Wonderland

Today I leave SoCal for a life up North. San Francisco, to be precise. I am extremely excited and cannot wait!

First though, I must do homework, then try to go to sleep. Get some paperwork filed tomorrow, farewell breakfast with Randi, psychology study experiment, then the bank, and lunch with Phoebe before going on the ride up with my lovely roomie Jasmine and her boyfriend, Matt.



My home for the next six days, in Union Square :)
It is fate this hotel. It is within close proximity to dozens of clothing stores, the job I desperately want, and by the grad school I almost applied to.

So I might be gone for a few days. I'll return to everyone's blogs as soon as I can.
Fate and I are going on a date this week.

Love to you all,
Heather

Ocean of Tears

I remember it like it was yesterday.

You stood in front of me in your beige trench coat and fedora on your head. You carried a worn briefcase in your hand, stubble on your chin, and lines creased underneath your droopy eyelids. You were so beautiful and familiar to me and I knew I adored you.

We are not in a happy place. I know this by the way I carry myself with my arms folded across my chest, wearing this old navy blue velvet dress, retrieved from the recesses of my childhood closet.

Still, I will not allow us to end. I beg, I plead with you as we both stand together, our feet sinking in the sand by the ocean waves. I cannot hear what I've said, the wind rips my words out of my throat and carries them somewhere else.

Those droopy eyes are mourning everything I say and unrelenting to the fat tears rolling down my pale cheeks. Your weathered hand touches my cheek, grazing it softly, only once.

You turn to the ocean, its waves parting in that gray sky. You turn away from me and walk into the ocean, calmly. Steadily. It swallows your legs first.

I scream from my place in the sand and drop to my knees sobbing, "Come back! Come back!" I can hear my voice, at last, a desperate guttural gasp from within. Every independent bone in my body is ashamed of that voice.

You don't, the sea swallows the man of my dreams.

And I wake up, dry in my bed, with the sound of jackhammers outside of my open bedroom window, and my cheeks stained with tears.

My school day was lost that day and your face haunted me all that day.

But I never met you before. I wonder if I ever will again.

Please come back to my dream machine. Please.

Love to you all,
Heather

Dream Dress

*Image courtesy of WeHeartIt.com

**I don't know if I ever state this, but I don't own the images used in this blog. They come courtesy of weheartit, flickr, google, and various photography/celebrity fan sites.

This is my dream dress. Isn't it just marvelous? I've always held a fondness for monarchs in my heart. Though I would not dance with any boy in this dress. A butterfly is fragile, and they would surely break the wings with their clumsy dancing and want to grind up against me.

I've never seen anything quite like it before. If any of you know who the designer is, I would love to get in on that bit of knowledge!

Love to you all,
Heather

She's Spinning, She's Spinning!

"She" in the title is me.

When I was a little girl, I used to spin really quickly in a circle just to achieve that sweet dizzy feeling that made the world stumble with you and shift down to your level. I did this in the house, outside of our house, and out on the busy sidewalks with my parents.

"She's spinning, she's spinning!" My Dad would exclaim, and for years after, this became one of his favorite ways to describe me as I grew momentarily disoriented from the constant turn, turn, turn of my revolution.



On Tuesday evening, it was time to get Disoriented again. Senior Disorientation was held at Bogart's restaurant which is basically a dinner for the senior class of 2010 filled with lectures about life post grad from alumni. A life more ordinary and less extraordinary from the way the speakers presented it.

There was a breakdown about bills that was extremely unrealistic (apts. were right on, but I've already begun paying my student loan back and it is in no way less than $150 a month), discussions about health care plans, and that we should begin socking away two grand a month for retirement. Never mind that most people really cannot do that on a beginner's salary and if you want to have kids that grows even more difficult.

Also...resumes are looked at for a total of 30 seconds, and every job you apply for has at least 1000 other people applying for the same position. You should never date a guy under 26 because they are apparently gold diggers (while I highly wonder where they picked up that sort of factoid, I believe it), and your friends will no longer live right next door to you!!! Yes, they included 3 exclamation points.

As an aside, a woman who lectures on the art of dressing professionally ought to do so for such a dinner, don't you think? One of the speakers was not well dressed for the occasion at all, the one who rattled on about suits and ties and skirts.

You know how this made me feel?



I wanted to jump out of my chair, abandon the truly terrible pasta, and run for it.

Seriously. In order not to fall down the morose hole, I joked with my girlfriends at the table about anything I could to avoid feeling depressed. Eventually though, I did something better and just tuned the speakers out (not hard at all to do, the sound quality was terrible).

I don't like to be talked down to and will not tolerate having anyone tell me how my life is supposed to feel, to be, how I should act in society. When I defy these thoughts, with a joke or express the way I really feel, some people tend to look at me almost sympathetically or worse, contempt.

"Oh Heather. She truly lives with her head in the clouds." is the sympathetic response.

"God, I hate it when Heather starts running her mouth on life. She clearly has no idea what the real world is like. I know. I've been there. She's just a spoiled girl who doesn't understand. Maybe when things don't work out for her and when people hurt her enough, she'll get it through her skull once and for all." is the contempt.

I'm okay with these thoughts because I do know people have them about me. I even think them about myself sometimes, but deep down, I know things will be okay.



Here's how I would have run the show if I had any say in any event like this.

Disorientation is an ugly name to refer to "growing up" as. I hate the name and in my eyes, that is the first thing about the event that needs to go away. Throw it out and never, EVER, refer to life as being disoriented.

We are all spinning right now, and in our lives, this spinning is working just great with the right mix of friends, family, homework, and social life. In a few months, we will stay spinning, but in another direction with the world shifting in another way. Just because we're growing up doesn't mean we're losing everything!

Class of 2010, my loves, it has been an infinitely long journey that has stopped and started again in all sorts of ways. I want everyone to know that right now, right in this moment, we have everything to gain, and everything is possible.

Once we stop spinning, the world will be shaky, but after a deep breath (or two), things will realign themselves and will work out for the best.

Just be yourself and do what you makes you feel happy. I emphasize the words "happy" and "feel" because they go hand in hand. You want to pursue all of the things in life that thrill you, motivate and drive you. When you feel so strongly about what you are passionate about, everyone will be able to tell. And you will be happy! Don't work hard at something that will take you on a miserable journey to achieve. Do what you enjoy and all the world will spin you in the right way.

Oh, and as far as job interview apparel tips go, just make sure to get your suit tailored, be able to walk confidently in your heels, and ask your interviewer lots of questions. I don't know about you, but I'm far more fascinated in the lives of others than just little old me.



Come on baby we ain't gonna live forever
Let me show you all the things that we could do
-4eva, The Veronicas

Love to you all,
Heather

Disney Magic

Hmm, I'm feeling awfully nostalgic today. Shall we set sail for the most magical place on Earth via my favorite Disney films? Of course!



Have faith in your dreams, and someday
Your rainbow will come smiling through.
-Cinderella

My favorite movie to watch on VHS as a kid. When I am asked what Disney princess I could be if I choose (not the princess I most act like, mind you), it is always Cinderella. I came away from this movie believing that if you work hard and are a kind human being, good things will inevitably happen for you. With this logic in mind, I believe that anyone, no matter how old or young, can have a real-life Cinderella story.



And from this slumber you shall wake, when true love's kiss the spell shall break.
-Sleeping Beauty

Another blond princess I enjoyed as a little girl. When I was 18, one day I was having a miserable day, but trying to turn it around with a some lunch from Panera Bread. Usually when I eat, I like to watch movies or TV, so I went into my room and found an old copy of Sleeping Beauty. The perfect companion! Sure, she's not the most engaging of princesses, but the fairies are amusing in their war to make her dress blue. Or is it pink?



I don't see how a world that makes such wonderful things, could be bad.
-The Little Mermaid

This entire dinner scene cracks me up. It took me many years to like this movie though, mostly because I could not get over that she gave up her beautiful voice for a guy she never had a conversation with. All of the musical numbers and Sebastian and even Ariel wound up winning me over in due time. Sometimes I need to really employ a suspension of disbelief with Disney. Plus, dingelhoppers!



And for once it might be grand, to have someone understand. I want so much more than they've got planned.
-Beauty and the Beast

A classic and the very first movie I saw in theaters at the age of 4. I still weep during it. There's not much I can say to describe the film except that it is about learning to be around those who are different from you and embracing that difference rather than running from it because it is unlike you. For years, my Dad would clip out newspaper articles about this movie for me to read. It was also the first Disney film to be nominated for an Oscar in Best Picture (though not the last...)



He's got the outfit, he's got the elephant, but we're not through yet! Hang on to your turban kid, we're gonna make you a star!
-Aladdin

Like any good kid growing up in the '90s, Robin Williams made me laugh, laugh, laugh. Mrs. Doubtfire, Ferngully, and The Birdcage were among my favorites of his. Therefore, simply by the presence of the Genie alone, this movie is on my list.



Uh, I mean, uh, sorry you had to see that, but you know how it is, when you get those manly urges! And you just gotta kill something! Hm... Fix things, cook outdoors--
-Mulan

Girl power! I could cut my hair and pose as a boy in the army to fight on behalf of my father. Well, not really. You see, I have three brothers who would most likely take that position for me and some defined womanly curves that really would prevent me from ever being mistaken as a boy.
This soundtrack, by the way, was pretty much the classroom favorite in 5th grade. My teachers played music while we worked on homework or class assignments and Mulan was the soundtrack of choice, with all of the original songs, the Christina Aguilera one, and the Stevie Wonder song about being true to your heart. Good times!



You've been a very kind friend to me when I had none, and I would never want to make you unhappy or cause you any trouble, so... I'll go. I wish you every happiness.
-Enchanted

This was the last movie I saw in my childhood theater before it closed up for good. Enchanted I deeply enjoyed, with the live action interspersing well with the animation. Amy Adams is cute as can be and the perfect princess though I'm fairly certain that when you first arrive to New York, it is a lot meaner, dirtier, and Patrick Dempsey doesn't rescue you from a billboard. Again, suspension of disbelief, suspension of disbelief. Cute musical numbers, sweep me away!



Define dancing.
-WALL-E

Oh, Pixar. You and the geniuses there can take me away to new worlds and old ones better than anybody else. In this case, you took me to a future where Earth is a big landfill where a plucky robot named WALL-E is still cleaning, unaware of the fact that he is the last robot around doing so. He meets Eve, another robot sent to find signs of life there, and falls in love. Cannot blame the guy, Eve is adorable, like a little hovering ghost. WALL-E made me teary-eyed, appreciative of nature, definitely against sitting in a chair for too long lest I never get out, and brought in some more of that wonderful Thomas Newman score that I love so much.



My name is Dug, I have just met you and I love you!
-Up

You will cry during this movie. Many times over, but mostly in the short 4 minute "Married Life" scene. I did. I still do. And that evoking of emotion alone was enough to make it one of my favorite Disney/Pixar films ever.

What are your favorites?

Love to you all,
Heather

Pure Charm and Grace

“Edie was incredible on camera – just the way she moved. And she never stopped moving for a second – even when she was sleeping, her hands were wide awake. She was all energy – she didn’t know what to do with it when it came to living her life, but it was wonderful to film. The great stars are the ones who are doing something you can watch every second, even if it’s just a movement inside their eye.”
-Andy Warhol on Edie Sedgwick



Didn't we all fall madly, hopelessly in love with Miss Edith Minturn Sedgwick at least once in our lives? I still fall for her today. I used to know girls who were completely in awe of her and built their fashion sense directly from hers. I still do. Edie is eternal, you know?

Love to you all,
Heather

Being Grand

When you look back on your childhood, it all seems so simple and uncomplicated. That is precisely how it was for me.

As a little girl, I attended a private school that did not officially embrace a uniform policy until the sixth grade. Until then, my brother and I were notorious for being the best dressed children there. I had a closet filled with frilly dresses, shorts, shirts, blouses, jeans with sparkles, fancy shoes. Mom put ribbons in my hair in pinks and lavenders and mint greens, some of my favorite colors back then.

I spent most evenings as a child and later as a teenager at the department store Dillards where my Dad worked part-time. It was like being Eloise at the Plaza for me. Everyone working there knew my brother and me and each evening, we raced through the men’s dress shirts, ties, suits, and underwear aisles to get to my Dad’s department, men’s shoes. We played in the stockroom there, careful not to knock the shoe boxes over. I loved to talk to his coworker David, with his winning British accent, and his boss Ann, the tallest, most blond beauty girl I have ever met (really, ever). Don, in the suits department, who was brilliantly handsome and made me smile just like my Dad, and dear, sweet Kathy who made sure I always had the prettiest shoes to wear that fit my actual size.



Then, with my Mom and Earl, I’d go to other floors of the store and try on hats in the women’s hats and gloves section. Sit underneath the gowns in the petites department and collect the sequins that fell off in paper drinking cups. Try on red patent heels and slowly totter down the fragrance aisle and back up again. Sit on a display bed and pretend that I could really sleep there for the night. By 9:30pm, we would all be in the car driving back home, my Dad, Mom, Earl, and I. We would stop for ice cream cones and arrive back a little after 10pm where I did all of my homework in a hurry before going to sleep.

Dillards was my second home. I could walk in that store and travel throughout the adjoining mall blindfolded and never once get lost. Walking around each evening with my clothes scented like Givenchy and giggling with my brother as we raced up the escalators together. Sometimes I sat down on the escalator step and saw that world, so up high, so brimming with life and the happy tunes of a piano playing in the background.



When I close my eyes, it’s like I’m seven again. The feelings are all the same, I’m still there, running, and trying everything on, and people are still smiling and being grand. There is no sadness, no fury, no loneliness or fear of the future. Just all of these kind souls embracing the day in a way I haven’t seen since.

A spell was cast to change everything. I began to get angry in the store and act rude in public. My Dad quit his job there. Dillards as a whole closed down due to lack of business as did the rest of that mall. The spell was broken when I turned 18 and I woke up. And I cried, because that place of wonder was no longer a part of my life.



15 years have gone by, but if I close my eyes tight enough, and just concentrate long enough, I see the bright lights reflecting upon my Mom’s auburn hair, the glass display bottles of perfume, the carefully arranged blue ties on the table, and a little girl with curled brown hair racing down to her Dad, laughing freely and fully the entire way.

Love to you all,
Heather

Girl Crushes

Over on the right hand side of my page is a section called "Inspirations" which features four fabulous ladies that are constant sources of well, inspiration to me. I thought I'd take a moment from doing the obvious (a post related to the Oscars or my insufferable pile of homework) to say why these women are here and how it happened.



Eva Green

She's the ultimate for me. Eva has long been my facial inspiration, with her vampy makeup. Seeing as I've always had the Snow White look (pale complexion, red lips, and insanely dark hair that is often mistaken as black...and yes, one of these days I will put up some photos of myself), I admire women who kind of look that way also.

Though she's remembered for her role as Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, I will always know her as Isabelle in The Dreamers.



After seeing this movie (repeatedly) I was besotted with her and also wanted to recreate the outfit seen above. Red beret, velvet dress, casual cigarette, and mirthful eyes of mischief.

Eva was born in Paris, France which I feel is the style capital of the world. French women are so chic and lovely! My friends and I have discussed this constantly; these women just know how to carry themselves in a way that captivates an entire room. It's that certain something, je ne sais quoi, for sure.



The many humorous faces of Miss Green.



Dita von Teese

How can I not love someone whose former name was Heather Sweet? Dita is quite possibly one of the most gorgeous and well-dressed women alive today. And even when she's half-dressed, she's still elegant. Her waist, I've learned, measure 17 inches when corseted. Wow!



What I admire most about Dita is that her look and clothing is not something that gets put aside for the weekend for sweatpants, flip flops, and a Snuggie. Even when going out (see above photo), she wears a dress and matching heels. A nod to a bygone era that, in my opinion, never goes out of style.



Christina Hendricks

Once upon a time, I lived in complete and total ignorance of the show Mad Men. It was on the air and generally, I was home Sunday evenings, but I had no idea what went on in the world of Sterling Cooper or even what the premise was about.

In the summer of 2009, I began watching and fell in love. The advertisements! The one-liners! Don Draper! The clothing! And Joan Holloway, played by Christina Hendricks in all her curvaceous glory!

Note to self; ignorance is not bliss.



Granted, she doesn't dress like Joan outside of the show (that would require wearing a girdle which I don't think anyone would go for), but Christina inspires me with her marvelous figure. I know I've done posts on her before, but in a world where being above a size 2 on the cover of a magazine happens on the 5th of never, Christina makes a wonderful role model for ladies out there with curvier bodies. She's very much refreshing to me, as I have a figure that resembles Lindsay Lohan's in Mean Girls and much less of someone like, say, Kate Bosworth.

Plus, I love her red hair! So Raphael-esque. I still have not decided if I want to go red myself or not.



Zooey Deschanel

She could very well be my long-lost sister, Miss Zooey. I have to say, it was 500 Days of Summer that I started to notice her in. That movie, I think it is safe to say, must have inspired girls across the world to get bangs and load up their wardrobes with periwinkle shades.

Zooey's pretty, that's for sure. Beyond that beauty lies her talent. She's an excellent actress and an even better singer, both for She & Him and as a guest vocalist for M. Ward. Her sound is has an old-fashioned twang that is quite splendid to listen to when on a walk.



She reminds me of actresses from long ago, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, all of those '20s inspired flapper girls. Zooey would be right at home in a novel by Fitzgerald.

Who are your girl crushes? C'mon, I know you have one!

Love to you all,
Heather

Walt and Alice

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
-Walt Whitman



I am minimal right now, dreaming of looking like The White Queen, having this old quote from many years ago come back this morning, and well, yes, look at the time, it is morning after all. That crept up quickly.

Love to you all,
Heather

Bound By Words

These little grey cells. It is up to them.
-Agatha Christie

On Monday, I went into work at my tutoring job with my laptop. I try to not bring it with me because a) it's a wide screen and b) the fans blow extremely loudly which makes it sound like she's gonna blow at any moment.

I had no appointments though so I was a free woman there. Lots of required work to do, but that wasn't what I drifted into. I opened up my word document to this story I've been writing since 2008. February 14, 2008 to be precise.

I never forgot that day. It was Valentine's Day and I was at my community college, with the wacked out schedule I had with classes ending at almost seven in the evening and absurdly large pockets of time in between class to do homework. I had dressed up for the day in pinks and reds and whites. My shoes, a pair of pink skimmers, kept sliding all over the ice on the streets and I almost fell in a heap of tulle skirt on the floor of my capstone classroom from coming in from outside.

It was during this class that I started thinking about The Lost Stories. These were all penned when I was younger, in high school, middle school, grade school. Notebooks and hard drives filled with them. They say that when you write and don't stay with it, you drift from that idea to a new one. Clearly evident by the number of stories in my notebooks that were half-finished as though I said "be right back" and decided to show my face 20 years later.

Out of the lost, came the found. Almost instantly, I felt the characters for my next endeavor pop into my mind's eye. They were perfectly imperfect and filled with flaws, faults. Just the way I like 'em.

So I decided to skip my 5:30pm math class and take the bus home and begin writing. The ride was impossibly slow, but during that time the people grew less blurry in my head. Visible, outlined, full. I slipped and slid (oh, those damn skimmers) all the way home from the bus stop.

I refer to this story as "the impossible love story" often. Nobody knows that I'm 150 single spaced pages deep and that I constantly go back and forth self-editing, cutting scenes, expanding others, etc.

Because I seldom discuss my work with people (not because I'm afraid someone will steal the idea or anything, mostly because trying to explain how the wheels in my head work is tougher than it sounds), I won't talk about this one much. It isn't done and still needs lots of work.

However, I will mention that it takes place within a large family. I like to write about family dynamics because the people you are bound by blood with can be the best ones to write about. It comes as no surprise to anyone that I deeply enjoy Wes Anderson films, Igby Goes Down, and Arrested Development, all very inspiring to me.

There is drama, loss, humor, and that age old attempt to look at yourself and see things clearly for what they are. My protagonist often blows into her reflection in mirrors because she doesn't like the idea of seeing herself clearly.

As for the impossible love, it's everywhere. There are many subplots in this, involving the family members and the journey of love they all take with each other and those outside of the family.

So on Monday, I put the world aside and went back to my other world with those characters. It felt better than heaven to me.

Writing is what I do. It's therapeutic to me. I take all of my joy, all of my sorrow, all of my hopes and dreams and fears and weeping and give it to them, the people in those stories. The people who are in my head and who I spend so much time thinking about.

Whenever I feel lost, I instantly reach for words to write all of my thoughts out. Sometimes I throw them away afterward but I keep them sometimes to remember that feeling, remember how it felt to feel that way.

One of my professors refers to how I write as "organic", something I've never heard before. I like it. To me, that means fresh and natural, at ease.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever make more or less sense to me than writing does.



Love to you all,
Heather

A Life So Brilliant

Throughout my busy days, I'm setting aside small pockets of time to do what I love, daydream, and think. I thought I'd share with all of you everything I adore right now.



Ribbons and silk. I like touching, feeling, wearing materials that ignite the body.



I had a dream last night that a deadly virus infected the human race. Everyone was fine, except the virus caused everyone to lose the skin on their faces. So we all just walked around, skeleton skulls, no eyeballs or brains, but still able to tell who was who by what they wore and their mannerisms.
A boy ran by wearing the same outfit as Max from Where the Wild Things Are, crown and all. He had his face. He was a survivor.
In my dream, these people with faces could not be trusted. They were wild and careless and threatened our way of life. I woke up as we were plotting to find the boy.
My dreams have been so strange lately. I'm still running, still falling, still crying, but I think I'm getting stronger. I don't want that though. My dreams are where I stay vulnerable.



Cassie from Skins, my new favorite show. I devoured the first season over the weekend. It's a show on E4 about a fictitious group of teenagers living in Bristol, England. Skins is scandalous, sexy, provocative, and beautiful. You can't not watch it and not feel like you wish you were a teenager.
Cassie is my favorite character. She is a lovely girl in her lovely dreamworld, though her reality is much harsher. She has an eating disorder and parents that don't pay attention to her. I cringe when I see her on screen because the actress who plays her does a damn fine job.



Here is my spring break destination. I'm off to a city I've never been to, with very little money to boot, but I just know with San Francisco. I know I'll find a job there (naturally my apps are going out there this week). To stand with two feet on the ground of a world you don't know may be frightening to many.
To me, it is liberation.
I have a very strong, positive feeling about this. I feel like Vianne from Chocolat most days. The Northern wind pulling me in certain directions. I go when I feel it is time, and now, I do feel Northern California is just right.



Friends! I have the best roommates and friends, both at home, on campus, off campus, and in the blogosphere, that I could have ever asked for. My friends are darlings, beautiful inside and out. And they all make me laugh more than any one girl ever could :)



Perfect by Depeche Mode is one of my favorite songs this week.



Last Night in Paris by Moam is also another favorite.



"...Katie knew this was the man she wanted. She'd ask nothing more than to look at him and to listen to him for the rest of her life. Then and there, she decided that those privileges were worth slaving for all her life. Maybe that decision was her great mistake. She should have waited until some man came along who felt that way about her. Then her children would not have gone hungry; she would not have had to scrub floors for their living and her memory of him would have remained a tender shining thing. But she wanted Johnny Nolan and no one else and she set out to get him."
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

I LOVE THIS BOOK. Best thing I've read in a long, long time.
I see bits and pieces of myself in Katie Rommely.



Banana wearing a top hat. Stylish fruit :)



Hipster sock monkey...I want one of these? Kinda? It might wreck the perfect white stuffed plush thing I currently have with my stuffed ghosts and Pillsbury Doughboy though.

Love to you all,
Heather