Hear Ye, Hear Ye

Thanks to my fabulously connected brother, this weekend I will achieve my lifelong dream of singing the national anthem before a game.

The commentary on this soon-to-be accomplishment has been varied and occasionally bizarre:

• I didn't know you could sing. Yes. Long before I mastered the art of perching on a bar stool or turning chocolate cake into "dinner", I was warbling with the best of them. At one point I was singing in 5 choirs at the same time.
• Have you sung in front of that many people before? That many? No, but it's far from the first time I've sung for a large audience. Most of those pieces were all in Latin or being evaluated by judges or both, so there was way more pressure then than now.
• What anthem are you singing, ours? I'm astounded that I've heard this question more than once. The game is the Chicago Fire vs. the New York Red Bulls. What nations anthem would I be singing? "Well, it's a soccer game, so I thought maybe the Mexican anthem." Could someone please explain this logic to me? Since when does soccer = Mexicans to the exclusion of everyone else? Why not ask me if I'm singing the Italian national anthem or the Brazilian national anthem? And again more than one person asked me this.
• Wow! Are you nervous? Um, no, because it's Thursday. I'm singing on Sunday. The only thing I'm doing today is watching the Browns game at the bar. Nothing to be nervous about until Sunday afternoon.
• So, Let me get this straight: You can stand up and sing the national anthem in front of 15,000 people, but you can't order a pizza on the phone. That is correct. I have confidence that I can sing well, I do not have confidence that I can order a pizza without sounding like a jackass. The pizza guy might make fun of me; 15,000 people who can't imagine soloing in front of a stadium full of people will not.

In general, everyone seems pretty excited for me, especially my boss who was e-mailing clients in Minneapolis and Cincinnati to tell them about it and Gene Honda, who ran around for weeks telling everyone they had to show up even though he may end up missing the game himself for a vacation in (wait for it) Mexico. Mexicanos, al grito de guerrael acero aprestad y el bridon. Y retiemble en sus centros la tierra,al sonoro rugir del canon. ¡Y retiemble en sus centros la tierra,al sonoro rugir de el canon!

Sadly, This is Actual News

T.O. Practices.

Holy shit, stop the presses!

I Have Had It With These Motherfuckin Spiders In My Motherfuckin Car!

Samuel L. Jackson called me on Friday.

He told me I should stop dying my hair all kind of crazy colors and go see his latest film instead. He also called me from Heather's house which I thought was weird. I had no idea they were close. At any rate it was a demand more than a suggestion. He said if I didn't go see it he would "come after" me. I've seen Pulp Fiction; I know what he's capable of.

So Friday night I went to see it with Magic Hands. I've been trying to dream up a blog name for Magic Hands for weeks and sadly that's the best I could come up with. It's meant to be reflective of his being a massage therapist and it sucks less than Sir Rubs A Lot. Though not much. Anyway.

Snakes on a Plane is awesome. It's not a movie; it's an event. It kicks mad ass in its craptacularness. Below are my favorite moments. You need to highlight them to read it, since it contains spoilers and I wouldn't want to ruin anyone's joy.

• I invented a fun new game to play at the movies. It's called Spot the Product Placement. I came up with it when a guy who JUST got off a motorbike was inexplicably walking around with a Red Bull in his hand as a GMC truck pulled up. Try it, it's great.
• Snakes biting people's genitalia is always funny. It's even funnier when they actually yell out "Bitch! Get off my dick!"
• Another thing that is always funny is dead bodies falling right on top of unsuspecting Purell addicted germophobes. Though karma would come back to bite my ass later that night for laughing at someone else's phobias.
• Snakes on a Plane: now with more Snake-o-vision! I didn't know snakes saw everything in green like they have built in night vision goggles. Go snakes.
• Even better than I could have hoped for! A GIANT snake that wraps around this pompous English dude and crushes him to death. You even hear the bones crunching. But as if that weren't cool enough, the snake then does that thing where they can unhinge their jaw and it SWALLOWS THE GUY'S ENTIRE HEAD! Genius!
• The guy that plays Dick in High Fidelity turns out to be the resident snake expert, and his character is exactly the same as Dick, except he's a snake geek instead of a music geek. He's unintentionally hilarious.
• The ambiguously gay male flight attendant grabs a snake and exacts revenge by putting it in the microwave and blowing it up. Guts everywhere. Sweet as hell.
• The big line comes almost at the end of the movie, and at a point where it almost makes no sense. They just decided that the guy with the PSP should try to land the plane since the snakes ate everyone who had ever actually flown, and while everyone was calm and no snakes were around SLJ drops the line. WTF? Whatever, it got a huge hand in the theater.

I drove Magic Hands home after the movie. I'm pretty sure he now thinks I'm a total freaking asshole. We were stopped at a light and I was explaining one of my favorite They Might Be Giants songs, Spider. "I love this song! TMBG are insane. Shpidah! He is our hero! Shpidah! Get rid of! Shpidah! AAAHHHH! FUCK THERE'S ONE RIGHT HERE INSIDE THE CAR! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" As I'm singing my happy little spider song some movement caught my eye and I realized that there was a spider in my car, on the drivers side door, a whole 6 inches away from me. Seconds after I noticed it, it fell on the floor right by my feet. I'd explained my spider issues to him before, he thought it was funny and sort of cute. That is what everyone thinks until the first time they see me freak out. It always amuses me (much much later) how surprised they are. It's not like they haven't been warned.

Magic Hands sent me to the back seat to hide, and then went against all his vegetarian yay-for-nature principles and killed it for me. Also another one that he found hiding under my floor mat, waiting to eat my feet or climb up my pant leg. He then spent the next ten minutes trying to coax me back into the front seat. I don't remember what the questions were that I asked him. I know that they were all steeped in crazy. When he finally got me back in the driver's seat and I'd stopped hyperventilating, he said somewhat anti-climactically "I guess you really are afraid of spiders."

Yes. Yes I am.

If you'd like Samuel L. Jackson to threaten your friends, you can get in touch with him here.

Random Thoughts From My Lunchtime Walk

• The sign outside the Baskin Robbins clearly reads "31 Flavors" in giant pink writing. And yet when I go inside I count exactly 20 flavors. What gives exactly? I was promised 11 more choices. The Intern thinks we should sue.
• Speaking of ice cream, why the hell am I the only person who's ever heard of Superman flavor? Everyone always looks at me like I'm crazy when I talk about it, but it obviously exists. Or did.
• One thing I would not have done would be to start a car rental business and name it Alamo. The Texans lost that battle. Almost all of them died. Doesn't that imply that renting an Alamo car would cause you to die and/or get lost?
• We're on a bridge Charlie!
• It is a travesty that anyone should have to work on such a beautiful day. Especially me.

When It Rains, It Pours...

...then it strikes you with lightning, knocks a tree over onto your house and floods your basement.

Browns Center Ephraim to be Suspended

Maybe we don't really need a center. Maybe we can train the ball to snap itself.

For My Buckeye Fans

I'm laying on the couch in my living room, while my roommate the bartender reads me college football previews, followed by college football schedules.

"Read me the Buckeyes schedule," says I, "I want to know if they're playing at Northwestern this year."

"Yeah, the game is here. November 11th."

"Sweet! I'm totally going to go to that game. O-H!"

The Illinois native silently surfs the internet. The silence grows until he realizes I'm staring at him, looks at me and says, "Oh. Is this the part where I'm supposed to say 'I-O'?"

We're going to have to work on this.

Pity Party

My throat hurts. I can barely swallow. My head weighs 60 pounds and some asshole is blowing up a balloon right behind my eye sockets. Trains and walking induce nausea. It is obvious I am dying of typhoid. I hope to tell you all one last spider story before I die with what is left of my strength. But not right now.

On The New Subtitle

Our new subtitle comes to us courtesy of the great and powerful Wizard of MrSteve. We'd been sitting at the bar discussing television shows I'd never seen or heard of (MrSteve: It was on in 1973. Me: So I wasn't born. MrSteve: And then there was McMillan and Wife, in 1971. Me: So, I was even less born.) I was drinking Captain and Coke; the far more sophisticated MrSteve was drinking scotch.

A word about scotch: it's fucking gross. I don't understand this alcohol at all. I've had this debate with MrSteve a number of times. They always go something like this:

Me: I don't know how you drink that stuff. Seriously.
MrSteve: Here, try it.
Me: (Tentative sip. Explosion of hatred from my tastebuds.) Gross. It tastes like paint thinner, Steve.
MrSteve: What? You're crazy. You don't taste the caramel? You don't taste the wood?
Me: I taste the turpentine.
MrSteve: You're crazy.


My conversation with MrSteve somehow went from shows from before I was born to giving scotch to an 8 year old (don't ask). And this, inexplicably, led to MrSteve grabbing a lighter and trying to light his scotch on fire. As I sat watching this, several problems with this operation came to mind, to wit:

• He could spill the scotch all over the bar.
• He could drop the (borrowed) lighter into the scotch and ruin it.
• He could actually light the scotch on fire and burn down the bar.*

With these things in mind I eyed MrSteve and told him gravely, "I have not had enough rum to approve of that particular maneuver." The wise MrSteve dropped his arson-laced experiment and instead suggested I use that comment on the blog.




*While relaying this story to the bartender the next morning, he pointed out that there probably wasn't enough alcohol in the scotch for it to actually catch fire, but that attempting to light it on fire "could ruin the taste of the scotch." I don't really see how you could ruin that flavor, but it's an interesting point.

It's A Miracle I'm Ever Taken Seriously

A guy from the parent company and The Intern are standing near the back hallway talking. My backpack and I approach them on my way to the door.

Parent Company Guy: Here she comes!
Me: And there I go.
PCG: You're leaving?
Me. I'm tired. I need a nap. I make the universal sign of a pillow with my hands and pretend to rest my head on it.
The Intern: The carpet does look pretty comfortable.
Me: No, I'm going to take a nap right here.
The Intern: Standing up?
Me: Yes. I demonstrate the pillow again. I'm like a cow. Oh wait. Cows sleep standing up right?
The Intern: Yes. That's the whole point of cow tipping. You push them over when they're sleeping.
Me: Oh. Right. I remember now. Because I've seen cows that were sitting down you know. But they were probably just resting.
*crickets*
Me:I'm going to stop talking now.

Off to a Great Typical Start

I would be crying if it weren't for the fact I was totally expecting something like this to happen. Normally the catastrophe has something to do with the first round draft pick. Now it's our free agents.

*SOB*

Shows and Hoes

Cousin Rick is coming to town this weekend to go see CAKE play at a church festival (not even kidding) and hang out with his favorite cousin (me). He will be bringing along a grown up friend and another cousin of ours, who is 11.

While I greatly look forward to said visit and concert, I've come up with two potential problems.

The first is where the hell am I going to put three people in my apartment? Rick says they can all sleep on the floor, but what floor? I haven't seen my floor in two weeks. Should I store them in the beer boxes? The attic? Out on the porch? No matter where I stick them I need to clean my house.

The second problem came to me just this morning while I merrily showered (what, you don't shower merrily?): my house is not in any way childproof. I don't mean in a hide the cleaning supplies and put plastic covers on the outlets sort of way. What I mean is that my refridgerator is covered in erotic magnetic poetry, my shower curtain sports Playboy covers through the years, more Playboys litter my dining room table (they came free with the roommate) and my bedroom wall features 11 photographs of naked lady parts (and a Sports Illustrated cover of Danica Patrick. Shut up). So, you know, maybe not entirely appropriate for an 11 year old kid. Or many adults for that matter.

Seems I have more cleaning to do than I thought.

Roommate: Week One

The bartender has lived at my place for a full week now.

• He talks to himself in the bathroom. This is not the typical "singing in the shower" thing that many of us are guilty of (I am the best wet and soapy Eponine from Les Miserables ever). This is more like an internal argument, except without the "internal". I figured this out when I heard him in there, mumbling about something, and then heard him saying quite clearly, "Well, now that part is true." I thought maybe he'd brought his phone in there to chat with someone while he dropped the kids off at the lake, but no. Phone was safely being charged in his room. Whatever, it seems whatever the problem was got resolved.
• The bad news is that I'll never ever ever be a supermodel and neither will Kristen. The good news is I've finally found a name for my apartment. We will either be calling it the House of Fat or the Fat Palace. This is in no small part to the fact that the bartender seems to be genetically programmed to feed everything in sight. I've had chocolate muffins for breakfast for the last 4 days in a row. Kristen stopped finishing her breakfast, which I quickly deduced was because the bartender was feeding her turkey and cheese every time he walked in the door. He also leaves bags of Chex Mix laying around with notes on them: "YES!" "Your fav?" "The cheese kind!" He then acts surprised about the fact that Krissy associates his presence with food.
• Aging punk rockers tend to have a boatload of CDs, and I base that on the one aging punk rocker I know. Six. Six friggin boxes of CDs that I crazily offered to alphabetize, which took me two days. It was a learning experience. Aside from the expected assortment of Ramones/Social D/NOFX/Anti-Flag/Clash/Rancid/etc. records, I came across a few unexpected items that were occasionally downright scary. I thought at first they were things that just got left by ex-girlfriends, but it turns out that was not the case. Enya? "I like her music." Shania Twain? "She's fuckin' hot!" I suggested he could have just bought a poster like a normal person. "Yeah, but that album was produced by the guy who produces AC/DC." Oh, well in that case... Movies are my next assignment, but my question is, do I need to alphabetize all the porn, or should I just keep them all in the same spot (maybe under P, for "porn")?
• A fax machine? Why, and what the hell? "You never know when you might need to fax something in an emergency." He seemed undeterred by the fact that we don't have a phone line.
• I've been trying to come up with some kind of altered name for my roommate/bartender, but it's not working out too well. "Barmate" sounds like my drinking buddy and "roomtender" sounds like my maid, neither of which are particularly true. I may need something more descriptive of him, like "Spike the Cheese-eater" or "Drunky McSnore" or "Fart Master J".

Bathroom Faux Pas

Just moments ago, my refreshing private pee was interrupted by another person coming into the bathroom. It turns out it was my co-worker. I learned this not because we ran into each other at the sinks later, but because upon entering she inexplicably announced, "Hey, Amber is in here! I see her toes under there!"

No.

Nononononononononono.

Apparently some people are not familiar with The Rules. You are supposed to pretend you don't notice that there is anyone else besides you in the bathroom at any time. You don't strike up a conversation with someone behind the stall doors, and you certainly don't out the other pee-ers by announcing who they are to anyone else who happens to be peeing. That's why there's doors on the stalls fer chrissakes. Geesh.

I feel so exposed.

Not The Crunchiest Peanut in the Turd

Seriously you guys, I swear I am a very intelligent person. For reals. I do math for a living. I read often and faster than a speeding bullet. I enjoy studying history, chemistry and geology just for fun. I know lots and lots of big words, mainly from nerdily reading the dictionary. I excel at logistical problem solving. I finished my degree early. So really I'm pretty smart.

My problem is that I lack even the faintest shred of common sense.

A couple of weeks ago, my Snapple cap told me that chewing gum while cutting onions will prevent you from crying. I decided to test this out last night while making dinner.

When the bartender walked in the kitchen and saw me holding toilet paper against my profusely bleeding bottom lip he asked the obvious question, "What did you do, taste the knife?"

But of course I hadn't. "No. I read about how chewing gum will keep you from tearing up when you're chopping onions, right? So I went to get a piece of gum to see if it would work. But, um, instead of just putting the gum in my mouth like you're supposed to, I thought I'd save time and just bite it out of the package. And so I sort of gave myself a papercut, only with foil. Do you know how to make this stop bleeding?" He stared at me for a moment and then silently left the room.

Natural selection may just get me yet.

Amberance: Fledgling Conspiracy Theorist

Fish: did you see that ken lay bought the farm yesterday?
PGS DenMILF: yeah. what does it say about me that my first thought was that he staged it and secretly left the country to live a life of luxury in a non-extradition tropical country?
Fish: well, it was my first thought too
Fish: so I guess it says that we watch too much x-files
PGS DenMILF: i take comfort knowing i was not the only one

Roommate v. 2.0

I am currently sitting in my living room staring at beer cases that run from the bay window in my living room to the opposing wall in my dining room and are stacked five feet high. No lie.

Before you all suggest that maybe I should lay off the suds, I would like to point out two things: 1) they are not mine, and 2) none of them contain beer. What they do contain are all of the bartender's personal belongings. Let me just go on record here as saying the boy has got A LOT of shit.

The bartender has been threatening to move in with me on and off since last September, but our recent Vegas trip with his old roommate Fuckwit finally pushed him into action. He stealth moved this morning leaving Fuckwit to wonder who ordered all that pay-per-view porn last month.

I came home from work today to find that my apartment was missing. Not really missing actually, more like transformed. You know in the movie Labyrinth when Sarah eats the peach and forgets everything? She goes into her "room" and all her stuff is there, but something doesn't feel right. She opens her bedroom door and instead of the hallway she finds a vast wasteland of junk stretching as far as the eye can see. That's pretty much the feeling I had walking into my apartment when I came home from work today.

What does it say about me that my bartender now lives in my apartment? One thing is for sure - I expect to have lots to write about. Let the drama begin!

Blogger Spell Check Interlude

Just so you know, Blogger spell check thinks my imaginary tail should be attached to my Taliban rather than my tailbone. I have to say I disagree.

Dude, Where's My Tail?

Krissy woke me up the other morning for food and petting as she always does. I lay there petting her for a while, and then she decided it was time for breakfast and gracefully leapt off my bed and onto the floor. This got me thinking about an old episode of Star Trek: Next Generation in which Data writes a poem for his cat, Spot. Specifically this line:

"A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents; you would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance."

File this one under Amber's More Bizarre Thoughts if you must. But I suddenly became very concerned about the whereabouts of my tail. What happened to it? Where did it go? And when? I started listing the other mammals I could think of that had tails: monkeys of course, and cats, dogs, cows, giraffes, pigs, even whales. But I am a mammal and I have no tail. What gives?

The obvious answer, of course, is that humans don't need tails. Which is fair enough, but it doesn't explain the cows. What is a cows tail for? It doesn't help with balance or propel it through water or anything. All they do is use it to swat at flies. I mean, that's barely even useful. But I could use it for that too, if I had one. It would be nice to have something to smack at mosquitoes with when I have a beer in one hand and a beanbag in the other, no?

The bartender did not want to have this conversation with me (shocking, I know). "We never had tails," he announced. "We came from apes. Apes don't have tails."

"But they DID," I argued. "Once upon a time humans apes, monkeys - we were all they same. Now some of us have tails and some of us don't. It's totally unfair."

I want my tail back. I have a tailbone, what is the point of that if I'm not going to also have a corresponding tail? Seriously, I think we got gyped.

Walk This Way

VelociHeather: speaking of conclusion thus ends my work day
VelociHeather: i must change before I walk home
PGS DenMILF: ah yes, tis that time
VelociHeather: aye, 'tis
PGS DenMILF: we shall speak again
VelociHeather: yarr, we shall
VelociHeather: YARR!
PGS DenMILF: and i will see you in like 4 days
VelociHeather: dude, that's like totally amazing
VelociHeather: and junk
VelociHeather: whee!
VelociHeather: i'll skip home
PGS DenMILF: do it
VelociHeather: like a little girl with a pink dress on
VelociHeather: and flowers
PGS DenMILF: aw
PGS DenMILF: and saddle shoes
VelociHeather: yes
PGS DenMILF: and then you'll get blisters
VelociHeather: until i get hit by a car
VelociHeather: Whee! thwack!!
PGS DenMILF: walking is neat

Because I Can

...but I will tell you this: I love painting soooo much that I'm flying to Baltimore for the weekend to help Heather paint her new house. That's right, I booked a last minute flight to Baltimore because I've run out of things to paint in Chicago. But also, lest you think I'm crazy or something, I'm going to see Heather do an Improv show with her troupe. And also I thought it would be fun to book a last minute flight to anywhere because all of a sudden I can. I was right too, it was fun. And will be fun. Yay!