…I got an iphone.
Which means I can now blog from anywhere . I apologize in advance for all of the dog photos this will involve.
And also the photos of me in my parents’ bathroom.
Because I don’t only buy shoes…
Forever Amber
A UK fashion blogger and shoe obsessive
Posted in May 2009 …
It had to happen sooner or laterYou know when you’re out somewhere, and you suddenly decide you need to use the public toilet, so you do, and then on your way out you’re walking past a huge gang of teenagers when you suddenly become aware of a strange, tugging sensation at your foot, so you look down and realise that – yes! – a long piece of toilet tissue has become attached to the heel of your shoe in the bathroom, and you’re now proudly parading it through the local mall, like some weird kind of streamer? That. Still, I’ve always known this, or something very similar to it, would happen to me one day, so in some ways I’m actually glad it’s over with. And never to be repeated, I hope. If it wasn’t screwed on…I think it would be fair to say that I’m not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer a lot of the time. In fact, sometimes I can be downright forgetful. Take last week, for instance. On Monday, Terry and I went to visit his mum, taking Rubin with us, as usual. When it was time to leave, we both got up, walked to the door and opened it. It was only as Terry, who was in the lead, stepped out of said door, that his mum called out to ask if we were intending to take our dog home with us at all, or were we just planning to leave him there? (Damn, another plan thwarted.) We went back for Rubin, of course, but my jacket was not so lucky: Terry’s mum called us on Tuesday to let me know it was still hanging in her kitchen, where I’d left it, so basically I’d just got up and walked out of the house when it was time to go, leaving ALL of my possessions behind me. This is something I haven’t done since I was a kid, when the school bell would ring and I would just get up and leave. Twenty minutes later I’d be back to collect my bag, coat and other sundry items… Actually, no, that’s a lie: I HAVE done it since then. When I was a journalist, I used to occasssionally drive to work, and only when I was getting out the car would I realise I’d left my handbag (complete with EVERYTHING I’d need for the day) and coat at home. I’d also regularly leave my headlights switched on, thus ensuring I’d leave work at night to find my car battery was completely dead. Fun! (The car I have now has an alarm that goes off if I try to get out of it when the headlights are still on. I wouldn’t have bought it without that feature.) Then, on Thursday? I decided to go to the library, to return the books I’ve now renewed online three times because I didn’t have time to actually GO to the library. (Or, indeed, to read the books, which was annoying, because I don’t feel like myself if I’m not reading a book at all times.*) I was halfway there before I realised that, whoops, I hadn’t actually bothered to bring the books with me. THEY were sitting on the table in the living room. Not that it mattered: I mean, I’d have had to turn back anyway, on account of how my rearview mirror chose that moment to leap dramatically off the windscreen, landing in my lap, and adding a frisson of “Oh my God, I hope the police don’t see this!” excitement to my return journey as I attempted the drive home while holding it up in front of me, like a hand mirror. I did manage to get to the library eventually, but I’m sure the teenagers at the bus-stop, which I passed six times in the space of 20 minutes, probably thought I was a spy, hired to keep watch on them. A really half-assed spy, obviously, because as I passed them for the final time – yes! – my mirror fell off again. Gah. On Friday, the washing machine died. Boom! Goodbye, money! Hello, shiny new washing machine that we didn’t really want, but will have to buy anyway! (This didn’t actually have anything to do with me being forgetful, of course, but even so, people, EVEN SO. Can you imagine a less satisfying major purchase than a freaking WASHING MACHINE?) I’m not even going to mention the few hours Terry spent searching the house for my car keys (he’d had them last, so he was on “searching” duty), which were eventually tracked down to the interior of HIS car. Oops, I just did. Sorry, Terry.
* I did eventually read the books, by the way. It just took me much, much longer than usual… Aye, aye capt’n!
Because I am a selfish childfree person, I spent all my money* on a new dress and shoes. Yay! I also decided to give myself the day off on Monday, so everyone have a great holiday weekend (assuming you’re on holiday, that is. If you’re not, sorry for rubbing your nose in it.)! (* Not really, though. That was a joke. These both be bargains. Arrr! Oh no, wait: that’s pirate speak, isn’t it?)
Being child-free makes you “cold, calculating, sad and mad”, apparentlyThey say you learn something new every day, and today I learned something about me. I learned I am “cold, calculating, sad and mad.” Also “lacking in essential humanity”. Oh, and just plain “weird”. Can’t forget that one! Why am I all of these things, I hear you ask? (OK, not really, but let’s pretend.) Because I don’t want to have children. And according to a certain columnist for the Daily Fail Mail (a newspaper I hate with every fibre of my being), this makes me all of the above, and more. I read Carol Sarler’s piece on Why bosses are right to distrust women who don’t have children this morning (I know, I should know better to read anything in the Mail, but there was a link on Twitter, I clicked…), and spent the next ten minutes or so ranting angrily to anyone who would listen (sorry, Terry and Rubin) about how women like Carol are the reason we’ll never have true equality with men: because as long as women insist on putting so much time and energy into tearing each other down, calling each other names and being holier-than-thou about every little choice other women make, we’ll always just seem like a bunch of cats fighting in a sack. And we will never, ever be taken seriously.
Here’s the part where I prove my point by tearing Carol Sarler down and being holier-than-thou. But where to start? How about at the very beginning:
“I get this crap a lot now”Oh, GOD. Godgodgod. Remember that time I mis-typed my mum’s email address when I was adding it to my Outlook address book (because, hey, we ALL spell our mother’s name wrong sometimes, don’t we?), and, as a result, spent a few weeks sending emails that were meant for my mum to a bloke named Norman instead? Or the time – OK, the few times – I sent emails intended for my mother to SKY NEWS by mistake? Remember how I swore I’d finally – FINALLY – learned my lesson, and would never, ever be that stupid again, because, seriously, who keeps making the same stupid mistake, over and over and over again? Oh. Yeah. That would be me, then. See, my email does this thing. Every time I reply to a message, it stores that person’s email address in its memory, and it keeps it there FOREVER . And ever. And when I open a NEW email and start typing in the recipient’s name, it tries to guess who I’m going to email, and it pops their address into the “to” box. This is how I have narrowly avoided sending my mum’s messages to a person named “Mumtaz”, who once emailed me in 2007, several times this year. But this post is not about me misdirecting emails to my mother. Not this time. No, this post is about how a gentleman named Terry, who is not my husband – I repeat, who is NOT my husband – received a message from me yesterday. A message that – you guessed it – was not actually meant for him! Because THIS Terry – Terry-who-is-not-my-husband – wrote to me a few months ago with a question about my website. And I replied to him. And yesterday, for reasons best known to itself, my email program decided that every time I started to type the name “Terry” into the “To” box on an email, it would assume I was trying to contact Terry-who-is-not-my-husband. As opposed to, you know, Terry-who-IS-my-husband. Yes, Terry and I send each other emails. Yes, even although we sit next to each other. This is not as mad as it sounds, though, as these would be work-related emails, ones that have maybe come to me by mistake, say, and which I have to forward on to him. Or they’re sometimes links to funny stuff we’ve found on the internet and want to share. Or, as in this case, they’re maybe emails I’ve received that I THINK may be spam, but that also may not be, and that MIGHT just be important, and because Terry happens not to be at his desk at the time, I forward them on to him with a note saying: “I get this crap a lot now.” And then three kisses – xxx. Which I’m sure Terry-who-is-not-my-husband appreciated. I mean, I hope he did, because it was HIM I sent that email to. Yes. Oh hell, yes. It could’ve been worse. I mean, given that I THOUGHT I was emailing my husband, it really could have been worse, couldn’t it? I COULD have sent him the email saying, “What’s that smell, has Rubin farted again?” for instance. Or I COULD have sent him one saying, “GOD, everyone who emails me is a total asshole, srsly.” So, you know, silver linings! Of course, there is a way to stop your email from automatically filling in some poor random person’s name when you start to send an email. It’s a really easy way. You, of course, already know how to do it. And, it’s like, you’d think I would have known too, no? Or would’ve at least tried to find out the first few times I pulled this stunt. But no. Not I. Because I do this crap a lot now. And I don’t seem to be able to stop myself.*
(*I have now managed to delete the email addresses of Terry-who-is-not-my-husband, Mumtaz, Sky News and Norman-from-Canada from my computer’s memory. They won’t be hearing from me again. Someone else might, though because I didn’t get to be this stupid by actually learning from my mistakes.) Ask Amber: tanned butts, jeans and moreYes, folks, we’ve reached that time again when I have absolutely nothing to write about, and so I fall back on answering the questions people ask me through my keyword referrers – the terms people type into Google which somehow lead them to this here site. Oh, come on, you love it really. And if you don’t, well…. just pretend. Today we’re kicking off with… how come hot summers in Scotland are so horrible? Oh, you poor child. Hot summers in Scotland are not “horrible” – they’re fictional. No, really, they don’t exist. We haven’t had a hot summer here since 1976, and I’m starting to think even that one was probably just an urban myth. I mean, there is a reason I go to Florida every summer, you know: it’s the only chance I get to wear all of those summer clothes I keep buying. (Seriously, this is really starting to annoy me this year. I have all these clothes, just BEGGING to be worn, and can I wear them? No, I cannot. Well, I mean, yes, I can, but only if I want to freeze my ass off.) should i tan my butt? Ooh! OK, I’m going to assume you mean “tan” as in the Fake Bake variety, here. The answer to your question is… dunno. Up to you, really. I, personally, have indeed chosen to “tan my butt” this year. I made this difficult decision a few weeks ago, when I noticed a ghost at the back of our Body Combat class. What was strange about this ghost was that, rather than being scary, it was kinda trying to work out along with the rest of the class, its pale skin shining like the moon as it bumbled its way through the kicks and punches. And then I realised that, yes, that ghost was me. And as soon as I got home, I hit the fake tan, hard. (By which I mean, “you wouldn’t really be able to tell the difference, but I can no longer stand in for the moon on a dark night.”) Somehow it actually worked out for me this time, and it didn’t go streaky or orange, like it usually does. I fully expect to have jinxed myself now, just by writing that. Expect an “OMG, I am orange!” entry soon, but probably not until the day before I go on holiday. I did mention I was going on holiday, didn’t I? Good. what do you call a black person with red hair? Jim-Bob. Srsly. Body Attack and Body Pump in the same night? What are you, the Duracel Bunny? Can I leave a Bichon Frise all day? Only if you don’t mind getting your radiators peed on. Can I wear jeans to a christening? OK, go to the bottom of the class. NO, you cannot wear jeans to a christening. Or to a wedding. Or to any formal event, unless it’s being held inside a Western movie. Seriously, what is wrong with people? Why do they always want to wear jeans to EVERYTHING? Put down the jeans. Step away from the jeans. FORGET THE FREAKIN JEANS for ONE DAY, is that too much to ask? (OK, I overreact. Wear jeans if you want. But if it was MY christening – or my baby’s christening, anyway – I’d probably be a little disappointed that you couldn’t be bothered making just a little more effort than that.) Can you wear coloured cardigans with black dresses? There’s no specific law against this, as far as I’m aware. Unlike, say, the “jeans to a christening” thing, above. How can I stop people making fun of my red hair? I normally just smack them in the face, to be honest. If they don’t like it, I tell them to get a freaking sense of humour already, d’uh! Photograph of a book called Forever Amber?
You are welcome. (p.s. You should all totally go and read this article , which Alex wrote for BitchBuzz – made my day!) Inside the mind of a dogSometimes I look at Rubin and I think, “GOD, what is that on his face? Has he been eating cat droppings again?” “You know, I really wish I was him.” I mean, not in respect of the Eating of Unmentionables, obviously. And, all things considered, I’d probably prefer not to have to pee in the garden. (Which, funnily enough, isn’t Rubin’s preference either.) But every day in Rubin’s life is just a voyage of discovery. Everything Terry or I do is utterly, utterly fascinating to him. It’s just one new and thrilling thing after another – even when it’s just exactly the same as yesterday in every single respect. To illustrate this, here is a quick glimpse inside Rubin’s head, starting from the point where he wakes up in the morning:
AMBER & TERRY OMG! I totally haven’t seen them for SO! LONG! Excitingexcitingexciting! AMBER & TERRY WHO WOULDA THOUGHT IT?!!! WOW! Outside. Pee. Peepeeepee. Hee! Best. Day. Ever. OMG! Soooo much fun, peeing in the garden, I think I… OMG! POST WOMAN! POOOOOOSSSSTTTT WOOOOOOMMMMMAAAAANNNNN!!! Alert! Alert! Warning! OMFG! Attack! Attack! SO. HYSTERICAL. AAAAARGH! AAAARGH! AAARGH! Inside. Just can’t get over it. Can’t believe it happened. She was, like, in my driveway and everything. I will never forget it as long as I live. EVER. Maybe sleep now, though. Sleep. Awake! OMG Amber is sitting on the bed putting her makeup on!!! Aaaaargh! I want to sit on the bed too! Can I sit on the bed? Can I sit on the bed? Can I sit on the bed? Can I sit on the bed? Can I sit on the bed? Can I sit on the…. On bed. OMG! Best day ever. Best moment of life. WOWOWOW! Cannot belieeeve it! Amber putting makeup on. SO. INTERESTING. Cannot stop looking. Am not going to take my eyes off this. Stare. Starestarestare. STARE. Maybe sleep now. Sleep. AWAKE! OMG Terry is … he is GOING DOWNSTAIRS! Can I come? Can I come? Can I come? Can I come? Can I come? OMG!OMG! Downstairs. Terry opening fridge, aiiiieee! WOWWOWWOW. Best day of life! Give me something. Give me something. Give me something. Give me something. Give me something. HE GAVE ME SOMETHING OMG! OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!! ! Back upstairs. Watching Terry intently. SO. INTERESTING. Will not take eyes off him. Stare. Starestarestare. OMG AMBER! Is going into bathroom! WOW. Am going to get in before her! Ruuuuuuuuunnnnn! Fail. Will never get over it. Outside bathroom door. Waiting. Will wait here for as long as necessary. Staring at Terry while waiting. Fascinated by him. Will watch him forever… OMG AMBER! IS BACK! WOWOWWOW! It’s been SO! LONG! Whee! Sleep now.” Rinse, repeat. And that was all before 10am. Wouldn’t it be great if we ALL got so much excitement out of the simple things in life?  rubin Random Act of Stupidity # 639I leave the house to go to the supermarket. In one hand: my wallet, into which I have cunningly crammed my phone. In the other: a huge pile o’rubbish, destined for the bin that sits outside the door. What I threw into the bin: my wallet and phone. What I tried to carry with me into the car: the huge pile o’rubbbish. If it was the first time it had happened, it wouldn’t be so bad, but, er no. In conclusion: crawling headfirst into a rubbish bin = not a great way to start the day. But the way I am apparently destined to start many more of mine… At least I still have time for shoppingSo, taking a holiday when you’re self-employed is pretty tricky. And by that I mean, “I think I understand now why I always get ill as soon as I land“. Not that taking a holiday is easy when you work for someone else, either, of course, but in every “proper” job I’ve had, there’s always been some poor sod who’s been forced to fill in for me while I’ve been gone, meaning that I would only have to come BACK to total and utter stress, as opposed to going AWAY filled with it, on account of I’ve had to do three weeks worth of work in advance, before I go. Which is basically where I’m at right now. We leave for Florida on June 18th (also Terry’s birthday, so whew, thank God I won’t have to find something as good as all those surprises for him, eh? Happy birthday, Terry, I am taking you to Florida! You are helping me pay for it! You’re welcome!) . We’re only gone for two weeks, but I’ll need packing time before I leave, unpacking time when I get back and… well, I’d quite like a few extra days to lie around the house feeling sorry for myself, too. Factor in the inevitable flu (possibly of the swine variety!) and I figure I’ll need three weeks. Which means I have to write three weeks worth of blog posts before I go. (Note: not for this blog, obviously. I will be taking the laptop with me, so I’ll be able to update this one “on the go”. It’ll be like you’re all there with me! Either that or it’ll be like I totally didn’t bother to write anything for a fortnight because I’m lazy. Finding out will be part of the fun!) If I don’t do that, I won’t get paid, and then I’ll have to go to the workhouse, wah! All of which is a long-winded way of saying sorry for the lack of updates, recently, but I’m buried under a pile of BLOG and I can’t seem to get out. So, how’s your week?  |
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RUBIN’S BRAIN:
