in hysterics because there was now a dead spider (which had just tried to GET ON ME) in between me and my laptop and he crawled on my papers and I'll have to throw them all out and HOW WILL I FINISH MY PAPER IF I CAN'T GET TO MY LAPTOP? I am not kidding - a dead spider is only slightly less dangerous than a live one, plus what if his friends come looking for him?

StereoNinja, by the way, is either the most amazing boyfriend in recorded history or a terrible enabler. He actually came home from work to clean up the dead spider carcass, check all the laundry for more spiders, lay all my papers that the spider had crawled on out on the table so I could look at them without having to touch them, and eat a bacon sandwich (ok, that last one has nothing to do with rescuing me from spiders, but still). I seriously have no idea how he puts up with this.

Anyway, once the house was despidered, I was able to finish my paper, and since then I've just been staring at my screen wondering what I used to do before I wrote papers for school. Anyone remember?

Delay

Something completely awesome happened last night that I can't wait to tell you about it, but it's not happening today because TODAY my stuff is here.

It took two and a half months for my things to get here. None of it was of particular importance, but it left me wondering what happens to people who do ship things like furniture and appliances. Do they live in a hotel for months? Eat take out every night? Turn tricks on the street in exchange for food and shelter?

I say my things weren't of particular importance. What I mean is not of particular importance to a sane person. They are of massive importance to me, mainly because 75% of the things I shipped are Christmas decorations AND I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM. (this was after paring down my Christmas decorations by more than half because I had no idea where I was going to put all of it. I might have a problem.) SO right now there's a pile of boxes in my kitchen mostly filled with Christmas decorations and I am gleefully opening them and looking at my stuff instead of telling you about the insanity that went down at the party I was at last night. SHUT UP IT'S SPARKLY.

Oh, I also found 50 Shades Freed in there, so I'll be finishing up that review, probably all in one post, as soon as I turn in my paper for class in a couple weeks, because holy shit grad school is a lot of work.

Oh Hi, Internets. I Sure Do Miss You.

Let me tell you about moving to another country:

Take the amount of time you are estimating it will take you to get everything you own organized, packed, sold or given away and all of the paperwork done and everything else that needs sorting out, and multiply how long you think that's going to take you by 30. Then, a month later, look back at your revised estimate and laugh at how naive you were to think it would actually be that simple.

I started writing the above paragraph two days ago. I read it aloud to StereoNinja and he laughed when he was supposed to. Then, today, my visa came in the mail, at which point I started looking at flights and found one weird random flight that is EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS CHEAPER than any other flight, so I booked it because EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS CHEAPER YOU GUYS. The only flaw in this plan? This flight is 8 days before the day I had planned to leave. So basically, all the freaking out I was doing about how am I going to get all this stuff done OMGWTFBBQ I have just deliberately multiplied by 1000 BECAUSE I AM A CRAZY PERSON.

When I made the decision to move I deliberately did not think about it. I just made a decision and started working on how to get it done because if I had given it the kind of consideration one would normally give a decision of that magnitude I would have found 1000 stupid reasons why I shouldn't do it.But between getting the visa and booking a flight that leaves ridiculously soon, reality hit me earlier this evening like a bad simile for something very heavy. Because seriously, I am moving to a place where nothing is open on Sunday and where bleating lambs wake me up in the morning, and I have no job, and I'm going to school for the first time in 15 years for something that is a complete departure from my former career, and I have to learn how to drive on twisty, narrow streets because there are no straight roads in the whole country and it is 4000 miles away from Chicago, and oh yeah, did I mention that my new house has SPIDERS EVERYWHERE?

Our new house is on an island in the Thames and there are so many spiders in the house oh my god. StereoNinja is hilarious in that he thinks that all the spiders are there because the house sat empty for a year before he moved in, which I'm sure hasn't helped, but the real reason there are spiders everywhere is because we are surrounded by water, and therefore bugs, and therefore if you are a spider it is Thanksgiving EVERY DAY at my house. StereoNinja has bought me multiple cans of Raid for each floor in our house and I have been instructed to spray them with it and then leave the dead bodies there until StereoNinja gets home, which actually works ok except that I sprayed one who was on the ceiling and he fell and sort of floated to the floor which meant he could have GOTTEN ON ME so now I don't want to spray the ceiling ones. Which if they behave like the spiders in this country is where I most often find them. I'm trying to talk him into bug bombing the house before I get there. Failing that I am just going to have to hope that the accidental forced exposure therapy will serve to make me less of a crazy person.

And that's why I haven't told you yet about that thing I did where I took all my clothes off on stage.

Here We Go

Right. It's May now, and I don't have a job anymore, and I promised you that I would start posting again when that happened, so I'm going to start doing that right now. I need to post about France, I need to post about the meet-up, and I need to finish reading that damn book so I can light it on fire. But as I'm just getting back into the swing of this, the first post you are going to get is one about a spider. Honestly, if you've been reading me for more than five minutes, you should have seen that one coming.

So yesterday, while I was waiting for StereoNinja to finish watching Doctor Who so we could Skype and discuss the fact that Vastra, Jenny and Strax need a their own spin-off show, I went into my room to sit on the bed and play Candy Crush Saga, again, because I can't fucking stop and should never have downloaded it to begin with, and as soon as I sat down, I sensed movement just above my window. I looked up to see a very big, very black spot that should not have been there and for one brief second I was hopeful - normal spiders that you find inside your house in Chicago are usually medium sized brownish- or greenish-yellow things, and this was big and very very black and so maybe it was just a beetle or something. But then it started moving. The one magical power I think all arachnophobes probably have is the ability to tell whether something is a spider or not based on the way it moves, because NOTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD crawls with such deliberate, malevolent evil. I can tell you whether or not something is a spider from the other side of the room without my glasses on and while crying a waterfall of terrified tears. And THIS, my friends, was a fucking spider if I ever saw one.

I immediately began a barrage of insane text messages to StereoNinja, who was ineffectively 4000 miles away from being able to solve my problem:

OMG WTF BIG FAT SPIDER IN MY ROOM HELP HELP

IT WENT BEHIND THE CURTAIN I CAN'T SEE IT

THIS IS BAD

IT'S BACK IT'S HEADED FOR THE FREEZER IF IT GOES BY THE DOOR I'LL BE TRAPPED

IT'S GOING TOWARD THE DOOR OH GOD

I'M TRAPPED

NOW IT'S COMING FOR ME WHAT DO I DO

FUCK IT'S CLIMBING DOWN

IT IS ON THE CEILING OVER MY BED THIS IS A NIGHTMARE

It was at this point that StereoNinja decided to call me. In the time that I have known StereoNinja, he has only ever seen me have a spider meltdown once. It was on the weekend we met when we were both standing outside waiting to have our photos taken at our cousin's wedding and the garden was fucking full of them. I was crouched in the middle of the patio in my bridesmaid dress hyperventilating, but doing my very best to keep it together long enough for the photos, and he had no way of knowing at the time how bad I usually am. Consequently he was unprepared, and I dare say slightly irritated to find that his normally extremely rational girlfriend who worships at the altar of science will lose every shred of logical reasoning she ever possessed when faced with an arachnid. "It's trying to get me," I said by way of greeting. "No it isn't," he responded calmly. It went downhill from there.

First he tried suggesting that I do things to it - hit it with something, a towel maybe?, knock it off the wall and then I can squish it, or failing that put a jar over top of it so it can't get out. His alternative solution was for me to simply leave the room. The relationship is still new, you guys, he just didn't know. I shot down every single one of his completely rational solutions based on my own insanity - getting close enough to hit it with anything might cause it to GET ON ME, I could not predict the trajectory it would take when it fell and I could lose it or it could GET ON ME, if I squished it it might escape and GET ON ME, ditto putting a jar on top of it, and leaving the room would be the worst of all because I might not be able to find it later but it will still be there, WAITING, and I will never be able to go in my room ever again. As I explained this nonsense, it crawled over my bed and started heading down the wall toward it, and I completely lost my shit. "See?!?!? It's trying to get me! It's trying to get on my bed! They are after me! It wants to kill me!"

He decided to try a different approach. "It's not after you. You know that, right? You know that it can't be after you because they don't have an intelligence to do that."

"I don't know anything right now. They ARE after me, why else would it be going towards the bed? Why are they only ever in my room?"

"They're not just in your room. They can be in any room."

"Yes they are. They are in my room MORE THAN CHANCE."

"No they aren't."

"I have NEVER seen one in the dining room. EVER."

He finally realized he was not dealing with a sane person, and came up with a suggestion that worked: I texted the bartender in his bedroom to tell him there was a spider in mine. He came right away to examine it, then came back with a jar and an index card. Normally I would insist that he squish it right there, then flush it down the toilet, then flush a couple more times, then wash his hands before he touched anything, but this one was big and black and not the sort of spider you normally find in the house. We didn't even realize what it was until he got the jar over top of it and it went nuts: it's one of those black jumping spiders you normally find on the outsides of buildings or sometimes on plants. Except, about four times the size as a normal one. I had a secondary freak out over the fact that it could have just jumped right ON ME at any time during the whole ordeal and WHY IN THE FUCK WAS IT SO BIG.

Crisis averted, I called StereoNinja back, who described to me his idea for the ultimate spider removal system for people like me, with a reach length of nearly an entire room and built in fail-safes for every possible escape attempt. It only had one design flaw: the fact that I would need it to be wielded by someone else for fear that the spider might GET ON ME.

Thanksgiving Eve And Responsibilities

Many apologies for the very late (ok, fine, backdated, but only by like half an hour - if I were in California right now this would totally count) and mostly substanceless NaBloPoMo post today. It's the day before Thanksgiving here in America, or as I like to call it "Practice Christmas" (I am the only person who calls it that as well as the only person who thinks it's funny), which meant that after I got home from work I needed to bake a pie, cube some bread, clean the dining room, and take Jason Bourne swimming. I should point out that Jason Bourne is what I named our turkey this year due to his being super fucking awesome but having no idea who he is.

WHAT IS TREADSTONE?!?

 Depending on how much of a cheeseball you are, you may find that name not quite as hilarious as what I named my turkey last year, Tennille. Right before he went in the oven I set the bottle of Captain Morgan I was drinking next to him so I could take a photo of The Captain and Tennille. Tennille Two wouldn't have worked for this turkey though since the only rum I have in the house right now is Sailor Jerry*. ANYWANK - Jason Bourne went swimming for a few hours in a pool of brine I lovingly made him so he can be all nice and juicy when I cook his awesome ass tomorrow, assuming he doesn't somehow reanimate in the middle of the night and kill me with his amazing headless turkey stealth. My point is I had a lot to do, as I will tomorrow, so that post will probably be some rambling bullshit just like this. THE GOOD NEWS IS that I plan to get drunk at dinner and then do some reading after the bartender goes to work, which is likely to lead to a video of the result. If we're very lucky, StereoNinja will be able to garner a few minutes that make sense and where I'm not making out with the camera lens and then you guys will get to see it. He is a genius. Though not a real ninja**.

One other Thanksgiving fact for you guys: The number of times I will have to see Planes Trains and Automobiles to be able to watch it without crying at the end is somewhere between infinity and whatever is bigger than that.

*Also that would be funnier if I spelled it Tennille Too. Shut up, I'm really tired.
**OR IS HE?

Please Don't Hit Me.

I am ready for Christmas now.

And yes, I know that Halloween was less than a week ago, and that all of my American readers are telling me to get off it because it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but it's my blog and I LIKE GLITTER and I'm ready for Christmas so shut up.

There's lots of reasons why I am entirely prepared for Christmas fully nine days before the 40 Days of Christmas even starts. For one thing, the bartender was foolish enough a few weeks ago to mention that when he was a kid they always had a white Christmas tree with all red ornaments on it and that's his favorite. Since I (currently) have eight Christmas trees, but none of them are white OR decorated all in red, this is CLEARLY a veiled request for me to BUY ANOTHER TREE. I would be a terrible, terrible roommate to let his Christmas memories die by filling the apartment with trees that are all the wrong kind.

I have also been online looking at the new houses they have this year for my Christmas village. It's almost like they knew I wasn't a fan of any of the houses that came out last year, because new this year there is a dance studio AND a music store AND a library AND an accessory set of some kids playing hockey! (I miss you, Blackhawks.) ARE THEY READING MY MIND? And the timing is perfect, because I just bought a new upright freezer (since there's never room in the normal freezer because the bartender is CONSTANTLY making soup) and it didn't fit under the table in my kitchen as I had expected it to, so now it's in my room next to my two dressers (one of which I may or may not have bought specifically to have room for more houses in my Christmas village), so obviously I should buy all three of those houses so the freezer doesn't feel left out.

Also, now that I have a freezer, it means I can make SO MANY MORE Christmas cookies than I have in recent years, which is also perfect timing because last year after Christmas my dad gave me his old cookie press since he doesn't make those particular cookies anymore, so now I can make as many delicious little bows and wreaths and trees as I want. So even if you think all my other brilliant reasons are complete bullshit (which they're NOT), you have to concede that it is not unreasonable for me to be yammering on about Christmas this early because COOKIES YOU GUYS.

They Are Mobilizing

Current status - Wide awake at 3 in the morning in my bed with all the lights on and writing a blog post on my iPad. My laptop would be easier, but it's in the living room and I can't get it. Why? Because the spider was or is still in there.

My newest readers probably don't know this yet, but spiders have been trying to kill me for years, and recently they seem to have stepped up their game considerably.

They started with psychological warfare. This is partly my fault for letting Mrs. Sizemore talk me into a midnight showing of The Amazing Spider-Man, but seriously, I'd already seen the Toby Maguire version and was expecting a similar origin scene - a single cartoonishly blue and red spider gets out and bites him. It's not the best thing for me to watch, but I can handle it. What I was not expecting was an origin scene where Peter Parker winds up covered in HUNDREDS of realistic spiders, and that the one that bit him would keep popping up in AT LEAST three more scenes. I did my best to look at the floor, but the damage was already done, and that, THAT is all the opening they need. What followed was a good three weeks of nearly daily nightmares about spiders, no doubt beamed there through the crack in my psyche from some secret laboratory on the other side of my bedroom wall.

Once they had me on the ropes, the invasion started. First they sent a scout, one of their allies, a centipede. It showed up in my bathroom one day, running full speed up the shower curtain I had JUST HAD MY HAND ON like a giant asshole moustache. The bartender found it later that day and put it outside instead of killing it like a sane person. THAT WAS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANTED. He obviously reported back to them because next came the vanguard. While the bartender was away, I decided to make some cookie dough for dinner one night, but on opening the cabinet, a smallish black spider came running out and I screamed and ran away and vowed not to go back in the kitchen until the bartender came home. I decided to take a bath instead, since I was broken from stretching class. But as soon as I put the bathmat on the floor, the kitchen spider's identical buddy came crawling up the side of the tub. This was FIVE MINUTES after the kitchen thing happened. I managed to wash him down the drain (and then ran scalding hot water down it until there was no more hot water), but there was nothing I could do about kitchen spider except retreat to my room and lay in bed obsessing about all the ways it could have gotten ON ME.

This evening, after the bartender had left for work, because they know that I am UNDEFENDED, a spider came running across the living room floor I had JUST BEEN SITTING ON. Angela saw it and pounced, but unlike Kristen the angel kitty who would have eaten it immediately, Angela is Furry Satan and prefers to torture the bugs she finds to the point of madness without ever killing them. I texted the situation to the bartender at work, suddenly remembering that I'd heard the bartender kill one the prior morning when I was in bed and still half asleep. He helpfully texted back that in addition to that one, he'd killed two other spiders in the last two days, a fact I absolutely could have done without knowing THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

So that's where things stand right now - six spiders and a centipede in my house in the last two weeks, all trying to get ON ME, the latest of which was being tortured into a murderous rage by my asshole cat who SUCKS at protecting me, and my roommate not due home for at least three more hours. I'll almost certainly be dead by the time he gets here. He'll come in my room to tell me about his night only to find my half-eaten corpse laying on the bed next to a note that reads "I TOLD YOU SO" and an army of evil arachnids standing on top of me in an arrangement that spells out "VICTORY!" It has always been just a matter of time before they finally got me.

It was a pleasure writing for you all.

UPDATE: Angela threw up this morning. The bartender theorized that perhaps she had eaten the spider. But I know her and she doesn't eat things, so I wasn't having it. "No she didn't," I told him. "I bet it spit poison on her! They were trying to neutralized the threat so they could get ON ME." Knowing I was already beyond hope, he immediately gave up and went to bed.

SECOND UPDATE: Now he's trying to tell me that all the spiders and centipedes lately are probably from when our neighbors cut down three huge trees in their yard, and all the critters that lived there are looking for someplace else to go. Yeah, sure. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT ME TO THINK.

THIRD UPDATE (8/29): I came home from class about an hour ago, and had just settled in on the couch with some delicious cheese and pretzels to watch Futurama when something on the ceiling caught my eye. GUESS WHAT IT WAS. The worst part was I had to sit in the room with it for 45 minutes waiting for the bartender to wake up and rescue me. It was an epic staring contest. He was thinking: "Go on, blink. Close your eyes for a split second, it's all I need." I was talking out loud to it: "You'd better not move. Do not start moving, you dick." He evaded the bartender's first two attempts to kill him, and wound up falling on the floor, causing me to jump up and run to the other end of the room. He was finally squished just before the cat got to him and she is NOT PLEASED that we broke her toy, so now I have two murderous animals to worry about. SEVEN. SEVEN IN JUST OVER A WEEK.

For Some Reason He Still Lives With Me

We had a whole mess of strawberries. Which is delicious but makes me more annoying than usual.

The bartender: What should we have for dinner?

Me: We could have some strawberry shortcake.

The bartender: Strawberry shortcake isn't dinner.

Me: ....Are you sure?*

-------------------------

The bartender: You know what? You could put some strawberries and whip cream on your pancakes.

Me: WHAT? No, I will put maple syrup and butter on them AS GOD INTENDED.

The bartender: You don't believe in that.

Me: The god of pancakes. HIS NAME IS FLAPJACK.



*Follow up: I told this story to StereoNinja and got this e-mail in reply:

I checked on Google and I am afraid [the bartender] is right - Strawberry shortcake is NOT dinner.
Other things that are NOT dinner include:
1. Candy
2. Cookies
3. Doritos
4. Bowl of dicks

The both a yous can go snack on a bowl of dicks.

Please Make It Stop

Me: I have been transported to 1993 and it was worse than I remembered

H-Town: how did that work?

Me: I have Informer stuck in my head and it is AWFUL

H-Town: oh god
NOOOOO

Me: RIGHT

H-Town: dammit, now it's in my head

Me: i have a sudden urge to go put on a flannel shirt that is four sizes too big. PLEASE SEND HELP

H-Town: Here, this will make everything better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyx6JDQCslE

Me: THIS IS NOT BETTER
WHY DO YOU HATE ME

H-Town: hahahahahahahaha

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.

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.

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

Day 22 And Irresponsible Spending Month Has Started A Bit Early

I poked my head in at Claire's this morning to see what they had because I'm a girl now and I'm told that one of the things girls do is accessorize. And wouldn't you know it? The place is filled with Christmas trinkets AS THOUGH THEY WERE EXPECTING ME. So I went in and pretended to mull over the things I wanted to purchase, even though I pretty much knew that in the end I was going to be like "One of each, please". When I went to the counter with all 7,000 or so small shiny objects, the salesgirl made what for anyone else would have been a pretty sound assumption. "Oh! Are you having a Christmas party?" she asked me.

"Nope, I'm just crazy," I replied with absolute honesty.

Anyway, long story even longer, I'm now sat at my desk in my office dressed in completely normal office attire* with the exception of a tiny black sequin fascinator top hat with glitter covered holly on it. This is significant, because as BrownsFan can attest, I think fascinators are the stupidest fashion trend pretty much ever. Oh, hey ladies! Hows about we all start wearing hats that are nowhere near big enough to fit on our heads? Because that's what hats are for, not making sure your head is covered! WHAT A GREAT FUCKING IDEA! It isn't. At all. But if you stick a piece of holly on it and add some glitter, well then I am ALL IN, MOFOS.

Then there's the rest of this stuff that is still in the bag next to me, such as ornament shaped earrings (earrings? When have you ever seen me voluntarily wear earrings?), a hair clip with a mini santa hat on it (santa hat fascinator? Whatever, I don't care),  candy cane striped braces (suspenders, ya tools) and the crowning jewel: false eyelashes WITH TINY CHRISTMAS BOWS ATTACHED TO THEM. I don't even know who thought of this. I've never woken up in the morning thinking "You know what I need? Bows for my eyelashes." But as soon as I saw them I knew I'd needed them all along. And I've just recently learned how to apply false eyelashes! It's like a sign! Seriously, how could I NOT buy them?

Anywhore, I will now be accessorized like a proper girl for a while. A proper girl who is CHRISTMAS AS FUCK.

*Normal for me. There's not actually anyone else walking around in here wearing Chuck Taylors and a hoodie from a band called Dead To Me.