Amber L. Carter's Blog, page 88
May 13, 2011
Look at THIS shit.
God, I love having a blog where I can just swear all I want.
Anyway - two HUGE, BIG things have just happened for HOLIDAY CHICK.
Okay...maybe one HUGE thing and one it's-kind-of-big-but-maybe-just-to-me things.
First -
HOLIDAY CHICK IS NOW $5.95 ON KINDLE.
Second:
The (almost) complete Holiday Chick Soundtrack is now available for your listening-pleasure on Playlist.com.
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I'll upload the songs to each chapter after the excerpt from each chapter is posted on the Holiday Chick Tumblr Project. And then you can listen to the songs and reread the chapters over and over and over again! Someday soon - or maybe in a couple of hours, if I'm really bored - I'll make a space just for stuff like this, either part of this blog or as a stand-alone one. Because I only have 5 blogs, you guys! Might as well add another one, right?
For the record...
I'm not changing my blog header until the weather finally starts hitting a consistent temp of 50 degrees or higher.
Because until then, changing it would JUST BE A LIE.
Because until then, changing it would JUST BE A LIE.
I have also made plans to become a prize fisherman. The world is changing, my friends....and I am changing with it.
I really don't have much to blog about this week, since moving up north. I haven't run into any mysterious and devastatingly attractive woodsman while walking in the forest at twilight. I haven't had a dangerous-yet-exhilarating run-in with a bear yet (though that has happened before, when I last lived here). I haven't gotten into any dramatic fights with my parents, or rowed my canoe across the lake during the pouring rain, or had a mystical moment with a wolf under the moon.
In short, I haven't done any of the things I said I was going to do when I decided to move up here.
It's been pretty quiet around here. Beautiful, relaxing, incredibly fulfilling, but...kind of boring. I was trying to explain it to Katy the other day - I'm doing everything that's really important to me. I'm training for an new challenge, I'm building my business(s), I'm writing (I'm writing! I'm WRITING! More on that later), I've started doing this form of spiritual study (I don't wanna talk about it yet), and I'm spending time in the forest, on the lake, under the stars.
But there's also this little part of me that is a little scared I'm going to lose all my social skills, by being up here. Like I'm going to turn into Nell and end up wandering the forest alone, in an old house dress and a pair of Uggs and my hair in matted, messy braids. I've gone out once since I've been here - to see the Festival Director of the Chequamegon Fat Tire, Gary Crandall, speak...which was super fun and entertaining but I also went with my mom and the room was filled with people at least 20 years older than me - and to be honest, I think I've lost the mood to really go out. Going out means taking time from writing. And I'd rather save that for when my friends come up to visit (so come and visit, jerks!). Also, let us not talk about dating...it makes thee sad.
But fear not, dear readers, that I'm about to lose my cool. I'm not. There's the internet, and the pimped out cable package over at my parents house, and today Daniel comes home (!). If anything, this is going to be a return to the Spooner days, when I used to post, like, 2 to 3 times a day, and depended on all of you for my social interaction.
So congratulations. You are now all an integral part of my life. Please tell me the news of the outside world. What are the new slang words that the cool kids are using these days? Have we started a colony on Mars yet? What's the deal with that Bieber kid now? When's the new season of Oprah gonna come on? Have you guys heard about that new show, Glee? It looks good, right?
Oh! And because I would like to make a living up in the forest without having to get up on the pole at Phipps, you should think about going to this, because they gave me a code for off ("RIPLEY") of tickets to share with you and all your friends. I always said I was going to sell out, you guys! And it's here, the day has come, it's finally happened.
In short, I haven't done any of the things I said I was going to do when I decided to move up here.
It's been pretty quiet around here. Beautiful, relaxing, incredibly fulfilling, but...kind of boring. I was trying to explain it to Katy the other day - I'm doing everything that's really important to me. I'm training for an new challenge, I'm building my business(s), I'm writing (I'm writing! I'm WRITING! More on that later), I've started doing this form of spiritual study (I don't wanna talk about it yet), and I'm spending time in the forest, on the lake, under the stars.
But there's also this little part of me that is a little scared I'm going to lose all my social skills, by being up here. Like I'm going to turn into Nell and end up wandering the forest alone, in an old house dress and a pair of Uggs and my hair in matted, messy braids. I've gone out once since I've been here - to see the Festival Director of the Chequamegon Fat Tire, Gary Crandall, speak...which was super fun and entertaining but I also went with my mom and the room was filled with people at least 20 years older than me - and to be honest, I think I've lost the mood to really go out. Going out means taking time from writing. And I'd rather save that for when my friends come up to visit (so come and visit, jerks!). Also, let us not talk about dating...it makes thee sad.
But fear not, dear readers, that I'm about to lose my cool. I'm not. There's the internet, and the pimped out cable package over at my parents house, and today Daniel comes home (!). If anything, this is going to be a return to the Spooner days, when I used to post, like, 2 to 3 times a day, and depended on all of you for my social interaction.
So congratulations. You are now all an integral part of my life. Please tell me the news of the outside world. What are the new slang words that the cool kids are using these days? Have we started a colony on Mars yet? What's the deal with that Bieber kid now? When's the new season of Oprah gonna come on? Have you guys heard about that new show, Glee? It looks good, right?
Oh! And because I would like to make a living up in the forest without having to get up on the pole at Phipps, you should think about going to this, because they gave me a code for off ("RIPLEY") of tickets to share with you and all your friends. I always said I was going to sell out, you guys! And it's here, the day has come, it's finally happened.
May 10, 2011
May 6, 2011
When you think about it, all this blog really is is Smart Talk. And Real Talk. And Hot Talk. And maybe Fun Talk, when I feel like it.
Let me tell you a secret...a long time ago, I had really bad hair. So bad, in fact, that it was kind of a nightmare. You know those little girls with long, silky hair? The ones that are in Gap Kids ads and in Easter candy commercials and in painted portraits in museums? Yeah. Me, too. You know which girls are not in Gap Kids ad or Easter candy commericials or in painted portraits in musuems? White girls with short, thick, curly hair that looks like a rat's nest on a bad day and a wind-blown 'fro on a good one.
It was the bane of my existence that, when all I ever wanted was long straight hair, what I really had was naturally thick, curly hair that my mom insisted on keeping short. Seriously, I still get a little heated and upset towards my mom when I think about it...how could you keep cutting my hair short when it looked so ugly that way? Why would you keep doing that to me when you knew that all I wanted was to have long flowing princess hair?
I guess, though - when I'm feeling super mature and well-adjusted and in tune with the tides of the moon - I should thank my mom for it. After all, if I had gotten the hair that I had wanted, I probably wouldn't have been so unfortunate-looking, and then I would have had friends, and then my childhood would have been happy and easy and fun, and then I wouldn't have developed such a keen sense of feeling that people are going to automatically think I'm ugly and so I better have a sparkling personality and winning sense of humor tucked in my back pocket to help ensure that I don't have to sit by myself like a 3rd grade pariah all the time. So, thanks, Mom. If it wasn't for the alienation that your personal grooming choices caused me in elementary school, I may not have turned out to be such an amazing, independent, smart, deeply-insecure-but-masked-by-hilarity young woman.
But anyway.
So in the 6th grade, I had to get another one of these haircuts. In those days, the bob was in. In case you don't remember it, the bob is another word for "Let's make your hair as poufy and curly and round as possible so that your face looks really, really fat." Also, one thing that you learn when you have naturally curly hair is that other people love it a lot more than you do. A lot a lot. I've grown into it - I've learned to embrace it, to like it, to revel in it as something that's perfect for when I'm on the beach, or making love in the rain, or...yeah, that's pretty much all that it's perfect for - Bbut when you're young and certain that everything you don't have is everything you should in order to be really happy, you don't want your naturally curly hair. You want straight hair, or at least hair that's not quite so...poufy. But no one else wants this for you. In fact, you'll have stylists tell you that they flat-out refuse to give you the straight perm you so desperately want because it would ruin your curl. The curl that they love. And then they will rat out and fluff out and spray out that curl so much that you have a hard time walking through narrow doorways.
So after another one of these haircuts, I came to school the next day, cringing over the new bob that I had gotten the night before, hoping that my classmates wouldn't make cracks about sticking my finger in a light socket or loving Michael Jackson too much. But on this day...my 6th grade homeroom homies were actually nice to me. "I like your haircut," Chad said to me, as he swung himself in between two desks. "Yeah," my one and only friend Annie said. "It makes you look like Sigourney Weaver."
Sigourney Weaver. It was the only time I had ever been compared to someone who was actually attractive, much less a kickass actress. If this bob makes me look like her, then maybe it's not so bad...I thought to myself, as I patted the hardened-by-hair-spray helmet hair I was now sporting. It was the first time that I actually remember somewhat maybe liking my hair, and my hair cut. And it was all because of Sigourney Weaver.
Which is why you should go see her, when she comes to Minneapolis for a SmartTalk Connected Conversation event. In case you don't know what SmartTalk is, it's this cool series where empowered and entertaining women (Bette Midler, Ann Bancroft) tell their life stories and speak on what it is to be a woman in their particular sphere.
In the words of Miley Cyrus, it's pretty kewl.
And your old pal Amber is such a big deal that she gets to hook you up with a 15% discount on tickets. Just use the code "RIPLEY" when you order your tickets (the word on the street is that there's a limited number of seats still available, but I'd snatch yours up asap, especially since it's a pretty great Mother's Day gift) and you'll be good to go. And you should go. If only to pay homage to one of the people who made me who I am today, and thus, who made you who you are today.
And while this is an event that's marketed as something great for women to do... Men, let's face it. This Weaver chick? Hot. In terms of being a sci-fi babe, she's one of the originals, and one of the most badass. So you should probably go, too. Also, if you brought a date to this? It would be basically like buying tickets to Make-Out City.
Sigourney really likes Make-Out City, too, I bet. Less aliens and stuff there.
It was the bane of my existence that, when all I ever wanted was long straight hair, what I really had was naturally thick, curly hair that my mom insisted on keeping short. Seriously, I still get a little heated and upset towards my mom when I think about it...how could you keep cutting my hair short when it looked so ugly that way? Why would you keep doing that to me when you knew that all I wanted was to have long flowing princess hair?
I guess, though - when I'm feeling super mature and well-adjusted and in tune with the tides of the moon - I should thank my mom for it. After all, if I had gotten the hair that I had wanted, I probably wouldn't have been so unfortunate-looking, and then I would have had friends, and then my childhood would have been happy and easy and fun, and then I wouldn't have developed such a keen sense of feeling that people are going to automatically think I'm ugly and so I better have a sparkling personality and winning sense of humor tucked in my back pocket to help ensure that I don't have to sit by myself like a 3rd grade pariah all the time. So, thanks, Mom. If it wasn't for the alienation that your personal grooming choices caused me in elementary school, I may not have turned out to be such an amazing, independent, smart, deeply-insecure-but-masked-by-hilarity young woman.
But anyway.
So in the 6th grade, I had to get another one of these haircuts. In those days, the bob was in. In case you don't remember it, the bob is another word for "Let's make your hair as poufy and curly and round as possible so that your face looks really, really fat." Also, one thing that you learn when you have naturally curly hair is that other people love it a lot more than you do. A lot a lot. I've grown into it - I've learned to embrace it, to like it, to revel in it as something that's perfect for when I'm on the beach, or making love in the rain, or...yeah, that's pretty much all that it's perfect for - Bbut when you're young and certain that everything you don't have is everything you should in order to be really happy, you don't want your naturally curly hair. You want straight hair, or at least hair that's not quite so...poufy. But no one else wants this for you. In fact, you'll have stylists tell you that they flat-out refuse to give you the straight perm you so desperately want because it would ruin your curl. The curl that they love. And then they will rat out and fluff out and spray out that curl so much that you have a hard time walking through narrow doorways.
So after another one of these haircuts, I came to school the next day, cringing over the new bob that I had gotten the night before, hoping that my classmates wouldn't make cracks about sticking my finger in a light socket or loving Michael Jackson too much. But on this day...my 6th grade homeroom homies were actually nice to me. "I like your haircut," Chad said to me, as he swung himself in between two desks. "Yeah," my one and only friend Annie said. "It makes you look like Sigourney Weaver."
Sigourney Weaver. It was the only time I had ever been compared to someone who was actually attractive, much less a kickass actress. If this bob makes me look like her, then maybe it's not so bad...I thought to myself, as I patted the hardened-by-hair-spray helmet hair I was now sporting. It was the first time that I actually remember somewhat maybe liking my hair, and my hair cut. And it was all because of Sigourney Weaver.
Which is why you should go see her, when she comes to Minneapolis for a SmartTalk Connected Conversation event. In case you don't know what SmartTalk is, it's this cool series where empowered and entertaining women (Bette Midler, Ann Bancroft) tell their life stories and speak on what it is to be a woman in their particular sphere.
In the words of Miley Cyrus, it's pretty kewl.
And your old pal Amber is such a big deal that she gets to hook you up with a 15% discount on tickets. Just use the code "RIPLEY" when you order your tickets (the word on the street is that there's a limited number of seats still available, but I'd snatch yours up asap, especially since it's a pretty great Mother's Day gift) and you'll be good to go. And you should go. If only to pay homage to one of the people who made me who I am today, and thus, who made you who you are today.
And while this is an event that's marketed as something great for women to do... Men, let's face it. This Weaver chick? Hot. In terms of being a sci-fi babe, she's one of the originals, and one of the most badass. So you should probably go, too. Also, if you brought a date to this? It would be basically like buying tickets to Make-Out City.
Sigourney really likes Make-Out City, too, I bet. Less aliens and stuff there.
May 5, 2011
I'm now officially up north. In the woods. Deep in the forest.
So, I did these awesome video posts every day since I got up here. And then I tried to upload it onto the blog, and then I found out that YouTube is no longer compatible with Casio cameras, which means it's going to take longer to upload it, which means that there's almost no point in doing it now.
So.
Hello.
Welcome to my life up north.
Things I've learned since being up here:
1) It's really fucking cold in the cabin. I do not remember the cabin being that cold...but I wake up in the morning and then walk outside and realize that it's colder in the cabin than it is outside. Which will be great in the hot summer weather. In the 32 degree weather that is a northwoods spring...super sucks, y'all.
2) The fruity smell I kept noticing each time I turned on the water or the weird taste when I would drink it? Oh yeah, that was anti-freeze that my dad put in the well to keep the pipes from freezing over the winter. Which is not uncommon, but it just hadn't been flushed yet. Apparently Pooks is much smarter than me, because she wasn't having any of it.
3) I am amazing at building a fire in a fireplace. And if you don't believe me, you can ask Pooks.
4) I am so great at building a fire that I accidentally burned a hole in my Artcrank shirt the other night. Was super sad about it. I got the shirt by being a volunteer, and it was part of my favorite outfit. #sadness#
5) I am super, super, ridiculously out of shape. At least, compared to ten years ago. Which is changing, but still. Holy crap.
6) No matter what it's for or who it's with, I will be taking advantage of social opportunities. I'm too afraid that if I don't, I'll turn into that woman who roams the woods in two braids and Uggs and spends all her free time with her parents.
Oh wait. I already have.
7) I'm also really good at meditation. I only need to do it for, like, 5 minutes and I'm done.
Okay, that's it. I have to jet over the cabin now to write. Because I don't have internet there! And I've been living like that for 4 days now and I'm still alive!
I'M STILL ALIIIIVVVVEEEE!
Please don't forget about me.
So.
Hello.
Welcome to my life up north.
Things I've learned since being up here:
1) It's really fucking cold in the cabin. I do not remember the cabin being that cold...but I wake up in the morning and then walk outside and realize that it's colder in the cabin than it is outside. Which will be great in the hot summer weather. In the 32 degree weather that is a northwoods spring...super sucks, y'all.
2) The fruity smell I kept noticing each time I turned on the water or the weird taste when I would drink it? Oh yeah, that was anti-freeze that my dad put in the well to keep the pipes from freezing over the winter. Which is not uncommon, but it just hadn't been flushed yet. Apparently Pooks is much smarter than me, because she wasn't having any of it.
3) I am amazing at building a fire in a fireplace. And if you don't believe me, you can ask Pooks.
4) I am so great at building a fire that I accidentally burned a hole in my Artcrank shirt the other night. Was super sad about it. I got the shirt by being a volunteer, and it was part of my favorite outfit. #sadness#
5) I am super, super, ridiculously out of shape. At least, compared to ten years ago. Which is changing, but still. Holy crap.
6) No matter what it's for or who it's with, I will be taking advantage of social opportunities. I'm too afraid that if I don't, I'll turn into that woman who roams the woods in two braids and Uggs and spends all her free time with her parents.
Oh wait. I already have.
7) I'm also really good at meditation. I only need to do it for, like, 5 minutes and I'm done.
Okay, that's it. I have to jet over the cabin now to write. Because I don't have internet there! And I've been living like that for 4 days now and I'm still alive!
I'M STILL ALIIIIVVVVEEEE!
Please don't forget about me.
May 3, 2011
May 2, 2011
It keeps you running
This morning I'm kind of going through homesickness, in this really weird way. I haven't even left Minneapolis yet, and already I miss it - and everyone in it - so much that I kind of want to cry.
I blame my friends. You know that thing where you have one of the greatest nights, and the rest of your life, every time you think about it, you get kind of nostalgic and wistful and sad because you know that the stars are never really going to align exactly like that again? That's what Saturday night was like. Chels, Matt, and Karah threw me the most fantastic going-away party ever - beers, campfire, an easy listening playlist, and most of my best friends in attendance - and even though every night with them is epic in some way, Saturday night makes the Top Ten list. And I know that I'm going to see them again in a few weeks, but right now - as I sit in a Starbucks, trying to finish up some work before I pick up my friend Adam from the airport and head north - I'm missing them so much that my chest feels tight and achy from trying not to cry. Listening to the Doobie Brothers also doesn't help...reminders of good times with friends is a little painful when you're staring down the barrel of a somewhat-hermit-like summer existence.
And I'm excited to go, I'm excited for this summer. It's going to be pretty revolutionary for me - and every area of my life - to be up there. But right now I'm wondering why I ever thought this would be a good idea, and if, instead of gong up north, I can maybe just buy a tent and live in the Slawson's backyard for the rest of the summer so I can always have them around, all the time.
I blame my friends. You know that thing where you have one of the greatest nights, and the rest of your life, every time you think about it, you get kind of nostalgic and wistful and sad because you know that the stars are never really going to align exactly like that again? That's what Saturday night was like. Chels, Matt, and Karah threw me the most fantastic going-away party ever - beers, campfire, an easy listening playlist, and most of my best friends in attendance - and even though every night with them is epic in some way, Saturday night makes the Top Ten list. And I know that I'm going to see them again in a few weeks, but right now - as I sit in a Starbucks, trying to finish up some work before I pick up my friend Adam from the airport and head north - I'm missing them so much that my chest feels tight and achy from trying not to cry. Listening to the Doobie Brothers also doesn't help...reminders of good times with friends is a little painful when you're staring down the barrel of a somewhat-hermit-like summer existence.
And I'm excited to go, I'm excited for this summer. It's going to be pretty revolutionary for me - and every area of my life - to be up there. But right now I'm wondering why I ever thought this would be a good idea, and if, instead of gong up north, I can maybe just buy a tent and live in the Slawson's backyard for the rest of the summer so I can always have them around, all the time.
April 28, 2011
Best. Invitation. EVER.
My friend Chelsea made this.
Yeah. She's pretty talented.*
That's pretty much why she's one of my best friends.
Me and talented people... It's like we're drawn to each other or something.
*Wanna see what she can do for you? Hit me up and I'll put you in touch with her smarts.
