Amber's Journal: Body-Snatching

Episodes May 21, 2026

"It's me again! And I'm sure that you notice something really different about me, right?

"Of course you do! I'm up and moving around! It's a miracle!"

"But it isn't. So what happened is that Katie had, like, a really bad appointment this morning for work, and then her company Uber account is apparently cut off so she had to call Oscar to come and pick her up and when he dropped her off she was in this absolutely awful mood.

"That scared the heck out of me. The thing about Katie, when she gets in one of those moods, is that she can turn super-mean. But she did something totally unexpected. She's like, 'Hey, Amber - why don't you use my body? I just want to check out for a while, so take it and that way you can do what you need to do.'

"And I said sure, so Oscar pulled her head off this body, pulled mine off that broken-back thing I've been stuck in for the last week and a half, and attached me to this. And now I'm back mobile again!

"So I'm about to get started cleaning the house and then I'm going to make dinner, and Oscar and I are gonna have a night to ourselves that I'm so excited for. I'm giving Katie her body back tomorrow morning so she can go to work, and then I'll be back in my paralyzed body again, but for today I'm, y'know, back to normal.

"Or, at least, mostly. Because here's something I'd heard about but now I can say it's definitely true - you're a different Factory Girl in a different body.

"Here's the thing. I'm a little scared of my sister, because Katie is really aggressive and she has a mean streak in her. She's.... dominant, I guess. And you know, that's not me. It's all I can do to hold my own. I try not to be a pushover but I just want to be sweet and make everybody feel good.

"But put me in this body I'm in, and I'm different. Like, I'm still me, but I've got, like, a tornado going inside me and all I want to do is get stuff done. Give me a mission and I'm gonna go kill to get it done.

"Like, I'm irritated doing this journal even though I really want to do it. I know how weird that sounds, but, like, the only reason I'm doing it - like, half of me is, 'this is stupid, why am I wasting time with this?' - is that it's the current thing and I have to get it over with. Because I already committed that I'd be doing these video journals so I could go back and watch them and maybe learn something later, plus I can organize my thoughts better if I'm thinking about things with an eye toward how I'm gonna present them in these journals.

"So I'm committed to the project and in my normal body it's like a highlight of my day. Now I don't even want to, because I'm more interested in doing something physical.

"And I figured it out right away, because it's super-obvious. I'm hard-wired to be somebody's sidekick and so everything about me is that I'm sweet, and I care about everybody's feelings, and I want to look pretty and get attention and just, y'know, love people. But Katie wasn't built for that. She's built to be a worker bee, essentially. So she's tough and mission-oriented and couldn't care less about feelings.

"And I'm like, Katie, you're so mean. And she's, 'what are you talking about? I'm not mean, I just don't have time for your stupid BS.'

"I'm not saying she's right. But 10 minutes in this body and I understand my sister pretty much completely, I think. I mean, I'm not her, even in her body, but it makes me feel completely different.

"So there's that. It's kind of a cool discovery, I think.

"Anyway, I'm gonna get the kitchen cleaned up and there's laundry, and then I need to do vacuuming. Katie said she'd help with all of this, but she hasn't. But that's OK, because it's my mission and now I've got the body for knocking all of this out. So this is me, Tough As Nails Amber, signing off."

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"Hi. Amber?"

"Oh, wow. Erica! You're here!"

"Well, yeah. Except you're supposed to be in bed with a..."

"Broken back. Yeah. I still have that problem, but I'm in my sister Katie's body for the day so I can get some stuff done."

"You switched bodies?"

"Yeah. I know it's kind of wild. She had a bad morning at work and she decided to just check out of the world for a while, so I'm using her body. Speaking of that, two things - first, I apologize if I come off as weird, because I'm, like, literally not myself in this body. It's hard to explain. And second, I'm really embarrassed that this house is so dirty. I haven't been able to clean in like a week and a half, and you're here right before I could get started, and..."

"Amber, it's OK. Oscar and I ate lunch yesterday and he told me about your situation and asked if I would check in on you."

"Oh my God, that's so sweet! Thank you for coming! Can I get you anything?"

"Oh, no. I just came from... well, I'm not going to be here long. I just wanted to, ummm..."

"OK. Do you want to sit down?"

"Sure."

"Oscar told me that your husband is having some health issues. I'm really sorry about that."

"It's a little more than health issues. They told us earlier today that they think his cancer is inoperable. So we're going to continue his treatments for now but, y'know, it's... really bad."

"Oh, Erica, I'm so sorry."

"I just feel like, like my entire world is crashing down on top of me."

"Like that you have this reality that you really like, and you really like yourself in it. And then all of a sudden that reality is gone and you're going to have to become somebody else in order to deal with it and you don't want to."

"That's... exactly it."

“I know this is, like, way too bold to say, OK? And I guess I apologize for saying it, so..."

"Amber, just say it."

"Fine. I think we're pretty much the same in that breaking my back feels like losing who I am. This new body? It’s not me—it changes everything. I bet you feel that with Jim’s illness too, right?”

"Except you have this other body, so you're able to escape the broken back, and I can't escape Jim's..."

"I'm different in this body, though. I can't really be me. And I like myself better in the other body which is paralyzed. And Oscar's saying he's going to get me a permanent replacement and I could very well be totally different in that, too."