Amber L. Carter's Blog, page 84

Starting Tomorrow, in honor of the One Year Anniversary of the Publication of HOLIDAY CHICK...

You can get an AUTOGRAPHED, PRINT COPY of HOLIDAY CHICK for only $9.99.

And yeah, that is 50% off the list price! Math is easy, here at An Amber-Colored Life.

AND, if 100 or more copies are sold during those 72 hours, EVERYONE who buys a copy gets a FREE GIFT.

For legal reasons, I can't tell you what the free gift is.

But, it's pretty awesome.

And it's something that's almost impossible to get anywhere else.


An autographed print copy for 10 bucks, plus a free gift...and the gift is so awesome, you guys. I really want to give it to you. A really lot.

And, if everyone who reads this post shares it, (on their blog, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook...maybe not MySpace, though, because who are you? If you still have a MySpace, you better be in a band... And if you are in a band, might you be a drummer? Because if you are, let's get married and then never speak of this MySpace topic again), getting the free gift will be a s-n-a-p. Plus you will earn my undying devotion and general goodwill, two things that are worth more than gold.

If you've EVER wanted to buy a copy of the book...if you've told yourself that you wanted a print copy over an ebook because you're old-school like that but hated that the print copy price was so much more than the ebook price... if you've read the ebook and thought, hey, that's a cool cover, having a print copy would be cool and make it look like I have very stylish taste when my friends browse my bookshelf...if you've ever wanted to earn bonus points with your friends (or even a jerky book-loving non-friend) by buying them something awesome... if you already have a print copy but couldn't get it autographed and always wished you had one with my sweet name emblazoned all over the first page... this is your chance.

But it's only going to be here for 72 hours.

So get ready, because the sale starts at MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.

I do really like this picture, though. Someone make me some of these cupcakes, kay?

[image error]
Since we've kind of been talking a lot lately about other people on this blog instead of just focusing on me like we usually do, I thought it'd be cool if we continued that trend:

Monsterbeard, who has promised to befriend Jason Segal (so I can meet him and then we can fall in love) in exchange for the heart and geographic relocation of one of my best friends, has also quickly become one of my favorite bloggers. The other day, he reposted a repost (if you're on Tumblr, you get it. If you don't...just don't worry about it and keep reading) of an excerpt of this post from Julie Klausner's blog -

Don't Fear The Dowager: A Valentine to Maturity


An adolescent boy's bed sheet semen's worth of ink has been spilled lately about men acting too much like boys. But the trend of reverse-striving has crossed over: adult women are acting more and more like little girls, and it's really starting to get on my nerves.

There's so much ukulele playing now, it's deafening. So much cotton candy, so many bunny rabbits and whoopie pies and craft fairs and kitten ephemera, and grown women wearing converse sneakers with mini skirts. So many fucking birds.

Go read the rest.

And then this guy said this about that -

It'd be super if, instead of stereotyping women who ride fixed-gear bikes and like cupcakes as unintelligent children, we stopped making assumptions of people based on the most superficial elements of their personality. Bros don't need to demean women when there are so many women trying to demean them already.

Which I looove.

And then Monsterbeard said this -

The people who think they hate feminism hate it when it tries to tell us what a woman should be instead of telling us women get to be what they damn well please.

Which I also LOVE.

Here's my thing: Can we please just stop telling each other what we have to be? Yes, there are things such as pandering to the opposite sex or participating in sexism or playing small to please patriarchal stereotypes or being so blinded by social and gender stereotypes that we can't even say the word "vagina" without blushing or feeling embarrassed for saying it, out loud, in a normal tone, in public (and yes, I personally wish it was a prettier word but it's just not and that's okay) or buy tampons and carry them out to our car without wanting to cover them up from public view.

But that's okay, because we're women and we have a lot of shit going on.

Right? All of us. Every single one.

So let's get on with our business and stop looking for things to knock each other down over. We're the ones who are supposed to stand together and fight for our gender, right?

And just as a singular point -

It's all to the same ends—- women are trying to broadcast to men that we won't bite their dicks off. It's just that now, instead of lipstick, we're wearing glittery lip gloss, or that shit you get in the drug store that tastes like Dr. Pepper.

I don't know any guys who would prefer to have a blow job from a girl who loves cupcakes over one from a girl who loves death metal. I think they'd be pretty cool having one from either. That's really your finest point? That we like unicorns and rainbows and flowery dresses because we think guys will want more blow jobs from us?! I'd like those things more if it meant I could get out of more blow jobs... but not because I think it would make more requests for them come my way.

Start your week off right with some more hummers.

Even though Kevin sent this to me 8 days ago, I'm just getting to it now because I currently have 536 emails in my inbox and have spent most of the weekend slugging through the messages.HEAR THAT, EVERYONE? I GOT YOUR EMAIL. AND I WILL RESPOND BACK TO YOU AS SOON AS I CAN.
Anyway.  From Kevin: 

Please tell me you'd already seen this headline in Wednesday's Star Tribune before you wrote that other blog post. Because if you didn't, I'm going to explode from laughter. EXPLODE.

I did not already see it. AND IT IS AMAZING.

Hummers, you guys. People love them. Who knew?

I did.

Chevy is short for Chev-ro-let. Which I like to pronounce as, "Chev-roe-let".

Did you guys know that Chevy is in a lot of country songs?
Like, a lot.  Chevy has asked me to be a brand ambassador for them, namely for a fun crew on Facebook and Twitter called Chevy Girls. And while most people would assume that means that I have to prance around in a tight tank top and lean against trucks all day long...maybe, you know, slowly lifting a hose over my head while a country tune plays in the background, and the camera goes into slow-mo as I drench myself with water, and then I shake my long hair out and smile teasingly at the horizon, thinking about how great it's going to be, getting into that Chevy truck at the end of the day and driving it out to the local Honkey-Tonk so I can two-step it with some hottie cowboys in tight Wranglers who wear a bunch of Stetson and know how to teach me how to ride horses, ifyaknowwhattamean....but you'd be wrong.
That's not what it means.
What it means is that I get to know some cool peeps on Twitter and Facebook, I maybe win some cool stuff, and I learn more about the Chevy brand.  AND, the best part is that you guys get a voice in this, too. Because if you know anything about this blog yet, it's that I'm not really the type to write a generic post. About anything. Even when I'm getting paid for it. Because then I'd probably have to shoot myself.
Plus, it's just so much more fun to play with fun, creative, unexpected ways to talk about brands. So let's TALK about them, yeah?
We're in this together. But you don't get any of my money or awesome prizes.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS ONE!

It's a Trashicorn! Ding.

You're Welcome.

\

You will now probably spend the rest of your entire weekend watching more like these here.

It's true. It would be.

But isn't the greatest hurdle just getting people motivated in the first place?


I would actually say that motivation is not the question. The real question is: What are the incentives? Let's say I created a gym where you pay $400 the first of the month, and for every visit I refund $25. And before you sign up, we take unflattering photos of you in your under­wear, and if you don't make a certain number of visits, we post those photos to a public website. I guarantee you that would be one fucking fit gym.

[via]

It's true. It would be. And behavioral psychologists have been saying for years that selling health is not effective when trying to get people to change (much like how sprouting off statistics about cancer and death is not effective in getting people to stop smoking)

I can't really decide if I like Tim or not. I've read a combination of endearing posts and arrogant interviews, and he does get about a billion street cred points for being funny on the Nerdist podcast, but...he's just not very likeable. But I guess when you're a genius, likability doesn't really matter all that much, does it?

Love.

[image error]
Buy one here. And buy one for all of your creative friends, too, while you're at it.

I only like stuff that's awesome.

[image error] In case you didn't know already, this is one of my ALL-TIME FAVORITE blogs of late. And she just did a kickass web redesign, so you should go check it out. And then read everything, every post, because it's THAT GOOD.

My Thoughts On Eat, Pray, Love, About 3 Years Later Than When Everyone Else Was Talking About It.

Okay.
I just need to get this off my chest.

It mostly started with a conversation I had with Erica last weekend about Eat Pray Love. Full disclosure? I loved that book (it was so funny, and endearing, and honest, and funny!), and Erica did, too, and we kind of ranted a bit at the backlash it received after the movie was made (mostly, it must be said, by people who didn't even read the book, which, if you've known me at all through the Harry Potter and Twilight phenomenons, makes me want to kick some faces in - you don't actually get to be a critic of something until you've actually read or watched that which you are attempting to critique. Otherwise, you're not a critic. You're a moron.)
But then I found myself flipping through channels yesterday and watching the movie again, and then I tweeted about it, and then some people agreed with me and some people didn't. But the discussion on Twitter brought up a couple of things that I've been turning over in my head for a while now, namely after I had a conversation with Soulless Ginger about it (who, incidentally, tossed all these criticisms and more at the book, despite not even having read it. He didn't have to, though. He just knew what it was about.) And also, I'm sure we're all also aware that my sparkling brilliance cannot be contained within 140 characters, so we might as well hash it out right here.

Much like the thing with Twilight, I get it. It's super cool to hate on something that's suddenly become popular. If everyone loves it, it must mean they're dumb and you're smart, and besides, being cynical about something is funny. Dudes. I'm right there with you. And yeah, it's annoying when the media can't shut up about something. And maybe you didn't like the book. Totally understandable. No one can argue with what you like and what you don't.

But here's what I don't get: Almost every single time I hear someone criticize the book/movie, the same words come up: Self-indulgent, upper-class woman. Why is it that whenever a woman writes about her feelings and experiences, she's considered "self-indulgent" (and yet when Augusten Burroughs writes a totally boring book, it's considered literary)? And let's cut the shit: ALL memoirs are self-indulgent. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most personal writing is self-indulgent. I'll never forget the time when, late one night on Twitter, a follower asked me if I didn't think my last post was just a little bit self-indulgent. "Have you read my blog at all? It's ALL self-indulgent. That's the whole point." Most of us write about our personal experiences, our feelings, our actions, memories, or about the feelings, actions, and memories of the people around us. As they say in psychology, nothing we do is ever truly altruistic. We do things to gain some type of personal satisfaction or acknowledgement, on whatever level that might be. It's often the same with writing. But whatever. People who hate memoirs tend to hate them no matter what they're about (let's not even get into the "if you're under thirty, you haven't lived enough to write a memoir." currently popular snark. It's funny that you think you can tell someone else the worth or breadth of their life experience before even knowing what that is).
And why is it that just because someone is "upper class", that automatically makes their feelings less valid than those who aren't? Being poor doesn't automatically make you enlightened. I know we would like to think this, when we're struggling to make rent and stuffing Ramen down our throats for the billionth time, but to do so is to participate in ill logic. Also, see: Classicism. Narrow-mindedness. Stereotyping. Snobbery.

Basically, everything that lower-class folks typically like to attribute to those who are upper-class. Also - and you know I'm going to flip this coin - I don't see anyone complaining about all these bored upper-class men who are traipsing out to climb mountains and kayak rapids and sail around the world.  It's the same fucking thing. But to our ingrained social sense, those men are daring, adventurous, courageous. Yet something about a woman spending her own money (which she made by...weird, I know...writing her own books) to travel for a year, explore her psyche, learn how to meditate, and do the very thing that she's been doing for the past 10 years (aka, write a book about her experiences) seems to make some people extremely uncomfortable. What a self-absorbed jerk, right? I mean, happiness...everyone is entitled to the pursuit of it, but not you, affluent white women. You're outta the game.