Meep Meep

I've just realized I never blogged about my student show over the summer, which is incredibly convenient as I had no idea what I was going to write about today (I am at StereoNinja's office right now as both of us needed to get some work done. It is not very exciting, despite there being a flamingo standing in the corner and goofy little puppets everywhere. Though the arm fell off one of them and we did turn it into a penis.)

I ended up going with a temporary stage name that I came up with myself, Phoebe Moon, after Saturn's irregular and probably captured satellite, because I am a massive, massive geek.

Phoebe. Sexy as FUCK

I also got StereoNinja to edit my music and add the Merrie Melodies theme to the beginning and end of my song (Bo Diddley's Roadrunner): at the beginning to compliment the title cards for my number that StereoNinja designed for me, and at the end for maximum ridiculousness whilst twirling the tassels on my pasties (followed immediately by a cartwheel. Seriously.)

Sorry, Warner Brothers.

I'd had a bit of trouble pulling the costume together. The woman I hired on Etsy to make my bustier and frilly panties did a beautiful job, but the fabric wasn't the right color, which is exactly why you don't try to color match things over the internet. I bought another cheap, shitty bustier that the zipper immediately fell off of, and took it to the world's most incredible tailor to cover in appropriately colored fabric and sew a better zipper on, which he accomplished with less than three days turn around (finding a new zipper in the correct color and length was also an adventure and ended with me in the basement of L Z Fabrics poking around in the zipper over stock section, a portion of the store I had no idea was there until that exact moment). My biggest costuming issue was my tail and how to attach it to me. The final solution was to wig tape it to my ass, the process of which is the least attractive thing ever to happen to stripping. I also had to spray paint some heels orange since the first pair I bought was far too high to dance in comfortably, let alone do a cartwheel. Similarly, I ended up dying several pairs of fishnets before I got them to the correct orange for the roadrunner's legs.

My legs are blurry because I am running REALLY FAST. Because, you know, roadrunner.

StereoNinja and the cake master both flew into town for the show, and BrownsFan and her husband, my former boss and his partner, and the CEO all came as well, because the first time you take all your clothes off in public, you should definitely invite all of your former co-workers. I was the last solo act to go on (StereoNinja says it's because I was one of the best acts, but I think it's just because it was the most ridiculous) before the finale group act, which was 10 women dancing to the Scissor Sisters' Filthy Gorgeous doing the choreography from Michael Jackson's beat it video and opening up our legs like Christmas, among other things. I can't show you my number because my normally rule flouting boyfriend was afraid to video it after Michelle said not to (in fairness, she is a bit terrifying), but I do remember everyone laughing in all the right places and audible surprise over the cartwheel (I had decided I was doing a cartwheel long before I decided what my number was going to be).

Wile E. Coyote knew something the kiddies did not, evidently. 

After the show, the bar was having a 90's hip hop party, which some of us stayed for, and during which I recited all the words to The Humpty Dance from memory approximately 10 minutes before they played the song because I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.

I haven't performed since I moved to the U.K., in part because I'm still waiting for the shipping company to send me my things, one of which is my tail, but allegedly it will be here next week, if anyone knows of a burlesque show they think I should try to get booked for. I've also been working on a BDSM themed number with a flogger because of course I have.

(All show photos by the wonderful Ethan Coal. He recently took some other photos of me, but they are in no way appropriate for a general audience or anyone not into soft core porn. But if I know and trust you, email me and I might give you the password to the online gallery. Maybe.)

Amberance: Camera Whore

So waaaaay back in August I did a calendar shoot at VaVoom Pinups. I had originally scheduled it for a project that had to be cancelled (email!), but I decided to keep the appointment anyway, mainly because I am a massive narcissist of long standing. I sincerely mean that. Where almost every other woman on the planet is ducking out of candid photographs telling you how hideous she is, I have never met a camera in my entire life that I didn't immediately jump in front of. I have loved having my photo taken from birth, which is obvious to anyone who has seen any childhood photos of me as I am standing in some sort of ridiculous pose in Every. Single. One. I have never outgrown this habit.

Me at age 7 posing in lingerie and a stupid hat.

Me at age 33 posing in lingerie and a stupid hat.

I obviously enjoy being looked at. In related news, I am now immortal: my amazing friend Charlie so loved the photos from the shoot I did prior to this one, he went and had one of them tattooed on his arm two weeks ago:

IMMORTALITY. Unless Charlie dies, that is.

That's beside the point really, I just felt like mentioning that I AM A TATTOO YOU GUYS.

But back to the story: for the more recent shoot I'd done 14 outfit changes, mostly based on suggestions from those of my friends who are known to be perverts. This made for photos that were a little more risque than the results of the the first photo shoot I did. When I got the proofs I sent them out to a handful of trusted advisers, among them MrTrivia. When I saw him the next day, I asked him what he thought of the photos. He looked uncomfortable. "Ummm...you know there's, like, full frontal in some of those photos, right?"

"Yes. I was there."

"Ok. I just, you know, wanted to make sure you meant to send me that."

I pointed out that my current aspiration was to take all my clothes off on stage in front of strangers and he conceded that I had a point.

I had the whole finished package shipped to me at work because I am ridiculous and because it's now almost a game to see how much I can get away with before they fire me (a couple months ago the CEO mentioned he was tired and I offered him the pillow from under my desk so he could take a nap. I still work here). BrownsFan suggested I put Post-it notes over the bad parts before she looked at it, by which she meant specifically my belly button because she thinks they're gross. Tits and ass, no problem. Navel, GTFO. She's awesome.

This is not the going to be the end of the "take awesome shiny photos of me" thing and here's why: one of the outfits I'd planned to wear for this shoot was Leia's metal bikini from Jabba's palace. There's a guy on the internet that custom makes them for way more money than any sane person would spend on a costume, but they are excellent and so I am getting one, but I didn't have time to get the order in before the shoot so OH WELL I GUESS I WILL JUST HAVE TO GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN. I really, really, REALLY like having my picture taken you guys.

You'd Think They'd Have Learned To Stop Asking Me Questions By Now

The day before this conversation I had been accused of walking around the office with a shit eating grin on my face after I'd had a very nice chat with a boy.

The CEO: Are we still giddy today?

Me (giggling like a complete jackass): Yes.

The CEO (to BrownsFan): I hate it when she gets new ones.

Day 21 And I'm Still Having Gender Issues

Me: I learned how to curl my hair yesterday. Like a girl.

CEO: (laughing (probably more at me than with me)) I'll just leave that one alone, dear.

I took a class in how to do your own hair in pin-up style yesterday, partly because it's something I should learn what with the burlesque and all, and partly because it was being taught by the amazing Sara Jean, who styled my hair for both of my photo shoots at Vavoom Pinups and it looked AWESOME. Also she is super cool. She's a good teacher (way better, in fact, than she thinks she is), but even so my hair looks a shit ton better when she does it than when I do it. It's hard to do on yourself anyway, but when you add in my left handedness and my complete lack of fine motor skills/ hand-eye coordination, you end up with weird crooked curls and burnt fingertips. At any rate, in addition to actual make up, I now also own a curling iron and hair spray. This is going to take some getting used to.

By the way, I did find out what a teasing comb is. It's actually just a really skinny brush with a pointy tail on the end, and it did not make fun of me. To my face anyway.

Learning Curve

My company moved our offices last week, which has been quite educational as far as getting to know my co-workers and finding out which of them are crazy and which are not, something I will not go into here, less out of privacy issues than out of my not wanting to relive the experience because, seriously, oh my god.

On the whole this has been good. I now have an office of my very own with an actual door and a window and a desk made out of wood. Also I have a weird diagonal beam in the back of my office that half covers the windows and truncates the usable space. Obviously I requested this particular office because I thought it was awesome, not to mention the fact that it is also the last one on the far end of the space, meaning that anyone coming this way is doing so on purpose to see me rather than walking by on their way to somewhere else, thus retaining my status of having the most private space of anyone here, which is good because I take naps under my desk Costanza style on a semi-regular basis (I have a pillow and everything). It is also gloriously RIGHT NEXT TO BROWNSFAN'S OFFICE. On moving in, I promptly tacked up a paper ceiling cat to watch me calculate because the CEO thinks it's really stupid. On the other side of BrownsFan is the CEO's office, in which he has laid out his furniture in a way that causes there to be a long alleyway of empty space to one side of his desk that everyone has had a suggestion as far as how to fill. Bowling alley was an idea. I went pinball machine after learning that he has a Star Trek one IN HIS HOME which he should obviously bring here so that I can play it. He has boringly gone with his own idea: tree. I was disappointed until he told me I could decorate it for Christmas at which point I started jumping up and down and squealing. I WILL DECORATE THE CRAP OUT OF THAT TREE FOR CHRISTMAS. WATCH ME.

Our new offices are located in the office tower portion of a train station, which I explored last week in an attempt to educate myself about my new surroundings. Here's what I've learned:

• There are no less than three Hudson News stores in this one train station (that I've found so far), two of which are directly across from one another. I bought a 20 oz. Coke Zero and a small bag of Chex Mix in there for over $7. It would have cost me less than $3 if I'd walked a few more feet to the CVS. I learned not to shop at Hudson News.
• There is also an Auntie Anne's Pretzels in here. Dangerous this may become. I am trying to forget that I know that.
• The trek to and from the office level floors involves a ride on the escalator. It is a huge pet peeve of mine when people get on an escalator and then just stand there, particularly when it's going down. People: The escalator is NOT A RIDE. Please either walk your lazy ass down the magical moving staircase or move the fuck over so I don't have to kill you.
• There is one major drawback to working in a commuter train station, which I discovered almost immediately: at quittin' time, absolutely everyone in the world is trying to get into the place you are trying to leave. And since it's the end of the day and everybody just wants to go home, they will mow you the hell down if you get in their way. Since I am leaving the train station I am, by definition, in their way, and getting home for me is now similar to a very frustrated salmon getting pelted with massive rocks on its way to spawn, except at the end I don't get to spawn. This strikes me as a very cruel joke. 

Remember when I said I wasn't going to talk about my co-workers at the beginning? I lied. Back in our old space, all of the offices had glass walls and the rest of the space was a sort of open architecture dealy-o, meaning everyone was pretty much all up in each other's business because you could hear and see everything that was happening. If you wanted to have a private conversation or scratch your ass this was not a good thing, but if you wanted to get someone's attention three desks away you could just call to them whatever it is you wanted. Apparently after 20 some odd years, this practice is a hard one for a few people to break. Despite the fact that we have these amazing walls now and that the layout is not at all designed for line of site to anyone else in the place, there are a few people who continue to yell into the hallway when they want to talk to someone. This is usually met with a yelled back "What?" which in turn leads to louder hallway screaming. BrownsFan and I have been supporting one another in our attempts not to strangle the others, who have not yet noticed, despite our reminders, that we have these amazing inventions called "telephones" and that proper usage of said "phones" would allow one to speak in a regular tone of voice whilst still being heard by the person five rooms away one would like to speak to without disrupting everyone else by screaming at the top of one's lungs. The technology is amazing, it's way beyond our time.

More on this later, and photos when I remember to take some. Currently it is time for my desk nap.

Don't Ask Me Questions If You're Not Prepared For The Answer

In the elevator this morning

The CEO: Hey! What are you listening to?

Me: (putting my iPod away) It's on shuffle.

The CEO: So you don't know what you're listening to?

Me: (skipping ahead) Well that was a Snoop Dogg song, the next one would have been Blink-182, then The Creepshow, NOFX, Cake, oooh The Penguins! (holding it up to show The Penquins' "Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine?)" and grinning in victory)

The CEO: (rolling his eyes) I shouldn't have asked.

Me: How to go from Snoop Dogg to The Penguins in six tracks!


My iPod is a dangerous realm for the uninitiated, people. Don't try this at home.

Everything's Perfectly All Right Now. We're Fine. We're All Fine Here Now, Thank You. How Are You?

Everything's under control. Situation normal. Thanks for asking. In case you somehow managed to not get clobbered over the head by the media last week, Chicago and in a fact a very large swath of the entire country got hammered by a blizzard last Tuesday and Wednesday. I was not one of the poor souls who got trapped in their cars on Lake Shore Drive all night long last Tuesday, mainly because when meteorologists nationwide all say "There is going to be a big fuck off storm, stay inside" and the local meteorologists say "The big fuck off storm is going to be worst near the shoreline of Lake Michigan, don't use Lake Shore Drive", I assume that they probably know more than I do and I STAY INSIDE, far, far away from Lake Shore Drive. Morons.

I woke up Wednesday morning to find that it looked like Hoth outside and a renewed interesting in buying this. Now, I don't attend a lot of sleep overs these days and when I do they rarely involve my having to sleep on the floor because my friends are grown ups with spare bedrooms or at least a couch. But I think we can all agree this sleeping bag should be filed under "Need" rather than under "Want".

I also experienced that most elusive of all storms - thundersnow. I'm sure there's a very good scientific reason why it almost never thunders during a snowstorm and that H-town or the bartender can tell you all about it while you pretend to be paying attention during their nerdgasm (speaking of nerdgams, Chicagoans, was anyone else concerned that Tom Skilling might rip his clothes off from his overwhelming excitement over this severe weather? Because I was happy for him and everything but, seriously, no one needs to see that). All I know is, thunder during a snow storm is awesomely rare and now that I've experienced it I'm merely one tornado away from being ready to die.

The only other severe blizzard I've lived through nearly killed me (and it actually DID kill 70 other people). The Great Blizzard of 1978 barrelled into Cleveland on January 25th of that year. I was two weeks old. My parents were noobs at the whole parenting thing, what with me being their first child and all, and they were totally unprepared for the apocalypse that completely buried every door to the house. They were trapped. Then they ran out of baby formula for me. Big thanks to the Middleburg Heights police department for answering my parents' call for help by going to the store, buying me formula, and then digging a tunnel to our front door in order to deliver said formula (which they refused to let my parents pay for, bless) and keep me from starving to death. When I told that story to the CEO he said "Oh, so THAT'S what's wrong with you." It's one of the things.