Amber L. Carter's Blog, page 23

ACTING!

A handful of years ago two of my favorite friends, Juan Antonio Del Rosario and Cristina Cordova, convinced me to get on a bike and ride for a part in a movie they was making. Deep down I knew that Juan Antonia was asking me to do this specifically because he knew how much I hated riding bikes in the city (it was like, a thing for me at the time. Back then I was known for my hatred of two things: The Hold Steady and city cyclists), but despite my feeble protests, I was totally, totally game. We were about a year out from wrapping up the cultish second season of Chasing Windmills  (seriously, watching The Overture again is like strapping on the flux capacitor and going back to a simpler time when I still wore nail polish, smoked, and used terms like "Man Ban") and enough time had passed to make me nostalgic for the flurry of scripts and the rush to different locations and the "Annnnnd AGAIN!" x 1000 directing style of Juan Antonio. Being able to be a part of the film with my former Chasing Windmills costars...it kind of felt like the tying of a bow, you know?

It's been about five years since then, and the film The System  finally premiered April 6th at the Mpls/St. Paul International Film Festival. I doubt that my part made it in (and even if it did, you wouldn't recognize me, anyway - I'm wearing a hoodie, sunglasses, and riding a bike), but I'm pretty damn excited about it. Just getting to be in the same creative company of all the fantastically funny, creative, whip-smart people who were a part of Chasing Windmills and The System made my Minneapolis life. It's pretty sweet to have a web video series - and now, a movie - that I can point to and remember it by.

Act of Writing

Sometimes I have to remember that writing is a process. I get wrapped up in the idea of being done, of being finished - or at least close to finished - with a book, and I lose sight of the fact that the whole fun of writing a book is the actually writing of it. Of savoring the process, delighting in every new favorite turn of phrase, of figuring out to how to set the scene exactly so. Of having fun with it. 

This book is a monumental one. If you count in all the stops and starts, I’ve literally been “working” on it for the past four years. It amasses ten years of material, and like with Holiday Chick, every single sentence feels crucial. Which is probably why I haven’t technically finished the first draft yet…it feels like that ten years worth of material is already a first draft, and, after spending the last 3 years editing the final stages of two books, it’s hard for me to go back to that infant stage in book writing where it’s necessary to give oneself permission to write crap as long as one is writing. I have to continually talk myself out of going back to the beginning to edit and fine-tune, especially right now, when I’ve spent the last three days stuck on how to begin Chapter 10. Outlines, I’m finding, are easy…it’s figuring out how to jump from one slick stone to the other that feels so difficult. 


But I have a goal, and it’s this: By the time spring finally comes to the hinterlands, I want to be immersed in the writing. I want to be back in that place where, no matter where I’m at or what I’m doing, I’m eager to get back in front of my laptop and craft more sentences, better scenes. I want to feel filled up, again, with words, with chapters, with creating. This book may take another three years until it’s finally, finally finished - and I may give up again and write a shorter, easier, more fun book before that even happens - but for now, I want to suspend my impatient desire to just get another book out there and instead concentrate - enjoy, revel in - the process. The actual act of writing again.

The Candida Diaries: Week 8, 9, and 10

Week 8 went so much better.

Like, sooooooo much better.

Even with having to miss out on Pi Day:



And having to miss out on St. Patrick's Day (beer! I miss you. I hope you're doing okay? Take care, old friend)



It was just totally smooth. I think I finally hit that mark where, even when faced with the desire or temptation to cheat on my treatment, the desire to keep feeling good trumps it.

And when that desire is feeling weak, I've been hitting up the coconut oil like a motha:


The good feelings carried into the trip to LA on week 9. My wonderful hosts for the first part of the week, Erica and Chris, were so great about stocking their fridge with things I could eat, and Erica even modified dinners on Thursday and Friday so I didn't stray from my diet.

I was also super delighted to find that Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf now uses coconut almond milk! COCONUT ALMOND MILK IN PROFESSIONAL LATTES, YOU GUYS.

It was as if God had listened to what was in my heart, and answered it.

Please copy Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, other coffee shops. Please. Soy milk is just as gross as regular milk, and I can't say that hemp is much better. But a combination of Coconut and Almond milk? It's sweet without a ton of added sugar, it's creamy without the lactose, and it foams beautifully.

The early part of week 10...didn't go as hot. I had a few non-treatment related cheats, like going to In & Out Burger with Erica after a long, late walk, a couple glasses of white wine at the dinner party Erica threw on Friday eve, and a beer or two with my little brother. Overall, I'm proud of myself for sticking to my treatment the majority of the time, and only slipping for special occasions. Luckily, those slips didn't make me feel like crap the way they have in the past, which either means that my body is healing or it means that I was just so happy being in LA that I didn't notice.

Coming home was actually much easier (in treatment terms...not in mood terms) than I had anticipated. After telling myself to just bite the bullet, I hopped on the scale when I got home and discovered that I hadn't gained any weight, not even with the In & Out Burger and other food-related splurges in LA. I was happy to get back to my old routine, though. The one thing about treatments of this caliber is that they are largely successful when you can stick to a routine, so I was happy to get back to it.

Next week: Vitamins and a thing called shot-gunning Apple Cider Vinegar.

Yep. Just as gross as it sounds, my friends.

Back To the Sun (Part 3)

So, first of all, I'm moving to the West Coast. 


"You look beautiful and glowing in all the pics you're posing on FB. Seriously!" Katy had texted on the fourth day of my trip. 
"Thanks!! Having the BEST time," I texted back. "I seriously don't want to come back."
"Don't. I'll pack up your stuff and mail it to you!" 

Grinning, I closed out of my text messages and slid my phone back into my pocket. 

I have no idea what kind of animal this is, but it seemed like it was cuddly enough.It had happened on the third day. I woke up to a chilly, cloudy morning in LA. Nose cold, bundled up in blankets on the air mattress in Erica and Chris' guest room, I felt happier than I had in a long time. I'm living out here, things are falling into place, and I'm happy. The thought came swimming up to the surface. I had been unsure, the first couple days I had been here. But that thought...it was a glimpse. By now you guys know me enough to know that these things just happen to me from time to time, and even when I've fought it in the past, it's never been wrong. This one, though, was welcome. It reminded me of all the other times when I've been afraid to make a leap, to go after what I wanted...I felt like I needed to have everything planned out first, perfectly settled and secure. I hate the phrase "Have faith" (it sounds so...passive. Kind of like how destiny is for losers..."Just a stupid excuse to wait for things to happen instead of making them happen." Blair Waldorf lays down the truth)...but. Sometimes, it's true that this girl's gotta get some. 

That feeling, that sense that I was moving in the right direction, carried out throughout the rest of the day. Erica and I met up with my baby brother Dan, and we just simply had the best day ever. 



Please enjoy this heartwarming scene of a mother elephant trapped in a tar pit while her baby and mate look on helplessly!
ART!While hanging out with the two of them, I told them about how the first straw had come a few weeks before. Walking the three blocks from my place to the brewpub, I suddenly realized that I was done. I feel like I've been pretty damn patient these past few winters...I don't complain about the cold, I don't complain about the snow. But this last brutal winter beat it out of me, and I am fucking DONE. I've endured northern winters for the majority of my 35 years, and you know what I've learned from that? FUCK the four seasons. Why do I put myself through this? For what? Probably the most frustrating and futile thing we do in life is spending time and energy being mad at the weather. The only control we have over it is to choose a climate whose main type of weather we prefer over all others. And you know how people in Arizona live in November? In a state of TOTAL AND COMPLETE TEMPERATE COMFORT. It's like a totally different world, where people actually enjoy months like November, January, and March, instead of scowling and burrowing deeper under their pile of blankets. And so I'm over it. I'm taking those months back. I've got maybe one more winter left in me, and then I'm never going to miss snow again. 

Going to LA... it was kind of a test. By going there for a week, I wanted to cement whether I really wanted to move, or if I was merely tired of the cold and missing Erica and Daniel. Maybe I just needed a break? Maybe a week away would have me returning refreshed and excited for life in the Northwoods again. Did I really want to pack up my life and move, start all over again? This past year and a half, I had been working on building a life for myself in the Northwoods. I love the place I live in, I love the things I'm doing - The Dapper Dozen, Girl from the Northwoods, Tipsy Trivia - and I love the friends I've made. 

Yet the more time I spent away from the Northwoods, the more I began to see that those things are just not enough to keep me there. And it struck me how already crabby I was, at the thought of going home. 

"Yeah, Mom told me that she thinks that once your lease is up, you'll be out of there," my brother Daniel shared at dinner with Erica and Chris the next night, as we sat and talked about future plans. I nodded. Earlier that day, Erica, Chris, and I had hiked up the trail by the Griffith Observatory. 

Observe, at the Observatory!
Really love these two. 
WE ARE EXCITED.Initially overwhelmed by the mass of people congregating at the Observatory on a Saturday afternoon, I tried to think about what I would want to gain from living here, if I did. Erica, Chris, and I hiked further up the winding trail of the park, and I realized that I missed being in the center of things. I miss that feeling of being in a place where anything could happen. I don't like knocking my past or present experiences to support my desire for a future one, but...it works into that whole midlife crisis thing I talked about in Part 2. It's complicated. I still love the Northwoods, I'm grateful for the home it has become, and I love the things I'm doing here, but having that newfound sense of time being of the essence...I'm done fucking around. 

This is the face of total elation that comes from a water girl being right next to the sea.For so long, my dream has been to be closer to the sea, to the mountains. The idea of living in Washington has taken on an almost mythical quality ("Then I shalt go...to...WASHINGTON!"). It's the place that first comes to mind when I think of what I need to do and see to round out this life with grace. I don't have many regrets in my life. Maybe a few. One of them is this: If I could strap on my flux capacitor, I would shoot myself back to when I was 21 and tell myself to just fucking do it - move to Washington or Vancouver like I wanted to, that waitressing is the easiest job in the world and I could figure it all out when I got there. It's probably why I was a such a fan of Daniel following his dream of going into film by moving to LA after he graduated from college. "You can always move back," I remember telling him. Maybe it's time I took my own advice, yeah? 

I probably won't move to LA, though. I might. I don't know yet. I'm exploring ideas right now - the idea of living and working at the crossroads of writing and comedy and movie making is pretty freaking exciting - so if the right opportunity comes along, if it feels like the place I need to be...then yeah. I totally will. Most likely, though, I'll settle somewhere further up the coast. I'm planning an extended road trip next spring, where I'll explore Vancouver, Washington, Oregon, and California to see where it is that I might most want to live. 

Wherever I end up, I do know that I want it to only be a day trip or a short flight away from these guys:



And I'm not going right away. I've got a lease agreement until November 2015, and I like to keep my agreements. And there are still some things I want to accomplish in the meantime - we've got another Dapper Dozen calendar coming out, and I haven't done half of the things I've been dreaming about for Girl from the Northwoods. I fully plan on completely enjoying my time here, while I have it. 

(Even thought I was admittedly suuuuuper crabby about going back to Wisconsin...)


Yet instead of feeling like my life is wasting away here, the way I felt when I live in the Northwoods years ago, I feel like every day is simply bringing me closer to where I am meant to be. And it's been pretty rad, to have that to look forward it. It actually makes me enjoy being here more. Happy to take it all in, before I say goodbye. 

Dan's pretty excited about all of this, too. 
Seriously, that face. 

Let's just start a thing where I post a video once a week and just write all my inner dialogue about it on here.

I can't even handle this video today. Like, I think I had to be 35 and see it afresh for me to appreciate just how artsy and dryly funny and perfectly staged and totally weird it is.

I would like to say that my favorite thing about it is all the close-ups on Levar Burton's facial expressions (ACTING! He is an ACT-TOR!) but my really favorite thing is the dancing. All of the dancing! You should try to dance with Cameo when he dances, because obviously a guy in a red jock cup - which distracts from EVERYTHING, by the way - knows how to break down the moves that bring all the boys and girls (and super kool DJ's) to the park just so they can hear him say that he don't need no romance, no romance, no romance for him, ma(ma). Also, I want to believe that if I'd been an adult during these times (instead of a dorky and highly impressionable 3rd grader) I'd have a super cool geometric haircut like the lady Cameo disses and dismisses in the park, but I think we all know that I wouldn't have had the guts for it. That's the kind of haircut that follows you for the rest of your life, friends. That lady went on to be a judge, I bet, or maybe a super successful internet marketer, and everyone who knew her back then probably still passes around a photo of her from that video at least once a year to all her coworkers and new family members and just-friended friends on Facebook. And she's probably like, "No, guuuuyyyssss! That was the styyyle back then! It was coooool! I was in a ROCK VIDEO because of it!" and everyone else is like, "OMG LOOK AT YOUR WEIRO HAIR THAT EVEN CAMEO DIDN'T WANT THAT NEAR HIS RED PLASTIC JOCK CUP, LADY."

Also, that crop top/sports jacket ensemble on that one Bobbie Brown lookalike.

The 80s, you guys.

Back to the Sun (Part 2)

So here I was again. This time it was an honest-to-god vacation, a week's worth of time spent and enjoyed with two of the people I love most in this world. My first morning here, I woke up to sunshine and cool air. Padding out to the kitchen, I made coffee (or technically, I made Nespresso. I'm sorry you had to find out this way, Keurig, but I don't love you anymore and I've found someone hotter and slimmer to better fit the new me I want to be. You can keep the house and the kids), and then spent a few lovely, lazy hours on Erica and Chris' couch, meandering through posts and articles and updates. Vacation, I told myself. You are actually taking an honest-to-god vacation for probably the first time in your life, so actually take one. No work, no busy stuff. Just freaking relax for once. 

I got the e-mail around noon. My professional life right now is a series of opportunities and negotiations. For instance, I negotiate three days at a job at a local brewpub so I can spend the rest of my week writing books and building stuff like Girl from the Northwoods. Because of that freedom during the week, I'm also available to a number of opportunities. Some of them are ridiculously lucrative, but can also conflict with my other everyday negotiations. 

The e-mail put me at a crossroads. I could give up my freedom and opportunities to write and build something of my own in exchange for a professional title and a lot (a lot) of money. You would think that the more I make this choice, the easier it would become. But it doesn't.  

After re-reading the email, I told Erica I was going to go take a nap (a.k.a., lie on my bed and watch a bunch of Tokio Hotel videos), and retreated to my room with my laptop. I felt like I was 16 again, trying to self-calm and think things out so I didn't make a mistake I would regret later. 

Later that afternoon, Erica and I jumped into her car, grabbed coffee, and then began making our way from Culver City to Echo Park. Slowly snaking through downtown rush hour traffic, I told Erica about the e-mail. I've been going through a bit of a mid-life crisis, lately. I didn't feel weird about turning 35, but it felt like...the moment I did, things got real. All of a sudden, I felt like I was running out of time to do all the things I wanted to do (have kids, build an empire, become the ingenue star of a dystopian blockbuster trilogy), and being a little behind on peer milestones started to bug me in ways that they didn't before. 

So I began to flounder a bit. I started entertaining opportunities...like the one I mentioned above. Opportunities that would be lucrative, but would also minimize my writing time and potentially suck out my soul because of it. But they seemed attractive because they would set me on a clear-cut, straight path to where I felt like I should be, at 35. 

Then Erica and I began to talk about writing. And I realized that I had forgotten that...the way my heart swells up whenever I get to talk with her about the struggles and triumphs we both feel about it. Writing is my true north. When I'm not focused on that, things get messy. I get upset. I get distracted by things that should only matter in their relation to how they do or do not help me write. I let other things take first place in my life, and then I begin to wonder and worry about my direction, my progress. When I focus on writing, though, all of that becomes easy. Things fall into place. The compass lands exactly where it should.

And that afternoon, that conversation, was a memory maker. I remember being in her car a year and a half ago in that very same spot, stuck in rush hour traffic and listening to the Nerdist podcast (it was the Aaron Paul one, for the record) after dropping her and Chris off at LAX. And that's kind of where I fell in love with Los Angeles...just that sense of being in a city where there was so much writing, comedy, creativity. 



Fuckin' magic making, kids.

Sitting in the car with Erica, staring at the above scene, I felt it again. That feeling you get when things suddenly become so clear, and you're just kind of elated at the magic of your surroundings for having the good grace to be there when you finally got it again.

I know that people have very different takes on LA...and I know that the above photograph doesn't contain the type of scene that you'd automatically think of when you're thinking about how and why LA is beautiful to someone. But this is now one of my favorite, favorite photos of all time. It's writing and Erica and magic for me. Of things becoming crystal clear.

Take your B.O. and your love of books ELSEWHERE!

The Barnes & Noble on the 3rd Street Promenade in Los Angeles means business.

Back to the Sun (Part 1)

It's been a year and a half since I went LA for the first time. To run away, flee the city that was now the birthplace of my sorely broken heart. Escape to the understanding eyes and quiet grace of my best friend Erica.

I went back on Wednesday, albeit under very different circumstances. It's been way too long since Erica and I took a walk together. My baby brother moved to Santa Monica in August, and I've been eager to get a glimpse of his new adult life (and, okay, maybe make sure with my own eyes that he's eating enough, doesn't have roommates who will turn him on to heroin, etc).

It's fitting, though, that on the eve of my trip, something would come across my desk to remind me of how much it hurt to go the first time. I haven't thought about him in ages - not since stumbling across confirmation that my suspicions about that girl at his office had been spot on - so it was unnerving to be reading an innocuous piece in the local paper and have the news hit me across the face. This past year and a half, I've tried really hard to forgive...to really forgive, both him and myself, for the way things ended, for all the things we did to hurt each other. To soften those hard feelings, to not harbor bitterness, to not let the actions of someone I used to know bleed into the current state of my heart. But then when something like the above forces me to think about him again...it stuns me how my immediate, undiluted reaction is that I just hate his whole life. I hate how much it still hurts, how that mix of pain and confusion and resentment can still come flooding to the surface so readily, still feel so new. Confusion, most of all...sometimes I miss the life we had in the beginning, but I know too much now to ever want it back. To want him back. But it's like the darker side of my shadow...it just wants him to hurt. To feel some kind of justice: You hurt me, and sometimes on purpose, and so I want to know that the world is paying you back for it. I had to be the bigger person in this, so it's not fucking fair that you got everything you wanted. 

It throws you back, you know? You think that you're making so much progress, that you might even be free and clear, and then you're faced with another 30 days of forgiveness meditations, because that shit has obviously not been fully accomplished yet.

It puts things in perspective, though. It's still palpable, the urgency and the drive and the white-knuckle optimism I felt on that first plane to LA that sunny morning. I wasn't going to let this break me. I worked on my new book that whole plane ride there, determined that writing was still going to be the thing that saved me. I had no idea what I was going to do or where I was going to go next, but I had two weeks with Erica in LA to figure it all out. And it was hard, and complicated, and there were definitely a couple of teary breakdowns in the guest room of Erica and her husband Chris' apartment, but I will never forget the feeling that I knew, deep down, I could do this. That I wasn't going to fail. That the panic I felt was only going to propel me to produce greater things for myself.

I kind of needed that, this week. I needed to remember that urgency. Sometimes it's really easy for me to get complacent...to feel like there's always enough time to get done with the things I want to do. To take advantage of the fact that I don't *have* to hurry up with this project, because my rent is paid and then some and so maybe I should enjoy life and watch another Law & Order marathon! But hearing news about him shines a light on all that. I'm really proud of myself for the things I've accomplished since I ended my life with him, but it's also not nearly half of what I swore to myself that I'd do. And in my better moments, I don't wish him ill will...but the fact that those feelings above still come up in my weaker ones is a sign that there is still more work to do. Because the point is not whether or not he deserves to be happy. The point is that I deserve to be, and that's much easier to do with a clean heart.

When everything you thought you knew about yourself completely changes.

So around 2 in the morning the other night I was reading this Tumblr and it mentioned the song "Monsoon", so I went to YouTube to look up the song and started watching this video:



And at first I was totally sure the lead singer was a girl, until the last part of the video when I was like, "WHAT? WAIT." So then I did some Wikipedia research on the band and I learned that the lead singer's name is Bill and that he is DEFINITELY a boy and straight and that he likes to dress like David Bowie's character in "Labyrinth." So then of course I fell through the rabbit hole of their videos, especially this one, which I feel like I SHOULDN'T like because it's so Euro pop yet I'm still oddly fascinated about it:



And so now I'm kind of totally obsessed with this band and am totally Team Tom (Bill's identical twin brother and guitarist) even though (or maybe because of? I'M FEELING SO CONFUSED ABOUT EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW) he totally dresses like K-Fed.

So yeah. I should probably try to get to sleep earlier from now on.

Sometimes We Don't Have To Take Everything So Seriously: Exhibit A