Amber L. Carter's Blog, page 82

To My Friend Erica, On The Morn of Her Departure:

And I don't want you to go. Because what am I going to do without one of my best friends. And I know that I left first and you spread out your arms and sent me off with whoops of encouragement and seeds of comfort, but where you're going is so far and you're probably going to make new friends - probably fantastic lesbian friends who have great parties and live in awesome houses with lots of super art and who date attractive DJ's and hang out at awesome coffee-houses-by-day-clubs-by-night, like on The L Word - and then who am I going to talk to about boys and writing and damages and sunrises over lakes? And there's always email but I'm horrible with email and it's not the same when I can't see your face or your sparkling figure next to mine when we walk down the sidewalk together. And I know I left first. But you didn't ask me if you could go and so I'm kind of upset that you didn't get my permission first and I thought I announced like a year ago that the new rule was that no one could get married or have babies or move before I said they could?
Sometimes I still feel like that five year old girl, the one who's standing on the side of the street, wiping tears away from her eyes with the back of her grimy little hand as she watches her only real friend's car pull away from the curb. Why are you leaving me. Why can't your dad just stay here or you come live with us? Let's rearrange the whole universe to fit my sense of who I want in my life all the time and whom I don't.
I'm so excited for you. But I'm also sitting here and writing this with my bottom lip actually sticking out as I cry big fat selfish tears at the thought of you leaving. And I don't want you to go, but I want for you all the things you'll find when you do: Adventure. Happiness. Experience. Love. Home.
And also, don't forget to bring with you this to-do list:1) Pull-out couch for Amber to sleep on in the fall2) Tickets to all live tapings of the Nerdist podcasts. Also include: Video camera to bring with to live tapings for when Amber can't be here to go with us.3) Jason Segal's daily routine - habits, local hangouts, map of typical street routes, etc.4) Closet space for Amber to put her stuff in when she finally decides to move in with us after visiting5) A collection of cool lesbian friends that will make Amber feel like she's living in an episode of The L Word when she visits/moves here. Watch: The entire series of The L Word for references on what makes a cool lesbian friend (Shane) and what does not (Jenny). 6) Daily hilarious stories and anecdotes to tell C about Amber so that when he finally meets her face-to-face, they become fast, worshipful friends and he won't put up a fight when you want to name your first baby after her. 7) A daily schedule with an hour built in that is blocked off specifically for you to email (or call) Amber to regail her with your daily exploits and emotions.8) Big poster made out of Amber's shining, sparkling face to hang on the ceiling over your bed so she's the first thing you see when you wake up and the last thing you see when you go to sleep. Except when maybe C's around. (But he will most likely love it, too, so no need to worry on that end)9) A business-card-sized card that says, "Amber thinks I'm awesome, so fuck YOU guys!" to carry around in your wallet so you can pull it out and read it when/if things ever get hard/frustrating/stressful/lonely/hurtful. 
Because I do. And I'll kick anyone in the face who makes you feel less than that. 
Miss you, lady. Love you more.

I'm back in the TC until Monday.

Rode in on a wave of anticipation on a hot Wednesday afternoon. Kept it Top Secret so I could walk into Cafe Maude during Happy Hour and surprise Karah and Jeff (Chels was in on my plan). But before I initiated my plan of friendship attack, I got to have beers with Erica one more time before she left for California on Saturday.

I'm going to miss her so much.

Let's talk about something else. 


I get to wake up to (um, amazing...have you guys ever had it made by Kerurig?) coffee with Matt in the morning and come home to Chels and this face in the afternoon (who, by the way, calls me by my name now and just pulled out her toy laptop so she could sit and work with me. My head is going to explode from sweetness overload) and hang out in the evening with Chels and Matt and Karah and Jeff.

So yeah. It's pretty great to be home for a few days. 

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

This beautiful portrait is from last year's 4th of July Parade in Cable, WI. And yes, that is a flag in my beer. Beer tastes better when you add some patriotism to it.

Holiday weekends.

[image error] Early morning and sunshine. Coffee and peanut butter rolls. Small libraries and farmers markets. Docks and books. Kayaks and lakes. Flipflops and sweatshirts. Boats and beers. Fires and sparklers.

Coffee. Yeah.

Learning more about coffee has long been an underground interest of mine. I love the science of it, and the fact that a common drink can have so much versatility and power. You know how some people say that bicycles will be one of the answers to the energy and environmental issues we face today? I strongly and seriously believe coffee will be one of the answers to the economic disparity and sustainability issues we face.

Just as an aside: If you pop on here one day and see that I've suddenly popped down to South America to learn more about Fair Trade and coffee farms, that means that my life has become exponentially more awesome and you should congratulate me on achieving one of my long-held dreams.

And this infocomic from The Oatmeal is the shiz:
Via theoatmeal.com






Go read/see the whole thing here.


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6 Things Teenagers Say To Sound Smart But Really Just Makes Them Sound Stupid

1) I forgive, but I don't forget.Then you don't actually forgive.
2) Respect goes both ways. I don't just give you my respect. You have to earn it.Yeah, that's actually not how respect works. And also, very few adults are going to purposefully go out of their way to "earn" a teenager's respect or trust. And those who do are usually ones you need to be suspicious of. See: Pedophiles, Narcs, Army recruiters. 

3) I don't trust people easily. I've been hurt before.That's called life. Getting dumped by your 17 yr old girlfriend and saying that it made you "more jaded" does not make you special. It makes you a cliche.
4) I question everything/ all authority. No, you don't. You question the guy who's making your life a real drag by assigning you actual homework. Here's what it really means to question authority: When MTV tells you that something's cool...think about it. Is it really cool? Did Twilight really deserve to win an award over Inception? Should I just accept these things that someone on TV is telling me to believe? Or should I think about them, do my own research, formulate my own opinions? Maybe the iPhone is not the coolest smartphone. Maybe it's not so awesome because you just did a little internet reading that made you realize that they make technology that's incompatible with other devices and then shut out pioneering apps that didn't cave to their shitty-ass pricing models and that it kind of fucking sucks that Apple asks you to pay hundreds of dollars every other year just to get in on the next brand new game. See - that's what it means to question everything. It means to think critically about the sources of information that you're tempted to just automatically believe. If you were a person who questioned all authority, you would participate more in your local government. You would actually know how voting works. You would organize and lead a group of your peers to protect natural resources, or rally them together to help build parks, or join forces to investigate illegal dumping of waste or use of laboratory animals. You would read stuff, like books, that tell you things that will make you more smart, instead of more dumb. You being a smartass to your parents or teachers makes you an asshole, not someone who "questions all authority."
5) Yo, just because someone's an "adult" that doesn't mean they know everything.No, it just means that they know more than you do. 
Listen, I get it. You're constantly taking in all of these things and new experiences and it feels like you have all of these feelings that no one else has and you pick up on stuff so much faster than your parents and the adults around you... But you know why that's happening? It's happening so that one day you can be 30 years old and standing in front of a teenager and remember exactly what it's like to be him and then realize that now your life is so much better than when you were him because now you actually know some stuff. See, that's the tradeoff - you get the teenage body and the cockiness that goes along with it (otherwise none of us would ever lose our virginity until we were 40) and adults get the smarts that comes after we no longer have that to fall back on. You're probably really super smart. You probably know a lot of stuff that the adults around you don't. But the thing is...it doesn't matter, unless you actually do something with it. And you, standing in the middle of a convenience store spouting off this platitude to your easily-impressed friends does not qualify.
6) It's better to burn out than fade away.Yeah, you have to actually do something with your life first before either of those can become actual options for you. And first rule of life? Using quotes from rock stars as your own personal mantras doesn't make people think you have a lot in common with rock stars. It makes them think you're a douche who can't come up with something original to say.

Nothing else good happens in July. It's a FACT. So you might as well spend it inside, reading a book.

What up, readers! 
For the month of July, Smashwords is having a mega sale on some of their ebooks. And they asked me to be a part of it. 
And I said, "Fuuuuuuuck THAT." 
And then I changed my mind, so here you go - 
From now until July 31st, HOLIDAY CHICK is on sale for $1.50*.
Yeah, that is 50% off the regular price. We seem to be doing a lot of 50% sales around here...
Let's talk about all the other things that you could get for $1.50...
You could get a new app for your smart phone.
You could get a new song by way of MP3.  And...that's about it. 
Or you could get A WHOLE BOOK, 500+ PAGES WORTH, which includes stuff about love and sex and fights and stalkings and skateboarding and some more sex and fights and love and stuff. But me telling you how great I think it is is kind of like me telling you how smart I think my 6 month old is, so like this guy says, don't just take my word for it. Check out what some other readers said about it here.
*enter in coupon code SSW50 at checkout

They could only make it easier for you by barging into your house, jamming a Q-Tip inside your mouth, and then running out again.

I don't really care much about my body parts. I mean, I do...but I mean "don't care" more in the way that I would happily give a kidney or some bone marrow or half of my liver to someone else who needed it. I mean...kids with cancer, yeah? Bone marrow transplants can save their lives. I know why some people might balk at the thought of giving their kidney to someone - especially someone they don't know - and I get it. But I just kind of feel like...we have these bodies for such a short amount of time, and if we're really honest with ourselves, we really don't appreciate them as much as we could. So why not give something of our bodies to someone who might?
Then I read this article about an organization called Be The Match. Not only is the story of how the org was founded illuminating and motivating, but they make it so easy to join the registry.
And in all seriousness, it is the easiest thing in the world to get on the donor's list - they send you the kit through the mail, which takes five minutes to complete (maybe 10, if you're super careful like me), then you drop it in the mail again (postage paid!) and you're done. If you match someone who's on the list as needing a donor, they'll tell you and you can go from there. If you don't, you still get to have the heart-warming feeling of doing something good and giving for your greater community.
So do it. Yeah, do it. C'mon. Do it. You know you wanna do it. Just do it.

I can't decide which I love more - the columns or Randy's comments about them.

Randy says: Everyone knows young hummers are the most active.

This Generation.

 I can hear the voices of my parents and their parents: We are so self-indulgent, this generation. Get a job, go to work, be responsible, quit whining. But I think that we have that luxury, of trying our best to be happy – really happy, in a way that doesn't feel like we're suffocating ourselves – and so we should take it. Because we can.