If you're a subscriber, I apologize. I'm re-launching my blog but I have to tweak the design first so I've thrown up a couple of dummy posts to help me with formatting. Most of you probably subscribed so long ago you don't even remember what this blog was about! I trust you made a good decision by subscribing. Promise I'll be back with REAL content very very shortly! Thanks for your patience.

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Last test to make sure this is up to par

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checking out how two entries look
And again

Some kinda quote yadda yadda goes here
blah blah dah dah dah testing testing
haven't pulled this one up in a long time

Testing testing testing blah blah blah

Continue reading "Testing 2">>>

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Getting this blog back on its feet again. Need a test post to tweak my templates.

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Earlier this summer while attending my brother's all boys private prep school high school graduation, I couldn't help but home in on something incredibly tragic. It wasn't the sea of khaki and bowties or the overabundance of navy blue sport coats and Lacoste boat shoes present. It wasn't even the fact that my brother's graduating class had all of like ten black kids--or the tragedy that ten black males is actually quite impressive for the average private east coast school. No my dear friends, this offense was far more egregious. Seated in the crowd of proud parents, I spotted a modified mullet.

Seriously, people does this really need to be said? Apparently so. It didn't work for Steven Segal or Michael Bolton so what pray tell makes people think this look is even remotely attractive? Sure we can all agree that the mullet of the 80s was scandalous in its own right. We all prayed to God that trend would never ever return. Unfortunately, the next iteration of that fiasco can be seen above. So for all who have ever wondered, here are my two cents: if you are a man at no point and again I say at no point whatsoever should your hair be at varying lengths such that certain sections can be put into a ponytail while others cannot. Not only is it not acceptable; it's not cute. Let it go brotha...let that back bit of hair go.

Past Faux-Pas
- Geometry Gone Wild
- The Grizzly Bear
- The Blue-Haired, Gun Tights Wonder
- Stripey Girl
- The Pimp

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So I have this fish--his name is "Edward." He's a betta fish and I've had him for almost four years now. As far as I'm concerned, four years might as well be 250 in fish years. Never in my life has a fish survived my care longer than two weeks. When I was a kid, I always won a goldfish or two at the annual church carnival. I'd bring the fish home (to my parents’ dismay), plop them in a glass pitcher, and a week or so later, they'd die. Honestly, I never thought much of it. Though I must say whenever the topic of goldfish comes up, I am reminded of the Cosby Show. Why? For every life scenario, there is a Cosby Show episode begging to be referenced. When seeking out wise counsel in life the order of operations is such: God, The Bible, and then The Cosby Show. The second episode of the series featured the death of Rudy's pet goldfish, Lamont, followed by a bathroom funeral that would make any pet jealous.

My dead fish never got funerals.

As an adult, I thought I'd turn over a new leaf. I'm not really the fish-owner type. Real fish owners talk to their fish daily, eat dinner on TV trays and know all the answers on the "Wheel of Fortune." I'm of the persuasion that fish tanks have a dentaloffice-esque feel about them and personally, I like to make distinctions between my home and my last root canal. So for me, the betta fish was a good compromise. They don't need large tanks and they're really low maintenance. My kinda fish!

When I first got Edward, I had no idea whether he was male or female or even how to tell. I took a chance by giving him a masculine name. It turns out I was right on (Thank God). The last thing a fish needs is an identity crisis. To make matters worse, "Edward" was purchased from Wal-Mart. Not even a fish deserves that type of legacy. Did you know Wal-Mart sells fish? Wal-Mart sells everything. If Wal-Mart could sell happiness, I bet they would. That fact notwithstanding, I still detest Wal-Mart.

Almost four years later, I've nearly killed Edward about a dozen times and he's still alive and somewhat kicking. I recently realized I don't have much time to take care of him any more and last week I made the decision to put the fish out of his misery. We live on the waterfront so I had this grand plan to dump Sir Edward into Lake Washington. I visualized him swimming to his heart's content, free from that mean black lady who never changed his tank water. That is until Andre (my husband), questioned my motives:

Andre: Do you even know if that type of fish can survive in the lake?

Me: No. But I'm sure he'll be fine!

Andre: So you mean he could possibly die?

Me: ..........

Andre: Whatever. Just make sure you're doing the right thing. That is another life and you need to be a good steward of it.

Who knew that getting married meant you have your own live-in judge AND jury? Yippee! I suppose it's always been my dream to marry a man who could use the word "steward" in every day conversation while also managing to send me into a downward spiral of conviction. Sexy I tell you. "Make sure you're doing the right thing" is Andre's code for "REPENT of your sins you wretched woman!" The most non-animal-loving, anti-pacifist man you will ever meet was defending a fish!. He was right though. What I planned on doing would probably kill the fish. It was just my chicken way of getting rid of him without flushing him down the toilet.

A few days passed and after mulling it over for awhile, I decided to put an ad on Craigslist to give away Sir Edward, the betta fish. It may go down as the silliest thing I've ever done, but at least I won't be answering to God (or my husband) on why I killed that darned fish. Then it happened. The responses. Oh my the responses! Nearly a hundred people replied wanting to rescue dear Edward from my care. A fish. They wanted to rescue a friggin' fish!

It was at that point I had my moment of clarity. Yes people, there is a point to this useless saga. There are two lessons to be learned here. One, Craigslist rocks and two, if one hundred plus strangers can show that much care, concern, and enthusiasm for a stupid fish whose presence or lack thereof will minimally impact the earth, America has got a heck of a lot of repenting to do for the unborn lives we've allowed to be killed on our watch. I can assuredly say there are generations desperately in need of the genius, the creativity, and the warrior-like spirit undoubtedly found among those never given a chance to live.

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I'm back again. The summer in Seattle and about 32 weddings to attend, along with my general distaste for much of the direction of this blog kept me away. Needless to say, I'm changing up the pace a bit and incorporating more freeform writing. Should be fun. I have some fun updates too. One of them involves being on national television. More on that later.

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This past weekend we flew to Virginia for a graduation. At my parent's house, we're all sitting around the family room and the following discussion takes place. Another to file under disappointingly humorous conversations with my beloved mother:

Mom: Hey Ambra, remember that Cap'n Crunch Commercial you filmed?

Me: Totally. Would you believe I called Quaker Oats a few years ago to try to track down the tape?

Mom: And?

Me: They were very helpful. I described to the them the commercial, the production company, the year, and the cast: a little black girl and a white boy. They quickly sent me a tape. I popped it in and unfortunately it was ANOTHER little black girl and a white boy. Who knew Quaker Oats had such diversity.

Mom: Did you tell them it was for the Christmas Crunch cereal commercial in particular?

Me: Yes, but maybe I got the year wrong. Oh well. One day when I'm famous and on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno", they will track it down for me and play it as one of my "embarrassing clips."

Mom: Did you know you made like $8,000 from shooting that commercial?

*Silence*
Me: Um, all I ever got was a $1,500 check.

Mom: Yeah that was union pay for the actual day of the shoot. Your residual income was like $8,000 for the holiday months.

*Silence*
Me: What the heck? I never saw or knew about that money.

Mom: I know. We spent it on your private school tuition.

Me: Without my permission? What if I didn't want to spend it on that? I mean, I was in 8th grade; I wasn't exactly a little kid.

Mom: Private school was expensive. The money was invested well.

Me: Man, I feel like Gary Coleman up in here.

*Silence*
Me: Gary Coleman, Emmanuel Lewis, Macaulay Culkin, and Ambra Nykol on the next E! True Hollywood Story

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If you're in the greater Chicago area, my husbo and I will be on air tonight as guests during the beginning of the hour, 7:00 pm (CST) on the McClendon Report - WVON 1690 AM. I'll be talking about the blog, online media and our new podcast.

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Nine months ago today, I embarked upon a wonderful journey. Though unremarkable to most, a nine month anniversary pales in comparison to my parents' twenty-six year marriage and especially my grandparents' fifty years of matrimony. Heck, we're not even a year in but every milestone for me is pretty tremendous considering the dismal standards our society has for marriage. Don't get me wrong. We deserve no pats on the back. It's not as though I'm waiting for the moment when I can yell out "Hey, we've made it longer than Tori Spelling!" God help me if I ever use celebrity schizophrenia as my measuring rod for a successful marriage.

Throughout our engagement, Andre and I battled the evil forces called "wedding planning." If ever there were a shady racket to be found it is in the wedding industry. Only could a bridal salon get away with charging $300 for a piece of tulle by calling it a "bridal veil." During the whole arduous (but fun) process, we constantly reminded ourselves not to spend more time planning our wedding (an event) than we did planning our marriage (a lifetime). I would say we did about 60/40 and the result was an awesome wedding and thus far, an awesome marriage.

I haven't been at it long, but I can already say marriage ranks second on my list of best decisions I ever made. No doubt the single life is fantastic. If you are not married, live it up. Being unmarried has its own set of wonderful benefits and let me just say I managed to milk every last drop out of those benefits and I'm so glad I did.

By many standards, I got married young. Though at 24 (the age I was when I wed), in some countries I'd have five children and a goat by now. I am of the mind that maturity more than age should determine when a person is ready for marriage. I am also of the mind that history has proven the power a collective society has in determining exactly what the age of maturity is. In America and in many other countries, we associate the age of responsibility with the ability to drive a car, buy cigarettes, alcohol and obtain credit--not exactly good indicators of much of anything let alone maturity of an individual. One generation casts low expectations to the next, expectations are met and those expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Today, we generally deem the average 21-year-old very immature.

I always knew I'd marry young. My general nature is fairly driven so a casual relationship here or there would never fly with me. If I was going to be in a relationship, it was for the long haul or not at all. The upside to that perspective was that we went into our marriage without a lot of the usual baggage. If I had to make one recommendation to all you future married-folk out there, the less baggage the better. I would do the baggage-free dance if one existed, but I think the funky chicken will suffice. If you have baggage, spend some time lightening your load before you join with another person in holy matrimony. It will make a world of difference.

I've struggled with how much of this aspect of my life I want to share online and I'm not sure I've come to a clear resolution. One thing I know for sure - we are in dire need of more clear-minded voices speaking out on the topic of marriage so if I can contribute my humble bit, I most certainly will.

So happy 9-month anniversary my dear. Here's to many many more (except in the future I would prefer to celebrate in 12-month increments, thanks).

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