So, last week I noticed that, from time to time I could feel a "pulse" going in my stomach, almost as if there was a very small animal in there and it was trying to FIGHT ITS WAY OUT. (Or, actually, more like a pulse, to be honest.) GOD. Well, at first I thought this was nothing, but I only thought that for a few minutes, then I thought, "Actually, I bet this is not nothing at all: I bet this is something, and I bet this something is very, very serious, and that it will kill me, and I will never get to finish my novel or ride that pony that I just BET my parents have bought me for Christmas FINALLY." This is because I am a hypochondriac, you see, and because I am a hypochondriac, I decided to consult the good Doctor Google on the matter.
Now, if you suffer from even the slightest degree of health relaxed anxiety, I say this to you now and I want you to listen good: NEVER DO THAT. Neither a symptom-surfer or a complete freaking idiot be, for when you consult Doctor Google about the pulse you can feel in your stomach, you will very quickly discover that you’re suffering from either:
a) Absolutely nothing at all
or
b) An abdominal aneurysm. (Or, as I keep calling it, "An abominable aneurysm).
Guess which one I thought I had?
Now, I have been reassured beyond any question of doubt that no, I am not suffering from an abominable aneurysm and am, in fact, suffering from a severe dose of Nothing At All. So there is absolutely NO NEED for anyone to comment here to the effect that OMG that sounds really serious and I am probably going to die, because that would be really mean and cruel and it is NOT an aneurysm, abominable or otherwise. And anyway, it’s stopped now, and if it was an aneurysm it wouldn’t have stopped, it would just have killed me.
Anyway, on my way out of the gym today I stopped to leaf through Vogue (the main benefit of joining the gym: no need to buy the glossy mags!) while I was waiting for Terry, and I overheard the following conversation between a bunch of people standing to my right:
WOMAN ONE: Yeah, so we’ll be spending Christmas with my sister-in-law: you know, the one who had the ANEURYSM.
WOMAN TWO: Oh, God, how is she? After the ANEURYSM?
WOMAN ONE: Well, she can walk and talk a bit now that she’s recovered from the ANEURYSM so that’s good.
WOMAN TWO: And that’s been how many years now since she had it? The ANEURYSM, I mean?
WOMAN ONE: Two. But at least she’s started talking again, you know? She has to write everything down though, mind you, because she totally can’t remember a thing. Because of the ANEURYSM.
And so it went on. When they got to the "writing everything down" bit it dawned on me that they were talking about a BRAIN aneurysm, not an abominable one, and it’s been almost two months now since my last one of those, but even so it freaked me out good. And this, my friends, is why you should never look up health symptoms on the Internet. Trust me, no good will come of it.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Nobody, and I mean NOBODY is to comment here about how their Great Aunt Ethel had the exact same thing and well, is dead now. Trust me when I tell you that I am now fine, and all is well in the land of hypochondria. Or it will be, as long as you don’t send me messages about death.
Side note: During the writing of this entry I discovered that I have absolutely no clue how to spell "aneurysm". Number of different spellings I came up with: five. Go me!
Not to sound like one of those freaky, super-organised people who buy all their Christmas gifts in the January sales, but we have bought all of our Christmas gifts – and by “we” I obviously mean “Terry has done it”. I did offer a few suggestions, but given that I give the worst gifts in the world, ever, I decided it was ultimately better to let him take care of it. Also: I’m lazy. Oh, and busy. Very, very busy. Yes.
Anyway, this is such a huge weight off my shoulders, not least because I’ll now have a good answer to give those people who spend the three months leading up to Christmas saying, “So! Have you bought all your Christmas presents yet? Are you all ready?” every single time you see them. To those people:
YES! WE HAVE BOUGHT ALL OF OUR GIFTS. WE ARE “READY!” Now shut up.
It’s also a relief because it means that during the month of December, we won’t have to leave the house now AT ALL, ever. Well, not to go shopping, anyway. This is a huge relief, because while I love Christmas day itself, I often feel like the month that precedes it is some special form of torture devised just to torment me, what with the huge crowds of people all convinced that if they don’t rush out and buy every last loaf of bread that the supermarket has on its shelves, then they will surely starve to death during the ONE DAY that the supermarkets are closed, and the cheesy Christmas songs playing on a loop, and the fact that you have to somehow squeeze a month’s worth of work into the week before the holiday and all the rest of it. Bah, humbug.
This year it seems to be worse than ever, with people already starting to tell stories about how they went to the shops and had to spend three hours circling the car park before they could find a space. I shudder to think what it’ll be like in December – you know, the month that Christmas actually takes place in?
Anyway. This year we are organised to the max. Now we can totally forget all about it until December 24th.
Tagged christmas
Folks, take a look at this face. Um, the one in the top right of the screen, that is. Now tell me: does this look like the face of a student to you? And if so: WHY?!
I have been told I look like a student. I’m not quite sure whether to be flattered by this because it means I look like I’m fresh outta high school (unless the person meant I look like a mature student, obviously), or insulted because… well, because I’m not fresh outta high school, and where I come from, students tend to look a bit like they just went out in their pyjamas, and without brushing their hair. I mean, no offense to any students reading this, obviously, because I’m sure YOU are a fresh and fragrant student, and as well groomed as a show pony! No, really! But back to me, because, after all, it’s ALL ABOUT ME, oh yes it is.
My accuser is a random Internet person who sent me a Facebook message this morning saying that he goes to a college near me (well, in the same country, anyway. So, not really that near me.) and can he just ask what it is I’m studying, and which course I’m on? And also: can we be friends, please?
Well, at first I thought this was some weird kind of Facebook spam, and that I should just ignore it, but then I thought, "Be nice, Amber. For maybe there is another Amber (!) who actually is a student as this dude’s college, and maybe it was this other Amber he was trying to reach!" So I sent back a short but polite message saying "Sorry, dude, I think you have the wrong Amber, for I am no student, not I!" Or words to that effect. This is what he sent back to me:
"no amber i found u on facebook last night,and sent u message,i asked u if ur student and if ur student then wht course ur doing,and if ur not student then its ok,u looks like an student thats why i asked u,anways take care,im living in XXXXX and studying in XXXX,wana ask u if we can be friends???"
(Note: the bold text is mine, and he didn’t actually write "XXXXX" – I did that because I figured the seat of learning in question might not want people to know it’s apparently churning out illiterates. Miaow!)
Anyway, shocking use of txt spk (AAAARGH!) aside, I was bewildered by this message. I LOOKS LIKE AN STUDENT? Really? WHY? I mean, I use the same photo on my Facebook profile as I do on this blog, so my question to you all is this: what is it about me that just screams out to people: "I IS AN STUDENT! Write me messages in txt spk! I will like it!" WHAT?
I did appreciate his "quick recap" of the previous message, though, because my feeble brain needed that to be able to grasp just what exactly was going on. Those of us who is students are like that, you see.
ETA: It’s not the idea that I look younger than I am that made me scratch my head over this a bit, by the way, it’s the fact that my appearance apparently identifies me as having a specific occupation, with that occupation being "student". You know, like if someone looked at you and said, "oh, you look like a nurse," or "you look like a train driver" or something. So my question isn’t "do I look younger than I really am", rather "what it is about me that says "I am a younger person who is a student" as opposed to "I am a younger person who works as a receptionist in a cardboard box factory", for instance.
 Rubin writes…I don’t know, sometimes it’s like a dog can’t do nothin’ right, you know? It’s like: I pee on the washing machine, and that’s WRONG. So I pee against the side of the couch, and THAT’S wrong too. So I pee against the freezer and, guess what? Also WRONG. I mean, what’s a Rubinman to do?
Well, I’ll tell ya what a Rubinman did. I peed INSIDE TERRY’S BIN, that’s what I did. Ha! And, it’s like, I know yoos are probably all, “OMG! How did he do it?” but seriously dudes, it wasn’t even that hard – not to a cunning fox wolf like me, anyways.
So, I’m sleeping in the “spare room” these days, right? And in the “spare room” is Terry’s bin. Now, it was so simple I totally don’t know how come I didn’t think of it before, because, it’s like, yesterday morning I wakes up (early, like always. So’s I can do a bit of barking before They get up) and that bin is sittin’ there right in front of me, and suddenly it just hits me: “I’m totally going to pee in you,” I thought. So I did. Terry’s bin is like, made of wire, so alls I had to do was lift my leg against it and voila! (That’s “French”, by the way, and it means “the pee totally landed in the bin”. And, OK, some of it landed on the floor, too, but it’s the thought that counts, you know?)
Anyways, so I do that and then I hear Amber gettin’ up, and the next thing I know, she’s opened the door of the “spare room” and she’s totally standin there with this look on her face, like there’s a bad smell under her nose or somethin. And actually, there IS a bad smell under her nose, because she’s, like, standin right next to Terry’s BIN, and that thing, it don’t smell too good now, you know?
Amber does the whole “BAAAAAD!” thing with me, then she goes to Terry and she’s all, “Rubin peed in your bin,” and then Terry’s like, “WHAT?!” and I first I thought he was impressed, but as it turns out, not so much because then HE does the “BAAAAD!” thing as well, and then all day they keep mentioning that bin. And it actually started to get on my nerves, to be honest, so tonight after dinner, what I did was, I peed against the side of the freezer again.
TOTAL overreaction from the pair of them, as usual, but especially from Terry, who was all upset because, it’s like, the freezer is right next to the back door? And the back door was open at the time? But I was like, SO WHAT? It was raining, and when was the last time Terry went out and peed in the back garden in the rain? Well EXACTLY.
I better be gettin somethin good for my “Christmas” is alls I can say, because they’re getting beyond a joke, they really are. It’s like, they better get me a CAR or somethin to make up for it. Then I can pee in that as well.
Rubin
Well, you were willing to overlook my fashion faux pas with the Ugg boots and it seems there’s a fair few of you who share my left/right dyslexia, but here’s the thing: not one of you could understand my childhood fixation on Prince Charles, so this is my attempt to clear my name on this one by telling you that:
I WAS YOUNG
Young, I tells ya. I mean, I was FIVE or something. Maybe six, who knows. My point? I WAS YOUNG. And, like many very YOUNG girls, I was just a little bit carried away with all those fairy stories about handsome princes and beautiful princesses and shining knights on their white horses (I was more interested in the white horses than the shining knights, if I’m honest) and all that jazz. You know, things that YOUNG people – children! – are into. Then one day someone let slip that there was actually a REAL LIFE prince, and that was that: my mind was officially blown.
So excited was I by the idea that there was actually a proper prince in the world (I think before then I had assumed that princes and princesses were probably mythical creatures, like elves and men who can change the loo roll) that I was totally willing to ignore Chick’s more obvious flaws and hang his grinning visage on my bedroom wall.
Then Star Wars came along and I was all, "screw you, P.C., if you don’t got no Wookie, I don’t want to know." And that was that.
These days, obviously, His Highness and I have long since gone our separate ways. He’s nothing to me now. I still like Harrison Ford, though.
Seeing as my "Amber in ‘I Wear Uggs’ Shocker!" post went over better than I expected, I have climbed into the virtual confessional to produce some more shockers for you:
- I have been wearing leggings to the gym. Oh, don’t worry, I’ve been wearing them with a long t-shirt, so I’m not exposing my crotch and butt all the time, a la Lindsay Lohan (well, I wasn’t until yesterday, when I threw on my gym clothes in a hurry and didn’t realise until I got onto the treadmill that, whoops, my long t-shirt had shrunk in the wash) but I have been wearing them. See, the thing is, being short and somewhat skinny, I couldn’t find any yoga/jogging style pants to fit me, and I’d rather not expose my pale blue winter legs to the gym-going public, so leggings seemed like the only choice. And you know what? I love them. They are oh-so-comfy, and don’t trip me up on the treadmill, like the jogging pants would have. What more could a girl want? (Oh, yeah, some style. I get it.)
- I have been cheating at NaNoWriMo. See, I’ve already written a huge chunk of my novel, so, rather than start a new one (because the neat-freak in me hates the thought of lots of half-finished novels lying around) I’ve been… well, let’s just say I’ve been copying and pasting chunks of the existing novel into the new one. Sorry, NaNoWriMo!
- Despite doing this, I have still only reached 10,000 words. Goodbye, fat advance check! Goodbye book tour! Goodbye, cruel literally world!
- That whole "five portions of fruit and veg per day" thing? Screw that.
- When I was a kid, my dad once managed to persuade me that March 10th (my birthday) had been "cancelled" by the government, as part of an ongoing project to change the calendar. I believed him, because I am THAT STUPID.
- I think I was about ten at the time, i.e. old enough to know better
- Terry once convinced me that the word "gullible" had been removed from the dictionary. Yes, I checked.
- I think I was about 25 at the time…
- I don’t floss.
- I still count on my fingers.
- And I sometimes forget which is "left" and which is "right". If you asked me to turn right, for instance, I’d have to surreptitiously twist my hand into a "holding a pen" shape to remind myself which one that is.
- My eyes are so sensitive to light that I carry my sunglasses with me at all times, and have got into the habit of wearing them whether I need to or not. So if you ever see a stupid looking redhead out wearing Ugg boots and sunglasses on a really dull day, that’ll be me.
- I am completely incapable of listening to my iPod without singing along, or at least mouthing the words. This makes me look like even more of an idiot when I’m at the gym. (See "I wear leggings to the gym," above.)
- When I first joined the gym we’re members of now, I got so bored that I’d take a book or a magazine with me and prop it up on the front of the bike, so I could read while I "worked out".
- Yes, I DID have to cycle really slowly to make that possible…
- When I was a kid, I briefly had a picture of Prince Charles on my bedroom wall.
- My parents were really relieved when it was replaced with one of Han Solo instead…
- Sometimes when I have absolutely nothing to say for myself here on my blog, I like to make lists instead of going to the effort of writing a proper entry. What do you mean you hadn’t noticed?
OK, the confession booth is closed. Your turn now…
Back in September, I talked a bit about the increasingly large number of spam comments my blogs had been receiving. While spammers will no doubt always be around, though, lately I’ve been noticing more and more so-called “respectable” companies who are getting in on the game – either by leaving spam comments themselves, or by paying other people – primarily marketing companies – to do it for them. These aren’t the Viagra or Cialis sellers who use free email addresses and never return to the scene of the crime: they’re respected businesses who are repeatedly spamming my, and other, websites, in the hope of getting themselves some traffic. And I’m getting pretty sick of it.
There’s one online shoe store, for instance, that regularly spams all of my own blogs, and one of the blogs I edit, with inane comments which are clearly posted purely for the purpose of getting the link back to their site. One day, the person behind this site posted around 30 comments on the shoe blog I edit, all saying, “I like this”. Even my personal blog has been targeted, with the comment “this is really useful information – thanks” being posted on… an article about me falling off my bike, posted over a year ago. Really relevant comment there, then…
A couple of weeks ago, I had a comment at The Fashion Police on an article about Crocs. The commenter claimed to be a huge fan of these shoes, and went to great pains to let my readers know where he bought his, leaving two separate comments with the URL to an online shoe store on the same post.
Out of curiosity, I looked at the person’s email address, and noticed that the domain in the URL wasn’t a free email, like Yahoo or Gmail, but appeared to be the name of a company. I typed that URL into Google, and lo and behold: it was a marketing company (of some standing, I might add), specialising in online marketing. And when I looked at their client list, guess what I found? Yup, the online store my commenter had gone to such pains to post on my site was a client of this company. Clearly spamming blogs is part of the work this company (and no doubt many others like them) undertake for their clients. My question:is it ethical?
I think not. At the bottom line, it’s lying and deception, and you can’t admire that in a business, can you? This person had come onto my blog and represented himself as something other than what he was: he pretended to be a person who was a genuine fan of a particular product, when in fact he was a marketer, being paid to promote that product.
In cases like this, where I can easily establish who the spammer is, I always send them a quick email to let them know that I’m aware they’ve been spamming my website, and asking them to please refrain from doing it again. Funnily enough, I hardly ever hear back from them. I got no response from the Croc marketer, and I can’t help wondering whether his client was aware that their marketing company were using spam to promote their store? Or, for that matter, how they would feel about it if they did know?
If it was me, I know I’d be furious to think that my business name was being associated with spamming. I mean, would you want to do business with someone you knew to be a spammer? I certainly wouldn’t, and I know a lot of people who feel the same way. Still, though, this trend of companies using spam as a method of promotion is on the increase, which is why I’m very tempted to start naming and shaming those who do it. Wouldn’t you want to know whether the company you were paying to market your website was sending out spam in your name, and with your URL on it? I know I would…
I bought Ugg boots.
There, it’s out there, you can do what you will with it, but I’m begging you now, please don’t post comments telling me that OMG! THEY ARE SO UGLY! and that I must have clean LOST MY MIND, because the thing is: I KNOW. And also: I don’t even care.
While we’re admitting things, I may as well just go the whole hog and tell you that I actually bought my Uggs months ago, in Florida. Well, they were a helluva lot cheaper there (I may be mad, but not mad enough to pay UK prices, thanks very much), and even although we were basking in the rosy glow of 100 degree heat at the time, I knew the day would come when I would be back home, wearing a thermal vest under two thick sweaters, my winter coat in the house, and contemplating buying fingerless gloves to allow me to keep typing despite the deadly chill.
That day came last Thursday, and so it was that I found myself wearing a thermal vest, two sweaters, a coat… and UGGS. Why yes, I did look like an absolute freaking idiot, thank you! But here’s the thing: I did not care, and if you lived in my house, and had to walk your dog in temperatures that would freeze your nose off, you might even do the same. I mean, probably not, obviously. I AM a freakishly cold person. Terry, for instance, doesn’t find it nearly as cold as I do, but since last Thursday I’ve been so cold that I wasn’t even joking about the whole fingerless gloves thing.
I hate this time of year with a passion. Hate it. It’s at this time of year that all thoughts of fashion have to go out the window for me, such is the struggle to keep warm. See, I just can’t stand being cold, and all those cute little dresses I bought, thinking they’d be perfect for winter? Are too cold. Instead, I’ve been walking around in a fleecy thing that’s actually meant to be worn outdoors, but which has been pressed into active service indoors, plus the aforementioned boots and vest. When I go outside I add a very thick coat, a wooly hat and gloves. (Or I would if I actually knew where my gloves were. Note to self: find gloves.) It’s absolutely miserable.
So I bought Uggs. I don’t know why, but I feel like I have to keep justifying this purchase by saying that I will not be wearing them out in public (other than walking the dog), and they were very much a practical purchase, not a fashion one. It was either that or tie hot water bottles to my hands, feet and body all winter, and it’s hard to type like that. (Trust me, I know).
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to crank up the heating and iron my thermal vest…
What’s that in my hand, I hear you ask excitedly? (Note: not really, but let’s just pretend, ‘kay?) Oh, nothing much… just my FREE TOWEL that I picked up today, having successfully completed my thirteen visits to the gym in the first month of membership, that’s all:
Whee! Dontchya wish your towel was hot like mine? Dontchya?
It’s ready for its close-up:
“My owner went to the gym and all I got was this lousy towel… P.S. I will probably pee on it later.”
So, yeah, that’s the fruit of all my hard labours at the gym. Kinda crappy really, isn’t it? Now I will never have to go back again! Weird thing, though: during my thirteen-but-actually-fourteen visits to the gym this month, I have actually learned to like it, just a little bit. I mean, today I even ran on the treadmill as opposed to just walking on it while flicking through my iPod playlists, and that’s a really big achievement for me, y’know? In fact, as soon as I’m finished writing this entry, I’m going to go and order me a new green hoodie to replace the old green hoodie that (ahem!) worked out so well for me last year. * Cough * So, it’ll be the new new green hoodie. I am excited already.
Anyway, from the plethora of photos of my towel, and the talk about hoodies, green or otherwise, you will have concluded that either:
a) I am going for the title of “Most Boring Blogger of 2007″ – and looking likely to win it
or
b) There is STILL absolutely nothing happening in my life at the moment.
Um, I guess it’s a bit of both, really, but at least by writing this post I will give my mum something to say when friends of hers ask her what exactly it is that I do for a living - she will now be able to say, with pride, “Oh, you know, she takes pictures of towels and posts them on the Internet. She’s one of those ‘bloggers’.”
As it happens, though, I have been working very hard recently – so hard, in fact, that I have had to take the almost unprecedented step of trying to get up early in the mornings in a bid to fit it all in. Yeah, that sucks. When you tell people you work from home, they instantly imagine it’ll be all sleeping until midday and watching daytime TV, but they are wrong! Sometimes even I have to drag my sorry ass out of bed at a decent hour of the morning, and that really doesn’t go down AT ALL WELL with the sorry ass in question.
This morning, for instance, I was awakened by the alarm on my phone, which I had cleverly set last night, forgetting that sometimes my phone likes to just randomly select a ring tone to apply to its alarm, and sometimes that ringtone is – why, it’s the one that sounds JUST LIKE A RINGING PHONE!
That was how I found myself leaping from my bed in the early hours of this morning, shrieking to Terry that “OMG SOMEONE HAS DIED AGAIN! AGAIN!” Then there was another few brief moments of panic as I decided that it was obviously TERRY who had died, owing to the fact that I bounced around screaming for at least a minute before working out that, whoops, it was just the alarm on the phone, and Terry DID NOT BAT AN EYELID or move a muscle. I think I now know why he never manages to get to the phone in time when The Phantom Phoner calls…
Tagged the gym
Yeah, so it turns out it’s really freakin’ hard to get spilled sherbet off wood floors. And off desk chairs. And, you know, off your clothes. And it’s really, really disconcerting when you go to get ready for bed of an evening, and YOUR UNDERWEAR IS FILLED WITH SHERBET. GOD. It’s a bit like being at the beach, only without the “fun” part. And I didn’t even get to eat the sherbet on account of the “pouring it all over myself instead” thing.
I think what I need to do is, I need to buy me a new house. One where my desk chair doesn’t make a suspicious crunching noise every time I move it, and my husband doesn’t have to spend five minutes every night trying to brush all the little bits of sherbet off his side of the bed. (HOW DID THEY GET THERE?)
Sherbet aside, absolutely nothing has happened this week, and by that I mean “The writing of my novel has not happened this week. Gah.” I’m up to about 6,000 words at the moment, which, considering I have to write 50,000 by the end of the month, isn’t all that great really, is it? I think I may have to cancel that champagne dinner and shopping trip to London to spend the generous advance I was expecting from my agent once this book is written. Because, you know, I don’t have an agent. Or a book, come to think about it. I wonder if J.K. Rowling ever had this problem?
Quite apart from Not Writing My Novel, I’ve been Not Doing quite a few other things this week, too. I’ve been Not Going to the Gym, for instance, which means that precious free towel is slowly slipping away from me with every day that passes. (Actually, I did go to the gym yesterday, AND I worked hard, but one of The Others came and got onto the cross-trainer right next to my treadmill EVEN ALTHOUGH THE WHOLE ROOM WAS EMPTY AND THERE WERE ABOUT SEVEN OTHER CROSS TRAINERS HE COULD HAVE USED INSTEAD, so that kind of put me off my stride a bit.) I’ve been Not Updating My Blog, Hell, I haven’t even been to the dry cleaner’s to pick up my coat, which was left with them at the weekend, and what will happen if I don’t find the time to go and pick it up soon? Maybe they will sell it?
So, what have I been doing? Um, working, basically. And also: playing Tetris Tournament on Facebook. Tonight I’m going to have all the excitement of giving my dog and bath and then having an early night. You wish you were me, you really do. Except, maybe without the sherbet-down-the-pants-thing.
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