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!

Amberance Is Very Popular

I am being a very, very bad blogger. I'm sorry. It's just that I am redonkulously busy with work things and also people who want to hang out with me because I am so awesomely cool and not broke. I have a list of about 8 posts to do, and I know I have to do them soon before I forget what the notes mean. So soon. But probably not right now because I'm leaving on a jet plane (you're supposed to sing that in your head the way I just did out loud) shortly and I have to do work until then. Boo.

Comcastic

Cable access at the Amberance residence (which still has no name. All I can come up with is The Sex Grotto II, but that only makes sense if people are actually having sex there.) is officially up and running.

I am a bit confused by the fact that Comcast insisted to me several times that in order to get my cable installed there needed to be an adult home who speaks English, and then they sent over three gentleman who spoke a collective 5 words of English between them. We communicated just fine, with them pointing at things and then looking at me pointedly and me answering with vigorous nodding. But I mean, if they wanted me to speak Spanish they should have told me that. It wouldn't have been a problem, all my neighbors speak Spanish, I could have just recruited one of them. All in all, I feel I had better communication with the Spanish speaking Comcast personnel that the English speaking ones.

Language barrier notwithstanding, I got my cable put in and spent my entire first day of cable access watching the World Cup on network television. Hey, it was not my fault that the U.S. played Italy on the day I got cable. Good job on the tie too, guys. Too bad the Italians had to score our only goal for us.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to set up my internet access and hook it up to the wireless router so I can not spend time on the internet just like I'm not watching the cable I just paid for.

Things Are Looking Up

Tomorrow morning between the ungodly Saturday hours of 8 and 10 a.m. I will be the proud recipient of cable television and internet access at home. The awesome Fishy bought me a wireless router and everything.

He also bought me an iTrip for my Nano, which is awesome and I am obsessed with. I drive around in circles sometimes just for the novelty of hearing Fred on the radio in my car.

I am also anxiously awaiting the arrival of my first issue and DVD gift from my new Playboy subscription. Dude, whatever, I like the articles.

And now I have another girl to hang out with (in case you haven't noticed, I don't know very many who live here). You've already heard of her, she's Melle of hey-let's-carve-lines-in-your-hair-and-dye-it-blue fame. We're buds now, so much so that I showed up at the salon yesterday just to say hi to her and ended up answering the phone and folding towels. It's actually a whole new group of friends, as the two of us went out on Tuesday night with a boy of hers and another boy she wants to set me up with. They are all funny and they all drink hard cider, so clearly we should all become BFFs and hang out daily.

The bartender and I are on a "diet", and by that I mean we switched from fried crab rangoon to steamed pot stickers. I'll be skinny any minute now.

This is the Chicago life I dreamed of that whole time I was broke. I like it here.

Current Status

It is 11:52 PM on Friday, the 9th of June, and I am sitting on the couch in my living room blogging. From this we can infer two things:

1) that I am an anti social dork with nothing better to do on a Friday night;
2) that I now have a laptop and internet access at home.

Congratulate me, my friends - when you get back from your, I assume, much more interesting Friday night activites.

Hot Off The Press

As I suspected, we (that is, the bartender and I) were recently informed that Fuckwit did indeed commit futher infractions by grabbing the asses of girls he did not know, for which he was kicked out of the Foundation Room. Good going, Ace.

Viva Las Vegas

So I’m back from Vegas. I started writing this righteously long post and then realized it was going to be interesting to no one except me and possibly the bartender, so I’m scrapping that and going with the bulleted highlight format instead.

• People, I’m sorry, but what the FUCK is up with the heat out there? 107? You have got to be kidding me. And the wind? Not the nice cooling breeze you get here in the great lakes region. Oh no. Just super hot air blowing you in the face and drying out your contact lenses. The second day some woman said to me “It’s cooler than yesterday!” It was 104. How can you tell the difference between 107 and 104?
• Here’s the lone issue I have with having pink and blue hair: it’s like an open invitation for strangers to talk to you. Everywhere I went it was “Cool hair!” “I love your hair!” “Your hair is so awesome!” Seriously, at least 60 people I didn’t know came up to talk to me, minimum. The bartender suggested there should be an over/under line on how many strangers were going to comment on my hair each day. At the Foundation Room one night, a girl came running up to me screaming. “OH MY GOD! Look at your hair! That is the best thing I have ever seen! Wow! You guys, come and look at her hair. OH MY GOD, AND YOUR DRESS! This is the greatest dress ever! Is this how you dress EVERY DAY? (By now she has a hold of both my arms which she is squeezing in a death grip. Her face is two inches from mine.) You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. I have to get a picture with you!” At which point the owner, helpful as ever offered to take a picture of both of us. Some random guy got in it too and I was smashed in between two total strangers posing for a picture, after which she kissed me and had to literally be dragged away by the arm by one of her (very embarrassed) friends.
• Also about my hair: the owner took up calling me Sno-Cone. Cone for short.
• I ate at Fatburger twice in the same day. That’s right, two fatburgers and two milkshakes all in the same day. Holla.
• The M&M store is so super cool I can’t even tell you. They have these huge columns of M&Ms in every color you can think of all along the back wall. I made a bag of scarlet and grey ones for Michigan Bouncer (who said “I’m gonna eat ‘em just like Michigan’s gonna eat the Buckeyes this year!”) and the bartender made a rainbow bag for Manny. I bought myself a new puzzle, but I can’t put it together because Kristen keeps sitting on the pieces.
• A tally of Fuckwit’s fuck ups for the weekend: (1) could not meet us at the M&M store because he couldn’t find it, despite the GIANT M&M right out front; (2) became incensed when he learned he’d have to pay for his own lunch, since he’d just assumed the owner would buy lunch for 15 fucking people just for fun; managed to offend every single person in a 20 foot radius at he Foundation Room by calling the girls bitches (3), making racial comments to our Mexican friend (4), and to the manager (5); was charged for room damage for puking on the floor (6) and the comforter (7). I’m sure there will be more; these are just the stories I’ve heard so far.
• The Double Down Saloon is the most awesome thing I’ve seen in Vegas yet. It’s the epitome of a punk rock bar. The jukebox is stacked, STACKED with punk music from the classics to the brand new to the obscure. The walls are covered in all manner of graffiti. There are signs hung up all over the place. One reads “House rule: You puke, YOU clean it!” Another advertises bacon martinis for $5. And another one announces this effed up “special”: “Ass Juice! $3 or 3 for $11!” I asked how many people fall for that and apparently it’s quite a few. I also asked what ass juice is made out of, but they wouldn’t tell me. I asked what a bacon martini was and I was presented with a bottle of vodka that had strips of bacon floating around in it. Not even kidding. After that I was glad they didn’t tell me how they make ass juice.
• “I STILL LOVE YOUR HAIR!” I heard someone shout while waiting to board the plane at the airport. I turned around to see the crazy girl who had molested me the night before walking past me, grinning and waving.

Because It's Rad

Since it's been over a week, it seemed like it was time to get my hair cut again.

One of the best things about having a pink and blue fauxhawk is watching people try to stare at you without appearing to be staring. Feel free to stare openly, I can totally tell anyway.

Converse With Me at Your Own Risk

Today, my co-worker came to my desk with an apron. Apparently some event company she's involved with gave it to her. She came by to discuss a comment made by another co-worker of ours, who felt that giving an apron as a gift to a woman is sexist. Something to do with our place being in the kitchen or something. Which it is. But anyway, she wasn't offended, because she likes to cook and, hey, free apron.

I had nothing to add on the sexist/not sexist debate. What I did say was, "You know what would be good? A bottle of sangria!" Understandably she looked at me like I had three heads. This is because that comment seems random to anyone not living inside my head. But it made perfect sense to me because this is what was happening inside my head:

An apron as a gift? You could put an apron in a basket with maybe a rolling pin or some cookie cutters or something. That would make a nice gift. One time I got a nice gift in a basket. It had pasta and some sauce and a bottle of sangria in it. Oh, sangria!

But of course, the actual conversation went more like:

"Check out my apron."
"I like sangria!"

This is why I know that if you don't like me, it's not because you think I'm boring.

Ways My Life Will Change With No Mortgage to Pay

• I will be able to afford to buy groceries with a startling degree of regularity, and without borrowing money from Fish. These groceries will also feature things like meat, as opposed to Ramen noodles. (I might still get the Ramen noodles though, cuz I kind of like them.) Likewise, peanut butter will become an accessory rather than an entire meal.
• I will no longer wonder things like "Will they really throw me out if I don't pay the rent this month?" and "Do I really need a phone?" and "Will Kristen die of hypothermia if I set the heat at 60?"
• I will no longer have the option of threatening to move back to Cleveland every time someone in Chicago says something I deem not very nice. (Fish and the bartender's lives will also change by not having to listen to these threats.)
• I can actually order alcohol at dinner instead of "just a water". I fucking hate water.
• CABLE MOTHER FUCKIN TV BITCHES!
• I will visit the dentist every 6 months, just like I used to. (Shadup, I like going to the dentist.)
• I will see all the things in Chicago that I should have gone to check out last year, such as the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium. I will eat in restaurants and not have to look like a fool anymore when I'm the only person in the room who hasn't eaten somewhere. I will also visit bars that are not called Tai's Til 4. (Maybe.)
• No more giving hand jobs for crack!
• I will pay someone else to do my laundry, instead of spending hours at Bubbleland folding my own t-shirts. As soon as the bartender shows me the proper procedure for this, because heaven knows I'm not going to actually speak to a human I'm unfamiliar with unless someone is there to hold my hand the first time. Money can only solve so many problems.
• I will visit Kelly in Los Angeles, Heather and Amy in D.C., and Ashley in Arizona. Eventually. I swear.
• I will join a gym. Who am I kidding, really? I will be able to afford to join a gym, I won't actually do it.
• I will blog more. Because I will have more adventures. Because I will actually leave the house once in a while. Because I can afford to.
• Hookers. Lots and lots of hookers. Maybe midget hookers. Maybe I'll even get you a hooker.