GOD. As if it wasn’t enough that we have to fight them on the beaches, in the fields, streets and outside the doctor’s surgery, now the Stupid People are freakin’ EMAILING ME.
Last week this flooded into my inbox:
—–Original
Message—–
From: A stupid person ]
Sent: 03 October 2007 16:06
To: Amber McNaught
Subject: how?
how do i submit my work?
Now, on the surface of it, this may not seem too bad – until, of course, you realise that I get emails like this all the time and I have NO IDEA what these people want from me. Straight away it got my back up: I mean, did this guy’s mother never teach him how to send emails? In MY day it was the belt for us if we didn’t observe proper email etiquette: a salutation, a sign-off, correct punctuation, some clue as to why the hell we were writing to the person… Nowadays these crazy kids are all just “HOW?” As if I will know what they’re talking about. Jesus.
Well, I thought on this for a couple of minutes, but during that time I did not miraculous become involved in any kind of enterprise in which people would need to submit their “work” to me, so I wrote back an equally abrupt:
What are you talking about, dude?
In return I got this:
03
October 2007 16:11
To: Amber McNaught
Subject: Re:
how?
on a site i have
just been on it said to contact this address to ask any questions, i would like
to know ho wi submit my work onto the site
Now, this obviously helped me quite a lot, because luckily it’s not like there are millions of websites in the world or anything, is it? To be honest, though, it was news to me that one of these millions of sites was advising people to contact me (Me! Little me!) with any questions, so I asked my mystery correspondent if it wouldn’t be too much trouble to tell me which site he was talking about.
In return, he sent me a URL. Just a URL, mind. Because that’s a nice way to communicate with people. Polite. Makes you want to help them, you know? Anyway, luckily the URL was that of my infrequently-updated and actually pretty-much-forgotten-about a freelance writing blog. Which does not accept submissions of people’s work onto it, so really, we were no further forward. I brought my mighty intellect to bear on the problem before me, though, and managed to deduce that he was probably referring to the writing competition I had posted about a couple of days earlier. That would be the post which states “For more information and submission guidelines visit <clicky linky>.” NOT the post that states “Feel free to send me one-line emails trying to submit your work to me,” because that post? Doesn’t actually exist. Gah.
Sure enough, when I emailed my new friend to tell him that no, my blog does not accept writing submissions, I got back:
ok then, how do you enter the competition then?
Now, why could he not have just said that in the first place? Why could he not have just written somethinhg along the lines of: “Hi, I was just reading your blog and wondered if you could tell me how to enter the writing cometition you posted about? P.S. You rock.” Why could he not have written that? Sure, I’d still have thought he was a bit of a dumbass because the instructions are IN. THE. POST. but at least I’d have thought he was polite.
I told him to just read the post about the thing and follow the instructions in it. I didn’t hear from him again, so he’s probably off emailing other people about it now. I bet he wins that writing competition, though, if he ever works out how to enter it – talents like his don’t come along very often, you know?
And so it goes. Every week brings another email from someone who wants to know how to become a professional writer, but who has barely mastered the art of communication/ writing. Every week I have to sit on my hands to stop myself from telling them honestly what their chances are. Mostly, though, I wish they would just stop emailing me. Or would at least learn how to communicate people with something approaching manners, rather than just firing off one-line, un-punctuated emails saying “HOW?”
Tagged email fun, OMG internet drama!
Last night, Terry and I went to an engagement party. As is my usual way with these kinds of things, I used it as the perfect opportunity to dress like a homeless person.
See, I couldn’t be bothered fake-tanning my legs, so I bought me some Sally Hansen “spray on tights”. Now, I know that the words “fake tan” have probably just made you roll your eyes and get all “GOD, fake tan, I would NEVER wear fake tan!” on me. And I know the words “spray on tights” probably made you roll those eyes a little more, and say, “GOD, Amber is a dumbass! Isn’t Amber a dumbass?” but y’all try walking a mile on my “so-pale-they-shine-like-the-moon” legs before you judge me too harshly, ‘kay?
So, spray on tights. Now, I know I’m probably preaching to the “don’t even need to be converted” here, but they’re just not a great idea, you know? Or actually, they ARE a great idea. I mean, tights! That spray on! Who wouldn’t love those bad boys? What’s not such a great idea, though, is buying your spray-on tights from eBay, so, naturally that’s exactly what I did.
It could have worked. OK, so maybe it couldn‘t have worked. All I know is that the fact I was buying the tights ON THE INTERNET, which made it totally freakin’ impossible to judge the colour accurately… well, it didn’t really help. As it happens, the colour I got claimed to be ‘Tan Glow’, but turned out to be good old American Tan, i.e. a colour that no human being has any right to be. So I decided to use it anyway. Because I am stupid.
I’d sprayed one leg from ankle to knee before I realised that ‘Tan Glow’? Wasn’t such a great look, really. Neither ‘tan’ nor ‘glowy’, it made me look like an Oompa Loompah, and I don’t know about you, but that’s just not a look I’ve ever aspired to. So I reached for the emergency pair of tights I’d bought at Asda last week, in preparation for this very eventuality. I dunno, it’s almost like a gift, this ability of mine to see into the future, it really is. Now, you’d think that buying my tights in person rather than on eBay would make it pretty hard for even me to get the colour wrong, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong about that, though. Because, even although my legs are so pale I look like I’ve just been exhumed, these tights somehow contrived to be even paler. I looked like Courtney Love on a very bad day, and given that every day is a bad day for Courtney, that’s not good, dudes.
So I hit the ‘Tan Glow’ again.
And it still made me look like an Oompah Loompah.
An Oompah Loompah, yesterday.
By now time was a-wastin’ and I could hear Terry downstairs jingling his car keys in that “I’m not trying to rush you, but actually, I am totally trying to rush you” way he has, so I quickly washed off the Tan Glow (no, that didn’t go too well, thanks for asking) and rummaged around in my hosiery drawer until I found two pairs of hold-ups I’d forgotten I had. “All of my troubles are over!” I thought, smugly pulling on the first one and ripping it with my bracelet as I did so. I threw it into a corner and managed to successfully clothe myself in two more. As I pulled on my coat, though, one of my freaky premonitions hit me, and I tucked the last remaining hold-up into my bag. Just in case.
As it turned out, it was my dress I destroyed first. See, it was a knit dress, and I was wearing a rhinestone bracelet. Every time I moved my arm, the bracelet would catch on my dress, snagging at the material and leaving lots of little unattractive raised bits, so that I looked like I was wearing an acne-ridden teenager. “COULD YOU NOT HAVE JUST TAKEN OFF THE BRACELET?” I hear you ask, and, indeed, this was the first thing my mum asked when I emailed her this morning to ask if she could fix my dress.
Well, yes, of course I COULD remove the bracelet and I did. I decided to wait until I’d laddered another one of my hold ups with it first, though. Then I went to the bathroom to replace it with the spare hold-up I had cunningly brought with me, only I put my stupid hand right through it as I pulled it on. D’oh!
I emerged from the bathroom looking a little bit like a newspaper: black dress, white legs, red hair. I was very careful not to mention to anyone that I write about fashion for a living.
Still, we had a great time. And hey, I’ve always wanted a ‘Tan Glow’ bathroom anyway…
Tagged Random Acts of Stupidity
Last night as I got ready for bed I opened my wardrobe to stroke my clothes and was hit by a sudden, hideous realisation. It was this: almost everything I have bought in the past couple of months… is grey.
Things I Have Bought That Are Grey
- Sweaters
- Cardigans
- Jeans
- Vest top
- Shoes
- Pyjamas. FREAKIN’ GREY PYJAMAS, PEOPLE!
They join a couple of things I already own that are also grey, namely:
- Grey dress
- Grey underwear. (Technically a mistake. Wash whites separately, kids.)
Also: the dress I am currently coveting that I would totally have bought if they’d just had it in my size? Is grey.
WHY? Why have I done this to myself? I really don’t understand it, because my favourite color? Is green. And OK, there’s not a whole lot of green in the shops at the moment but DID YOU HAVE TO BUY SO MUCH GREY INSTEAD, AMBER? DID YOU?! Actually, I don’t think I even like grey. Except my new grey skinnies, obviously. They rawk. But still: why so grey, I wonder? Am not happy. Especially given that I’ve spent all my money now, so it’s not like I can go out and buy more things, that aren’t grey. And I can’t take the grey stuff back either because, well, I kind of already wore it all. I appear to have been building my collection for quite some time now.
No, it looks like I am destined to walk through the winter like some creeping grey thing, and I have no one to blame but myself. That I write about fashion for a living just makes it all the more embarrassing. “Fashion writer in ‘no longer allowed to go shopping alone!’ scandal”. “Woman swallowed whole by mountain of grey clothes!” “Amber is a total freaking idiot! And also: poor!” Gah.
Grey is the new black, folks. You heard it here first.
Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? See, I know it is, but I also know that there are lots of you out there who like to lurk and not comment – hell, sometimes I like to do that myself – which is why I’m taking part in The Great Mofo Delurk of 2007.
I would write a huge long entry here about how each and every one of you readers is valued, and how I read and appreciate every single one of your comments, even although I don’t always get the time to respond to them all (Typepad is kinda sucky with comments because it doesn’t really let you reply to each individual one. Also: I’m kinda sucky with comments too. Yeah.) but I totally stole this idea from Alyndabear, and she already wrote that entry so, you know, go read hers instead.
Anyway! Hi, lurkers! Let’s all have a group hug! Pull up a chair, make yourself comfortable, introduce yourself. Or just leave a comment to say hi, and we’ll all say "hi!" back and then the world will totally be a better place. Or something. And those of you who aren’t lurkers? Feel free to join in…
Edited to add: I’m going to make this easier on you by asking a question which you can answer in the comments. The question is: what was the last book you read. Recommend me something – I’m running out of reading here…
It’s One of Those Weeks, folks, and by "One of Those Weeks" I mean, "Oh my good God, is it not the weekend already? And also: where is the wine?"
Even although it’s turned out to be a pretty crappy week, though, it did start off reasonably well, in that I I got to go shopping at the weekend. I love me some shopping. The problem with that, though? Well, there were a few problem with that. Allow me to list them for you:
1. I went specifically to buy a new winter coat
2. I did not get a new winter coat
3. OMG, how will I keep warm this winter?!
4. Oh. With the *ahem * thermal vest I bought.
5. Shut up.
6. You know you’d buy a thermal vest too if you lived in Scotland.
7. No, you really would.
8. Where was I?
9. Oh, yeah. I didn’t buy a winter coat, but I did buy a whole bunch of other stuff.
10. That I didn’t really need because, hello! Winter coat, anyone?
11. Why am I writing like this, all listy? I should stop that now…
The main thing that troubled me about my shopping trip – that troubles me about every shopping trip, basically – was all the other people that were there at the same time as me. God, I hate other people. "Hell is other people," said Jean-Paul Sartre, and all I can say is that ole J-P must have shopped in the same places as me because yes, it really was hell.
They were everywhere, the Other People: whole crowds of them, all doing that Slow-Walk-of-the-Shopping-Mall thing where they spread themselves across the entire aisle and then walk reeaaallllly, reeeaaaalllly slowly, stopping randomly to look at things and totally disregarding the fact that THERE WERE PEOPLE BEHIND THEM WHO NEEDED A WINTER COAT, DAMMIT. Most of them had those massive strollers that you can fit five babies in at once with them. Most of those babies were screaming. So was I at some points, I think: it was hard to tell over all the noise.
No matter where I went, the crowds of people would follow. It was a bit like being a famous person, except without all the money and, well, fame. In the first store I went into, the fitting rooms seemed to be closed (WHY?) but I was only trying on coats, after all, and, OK, some sweaters, so I took my haul to the emptiest, most obscure corner I could find, far from the madding crowds and close to a mirror. Except it wasn’t far from the madding crowds at all, was it, because the freaking madding crowds CAME WITH ME. Everywhere I went, in every nook and/or cranny I found for myself, the Madding Crowds would all appear as if from thin air and squeeze themselves in next to me. Then they would blatantly watch me get changed. GOD.
Finally, in my desperation to just get the hell out of Dodge, I grabbed things more or less at random and paid for them, and that’s how I came to have two new sweaters that are all but identical, and no winter coat.
How was your weekend?
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