That whole "getting up early to go for a bracing walk in the winter sunshine" thing? Didn’t happen. The writing of the novel? Didn’t happen either. Fixing the car? Nope – although Terry says he thinks he knows what’s wrong with it and that’s good enough for me. In fact, I haven’t done any of the things I said I’d do in my last entry* – well, other than the "sleeping" bit, anyway. I’ll give you a moment to recover from the shock of that revelation:
…
So, what have I done since last you heard from me? Well, given how totally on top of things I am in my real life, I decided that one life wasn’t enough, so I got me another one – a Second Life. In my second life (It’s a computer game, by the way, just in case you’re not keeping up at the back there) I’m known as Amber Isachenko, which I keep reading as a sentence: Amber Is A Chenko. Geddit? In addition to being a "chenko", I also have a blue face. Why do I have a blue face? Who knows! I have a kind of crappy outfit, too, even although I spent hours tweaking my appearance, and I have a weird kind of sticky-uppy fringe, which is ironic, because when I was a teenager, I used to use wet look gel to stick my fringe up just like that. GOD.
Here I am (sans blue face). What a babe, no?
 Terry has a second life, too. In his second life he is called Epiphany Nurmi (don’t ask), and looks a little bit like Pete from Big Brother. Now we will be able to meet up with each other inside the computer box and, I dunno, maybe build a house together and laugh at all of the women in see-through tops who seem to inhabit the place? God, we live exciting lives, we really do.
Anyway. Enough of this chatter. I have a second life to live now. You all should get one too…
* I did manage to buy five Christmas presents, though. And only two of them are for me!
Well, folks, it’s less than a month until Christmas – let the fun begin! (And by “Let the fun begin” I mean, “Let Terry and I begin hemorrhaging money as we frantically try and stockpile random pieces o’crap gifts for our nearest and dearest whilst still having enough money to be able to live, and ohmygod it’s Christmas! We will have to actually LEAVE THE HOUSE and go to parties, and WHAT WILL I WEAR? I have nothing to wear. Nothing. SEND CLOTHES. Also: ponies)
Anyway, as it’s almost Christmas and we’re now poorer than the poorest of church mice, it stands to reason that my car will choose this time of year to break down randomly, so that’s what happened today. I’d popped down to Asda to start buying those Christmas gifts, and yes, OK, to see if they had that dress in yet that was in Heat magazine two weeks ago, but which has never actually appeared in Asda ever, and actually? I don’t think that dress even exists. I think they just made it up to taunt me. Damn you, George at Asda, DAMN YOU TO HELL.
But I digress. It was as I was leaving the car park that the car decided to splutter and die. “Splutter!” said the car. “Die!” I managed to get it started again, but then spent the rest of the drive home squealing like a crazy person every time I had to slow down, in case it would die again and refuse to start. I have no idea what’s wrong with it, but I’ll bet it’s expensive, whatever it is. For the moment I’m going to go with my “the car was cold. And tired!” theory. Don’t tell me different, because I don’t want to know.
Needless to say, this has not got December off to a very good start, and God, December hasn’t even started yet. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas day itself – I just hate the month that precedes it, with it’s frantic consumerism and wardrobe dilemmas. Bah, humbug…
What I should do about this state of affairs: Start writing novel. Become rich and famous. Get car fixed. Buy pony.
What I am actually going to do about this state of affairs: Go to bed. Sleep.
What I will do tomorrow: Get up early. Take Rubin for healthy, bracing walk in the early morning air. Feel virtuous. Complete days’ work by lumchtime. Write novel. For real.
Tagged car troubles, christmas
Remember that novel I was writing? Yeah, it would be good if I’d actually done that, wouldn’t it? Why, I could be sitting here with a book deal and an agent right now, but instead? Well, instead I’m sitting here with the remainders of last week’s cold, no novel and no money (Note: SEND MONEY). Way to go, Amber!
Actually, I’m not surprised at the non-completion of the novel: it’s pretty much par for the course by now. The reason I know this? Well, earlier this year I stumbled across my very first diary – what would have been my very first blog, in fact, had blogs been invented in 1987, which they hadn’t. You should be pleased about that – trust me. Anyway,here are some extracts:
August 7th, 1987
“I have started writing a book called Jumping for Joy. It is about a girl called Elaine Shaw and a pony called Carmen.”
August 9th, 1987
“I have given up writing my book.”
December 2nd, 1987
“Nothing else exciting happened so I’ll go now to finish the book I’ve started writing. It’s called ‘A Horse of My Own’ and I think I might possibly be able to keep it up.”
March 1st, 1988
“I’m also getting on well with my new fiction book, ‘Jumping for Joy’ and I’m hoping to get it published when I’m finished.” (Amber’s note: Ha! Yeah you are!)
June 9th, 1988
Things I must remember to take on holiday with me:
1. camera and plenty films
2. diary and pen
3. book I am writing, ‘Ponies Galore’
4. extra notebook and pen (What, just in case you finish Ponies Galore and decide to dash off another one? Wait… am I having a conversation with my younger self, here?)
5. Observers Book of Horses
6. Riding things
7. Ted
8. Walkman and cassettes
Did you pick up on the fact that I liked horses? A lot? And that I’ve been failing to complete novels since I was TEN YEARS OLD? (Actually, I did finish one of them. I think it was ‘Jumping for Joy’. I’d give you an extract of that, but I gave it to my friend Rhona to read, and she never returned it. I like to think that Rhona re-reads it every year, just to remind herself of the antics of Elaine Shaw and her pony Carmen, but, y’know, probably not.)
It makes me sad to think that I’ve been failing at something for such a long time. I doubt that ten-year-old Amber would be impressed with the adult version of herself. I mean, for one, I have no ponies, for two, I haven’t even written any books about ponies, and for three, George Michael turned out to be gay, people. I also didn’t grow up to be a pop star, which was the career I had in reserve, just in case the whole Olympic showjumper/latter day Patricia Leitch thing didn’t work out. Which, of course, it didn’t.
I really should go and write that book now, huh? (Or maybe just go to sleep?)
Tagged childhood, old diaries, ponies
So, another day, another white van pulls up outside the house, has multiple power tools unloaded from it, and is then used as a giant speaker, as its occupants strive to keep the volume load enough to still be audible over the noise of their drilling and sawing. AAARGH! WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?! Why has no one got any manners any more? In my day, you respected your neighbours. This was all fields then, you see, and this "pop music" they listen to? Well, in my day we had real music, that you could dance to. Gah.
</grumpyoldwoman>
Also: I think I’m getting the cold. This is a problem, because I? Am a hypochondriac. Did I ever tell you I’m a hypochondriac? Well I am. Why, in the summer I had a spate of migraines, and convinced myself that I had a brain tumor. Nothing to do with the fact that all of my migraine triggers were present, in high volumes, for two weeks. Hell, no. Much more likely that I was dying. Much more likely. I actually lost two pounds in weight during this period, due to the whole "shaking with fear" thing. I call it "The Migraine Diet". Works like no other. Don’t try it at home, kids…
So, anyway, I think I’m getting the cold, but it’s only a very low-level cold which hasn’t really come to anything yet – slight sore throat, slightly runny nose, slight.. getting-the-cold feeling. It looks like the cold and it feels like the cold, but it has yet to actually develop into the cold, so my question, obviously, is "What if it’s a terrible, fatal illness?" What if it’s a terrible, fatal illness but I assume it’s just the cold, so I don’t do anything about it and then I die? WHAT IF, people?
Actually, while I’m here and ranting, here have another: as well as having the cold, I AM cold. So, so cold. Cold as in "I’m wearing two sweaters and a cardigan and I still can’t get warm" cold. No, this is nothing to do with the "getting the cold" scenario mentioned above. This is how I spend every winter without fail. For reasons that have never been clear to me, I feel the cold more than most people. In Florida? I carry a light sweater with me at all times, just in case the temperature drops below 90. In Scotland, during the winter? I wear all my clothes, all the time. This is why I write about fashion for a living, clearly. Gah.
Last night, as I dreamt happily of white sandy beaches and shopping malls (I wish I was lying about this, but no, my subconscious really is that predictable), I was disturbed by a loud BEEPing noise. "BEEP!" said the noise. "Mmmfffghttfmm" said I, turning over, and returning to my dream, in which I was now clip-clopping along a sunny country lane on a horse. (Horses figure frequently in my dreams, too.)
"BEEP!" said my horse.
"Mmmfffghttfmm!! GOD!" said I, turning over once again, and returning to my lane, this time without my trusty steed, but with the (very welcome) addition of a Marc Jacobs handbag. Result! But no! "BEEP!" said my Marc Jacobs handbag. Gah!
I sat up in bed. "This is no dream!" I said. "This is the carbon monoxide alarm on the bedroom wall, waking me from my slumbers!"
"BEEP!" said the carbon monoxide alarm on the wall.
"*&^%!" said I.
I leaned over and prodded Terry in the back. "Terry!" I said, "Wake up, carbon monoxide is leaking from the thingy and we are totally going to die!"
Terry sat up and looked at me, uncomprehending. "Huh?" he said, scratching his head.
"We are totally going to die," I repeated helpfully, explaining about the carbon monoxide alarm, and the BEEP! but not mentioning the Marc Jacobs handbag. "Best to leave that for morning," I thought, wisely.
Terry stared at the alarm. I stared at the alarm. We both stared at the alarm.
Long minutes passed.
Terry looked at me, I looked at Terry. Terry sighed heavily and made as if to lie back down.
"BEEP!" said the carbon monoxide alarm on the wall. Whew!
Terry got up to examine the alarm. Immediately, a problem became apparent, this being that the "I am running out of battery power" noise on this alarm is a lot like its "OMFG! You are all going to DIE!" noise. At 4am in the morning (for such was the time), the two noises were almost indistinguishable. Did we need to vacate the house immediately, on fear of death, or did we just need to take a trip to Asda to buy new batteries? Who knew? Not me, anyway.
To solve this little dilemma, Terry removed the batteries from the CMA, opened the bedroom window, got back into bed and instantly returned to his dreams, which were probably about computers and Elle from Neighbours. I let this go for, oooh, at least thirty seconds, before prodding him awake again and unleashing a hysterical torrent of questions relating to us, the alarm, and the likelihood of us making it through the night. Terry told me at least ten times that yes, he was absolutely sure it was just the battery running out (yes, 100% sure) before finally going back to sleep. I, meanwhile, lay awake for hours, eyes wide open in terror, convinced that if I closed them? I would surely never open them again. (I also got up to remove the batteries from my camera to try them in the alarm, but they, too, were dead. Note to self: stop leaving camera switched on at all times. Only stupid people do that.)
And thus passed the night. This morning? Absolutely exhausted. Need sleep. Lovely, warm, non-poisonous sleep. Alas, the workload, it is crippling, so no sleep for me. But at least we’re still alive. That’s always a good way to start the day, I find.
Note from Terry: There was absolutely no doubt that it was the low-battery warning, not the carbon monoxide warning. Four times this has happened now. Amber = crazy.
So, I got my hair cut today. I’d show you a picture, but actually? You can just look at any one of the pictures on this here blawg, and that’ll give you a pretty good idea what I look like because my hair, it never changes, NEVER. This one time, I went back to my old high school in my capacity as a reporter (one of their students had won an award, and that was the kind of exciting news I got to cover), and one of my old teachers (old as in “It’s been a while since I left school”, not old as in “old”) was all, “God, Amber, you haven’t changed since you were 15.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Oooh! Actually, now I come to think of it, one time my hair did change. I was the last client of the day, and the hairdresser was obviously a) desperate to get home and b) a vindictive bitch, because she chose to interpret my “could you layer it gently around the sides, please” as “could you hack viciously into my hair, leaving me with a MULLET please, because I would like that.” Being the non-confrontational type that I am (no, really), I said nothing about this, paid, smiled, then went out to the car and HOWLED.
Other examples of my cowardice in the face of hairdressers:
- Sitting for half an hour with one of those butterfly clip things clamped onto my ear.
 Only mentioning it when it became clear to my eight-year-old self that my ear would totally DROP OFF if I didn’t.
- Allowing an over-enthusiastic trainee hairdresser to almost decapitate me during a twenty minute “Indian head massage” which involved the back off my neck resting against the edge of the sink, causing me to almost lose all sensation in the lower half of my body.
- Allowing various hairdressers to force me to stand up for the duration of my haircut, even that one in Vidal Sassoon that time who made me stand up when I had the flu (why did I keep my hair appointment when I had the flu? Who knows?!), and only let me sit back down when I told her I would probably faint if I didn’t.
Now I get my hair cut at home by my own personal hairdresser, Carol, who is the only person I trust, and if I ever become rich and famous I will be forced to fly Carol around the world to cut my hair. So that’s who cut my hair today, and let me tell you, it was the highlight of the last few days. Other highlights:
- Finishing the book about the gypsy who fell in love with an Earl. (Result: the gypsy married the Earl. So didn’t see that one coming.)
- Being forced to watch The Worst Film Of All Time, Ever, by Terry, who had clearly been smoking crack at the time. (Yes, it was even worse than The Cable Guy. I know!) Basic plot: a Very Bad Thing happens to a blonde woman. We are shown The Very Bad Thing happening in gruesome detail. Blonde woman climbs down a hole with her friends. More Very Bad Things Happen. Some Even Worse Things Happen. The End.
- Deciding to watch another movie directly after this, so as to get the gruesome images left by TWFOATE out of our heads. Stupidly selecting The Second Worst Film of All Time, Ever. Plot: Adam tries to get Eve to sleep with him. Eve doesn’t, but then she does. The End.
- Going Christmas shopping. Spending a lot of money in TK Maxx.
- None of it on shoes. GOD.
- Being broke now. Happy Christmas, our families!
- Being too lazy to write a proper entry, so resorting once again to the trusty old list format. Go, me!
With a bit of luck I will soon do something stupid and/or potentially harmful to myself and will be able to tell you all about it. Until then, you’re just going to have to bear with me folks – it’s going to be a long, hard winter…
So, for the last few days I just haven’t felt like dancing ("Dancing! Dancing! When the old Joanna plaaaayyyys." God, I love that song…),and by "dancing" I mean "blogging". I haven’t felt like blogging ("Blogging! Blogging!") and the reason for this is that, well, absolutely nothing has happened. Nothing. I mean, OK, I managed to almost lose both my knee-cap and elbow in random household incidents today, but, for the most part my days have been looking like this:
09:00: Sit at desk
<about 14 hours pass>
23:00 Leave desk. Go to bed. Read trashy novel about gypsies who marry earls. Sleep.
And that, folks, is my life right now. So dull, and yet at the same time, stressful, that it’s making me long for the days of near death experiences and totally random falls. What I long most of all, for, though, is a holiday. As things stand, I haven’t had an actual, honest-to-God holiday since May 2004, when we went to the Big Fat Greek Wedding of Terry’s brother, in Athens – and even then we managed to wander into a gay bar by mistake in our search for "entertainment". Them were the days, I tells ya.
Since then, it’s been pretty much all work, all the time, with only the odd day off here and there, and when I say "odd day off" I’m really not exaggerating. I could probably count the days off on both hands, actually. Burned out, much? Luckily, of course, we have our lovely honeymoon coming up soon (well, March), so that’s good, isn’t it? Well, maybe. This weekend Terry did a quick raid of the local travel agents and returned with a bag full of holiday brochures for us to pursue at our leisure. It was only then that we realised the awful truth: that we are getting married the day after the schools break up for the Easter holidays. Yes, we’re choosing to honeymoon at the most expensive time of the year, bar none. Seriously, even mid summer is cheaper. Gah.
At this juncture, of course, a week in a caravan in Bognor would seem like bliss to me. Just as long as there’s no Internet and no phones…
So, we’ve been planning a Day of John. John = Terry’s brother, he of kidney donation fame. The day? His birthday – or the day before it, to be exact.
You see, John has the misfortune of having been born on Christmas Eve. In addition to meaning that he gets less presents than other people, it also means that no one is ever available to celebrate with him on the day itself, everyone being far too busy wrapping up the Christmas presents they panic-bought just hours before, and putting out milk and a cookie for Santa. Oh wait, that’s just me, isn’t it? Damn.
Last year was a particularly un-birthday-like birthday for John. For one thing, it was his 30th. For another, he had only just been released from hospital, and was still drugged up to the eyeballs. For a third, he spent most of that day traveling to and from said hospital to visit Terry, who was still incarcerated, and who, as it turned out, wasn’t released until Christmas morning. So, all in all, probably not the best birthday John’s ever had.
To make up for all of this, we had a plan, a cunning plan, hatched by John’s girlfriend, Jolene, and tenderly nursed along by Terry, who’d kind of like his brother to have a birthday that doesn’t involve ripping a kidney out of his body and then drugging him. (edited to add: they actually drugged him before taking the kidney out, too. Just thought I’d make that clear.) I mean, it’s the least we can do, really. The plan? We would have a Day of John. This year, December would be magical again! (Also: expensive! But worth it!) What we’d do, we decided, was pick John up on the morning of his birthday. "Get you coat, John – you’ve pulled we’re taking you out," we’d say, before bundling him into the car and driving him to Edinburgh, where he and Jolene would take a helicopter tour of the city and the Forth, before returning to the ground. Terry and I would then join them for food, and also: alcohol.
Well, that was the plan, and indeed, still is the plan. The reason I’m able to write about it here, though, without fear of John reading this and the surprise being ruined? Well, the surprise has already been ruined. By the stupid helicopter company who, despite being told that it was all a huge surprise, and that they must not, under any circumstances, communicate The Plan to John in any way at all, went right ahead and did just that. Yes, they interpreted "Please don’t tell John about this," as "Please tell John all about this, by sending a boarding card to his home, addressed to him, with the full details of The Day of John with it." Gah. You just can’t get the staff, can you?
We will still have our Day of John, of course. It’s just that… John knows. Gah.
What I meant to write this afternoon, on a post at TV Scoop:
"MediaWatch-UK, the TV watchdog founded by Mary Whitehouse, is up in arms about a documentary on moors murderess Myra Hindley…"
What I actually wrote:
"MediaWatch-UK, the TV watchdog founded by Myra Hindley, is up in arms about a documentary on moors murderess Mary Whitehouse…"
*headdesk*
Don’t worry: I noticed it just as soon as my finger hit p"ost". Hi, potential clients who are reading this! Want to pay me money to blog for you?! And also: Hi, Friday night, how yoo doin’? Is it time for wine, yet? Will we get some anyway?
It’s time for wine, folks. Cheers…
When we first decided to get married, I was all, "Cool. I will be a laid-back, totally non-hysterical bride-to-be. No bridezilla moments for me, nosiree!" Absolutely no one believed me about this, mostly because "hysterical" is my middle name (note: not really. It’s "Louise".), and also because I’m all about the drama. And you know what? Turns out they were right. Bridezilla? Moi? Oh hell yes…
The (rude) awakening of my inner Bridezilla came on Halloween (an irony that was not lost on me), when my poor, long-suffering mother and I took my precious, precious dress to our chosen dressmaker to be altered. "(Yes, it has taken me this long to feel able to write about it.) Great!" said I, "I will get to wear my fabby new Agent Provocateur corset, which I love more than life itself!" and "Oh, crap," said my mum, as I struggled my way into Terry’s low-slung car, unable to bend from the waist in my tightly-laced corset. (Sorry for the too much information, here, by the way. Just suck it up, though.)
I should have known right there that it was all about to go horribly wrong, and from the moment we arrived at the dressmaker’s home, me walking like a mannequin in my corset, it did. First of all, the dressmaker made us remove our shoes and wear some old slippers she provided for us. Being the spoiled brat that I am, this would have been horrifying enough (I choose my footwear, thanks. Me!) but, as you know, I have a bit of a thing about feet, so this put me at a disadvantage right away.
Worse was to come, though.
"Do you actually like this?" asked the dressmaker, removing The Precious from its bag and gesturing towards the buttons at the back. The buttons which were one of the things I liked most about it.
"Ummm, yes?" said I.
"Really?" said the dressmaker incredulously, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "For what reason?"
"Ummmm, because they are pretty?" I said. (Yes, I was speaking in questions. She had that kind of effect on me.) "Say they are pretty."
The dressmaker did not say they were pretty. In fact, she said they were "clumsy" and were "ruining the design". The design which, by the way, has "no unity to it." GOD.
"Well, Vera Wang obviously thought it had unity to it," I pointed out. "Now do as you’re told, woman and make me look like a Princess for the day!"
Ooops, sorry, no – that was what I said in my own head. In real life, what I said was this:
"……"
as she took out a little sharp thing and cut all the lovely buttons off my dress. (She needs to do this anyway, to alter it, I should point out. She wasn’t just being a vandal for the sheer hell of it.) Feeling my bottom lip begin to tremble mutinously, I looked towards my mum, who managed to convey to me, wordlessly, "We will make her sew them back on. You shall go to the ball, Cinderella!" (My mum’s had a lot of experience as my handler, you see, so she knows how to do this without speaking.)
"Strip, bitch," said the dressmaker.*
I pulled off my sweater, revealing my lovely corset, in all its glory. Scarlett O’Hara never had a waist like mine, I’ll tell you that for nothing. (She had a waist like two of mine. GOD.)
"Well, you’re not wearing that," said the dressmaker. "Totally not suitable. Too thick for the dress. You’ll look much more natural without it."
"But I don’t want to look natural!" I wailed. (In my own fool head, natch.) "I want to have a tiny waist and be totally unable to move normally! I want to look like Dita Von Teese, except smaller, paler, uglier, redder and, did I say uglier?"
No corset. Even my mum agreed that the dress looks better without it, and I was forced to concede the point.
"You can still wear it, though!" said the dressmaker. "They look great with jeans, these. And slutty clothes."**
To be fair, our dressmaker is a miracle worker. She is the kind of woman who could have turned Scarlett’s old curtains into a killer dress no problem at all, and, with the aid of just a few pins and the extra scraps of material that came with the dress, she managed to completely transform it. It looked lovely. When I got home though? I still cried. Yes, Bridezilla had been unleashed. And without her Agent Provocateur corset? She was pissed.
Since then I have thought long and hard about the whole thing, and I have been forced to have some strong words with myself. (I’ve also been forced to block the Monique Lhuillier website from my browser, but that’s a whole other issue). "Amber," I said to myself, (for yes, I like to address myself properly when I speak to myself), "Amber, you are behaving like one spoiled brat here. Why, this time last year, you were a quivering wreck of a person, driven to the brink of insanity by her fiance’s approaching kidney transplant, and all of the attendant fears that major surgery brings. You were just about to face two weeks of hospital visits, not knowing whether or not the transplant would even work. This year? This year your biggest worry is the fact that your £230 corset won’t fit under your Vera Wang wedding dress. Who do you think you are here, Heather Mills? Paris Hilton? Slap yourself right now."
So I did. Slap myself, that is. And then I slapped myself again, because, really? What am I like? I’m sure it will all work out fine. The dress will be altered, it will fit me properly, it will look beautiful (the dressmaker did concede that it will look beautiful – once she’s finished with it. Vera Wang, hang your head in shame!), and all will be well.
I’m not moving on the buttons issue, though.
* Not really.
** She actually did say that, though.
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