Coming Attractions...

I might be broke and throwing myself into my work at a speed beyond 200%, but this is never going to change. It's time to welcome the next month with open arms and fun plans. And the first of these plans is occurring in less than 20 days.

If you can't tell by the above photo, I'm on my way (again) to the happiest place on earth (my Mom thought I was going to say San Francisco, haha, actually pretty much everyone I know did come to think of it. They also guessed New York. Close, but no cigar) which is....

DISNEYLAND!!!!!

I cannot wait! I'm going with my old college roommates (how freaky does that phrase sound?) and it's going to be amazing. Rides all day (Splash Mountain is re-opening from the winter months), mint juleps and churros, firework show, those fat, delicious, half-baked cookie dough cookies from Main Street, seeing the Disney princesses (Cinderella, yay!)...this list really never ends.

I'm not a Disney fanatic by any means, nor do I jam on amusement parks in general but damn do I love Disneyland. Most of this has to do with the fact that I grew up on Disney and unlike crappy amusement parks, their rides work and aren't run by toothless carny dudes in wifebeaters.

Also, this next part is going to sound bad, but I love the overpriced everything they offer. There is seldom a moment in an adult life or otherwise that you can justify spending over six bucks on a slice of pizza or $12 on a mug with Ariel's face on it. With Disneyland, the justification comes in:

a) Dude, I haven't been here since 2009. I don't come here often so it's worth it.

b) Awww! I'm making a memory with my family and/or friends! so it's worth it.

c) I'm being forced into being an adult and I didn't sign up for it. JUST LET ME ENJOY THE STUFFED SIMBA AND RIDING SPACE MOUNTAIN 12 TIMES IN A ROW BEFORE I HAVE TO DISCUSS 401K OPTIONS. OH DEAR GOD WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN so it's worth it.

d) I just like spending money. Even when I don't have it. This might be classified as a problem later on in life for me. But for now, let me bask in young twenty-something ignorance...so it's worth it.

All of the above in one form or another apply to me.
This blog speaks from experience.

I would also like to see Rapunzel, if she's around. I watched Tangled a few weeks ago and enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. She's adorable.

And Flynn Rider...dayum son. Prince Eric, you may have a competitor in the Hot Disney Dude Showdown.

2 days later, I have a date with the Roxy Theatre to see my ultimate icon...

DITA VON TEESE

OH

MY

GOD

There will be pictures, I promise you. Me and one of my closest girlfriends are going to see her burlesque show. I cannot even tell you how excited I am. It sounds a little like this: fergjerghergulrnfutkewyjtx

Basically, anytime I think my day sucks (which is a really rare occurrence these days), I think of these good moments coming up and life is so incredible, it's practically shooting ice cream out of rainbows at me.

Here is a quick photo of me (my hair dominates the photo) with my newfound love from Perricone Farms. Strawberry Lemonade. It's delicious, comes in a fat little pouch, you can get them from most Bristol Farms and Albertsons locations, and only a dollar a pouch. Go get one now, your summer will rock with them!

Love to you all,
Heather

Within the Next Five Years Plan

Doesn't the title just sound like a chick flick just waiting to be made? (Attention Paramount: if you're looking at this shorten the name to Within the Next Five Years, get either Zooey Deschanel or Daisy Lowe to play me, and put at least 3 fashion dress-up and/or makeover scenes in the film. Soundtrack needs to include one mandatory Kylie Minogue song).

Today's post came from the little job interview phenom known as the 5 Year Question. Where do you see yourself in five years? The question with answers on the tip of everyone's tongue. If you're anything like me, you might be thinking you'll:

1) Give 'em the answer they want, in the kind of over-eager fashion nobody likes. (i.e. Working with this company forever and ever has been my dream since exiting my mother's womb! I even got the business logo tattooed on my lower back last weekend, to prove my dedication with you guys!)

2) Give 'em the answer you want, even if it does contain graphic content. (i.e. I kind of used to view my life as driftless, but then I saw this little movie that gave me a new lease on life. You know who my new role model is? Patrick Bateman. And that movie was American Psycho. Hey, do you like Genesis and/or Phil Collins...)

3) Give 'em the answer you want that has been edited in PG format (i.e. I mostly see myself traveling and doing what I love, writing. I don't need a lot in life to keep me happy. (FYI, this is my standard reply, except it doesn't contain the big green dollar sign stamped elephant in the room- I may not require much, but I refuse to settle for less than my worth.))

3) Use this moment to pretend you don't understand English and just smile, flutter your eyelashes, and enjoy the silence. (i.e. La la la la la la.)



After being asked this question in a style similar to a firing squad by a series of forgettable 40-somethings, I've decided to get some sort of concrete answer planned. And not just for work-related purposes. FOR LIFE. Five years is both a short and long time all at once. Even though I'm through with living by a set plan, I'm all for creating goals that are somewhat-realistically attainable for the next five years. Goals I can/will achieve. If not, then at least I tried. If yes, then I have something substantial to bring up when face to face with somebody I went to school with. Either way, I've done something I can be satisfied with at the end of the day.

Go to Coachella



I've been saying this one for two years now and for every photo, every set list lineup I see, it only increases my desperate want and need to be sitting in a dirty tent with an $8 bottle of water and a sundress on. Coachella, if you don't already know, is a music festival in Southern California that lasts for one weekend each year. It features a mix of both well-known and unknown musical artists and over the years a rapidly growing amount of celebrities in attendance. Ticket prices vary every year, but this year to stay an entire weekend was close to $800 bucks. And you will want to stay the entire weekend, believe me. They split the artists up each day so even if you do go for one day only, you'll be missing out on somebody you like regardless.

Coachella presents a clash of the Heather worlds. My love for great music versus my need to stay tidy, pretty, and not-sunburned. I really don't know any more than a handful at best of people who would be down to chill in the blazing hot desert for three days and of that handful, maybe one person (maybe) would be okay with paying for it. The experience is what trumps all in the end. Trying something outside of my comfort zone and having a good time. Because I don't know a single person who gets back from this festival in a bad or upset mood.

Re-Try Pilates or Begin Trying Yoga or Zumba



Once upon a time when I was a highly ambitious 19 year old, I took a set of Pilates lessons for an entire summer. I wanted to do something that would help me to become more limber, possibly forget my schedule in the process, and wasn't running (I hate running with a burning passion). The whole thing about Pilates was that it involves you reaching your "center", journeying deep inside of yourself to discover your own self-fulfillment and inner peace. Where you leave the world at the door and spend the next 90 minutes getting to know your own self in a calming environment.

Except I couldn't do it. For every moment I was supposed to close my eyes, breathe in, breathe out, and drift off to thoughts of Mother Earth, I was too busy thinking about my schedule for the day after. This was the same summer I was enrolled in a bunch of college credit classes and still worked two jobs at Panera Bread and Subway. All I could think to myself during these lessons with my eyes closed were, "Okay, I have 1.5 hours until it's over. Then I have math class 2 hours later. I should probably get to the campus math lab early to begin practice problems. I get out of that class at 1:45...have work at 4...need to mail off some letters when I get home...I wonder if my new copy of Nylon got here yet...might go out with the girls after work...shoot, I should probably do my history homework first...then go to bed...but Conan's new tonight...oh my God these lights in this room are the worst. How is anyone ever supposed to calm down when these lights are so grim? Fluorescent lighting is nobody's friend. God, I can feel my heart rate increasing. Calm, calm, be calm. Argh, I need a soda right now!"

I'm just the worst kind of person to convince to buy into Eastern European methods of thinking or just any train of thought that begs me to relax and just be for a moment. But I'm thinking I would like to try it again. Maybe I needed to get older and wiser to appreciate taking some time away from the world. Though all that silence does make me tired too which is why I added Zumba to the list. It's highly energized dancing to fun music that doesn't require I roll into downward dog or accidentally fall asleep on my mat during the Sunrise Salute routine.

Visit a Palm Reader



Can I be totally honest about something? More than visit a palm reader, one of my lifelong ambitions has been to spend one deliciously terrifying night with a Ouija Board. This is inspired by watching an episode of Beyond Belief when I was younger that featured three girls communicating with a spirit named "Victor" on a Ouija board one evening. The next morning, only two of them were left in the house. Puzzled as to where their friend went, the two girls decide to ask "Victor" where she is and he delivers on creeptastic answers, "With Me..."

How. Awesome. Is. That.

Unfortunately, I know 0.00 people that share my fascination with the Ouija, so I'm probably going to wait on that one for awhile. Preferably at a hotel in the future, whilst on vacation with a quickie trip to the toy store to pick one up from the Hasbro Bros. I do want my fortune told, to see how long my heart, life, and health lines are. I feel it's more effective to measure what you're born with on your hands than have some psychic tell you some gibberish out of a crystal ball.

Study French



Despite four years of Spanish, I'm utterly useless with the language and wished more than anything my parents would have allowed me to take French while in high school. It's such a gorgeous language. Rolls off the tongue like butter. Even prettier when sung. I want to learn it, even just the basics. Then my life can be a little bit like "Foux du Fafa" by Flight of the Conchords. Baguette, ha, ha, hun!

Attempt to Fuse my Wardrobe with More Color



My three favorite colors? Ivory, gray, and black.
Runner up fourth? Red (but typically only on the lips to enhance a popping effect).
Colors I look good in? Ivory, gray, and black. Most jewel tones. Pink.
Clothing colors I just don't own at all? Green and yellow.

Every spring, I feel the urge to dress ultra feminine and in light shades. As gentle and sweet as a little lamb. But I can only do that for so long. These days, I buy my clothes for longevity. When I look at a skirt or blouse, there's a certain criteria that needs to be met before purchase. I have to envision how long I can wear it, if it can go for all seasons, the number of compatible items in my wardrobe that can go with it, the length, how I can accessorize it, different hairstyles that will best complement it, the fit, and of course, the price. This is why I'm always shopping online. It gives me the time I need to make rational decisions and feel completely at ease with my choices.

Lately though, I've been inclined to move to color. Just hints of it here and there. I like the Briar Rose Button Shell from The Loft, am utterly in love with the dazzling Multi-Row Tangerine Necklace at White House Black Market, and would commit the worst crimes to get my hands on the perpetually out of stock Memphis Style Dress at Modcloth. Fingers cross, cross, crossed that my IRS refund hurries up and gets here! Haha, but seriously, I need that refund.

Talk to "John Stamos"



This is a short-term goal of mine. The people closest to me already know about this, but I'll fill you all in on the details. Basically, there is a really cute guy who lives down the street from me. He looks, and I shit you not on this one, just like what would happen if you combined John Stamos and Jon Hamm into one person. He is so beautiful, it sears the eye to look directly at him, like an eclipse. Only I've been managing to do so for several weeks now.

Other important facts to keep in mind include:

-He has a dog that looks like Chance from Homeward Bound
-I often see him exiting the gym and he's always biking
-J.S. is always super friendly to me
-Looks like he's 29, tops
-I do not get a gaydar vibe from him (my old roommate effectively and realistically told me to keep this in mind)
-I saw him driving once and it was hot. Plus he waved to me from the car. HOT.
-My roommate has seen him and confirmed he is a 10 on the hotness scale
-Both of my roommates affectionately refer to him as John Stamos as well
-It will probably crush my soul if I find out he has a girlfriend or worse, wife.
-He wears SCRUBS. Which means (I hope) he is in the lucrative and highly attractive position of being a nurse. In which case, I will drop to the ground on a really hot day and pretend to be suffering from heatstroke in order to get some mouth-to-mouth action.
-We have exchanged pleasantries, but I still don't know his name. If it turns out it is Jon or John or Johnny, I will probably bust up laughing on the spot. Then never tell him why I did that, ever.
-Pretty sure he lives in the same townhouses as my old internship boss.
-He's so handsome, I see him from afar and immediately a big grin breaks out on my face. All is the right in the world when I see him.

Now that I've creeped you out with my disturbing creeping on a random stranger that lives down the street from me, I'm going to follow this up by saying I will attempt to talk to him the next time I see him, damnit. I just want to get to know the guy, even if nothing comes out of it, as a friend, a person, a human being. And well yes, I'd love to get his name too. Placing names with faces is nice. And think of all the Googling I could do!

Whatevs if you think I'm creepy. He has already witnessed me singing out loud (when I thought no one was watching) to The Lonely Island feat. Akon "I Just Had Sex." Opening my eyes to see a dashing gent witnessing me say, "A woman let me put my penis inside of her" is embarrassing enough. The fact that my iPod refused to let me turn down the volume because of that accident where I dropped it in the sink and it slightly scrambled was another side of embarrassment.

I pray he doesn't have a girlfriend. Otherwise, I made for a good chuckle over the dinner table.

Dye My Hair



I just want to be a redhead so much. I blame Anne of Green Gables for this one. And for always making me crave dresses with puff sleeves.

Move to SF



An accurate portrayal of how my head looks if you open it. If you look closely in my head, you can see a teeny tiny layout of Lombard Street with some cable cars going by.

I don't need to rehash that I love this city, it holds my heart, and can cause me to start crying at my desk at my job because I love it so much. Every weekend I just want to climb up to the roof and cry out, "I NEED TO BE IN SF EVERY WEEKEND. I WILL WORK SIMPLY TO STAY THERE ON THE WEEKENDS. MY WEEKDAYS WILL BE IN SOCAL, THE WEEKENDS IN NORCAL. THEN OVER TIME MY WEEKENDS IN SF WILL BECOME WEEKDAYS AND I WILL TRANSITION LIKE A BUTTERFLY FROM A COCOON INTO THE CITY THAT I WOULD DIE FOR. THAT IS MY LIFE CHOICE. I NEED NOTHING ELSE. EXCEPT FOR CHILI CHEESE FRIES AND A GOOD HOTEL VIEW."

Knowing my terrible luck, John Stamos would totally see that.

That is, in essence, my five year plan. In five years, I'd like to be living within a bustling city that understands my need for public transportation, keeping stores within a 0.3 mile radius from my home, and makes great traffic sounds outside to help me sleep when I've had a bad dream.

Though in the event that that doesn't happen, I do have a back-up plan...



Just Keep Visiting SF for the Next Five Years

It's a crackerjack idea, I must say!

Love to you all,
Heather

Pimps 'n Hoes

Last week, I got a call from an old mentor of mine at my university who is a reporter with a newspaper I used to intern at. Well actually before I got the call, I got the Facebook message asking me if I knew anything about "pimps 'n hoes" parties for a piece she was writing on. I sat there for a good couple of minutes rereading the message and idly wondering if I could just bullshit a response without further researching the matter. From the way I knew it, pimps 'n hoes used to be a terrible, but nonetheless engaging, card game that I would occasionally play in an acting class I took in high school with my classmates. Though I did have an inkling it was a reference to those themed-costume parties I'd seen on other people's Facebook accounts. A quick Google search revealed I was (mostly) on the money.

"Have I ever been to one?" I repeated back her question while leaving work to go home, "No, not really. I think if I were blond and at least two bra sizes bigger I would probably get invited." I laughed a little. Hey, who doesn't love self-deprecating humor? I know the type of person I am and not only do I embrace myself, but I know how to mock myself too.

After a couple of questions about Girls Gone Wild (again, I would need to be two cup sizes bigger, be slightly drunk, and have self-esteem issues shooting through the roof to fully answer this question) and the women's rights movement, the interview concluded. I was not the ideal candidate to speak to on these matters, most unfortunately.

I did think about it though after the fact as I sat at the bus stop. A bunch of thoughts went rolling through my mind. Like, why didn't I get invited to parties in high school (okay maybe not so much there), but in college where everyone dressed like a slutty nurse or slutty cheerleader or slutty slut? What was it about me that people could instantly look at and assume, why she couldn't possibly drink me under a table! This bothered me a lot. When people tell me they don't think I can do something or when they look at me amused that I might say one thing and potentially look like I won't do it, it sparks something inside of me. The drive to prove them wrong. Through my irritation, I thought to myself, I'd show them! You don't think I work hard enough? I'll graduate with honors while working two jobs, an extra internship, writing for the school newspaper and assistant stage managing the school play. You think I'm too sweet and kind? My patented intense death stare will clear that thought free from yo' mind forever. You don't think I can drink enough? I was raised in Saint Louis, home of Anheuser Busch. Until you've lived in one of the wettest cities in the country and were schooled in the art of drinking by one very awesome set of people you worked at a local Subway with, you don't get to ever make that assumption about me.

Heather, get a grip on yourself the left side of my brain calmly murmurs. The left side of my brain stands quietly in front of me, chuckling at the right side of my brain who is hunched over viciously scribbling on a piece of paper all of the ways in which I am not a person to not not invite to a house party. See what's happening here? You graduated and you're still thinking about this. Let it go. Let it all just go.

But! But! The right side of my brain cries out but ole lefty hushes it. It's not your loss. Nobody's loss but theirs. Besides, knowing you and your Lovely Miss Perfect reputation, you'd only be ruining yourself and that dandy name of yours.

I sigh and smile. The left side, as usual, is all logic.



Imagine for one moment a very different version of me. One who chainsmoked, hooked up with every guy with a pulse regardless of attraction level, wore cut off denim shorts and glitter on my eyes a la Ke$ha (with obligatory stockings ripped all up the sides), had a bra size of D cup, didn't have a job, and basically sat around stoned all day weaving friendship bracelets.

Let's just sit here and quietly think about how ridiculous this image is.

When you write as much as I do, you think about things like this. Spending so much of my time in my head creating characters has made me sometimes look at my life in third person. Like I'm a character in my own life story. Whenever I'm bored, I imagine what life might have been like had I been born a certain way. Maybe I'd have some wonderful singing pipes or be really good at math. What kind of life I'd lead if I had been born in New Zealand or had nothing but sisters. Or if I had been born a boy (if I had been a boy, I guarantee you I would have brought back the style of the Rat Pack overnight and would definitely have dated some of my girlfriends).

The thing is, no matter just how much I can wonder or even when you're younger and can fiddle around with your personality, I know there are just certain things that would keep me from being the type of girl who can easily blend in at a pimps 'n hoes type of party. Whether it's just my conscience, the fact that while I may have both Type A and B personality traits the Type A pushes the Type B far, far to the curb, or just that I tend to listen to my gut instinct too often, I just know myself and how I'll react. Remember that terrible house party I went to with the wigger guy where everyone in the house looked like a douche and I prayed for an airplane to crash through the roof to get me out of there? It's the little things like this that render me completely useless in relating to and becoming a true member of the pimp 'n ho elite.



Some of these little things include:

1) I'm a workaholic. If nothing else in life, the reason I didn't get invited to go out is because I was constantly working. I've usually got my hands buried in about 4-5 different projects outside of my day job, all of which involve writing, none of which I consider work because writing is just a part of my personality, like my fondness for red lipstick. For better or for worse, being at work has been the culprit in ensuring that whatever happens to me that night, I'm getting paid for it.

2) House parties, for lack of a better word, blow. The beer is always out too early, most of my peers (especially when drunk) are terrible drink makers, and affluent suburban kids are declaring that "Snoop be the OG and I be that too" (these are the same kids who constantly remark on their Facebook that "it's time to make a change" while they're still puffing on that kind bud). God help you if you talk to any guy period, because that's my boyfriend bitch! and before you know it some tanned to the point of orange girl in an Ed Hardy hat is snootily referring to you as Wednesday Addams to her friends. Because you have skin the color of Snow White. Wonderful. And you wonder why I wish for the plane to crash. These are definitely the worst kinds of parties.

3) Unless you're at a hipster party. Maybe that one is worse. I wouldn't know. I'm not hipster enough to get invited to that kind of par-tay either. I like to imagine it's less real drunk and more ironic drunk with extra sides of judgment and Velvet Underground playing 'round the clock.

4) At parties, I might say something I probably shouldn't. For example, I might casually mention I've only seen a handful of Entourage episodes and don't understand what's so great about a show with Adrian Grenier in it. I might mention that I enjoy reading about serial killers for fun. Or I might keep disappearing to the bathroom to read the Stephen King book that someone's roommate left in there (for the record, I did do this last one. Plus that same roommate also left graphic novels on a shelf right above the toilet paper in the bathroom. Woo, party in the lavatory!)

5) At parties, you should really go with at least two very close friends with a third's number on speed dial in case of emergencies. Don't go to house parties with friends who won't understand why you feel the need to get the hell out of there when you do. True friends would do it for you if you were in their shoes and vice versa. In cruder terms, yes to the guy you might seem to be a cockblocker, but in reality, do you really want your friend to do it with some guy she's never met until tonight in some random person's guest bedroom? Nope. Just go. Don't apologize and don't look back. They won't remember anyway.

6) I'm not super adventurous when it comes to recreational drug use. This alone is probably hands-down the reason I didn't get invited to party like a rock star or like it was my birthday with the pimps 'n hoes.

7) I also have issues wearing super short skirts unless I have stockings on. All the way on, fully opaque, and not ripped either.

8) Drunk 18-23 year old guys aren't charming. Unless you're drunk too, they're rather large assholes. This is why I'm more likely to be found at a dance club or bar. There's more potential to get a silver fox there than there is at some 30 year old Wooderson "that's why I love them college girls" type's studio apartment. (Disclaimer: I love me some Dazed and Confused, not trying to diss the magnificent Wooderson who is indeed right: you should ditch the two nerds in the back for the fiesta in the making.)

9) Drunk photos of me do not look glamorous. They look blurry and my eyes are always half-closed. The girls at the parties who look super fabulous, with their lipstick never out of place when they're 8 beers deep? I can't even.



10) I only really ever be myself in the company of those who know me best. They know who they are and together, I'm betting we have way more fun. Plus, let's not forget I'm getting old now. No longer in college, I need my sleep for work and doing well within my career. No beer funnel is ever going to matter to me as much as my very own high-rise office on the 40th floor of a skyscraper in (insert metropolis name here). Moreover than that, no pimps nor hoes will ever be able to keep a good girl down. I'm just way too in tune to what I'm working for to give it up for the sake of some hilarious but ultimately forgotten nights.

Hello, Type A personality!
It's me.

Love to you all,
Heather

My West Coast Royal Wedding Schedule

The last week and a half into my new job have left me with the sudden realization that this may not be a "job" anymore. Call it jumping the gun, but my work title consists of me blogging, Tweeting, Facebook status updating, and just generally reading and reading news reports and stories all day and afternoon long for the company. Everything I normally do outside of work. This is beginning to feel more like that elusive place I definitely did not anticipate on getting to so soon in my life. The place called a career. A CAREER. I haven't even been out of college for a year and its already happening. I don't know how to feel about this. It's somewhere between pure elation and feeling like I need to throw up. It's wonderful, it really is, and considering the last place I was and the nonstop student loan bills piling up all around me, it's been deliverance in so many ways. But, there's always a "but." Somehow, I managed to get into the very shallow pool of post-graduates from college who love what they do and do what they love. This is the dream! This is MY dream, finally coming true after so many years of working in positions that didn't do me any good-or hey, maybe they did put me on the right path. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and whatnot.

So why do I keep sitting on the edge of the pool, not fully submerged yet? Why do I keep looking at the other pools around me and idly wondering if they're better than mine? I didn't expect to be this content this soon in the game. In my mind's eye, I saw my twenties as the time I would be a vagabond of sorts, traveling around with no real destination in mind. Careers wouldn't arrive until I was 30-something, I used to estimate. I just wonder how things within the next year will wind up playing out. The only constant in life is change, you know.

April 29th is the big day. Maybe the biggest day in my lifetime of entertainment tracking. It is the Royal Wedding for Prince William and Kate Middleton. AKA the day I and millions of other girls will be utterly entranced on our TV sets and live CNN streams online, showing the next big Cinderella story come to life. I wasn't alive when Princess Diana was married (insert comments on my youth here), though I distinctly recall looking through an old book of my Mom's with her gorgeous wedding gown and various other Diana fashion staples. Sometimes I would sneak it to school with me and look at the photos inside of my desk. So lovely. Le sigh.



London time is 6 hours ahead of California time, so as usual the West Coast is going to get the butt end of the deal in terms of what time to wake up for the nuptials. I keep reading various Q&A's on what time the wedding will begin to air on TV and the answers are anywhere from 3am (dear God no) to 6am (even worse, I have to leave for work at 7:30 in the morning).

3am? 4am? Whyyyyy? Do you Brits not realize I will literally become The Walking Dead at my job the morning after? my brain wailed. Then I gave it a good kick in the frontal lobe. 'Scuse me, but I seem to recall that not even a year ago, you were staying up until 5am, half-writing papers with a bottle of Andre's and your Tumblr and YouTube movie trailer pages wide open, laughing at the same cartoon video you were watching for 30 minutes straight. Don't tell me you can't do this. Remember, who was that who saw the last Harry Potter film at midnight, slept for an hour, and went to work, functioning for 8 hours on one hour of sleep? Yeah, I thought so.

Here is my preliminary Royal Wedding Schedule:

April 28th:

3:30pm Get off of work.

4pm Come home from work.

4pm-11pm (this time slot is open for more consideration) Sleep. Nap. Basically stay in bed. Drink some NyQuil if it means ensuring a semi-deep sleep easily. Just sleep as much as possible because the next time you'll be sleeping like this will be many, many hours later.

Midnight-3am or 4am Keep a steady pile of Red Bulls, Starbucks espresso drinks, and some of my personal favorite, the soda energy drink Vault on hand and consume consistently. While awaiting the wedding to begin, read up online about Kate's dress, the guest list, the flower selection. Watch news coverage on TV. Make a cool British reception themed playlist with your iTunes library (there are reasons why I'm single). Update your Facebook/Twitter feed with "T-minus __ hours till the Royal Wedding!" every hour on the hour.

April 29th:

9am You're now at work. Congrats! You made it through the night, got to watch some of the ceremony, and are now so filled with caffeine that your crash is going to be a near-death experience. Worth it? Of course. Get the live stream of the wedding playing if your job allows for you to go on CNN. Of course, you could just do this and skip staying up throughout the night, but where's the fun in that? Nobody would ever told their brother's future offspring that they slept through the Royal Wedding. EVER.



Cheers!

Love to you all,
Heather

Trudy

Today I'm going to tell you a memory. It's not a story. It's a moment in time that lasted for many years throughout my childhood and truly defined the girl I would later grow up to become. I've only told a few people this story before and they've always thought it to be funny, sweet, touching, and sad in the kind of sad that only great moments give you before they're gone. Before they become the memory in your head.

You always remember the first one. The first day of school, your first love, the first day of work. Yesterday when I was at my new job (which is wonderful, if you were wondering), I was writing a blog post and mulling in my head how exactly I came to love and appreciate being with my pen and paper, my keypad. The origins of this were found directly in my first one: my first best friend. The truest of true blue, the greatest friend a girl could ever have when she was just a girl herself.

Her name was Trudy.

I didn't have very many friends when I was growing up, a recurring issue of mine throughout most of my life until I moved away to attend university in California. I know a lot of people say this, but I never fit in with the kids my age at any of the schools I attended. Nor did I care to. All I wanted out of life was to sit with my book and read until forever. There were so many countless days when I would be sitting in the lunchroom, tightly holding my lunch box and wishing so much that I could just bring a book with me. I didn't like to talk to others. I mean, I could try to pretend we had things in common, but then the moment would be fleeting and end and I would lose interest and move on. Even as a child, I didn't do commitment. I just wanted to sit in the bookstores forever and read myself somewhere where the people were like me. I know I'm painting you the portrait of a child who nobody understood and I know there are definitely some people who would tell you otherwise and say that I was a mean girl and sarcastic. I guess it was a coping mechanism. While I might have been lonely at school, I wasn't in my head. I used to talk to myself, not in the "Hi Heather. How's your day?" way, but in the way in which I would tell stories to myself with fictional characters and act out their dialogue to each other. I used to do this while walking back and forth in the hallways of my parent's house. Gradually over the years, I learned how to tell myself stories while sitting down, then finally without speaking but speaking aloud within my mind. I still do this. I don't imagine there will ever be a time in my life where I'm not telling myself a story in my head.

My parents worried about me and my inability to relate to the world. My Dad decided that if I wouldn't make friends at school, I'd have a pen pal instead. He signed me up for a pen pal service that allowed me to become insta-friends with someone (a young girl, to fit my demographic) from across the world. I was very excited. Who would she be? Did she like sprinkles on her ice cream like me? What did her house look like? Her favorite color? I wanted to know everything about her!



The first letter I received my Dad gave me. It was all the way from England and the girl's name was Trudy. She grew up in a very small township called Moustershire and lived in a small cottage with a vegetable garden. She had honey colored hair and like me, liked to read. Her favorite color was pink. Her town was very small and did not have a movie theater so she would always ask me about movies I was seeing, especially since I lived in the United States where the release dates were different. Her letters, written on yellow paper, always contained lots and lots of beautiful sparkly stickers, with some scratch and sniff. Sometimes she'd include whole sheets of these stickers tucked in her letters and I would use them sparingly, as they were so stunning. I still have an entire container of them at home. I kept everything she ever gave me. I always felt like I could be myself when I wrote to her and would spend longer and longer amounts of time hunched over, telling her my life. She always wanted to know about my brothers, because she was an only child and was curious about my parents, which I told her about too. It never took very long to receive her letters back in response which my Dad would always pull free from the mail and give to me first. I remember sometimes I'd get longer letters which always excited me and shorter ones, which were a bit more hurried in content, but I loved them just the same.

"I have a pen pal." I would smugly announce to the lunchroom table at school, "She's from England and her name is Trudy."

There was always one smartass in the group who instead of "oohing" and "you're so lucky"'ing would narrow her eyes at me and sigh, "Where is she from?"

"Moustershire." I would excitedly reply, "It's a very small town. You probably haven't heard of it."

"Moustershire?" The dubiousness was on full blast, "There's no such town."

"There is too!" I hotly replied, "And it is inhabited by mice!"

Chuckles. Giggles. "You pen pal lives in a town with mice?? Is she a mouse?"

"No, but her parents are." I replied, each word dropping off in tempo. See, that's the thing about Trudy. She told me she lived in a town owned by mice. Moustershire. Get it?

I suppose this is the time when I should have started to wonder about her. I guess this was the moment where I was supposed to ask my Dad why she didn't have a last name, why I never had to write a street address on the envelopes. He told me Moustershire was so small that the town name, her name, and zip address would suffice. They'd find her.

It was the last age of childhood for me, the one in which I would visit neighbor's gardens and pretend I was in The Secret Garden, wore a locket all of the time like Sara Crewe and charm bracelets with ribbons in my hair, when I wrote in an essay for school once that I wanted to wear petticoats and carry parasols in my 30's. All I ever wanted was to grow up but never lose my childhood in the process. I would carry it with me. These were the things I promised myself at night alone in my bedroom. Losing the magic would be the end and I swore to hold to time as much as I could, as much as I could grasp before inevitably letting go.



I wrote to Trudy for years. During these years, I would tell my Mom, "Now, I'm going to do my homework, write a letter to Trudy, and read before going to sleep." She would smile when she saw me writing to Trudy, watching my penmanship get better with each letter. We would buy stationery sets at the store in the widest variety of styles so Trudy always had something to look at. We would find unique stickers and mail those along too.

The moment I never forgot was when my parents took me to a little bookstore that sold jewelry in a glass case. I must have been 10 when this occurred. Underneath the glass were two rings, perfect to fit my fingers. One with a pink cubic zirconia stone and the other a white stone. I told my parents I wanted them both because I wanted to send one to Trudy, like a friendship ring. They bought me them both and asked me which one Trudy would get. This was a tougher decision than it seemed because we both loved the color pink. I thought about it for awhile and decided to send Trudy the pink stone because, "she'll love it more." And she did, when she wrote back to me the following week, praising how pretty it was and how nicely it looked and just thanking me so much for it. That letter was really the first lesson I remember sticking in not being selfish and putting others before me.

Then I asked her about Moustershire.

Once when I was at my beloved Library Limited with my Dad, I went into the history section with him and found a map of Europe. "Where is Moustershire?" I asked him, holding the map up to him as he sat in an armchair reading, "Can you find it for me?"

He just smiled at me and put down his book a little bit, "Heather, I told you, Moustershire is too small to be found on those maps. Maybe if you ask Trudy about it, she can tell you more."

So I did. Trudy began to send me a series of cards, of different places in her town. The French bistro cafe, the garden house with the best vegetable garden around, the grocery shop, the school, the bakery, and homes in the area. All of these cards were beautifully illustrated with small mice standing outside of each place, smiling and wearing little aprons and clothes. It was like another world, one that I held to my heart and believed existed.

The true stunner was the map of Moustershire Trudy sent me. Written and illustrated on a very thin piece of parchment paper, it showed all of the buildings from the cards and the pathways to getting around. There were no cars, no modern (for the '90s anyway) technology, no streetlights or stop signs. There was an ocean. I had never been to the ocean at the time.

With trembling fingers, I turned the cards around to see where they were made. I needed to go here, there, be with her. Embossed on the back of every card was one phrase "Greetings from Moustershire."

I could only hold time for so long before it let me go. I began to grow up and with it, for every bad outfit I created for my angst, working at 11, and trying so much to fit in at school before giving up, I grew apart from Trudy. The last letter I wrote her when I was 12 and never got a reply back which was my closure. The way I responded to this was how I responded to all of my troubles at the time: leave home and go walking throughout the neighborhood, eventually edging out and wandering to other neighborhoods far off from my own. I wish I knew her last name so I could Google her and see how she was.



When I was 14, my parents sold our old house to buy a new one across the street from my new high school. Cleaning and sorting through the old house was a task that required more hands than just 4 people (my two little brothers were too young to really do much) and for the longest time, it seemed like it would never empty. The house just kept accumulating more and more things in every nook and cranny you could imagine.

One evening, I was in the basement cellar pantry, clearing out old dresses of my Mom's from the '80s when I found a big brown envelope tucked on one of the shelves. I opened it cautiously in case any brown recluse spiders decided to wiggle out. What I found inside shocked me to the bone.

It was every letter I had ever written to Trudy. All of the cards I sent her, all of the stickers, the stationery sets. And taped to one letter, the little pink stone ring I had sent her.

"Dad!" I marched up to my father, sitting in a sea of paperwork himself and threw the envelope at him, "What the HELL is this?"

"Watch your language." He replied and looked inside of the envelope, "Oh boy. Oh boy." He started to laugh, heaving and gasping like a beached whale.

"Why are you laughing?" I shouted, "I wrote those letters to Trudy and you never mailed them? What's going on, I need to know right now!"

My Dad calmed down from laughing and finally gasped out, "Oh Heather. Honey. Trudy isn't real."

"WHAT??" Already a high-strung person, I thought my head was going to skyrocket off of my body. I started to cry a little bit. How does a person sit there and tell their only daughter that their best friend wasn't real? I really needed to be sitting down for this, but I continued to stand, knees close to buckling.

Then he looked at me and sighed, "Your mother and I were worried about you. You know, not making friends in school. So we thought this would be a good idea for you. Plus it improved your reading and writing abilities."

I looked at the floor trying not to break down into full-fledged sobbing. He did have a point though, in 4th grade my cursive was immaculate and close to calligraphy.

"I missed you too." He continued, "I was always at work and didn't get to spend much time with you. So I just wanted to know what you were up to and how you were doing. I got the cards and stickers from a specialty shop. Decided on Moustershire because they said so on the back. And I did always like the name Trudy."

He looked so earnest sitting there. Everything fell into place suddenly. The yellow paper the letters were written on came from his legal pad at work. I remember one of the card shops, Botanicals on the Park, from one of our Saturday afternoon visits. He did it all for me, to keep me from being lonely, to make me happy. I didn't know that for as much as I was trying to not let time go, that someone else, several someones were trying just as hard as I was. The tears really started to flow and I just hugged him for a very long time, crying until I didn't know if it would ever stop.



To this day, I still have that entire envelope of letters along with my Moustershire cards and parchment map. They are some of the best magic I know for my life, for keeping my childhood close by even though it really wasn't so long ago.

I still envision Trudy being out there, somewhere, in the English countryside. Even if she isn't in reality, I keep her in my head, my heart, where the story isn't a story and where I can tell her memories forever.

Love to you all,
Heather

The Sweetest Thing

I know what you're thinking. What is this thing of beauty before my eyes, this tasty delight that so will soothe my mind through slumber and lead me to a night so heavy with soft thoughts to cool my aching mind?

Sometimes when I describe food, I look at it from a Shakespearean standpoint.

This is the vanilla bean scone, my new favorite snack.



I've eaten them before. Vanilla bean anything is welcome in mah belly, but for some reason the scones I've had in the past haven't been good. They've been more mealy and thick with a bad bean to glaze ratio. Case in point, the Starbucks version of the vanilla bean scone. What was once a a decent scone is now rendered to yogurt covering everywhere.

How am I to compose a haiku/ode to the scone if I cannot see it? If the yogurt has coated it to be unrecognizable?

On Saturday, I was fiddling around with some Funfetti cookie ingredients at Albertsons. Sometimes I think I can bake. Most of the time I bypass the aisle of cooking oils and mixes because it's like that time in grade school when I decided to get into art and bought over $40 of craft supplies and did absolutely nothing with them but stare at how attractive the supplies were in their packaging. These cooking supplies are the same thing. They'll look nice in the fridge, but will I bake? Maybe. Possibly. Probably? Hardly. My handheld shopping cart held some eggs, Funfetti mix, and a new frosting tube from Pillsbury that sold me, like all Pillsbury items, simply by including a tiny picture of Poppin Fresh on the packaging. Then I passed through the bakery to get to the cash registers (a better alternative to passing through the booze aisle and attempting to explain to my cashier why I was, yet again, buying champagne at 11am) and out of habit checked out the scone selection. It was the usual uninspiring group of coconut (why. why was this here.) and blueberry and hold up. Vanilla bean with yogurt drizzling.

I picked up the container and examined the scones up close. They were lightly drizzled, not coated. Fresh until April 8th. Prominent bean specks within vision.

MINE.

Did I just get eerily territorial with scones? Of course. I'm usually like this with cookies only (get away! just kidding I share...sometimes), but I got home and bit into the first moist and ultra-soft scone and tasted no mealiness, no overwhelming chewing to get to the good part. All I could taste was the sweetness, the wholeness of the scone.

The container, loaded with hmm, 20 scones?

Empty the next day.



Observe, the most important property of the vanilla bean scone. Often the most overlooked part in the quest to coat the sucker with icing. Nay I say, put in the vanilla beans liberally and freely. Don't be afraid of the goodness that they offer. Embrace it.

Right here is when I would insert a recipe for these scones, but c'mon. I'm not a cooking blog. You saw what I did up there. When faced with some delicious pre-made confection from the bakery department at a chain grocery store, I went for it and dropped all of my planned baking ingredients in the process. No true chef does that.

Or do they? I swear, these scones have the power to shift mindsets.



Coated with icing
Cool vanilla bean temptress
You mmmmake me happppy.

-haiku to the vanilla bean scone, with the last line written as a nod to Ben Stiller's Simple Jack in Tropic Thunder.

I am the crazy scone lady.

Love to you all,
Heather