Every time I decide to take a vacation, or do something else fun, there’s a little part of my brain (probably the same part that makes my eyebrows itchy when I haven’t tweezed them for a day, and convinces me I’m dying every time I get a headache) that pipes up and says, "You know, I bet I could ruin this exciting/important event, purely by making myself look like a total freaking idiot. I think I will use fake tan to do it."
So it is that I’ve gone through almost all of the important days in my life with bright orange feet and a bit of a strange smell about me – you know, like the kind of smell you get from FAKE TAN.
Now, before I go any further down this road (this road that you can already see the end of, dear reader, can’t you?), I just want to pre-empt some of the comments I always get when I write about my fake tanning exploits, by saying that yes, I KNOW. I know fake tan makes you look orange. I know it often goes streaky. I know it has that strange, slightly mouldy smell, and leaves a Turin Shroud style outline of your body on the bedsheets. And yes, I know there’s nothing wrong with pale skin. I actually like pale skin. It is very lovely. I know all of these things.
BUT.
The thing is, my skin isn’t so much "white" as it’s "mottled grey". Seriously, if you ever happened to be lost on a dark night, you could use my bare legs to light your way home, no problem. Think Renee Zellweger, only with a greyish tinge. That’s me. So, while I’m happy to embrace my paleness for fifty weeks of the year (and let’s face it, with the weather we get here, the only parts of my skin that are exposed most of the time are my face and hands, and sometimes not even them. See ‘Scotland, and how it sucks‘ from earlier this week for reference), on the very rare occasions when my legs are revealed by shorts or bikinis, I do like them to have a bit of colour to them. Just a bit, mind. I use self-tan moisturiser and aim for the "sun-kissed glow" promised on the bottle rather than the full-on "Footballer’s Wife Orange" that so many seem to favour. I just want to take the edge of the greyness, ya know? IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?
Apparently so. As the years have passed, I’ve tried just about every brand of fake tan on the market. Some have worked out, some… haven’t. Actually, let’s be honest: most haven’t. And yet, still I persist with this fool’s mission. You could call this the triumph of hope over reason, but let’s face it, you could also call it, "complete and utter stupidity", because that’s basically what it is.
You can see where I’m going with this story, can’t you?
Well, on Tuesday I decided to kick off the annual fake tan fiasco, so that I’d be all orange and streaky in time for my holiday. I picked Tuesday so that when the first application went horribly patchy, as I knew it would, I would still have time to apply further layers to even things out. No, that really DOESN’T sound like it would work, does it? Yeah, that’s because it doesn’t. Don’t try it at home, kids.
Obviously, the first application didn’t work out so good. In fact, I woke up on Wednesday looking like a jigsaw puzzle. So, naturally, I slapped some more of the stuff on. And now I kinda wish I’d just slapped myself instead, because that second layer of fake tan? Yeah, not so good.
This left me in an awkward position. (No, really: I had to stand around naked with my arms in the air for ages waiting for it to dry.) With only a few short days to go before I need to expose my mottled grey flesh to the world, I had somehow managed to acquire the Worst Tan in the History of the World Ever.
Well, I tried everything to get that tan off. I tried lemon juice. I tried hydrogen peroxide. I tried good old soap and water. (I didn’t try baking soda or the special fake tan remover you can get because we don’t OWN any baking soda, and the fake tan remover didn’t work the last time, so I wouldn’t really expect it to work this time, either). I tried getting down on my knees and praying. Finally, I tried the one thing I know works to at least some extent (and which I totally don’t recommend you ever try yourself because I don’t want you suing me when it all goes horribly wrong): nail polish remover. Yes, nail polish remover. It will generally take off the worst bits of a fake tan disaster, but like I said, I don’t recommend it, and it can only do so much – as it did in this case.
Then I said "Screw this," got out the fake tan bottle and slapped on some more.
No, I don’t know how it is I got to be this clever either. All I can say is that the early signs seem to be positive. If it doesn’t work out this time, I’m going to give up and hope it fades before Monday. And I would like to say that I’ve learned my lesson from this experience, but that would be a lie, so instead I will say, "Tune in next year for the next thrilling installement of ‘When Will Amber Learn That Fake Tan & Utter Stupidity Don’t Mix?’"
Um, anyone got any other fake tan removal tips? You know, just in case….
 See these? These are my Tweezerman Point Tweezers. (Well, I mean clearly they’re not MY Tweezerman Point Tweezers, because this is just a generic picture of a set of said tweezers. But you know what I mean.) Pretty lethal looking, aren’t they? I mean, I can totally see why they wouldn’t allow those bad boys into the cabin of an aircraft. Totally.
Here’s the thing though: my eyebrows? They meet in the middle. Oh yes they do. Now, not a lot of people know that < /Michael Caine > (Or actually, wait: they kinda do now, don’t they?) because I have been tweezing my brows religiously since I was a teenager. Before that, I used to beg my parents to do it for me. They were all, "What do you want for Christmas, Amber?" and I’d be like, "For my eyebrows not to meet above my nose any more, thanks Santa!"
This eyebrow tweezing is a routine that I have to go through every day in life. I tweeze my eyebrows last thing at night, and if I ever missed a night, by the time I woke up next morning I’d be looking like the missing link. I’m not even joking here. Tweezing is a bit of a drag, but it’s one of those chores that I just can’t afford to skip – and to illustrate how very serious I am about this, I have made my mother promise that if I’m ever hit by a bus or something and end up in a coma/incapacitated in some other way, that she will visit me in hospital every day and TWEEZE MY DAMN EYEBROWS ALREADY.
The tweezers are one of the items I’d take with me to a desert island, and like I said, I never miss a day – other than when I travel long haul. Because long haul flights tend to involve getting up very early and not getting to where you’re going until very late. And tweezers are no longer allowed to accompany you into the cabin. Not even if you beg and grovel and promise not to use them to wrest the controls of the aircraft from its unwitting pilot.
Now, I understand why this is, and let me just say, I totally support the "No Tweezers in the Cabin" thing. I, after all, am the world’s most nervous flyer, and Terry still has the bruises on his hands from our trip to the Canaries last April to prove it. So I’d much rather be red hairy than dead, one of the victims of a terrifying mid-air scenario involving a crazed lunatic and a pair of pink tweezers. (Because yes, mine are pink. Obviously.)
But it still sucks, and I’ll tell you for why: because about halfway across the Atlantic next Monday, I will suddenly become aware of a nasty, prickly feeling around the general area of my eyebrows. This sensation is entirely imaginary. It’s my brains way of saying, "HELLOOO! HANDS! Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, Hands! Forget something, ya think? Like, maybe something involving making The Face look human again? Better take care of that, or I will continue to make the eyebrows feel odd, and a little bit prickly: almost as if you can feel the fresh hairs starting to poke their way through the skin. I will do this until you’re almost ready to rip them out yourselves, Hands, without even needing to resort to the tweezers. Just letting you know. OK, bye, gotta go freak Her out by suggesting that the noise she just heard from the engines may mean that we’re about to fall from the sky in a fiery ball. Laters, Hands!"
This is why being without my tweezers is the second third worst thing about flying for me. (No 2 is that kid that’s always in the seat behind me, kicking like Jackie Chan.) And why my tweezers would be one of the things I’d take with me to that desert island – assuming that they let them on the plane, of course.
So, tell me, what would you take? What’s your desert island item?
Remember my old friend The Phantom Phoner? Who kept phoning my house at stupid o’clock, and then failed to actually be on the other end of the phone when I finally stopped shrieking to Terry that SOMEONE HAS DIED, OMG! and picked the thing up?
Well, turns out he has an accomplice. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, meet The Phantom Faxer.
Actually, you should probably hope to God that you never do meet The Phantom Faxer, otherwise, you, too, will be forced to jump screaming from your bed at 6.30am in the morning, and scramble for the phone in the certain knowledge that, once again, someone has died. When you actually reach the phone, though and pick it up (an act complicated by the fact that there are TWO phones side by side on the same desk, both connected to different lines, and at 6.30am they both sound the same to you), you will be greeted with the infuriating BEEP! BEEP! of a fax machine.
And then you will hurl the phone through the window, raise your fist to the sky and declare that as God is your witness, you will not rest until you have tracked down that Phantom Faxer (and possibly also his Phantom Phoning Friend) and stuck his fax machine in a place where the sun don’t shine. Then you will crawl back into bed and sleep until almost 10am, which will suck because really, you should’ve got up at 7:30, but you were so shaken by the whole experience that the "five more minutes" you promised yourself to help you calm down turned into, whoops, a whole lot more than that.
So, that was my morning. How’s yours going?
This was not, of course, the first time that the Phantom Faxer had struck. It was, however, the first time he/she/it had struck in the wee small hours, though, as previously TFF has restricted himself to calling two or three times during the day. The ass.
Anyway, I’ve Googled The Phantom Faxer’s number, and it turns out that other people have been having the same problem, with some of them receiving the calls at even earlier hours. And given that the Phantom Faxer sees nothing wrong with terrifying me in the early hours of the morning, I see nothing wrong with publishing his/her/its number here on my blawg: it’s 01142 838840. If you, too, have been targeted by TFF and have found this entry having Googled the number: let’s band together and fight the sucker. United we stand, divided we continue to be woken up by a fax machine, and that’s just not right.
As soon as I get access to a fax machine of my own, I think I will do a bit of faxing of my own. At 3am, natch…
“Just a quick trim,” I said to the hairdresser, as I nervously eased myself into the torture chair this morning, Well, we all know the kind of luck I normally have with haircuts, and that’s no luck at all, basically. But today was to be different.
“No problem,” said the hairdresser, smiling reassuringly as she wrapped me in one of those massive cape things. “We’ll just tidy it up a bit, shall we?” (Sidenote: why do hairdressers always speak to you in the plural? ‘And what are we having done today, then?’ is their usual opening gambit, which I guess is supposed to make you feel like the two of you are on a jolly escapade together, as opposed to what’s actually happening, which is more like a trip to the dentist.)
Anyway, this hairdresser seemed to have no problem understanding just what it was I was after, so I relaxed back into the chair (well, I relaxed as much as it was possible to relax with a sink sticking into my neck, which wasn’t very relaxing at all, come to think of it), and basked in the joy of having finally found a hairdresser who, like, really understood me. Then I decided to get a bit daring. This was my fatal mistake.
“Also,” I said. “This fringe of mine. I’m trying to grow it out, but you couldn’t just, I don’t know, make it blend in a bit more with the rest of my hair, could you?”
Well, that’s what I thought I said, anyway. What the hairdresser obviously heard was, “It’s always been my dream to look like Farrah Fawcett, only with less hair, and a mullet. Make that dream a reality, hairdresser!”
That was how it came to pass that ten minutes later I found myself staring into the mirror aghast as the hairdresser chopped huge chunks off hair off the front of my head, apparently at random.
Now, you’d think I would have said something at this point, wouldn’t you? Well, you would be wrong. Here’s why:
1. It was instantly apparent to me that I was in the hands of a madwoman. A MADWOMAN, I tells ya. And she had scissors.
2. Once those first few chunks of hair have gone from the area around your face, ain’t no goin’ back. It’s not like she can just stick them back on for you, is it? So if she’s just chopped four or five inches off one side of your head, there really isn’t a possible scenario which doesn’t result in the other side of your head getting the same treatment.
(Aside: actually, there is. When I was at university, there was a girl in my year who had one side of her head cut into a bob, and the other side cropped, so she looked like a different person depending on which side you were standing on. True story. It haunts me to this day.)
3. I am a complete and utter wuss. And also: stupid.
So, rather than challenge the hairdresser, what I did was, I just sat there grinning inanely, then I drove home, played around with it a bit in front of the mirror, realised that from some angles it looked a lot like a MULLET, then threw myself onto the bed, screaming like a small child.
Then I looked at it again, and realised that, actually, it looks more or less EXACTLY THE SAME as it always has:
Well, sort of. From the front, it looks the same as always, but that’s only because I have cleverly pulled the hair from the back of my head onto my shoulders in this picture. If I pull that hair back, the front is all kind of shaggy. And choppy. And from the side, I’m definitely seeing a mullet. Terry’s comment:
“Well, there’s certainly a…. length difference… between the front and the back.”
This didn’t reassure me. Nor did Terry’s later attempts at reassurance, which included the line, “Does your hair actually GROW? Because, really, it NEVER looks any different to me.”
I think he may be right. I hope so. If not, looks like I’m spending the next few weeks with a MULLET on my head.
Skribit question: How much would you sell Rubinman for?
Did I ever tell you about the time I found a turd on the kitchen worktop? The kitchen worktop WHERE WE PREPARE OUR FOOD? THAT WE EAT? No? Well, picture this, people…
It’s early one morning. You’ve just dragged your unwilling self from bed, in response to the constant barking that’s been coming from the kitchen for ten minutes now. You stagger downstairs, rubbing your eyes and asking yourself once again, “Why did we buy a puppy?” Did I mention it’s EARLY?
You reach the kitchen and open the door to reveal its occupant: a puppy Rubinman, who for some reason doesn’t seem quite as ecstatic to see you as he normally does. In fact, he almost looks guilty. Brushing this thought aside, you trudge your weary way to the back door, to let the Rubinman out for his morning ablutions, and as you turn the key in the lock, you happen to glance idly at the kitchen counter to your right, and on that kitchen counter (THAT YOU PREPARE YOUR FOOD ON! YOUR FOOD THAT YOU EAT!) you see a TURD. Once more for dramatic effect, ladies and gentlemen: A TURD.
You instantly stop what you’re doing, scarcely able to believe your eyes. Surely not… it can’t be… it just can’t be. But it is. Someone has crapped on your worktop – and you suspect that someone may still be in the room, looking guilty. You look at the Rubinman. He looks at you. You both look at the turd. You look back at the Rubinman, who seems to say, “Turd? What turd? I don’t know nothin’ bout no turd, dude. And anyway, lookit the size of me. Am a PUPPY! How would little puppy me even get up there? Better ask Terry, is all I’m sayin’…”
You consider this matter further as you let the dog out and remove the offending… turd. Then you scrub down the kitchen with bleach, about fifty times in a row. Then you have a shower – again with the bleach. Then you have another shower. As you stand there, scrubbing the palms of your hands with a nailbrush and wondering if you and your home will ever feel clean again, you ponder the matter. For the Rubinman has a point, you see. There appears to be no way that he, being a puppy, could have made it up to the worktop and back down again. Seriously, how could the Rubinman have done it?
So you finish your shower and you go to the bedroom, where Terry is still sleeping soundly, mercifully unaware of the scenes of horror that have just taken place in the kitchen.
“Terry, did you by any chance crap on the kitchen worktop last night?” you ask, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible. Terry says… Actually, maybe let’s just draw a veil over what Terry had to say in response to that question.
So. It wasn’t Terry. It wasn’t me. Rubin says it wasn’t him, but the thing is, I just don’t believe him. He was found at the scene of the crime. He was in the habit of crapping in the kitchen at the time. And to be perfectly honest, it wouldn’t have been the first time we’d found a dog turd in a place it really shouldn’t have been. He had previous convictions, basically. I mean, it just didn’t look good for him, did it?
As for how it got there, well, you know the phrase, “Don’t play with your food”? When Rubin was a puppy, you could easily have exchanged the words “your food” in that sentence with …. Yeah, so this totally wasn’t the kind of answer you were expecting to your innocent “How much would you sell Rubinman for?” question, was it? In fact, you’ll probably be scarred for life now. I know I am.
Why am I telling you all of this? Well, in the years that have passed since The Mysterious Incident of the Dog Turd in the Nighttime, that turd has continued to haunt me. Images of it have popped, unbidden, into my head from time to time – most often when I try to prepare food on the kitchen worktops, to be honest. Thank God we replaced those bad boys is all I can say! So when I received the Skribit question, “How much would you sell Rubinman for?” and I started to write a long, gushy entry about how Rubin is my prechus fur-baby, and no amount of money would ever persuade me to part with him, I suddenly remembered The Turd.
That’s why my answer to the question is: when can you pick him up? We’ll even throw in the yoda costume for free…
No, I’m kidding. Rubinman is not for sale. And after reading this, would you really want to buy him?
(P.S: Rubin’s account of The Mysterious Incident of the Dog Turd in the Nighttime can be found here.)
So, that whole Skribit thing, that worked out really well, no? I mean, it’s not like I got you all to ask me questions, and then just promptly forgot all about it or anything, because that would’ve totally sucked.
OK, OK – I didn’t forget about it, but I did ignore it, and I hold my hands up in shame. Here’s the thing, though: in order to go on holiday to Florida for two weeks next month, I’ve basically had to do an entire month’s work of work in advance (long story), so that I still get paid while I’m lying in the sun and shopping at Sephora. This, also, has sucked, and it continues to suck, which hasn’t left me with a whole lot of time for Skribit questions. Or, anything, come to think of it.
All of which is my long-winded way of saying that I’m now going to try and let myself off the hook by answering the easiest questions from the Skribit box The other ones – the ones which require me to actually think – will be answered too, but not today. So, without further ado, your questions, my answers…
The peanut image from the header! Am I the only one who doesn’t see it anymore? I miss it 
The peanuts are back! And now there’s not just peanuts in the header, but ALL KINDS OF NUTS! Forever Amber: now with added nuts! Yeah, I managed to totally screw up the header one night when I was trying to do something very simple to the template, and by the time I noticed they were gone, I was so frustrated that I decided just to work on the assumption that no one would ever miss them. But you did! And so Terry was immediately dispatched to sort out the header, which just goes to show that I may not be good at answering the Skribit questions, but I DO read them…
If you weren’t a redhead, what would you be?
Well, both of my parents have dark hair, so if I hadn’t been born a redhead, I’d probably have been a brunette. Would I have kept it that way? Probably not. Not that there’s anything wrong with brunettes, of course, but I think if I hadn’t been born a redhead, I’d have dyed it… red. No, I’m being serious. It makes me feel special. And it annoys all of the people who find my blog having searched for the phrase "redhead’s aren’t human" and stuff like that. (actual search term used to find this blog. Sometimes humanity scares me.)
Which are your favourite items in your wardrobe (tops, skirts, dresses, shoes, jackets)?
Given that I edit a blog about shoes, and seem to be stuck in a cycle of buying at least one new pair a month, I think I’d have to say the shoes. Other than that, I’m quite partial to outerwear of all descriptions, and am building up an impressive collection of dresses that I never get the opportunity to wear. Go me!
Edinburgh trams – why?
Dude, search me. I think just because people are lazy? And maybe because Princes Street can feel quite long when you’re wearing high heels and carrying a lot of shopping….
So, there you have it. The Skribit box is almost empty. I feel like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Now you can go fill it up again with more questions…I promise I’ll try and answer them in a timely fashion this time. Maybe with illustrations and everything.*
* Maybe not.
Now, I know people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, but I had to smile when I found this “wide waste belt” on the New Look website today. I think they mean “waist belt”, but hey, it could just be a new fashion trend that I know nothing about…
New Look, if you’re looking for a website proofreader, I’m sure we could hook you up with someone!
Received this morning:
Hello,
I have been in the XXXXXXXXXX field for about 10years now and is working on my second book, XXXXXXXXXXXX If you need someone to blogs sometimes for Doll Face, please contact me.
Thanks & Smles
I is working on my second book?
If you need someone to blogs
Smles? SMLES?
And this, my friends, is why so many would-be freelance writers never hear back from the editors they send speculative emails to…
(Note: I used to email people like this back, gently pointing out why I wouldn’t be hiring them. I thought I was being helpful – and I did try to be as gentle as possible – but all too often I’d just get back a stream of abuse, so these days I don’t bother. My policy now is that if you can’t be bothered to take the time to write proper English in your email to me, I can’t be bothered to reply. Harsh, I know, but sometimes necessary.)
Today Terry and I didn’t have time to go to the gym, so I decided to do my bit for the ol’ waistline by going out for a run around the streets of the Ghetto.
Within ten minutes of leaving the house I was invited to "get my boobies out". About thirty seconds later I was called a "ho" (No, I didn’t obey the first command, in case you’re wondering if that was why…). And OK, both of these comments came from pre-teens, but seriously: the fact that I can’t even go for a walk run within a few hundred metres of my own front door without being verbally abused by kids who clearly aren’t mature enough to be allowed out in public without a minder is pretty disgusting to me. Seriously.
On the plus side, though, at least I can give up running now.
It’s taken four weeks, a lot of cursing and the last remaining shreds of my sanity, but at last – at long, freaking last – we have a fully functional, shiny new kitchen. You know, like normal people.
Photographing a really small kitchen = much harder than you’d think, which is why you get two pictures featuring more or less the same view. I promise we DID do the other half, too, it’s just that I couldn’t really get a decent picture of it without hovering somewhere near the ceiling. I did take a video of it too, but I’m going to take a wild guess that my kitchen isn’t of so much interest to you that you’d want to watch it in glorious Technicolour, even although it has consumed Terry’s every waking thought for the past four weeks. Mad props to Terry, by the way, for his kitchen fitting skillz, and to my dad, for giving up his Sunday to cut worktops: always a good way to spend a weekend, I find. (I went shopping while this went on, of course. So I can take no credit AT ALL for anything that’s happened in the house this month, but I DO have a really nice new coat.)
As well as the kitchen, we also have shiny new floors throughout the house, and will be moving into the garden shed now, so we can keep them that way FOREVER. It’s the only way, really. I mean, last night, for instance, after the final boards had gone down and I was lovingly cleaning the new kitchen, I happened to glance out of the window to see this:
Clearly someone had been digging in our long plant pot thingy (which, actually, I have no idea why we even have that, or what’s in it. That’s the old flooring beside it by the way. We don’t just have random bits of rubbish in our garden. Well, not ALL the time, anyway). Now, I knew the culprit couldn’t be far away, and sure enough:
Rubin then proceeded to walk around the shiny new kitchen, placing his dirty paws on the shiny new doors, and wiping his dirty face on… everything. And why had he been eating the dirt in the plant pot thingy? Because Terry put FISH OIL in it. It’s testament to how stupid trusting I am that I have no idea why he did this, despite questioning him about it twice now:
CONVERSATION 1:
AMBER: Terry, Rubin seems to be eating dirt from the plant pot. WHY?
TERRY: Oh, that’ll be because I poured fish oil into it.
AMBER: Okay!
CONVERSATION 2:
AMBER: Terry, Rubin’s still eating dirt from that plant pot. Why did you say you poured fish oil into it again?
TERRY: Well, it was better than pouring it down the sink.
AMBER: Oh! Okay!
And this is why no plant or flower we’ve owned has ever lived for more than a few weeks. And why Rubin’s been smelling of fish oil for the past few days, now I come to think of it.
Anyway, the house is now complete. And I promise that this is the last post you will have to read about my house decorating woes for … oh, how about forever? Because that sounds good to me round about now…
Tagged decorating
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