Amber L. Carter's Blog, page 85
June 16, 2011
I'm kind of in love with this.
And I don't care what you cynical bastards think.Also, it happened in Vancouver.
After a RIOT cause by a HOCKEY game.
Which means that it's awesome times one thousand.
(that's Awesome x 1,000 for those of you who can't read good)
[via]
June 15, 2011
I DO! I DO see Hummers!
Happy Hum(p)mer Day!
Wish you had a cool friend like Randy to send you cool stuff like this? Friend him on Twitter. But just remember...he was MY friend FIRST.
Wish you had a cool friend like Randy to send you cool stuff like this? Friend him on Twitter. But just remember...he was MY friend FIRST.
June 14, 2011
The block.
I'm writing today.
AND IT'S NOT GOING WELL.
The first two chapters seemed like a breeze compared to this one. I just...don't like it. I've tried writing it three different ways now, and while there are some really good parts to it, as a whole...I kind of hate it. And then I get frustrated and impatient and then I try to tell myself to "savor the writing" but then remind myself that I'm on a deadline and have already taken two weeks to savor the writing of ONE CHAPTER and then I want to both cry and kick some doors in.
So maybe I'll just scrap that whole thing, eh? You know what else I kind of hate writing? Back details. If you're the kind of person who can't catch up and figure it out without having every previous step outlined for you, then maybe you shouldn't be reading books. In fact, I think I'm going to make that the defining statement on the back cover: "If you're the kind of person who repeatedly asks, "Wait, what just happened?" while watching movies, then this book isn't for you. Don't read it. Also, maybe think about not watching movies anymore, or at least while with other people."
Alright, I'm going back in. If you don't hear from me in three days, it either means that I've had a breakthrough and am thisclose to finishing the whole entire thing, or it means that I tied a brick to my foot and then jumped in the lake. Either way, I love you.
AND IT'S NOT GOING WELL.
The first two chapters seemed like a breeze compared to this one. I just...don't like it. I've tried writing it three different ways now, and while there are some really good parts to it, as a whole...I kind of hate it. And then I get frustrated and impatient and then I try to tell myself to "savor the writing" but then remind myself that I'm on a deadline and have already taken two weeks to savor the writing of ONE CHAPTER and then I want to both cry and kick some doors in.
So maybe I'll just scrap that whole thing, eh? You know what else I kind of hate writing? Back details. If you're the kind of person who can't catch up and figure it out without having every previous step outlined for you, then maybe you shouldn't be reading books. In fact, I think I'm going to make that the defining statement on the back cover: "If you're the kind of person who repeatedly asks, "Wait, what just happened?" while watching movies, then this book isn't for you. Don't read it. Also, maybe think about not watching movies anymore, or at least while with other people."
Alright, I'm going back in. If you don't hear from me in three days, it either means that I've had a breakthrough and am thisclose to finishing the whole entire thing, or it means that I tied a brick to my foot and then jumped in the lake. Either way, I love you.
June 13, 2011
So I lied.
Magnum P.I. had to kick it.Even though it hurt my heart to let him go.
And I still kind of want to do something with a Michael McDonald theme.
But anyway - the blog's new look is what I did yesterday, instead of laying out on the dock with homemade mojitos and a stack of books. And it's a huge point of pride for me to say that I did it, everything, all of it, all by myself. The favicon, the layout, the blog header, thesidebar, the addy change...everything. Me. I did it. For those of you who know how digitally naive I can be when it comes to HTML stuff (i.e., Luke, Ang)...the fact that I didn't resort to whiney "Can you tell me how to do thiiiiissss?!" emails is kind of a big deal for me.
There's still some cleaning up to do around here (for instance? I haven't updated my blog link list in, like, TWO years) and I still have some fun stuff that I want to try out and play around with, but mostly...godammit, you guys. I kind of want to just live here. All the time.
Here's the part where you tell me how awesome it looks and what a great job I did.
*BTW - if you're on the lookout for a fun and creative blog header of your very own, you should talk to my friend Karah . Besides some of the HUGE names that she's worked with, she designed the cover of my book and all of the fun blog headers of this past year (remember the super awesome squash-and-pumpkins-that-look-suspiciously-like-male-genitalia one from last fall? Yeah. That was allll her). She's one of those people who always has cooler ideas that you. This time it can be used to your advantage.
June 11, 2011
Themes.
See, the problem with all of this meditation and learning business is that it causes you to think about stuff. A lot.
Here's the sitch: There's about 3 lady bloggers right now of whom I regularly devour their stuff. I know this isn't going to come out the right way no matter how much I edit it, so I'll just say it: I love them because something about them resonates with me. They're just kickass. Funny. Brash. Smart. Driven.
What sets us apart, though, is that they've found a way to leverage their voice into out-and-out worldwide domination. And they've done this by pinpointing something they're passionate about and then writing about it. All the time. And reading them, I've started to feel rebuked, in a way. "I could do that," I find myself thinking, my eyes lingering over all the cool stuff they have going on. I just haven't really tried.
I haven't. I love this blog and everything that it's been to me. But I haven't really tried that hard to figure out what it is exactly that I want to say. And in fact, I've pretty much willfully gone against that idea when it comes to this blogging home of mine.
Sometimes I've wondered if that was a mistake. When, for business purposes, I kept reading articles about the importance of having a theme and being known for something when it comes to blogging, it slowly started to seep into my subconscious. The result? Here's the blogging trajectory of this year: Start a bunch of blogs that each deal with a different angle of my life. There were some great things that came out of it - e.g., being able to post audio on my Tumblr directly resulted in more serious writing this year than I've done in a long, long time - but when it came down to it, I kind of hated it. Take the above example again - yes, I posted more serious writing this year than I have in a long time...but unless you guys were all proactive about adding that Tumblr to your feed or following it with your own Tumblr account, I didn't get to share it with you. And I hate that. I want everything in one place. Easy. Accessible. I want it home.
But because I'm hopelessly neurotic, I also worry that if I put that stuff all in one place, it's just going to become a big ol' mess. I never worried about that before - I still belong to the school of thought where tools are awesome, but quit fucking trying so hard... just fucking write something good, that you like...and if you like it, chances are others will, too, and then you can shut up about it - but I like definition. I like my organized boxes.
But life is changing. I love this blog as a place where I can write about nothing and everything. It doesn't have to mean anything, it doesn't have to help you, it doesn't have to have a theme. But more and more, I also feel like there's more I want to say. I want to talk about writing and relationships and inner-growth and things I find fascinating and inspiring and motivating, like sustainable development and yes, social media (the cool as shit stuff about social media) and taking risks with your life and getting out there and fucking doing something. And even though there's a part of the internet these days that keeps saying, "No, it needs to be under a theme...if you're going to write about that stuff, then you need to make the entire blog about it so people don't get confused", I can't buy into that. We're not 5 yr olds. We shouldn't melt down just because a blogger has the audacity to write about something different for once (or writes about a whole number of different things under the same umbrella). I don't get upset when my friend Erica wants to talk about bikes instead of boys. Why are we expecting our bloggers to be these writer-ly cubbyholes (I put my social media stuff in this one, and in this one I'll find my stuff about the environment...)? It's bullshit. And it's boring.
And yes, you just read through my blog's identity crisis. And the result is this: Let's just agree that this is the place where we talk about cool shit. That's our theme...The Blog of Really Cool Shit.
I might work it out a little bit more with the title and everything, but you get it.
June 10, 2011
No need to say goodbye to Magnum P.I., however. Cause that guy is STAYING.
For a while now, I've resisted the idea of redesigning the layout of the ol' blog. Mostly because of you guys. People don't like change. And a lot of you are really, really old...I don't want to be responsible for giving you a heart attack and thus losing one of my precious followers.
Plus...I mean, besides a couple of header changes and some additions to the sidebar, this blog has looked this way for *checking post archive* ALMOST SEVEN YEARS (holy crap). There's a bunch of nostalgia wrapped up in that thar black background. Metal. The Darkness. Dungeons & Dragons. Dating horror stories. A bunch of writing series about boys. Living in Wisconsin and then moving and living in Wisconsin again.
But it hit me this past week that I can't stand the way the blog looks anymore. CANNOT. STAND. IT. It's like standing in the middle of a stuffed closet and consistently resisting the urge to grab armfuls of clothing and throw everything out.
So we're going to play around with it for the next couple of weeks. I might even ask for your input on which layout/design you like better (even though, as with everything, if I like it, I don't really care what you think). I did flirt with the idea of funneling this blog over to Wordpress or something similar, but at the end of the day, I'm a creature of habit, and even when I'm writing blog posts for this site, I still draft them over here first because the writing and tone feels different when I use something else (that's called being weird, and I'll totally own it). So we're sticking with the old Blogger.
So it's happening. I'm kind of sad. I don't like change all that much either. But we have to do it, friends. Let's hold hands and walk into that big, beautiful, bright future together. Just promise me you won't leave me if things get weird. We've been together for 7 years. That's longer than most Hollywood marriages. I stick by you, you stick by me. THAT'S HOW THIS WORKS.
We live in the future.
Plus...I mean, besides a couple of header changes and some additions to the sidebar, this blog has looked this way for *checking post archive* ALMOST SEVEN YEARS (holy crap). There's a bunch of nostalgia wrapped up in that thar black background. Metal. The Darkness. Dungeons & Dragons. Dating horror stories. A bunch of writing series about boys. Living in Wisconsin and then moving and living in Wisconsin again.
But it hit me this past week that I can't stand the way the blog looks anymore. CANNOT. STAND. IT. It's like standing in the middle of a stuffed closet and consistently resisting the urge to grab armfuls of clothing and throw everything out.
So we're going to play around with it for the next couple of weeks. I might even ask for your input on which layout/design you like better (even though, as with everything, if I like it, I don't really care what you think). I did flirt with the idea of funneling this blog over to Wordpress or something similar, but at the end of the day, I'm a creature of habit, and even when I'm writing blog posts for this site, I still draft them over here first because the writing and tone feels different when I use something else (that's called being weird, and I'll totally own it). So we're sticking with the old Blogger.
So it's happening. I'm kind of sad. I don't like change all that much either. But we have to do it, friends. Let's hold hands and walk into that big, beautiful, bright future together. Just promise me you won't leave me if things get weird. We've been together for 7 years. That's longer than most Hollywood marriages. I stick by you, you stick by me. THAT'S HOW THIS WORKS.
We live in the future.
No need to say goodbye to Magnum P.I., however. Cause that guy is STAYING.
For a while now, I've resisted the idea of redesigning the layout of the ol' blog. Mostly because of you guys. People don't like change. And a lot of you are really, really old...I don't want to be responsible for giving you a heart attack and thus losing one of my precious followers.
Plus...I mean, besides a couple of header changes and some additions to the sidebar, this blog has looked this way for *checking post archive* ALMOST SEVEN YEARS (holy crap). There's a bunch of nostalgia wrapped up in that thar black background. Metal. The Darkness. Dungeons & Dragons. Dating horror stories. A bunch of writing series about boys. Living in Wisconsin and then moving and living in Wisconsin again.
But it hit me this past week that I can't stand the way the blog looks anymore. CANNOT. STAND. IT. It's like standing in the middle of a stuffed closet and consistently resisting the urge to grab armfuls of clothing and throw everything out.
So we're going to play around with it for the next couple of weeks. I might even ask for your input on which layout/design you like better (even though, as with everything, if I like it, I don't really care what you think). I did flirt with the idea of funneling this blog over to Wordpress or something similar, but at the end of the day, I'm a creature of habit, and even when I'm writing blog posts for this site, I still draft them over here first because the writing and tone feels different when I use something else (that's called being weird, and I'll totally own it). So we're sticking with the old Blogger.
So it's happening. I'm kind of sad. I don't like change all that much either. But we have to do it, friends. Let's hold hands and walk into that big, beautiful, bright future together. Just promise me you won't leave me if things get weird. We've been together for 7 years. That's longer than most Hollywood marriages. I stick by you, you stick by me. THAT'S HOW THIS WORKS.
We live in the future.
Plus...I mean, besides a couple of header changes and some additions to the sidebar, this blog has looked this way for *checking post archive* ALMOST SEVEN YEARS (holy crap). There's a bunch of nostalgia wrapped up in that thar black background. Metal. The Darkness. Dungeons & Dragons. Dating horror stories. A bunch of writing series about boys. Living in Wisconsin and then moving and living in Wisconsin again.
But it hit me this past week that I can't stand the way the blog looks anymore. CANNOT. STAND. IT. It's like standing in the middle of a stuffed closet and consistently resisting the urge to grab armfuls of clothing and throw everything out.
So we're going to play around with it for the next couple of weeks. I might even ask for your input on which layout/design you like better (even though, as with everything, if I like it, I don't really care what you think). I did flirt with the idea of funneling this blog over to Wordpress or something similar, but at the end of the day, I'm a creature of habit, and even when I'm writing blog posts for this site, I still draft them over here first because the writing and tone feels different when I use something else (that's called being weird, and I'll totally own it). So we're sticking with the old Blogger.
So it's happening. I'm kind of sad. I don't like change all that much either. But we have to do it, friends. Let's hold hands and walk into that big, beautiful, bright future together. Just promise me you won't leave me if things get weird. We've been together for 7 years. That's longer than most Hollywood marriages. I stick by you, you stick by me. THAT'S HOW THIS WORKS.
We live in the future.
Looking at this picture is like staring into my future.
25 years from now...wearing a big ol' kaftan over my huge belly, walking my yippee little dog, a big smile on my face, just pleased as punch inside my crazy, hippie-loving, new age mind.
Who wouldn't want to share that kind of future, right?
[via]
Looking at this picture is like staring into my future.
25 years from now...wearing a big ol' kaftan over my huge belly, walking my yippee little dog, a big smile on my face, just pleased as punch inside my crazy, hippie-loving, new age mind.
Who wouldn't want to share that kind of future, right?
[via]
