This bottle of water that, OK, you can’t really see anyway, but trust me – it’s there, and by God, it’s a big un?
Today, Internet, I invite you to join me as I challenge myself to drink this bottle of water. This will be difficult because, God, I hate water. So boring. It’s like drinking nothing. The other problem with it is that, for reasons unknown, I very rarely feel thirsty. Presumably I’m somehow managing to wring the bare minimum of essential hydration out of the many cups of coffee I drink in the course of the day. Either that or I’m some kind of freaky bionic woman whose only superpower is the ability to ony drink things that are Bad. It must be one of the two, anyway, because – with the exception of very hot days, or times when I’ve been doing exercise (HA!) – I hardly ever find myself thinking, “You know what? I could really fancy a great big old bottle of water right about now!”
I need to drink it though. All of it. The reason for this? I woke up this morning with spots. Spots. I actually look JUST LIKE the picture in the banner, except uglier, and with real spots, not just hundreds of little dots on my face. This has troubled me because I hardly ever get spots. It’s one of the few things about my appearance I’ve never had to really loathe myself for. Anyway, this morning I have spots and I figure it’s because of my diet, and the fact that I only ever take in liquids if they’re liberally laced with a) caffeine or b) alcohol.
On the few occasions in the past when I’ve allowed water near me (I realise I’m making myself sound like a rabid dog here, but stay with me, people), my skin has always gone all dewy and fresh. I would like that fresh dewyness again, hence the Big Bottle O’Water you can see above. So, here we go: 10.48am, water drunk, nil. Must do better. I will prevail. I will beat this crazy bottle o’ water. I will probably also spend the rest of today sitting on the loo, but hey ho. Dewy skin, here I come!
* It is a mark of how much I dislike drinking water that I actually took this photo about six weeks ago, intending to drink the water then. Does water go off, do you think?
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
I know you like to use your own freaky sizing system for your clothes, and what a lot of fun that is. When you approach me, though, and ask if I need help with said sizing system, please feel free to take me at my word when I say "no". There is really no need to come back five minutes later and ask me the same question again.
While we’re on the subject: I generally do not require assistance within seconds of walking through the door of a store. It’s nice of you to care so much, but seriously, it takes at least five minutes for me to locate a pair of jeans I like, and another five to discover that although you have ten huge piles of these jeans sitting there to be rifled through, none of them are in my size. So when you assail me as I pass through your door and ask me if I need help, please try to wait at least ten minutes before asking a second time. The whole "interrupting me every couple of seconds" thing gets old really quick…
Also: why is everything size 14 in your store? WHY?
Thanks, Gap! Love you!
Amber
I mean, I really shouldn’t complain. At least it’s better than the stony-faced silent treatment I get in most other shops. Why, in my home town you can enter the supermarket, check through a full weekly shop, bag it all up, pay and leave – all without so much as making contact with the surly teenager on the till, let alone speaking to her! It’s the misanthrope’s dream. It’s someone’s dream, anyway. Just not mine.
Today I have three articles to write for the Edinburgh Evening News, so, naturally, what I did was, I jumped in the car and went shopping instead. I didn’t buy anything. The problem with our town is that the main shopping centre is a huge designer outlet mall, which means that instead of selling real clothes, that people would actually wear, they mostly sell off old stock from two seasons ago, that wouldn’t even sell then. It’s either that or clothes for teenagers, in fabrics which, to quote my mum, "you could spit peas through".
The end result of all of this is that the endless hunt for new jeans continues. Because I know you’re all desperately interested in this, I will keep you updated, never fear.
The main reason for today’s un-shopping trip, though, wasn’t the lack of a decent pair of jeans in my life, or even the need to procrastinate when faced with a deadline. No, I just had to get out of the house, and the reason I needed to get out of the house? Well, three days ago, Terry went downstairs to let the dog out, and decided to just rip up the kitchen floor while he was down there. As you do. Note the "three days ago" part of the above sentence. The kitchen floor is still in it’s "ripped" condition. Yes, part of the floor has been replaced, but only part, and to a neat-freak like myself, the ensuing dust and mess that surrounds this project is just. too. much.
Terry tells me the floor will be finished "soon". Meanwhile, in my travels to the town centre, I did discover that a Starbucks has just opened there. Small mercies, and all that…
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
My shoes arrived. Arrived, and will be going right back where they came from tout de suite because as soon as I opened the box (with my heart in my mouth, natch), it was glaringly obvious that they’re just totally the wrong colour for my dress. I am gutted: partly because they were the shoes of my dreams, but mostly because it means that the whole wedding-shoe-hunt will now have to recommence, and damn, but that’s getting old now.
I honestly never thought I’d hear myself say this, but you know what? I am sick to death of looking at wedding shoes, people. I mean, I wouldn’t mind – shoes are shoes after all, and they are my most favourite things in the whole wide world, but seriously: why are wedding shoes so ugly? Most of them are flat, clumpy and ugly, and that’s SO not the look I’m going for here. Call me stupid (most people do), but I really don’t want to be waddling down the aisle in the kind of shoes the Queen wears for God’s sake, but that appears to be all that’s on offer.
I blame other brides, personally. "Oooh, I’ll be standing up all day," they say, "I have to make sure I buy comfortable shoes!" Now, I have never subscribed to this view. I’m a heels girl: I’ve been wearing heels for over fifteen years now, and I maintain that anything you can do in your trainers, I can do in my heels. I can stand up all day in stilettos. I can dance all night in stilettos. I even once climbed up the side of a mountain in stilettos, but that’s not a story I like to repeat too often, so moving along, lalala.
My requirements for my wedding shoes are simple:
They must have high heels
High, NARROW heels. Not wedges, or big clumpy heels. Narrow.
They must be either pointy-toed or peep toed, but ideally peep-toed. Not square or round toed.
They must be ivory, champagne or gold.
They must not have an ankle strap.
They must be pretty. Sparkly would be good too.
I would ideally like to add here that they must be made by Christian Louboutin, but unless I wake up tomorrow and discover that everything I know about my life is wrong, and I am actually a rich woman, that’s not going to be happening.
So. HELP ME. Send shoes. Send money. Send me back my sanity. End this madness, for the love of God!
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
Following our Sunday evening spent under siege from toddlers and the lobotomized at birth, I thought this little guide to neighbourhood etiquette might come in handy. (For Them, you understand. Not you. Unless you, of course, are Them, in which case would you get your caravan off the pavement and keep your kids on a leash, thanks?). So here it is: Amber’s guide to the acceptable and the unacceptable of neighbourhood life. Next week: how to wear clothes and why that’s important…
Acceptable: Parking your car and caravan on the pavement for a few hours while you unpack and wind down from your holiday. Unacceptable: Leaving your car and caravan on said pavement for THREE WEEKS, and showing no inclination of moving them at all EVER.
Acceptable: Playing your car stereo loudly as you drive in and out of the street. Unacceptable: Playing your car stereo loudly as you sit in the car while it’s parked, repeatedly banging your fool head against the steering wheel, so the horn sounds. You are depriving some poor village of its idiot. Get back there, now.
Acceptable: Walking around the street wearing clothes. Unacceptable: Walking around the street wearing night clothes.
Acceptable: Making a lot of drilling/hammering/lawnmowing noise as you go about the business of maintaining your property. Unacceptable: Turning up the volume on your car stereo so that you can still hear it above the sound of your drilling/hammering/lawnmowing. See, a pneumatic drill isn’t really designed to be drowned out, y’know? Can you see that?
Acceptable: Allowing your children to play loudly in the street. Unacceptable: Allowing your children to play loudly in the street at one o’clock in the morning.
Acceptable: Playing music in the comfort of your own home. Unacceptable: Bringing your stereo out into your front garden. Turning up the volume.
Acceptable: Being pretty lax about cutting the grass in your garden. Unacceptable: When it gets to the stage where Shergar and Lord Lucan could be hiding in there and none of us would be any the wiser.
Acceptable: Parking your car in your driveway. Unacceptable: Parking your car in your neighbour’s driveway.
Acceptable: Keeping the hell away from my house. Unacceptable: Peering through my front window with your nose pressed against the glass. Inviting your small friends to join you. SWINES. (Nope, not over it.)
Acceptable: Riding your mini motorcycle on private land, which is the only place you can legally ride it. Unacceptable: Riding your mini motorcycle up and down the pavement in the street. For eight hours straight. With a toddler riding pillion. Without a helmet. Repeating this the next day. For a week.
Acceptable: Entering a neighbour’s garden to collect your ball, which has inadvertently landed there. Unaccepatble: Remaining in the neighbour’s garden to continue with your game. Also unacceptable: Entering your neighbour’s garden clutching a cat. Placing cat in the midst of the waist high grass (see: Being Pretty Lax About Cutting the Grass in Your Garden). Picking up your neighbour’s pitchfork. Walking towards cat with it. And, OK, I have NO IDEA what kind of innocent childhood games involve a cat and a pitchfork, you little swines, but next time I won’t just shriek at you like a demented thing for five minutes. (Nope, not over that one either).
In the interests of fairness, I should probably point out here that there are many ways in which our neighbours’ behaviour has not been totally batshit crazy. They have not yet, for example, run riot in the street with a sawn-off shotgun, massacring everyone who enters their line of vision, and nor have they torched our home one stormy night. At the time of writing, they are not dancing in hoods around a burning cross, and nor are they sacrificing small children to the God of Buckfast and Diamond White. But, y’know, tune in next week, because, really, nothing would surprise me now…
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
Not ten minutes after I posted my last entry, Terry had to run outside to stop two of the neighbourhood kids ramraiding our brown picket fence with their tonka toys.
Sing it with me, people:
Well the world turns And a hungry little boy with a runny nose Plays in the street as the cold wind blows In the ghetto… (In the ghetto)
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
You know, I hate to give the impression that Terry and I are living in a ghetto here, but seriously – WE ARE LIVING IN A FREAKING GHETTO HERE, PEOPLE. The latest evidence of this? Well, hot on the heels of Little Johnny and His Amazing Tin Whistle, I’m proud to present The Sad Tale of the Teenager in the Car. Said sad tale can mostly be summed up like this:
There is a teenager in a car. Across the street. He has the car stereo jacked up to EAR BLEEDINGLY LOUD, and every minute or so he’ll lean heavily on the horn, evidently taking great pleasure in the resulting cacophony of sound. Occasionally he’ll grow tired of the music and the car horn, and you’d think that’s when we’d celebrate, no? No. That’s when he switches the radio to sheer white noise and jacks the sound up even higher. Gah.
In the front garden of the house in front of which the car is parked, sit the teenager’s parents. Drinking. Accompanied by another teenager. Also drinking. In the house across the road (Our house! In the middle of our street!) paces a demented red haired woman with a pair of orange earphones and matching rubber earplugs. If a freak accident were to see both car and teenager blown into the sky and away from the street altogether, it could not happen soon enough for the woman, who is thisclose to crazy from all the noise.
In the spare bedroom sits a much beleaguered boyfriend and a fluffy white wolf dog. They want either the teenager or the crazy lady in the headphones to shut up now. They really don’t care which.
So, this is how Sunday evening has been spent. I am incandescent with rage. WHY? Why do they torment me like this? Why am I the only person in the street with even the slightest clue about what constitutes "good manners"? Why did Little Johnny’s parents let him blow his whistle for three. solid. hours? Why are the neighbourhood children always in my garden? Why is there a car and a caravan parked on the pavement in front of my house? Why don’t they make the headphones in a range of colours, so I could match them with my outfits? WHY?
* Unless thy neighbour is a punk-ass ghetto neighbour, like ours.
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
“Time travel…Is, like, that even possible? Cus, it’s like, I feel like some people can do that? And we’re gettin’ left behind?”
HUH? HUH?
Uh, Britney? Sweetie? It’s time to stop taking the drugs now. Because you’re starting to make even K-Fed sound intelligent, and when that happens? That’s when it’s time to worry…
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
You know what’s weird? When you order pants (and by "pants" I mean underwear, for the benefit of those of you in the States) from a catalogue or website, and they come on a weeny little pant-sized hanger. WHY? Seriously, do people hang them up with these? Are there people out there with closets filled with neatly colour-codes pants? Should I start doing this? I mean, I know my wardrobes are all fixed now, with their shiny new doors and also shelves that Terry built inside them (a guilty conscience, perhaps?) but that’s a level of anal retentiveness that hadn’t occurred even to me. Hmmm.
In addition to the new pants, I also got me a pair of skinny jeans today. Oh, and y’know, these. *whistles innocently*
There was actually a whole drama with the shoes. Turns out the SWINES didn’t actually have them in the colour shown on the website at all, so I’ve had to make like one of those crazy, fussy ladies who used to annoy the hell out of me when I used to sell things on eBay ("What is the exact measurement of the area between the elbow and the third button down?" "Can you guarantee that no pet has ever so much as looked at these jeans?" "I know your listing says the item comes from a non-smoking home, but could the jacket ever have come into contact with a wisp of smoke outside the house, or has it literally been wrapped in cotton wool and hermetically sealed?") by sending a succession of emails to the company (who, by the way, win the Amber award for customer service hands down), asking them to describe, if they would, the exact colour of these babies.
Wasn’t that a long sentence! Now you know why I am a writer!
Anyway, it’s done now. Last night I dreamt that I had secretly bought a pair of shoes which I was desperately trying to keep hidden from Terry, but the shoes kept emitting this awful "Weee-waaw-wee-waaw-weee-waaaw" sound at top volume. When I woke up, turns out the guy across the road’s car alarm had been going for an HOUR. And kept on going for ANOTHER HOUR. But God, my psyche is so simplistic, isn’t it? Even my unconscious mind is predictable…
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
You know, I swear my spammers (who I affectionately like to imagine all feverishly working away in one room, doing their damndest to bring me ever more exciting offers, every day of my life), are getting more creative lately. Bless! Witness the following, received this morning:
To: Me! From: Leslie James Subject: Please recommend some top quality sites that sell beautiful lingerie
Dear Sir/Madam Hello, my name is Leslie James. I am looking for top quality websites where I can buy beautiful lingerie, shoes, perfume and jewelery. Please recommend some top quality websites that sell beautiful lingerie, shoes, perfume and jewelery. Thank you very much. Yours Sincerely Leslie James
p.s. I am sorry to trouble you, but please recommend a good lingerie website to me if you can. Thank you.
Do you think she’d be interested in hearing about some top quality websites that sell beautiful lingerie, mebbe? Or that she could have mentioned that particular phrase any more times in the space of such a short email?
Then, hot on the heels of the lovely Leslie, guess what I was offered? Only the chance of a lifetime, people!
To: Me again! Lucky, lucky me! From: Elnora Subject: the chance of a lifetime!
Hello my dear friend
I was looking through the web few weeks ago and found your profile. Now I decided to email you to get to know you better. I am coming to your country ibn few weeks abnd thought may be we can meet each other. I am pretty a looking girl. I am 25. Do not reply to this address directly. Email me back at fqge@glorymorningz.com
Gosh, lucky me, eh? What an opportunity. To think that I, Amber, have been given the chance of a lifetime, to meet with my dear friend Elnora. She is pretty! A looking girl! And I don’t know what, exactly, the point of these emails are, but I have a funny feeling that whatever it is, it will involve relieving me of my hard earned cash, somehow. Shame.
I honestly don’t know what I did to deserve the quality of spam I recieve. But I’m starting to think I’d miss it if it stopped.
Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a full-time fashion/shoe blogger from the UK, and this is the story of my clothes, my life and the International Man of Mystery Next Door. You can read more from me at my other blogs, The Fashion Police and Shoeperwoman.
This bottle of water that, OK, you can’t really see anyway, but trust me – it’s there, and by God, it’s a big un?
