The 2nd Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Today is my half birthday! What is that? It's the day that is exactly 6 months after my last birthday and 6 months before my next one. A sort of birthday equinox if you will. And mine is today.

This may seem silly to you but think about it: am I not a completely silly person? Exactly. Also until recently I was not into my birthday. All through my early 20s I dreaded it. I took to laying in bed all day in a funk, being overly dramatic and complaining: (huge affected sigh) "I don't know WHAT I'm going to do. My life is slipping away, slipping away...." Clearly this was entirely the wrong attitude, so really I NEED to celebrate all my half birthdays to make up for all the ones I missed while I was busy being a miserable person.

Much like on my actual birthday, I am making a huge deal out of it. I sent the following text to a half dozen of my friends just now:

It's my half birthday! Come to Tai's later and watch me bounce off of stuff!

My friends can best be described as tolerant.

I think when I get older I'll start celebrating quarter birthdays as well. If people complain I can look at them gravely and say "You never know when you're going to go." Maybe a bit of a downer, but I'm guessing they will all end up buying me a drink.

Rainbow Brite Revisited

I have received several angry messages from friends due to my sucky posting habits asking for pictures of my new hair, so without further ado I give you...me:





Please note my posed posture and come hither look. This is because Melle secretly wants to be a fashion photographer, also evidenced here:



Descriptions thus far have ranged from "Rainbow Brite had sex with you hair!" to "A gay pride parade threw up on your head":


Personally I enjoy it. Commence with comments from the peanut gallery...now.

Reading Comprehension

In the following sentence, which of the underlined words appears out of place but actually isn't?



Last night, I went to Uncle Julio's to drink alcohol and eat cheese with my boyfriend.

Rainbow Brite

Today Melle plans to "explore Roy G. Biv" on my head.

Pros and Cons

The interns last day in the office was this past Thursday. This has both benefits and drawbacks:

• Pro - There will be no one here to talk me into getting ice cream that I don't need or drinking a margarita on our lunch break (true story).
• Con - There will be no one to go to lunch with, period.
• Pro - No one will be interrupting a conversation I am having with my boss by throwing a stress ball at me over the cubicle wall.
• Con - Said stress ball will also not bounce once and then land in my cup of tea, thereby cracking me up.
• Pro - I will not feel guilty when I don't have any work for him to do.
• Con - I will not feel guilty for not doing my own work because the intern and I decided to watch Charlie the Unicorn or Weird Al videos on YouTube.

"I bet you eat the crap out of some lobster."
"No, she wears pants, but they're not THE pants."
"Why don't you suck a bag of dicks?"
"Someone has to piss excellence around here."
Intern, you will be missed.

The Way To My Heart Is Apparently Through My Apartment

Funny what life throws in your lap. Boys for example.

I haven't had any funny stories to post lately, mainly because I'm spending all of my time with a boy who is not MrSteve nor the bartender nor the owner and my stories about those events are not particularly funny: they are sappy, and cutesy, and romantic, and disturbingly cheerful and likely to make the average Bizzybiz reader throw up. Not that funny things don't happen - it's just that they are pretty much inside jokes that only I and this boy would find funny. Who has an actual name by the way, but I haven't quite asked him if it was OK to blog about him and I can't think of a good blogname (Captain Awesome? Smiley McSmileson? Hey You, Nice Ass?) so for now he will just be some boy I am dancing around telling you about.

My point though, was that I wasn't looking for this boy. I had decided quite honestly that it was OK to be single forever and ever amen since I have such wicked awesome friends. "Find a boy" was not on my to-do list. "Find an apartment" is what was on the list. The ridiculously hot music and baseball loving leasing agent with the great sense of humor and the smile that will make you lose consciousness due to it's brilliance was wholly unexpected.

I have become a cliche. It's a good thing I'm so good at making fun of myself.

I Watched Spinal Tap This Week

MrSteve: Out? In? On the moon?
Me: Home, but I wish I could hang out on the moon!
MrSteve: Pity. The moon would be cool.
Me: I know. I would be bouncing all over the place
MrSteve: And that would be different from regular you how?
Me: Well obviously because I could bounce higher what with the lower gravity
MrSteve: My point was that you bounce quite happily about under 1 g.
Me: Right but on the moon I could bounce up to 11

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

So the guy that called the police when he found a skull boiling in a pot at some guys house? Yeah, we know that guy. He's a hairdresser and part time drag queen. His brother cuts the bartender's hair. We saw him at the Social Distortion show last October dressed up like a cat with giant boobs and platform shoes.

Chicago. It's a small town, it just happens to have 3 million people in it.

Fredrick the Entertainer

About forever ago I had bought tickets to see Naked Raygun and their special guests Dillinger 4 at House of Blues. The show was Friday night, and I took Melle as payback for her strong arming me into the Scissor Sisters show a few months back (although I have to admit, a man in black and white vertical striped, sequin super short shorts dry humping an amp does have a degree of entertainment value). The best thing about punk rock shows is the people - you never know what kind of characters you're going to meet. In this particular case we met Freddie.

Freddie is a chubby, bald (I couldn't tell if this was by nature or on purpose) 26 year old. He was at the show with his step-brother Lou, or as Freddie called him "Lou-dog". Freddie could accurately be described as "high-strung". Our conversation started when Freddie decided that Melle was carrying a fake ID, because it was obvious to him that she was not 26. In fairness to Freddie, she did tell him she was "going to be 27" which is technically true, but made it look like she was lying as she will not actually be 27 for another 8 months. I was slightly offended that he was not at all troubled when I told him I was 29.

Freddie quickly noticed Melle's tattoo, which is hard not to do because it is beautiful and also covers half her arm. We were then given a rundown of Freddie's various tattoos. "This is my dad's initials, and this one is for my mom. You see this one here? That one says 'strength through struggle', which is important. I got that one when I was straight-edge." I found it hard to believe that Freddie, who was drunk off his ass, was ever straight-edge and I told him so. "Well, I mean, except for the drugs. But my friends were straight-edge." He insisted to us several times that this particular tattoo was "important", even though it was obvious to me he wasn't gaining any strength and was clearly losing his struggle. "Then these, do you see these?" he asked, pointing to some dark patches on his forearm. "These are cigarette burns. There's another fresh one under this band aid too. These are all from my buddies that died. I had three buddies die in the last year, so I burned myself with a cigarette for each one so I'd remember, you know? That's what we do in my neighborhood."

I didn't know and neither did Melle. But as stupid as the whole thing seemed it got worse when we asked him where he was from that this is what they do in his neighborhood, and he told us Rogers Park (home of Loyola University Chicago and a Jesuit religious order).

Freddie also seems to lack a short-term memory. A guy went past us trying to get closer to the stage and elbowed Freddie a little bit in the process. Freddie flipped out. "Fuck man! Did you see that guy? He fuckin hit me right in the fuckin face! I'm gonna go fuckin kill that guy!" The guy hadn't actually hit Freddie in the face, unless he had a second face on his upper chest. In preparation to go fuckin kill that guy, he did the athlete pour with the rest of his beer. This is the thing where you open your mouth and pour your beverage over your tongue and down the whole front of your shirt without actually swallowing anything. He then threw his empty on the ground with authority and started for the stairs. I grabbed the back of his shirt to stop him and told him it wasn't worth it to get thrown out right at the start of Naked Raygun's set. This stopped him from going but he continued to stand there, breathing heavily and fuming.

Ten minutes later he erupted again. "No man, fuck it, I'm gonna go kill that fuckin guy that spilled beer all over my shirt. Fuck! Look at what he did to my shirt!" Melle and I looked at Lou-dog who just shrugged with resignation. It was clear he'd been to shows with Freddie before.

Eventually we had to part with Freddie and Lou-Dog because Melle had obliterated her liver, but I will always think fondly of him and his crazy cigarette burning ways. And that's how to attend a punk rock show.

Amberance: Guru

MrSteve: Back when my job was fun, today would have been a perfect day to go for a test drive.
Me: Yeah, well, eventually everything starts to suck.

later...

MrSteve: I have to start looking for a new place soon as well.
Me: Really? why?
MrSteve: Because I hate my place. The only thing keeping me there was the garage and now she says she needs her garage back. Actually, I'm thinking about maybe leaving here altogether to go somewhere else.
Me: Seriously? Why would you leave Chicago? Chicago is awesome! I'm going to live here forever!
MrSteve: As a wise philosopher once said, "Eventually everything starts to suck."

Caffeine Buzzkill

I have walked into the kitchen at work to heat up my tea which has gotten cold. A co-worker is in there pouring coffee.

Co-worker (all chipper and shit at 9:30 am): I've just got to have my caffeine in the morning! Hee hee!
Me: Yeah I was off the caffeine for a while, but I'm back up to two cups of tea a day. I can't drink coffee though.
Co-worker: Oh really?
Me: Yeah, it's way too much caffeine for me, but mostly it's because I don't like it. Coffee tastes like a shoe.
Co-worker: Ha ha! Well I add sweetener and milk to mine. That should make it better, right?
Me: No, then it just tastes like a sweetened, milky shoe.

Moving Right Along

So the bartender and I are all moved now, and boy what a relief. The bartender now has an actual bedroom with a closet and a door, and I have a room that actually fits all both pieces of furniture I have. And let's not forget the jacuzzi.

Speaking of the jacuzzi: have I mentioned the part where I'm largely inept at life? I'm clumsy, you see, and I don't have a lot of what they call "common sense". These traits are not especially conducive to things like moving. I started the move by shattering the glass in a picture frame, and ended it by shattering a glass that made it through the actual moving part intact when I was putting it away in the kitchen. In the middle I did the following:

• Dropped a dining room chair on my ankle. Actually I do that kind of thing all the time, but this time I dropped it hard enough to form an impact crater on my leg. Seriously. It bruised up all angry and purple, and as it has faded, the bruising in the middle is gone and there is a purple ring around the impact point of the leg of the chair. I'm just like the moon now.
• Asked for help. The old apartment had a key that opened everything. The new apartment has 6: The front two building doors, the mail box, the front door, the deadbolt on the front door, the back door and the basement laundry room. The building also has a friendly caretaker, and I know he is friendly because my first order of business upon beginning my move was to lock myself out of the apartment. I had taken a few things over myself because I didn't want the movers to break them (it's always better for me to break things myself). I had left the keys in the door. On my way down to make another trip, I actually thought to myself "Do I need to take the keys with me?" and I answered myself "No, because I am leaving this door open and therefore won't have to unlock it." I go out to the car, grab more stuff, walk back to the building and...oh yeah, I can't get in the building without the keys. Luckily I heard a Spanish language soap opera coming from the caretakers window, and he was happy to let me in after I buzzed the door. Unfortunately, I can now never need anything ever again because I am too embarrassed to speak to him.
• Took a bath. So sore was I from unpacking things, and so excited was I that I now have a jacuzzi, I decide that my top priority was to take a nice relaxing bath. A bubble bath. Right, so for anyone who does not immediately see the problem with this (which I'm sure is just me) you can't take a bubble bath and a jacuzzi soak at the same time unless your plan is to overflow your entire house with bubbles. Luckily I didn't actually overflow the tub, I just had so many suds I had to take a shower afterwards to get them off me.

Clearly moving is not my forte. Or bathing.

The Hiatus

OMFG, as the kids would say.

What with all the working hard, and the trying to find a new apartment (hi Aaron), and Reading Challenge 2007, and Easter, and margarita drinking (it can be a full time job sometimes) it's hard to find the time to check the blogs I read, let alone contribute to my own.

Reading Challenge 2007 takes up most of my spare time. This is a project Heather devised. Knowing that I enjoy reading and wanting to read more often herself, we made a pact at the beginning of this year to encourage each other to read more. So far it's worked out extremely well. I've completed 22 books so far this year, meaning I've been averaging about 2-3 books a week. After a slow start, Heather is doing very well too. I like to think this is because I publicly shamed her on MySpace.

A great side benefit to Reading Challenge 2007 is the getting of delicious mail. Heather and I have been exchanging books with the assistance of the US Postal Service, and the last package she sent me came with a box of homemade cookies, which I managed to eat all of in about 20 minutes. Heather makes a mean cookie. I wanted to send her back a pie, but I'm not sure it would survive the trip. Suggestions?

Yesterday I got the invitation to my cousin's wedding in the mail. I am very happy for him, but also it's really weird. This is primarily because I used to babysit him, which means someone I used to babysit is old enough to get married, which means theoretically that I am old enough to get married, which can't possibly be correct as I clearly don't qualify as a grown up. Despite the weird I am very excited. In other exciting family news, I'm going to be a faunt, which is short for fake aunt. Simmy is in the process of growing her first offspring, which should be fully cooked sometime in September. This will be the first baby of the family, which is super exciting, but which I secretly fear is going to get me booted from the kids table.

Melle and I have discovered a new favorite bar, Fernando's on Lincoln near my apartment. Fernando's is like a mexican version of Tai's Til 4 but with food. There is a real Fernando (like there is a real Tai) who has had the restaurant for decades (Tai's has been in business over 45 years). Fernando is retired but is there every day (just like Tai) and his son is running the restaurant now (just like Tai's son, the owner). I started calling it Mexi-Tai's. Melle calls it "the office" as in "Hey, I need to go spend some time at the office". She thinks this is hilarious, probably because she's never actually worked in an office. The margaritas are delicious. Melle told Fernando that they were better than the margaritas she had in Mexico. Fernando scoffed. "They don't know how to make a margarita in Mexico," he told us. "They do it all wrong. The make them with Fanta!"

I will be moving to my new apartment next week and I love love love it. For over two years I have been looking back with nostalgia on the days in Cleveland when I had a garbage disposal. My new apartment has one, along with a jacuzzi tub and central air. And a huge deck. All of my dreams are coming true!

Are You Bored? Circle One: YES/NO

The Intern is leaving for his real life job in a couple of months. This makes me sad because he is the only other person who will act juvenile with me and pass stupid notes back and forth in meetings. Also because it's funny when he gets irritated that I call his girlfriend "The Pants".

Let Me Know If I'm Leering

You know how when you first get something pierced you have to have some kind of jewelry in it for a while to prevent the hole from closing up? It's a really good thing vaginas aren't like that.

I have not had a dry spell like this since, um, ever. I am going crazy. Not having any sex is making it so that I can't think about anything else. (Also having sex makes it so I can't think about anything else too, so maybe it's me.) I have now begun sizing up every single human that walks past me in terms of mating with them. No seriously, I mean everyone. Are you 80 years old? Are you a toothless hobo who smells like moth balls? IT DOESN'T MATTER. I am checking you out. How you doin?

Case in point: My company is considering a new website and we've been listening to pitches from different website developers, as you do. Or rather, other people have been listening. I have been picturing all of them naked. Today my coworker asked, "So what do you think of those guys from Friday? Do you think they're better than the first group?" My actual answer: "I don't really know. I think the first group was more attractive. Well, actually the two guys from Friday weren't bad, it was just that one guy. Something bad happened to his head. It looks like the moon." Probably I should not be trusted with anything important right now.

Deal A Meal Is My Favorite Card Game

H-town: i love a good mumu
me: if i was huge that is totally what i'd wear
H-Town: ladies and gentlemen - the GOOD MUMUS!!
of course
they're comfy
me: i would be proud to wear my mumu. i would say "I may have a bigga figga but you don't get to wear a mumu!"
H-Town: haha
would you wear a tent?
if it got to that point?
i hope i'd be able to stop you before you reached tent size
me: I would cut a hefty bag into daisy duke shorts
i would go clubbing in it
H-Town: i'd want to stop you before you got to "we have to move you with a forklift" size
me: wait! if you don't stop me, does it mean i get to meet richard simmons again? because that would be awesome
H-Town: hmm that's a tough call
me: it would almost be worth it to become morbidly obese just to have richard simmons show up in person at my house
and cry
H-Town: and give you a pair of his hot pants to eventually fit into
me: he would sob openly as i showed him my refrigerator filled with cheese
actually i could show him that right now
H-Town: it's starting!
i'm willing to bet that if you wrote him a letter and said the only way you thought it possible to meet him was to gain 500lbs, he might come meet you now
he could promise to cry anyway
me: holy crap that's brilliant! we should get started right now
"My dearest Richard
H-Town: send him photos of you eating donuts and pizzas
threatening to put barbecue sauce on your cat
then say your cat's joined the cause
me: "You may not remember me, but I was the little blond girl who sat on your lap when you made an appearance at parmatown mall in ohio in the early 80's. Anyway, I've never forgotten your spandex biker shorts and have been dying to meet you again ever since...."
H-Town: hahaha
"should you not come to chicago to meet me soon, I will start to eat more and more until I cannot physically leave my apartment without the help of heavy machinery"
"enclosed is a photo of me eating a doughnut - I'm starting right now!"
me: every few months i could send him pictures of me getting fatter
i'd rig them so that i don't fit in the frame to make my situation look dire
H-Town: and show your shrine to him, surrounded by candles and empty entenmann's boxes
me: "please help. I can only wear my old bracelets as rings now"
H-Town: haha
me: "xoxo, Amberance"
H-Town: "i haven't seen my cat in weeks, I fear she may be stuck in one of my folds..."
me: "because i am so huge my perception of size is skewed. I fear I may have eaten my cat a few weeks ago thinking she was a nice juicy peach"
H-Town: haha
me: i really do need richard simmons though. there is not another human alive who has a chance of talking me into exercising. he's the only trainer in history who is not mean and nazi-like
H-Town: same here, i'd do aerobics with him
me: "If you just do 10 more sit ups, I promise I'll jump up and down and clap my hands and squeal"
H-Town: done
me: no doubt

Beer and Pens Shall Be Your Reward

I came home on Sunday after dropping off the bartender at the airport and started a mental debate with myself about whether it was better to start cooking some dinner or lounge on the couch watching Arrested Development reruns and drooling. Just as I finally got hungry enough to drag myself away from the television and start chopping red peppers, my phone rang. It was Gene Honda.

This was interesting because Gene NEVER calls me. We generally discuss all things needing discussion at the bar, or relay messages through the owner or the bartender. So I was excited because my first assumption was that he had a really brilliant idea of somewhere to go to out to dinner and he thought of me first. I was wrong.

"Amber, this is Gene."
"Gene! What's going on?"
"This is an emergency."
My glee died in my throat. There's no such thing as a delicious emergency.
"OK."
"I'm doing pledge at Channel 11." Gene seems to always be doing pledge at Channel 11, as WTTW does four pledge drives a year. "We are short about 30 phone operators. If you are not doing anything tonight, and if anyone you know is not doing anything, we could REALLY use some help down here on the phones. We're on East St. Louis. Go to the side entrance and tell them you're a friend of mine and you're there to help with phones."

It is a testament to how much I like Gene that I actually showed up, because talking to strangers on the phone ranks right up there with petting spiders on my list of Things I Never Ever Want To Do. It took me a half hour to convince myself that I didn't have any kind of reasonable excuse to stay home. In the end I decided that if I was going to watch PBS all the time and never donate, then showing up to handle calls from people who aren't cheapskates was the least I could do to prove that I don't suck.

When I got there, a very nice guy named Dan stuck me on the end of long table and quickly went over how the phone works, the script, the pledge forms and the various thank you gifts we were offering at that moment. "When you get up to use the restroom or go to the cafeteria, make sure you put your phone on not ready so it doesn't ring and ring while you're gone. It's awfully hard to find the one ringing phone when there are 50 of them. Oh, and obviously don't get up and leave while we're on camera." This will seem incredibly stupid I'm sure, but I was so nervous about answering the phones that despite having watched hundreds of pledge drives in my life and the fact that I was in a television studio, until he said that it hadn't even occurred to me that I was going to be on television. It was only by sheer chance that I had actually put on make up that day and hadn't worn a t-shirt that said "Bitch! Shut the fuck up!" or "Masturbation: My Anti-Drug". I looked around the room to find all the monitors so I would know where not to look. I don't actually mind being on screen; it just freaks me out if I can see myself. When I got to sing the national anthem at the Chicago Fire game I couldn't look at my huge head on the Jumbotron for fear I would lose it and crack up laughing. Dan handed me a very nice WTTW pen that lights up that I got to keep as a reward for swallowing my terror and went away.

During my first break I realized why the shortage of phone operators was such an emergency. It felt like my hand was going to fall off, and I was sure my brand new pen was going to run out of ink. The phones just did not stop ringing through the entire break. The show that was airing was called Remembering Chicago which is a great and extremely popular series. Apparently everyone wanted a piece of it (a $60 pledge gets you an episode of your choice on DVD, and $120 pledge will get you all four episodes!) I even got a call from a guy in Florida (how he was getting the Chicago PBS station in Florida is a mystery to me. I'd like to see that cable package. What else are they carrying?).

Surprisingly, I only got two prank phone calls the whole night. The second one creeped me out though. "Are you wearing a black shirt? HAHAHAHAH" *click* I hung up and thought Hey I AM wearing a black shirt! Holy shit, they're watching me!!! I glanced around the room trying hard not to look alarmed. In so doing I realized there were fully seven women in the phone banks wearing black shirts, which was a relief because it wasn't necessarily me specifically that they were watching. All in all, it wasn't nearly as bad as my neurotic social phobias had feared.

Afterward, Gene decided that he owed me a drink, so we went to meet up with Teacher Charlie. In a vain attempt to find a bar that was still serving food at 11:30 on Sunday night, we ended up in a place we hadn't been to before. Their kitchen was closed, but our need for alcohol was greater than our need for food, so we decided to stay. This caused a great deal of excitement among the staff. Gene is not Harry Caray, but he is somewhat more popular here than he'd like to believe. He does not like to talk about his Wikipedia page, or his appearance in Opportunity Knocks. The bouncer took one look at Gene and flipped out. "You're staying? Oh my God, then I'm going to get your drinks because I have White Sox season tickets and I have DePaul season tickets and oh my God, you're awesome!" I thought that was weird. He has season tickets because he likes baseball and basketball, or he has season tickets because he likes to listen to Gene talk? Because he can listen to Gene talking at Tai's for a lot cheaper. The manager was also impressed and bought us all another two rounds, as well as producing some chips and salsa from the previously closed kitchen. We hung out until closing with the bouncer basking in the glow of Gene, Teacher Charlie basking in the glow of my pen which seemed to fascinate him, and me basking in the glow of a very drunk girl who kept hugging me and dancing on me and insisting that she loved me. Or maybe she was basking in my glow, who knows?

I'm pretty sure I had much more fun than I would have as a drooling couch potato at home. And I certainly wouldn't have such a cool pen.

More Scenes From a Bar

I'd been saving these to write full posts around, but I've forgotten most of what I wanted to post and I really want these scraps out of my purse.

MrSteve and I having a conversation about how other people are always driving my car:
MrSteve: You have a weapon. You could say "no".
Me: I don't think I have that weapon. I think my no is bent or something. Somebody broke it. Never let other people play with your no.

Mike: Who sings American Pie? It's Bob Dylan, right?
Me: No, it's Don McClean.
Mike: Are you sure?
Me: Yes. If it was Bob Dylan no one would understand any of the lyrics.

I'm stealing MrSteve's matches just so I can light them, and then sniff them.
MrSteve: You know that only minions of the devil enjoy the smell of sulfur, right?
Me: Well then bring it on, Beelzebub!

Mike: Hey, do you want a shot?
Me: No thanks.
Mike: I know. That's why I asked you.

Gene: I had this lobster while I was in Maine. It's so sweet you don't even think you need the butter. But you use it anyway.
Vic: I knew a girl like that once!

The dj had just started spinning.
Me: Well, that's my cue to leave. It's time to go when the music starts getting thumpy.
MrSteve: I like my music thumpy. With extra misogyny and a side of bling.

Girl Scout Cookies

Tagalongs are highly addictive. They should be classified as a controlled substance and regulated by the FDA. And those junkie dealers that only sell them once a year should be thrown in prison.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I bet you didn't realize you were reading the blog of a world famous poet, but you are. My favorite podcast, Punky! Radio - with listeners in every corner of the planet, 3,435 MySpace friends, consistently rated as the top music podcast on Podcast Alley and syndicated on two internet radio stations - has posted my poem that I wrote for their show as an audio file on their MySpace page.

GO LISTEN TO IT.

You may not get all of the jokes, so I recommend you also become a regular listener because it's a really great show.

I'm going to go sit back and wait for the endorsement deals to start rolling in.

Amberance: Conscientious Citizen

Tuesday night I headed out for my first experience as a voter in Illinois. Or rather, as a voter in Chicago as it was only a municipal election. I was extremely excited despite there being only four races on the ballot, one of which was a person running unopposed and another being the mayoral race, which is really just a formality here. Mayor Daley was re-elected overwhelmingly just as everyone expected. Chicagoans are funny like that. It's not that people are unaware that the administration is overwhelmingly corrupt, it's just that they don't really care. It's almost considered part of the city's cultural heritage: who doesn't think of Chicago when they think of Al Capone and the mafia and buying politicians? Secretly we like being notorious. As long as the streets are clean, and they are, Daley can be declared Mayor for life. Nevertheless, voting was the thing I was waiting for to make me feel like I can tell people I'm from here, so I was really psyched about it.

I got to the polling place which was a school near my house and went inside. I got passed from one table to another until we finally figured out that my ward's table wasn't in the building. "Go back out and on the other side of the pavement there is like a yellow field house, that's where you need to go." I thought this was weird because the school was pretty huge and the other two wards were only using one room. But whatever. I walked around the playground and saw the yellow field house. It was tucked way back into a corner where it could barely be seen from the street. It also looked like it could collapse on top of the people inside it at any second. In my head I started imagining a conspiracy theory, like Daley found out that a lot of people in my ward were planning to vote against him so they put the voting somewhere that was difficult to find and scary once you got there.

The inside was tiny and smelled like mildew and unwashed jock straps. The people inside, on the other hand were awesome. In all my life I have never seen such cheerful election volunteers. I half expected them to hand me a beer and tell me come hang out at the table. While I was voting it was discovered that almost everyone volunteering in that room was left handed, and they had noticed the left-handedness of me and the person who came in right after me while we were giving our signatures and this caused much rejoicing.

I finished voting in about 18 seconds, and took my ballot up the collection table. By the way, they have GIGANTIC ballots here. Seriously. Only four races on the ticket, but this sheet of paper must have been about 12" x 20". Al Gore would have a stroke if he ever saw them. This was the part I had been most looking forward to. Because all my life, I've been a voter in Ohio and in Ohio you get this awesome "I voted today!" sticker when you turn in your ballot. I was really excited about that sticker because I wanted to wear it to the bar tonight in order to make fun of my friend Teacher Charlie, who is best known for his never bothering to vote. I planned to taunt him with it. Only, when I turned my ballot in, there were no stickers. Instead they handed me a slip of paper that read "Ballot Receipt February 27, 2007. Municipal General Election." as if I had purchased something I might later want to return. Also the upper left-hand corner noted that this was Form 10, so apparently it's some kind of official document. All I know is that it has no adhesive that I can use to affix it to my shirt tonight. I was disappointed. I thought everyone handed out stickers when you voted. On occasion it's been the only reason I went - I have no idea who all those judges are!

So I'll have to make fun of Teacher Charlie without a cool prop, but what's that you ask? Where am I from? Why, I'm from Chicago Illinois!

Post Traumatic Stress

I woke up from my dream last night with my heart pounding. While occasionally this is a sign of a good dream (wink-wink, nudge-nudge), today it wasn't.

I dreamed that I was standing in my bathroom talking to the bartender, who was also standing in the bathroom. Why we were hanging out talking in the bathroom remains a mystery. Dreams. Go fig. Anyway, we were standing there talking, and the bartender had no socks on. Suddenly, as if from no where, a centipede crawled out and ran across the bartender's naked little toes. The good news is, it didn't run over my toes. The bad news is I'm dreaming about centipedes.

Actually, I'm not sure that's it. Since the bartender arrived there have been three centipede incidents: one that he found in the tub when I wasn't home and released to the wild (stupid move - why not just put up a sign?: "No kill centipede shelter! Bring your friends!") the one that snuck into the tub and tried to eat me before escaping and one that came crawling out from behind the toilet while I was freaking on it that then crawled into the kitchen, where it ran into Kristen, got the shit beaten out of it, and was eventually trapped under a bowl with a note on it reading "half dead centipede inside!" until the bartender woke up and killed it. (Side note: it is perhaps possible that these were not three, but rather one exceptionally dogged centipede that twice escaped death and came back for more. But that's a conspiracy theory for another time.) The last of these incidents happened way back in October, so why would I be dreaming about bathroom centipedes now?

Because it wasn't an ordinary dream. It was a flashback caused by post traumatic centipede stress. I was so horrified by what I witnessed that I re-live it in vivid nightmares and become overwhelmed with fear anytime I'm in the bathroom and see movement other than my own.

When I discussed my self-diagnosis with the intern, it got him started on a tangent about bags filled with roaches and roaches on people's faces trying to eat their eyelashes and that these things had happened to people he knew (in South Carolina. Wally, is this common or are his friends just slobs with tasty eyelashes?). I got so freaked out I began to see the appeal of agoraphobia, provided that my entire house is one big hermetically sealed clean room.

I think maybe I should see someone.

The Geneva Conventions Say Sleep Deprivation is Torture

I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping for the past several months. I've tried everything I can think of short of sleep aid medication: warm milk, turkey, oatmeal, NyQuil - but no, I still find myself wide awake. I've decided maybe the problem isn't so much that I need some magical sleep inducing elixur, but that I might need to consider finding some different friends.

*****

Monday morning I woke up around 4 a.m. and immediately noticed that there was one more human voice talking in my house than normal, and also that this human voice was really loud. Moments later, Hellbilly burst into my room and flipped on the light.

"AMBER! Hey, what's goin' on? I ran into your boy [the bartender] over at the bar there and I decided to come over and say hi!"

"Great. Hi. You need to turn off the fucking light now."

"Whoa, hey, aren't you happy to see me?"

"I'm happy I have this blanket on me." I was dressed in a pair of black panties. That's it. For once my blanket was actually on top of me instead of in a twisted heap half shoved into the corner and half on the floor. "I'll be even happier when you shut off the light and go the hell away."

"Holy shit! Why are you being so hostile?"

From the kitchen I heard the bartender shout, "See? I told you! I win the bet!" He appeared at my door all smiles and joviality. "So I'm at Underbar with [Vicodin] Jim and the psycho, and out of nowhere, [Hellbilly] shows up! Oh, by the way, the psycho actually complained about something else besides Jim today. Twice! Anyway, so [Hellbilly] asks where you are and I said you were in bed and he was all, 'I'm coming home with you and I'm going to climb into bed with her.' And Jim told him that was a really bad idea and I told him you'd be mad. But he didn't believe us, he thought you'd be all happy to see him, and he bet us you'd like it. But you're not, you're all pissed, so now we both get a steak dinner, hahaha!" This sparked an argument between them, because Hellbilly didn't think he'd lost as he hadn't actually climbed into bed with me, while they both stood in my room shouting with the light still on.

"HEY!" I interrupted. "Drunk #1 and Drunk #2! Get the fuck out of my room and either use your inside voices or shut the fuck up because if you wake me up again, I start ripping balls off, got it? Out, now."

"I told you," mumbled the bartender as they filed out the door. But something was still wrong.

"Hey asshole, get back in here!" I yelled. The bartender poked his head back in. "Shut off the goddamn light."

I never really got back to sleep.

*****
This morning I was awakened by a nauseating smell. I laid in bed listening for the bartender. When I didn't hear him hopping around in the kitchen, I got up to investigate. The smell got a hundred times worse when I opened my door. Also the kitchen lights were on and the entire house was filled with smoke. I walked into the kitchen and found a pot on the stove with the burner on full blast underneath it and something that was probably once food black and sizzling inside it. Actually, it was Kraft macaroni, which I only determined by the packet of imitation cheese powder sitting unused on the counter next to an unused bowl and an unused spoon. I checked the clock and discovered it was 6 a.m. which meant two things: the pot had been on the stove for at least two hours and probably more, and I needed to check the kitchen smoke detector because apparently it's defective. I shut the heat of and started running hot water in the sink. I don't know how it works with metal, but if you heat up glass to a high temperature and then drop it in freezing water the glass will crack. I wasn't taking any chances. I don't really know why, it's not like the pot is usable. I opened the kitchen windows despite it being 4 degrees outside, lit a bunch of candles and sprayed some Glade through the house. This did nothing. In fact as I sit here right now at 1 p.m. at work, I can still smell burning burnt shit on my clothes which had been hanging up in my closet. As I was leaving the house the bartender woke up. "Did I leave that on?" he asked.

"Yep."

"Oh, sorry."

"That's ok, I took care of it. The window is still open in the kitchen." I have no idea why I said it was ok, because I was furious and it was decidedly not ok, and who gets in their bed while they're cooking something anyway? But I didn't have the energy to yell at him because I didn't get any sleep this week.

We're Getting Six Inches of Snow Today

The owner called from Hawaii because he's shitty like that.

Me: What's up dude?
Owner: I'm a little chilly. It's only 83 degrees.
Me: I hate you.
Owner: I love you, I just want to punch you in the face most of the time.
Me: Whatever, you know it's negative degrees here today right?
Owner: Yep, and I'm here on the beach with my tropical lemonade.
Me: You know, you call and harass me every time you go to Hawaii.
Owner: I know. That's because you're the only one who's still dumb enough to answer the phone.

He texted me later:

Owner: Don't u hate when u get too much sand on your feet? It's uncomfortable.
Me: I hope a shark bites your kneecap.
Owner: Oh nice! I hope spiders attack you in your sleep!
Me: I feel your love from here!
Owner: Hopefully that's the spiders you feel.

Maybe With a Side of Mashed Potatoes

Discussing Hannibal Rising (spoilers):

Bartender: I still wish he would have eaten that guy's daughter.
Me: No, she was innocent, that's why he didn't.
Bartender: Bah, no one is innocent.
Me: Dude, she was, like, three.
Bartender: Exactly, she'd probably be really tender!

It's Funny Cuz It's True

Mass e-mail message sent to my gang of friends from high school:

OK, why hasn't anyone from this group thought this up for their wedding? Simone? John? Leash? What happened?

Simone responds:

that is funny. maybe we could plan it for the birth of baby leash. at the hospital. in hospital gowns.

I responded:

I'm making all you guys do Rhythm Nation at my wedding. Unless a couple of the guys want to get together to do Dick In A Box. (But please do not actually put your dick in the box. Thanks.)

My brother responded:

Who, on this earth, is going to be able to tie your arms and legs up long enough to keep you from running away from a wedding?

This is obviously the most brilliant respose in the history of e-mail.

Dear El Nino,

What the hell, bro? It's 13 degrees. Supposed to go down to 4 tonight. Four degrees. F-o-u-r. You have some explaining to do buddy.

When I first heard it was an El Nino year, I was overjoyed. I remembered my last El Nino: Mild temperatures all winter long, hardly ever dropped below freezing, barely any snow. I could not wait. I was so excited to see you again. I greeted you with open arms. Indeed, much of the last month was remarkable.

BUT.

I walked out of my house this morning and the temperature sucker punched me in the face. I saw stars. Seconds later I lost all feeling in my extremities. I could have been wearing 9 snowsuits and it wouldn't have made a difference. I would have screamed but I was afraid that if I opened my mouth all of my internal organs would freeze. I stood on the platform waiting for the train, even though it was obvious I was going to die before it came. Two words for you, dickhead: booger icicles.

Am I in Canada? No, I'm not. I don't know who shit in your dildo drawer, jackwad, but there's no reason for you to take it out on me. I never did anything to you. So get your lazy ass in gear and fix this shit right now, because if I die it's on your head. Jerk.

Regards,

Amberance

Bang!

MrSteve read the blog post about our drinking fun while we sat at the bar last night. He got to the part about the hangover and paused in his reading. "Inner ear fluid?"

I shrugged. "I kept running into things!"

Kitty Woes, Hangovers and the Miracle of Ceramic Tile

I keep not posting my birthday party highlights. The reason is that I'm not in the mood.

I took Kristen the kitty angel of joy to the vet on Friday for her routine annual exam only to find out that she has a tumor in her mouth and needs a $700 dollar surgery to get it out. And then we have to send it to a lab to find out if there's cancer in that thar tumor or not. As if this wasn't frightening enough, they were concerned that she might not survive surgery with her heart condition, so I had to take her for another echocardiogram before they would clear her for surgery. So now my cat has a cardiologist. (Maybe I'm overthinking this, but how does a person decide they want to be a kitty cardiologist? I can see how people decide to become a veterinarian: "I love animals! I should work with them!", but how do you go from that to, "I love animals! I should work with them! But just their hearts."? Or maybe they just find out in vet school that they're good at it? I just don't know.) The cardiologist said her heart was doing very well on her medication and in fact should continue to do well for years before she starts showing signs of heart failure. So she has that going for her. Of course, she charmed everybody in the place with her sweet disposition and tiny frightened meows, because that is what she does. So she is cleared for surgery, which will occur on Tuesday.

So, not really in a party recap mood you understand.

This is not to say there haven't been some smiling times. When I got home from the vet on Friday with my awful news, I sobbed for an hour on the bartender. He did his best to be comforting, but he had to go to work. That was ok, because I had a plan for the evening: get obnoxiously drunk and pass out.

People that know me well know that despite most of my social life occurring inside of a bar, I actually drink very little. Two to three ciders once a week spread over 5 hours is my typical limit. In hindsight, I should have taken that into consideration before deciding to drink an entire bottle of wine by myself. In an hour and a half. Melle informed me later "you have to work your way up to being a wino." Oops.

Halfway through the bottle I remembered to call MrSteve, who knew I was at the vet and was waiting for the story. I also explained my excessive drinking plan, thinking he would try to talk me out of my self destruction. Instead he said "I have a bottle of Captain just sitting here that I've never opened. I should bring it to you!" I seriously have the best friends in the universe.

MrSteve ended up staying, I think as much to prevent me from seriously injuring myself as anything, and we had a grand old time looking up Monty Python sketches, eulogies, and Bob the Enzyte guy on the internet, as well as MST3K-ing an episode of Numbers. I also spoke to Melle on the phone while MrSteve made pirate noises in the background. Apparently I spilled things a lot. (I do that sober though, just not on other people as much. Sorry Steve.) We took in a little William Shatner music.

I woke up on the bathroom floor. I have been known to do this before. It's a tradition that started at the Christmas Eve Eve Drinking Extravaganza of 1999 (I believe. Kelly? Doug? Simmy?) and continued at the 25th Anniversary of the Birth of TupperDoug party a few years later. Since then I've found that sleeping on the bathroom floor is good because 1) if you have to ralph you are right next to the toilet and 2) the floor is nice and cool which paradoxally helps to keep you from vomiting. Also "and then I woke up on the bathroom floor" is a great way to end a story. I've got the bartender doing it now too which is hilarious.

Thanks to my bathroom tile sleeping ways I did not vomit. This proved to be a mistake the next day when I woke up certain that I was dying. My head, stomach, liver, esophagus and inner ear fluid mutinied. Several other organs tried to escape. I did not even need to swallow any water. I could just pour it on my skin and my body absorbed it instantly. I looked on the bright side - I was obviously not cut out to be an alcoholic. In the future I plan to drown my sorrow by eating an entire block of cheese instead.

I promise I will get to the birthday thing, what with the appearance of the brothers whose last name rhymes with "shmongola" and the forcing people to sing and the light saber appearing as drug paraphernalia. Eventually.

Pimpin' Ain't Easy (With the Flu)

I have been sick for well over a week. I told MrSteve that I had malaria. He was skeptical of this, as I have not been out of the country or anywhere near a river, and all the mosquitoes in Chicago have flown south for the winter, or where ever it is that they go. I looked in my throat in the mirror with a flashlight and found that my flesh most closely resembled freshly ground beef. This, combined with a week of hacking up respiratory organs, was enough to finally convince me that I should have a medical professional look into it.

We have previously established, I think, that I am a very lazy person. Procrastination is my main form of artistic self-expression. Because of this I only go to the doctor when prescriptions expire. And since my dad doesn't live here and can't do things like pick out doctors for me, I have no primary care physician in Chicago. This is the circumstance that led me to seek answers at an immediate care clinic.

I sat in the waiting room and checked out the magazine selection. I had my choice of Field and Stream or Sporting News Weekly. I picked up a two week old Sporting News Weekly and thumbed through it. It predicted a Superbowl battle between the Cowboys and the Ravens. This made me laugh out loud.

The nurse called my name and ushered me into a room. It quickly became apparent that English was not her first language. Eventually I started answering yes or no to her questions at random rather than point out that I couldn't understand half of what she was saying. "Are you on any medications?"

"Yes, Tri-levelen and Welbutrin."

"OK, can you spell for me?" I thought maybe I should make more of an effort to find a private practice somewhere. She swabbed my throat to make sure I didn't have strep (which was my primary concern; my tonsils came out in second grade because I kept getting it) and told me that the doctor would be in soon.

Whatever fears I had about the quality of care at this place vanished as soon as the doctor came in the door. He introduced himself and shook my hand. "How are you today?"

"Sick."

"That's a great answer. If you would have said good I would have known you were a liar."

He took a look in my throat. "Good news!" he told me. "You don't have tonsilitis! But you knew that, because you don't have tonsils."

He had me lay down so he could listen to my chest. When I pulled my shirt up he gasped at my belly piercing. "OH MY GOD! Didn't that hurt?"

"Not really, I mean not much. Like getting a shot." He shook his head in dismay.

"Shots hurt. No piercings for me. No tattoos. I told my wife if I die with more holes in my body than I was born with, that's the hole that killed me."

I took my glasses off so he could tap on my head. "Do you wear contact lenses?"

I feared this might be a trick question. "Um, yes. Sometimes. I mean, not all the time."

"Good. You should wear them. You have beautiful eyes. It would be a shame to hide them behind those glasses." I decided he was the best doctor ever.

In the end he decided I had sinusitis, which is really just a fancy word for the entire upper half of my body is filled with snot. I decided this was not nearly as interesting as having malaria. He prescribed an antibiotic, an antihistamine and two cough medications, and sent me on my way.

It wasn't until the desk receptionist checked me out and I turned to leave that I remembered I was in an immediate care clinic and not at my awesome new doctor's private practice. Sitting in the waiting room, sniffling like it was his job, was a pimp in a bright green pimp suit. Green suit with his shirt half open, matching shiny green shoes, mounds of bling and, for real kids, a bright green hat with a feather in it. He had a gold knobbed walking stick laying across his lap. I almost looked around for cameras. I was sure he had stepped right out of a Snoop Dogg video. Pimps need doctors too I guess. It's hard to keep your bitches in line if you keep sneezing all over them.

Real Friendship

It is vitally important to choose your friends carefully.

You need to have someone who will listen to you when you need to vent.
Someone to cheer you up when you are down.
Someone you know you can count on in any crisis.

Someone who will prank call you at work, play a roaring dinosaur pen in your ear, and then hang up on you. You know, someone like Heather.

It's been 20 minutes and I still can't stop laughing. I less than three you, Heather!

The Obligatory Holiday Recap

Well hello there, internet friends. Long time no write.

Despite the best efforts of the "kids" of my family (you all should have co-ordinated your efforts, It still wouldn't have worked but it probably would have been really entertaining) I spent my Christmas with the bartenders family in Galena this year instead of going to Cleveland. This worked out very well, because I can't get homemade swedish meatballs in Cleveland, and no one in my family is the crazy cat lady so I wouldn't have gotten to play with a half dozen kittens that were so cute I almost threw up on them. Then again, if I'd gone to Cleveland I wouldn't have been covered in cat hair, and also my dad's house doesn't smell like ammonia.

The bartender was born on Christmas Eve, so I baked him a cake with the Blackhawks logo on it (because I am friggin awesome) which we took with us to Galena that night. He decided, somewhat arbitrarily and with no basis whatsoever in reality, that we would be celebrating his 24th birthday, which magically transformed him into being younger than me for a day. We hung out at his sister's townhouse for a while, before retiring to our hotel to watch football. Alcohol was consumed, cheese was heated up at 2 in the morning and consumed on tortilla chips. I think he had a pretty good fake 24th birthday.

I got a lot of great gifts. My parents had sent me a huge box of stuff, including a couple of new nativities for my collection and a cute but weird stuffed lamb that had a card claiming it had slept on top of the baby Jesus in the manger to keep him warm. I found that unlikely because it seems like if you put a sheep on top of a baby the kid would suffocate, but then again I wasn't there. The bartender's sister and her girlfriend bought me an amber necklace when they were in Scotland. And the bartender broke from his highly cultivated "you are not so special and you annoy me" attitude and surprised me with airline tickets to Las Vegas for New Year's.

As far as New Year's goes, Las Vegas is the new New York. About 3 million people come into town for it. The cost of a hotel room quadruples. They shut down the strip at 5:00 so they can fill the street with people who will then watch a spectacular fireworks show at the stroke of midnight.

The bartender and I had gone to dinner with the owner et al. for his birthday at Japanais. While this seemed like a good idea at the time, we were clear on the other end of the strip from where we wanted to be, which was on top of Mandalay Bay at the Foundation Room, where we had been invited to watch the fireworks with the bartender's good friend whom I shall call His Royal Awesomeness because he fills me with awe. (And booze.) With the strip being shut down, and the blisters I had acquired walking to dinner, we were going to have a hard time making it back in time. Actually, as it turned out, it would be impossible to get back in time, because by 11:00 the street was so packed with people it was impossible to cross.

As much as I enjoy visiting Las Vegas, it is a Mecca for stupid asses. No one could figure out how to board a tram, look in the direction they were walking, or keep themselves from blocking foot traffic. As we stood trapped in the middle of the street, surrounded by drunk frat boys chanting "Tits! Tits!" at girls who were clearly not drunk enough to take their shirts off, the bartender observed that people seemed even more retarded than normal, and concluded that Los Angeles had thrown up on us.

We spent the next few days in the sports book watching some FANTASTIC (Fiesta) and some atrocious (Orange) bowl games, plus a bit of hockey. We also eventually stopped up at the Foundation Room where some girl hit on me. Only girls hit on me now. Boys don't any more. I don't know what that's about. We left without anyone else hitting on me, which was very disappointing because one of my main goals for this Vegas trip was to get some ass. Other than that the trip was pretty uneventful - just the usual "go to Fatburger" thing, the usual "drink with His Royal Awesomeness and get extremely hammered" thing and the subsequent "Amber and the bartender get in a huge argument on the last day" thing.

Next up: Amberance's Super Duper Fabulous 29th Birthday extravaganza! which is likely to consist of going to Tai's and getting all crazy, like flailing my arms around and demanding everyone pay attention to me or drinking four ciders instead of three. So pretty much exactly like what I do every week, except that I'm going to make everyone sing to me.

Let the Great Countdown Begin!

There are 29 days until my 29th birthday.

I'm an Idiot Torn

MrSteve called yesterday to complain about his early morning. I took the opportunity to make the conversation about me.

"I was at work at 4:30 this morning," he told me. "I can't work at that hour, I'm an idiot in the morning."

"As opposed to me, who is an idiot all day."

"You're not an idiot."

"I am too. I'm stupid about the bartender."

"You're not stupid."

"What part of my weirdness with the bartender leads you to believe I'm not an idiot?"

"That's not an idiot. An idiot is..." There was a long pause while MrSteve tried to define idiot in a way that didn't describe me. He failed. "An idiot is someone who thinks a situation is a certain way when really it's not."

"Exactly. And that doesn't apply to me and the bartender how?"

MrSteve sighed. "You're not an idiot. You're just...torn."

I like this and I plan to apply it to every stupid thing I do now. Spill something all over myself? "I'm not clumsy, I'm just torn." Irrational fear of bugs? "I'm not being irrational, I'm just torn." Lack of blog updating? "I'm not lazy, I'm just torn."

You Have 1 Post in Your Cart

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate shopping. It embodies everything that I hate: large crowds, talking to strangers, having to drive places, making choices in front of other people. I guess it doesn't really involve spiders, but it is clearly an activity coughed up from the 7th circle of hell. So it should come as no surprise that I am fully on board with the "buy things on the internet" wagon.

The best thing about shopping on the internet, besides being able to do it in my pajamas or while watching Gilmore Girls, is the variety. The internet has everything you can buy in a real store, plus a crap load of things that you can't, such as really offensive t-shirts, or subversive cross-stitch patterns, or Festivus poles. This is important because all of my friends are quite weird, and finding something they would like for Christmas in a brick and mortar store is next to impossible. I mean, I know plenty of people who could really use a marshmallow shooter, but I'm not going to find it at my local Toys-R-Us.

The sheer volume of my internet shopping this year has led me to realize another benefit: home delivery. Almost every day that I come home now, I find a package on my doorstep. It's like getting presents every day! It doesn't even matter that none* of it is actually for me, I still get the joy of opening the boxes to discover what's inside. Also the satisfying feeling of receiving mail that is not a bill. And occasionally, joy of all joys, some free bubble wrap to play with. Today I'm expecting some Hawaiian Blend peppercorns for the bartender's stocking. It comes in a glass jar. The bubble wrap outlook for today is good.

*most

I am Moving Somewhere South and/or West of Here

It was 32 degrees this morning, and it felt like a freakin' heat wave. I'm hoping it warms up further and melts the ice on my stairs so I can stop almost killing myself every time I leave or come home.

The owner is in Las Vegas and had the audacity to call me last night and complain about the weather. "It's cold here!" he said.
"No, it is not. It's cold here."
"No, I mean it's cold for Vegas. It got down to 40 degrees last night."
"It's a desert, ass, of course it's cold at night. There's hardly any moisture in the air, so they can't hold their heat overnight."
"Whatever. But I'm telling you it's cold here."
"And I'm telling you that during the day today, it was like 20 degrees."
"Oh, it was 65 during the day here."
"I hate you."

This Next Post is a Cover

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes played Sunday night at the Metro, and they are really funny:

"We are Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, the best cover band EVER."
"This next song is a cover."
"We chose country music for our latest album because country is the music of tolerance."
"This next song is a cover."
"We started this band because we hate music."
"Before the show I was sitting in the trailer drinking tequila by myself and listening to the new My Chemical Romance album. No, I'm serious!"
"This next song's a cover."

I also met and shook hands with Chicken from Dead to Me, who I have a major crush on, but did not say anything to him AT ALL because that is what I do.

Moo?

Last night I ended up going to a surprise concert with the bartender. The concert wasn't a surprise, me going was. Our friend Hellbilly had been at Guns N Roses the night before and wasn't up to concerts two nights in a row, so he gave me his ticket. The Matches opened for +44.

We got there in time for the tail end of The Matches' set. Neither of us are really Matches fans, what with their girl pants and boring songs and their emo, emo eyeliner. We found a new reason not to like them at the show. Halfway through one of their songs, a guy walked up to the microphone and pulled out a triangle. The bartender looked at me. I looked around for cows. I wondered if perhaps it was dinnertime. The bartender scowled. Because, come on, it's a rock band. How are you supposed to even hear the triangle? It's impossible. And if it were possible we would know, because the guy was really playing the hell out of the thing. As if it were a pinata, or an effigy of someone they dislike. It was way to much effort for something that was completely drowned out by the guitars. They should have gone for some cowbell.

+44 is the current band of former Blink-182 members Mark Hoppus (bass) and Travis Barker (drums). Apparently they have a thing for naming their bands with a one syllable word and then a number. They're, eh, alright. Listenable. The best part of the show was Travis Barker. Travis would have been the best part of the show anyway, because he's a frikkin amazing drummer. But a few weeks ago he broke his hand, and so played their entire set last night with only one arm all Def Leppard-like. Except that he actually has two arms and was holding the broken one up behind his head the whole time like he was at a rodeo. Or maybe fencing because he had a drumstick in his other hand. But way more spastic than that, so yeah, like a rodeo. I was right the first time. Either way it was awesome.

A good time was had by all.

Or Possibly Ravens Heaven

H-Town: I have made a grave error in the letter I am mailing to you
me: um, ok
H-Town: i made the comment "I would've sent you a Kevin mack card, but I fumbled it on the way into the packing box" My brother says I blasphemed Mack, it was BYNER who did that
H-Town: i knew it was one of those two, but forgot which
me: ah yes, you meant ernest byner there
H-Town: so, i'm going to cleveand browns hell
me: that's ok, cleveland browns hell might be the same as bengals heaven
H-Town: which might be nice,
me: actually no, it's probably steelers heaven. you're screwed

Are You Ready to Ruin Some Football?

Is it just me, or does Monday Night Football blow this year? I have seen I think maybe one game that was worthy of the three hours I devoted to it. And I may have just dreamed that one. Last night's turnover festival was almost comedic, if it weren't for Jerramy Stevens' unwillingness to finish running his routes, which just made me angry. And can Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser possibly bicker any more? I swear, Kornheiser contradicts everything Theismann has to say just because he doesn't like him.

Suck My Balls and Assorted Other Christmas Stories

A brief recap of my various goings on:

1. Melle dyed my hair green and red on Friday. I have no idea how I finally talked her into that, as she kept telling me it was cheesy. Also she is a big scrooge. It looks awesomely festive, but every time I wash my hair, my hands end up looking like I've slain a muppet.

2. I am somewhat known for the wearing of inappropriate t-shirts, because I think it is hilarious. Some of my selections include "You say tomato, I say fuck you", "Masturbation: My anti-drug" and "I taught your boyfriend that thing you like". I hadn't really realized how much my shirts had become my trade mark until I walked into the salon on day one of The 40 Days of Christmas wearing a "Joy To The World" sweatshirt I had cross-stitched myself. John stared at me reading my shirt for a long time before finally saying, "Oh. That's it? Because you know how you have that shirt that says 'swallows'? I thought there was a trick to it, like instead of saying 'Joy to the World' it was going to say 'Joy to you sucking my balls' or something."

3. After I left the salon, I went down to the bar where I started wishing everyone a Merry Christmas which earned me many confused looks, two hugs and a mint from IHop. I decided to call JoE, the inventor of the 40 Days. "Happy 40 Days!" he answered.

"Happy 40 Days!" I said. "I'm sitting here in the bar in my Joy To The World sweatshirt and ornament earrings."

"Haha! Is that why you called?"

"Of course that's why I called. That and to tell you that everyone thinks I am batshit insane."

"They just don't understand. Listen, I'd love to talk to you, but I have to let you go. We're in the middle of watching 'It's a Wonderful Life'."

Ah, sweet sweet vindication.

4. It is almost as much fun watching the humbug bartender lug my Christmas decorations up and down the stairs than it is actually decorating. He had no objection to my putting little wreaths around his candle sticks in the dining room, but he thinks the festive red couch cover is a tad excessive. I also found a stuffed teddy bear and a snowman in with my linens. "Kristen, here's a teddy bear for you and [bartender], you get a snowman."

"I don't want a snowman," he complained as I handed it to him .

"Too bad! Hug the snowman." He did. I can't believe that actually worked.

5. I am not, NOT a Barenaked Ladies fan. Not that their lyrics aren't clever, but that folksy plain ass sound to their music drives me up a wall. Having said that, if you're into Christmas music and looking for something different, I strongly recommend their Christmas album, Barenaked for the Holidays. It's refreshingly different, including a song about disgruntled elves that try to start a union, a round of "Jingle bells, Batman smells" and a remake of Deck the Halls where the lyrics have been replaced by them repeating "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young" over and over again.

6. Buckeye football rules. Browns football, not so much.

Tis The Season For Giving

Amberance: i need to think of what i want to engrave on [the bartender’s] ipod
H-Town: oh man, the engraving has to be something classic
H-Town: like "I farted"
H-Town: or "This iPod fits in my ass"
H-Town: all are timeless phrases of joy and love
Amberance: that's awesome. i was totally going to write something all mushy, "BFF" or something but you're totally right
Amberance: "I like poo"
Amberance:"To [the bartender]: I shat this iPod for you. Love, Amber"
Amberance: "Warning: ipod not intended for use in masturbation"
Amberance: actually that's not even true, the one I'm getting him plays videos
H-Town: hahaha
H-Town: "Please Wipe me Off When Finished"
Amberance: I'll wrap it with a box of kleenex
Amberance: and some lube
H-Town: and a six pack

The 40 Days of Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

What's that you say?

Why no, I don't think it's a little early. Yes, I know it isn't even Thanksgiving yet. It's The 40 Days of Christmas today. See, back in the day, JoE and Phil, my fellow Christmas enthusiasts, created The 40 Days of Christmas to celebrate their love for Christmas and everything it stands for. Notice that it is The 40 Days OF Christmas and not the 40 days TO Christmas. It's not a countdown. Every day, from November 16th until December 25th, is Christmas. If you're as big of a Christmas spazz as me, it's actually 41 days, because I always tack Boxing Day onto the end of that period.

I'm so excited. I've had a hard time this year waiting for it to be Christmas. On Halloween night, I stopped by Target on my way home for who knows what reason and ended up spend over two hours in there walking through their already set up aisles of Christmas decorations. I also bought a new Christmas CD that day. Because, you know, clearly 30 Christmas CDs are not even close to enough.

Yesterday was the slowest day ever in the history of time. I thought the day before The 40 Days of Christmas was never going to end. I was biting my lip waiting for the elevator after work, when a woman who work for the building came out of her office laden with three giant shopping bags. One of them was emitting a shimmery magical sound and my face lit up like a Christmas tree (har, har). "I hear jingle bells!" I announced. That's how excited I was - I deliberately started a conversation with a total stranger. She grinned at me sheepishly. I think she was expecting to get made fun of for running around with Christmas items in the middle of November. So I set her at ease and explained to her about The 40 Days of Christmas, and my nine Christmas trees and nativity collection and Santa collection and 30 Christmas CDs. She told me that the building was putting it's decorations up the day after Thanksgiving and that there would be musicians in our lobby every Thursday serenading us with Christmas tunes. "Oh my God, Christmas songs every Thursday? Carolers? Will there be carolers? CAN I SING WITH THEM?" I was practically screaming this. By now we were in the middle of a busy street walking to the trains.

"I don't know if there are carolers. You know like when we had the string quartets serenading us for a while? Like that. But if there are carolers, just go ahead and start singing with them if you want."

"I will so be singing with them! I want to go caroling! Maybe we can carol in the building, like go to people's offices. That would be so cool. Will you carol with me?" By now the girl who thought she was way ahead of everyone on Christmas joy could not get away from me fast enough. No one out Christmases me. No one.

I'm not sure how well The 40 Days are going to go on the homefront this year. The bartender's birthday is Christmas Eve, so his birthday has always been overshadowed by Christmas. Because of this he's not so much a fan of my Christmas cheer. Hopefully I can distract him with cookies and he won't kill me.

Guilty or Innocent, This Is In Poor Taste

O.J. to Discuss Killings in Book

Conspiracy?

The bartender finds it very suspicious that there was a business card for a tire shop down the street stuck in my windshield the day my tires were slashed.

Bunch of Savages In This Town

So I've recently found out that we are in the midst of National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo (I will not be calling it that because, dude. Come on.). I have, up til now, not participated in this, but I had a very good reason. I was busy. Busy dealing with the fallout of cockbreath assfaces who decided to do some vandalizin' last week.

I headed to my car on Wednesday morning, all ready to drive my lazy ass to the train station so I could go to work, only to find when I got to it that it seemed to be lacking something. Such as air in the tires. When last I'd left it, there had been a full supply of air in all the tires, so this seemed strange. It also went a long way to explaining the cop sitting in his car on the corner of my street, and the knocking on my door I had heard at 5:30 that morning, which I originally thought I dreamed, but was actually the cop. As it turns out, all four of my tires had been slashed, the driver's side had been horribly disfigured by someone's key, and six other cars suffered similar fates due to, I imagine, some damn kids "having fun".

AAA, bless them, came and took my car away on a flat bed truck so that I could be privileged to spend over $500 on some new ones, and later the insurance company took some pictures of the paint damage and estimated that that would cost something in excess of $1,100.

Operation Shrink the Fat Girl took a break for the day as I managed to consume 3 tacos, a small cheese sticks and small Hawaiian Punch from White Castle, a chocolate chocolate chip cookie and a small root beer courtesy of my friend Manny, a full slab of ribs, 4 slices of pizza, a coke, a small salad, two pieces of bread, an order of spaghetti and meatballs and three hard ciders all in the course of one afternoon.

Everyone except for the cop wanted to know who it was I had pissed off. I found this question curious. I don't have the kind of friends that I expect to slash my tires when I anger them. Who are these people hanging around with that this is their first thought?

At any rate that has been the focus of the last week, but I promise that from here on out there will be a blog post for each remaining day of National Blog Posting Month, even if it's crap.

Thanks, I Think

Parent Company Accountant: What's for lunch today?
Me: A glass of water.
PCA: That's it? Are you trying to starve yourself?
Me: Yes.
PCA: You know what you need? (holds up a McDonald's bag) A McRib!
Me: I haven't had a sandwich from McDonald's in 20 years.
PCA: Twenty years? Woah. Are you against trans-fats or something?
Me: I'm against foods that taste like my ass.
PCA: Haha. Hmm. Well your ass tastes pretty good at McRib time.

Freaks and Ghouls and Professionals

The intern and I are caffinating in the office kitchen. The intern is all dressed up in a suit and tie from his interview this morning. The parent company receptionist walks by.

PCR: Is that your Halloween costume?
The intern: Yes. I'm a respectable person.

I Can Make a Federal Case Out of Just About Anything

ring ring.
The bartender answers his phone. “Hello?”
“I need your scientific opinion on something.”
“Ok.”
“Were you the one who told me centipedes can’t get out of the bathtub?”
“Yes.”
“Ok. When you said that did you mean they can never ever ever get out of the bathtub, or they usually can’t, but if they try really hard they could get out?”
“No, they can’t get out.”
“Ok. Are you sure though?”
“Look, it’s not going to get out. I’m not coming all the way home just to kill a bug.”
“No one is asking you to. I just want to know if I can put my makeup on in here, or if I have to take it with me because I need to run away from the house.”
“No, it’s fine. Even if it did get out, it’s going to run to a crack somewhere. But it won’t get out.”
“Ok. Thanks. Go back to work.”
“(audible sigh) Bye.”

I hung up the phone and stared at it. I believed him, that it wouldn’t get out, more so because I’d already seen it try and fail a dozen times before I called him than because of his reassurance. Also I’d already pulled the bathmat and the shower liner outside of the tub so it couldn’t climb onto those and get out. So I wasn’t terribly worried that it would get on me. I was more freaked out over the fact that I had JUST GOTTEN OUT OF THE SHOWER and it was probably in there with me the whole entire time. Also because it was both hideously ugly and ginormously huge. They’re like a dozen spiders fused together into one long strand. I sent a text message to Heather, because I needed someone to feel my pain and not make fun of me: There is a CENTIPEDE in my bathtub!! I considered putting a cup over the top of it so the bartender could kill it when he got home, but realized that meant getting within a cup’s reach of it which was not going to happen.

The theme song from Super Mario Brothers.
I looked at my phone and saw it was the owner calling. “Hello?”
“Hey man! What’s going on in your life?”
“There’s a centipede in my tub.”
The owner cracked up laughing. “I just talked to [the bartender] and he told me if I called you that would be the first thing you’d say to me.”
“It’s huge. I called him because he told me they can’t get out of the tub and I wanted to verify that.”
“And he’s right, they can’t. Are you just standing there staring at it?”
“Yes.”
“You should just drown him. Wash him down the drain.”
“I tried that already.” This was true. “I threw some water on him, but he won’t die.”
“That’s because you have to actually throw water on him and not just spit into the tub.”
“I did! I used a big cup!” The centipede was frantically trying to climb the walls of the tub from every angle. He was so big that every time he fell I could hear him hit the bottom of the tub.
“A cup is not going to work. You need a bucket, or a cup and then another cup, but I already know you won’t do it.”
“Well, because if I use too much water it might splash out on me!”
“It’s not going to splash out on you. You’re a freak. What else is going on?”
I left the bathroom and continued chatting with the owner while I got dressed. When I got off the phone I went back in the bathroom to put my makeup on.

No centipede in the bathtub. I looked everywhere. I checked the walls, the faucet, the ceiling. I looked in the sink. Still no centipede. Stupid tricky, huge-ass, ugly, motherfucking disgusting bug!

I was later assured by the bartender and MrSteve that it had probably accidentally fallen or intentionally crawled into the drain and drowned in there. I’m pretty sure they really believe that and were not just patronizing me so I’d shut up. But I’m not taking a shower in there again until after the bartender does because holy crap.

5 Minute Major - For Sucking

I went to the Blackhawks game with the bartender last night. That was a huge mistake. I've never seen such a terrible display of hockey in all of my life. I can't even describe how painful that was, so I won't try. I'll just say that the highlight of the game was a guy about three rows in front of us who screamed out, "Will somebody! PLEASE! Beat someone up!" near the end of the second period.

Rant (Be Careful Reading This, You Wouldn't Want to Put Your Eye Out)

I am so glad I grew up in the 80's and 90's as opposed to right now. We have lost our collective minds in this country about all things children.

I read an article yesterday about a Massachusetts elementary school that has banned playing tag at recess. Um, what?

They've banned it on the grounds that kids might get hurt and the parents would hold the school liable. I was all ready to be mad at the school, but I completely see their point. Parents are both so paranoid and so litigious these days they will sue over anything. Have you seen the story about the girl who lent her iPod to another kid who then lost it? It's become this huge legal battle over who is responsible for losing the iPod and who is due compensation for it, etc. etc. This would not have happened in my house. If I had brought something that expensive with me to school (because we were deprived and didn't have iPods back in those days, you see), and I lent it to another kid and walked away and then it disappeared, my parents would not have sued to other kid. They would have yelled at me and told me if I was going to go around handing out expensive things to people, then it was my own fault and too bad. And then I would have not done something like that again. Lesson learned. But I digress.

So tag and all chase games have been banned. And I'll just go ahead and assume that there is already no monkey bars, jungle gyms, swings etc. because kids might get hurt *gasp!* *outrage!*. So these kids are supposed to do what? Stand there on their rubber mats looking at each other? I know, let's all play jacks. Wait no, you could put someone's eye out with those things.

From the article:

"Several school administrators ... took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous." Of course it is exclusionary, that is the POINT OF THE GAME. I sucked at dodgeball growing up, being that I can neither throw nor catch. I was always one of the first kids out. It didn't matter, I played anyway. I'm pretty sure it hasn't negatively effected any of my adult relationships or decreased my self esteem. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

"Another Willett parent ... said her son feels safer because of the rule." No doubt he does. As his mother is most likely nit-picking at every little aspect of his life because she is paranoid over every single micron of dust he encounters. Having been exposed to this for the last 6-10 years, it's no wonder he's afraid to play tag. You made your son into a big pussy, mom, congratulations. Please don't be startled when he gets his ass kicked and shoved into lockers in high school.

Kids are supposed to get bruised. They are supposed to get splinters, eat dirt, fall off their bikes, climb trees, and swing on swings. They are supposed to play tag.

Amberance Ruins Chicken and Porn

Thanks in large part to my dearest drinking buddy MrSteve, I have finally found my calling in life: Porn Foley.

What's a Porn Foley you ask? Well, I assume everyone knows what porn is. And I think most people know what a Foley artist is. It's exactly what you think it is. My calling in life is to create sound effects for porn.

MrSteve is trying to disassociate himself from this venture, but don't be fooled. He coined the term Porn Foley and he jokingly applied it to my future. He did not envision that I would take his idea and run with it, but that is his own fault. He's known me long enough to know better than to make an offhand remark to me about sound effects and porn. Clearly he was asking for it.

I can just picture it: Me standing in a sound room, headphones on, larger than life porn playing on the screen in front of me, and there I stand watching the nekkid frolic as I slap two pieces of chicken together to the beat of their fornication. Maybe a turducken. I bet they make awesome squishy sounds.

When I said the same to MrSteve he sighed and shook his head. He claims he will never be able to look at porn or chicken the same way again. I also pictured a conversation at my family reunion. "What have I been up to? I make the sound effects for pornographic movies. Yeah, that's right. I write the songs, baby."

You may be tempted to point out that there is no such thing as a Porn Foley, but I ask you, don't you think there should be? I mean, do you believe any of the sounds that you hear in those things? NO! They're totally faking it! So if it's all fake anyway, why not fake it in a way that makes it sound more real? Enter the long overdue Porn Foley. I will revolutionize the industry!

And when I'm up on the stage in front of all those pornographers excepting my Porny for Best Sound, I'm going to say I couldn't have done it without MrSteve.

Panic Sets In

It is snowing outside. SNOWING. And, as if to mock me, the sun is shining.

I am not ready for this. For one thing, I have no gloves. But it's mostly psychological. The leaves haven't even finished turning yet. I haven't gone on a fall walk anywhere. We're still playing baseball for Pete's sake. It's just too soon. I need more time to prepare.

Snowing. Ugh.

Hadn't Thought About That.

MrSteve is drinking scotch. I attempt to determine exactly how drunk he is. I fail in this attempt:

Me: How drunk are you? Would you eat a gummy bear off the floor?
MrSteve: What? No.
Me: Hmm. How about the bar? Would you eat a gummy bear off the bar?
MrSteve: No!
Me: What about if I dropped a gummy bear in your scotch? Would you eat it then?
MrSteve: (crinkles his brow at me) NO!
Me: Why not?
MrSteve: Because I don't like gummy bears.

Wardrobe Malfunctions

That's it; the party's over. The carefree days of eating chocolate cake for breakfast and sedentary bliss whilst watching Seinfeld and Star Trek every night are gone. This week marks the beginning of my new plan: Operation Shrink the Fat Girl.

It's not that I'm obese, per se, but I am definitely pushing the limits of HWP. I discovered this on Saturday while shopping on Clark street with out of town friends. I tried on two pairs of pants in my Size of Grudging Acceptance*. The first would not button with any amount of sucking in. The second could not even be raised over vastness of my thighs.

There've been other signs too. I walk around the house frequently in just a t-shirt and panties and my roommate does not look at me at all. This is the Master of Misogyny, Captain of Crass, 12 time Ogling World Champion. And nada. He used to - it's how we met pretty much - but that was 20 pounds ago. In fact, the only boys that seem to be looking at me at all are the ones who have expressed a clear interest in women with "junk in the trunk". I don't want any junk in my trunk - I detest clutter. Enough is enough.

This is something I need to take care of with great dispatch. Winter is coming. I love corduroy pants to bits, but I have no desire to light my thighs on fire just from walking. I also enjoy the look of fishnet stockings, but not so much when I look like a dolphin who was accidentally trapped in the net of some tuna fisherman.

So, as of now, I love carrots and walking. We'll see how it goes.

*The Size of Grudging Acceptance is the size where you'd like to be just one size smaller, but you understand that probably you don't look so terrible as you think, so you go with it rather than expend the effort to actually live a healthy lifestyle.

Footballs, Horns and Pitchforks

PGS DenMILF: dude
PGS DenMILF: how are you liking the latest big ben development?
PGS DenMILF: *grins wickedly*
PGS DenMILF: *goes to hell*
Velociheather: the appendectomy?
Velociheather: awesome
Velociheather: *goes to hell*