Amber & In Your Dreams

Last night, I had a dream I was in this video.



Like, not wish fulfillment that I was some kind of ballerina background dancer interpreting Just Jack's interpretation of The Cure, but I lived in that exact apartment building.  I was waiting for the super to come see why my microwave wasn't working.  My apartment inside was exactly my current apartment, but it was in that rundown British building.  And it was snowing.

Sometimes, my subconscious is very boring and obvious.

Amber & Portrait of the Ampersand as a Young Man

A friend forwards this found portrait of me.

I love four cats (especially ones wearing birthday hats) and flowers and guitars and boat trips in Alaska and French press coffee and lamps and being at home and yarn and birds (especially owls who say "hi") and cupcakes and ice cream cones and tea pots and boots and rainbows and bees and leaves and other stuff!  The resemblance is uncanny.

Amber & Desire

Sigmund's astral body chuckled with contentment yesterday as I learned an important lesson about the nature of desire.  It all started with an afternoon sweet treat craving and an ad for a Frappuccino on a cup holder that I played with on my desk during a conference call.

Now, it's no secret that I have long been a fan of Starbucks's product, highly-available coffee.  Given my love for the brewed bean purveyor, you might be surprised to learn that I had never tried a Frappuccino.  They just seemed so expensive (I get the misto although I really prefer a cappuccino mostly because it costs about a dollar less) and more like a dessert than a beverage, really.  I've had the ice coffee, of course, and the weird Vivanno blended smoothie drink, too. But, until yesterday afternoon when I succumbed to my yearning, I had never had the Frappuccino.

Well, desire sure is the yearning for a fundamentally lost object, Sigmund.  I'd even go a step further and say it's a yearning for something that one cannot have, that may never have existed.  The Frappuccino?  Crappuccino, people.  Not only wasn't it as good as it was in my imagination, but it was just plain pukey.  It didn't taste anything like coffee, was way, way too sweet, and had a certain waxy thickness about its texture that seemed highly unnatural.  Gross, gross, gross.

Some things we think we want, with all our hearts, are only wanted because they can't be had.  Some things look like delicious sweet treats and we might fantasize about them as afternoon snacks, but in reality those frozen coffee drinks might have been serial womanizers who have horrible, violent tempers who are are registered Republicans.

Ah, desire.  First it's red and then it's blue.  And every time I see a Frappuccino, it reminds me of you.

What flower expresses the kisses, the kisses?

Amber & Seeking, Finding, and the Uncanny

Yesterday after yoga and over a plate of green and creamy huevos rancheros, Diana described the experience of finding a hat that she hadn't realized she had lost in a train station.  She turned and lo!  There was something that she loved and nearly lost forever, returning to her.  The experience was, as Diana described it, wholly unheimliche, like seeing a part of you separated from yourself.

(photo by James)

Diana found the hand of fate in the story, that fate was punishing her for having been careless and making bad decisions by giving her this near-loss experience.  I don't think that's how it works really, but I'm glad fate was lenient and only issued a warning rather than a full time out.  And, I was glad Diana happened to look the right way, or else her head would have been cold.

On the long, long (long, long) A ride home, I was thinking about finding things you didn't know you had lost and the importance of being alert to whatever crosses your path when my new bestie, Joe Pug, described a different encounter: of having faith in finding what is missing and the relief of recognizing when you do find it. "Before we met, I knew we'd meet," Joe sang.

And, I was glad for everything that has happened to me up to that moment.  I was glad for working at MTI to meet Hillary who introduced me to Jeff who gave me the gifts of CRD and Amy Bee, and I was glad for liking the Pixies so that I would have something to talk about with Kevin so that down the road I could meet Diana, and  I was glad for Jimmy's lousy roommate in 3rd Avenue North so that he moved into the Brittany and years and years later we could take a bus to a mall in Madisonwisconsin where I would live and meet Nick.

(photo by James)

I certainly didn't know I was going to meet any of the people who are so special to me, but I certainly hoped it on some level.  People are like a box of pieces from an infinite number of different puzzles.  We never fit together quite perfectly, but some fit together really well and the patterns we form are abstract and complicated and beautiful and something quite different from what we were on our own.

And that made me think of this song.



And somewhere in the middle lies the truth.  You might not even know that you want to find what you're missing, but sometimes you get exactly what you need if you're looking in the right direction.

Or something like that.

Amber & Forks

When you think about it (which I do alot these days), ambivalence is really an expression of the complexity of the human mind.  It's not a bad thing to be able to appreciate a choice isn't either right or wrong, but that there are different consequences and results for each.  Looking on the bright silver lining side, it's actually evidence of thoughtfulness and intelligence to be able to feel two ways about one thing at the same time, or alternately.

The way I see it, with my glasses where the supposedly protective coating is flaking off the left lens or with my contacts where the right eye is an older prescription, decisions are just like math.  You need to add up all of the pros and cons and hope they don't just balance out to zero like a redox equation (to mix my math and science).  The trick, though, is assigning values to the components.  Some factors are more valuable than others.  For example, a bunch of things may all be prickly, but maybe only one of them is also a hedgie.

So, where does that leave us?  Doing alot of math in our heads.

But, while we do math, time makes decisions for us.  While I am adding up the benefits of short hair vs. my Plan, I am cruising along the path to puffs.

For example.

Amber & Le French

You may not know, but Coffee, my on-again-off-again lover, and I broke up again.  I'm totally head over heals for the bean, but we're just not a good fit.  It's not you, Coffee; it's me.  And my shaking hands and acid reflux.

And, I totally recognize that I am on the rebound.  I went back to my old flame, Red Lipstick.  Although I know in the past Lipstick has treated me wrong, it claims to have reformed.  And, I believe it--although I recognize that I may just be taken in by its obvious charms.  Only time will tell.  And my Scramble 2 scores.

When we're going out together, I feel like I can be myself--more monochromatic--just because lipstick is with me.  (That makes Purple my BFF, the third wheel, who will be waiting for me patiently and comfortingly when Lipstick and I are on the rocks again.)  So, today's outfit revolved around a black and white striped t-shirt.  And that made me think of France, and then I had to know why.  So I Googled.  And lo!  It's because of their naval uniforms.

And that made me think of all of the other great things the French have given us.  Herewith, a list of my top five favorite French things.

1.  Striped shirts.

(Even better with red lipstick, which is not French.)

2.  Mayonnaise.  Great with fries, burgers, Sapporo rolls, and turkey sandwiches.  Really, great with just about everything.

3.  Casablanca.  Without Paris, what would we always have?

4.  Jacques Lacan.  Because without the Symbolic Order, I wouldn't have a BFA.  And if I hadn't gotten that degree, I wouldn't have met James or Kevin, and CRD and I wouldn't have half the jokes we have now.  And I wouldn't have really utilized these over-active mirror neurons.

5.  That really great episode of Murder She Wrote where Jessica is in France.

Merci beaucoup, les grenouilles.

Amber & Ducks Mate for Life

If nothing else, I am consistent in my adorations.  See for example, pickles.  (Not Pickles.  About him I can be very fickle especially when he puts the fleece wand on my face at 4 am and then sits on my chest and mews.)  This especially true of my crushes, which I hold onto like Eva Marie Saint clinging to Cary Grant and the eyeball on Mt. Everest (thanks to Steve, who knows the difference between Mt. Rushmore and Mt. Everest).

Speaking of Cary Grant, I am incredibly loyal to my actor crushes. Once I love you on-screen, you can do just about anything, take any bad role, grow old, change your hair and guest star on NCIS, and I will continue to love you diegetically, aesthetically, and dreamily.  Only maybe I will blog about you a little less.  Take, for example, Johnny Depp.

Sigh.  If you've known me for any length of time (or ever had tequila with me), it's likely you know the root story of my love for Johnny.  If you haven't been that lucky (or were just Googling "puff coats"):  In 1987, I watched the premiere of 21 Jump Street, and started to sob--not because the show's tackling of trouble youth was especially effecting, but because Johnny was so damn pretty.  And, I knew I could never have him.  Ah, desire. First it's red, and then it's blue. And everytime I see an iceberg, Johnny, it reminds me of you.

I've seen everything Johnny has made, even Sweeney Todd, even though "seen" there really means squinted at out of one corner of my eye while the window on my laptop was only about two inches wide.  (I don't like scary movies.)  You can make that third lousy pirate film, Johnny, and I will go see it--in the theater!  And I will like it because you are pretty in a white flouncy shirt with bad teeth.  So take that.

The latest test of my love is the Alice in Wonderland posters in the subway.

Now, I love Alice in Wonderland.  (It even inspired my first born laptop name.)  And I love fake eyelashes. And I totally am all about dyed red hair, and hats, and tea, and madness.  But that poster just scares me!  And, I don't think it's a coincidence that I dreamt that I had a weird gap between my teeth last night.  I even tried to avoid the poster by taking a different entrance to the A after Awesome Club, but then I had to sit across from one on the train for 161 blocks!

But, Johnny, I will go see your latest endeavor in the theater, even if it proves to be your scariest role yet.  Because, Johnny, I would pay to watch you breathe.  And my love is nothing if not eternal and hopeless.

Amber & Farley

Last night, my standing Tuesday fun, Awesome Club, was cancelled for lack of any Murders She Wrote.  Instead, CRD and I held an impromptu meeting of Farley Granger Club.

I have a feeling there will be a comprehensive post about Farley's really interesting biography, Include Me Out, once Shorty finishes reading it, so I won't spoil any of the fun anecdotes about working with Hitch or how Rope is all about "it."

We watched Rope last night, drank wine, and ate soba noodles.  Farley is fantastic in the film.  His breathing out acts most other actors.  Like in this scene with John Dall.



I plan to get this excited every time I answer the phone in 2010.

I also plan to wear my hair like John Dall's, whose face shape reminds me of Jonathon Young who plays Tesla (Kevin's archnemisis) on the really mediocre Sanctuary.

Actually, my real plan is to look more like my idol and fellow white-passer Carol Channing.

I think that will involve alot of dye and a comb-over.  And smiling with my bottom teeth.

Amber & Nicky

Sometimes, on rainy days, I am reminded that when I was Little Amber I had an imaginary friend named Nicky. I didn't invent Nicky, I borrowed him from the book I Am a Bunny written by Ole Risom and illustrated by Richard Scarry.
I wrote a song about Nicky, based on the book.

Hop, hop, hop
I'm a little bunny rabbit
Hop, hop, hop
Here I come
I'm a little bunny rabbit in a hollow tree
As... you... can plainly see
Hop, hop, hop
I'm a little bunny rabbit
Hop, hop, hop
Here I come
I'm a little bunny rabbit way down deep in a hole
My worst enemy is
The big black mole

Now, I really had no idea whether or not moles and bunnies got along. But I knew Nicky didn't like moles. We had that in common.

Like me, Nicky wore overalls, and had big front teeth. We both liked to be barefoot. And, we both liked being outside and watching butterflies. Nicky wasn't the healthiest little bunny, and was constantly having to go to the doctor or stay in the hospital bed next to mine. My evidence for this was the book Nicky Goes to the Doctor in which, well, it's pretty self-explanatory.

See how his little underpants have a space for his cottontail to stick out? Adorable... and functional.

The one difference between Nicky's visit to the doctor and mine was that, when he was done, Nicky got a red balloon to take home. Usually, I just got a bunch of nasty tasty medicines. But, Imaginary Nicky always shared his balloon with me, and that made me happy.

I love my friends.

Amber & Oldies but Goodies

Why is it funny?

The foundation of my sense of humor is remembering events that were funny in the Past. If something is funny once, you can be sure I am going to make references to it again (and again and again). There are a bevvy of Jokes of Ye Olde Times that are referenced on an ongoing basis. They are my Modern Classics of Humor.

Some of these are activities, like the Bad Touch game or Boogie Shoulders.

Some are images which have a long history, like this one of CRD riding his bicycle, unclothed style.

There are even phrases which have accumulated so many jolly memories over the years, that they themselves are metonyms for the larger joke. A few of these phrases include "designer shirt" (be careful, that link makes noise), "I'm just resting my eyes," "chaka" (alternately, "bah bah bah"), and "clam fritters!"

Every day, I add new funnies to my Master List. At this rate, by the time I am 60, all I will do is laugh.

Amber & Follow Up

Diana sent me this, perhaps as follow up to this earlier post. Kevin explained to me that Freud wuld say ICanHazCheezburger is funny because we're infantilizing the cats, which was interesting, but also does not explain why the above image is so damn funny.

As Diana explained,

cat + papasan = cute.

CRD should get that papasan since it is his signature color. And fuzzy. And it comes with a cat.