I'm DOOONE!

Official NaNoWriMo word count - 50, 057 words. "Ice Skating To Air Supply" is now a raging success. To me, at least.

We WIN!

The goal of raising $500 to support NaNoWriMo has been reached!!!!!

AND you guys have helped us become the #2 TOP FUNDRAISER!!!!!

Special and deep-felt thanks goes out to everyone who donated to and supported - either with contributions, encouragement, or just plain ol' nagging - me in my NaNoWriMo efforts for the last two months. I'm in the homestretch today - only 6,300 words to go!!! - and will announce it here when I'm fully done and validated in my 50,000 word count.

And then, when that's over? Some blogging will happen, I'm going to read a book, and then I'm going to finish the other novel (it's been driving me crazy all month, I can't wait to get back to work on it, which is a really great thing since I had lost a little bit of MO before November), and then I'm going to begin re-writes on this one. I really like it. It surprised me, how easy and just plain fun it was to write. (Oh yeah - in case some of you don't follow me on Twitter, the working title of the NaNoWriMo book is "Ice Skating To Air Supply").

See you when I'm through!!!

I heart Kevin Smith.

I really, really do (and not just because he did Degrassi. But it didn't hurt any).

It's even better that this video is like worlds colliding. I read his autobiography in Barnes & Noble yesterday just before going to see New Moon, and today I saw this -

Happy Birthday, Miley! You're dumb.

I don't think it should come as a surprise to any of you that I hate Miley Cyrus (Megan Fox is also close in the running, for the same reasons). She's just sooo stupid. Nobody wants to hear you talk, Miley. It takes too much attention away from you dancing on a pole during a live performance at an awards show for kids.

These guys think so, too.

Weekend Video Treats - Fans Reaction to New Moon Trailer

Via Jimmy Kimmel -



I'm totally going to this movie tonight. AND IT HAD BETTER BE BETTER THAN THE LAST ONE.

Better.

Thank you, Zach Saueressig, for loving literacy.

Thanks, Zach, for donating to NaNoWriMo! Progress is now at 97%!!

For your Sunday morning enjoyment.

This is oddly mesmerizing and fascinating. Also, incredibly depressing.

So I'm changing my book for NaNoWriMo.

I started out writing Black-Eyed Kids, a book idea I had about five years ago. I still really like some parts of it and would like to take the whole thing to fruition at some point. However, I just couldn't seem to get motivated or inspired to work on it, even though the whole point of NaNoWriMo is to just sit down and freaking write.

On Sunday, inspired by a text from the lovely Erica , I decided to try out something different. I won't go into too much detail at this point because I don't want to lock myself in quite yet, but take the dating posts on this blog - along with some of the other ridiculous crap-trap - and envision it in a book format. The style I use on here is vastly different from my "serious" style of writing (see Many Detailed Things and Romance), which is why I felt it would be enough of a challenge to commit to fleshing it out some of the things I've posted on here in a novel form.

And I was right - it is somewhat of a challenge. However, it's also been completely fun and refreshing, as proved by the fact that I've already written 11,212 words within the last 48 hours.

So, that's what I'm going with. I changed the subject of my book in the middle of NaNoWriMo last year, too, so I'm aware of how much catch-up I'm going to have to do, but I actually want to do it now, all the time.

I want her to be my new best friend. Sorry, Katy, but you just don't get me like she does.

Last night I had a horrible night of sleep. Quite possibly the worst. I'd sleep for half an hour only to wake up from a terrific nightmare consisting of demons coming to get me, or one where everyone's faces in the dream melts into bloody pools of flesh, or another one where Katherine Kersten was trying to be my friend.

The only saving grace of the entire night was turning the TV on around 3:30 am to find an episode of Metalocalypse playing on Cartoon Network. And that is when I was finally able to fall asleep, my friends. Safe in the arms of cartoon Death Metal.

And then this morning, I woke up, checked my Twitter, and saw this.

It's like the whole night was just a tightly orchestrated event, preparing me for one of the greatest announcements of the decade. SLAYER AND MEGADEATH ARE GOING TO BE PLAYING ON FEBRUARY 4TH. MY BIRTHDAY IS ON THE 6TH. IT'S LIKE GOD IS ALREADY TRYING TO TELL ME TO HAVE A HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

G-rod. Maybe G-rad. Maybe G-bad. Hopefully he's a nice lad, instead of a cad. That would make me glad.

On Thursday evening I finally went out on a date with G .

After I wrote that last post, I kind of gave up on G. That is, until I went on a slew of dates and found myself sitting there, staring at my date, and thinking, "I wish I was on a date with G. I bet G wouldn't be this lame. I really wish G had texted me back." So I sucked down my pride (I have a lot of that, so it's kind of a big deal when I do it. Hurts my throat and all...) and wrote him a message essentially telling him about that inner dialogue. He thought that was adorable (duh) and told me that he had simply figured that he had screwed things up beyond repair, but would like to try to meet again if I were willing. "Ball's in your court, playa," was my reply.

And then I didn't hear from him again for two weeks. THEN, earlier this week, he texts me out of the blue, asking if I want to meet up this week. After a texting battle ("He's either totally like me and therefore my soulmate or I'm going to end up killing him," I told Katy, after he kept me waiting for 2 hours for a response from him about time and place), the plan was set for Thursday, 8:30, at The Green Mill.

Around 8 he texted to warn me that he'd be late due to his class ending late, etc. After an astounding round of dates where I have been kept waiting for 15 minutes or more, often with no warning or apology in sight, I was just happy that he told me in advance (aaand observe the process of standards being lowered). I still show up at 8:30 and discover, to my delight, that the bar is packed due to a Thursday night football game. So I'm standing in the corner, awkwardly, waiting for G and praying that "late" means 5-10 minutes. Nope. And as it always happens when you're waiting for someone who's late, everyone notices, and thus, I get pulled unwillingly into a really awkward conversation. As I'm looking around, hoping to spot him just on the horizon so I can be saved from talking to this people, I spot a guy walk in, sporting blond hair and a Canadian Tuxedo. He looks just similiar enough to G's pictures that I start to hyperventilate a bit. "No, God, please, not him...please, God, don't let that be him...not after yesterday, God, really?!"

It wasn't him. Thanks, God. I don't owe you one yet, but keep those coming and I will!

He finally shows up, and I immediately forgive him for being late because it's obvious that he was late because he had showered, which was also apparently paired with the application of great cologne. It's amazing what I will forgive in the face of great cologne.

Here's the interesting thing about having been on a copious amount of online dates: Instead of it being commonplace, when a guy shows up and he actually looks like his pictures, it's like you're getting special gift. "Oh! Look at you! You look like you!" And G? He looks good. I'm not sure what it is - is it because I'm 30 and evolutionary stance is causing me to become more attracted to burlier men because they're more apt to be all testoteroney, aka more likely to turn me into a baby-maker? Hmm - but lately I've found myself really digging the manly-men. I wasn't like this before. I always wanted someone sensitive, lanky, possibly with translucent skin because it usually meant they were inside all the time, pouring through tall dusty stacks of incomprehensibly brilliant tomes of poetry or some shit like that. But lately I've been really digging on the broader chest, the arms that could easily lift you up and throw you onto the bed, and just the overall "I'm a guy" thing. And you wanna know why? Because those are the guys who will kiss you when you need to be kissed, who will have the courage to ask you to slow dance when Journey starts playing, and who will be the big spoon all the time.

So, to sum up, G is hot. And he's funny. Funny, as in "Wow, I'm actually laughing at what you're saying instead of just smiling and saying "That's Funny" funny. He's also smart, and I was already thinking about how I wanted to kiss him after only being 5 minutes into the date (have we talked about that yet? The imagining-the-kiss-thing on a first date? Because we should), and he even told me how awesome it would've been if I would've worn my Mystical Wolf t-shirt on the first date, because he totally would've gotten it. And he probably would have.

During our date, we talked about his bartending job. After he mentioned that he closed on Saturday nights, I threatened to come in and harass him while he was work - although the way I said it was totally cute and adorable, of course, not all freaky and stalkerish like I just made it sound...maybe, I think - and he was like, "You can come and visit me at work. That would be nice." Then the date ended with the whole "this was fun, hug!" thing.

"Okay, Patrick, I have a question for you," I told my friend Patrick on Friday night, after we had met for late night beers at the Mill (I'm a creature of habit. Sue me). Sitting in a darkened corner, we rested our heads against the dark wood of the walls and began a lazy conversation about dating. "Let's say you go on a first date with a girl, and you dig her. The date's great, whatever, you're getting the vibe from her that she likes you. Do you A., ask her out for a second date before the first date is over? Or B., wait to call her later? And if it's B., how long do you wait to call her?"
"You never ask for another date before the first date is over."
"Really? Never? Never ever?" I wondered. "But girls like that."
"It's too eager."
"Okay, then how long do you wait to call her?"
"Usually I give it until the night of the day after."
"So at least 24 hours."
"Yeah. Never the morning after. The morning is for stalkers."

And while I don't like Patrick's rule - I wanna know NOW if you wanna go out with me again! That way I can plan out what our first time is going to be like and how I'm going to introduce you to all my friend and start figuring out what song is going to be our song - I do have to respect the widely-popular stance of it.

On Saturday night I went on a girls night with my friends Jen and Ang. One of the stops we made was to the bar where G works.

It was awkward. And weird. I walked in and immediately realized that this has been a poor decision on my part. Even though he had said that a visit to his work would be nice, I instantly felt like a stalker from the moment I sat down at the bar ("But see, that's why you're not one," my old pal Jules tried to tell me this morning. "If you were one, you wouldn't know the difference between when you were being one and when you weren't. It's like what they say about being insane." "Yeah, but," I retorted, "I bet if I were insane you'd support me and tell me that it was totally fine and excusable, too." "Well yeah, because I'm your friend."). And then, after he asked us what we would like to drink and I ordered a beer, he kind of smirked and was like, "A beer. Wow. Adventurous." Cue my friend ordering a mixed drink, him gushing about making them, and I instantly wanted to sink into the floor.

That, along with some more moments of being delighted with my stunningly pretty friend and her drink choices, was the low point. High point: When Ang and Jen took a break from the bar, he did actually make a point to talk to me a number of times (and called me "tiger". See, Paul Saarinen?! It doesn't take much to make me happy).

So the jury's out. I don't think he'll call, given the fact that I actually would like him to and the fact that I didn't get an overwhelming "That Amber chick is alright" vibe from him last night. Ang and Jen think that he will.

As of present time, I'm giving him 48 hours. And then it's on to the next one, and the next one, and the next one.

This whole dating thing is kind of getting depressing.

I believe the word "Trainwreck" would be the most eloquent way to describe it.

I've been on some bad dates.

And when I say this, I mean to say: I've been on some bad dates that you would never want to have been on. You wouldn't hear about them and say, "Well, gee, I wouldn't mind going on that date! It'd be kinda funny and entertaining and then I could blog about it, too!" No, dear reader, you couldn't. One of my gifts in life is being able to take horrific personal events, find some type of ridiculous humor within, and then blog about them for your amusement. It's like a barter system with God. He gets to continually squash any hopes that I may harbor for a functional, meaningful, and mature relationship, and I get to blog about it and have people tell me that I'm funny.

So this particular date on Wednesday evening came as somewhat of a surprise. I thought I'd seen it all: 10 years older than stated age and picture; a startling resemblance to Doc Brown in Back To The Future, an excruciating amount of crotch grabbing and belching; creepy pudgy forearms; insulting stories and anecdotes about how they are better than me in every way; extolling the virtues of dating younger women when you're a senior citizen (but not, however, younger women who would have the nerve to order a six dollar glass of wine on a date...HE IS NOT MADE OF MONEY YOU KNOW!); already planning our holiday trips and how we'll meet each others' friends and family and dogs when we've only just started the first date; and a three hour tirade on Lance Armstrong, the Federal Reserve, and how America should just totally suck it.

And now this!

So we met on OkCupid.com. He had noticed that one of my photo captions mentions Hayward, WI, and messaged me to query about whether I had lived there or just visited on vacation. I told him that I had lived there in my early twenties, he tells me he grew up there, so great, we have something in common. From his pictures he looked like a cross between Carrot Top and Shaun White, which was actually kind of intriguing in a way. You ever meet someone that you, at first, think is really super ugly, and you're like, "NO WAY", but you keep an open mind because you dig the whole personality thing and you're hoping that, in time, his face will grow on you? Yeah, that's how I felt about my last boyfriend when I first met him.

And look where that got me.

So we're exchanging messages and he tells me that his name is Timbre, and do I know what that name means? First off, don't do this, guys. Don't do the thing where you think you're asking a fun and challenging question but only because it requires that she learn more about you. I understand that sometimes our childhoods were not that great, and that our moms didn't always come up to our rooms at the end of the school day to sit on our bed and to listen to us talk about our 3rd grade hopes, dreams, and lunch table interactions, but if you feel like there's not enough people in the world who are interested in who you are, start a blog and force it upon them. Don't kill it before it's even gotten out of the gate by making it clear that you only want to find someone to date so you can have someone with which to talk about yourself more.

So I write back and state the meaning of his name correctly and he offers to buy me a drink to reward me for my intelligence. I like it when people buy me drinks, so I say yes. We agree to meet up on Wednesday.

Wednesday rolls around, and while I'm at work I suddenly realize something: Do you know how Timbre is pronounced? According to the Webster's Dictionary, Timbre is pronounced as "TAM-ber". Hello. My name is Amber. So that means that TAMBER AND AMBER ARE GOING ON A DATE.

Here is how the date goes, in order of events:

1. He is 20 minutes late.

2. He calls me. I pick up, I can't understand a word he says, and then I turn and look to see him walking towards me. Sidenote: I really, really hate it when people consider my cell phone to be a radar honing device. Open up your fucking eyes, walk around the place, and LOOK. It's one of those seemingly small things that actually start to signify a lot.

3. He is super, super, super unattractive. Did you ever see the movie Mask? Not the one with Jim Carry, but the one with Eric Stoltz and Cher? He looked like that, only less physically deformed so I couldn't even feel bad for him.

4. First topic of conversation: I Just Got Fired From My Job, But Surprise! It Wasn't My Fault.

5. 2nd topic of conversation: I Hate My New Job and Have To Smoke A Lot of Pot Just To Get Through It.

6. 3rd topic of conversation: My Mom Was A Bitter Control Freak And My Dad Was An Abusive Alcoholic.

7. 4th topic of conversation: Two Years Ago I Dated A Girl Who Said She Was Divorced But She Was Really Only Separated. This includes the choice phrases: "She went away on a month-long trip to China with her estranged husband and his family, and when she came home she broke up with me because she said it wasn't going to work out. No, it's because you went to China and had sex with your husband for a month and now suddenly I'm not good enough for you." and "Don't lie to me. I don't like liars."

8. 5th topic of conversation: MCAD Sucks Because They Want You To Make The Art That They Want You To Make, Not The Kind of Art You Want To Make, But They'll Give You D-'s Instead of F's So They Can Pass You Onto The Next Course And Still Make Some Money Off Of You Because They Are Soulless, Barren, Blood-Sucking Dicks.

9. 6th topic of conversation: I Was Going To Go To UW-Superior To Finish Up College, But Then My Dad Hit Me Because He's A Drunk And So I Moved Out And That Was The End of That. *Cue a couple minutes of awkward, horrified silence *

10. 7th topic of conversation: I'm Kind Of In The Middle, Because I'm Kind Of A Punk But I'm Also A Conservative, So My Punk Friends Get Really Mad At Me For Driving A Luxury Car And Liking Nice Things. But Whatever, Because Our Government Totally Sucks Anyway And Personally I'm My Own Person And I Don't Identify With Just Any One Political Party. Sidenote: Gentlemen, has this worked for you in the past? Is this known as a tried-and-true routine in your dating report? Because I cannot tell you how many guys will state the whole "I don't identify with just one party" line and then look over at me with a smug half-grin, as if expecting me to slam down my drink, grab him by the shirt collar and say, "You're such a renegade. Let's do this right here, right now." Which I won't do, because you saying that you don't identify with just one party is pretty much akin to you saying that you think just like everyone else.

11. 8th topic of conversation: Oh, You Know Some Of The Guys I Went To School With? I Hated Them In High School. I Got Made Fun of A Lot In High School And People Picked On Me All The Time. Join the club, buddy. That's why it's called "High School."

12. And this is where I bid him adieu, after paying for my own drink (no, he didn't offer, even though he used it initially to get us to meet) and sending a panic-text to Ang to meet me at the nearest bar as soon as possible.

Total time of this date? One hour.


Image Via

I'm already pretty good at getting myself into awkward situations on my own. I really don't need your help.

So OkCupid.com has this new feature called the "Ice Breaker", where they tell you that they've found someone who shares a particular interest with you. Such as, let's say, "campfires". Fun, right? I like campfires. I like people who like campfires. However, the catch is that you can't see who they are until you send them a message and they reply back.

Um, fuck you, OkCupid. Stop trying to get me to write messages to people. I am completely comfortable in my passive state of just sitting back and letting other people write me messages. However, as I usually do whenever there's any amount of mystery or suspense involved, I caved and wrote the person a message.

And I will never do this again, because double fuck you, OkCupid - he's 39, lives in IOWA CITY (that is NOT in my search criteria, OkCupid), is ugly, and wears a black leather jacket (The JC Penny kind). So now he's writing me flirty messages, because he didn't quite get the point that I wrote him in the first place because OkCupid told me that I couldn't find out who he was until I did (which means that he's also probably pretty dumb) AND NOW I HAVE TO FIGURE OUT A WAY TO ESSENTIALLY DUMP HIM, ALL BECAUSE OF OKCUPID AND THEIR LITTLE MIND GAMES.

Also, sidenote - this is what his profile says -

*

I am not, so, and happy.

My Self-Summary

I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.I hate this place today.

You should message me if

you think that's a wise move.

*

Nice work, OkCupid, setting me up with a depressive psycho. Way to build up my trust for the next awesome match you have for me.

I'm also really into sitting around my room and listening to "Amanda" by Boston lately. It takes up a lot of my time.

Today, while I was procrastinating because I didn't want to sit down and face the fact that I'm 2,000 words behind where I should be for NaNoWriMo, the thought occurred to me that I miss my old book. The one that made sense, that had a discernible plot, the one where I knew exactly who the characters were and how everything was going to turn out. The one that was basically already written, but just needed to be fleshed out and edited a bit.

And then, this afternoon, I realized that, when I finish NaNoWriMo, I'll have written 3 novels. One just needs two more chapters to be totally - TOTALLY, I'm TOTALLY HAPPY WITH IT AND WILL NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ELSE IN IT EVER AGAIN - complete, the other one needs about two more months of work on the 3rd draft, and this one, the one I'm working on for NaNoWriMo? I just need to freaking write the shit out of it.

So, basically, I've written 3 novels this past year. That is astounding to me. And part of me keeps thinking that it doesn't really count until I have the finished product in my hands, ready to be sent off to that super scary and utterly terrifying place called Agent Land, but still. Three novels. In one year.

AND, I just used my crock pot for the first time today by making one of those Coca-cola pot roasts! It's like a year of miracles, this one.

From Ang's Facebook status from last night -

"Saw an amazing pack of Cougars out tonight, and made a pact with Amber to protect each other from aqua net, bedazzeled jeans, and bejeweled tops should we still be single in 10 years. We must remain strong."



It's true. We must.

And it's not even a prelude. I totally could've copped out by just posting the prelude, but I'm about quality. In case you didn't already know.

My #NaNoWriMo 2009 novel excerpt has been posted here.

I will only post more if people pledge more. Wanna know why? Because that's how I roll, bitches.

Also, because I care about literacy.

BUT MAINLY BECAUSE THAT'S HOW I ROLL.

NaNoWriMo 2009 has officially begun!

And per usual, I've been spending most of the morning editing instead of actually writing.

As a way to keep myself involved both in NaNoWriMo and on this blog, I'll try (emphasis on "try". I am not great with follow-through. You know this) to keep you guys involved in the process. This may include excerpts from the book. I am hesitant to make that definite, since I usually like to edit the shit out my stuff about 20 times before I feel it's ready for any form of public consumption. But, the point of NaNoWriMo is to write with abandon, so I'll try to keep within that motto. For this month, at least...

You can check out my novel info here.

To give you a little taste of what kind of book it is, here's the soundtrack I've created for inspiration:

Black-Eyed Kids:
1. Damage I've Done, HEADS
2. Vampires Will Never Hurt You, My Chemical Romance
3. Hands In The Sky (Big Shot), Straylight Run
4. The Pioneers, Bloc Party
5. Marble House, The Knife
6. Running Up That Hill, Placebo
7. Silver Bullet (Acoustic), Hawthorne Heights
8. Have You Got It In You?, Imogen Heap
9. Attack, 30 Seconds To Mars
10. Infra-Red, Placebo

If you've been thinking of donating to help fund literacy programs for youth and adults, it's still not too late. We're at 92% of our goal, and only need $40 more dollars to reach 100%!! Go here to join in this great cause.