The Dream Machine

Le End

2011-06-17T15:49:00.000-07:00

You had to know it was coming, right?

After 3 years of working on Blogger, I'm moving on. I kind of knew this was coming for some time too. For the last few months, I have not wanted to go onto blogger or log in or update. I did it because in the end the need to write won out but that was all that won. There are more reasons behind why I'm switching over on the new site. Basically it's partially about how I need to streamline my priorities and make them neat and tidy. The other half is because I'm done with college which is what this blog more or less symbolized for a long time. It's time to move onto a more professional side of myself, which has been creeping on here for many entries now but can't fully stand out among the clutter of younger Heather.

Where I have been spending my time has been my other blog at Tumblr. Tumblr is just a simpler place for me to focus on and I've been meaning to create another blog with it for awhile based off of menswear. So I decided I'll do that. I'll keep my first photo based blog, strike up the new one on men, and keep a separate one a lot like this one with all the writing and wordiness there too.

I'm gonna miss you guys, but luckily I enabled the new blog to have everyone follow me, regardless of having a Tumblr account or not.

Here it is....

Champagne Bubble About Town

I hope to see you all there and if not, then email me to keep in touch!! (I'm especially pointing to Jennifer, Cara-Mia, Tracy, and Andrew on this one. I will be sure to email you guys back and love all of you!)

Love to you all,
Heather

Dude Dealbreakers

2011-06-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

"Cock your hat - angles are attitudes."
-Frank Sinatra

Can we get a modern day Rat Pack resurrected again?

My life is starting to reach that point where it's the perfect time for a story that has been told time and time again to enter in. Busy worker bee young girl works, works, works, makes her entire life all about PowerPoints and personal agenda planners with coffee dates and trips to buy more creased pants and blazers her biggest priorities. She's got some great girlfriends, but alas! Where are the men? She is cynical about love and puts her career first, everything else in the second, third, and fourth place.

Then one day, that one man comes along in the most unusual of circumstances. He is not who is looking for and yet, he is what she is looking for. Then to throw a twist into the mix, some other guy she knows from the past comes back and declares she is in love with her. He's totes perfect and drives a Bentley and works with finance or something like that. And she is torn. Will it be the imperfect guy who is probably penniless she picks or the rich douche cad? Poor guy might play a guitar and make her laugh, but he's probably really into talking about feelings. Rich guy might cheat on her but hey, he buys her diamonds and isn't threatened by her career. What does she do? Who does she pick? Ben Stiller or Ethan Hawke? Leo DiCaprio or Billy Zane? Mr. Big or Aiden?

Don't worry you guys, I don't have this actually occurring in my life. Maybe in a few years it might, but not now. However you need to know something about me: I don't promote the image of the beta male triumphing over the alpha male. In these cases, I would definitely go with Big, Stiller, and Billy Zane (he was hot in Titanic, I don't care what Team Leo says). Why? Because I don't like guys who wail on and on that they have "feelings" and want to talk about them. I don't want to ever be in a place where I'm stuck attending couples therapy or shopping for carpeting or listening to a guy strum a guitar solo he wrote for me (unless he is Slash in which case it will be music sans the weepy lyrics). If I were in a serious relationship, I'd want the guy to be independent and afloat on his own boat. We'd check in with each other like once a week and catch-up then. Weekend relationship (well sometimes. I need to write mostly on the weekends.) is just my cup of tea. Is it distant? Yes. Is it ideal? To me, yes.

Frankly speaking, no matter what kind of relationship I ever get into, I don't want to lose or forget myself. I don't want to wake up one morning and realize I pushed all of my girlfriends aside in favor of him or for his friends. I don't want my world to revolve around a guy and definitely don't want to be dependent for anything. I really wish I didn't even have to write any of this down, but unfortunately it creeps into my life. Watching friends get married, get engaged, get into relationships, and society that scolds single people for not taking on the Noah's Ark mentality immediately. Sex and the City might have done well in attempting to make single seem sexy, but in reality nothing outside of that show changed. Disneyland still makes two people sit together on a ride and going to a wedding minus that plus one is still awkward.

This is why we need a Rat Pack. Why we need single men, silver foxes, back on the scene again. Give me your polished, tailored suits and glasses of Manhattans. Let me be charmed by your laughs and the wrinkles from the laugh lines and eyes that have seen the world. Share my love of skyscrapers, travel, the Neiman Marcus shoe department, and witty banter. Tell me stories all about your past lives and past wives. Be fluent in all types of music, from past to present, and remember that the Blackberry is not just a fruit anymore. Be the modern man!

It doesn't have to be forever. It doesn't have to be a marriage. But whatever you do, steer clear of my personal list of Dude Dealbreakers. I can't imagine you'd say any of these things to me as opposed to your younger counterparts but y'know. Just a primer.

Let's not and never say we did and luck indeed, I will be your lady tonight.

Let's go for a hike/run/camping/float trip!

Is there no one sentence that strikes my heart with more terror? I do not own clothes appropriate for any of these activities (my gym clothes consist of an old tunic blouse and leggings) and will not buy any either. Nature makes me nervous. I was that kid on the hike in grade school who when asked "are there any questions?" would immediately want to know when we'd be going back to civilization (civilization, it should be noted, was about 20 minutes away no matter what hike we were on). I don't like lathering on layers of lotion, the fact that the slightest swipe of leaves against my skin will result in a breakout, and all of the bugs. Oh. God. The. Bugs. Some of these things you can't even figure out what they are. Is it a spider or a centipede? Or both?

Float trips are even more baffling to me. We're going to sit in an inflatable boat all weekend with a couple boxes of Natty Light? That's it? Can't we do that at home where the WiFi abounds, I have a bed to sleep in, and I can still keep working? What? We can't? But why? You honestly expect me to take two days off of work to stay in an environment where I can't wash my hair properly?

Gung-ho granola guys are not my cup of iced coffee.

I don't like to read.

Strike that first comment above- this strikes the fear into my heart.

My views on this entire statement that I've heard more than once can be illustrated perfectly in this quote by John Waters, "If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!"

And also this quote as well:

"Being rich is not about how much money you have or how many homes you own; it's the freedom to buy any book you want without looking at the price and wondering if you can afford it."

Books rule my world and I could never be in a long term anything with someone who did not appreciate them.

i txt like dis. y u h8ing on my swag yo? lolz, at the gym txt it.

Ew. What is the matter with you? Did you not finish remedial English?

Can I get a glass of iced tea? Oh what's that? Yeah, I don't like to drink. No I don't have a drinking problem or anything. I just don't like to drink. I think it's toxic for my body.

I have a ton of issues with modern day business dudes picking iced tea during a meeting when they have the option to order a scotch on the rocks. When drinking with company, it is considered insulting by some if you do not partake (and are clean of any past troubles). You never have to drink enough to get drunk either. One gin and tonic will not impair your walk back to the office after. Executive meetings that feature bottled water are another issue of mine- you cannot tell me that after a long, productive morning or evening you'd rather cozy up to a bitch glass of iced tea or water. WATER. Don Draper would kick you outta your job if you refused to have an Old Fashioned with him. Granted he's fictional but that was the way it used to be and historically, the liquid lunch of ad executives has always been my favorite part of American history to explore and learn more about. I'm all for bringing it back. In moderation- initially.

Want to blaze?

Because nothing says, "Oh so mature," than sitting in some guy's basement on a dirty mattress doing a hit off of his bong and drinking Franzia from the box while watching Caddyshack.

I'm sure that the Rat Pack had a buzz going every now and then, but not all of the time. Plus do not forget: they were grown ass men in Hollywood. They had jobs and showbiz lives and strong women and charisma. Young dudes are lucky if they have at least one of these attributes to work with.

File this one under, done after college (for the more ambitious high school, but college works too).

I don't have a job.

Goddamn I can feel the haters closing in on me for writing this one. A young dude in his 20's needs to learn how to stand up, stand tall, and stand independently on his own. I applaud the young ones of the world who do it all and with a suave attitude. Though it's really hard for me to think of a contemporary example- all I've got is Mark Ronson and he's hardly super young himself.

Go out there and look. Apply. Fight for a position. Don't beta your life away in the shadow of the alpha male you could become.

Getting married is definitely a priority of mine. I'd love to have kids someday. Maybe two. Maybe with names like Jordan and Anna. Anna is my grandma's name, so yeah I want to honor her memory and whatnot. And I want a house too. Bay windows, wraparound porch, maybe a dog. I know it's the first date- I'm not freaking you out or anything?

You can't see it, but I just dug my shoe back so deeply into the cement wall that some of the back lining scraped off. It does freak me out. Just like 30-something guys don't like it when 30-something women on dates talk about how all of their friends are getting married and how they just froze their eggs, this kind of stuff makes me very, very nervous. Let's just take it one step at a time, okay? One nice, slow, very far from parental anything, step at a time.

You're sweet.

This is a weird backhanded one I get sometimes. It's creepy more often than not. I'm sweet. Yay? Is this meant to make me feel good? Or do I feel like they don't know me at all? How do they really know if I am sweet, really, truly, sweet? What if I happen to be playing that guy with like 3 dates on the side? HOW DO YOU EVER TRULY KNOW PEOPLE.

The only time I'm okay with it is when it comes from a guy who has read something I've written or worked with me. It's hard to take seriously otherwise. Knowing my personality, if some random dude worked that dealbreaker with me, I would make every effort that night to prove to him that no, I'm not sweet. I'm the exact opposite of everything that he thinks. I'm not sure who I'm trying to prove to anyone at this point anything about me- I'm just a girl who doesn't like assumptions? I have a lot of pent up anger inside? Oh the questions about my psyche are just endless. I just march to the beat of my own drum and this drummer knows her sheet music well.

Fingers crossed the world gets more real men soon.
Something bigger might come out of this post, tbd. I'm testing it as a trial run and so far am fairly pleased with the results. I'll let you know if I work out the kinks on the bigger part.

Oh, and one final Dude Dealbreaker?

"That's what she said."

Burn it. Burn it now. The Den Mother is not amused.

Love to you all,
Heather

24/7 Wit

2011-06-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

You guys I'm under pressure right now. Pressure. Pushing down on me (thank you, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury). The pressure isn't anything related to work, though I suppose it is inadvertently linked to that. It's writing- is that work? Not to me. I've never found it to be before. But all of a sudden I'm under some pressure. Hipster-induced pressure from a newfound audience.

I need to be witty 24/7 and so far, I'm failing the hipster community hardcore.

Whatever. Over it. So done. Beyond. It's like- so now? Can't even. If.

Back up now, Heather, what's the deal? Why all of a sudden do you feel the awareness of eyeballs on your every move? What did you do to create this buzz? Seriously, what did you do?

About three days ago, I wrote an article for my boss' Forbes blog on HelloGiggles, that enormously successful website created by actress Zooey Deschanel, producer Sophia Rossi, and blogger Molly McAleer. In the article I made the argument for how the site was changing the online landscape with early word of mouth spouting for the site before it even launched and how as a women-centered site that produced wonderful, original content from bloggers of all walks of life, it was going to be the gateway for change in blogging and flipping the quantity versus quality quest on its head. You know what I mean. Bloggers everywhere are beginning to be conditioned to believe their words only matter when they write every single day- even if they have nothing to contribute but photos of their outfits- and to apologize for being away for too long (myself included here). By blogging irrelevant information, this leaves behind a carbon footprint stamp online of consistency that doesn't matter and won't stand the test of time.

I poured so much of my heart into that piece because I do feel quite passionately Pro-Giggles and everything that they do. A tiny portion of my heart was driven to write it because of a certain event that occurred earlier that week on Monday. The week before, I found myself on Molly's Tumblr where I discovered that the Giggles were looking for interns to work for them. Now, I know what you're thinking. I have a job. I freelance. I blog on the side for two blogs. HOW WILL YOU HAVE THE TIME TO DO IT.

Easy, I just won't sleep much! Though I am hideously awful to deal with when low on sleep and zero caffeine in my body. I applied anyway because I wanted it. I wanted this bad and would not settle for no as an answer. In return, I received a response from a mystery person who never revealed their name that they would like to work with me and if I could meet with them on Monday at the Starbucks in Beverly Hills?

Oh wow, no, I could not.

a) Zero car.

b) Work. I could not and would not leave my job at that hour to meet up for coffee with Mystery Giggle. I'm all about honoring my prior commitments and my job is my biggest commitment. Even if Steve Jobs wanted to meet with me to discuss the creation of the iHeather, a new computer invented just for me, I would decline because that newsletter needed to be created and only I could do it.

c) Did I mention zero car? And jet packs haven't been marketed/invented for the general public yet.

I declined in the email and also sprouted some severely huge balls in asking them to meet me at the Starbucks closest to me (address included in the email). I couldn't have honestly expected them to listen to the random applicant asking them to change their plans to better accommodate my own needs, but I tried. Subsequently did not hear anything in response either.

Expected and all, but didn't change that I felt sad after. My periods of self-pity do not last for long though. There's only so long I can feel bad for myself before thinking "This is stupid. You need to grab life back again and keep on moving."

I was not done and I don't think anything would stop me from continuing on my quest to get on board with HelloGiggles. Now before I segue into discussing Forbes, here comes the bit on my lack of hipsterness. The gene to Tweet out to the world "This broccoli is shaped like a baby Jesus. Eat it? #sacrilegious?" is definitely missing in me. When I Tweet or write, I generally tend to do it from a humorous, self-deprecating slant, or write about work, quotes from movies, and yes, even on inspiring hope and building up confidence. But I'm missing dry wit in the equation. I'm missing the need to listen to Architecture in Helsinki or wear neon yellow skinny jeans or carry an organic handbag that smells like manure and fruit leather mixed together.

I don't have the hipster 24/7 wit gene.

GODDAMNIT DO YOU KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED. My coworkers just discussed the phrase "hipster" and buying fold-up bikes. I am not making that up- right as I'm thinking "hipster" the phrase fills the air around me. It was a rare moment of thought and life colliding and it needed that expletive with a quickness.

Here are some things I like right now:
-peanut butter M&M's
-the "take $25 off of your $50 purchase" gift card from Ann Taylor LOFT in my wallet
-the fact that Jack White will soon be single again
-my business cards
-this terrible horror movie called Creep I've been obsessively watching for a week now. Instant watch on Netflix and the chick from Run Lola Run is the lead. It's both scary and awesomely hilarious all at once.
-my badass roommates who bake cookies and let me eat them

It's not hipster I know. But to me it is all fulfilling and dude, I have a job. It's tougher to make the time for observational humor on old episodes of Chappelle's Show when you spend every morning at work and every evening frantically typing, typing, typing as much as possible before going to sleep. Time used to be something I had a nice supply of in stock. I've run dry. Not sure how to replenish either. I think I've made my point though- I just can't do humor in the vein of the TV show The Office. I'm more of an It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia girl. Nothing will make me laugh louder than something that cracks wise at the PC world and still keeps it intelligent.

Back to Forbes- with the permission of my boss and my endless theories on social media guiding the way, I wrote up a piece on HelloGiggles and dumped my heart into the process. After I was done, I made sure to Tweet it into the right hands and kept my expectations on the low side. Not even 5 minutes of leaving the office later, my phone began to buzz with text messages from my Twitter coming in. BOOM. They saw it and loved the piece. This made me quite happy. I was back on the radar...did they remember me from the countless applicants? Possibly.

Then it got crazy. More text messages began to ding on my phone. I was invited to write with them. YES. YES. YESSSSSSSSS. Dream coming true, right here!!

Butttttt remember my lack of hipster DNA? I needed to write a piece that could impress them and stay in my own voice. Meanwhile, the Giggles had begun to follow my Twitter and Tumblr- under surveillance I was. All the eyes and texts asking and watching me for something incredible to happen.

No pressure.

Under pressure, I was. (Yoda be my guide.)

My roommate and I ran the gamut on topics for me to write about in the living room while I watched First Wives Club. Brainstormed everything. Discussions on acting, working in professional environments. the Olsen twins films, the fashions of Lizzie McGuire. Everything came together for a moment, fell apart, came together, died in front of me.

In the end, she told me that "whatever you write will be great Heather because you'll believe in it."

It was the best kind of advice. It wasn't about impressing anyone. It was about writing for myself and in the effort to write for everyone else, I forgot to do it the way it should be: from the heart. If your heart believes in it, if you can stand your heart and mind behind something you've written and defend it to the death, then you've got something pretty special right there. You've got some life in what you've done and you won't let it get kicked down or laughed at or lose it for any reason.

So I wrote a little letter of appreciation to Emilia Clarke from the HBO show Game of Thrones. If you watch the show, she's the pretty blond girl who is also a kickass warrior queen. She also has a body shape that is almost just my own: a healthy pear shape, probably a size 8. I admire her for having a body on TV that is not the typical stick slender I'm used to seeing but rather fuller figured and beautiful. And she is also the same age as me which I love because women like Christina Hendricks and Kate Winslet, while both lovely, are so much older than me. It gets hard to relate to them, you know? I'd like a representative from my own age group please and Emilia gets it right.

I felt confident with the article once I finished it. A simple one pager. My roommate read it and liked it very much. I carefully emailed it along at almost 11pm on Wednesday night.

Since then I haven't heard anything in response just yet, but I'm good with that. The ability to get such an opportunity and just try, even if nothing comes out of it, even if it is just a first draft and maybe it isn't their cup of tea and doesn't go on the site, still means the world to me. I am proud of that article I did with Forbes and prouder still of the piece on Emilia Clarke and will be proudest of all future pieces I write.

If you want something very much, then work to try to get it as much as you possibly can. And sometimes, you'll get someone who notices and appreciates the work that you do. That recognition even from just one person is better than millions to me.

Huh. Now that I've written this all out, I don't feel under pressure anymore.

Thank you, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. You rock gods must be smiling down on me (well Mercury is anyway. Bowie's in space....Bowie's in spaaa-ce!).

Update: Oh my goodness word travels fast online...well guess who's going to be a contributing Giggle?? This girl right here!!!!!

Love to you all,
Heather

Blogging Like A Boss...

2011-06-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

Not really though. For you see blogosphere, I've done it again. I've fallen behind on reading through the blogs of everyone I follow (you beautiful people, you) and once again, I'm at that terrible 1 month mark of missing out on random tidbits of information and great stories. By now, I think it's more than one month though. Oops...

I started typing up a whole spiel on why I get backed up on posts but I don't think I need to recount it here. It's simple. I work a lot. Also the letters "q," "a," and "z" are broken on my keypad from a wine spill from over a year ago. You wouldn't think these letters would be so important to use but "a" is in pretty much every word ever. Stopping to hit the "a" button on my on-screen keyboard is a nuisance that I've been putting up with for over a year now. Somehow I've been making it work, but I suspect that this weekend when I get paid is when it is time to finally address this problem and take my computer into the repair shop. Which I've been avoiding because they might keep it for DAYS and leave me high and dry without my writing resource.

Ugh, I sound like such a nerd here. Time to be a grown-up now and take care of important adult matters.

In the meantime, here's a fun question and answer session with me. I promise it isn't one of those terrible ones you find online where they ask you like 12 times if you have gone skinny dipping before and if you like the last person who texted you. BARF. This is mostly just a favorites list. Nothing too revealing...or is it?

Name: Heather

Where you’re from: STL, or Saint Louis if you didn't get what those initials meant. When I tell people where I'm from, the response is mixed. Most people can totally hear my Midwestern accent (it's something to do with how the vowels are lower than the consonants) and get it. A bunch of people have no idea where that is and mistake it for being in the Iowa region. Still some people say I look like I'm from New York (it must be all the black I wear that does it) and even more people don't think I'm even from America period.

Welp, I was raised in STL, land of Anheuser Busch, toasted ravioli, and where estate homes are regularly built in areas that contain Section 8 housing across the street.

Sexuality: Straight. With some celebrity girlcrushes (cough, cough, Eva Green, cough, cough).

Sex: Female.

Age: 20-something. I think I mentioned my age somewhere here before.

Biggest Passion: Writing. Writing is the torch that guides my soul to the places where it needs to be and where it shouldn't be. Writing is my best friend and biggest nemesis. Writing is the one area in life where I feel both highly talented and highly terrible all at once. It makes me feel completely at home and happy and just on the cloud 9 of producing incredible content. This is most evident when I'm writing dialogue between people. Then it can turn on me to produce an article so heart-wrenchingly awful I feel like I have no voice period or at least that voice is getting stupid on me and I don't want to look at it ever again. This is most evident when I write about something romantic.

Still my biggest passion though, no matter how many times it gets rejected or published. I do it for myself and that's reason enough.

Biggest turn on: I have many and the vast majority of them involve clothing. A crisp ironed men's shirt with pressed trousers and shined shoes will be the death of me. Menswear in general is my Achilles Heel...when worn on the right kind of guy. I'm also big on corsets, elbow-length gloves, stockings, and heels (for me, not him). Like a dominatrix without the whip and gag ball.

Single/Taken: Single, but seeing the world at large. Also, definitely not on board with getting married or having children anytime ever.

I will be that token awesome single girl at all of my friends' weddings, giving a meaningful toast, shouting out "awwww yeah this is my jam!" to the opening chords of KC and the Sunshine Band's "Get Down Tonight," having a drinking contest somewhere at the bar with the single bridesmaids who have all become my new BFFs, doing inappropriate dances with the groomsmen on the dance floor that will undoubtedly be the focus of that poor wedding video, having another drinking contest at the bar (this time with myself), several phone numbers from guys I will not remember in the morning, and going home in a taxi with one of my shoes missing.

Rad.

Biggest dream: I have a bunch and they range from semi-realistic to not even in a million years is that shiz going down. I'd like to have at least one book published by the time I'm 25. I'd like to travel through Europe and eventually settle down in London to work at an ad agency, surrounded by gorgeously accented British guys. Though I will also settle for working with Scottish, Aussie, or Kiwi guys as well. I'd like to time travel back to the 1920s and be a teenager then during the Prohibition Era. I want to create a series for HBO about a modern day royal family. I want to write a book based off of an idea I'm working with that would definitely get me in a lot of trouble to write about. I want to be in a commercial with the Pillsbury Doughboy. I want to create a non-profit organization for children. I want to pay off my entire Sallie Mae debt by the time I'm 30. I want to create a stock portfolio for myself and invest regularly. I'd like to be front row at an Arcade Fire concert and at a live taping for Katt Williams and his stand-up. I want to DJ with Paul van Dyk at Ibiza and also want to be the face for Lancome.

From this list, I know what's attainable and what isn't. And honestly I think the time travel '20s one has some real potential to occur.

Favorite colour: Ivory. I'm so white my favorite color is an off-white version of white.

Favorite drink: Sex on the Beach. It's really cliche and girltastic but they put cherries in it and it's pink so...

Favorite type of music: Film scores, '80s dance, and British pop stars.

Favorite band: Arcade Fire.

Favorite singer: Liv Kristine. She's the lead singer from Leaves Eyes and has the voice of an angel. The first time I heard her, she nearly put me in a trance. Liv's voice is glorious- I cannot stress it enough.

Favorite tv show: Sex and the City. This show is pure comfort food to me.

Favorite actor: I'm a big fan of the raw rage and insanity that Klaus Kinski brings to the screen. I've been into Kinski since high school and it isn't easy to compare him to other people. I will also see pretty much anything with Viggo Mortensen, Jon Hamm, and Robert Downey Jr. in it.

Favorite actress: I really, really love Marion Cotillard. I think she's just smashing.

Favorite movie: Edward Scissorhands.

Favorite books: The Great Gatsby and Franny and Zooey are the two books I have a hard time envisioning not having read in my lifetime.

Something random: I am extremely talented at gift wrapping. I take it quite seriously when picking out wrapping for presents.

Love to you all,
Heather

5 Reasons Why I Want To Be Buried In A Blazer

2011-05-31T23:01:00.000-07:00

Quick. You're on a deserted island with only one article of clothing. What it is?
The one go-to staple of my wardrobe is...
My personal favorite professional article of clothing?

Blazer, blazer, BLAZER.

There are not enough words in the world for me to share my love for the blazer with. When I look at clothes, particularly secondhand clothing, I see their histories within the threads. Behind the seams. Embedded in the buttons and stitching. Someone loved that article of clothing once. Loved it till it was worn thin or washed so many times it shrunk and couldn't button anymore. But they still kept wearing it, unable to fully part just yet. So much occurred with that blouse, those jeans, that jacket! We all know that there comes a time to fold it up neatly and offer it up to Goodwill...but on the way out the door with a pile of clothes to give away, we quickly stuff that single piece under our beds instead of giving it away.

After all, parting is such sweet sorrow.
Those jeans made our ass look fabulous too. Can't give that up.

I went through my old clothes yesterday to decide which ones to give up and which ones to keep. A shift has been occurring in my wardrobe recently, as spurred on by a trip to the Ann Taylor LOFT on Friday. I take how I'm seen in the workplace seriously and some of my old Forever21 stand-bys have admittedly seen better days. The LOFT reminded me of just how much some of my wardrobe needed to be updated into the professional 20-something look. For example: the silver threaded and gray pencil skirt I held in my hand at the LOFT was an investment. It would take my current silver skirt with the foil flowers and kick it to the curb. The new skirt fit better and went from day to night perfectly. It was an update on a skirt I liked and would be much more impressive to wear with clients (and I've been meaning to phase that foil flower skirt out for awhile now but do you know how hard it is to find a decent pencil GRAY skirt in the 18-22 inch length range without spending a fortune or finding poorly sewn on buttons? It's like going on the quest for the One Ring.)

My sense of style is forever evolving, as it should with everyone. What we wore when we were 13 we probably wouldn't have worn at 16. Or how we dressed at 18 is probably a far cry from being in your 20's. Some people are blessed with innately keen great style from the get-go and may not experience this problem. Others, like me, spend a lot of time trying out different styles to get to the one that suits them the best. But no matter who you are, what race or clothing size or height, even with buckets of confidence or oodles of cash, the one question you always wonder aloud at home and in the store dressing room remains the same:

"How do I look?"

The one article of clothing that I've never had to wonder that question aloud with?

The blazer.

Blazers do crazy things to and for me. When wearing one, I feel strong and in charge. I know exactly how to handle and complete the project in front of me. I can lead a meeting in front of a crowd or give a presentation and know everyone is paying attention, front row and center. I can step up to a guy and not even have to say a word to get his attention- the rolled up sleeves have done that for me. When I see a guy wearing a blazer, my levels of respect for him go up dramatically. He could be the king of the douches, but I will remember him fondly for having a sharp set of threads. Kings of douches are often easily overshadowed by their beautiful blazers.

Or in mathematical terms: B.B. > K.O.D.

My mainstay blazer is a black silk one that I've had for almost a decade. I bought it in high school on sale at Dillards and have been wearing it ever since. The label is I.N. San Francisco- a nice foreshadowing to my future love for the city. I can't even read the size tag anymore, that's how worn thin it is. I love this blazer to death and try to incorporate it into every outfit I wear. Since its purchase, I've added a couple other blazers to my closet, but none of them have had the history that this one has.

We've been to the moon and back, this blazer and I, and not one item in my wardrobe knows me better (though my red trench coat comes in at a very close second place). Till death do we part, and here's 5 reasons why.

1) Looks Perfect with ALL Articles of Clothing

Jeans, shorts, skirts, tights, slips, dress trousers, leggings.

There is not one bottom it won't complement to take the look upscale or casual. Button the buttons if so desired- leaving them open looks fine just as well.

2) With Blazers, There Is No "The New Black"

I like them in black for classic purposes. Also in my millions of attempts to resurrect one of my favorite looks of all time- the le smoking tuxedo suit from Yves Saint Laurent that appeals highly to my minimalist sensibilities.

I also like ivory, teal, navy, dusty rose, and sequined over-the-top blazers. Black is great for commanding attention, but sometimes you just want a simple touch. A teal-colored blazer with a fun floral printed skirt, flats, and hair done up in maiden braids is ideal for a casual afternoon on the weekends with friends. Colored blazers can dress up a look as much as down and with black blazers, the same rule applies.

3) Like a Marionette With Strings

When I put on a blazer, I feel like a puppet with strings that have just been pulled on. The fit makes me sit a little straighter, makes me hold my head a little higher, draws attention to my neck and shoulders. It's hard to find a lot of jackets that can do this. With the exception of trenches, I don't know of any other outerwear that does this!

Also this is going to sound weird but I imagine that the blazer would make an open casket wake situation for me appear quite tidy and pulled-together.

I spent a lot of this long weekend watching repeats of Six Feet Under on HBO. Ain't no shame in thinkin' ahead.

4. You Can Really Go All Out With Accessories

This is really important, this reason right here. So many accessories are BFFs to the blazer. We're talking headbands, scarves, necklaces, pins, sunglasses, etc. One accessory if by minimalist, two if by statement. Not a lot of jackets allow for you to pair accessories by all types with them which is what makes the blazer infinitely incredible.

And finally, one of the best reasons possible, again no matter who you are...

5. There Will Never Be An Article of Clothing A Guy Wears More That You Will Immediately Want To Snatch From Him And Wear Forever

They do not call it the "boyfriend blazer" for nothing!

Love to you all,
Heather

Heather Knows Best

2011-05-24T16:57:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing I know well, it's career and work.

Scratch that- what I meant to say is that if there’s one thing everyone thinks I know well, its career and work.

This is why I get several messages slipped into my Facebook private message system asking me to help certain individuals find jobs, why I get Tumblr messages asking me about how much money I make (yep, that actually happened), why bums on the street stop me to chat me up since I look all properly dressed and whatnot.

Working is clearly my area of expertise. It’s a famously known fact that I’ve been employed since I was 11. What few people know about this is that it was a very conscious decision on my part. I remember sitting with my parents when they asked me if I would be okay doing this, being the assistant to the local Avon lady who happened to be my Mom’s friend. They told me I didn’t have to do it and there was no obligation to do so. I didn’t have to work at the time and certainly not at that age. I could have said no. Nobody was forcing me to go out every weekend and haul boxes up and down the stairs of residential neighborhoods or make change for $100 bills or take checks or bag the Avon books with the sample products.

Nobody but me. I knew at that very moment it was time to begin working, hop on board the train towards Career, that elusive constellation in my future. And so I did it. I agreed and worked as her assistant for 3 years. Then I took 2 years off, at age 14, to pursue high school and being a student before jumping back on the work train with two jobs that I would simultaneously juggle for the next 4 years. Which would be followed by another series of jobs, juggling act commencing once more until I got to the position I have now. All of this time in my life was a series of blood, sweat, and tears- both literally and figuratively.

There is an absolutely wonderful quote from none other than Lady Gaga in regards to career that if I were still in high school would have probably replaced the Yves Saint-Laurent quote I used in my senior year for the yearbook.

"Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore."

Gaga gets it.

My work is never going to leave me because it is me. I carry it with me wherever I go and it faithfully follows, guiding me down the roads I need to be on. When I started working full time, I began to slowly sign away my personal life because now I had my work life. If you know me very well, you'll know I haven't fully gotten rid of my personal life but that the line between it and my work life these days is beginning to rapidly close, with career triumphantly winning. Work fulfills me in more ways than I could ever possibly imagine. I felt very alive when I am working, especially when writing which is what I am so lucky to be doing right now. I'm addicted to working. I rarely take days off. Vacations are an art form that is lost on me. I enjoy it for about a day and then I start thinking too much about what I need to be doing. I don't understand how people can go on vacations for upward to 10 days without chewing their hands off.

This all being said, I have some words of wisdom for the Class of 2011. Beyond just this class, these words apply to a broad range of graduates in general. I can't imagine these words will be too popular with everyone because I won't sugar coat it for you. I'm optimistic, yes, but I am a realist above all things. Nobody in my life held my hand when it came to growing up so I refuse to hold yours too. Does it hurt yet? You have to learn how to grip your own hand tight if you ever want to be fully independent and stand on your own two feet.

Life after college, for the vast majority of you, is going to fucking suck. Particularly for the group of you paying your own student loan bills. And rent. And car insurance. And maybe stuck in credit card debt. Basically, you're going to watch the little amount of savings you had go up in smoke and after that occurs, you're going to have to build your own version of Rome. It will not happen in a day and will require you to do a little something feared by many a Daddy's Girl and Mama's Boy: WORK.

The biggest piece of advice to benefit you right now?

Get your head out of your ass.

Consider this your Golden Rule.

There is a hideous problem recurring with so many young adults I know (and read about) today. Especially those who attended private universities. They don't like to look for work. They're lazy. Many of them have had the very unique and enviable position of being able to ride on their parents' coattails financially. Some have had vanity internships that undoubtedly their parents helped procure with money exchanging hands. Others are already settling down to get married, which is fine in normal "we've been together for 2+ years" circumstances but fucking insane for those who have only been dating their significant other for 7 months or less. An overwhelming amount of people I've read about have extremely low self-esteem and constantly need to be reaffirmed that they are "SPECIAL! UNIQUE!" over 'n over. A good chunk of these people still don't know what they want to do yet. An even better chunk of them still believe they can be a writer or baker or lawyer or astronaut not because they studied in that field but because "mommy said you were good at that."

The most absolutely infuriating and horrifying part I've witnessed is that virtually each and every single person I've seen graduate with little to no prior job experience in their field has become enraged that they aren't getting the exact dream job they fantasized about in said field (say, since they were a 10 year old boy in their bed...) with an $80,000 a year salary to go with it.

Remember the Golden Rule: Get your head out of your ass. I know. It's safe there and your farts smell positive and reaffirming. But after awhile, when you hit 25 and still aren't working anywhere and your parents are still helping you make car payments and student loan payments every month, the shit is going to hit the fan or in your case, your face.

Follow these additional rules in looking for and getting a job:

1) Your Dream Job Has Expired

Dream it, you can be it!

Kind of not really though.

Your dream job has undoubtedly changed some since you first conceived it. When I was very little, my dream was to become an artist. This was all based off of the fact that I drew the following three things exceptionally well:

a) a train

b) a nativity scene with a baby Jesus that looked suspiciously like a loaf of bread

c) Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson

I scrapped the dream in favor of writing when I discovered I had more of a knack for producing consistently good sentences that made sense and entertained at the same time. My writing over the years has changed considerably; I will not write my depressing poetry from my semi-Goth phase anymore, for starters. A lot of it changed when I started to read books written by comedic writers. After 10+ years of reading hideously boring textbooks, I was determined to bring about great writing that teaches you something but remains interesting to read. I have my good days writing and my rip my hair out days. It's a nice balance that way.

Your dream job is collapsing. Getting it today means stiff competition against your peers and out-of-work job applicants that have a decade of work experience on you. The dream job you may have had as a child is probably already staffed by now and depending on the shelf life of the position (like beeper salesman) it might have already expired.

This means you need to have a plan B, a solid back-up occupation. Something you might consider doing that you didn't think you would do. For example, while I majored in journalism, I knew I would never become a reporter for a news station. My lisp would do me in. I stuck with writing and delved further into advertising after being inspired by both former CEO's of ad agencies that I had the pleasure of knowing and yes, copious episodes of Mad Men. Though my old job was soured by terrible upper management, I enjoyed being a copywriter very much and still have a great flair for writing descriptions on companies.

Social media on the other hand was always something I did quietly on the side and never considered pursuing as my career. It's funny to me that I didn't try to look into it sooner. I love blogging and Tweeting and reblogging with my Tumblr. When I received the opportunity to do it as a career, I remember thinking well this feels all too natural...why didn't I try working with this sooner???

As you can see, in the vast field of communications, I knew what I would work well with and played up those strengths and went from there. I also understood what I could not do and steered clear of it. This isn't advice everyone follows, because a lot of people still think they can pursue that childhood dream past its expiration date. If you can't do it, if you can't put the effort and time into it, and if it doesn't feel natural, don't do it. Don't be the artist relying on your 3 drawings to make it into the big leagues. Not gonna happen.

2) Handle Rejection Well

Love hurts and scars and so does rejection. If you've already been on the job hunt, you'll feel the sting for a long time. It might come back to you in the form of a standard mass-emailed letter or it might be a personal letter from a CEO explaining why you weren't fit for the job. You'll hate it so much and it might drive resentment into you to slow down the search for the time being.

Personal story time! When I was applying for jobs out of college, I applied for a position doing executive assistant work for a real estate company in Santa Barbara. The owner personally emailed me back, citing his issue with the fact that I had named my blog URL, "thevodkaasylum" and that it wasn't the image I wanted to give off to potential employers. Initially, I was offended. He didn't know why I named it that and didn't know anything about me. I was upset but the lesson stuck- I changed the name to "loveliesteyes" to match my Tumblr and have yet to receive a single complaint since. (On another note, his email contained a bunch of spelling errors- which I noted when I emailed him back, thanking him for his concern with my blog.)

Another story was a little something I read from the blog of Lauren Berger, The Intern Queen. One of her applicants wrote in a little gem about how her dream job is to be the assistant to Ellen DeGeneres. In the piece, the aspiring gofer mentions that, "Although tweeting Ellen D. daily has not paid off thus far..."

You Tweet her daily? For a position that will undoubtedly just have you filling her crisper drawer with fresh tomatoes and kiwi or picking up some scarves for Portia at Hermes? You and everyone else, sister. Aim a little lower next time- Ellen gets A LOT of retweeting and Tweets in general. She won't have the time to notice you above the crowd if all you're doing is Tweeting to get ahead and spending all of your time on one person.

Work with rejection by asking, if you're in the position to, what it is that you did wrong when applying for the position. I've seen everything from poorly written cover letters, sparse resumes and too-long resumes, even font sizes. Also a disturbing trend of entry-level individuals applying for senior positions that they don't have any qualifications for beyond the degree.

Follow the Golden Rule, kiddos.

3) Apply Everywhere

I got an email from a girl saying she applied to 10-12 positions a week.

I saw a Facebook status update from a friend who applied to 8 jobs in one day.

One of my Facebook friends wrote on his status that he was looking for a job and if anyone knew anywhere for him to work, out of his 1086 friends, to send that position his way.

Do these look like the actions of people who have applied everywhere?

When I was first looking for jobs, I started slow like this. Got zero response. Upped the ante, staying awake well into the burning the midnight oil hours. Would apply to 20+ positions a day, behavior I did on a very close to daily basis. I used to cry from how tired I was of sending out my resume, again and again, but my determination stopped the tears short. For every place of the 20+ I would apply to, I would probably hear back from 3 in return. Maximum.

It's terrible out there and hard, hard, hard. Don't let it get you down though. Keep plugging, keep going, and don't limit yourself. Nobody is above any sort of work despite what the caste system might have taught us. If you're going to be rebuilding Rome, it might need to start slow. Or maybe you need to look at it from a different angle. Positions you apply to might turn into something else, depending on how qualified you are.

Just don't rely on your 1086 Facebook friends to find you a job. That kind of laziness ain't flyin' with me.

4) Don't Wait For The World To Find You

Do you love writing? Photography? Art? Making jewelry?

There are a million websites that understand your love and offer great ways to showcase it. So get on it! Create an online portfolio of your work- even if it starts off crappy. It will improve with time, the more you keep up with it. The emotional growth of my own blog is ridiculous. I'm not the same kind of girl I was when I first started writing here. One of my first entries was about how I bid on and won a wedding dress from eBay as a dare. I look back and clap my hand to my head, Oh Heather! The back of yo' head is ridikulous.

Even though I've grown since then, I remember the kind of girl who wrote that post. She was proud of it enough to share it with the interwebz and was also a girl who was game to try anything once. She also just started blogging and didn't have a clue what she was doing and that this kind of post might not be the best one to start off with, but that's okay because she was learning. Portfolios showcase our growth, how we begin to strengthen our work over time. You can sit there and tell me how you think you're a great writer because "my Mom told me so!" but until I've got some URL evidence to support it, I'm not sold. And neither are future employers.

The world won't look for you- you have to look for it. Just like job hunting, it won't be easy. Start building a portfolio though and watch everything slowly fall into place. Your portfolio of work is going to be your golden ticket to getting what you want, how you want it. Your portfolio is your work which will lead you to your career.

Don't wait on it. Grab that Career constellation with all of your might!

Love to you all (from she who knows best),
Heather

I Dream of Dita

2011-05-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

I'm baaaack!

Sorry for the delay in well, everything. Apparently during my time away from Blogger they suffered from some problems of their own with postings so in a way, it was probably for the best that I wasn't on the interwebz. I've been ridiculously busy though-nonstop writing at work, going to Disneyland and my alma mater's (again, that sounds so strange to write) commencement ceremony, and seeing Bridesmaids (which was hilarious. I laughed so hard I cried on multiple occasions.)

Amidst all of these great moments came the biggest one on Tuesday night, when I and one of my closest girlfriends went to the Roxy Theatre to see one of my biggest fashion icons, Dita von Teese, perform in Strip Strip Hooray. I've been in love with Dita since 2004, I think, when I first saw her in Marilyn Manson's "mOBSCENE" music video. Back in the day, I was a big Manson fan, required musical listening for an angry 13 year old semi-Goth girl. Since then, I've phased out of buying his albums, but I never got over Dita. I absolutely adore her look and the way that she fights to bring back glamour in a world of tracksuits and UGGS. When I first heard that she was engaged to marry Manson, I was starstruck and bought that precious, precious copy of Vogue that contained the pictures to her Vivienne Westwood wedding gown. I was so completely consumed with their wedding that when I was a senior in high school and had to create a "future box" filled with pictures on the inside of who I hoped to become when I was older, I cut out a picture of Dita in that wedding dress and stuck it in. (Note: I aspire to be like a super fashionable dame, not to get married. That part needs to be stressed.)

When news broke out that the marriage didn't work out, I was crushed. And when the news broke out about Manson canoodling with Evan Rachel Wood supposedly during his marriage to Dita, I was enraged. That douche! Who cheats on such a gorgeous magnificent woman with the chick from Thirteen? I was fully on Team Dita afterward-especially when all of those creepy photos started surfacing of Evan attempting to dress like Dita. Barf.

In short, seeing Dita live has been one of my biggest dreams. One evening I was poking along on my Twitter feed when I noticed that Dita (I follow her account) had written she would be at the Roxy out in West Hollywood and included a link to the tickets. It can't hurt to look I told myself, besides they're probably too expensive anyway.

Tickets were $35.

Holy Santa Claus shit.

I texted my friend, confirmed we would both be going, and clicked purchase all within the next 15 minutes.

We arrived at 6pm when the show was set to let people in at about 7pm. We were the first couple of people there, with a line that progressively got longer and longer behind us and a second long, long line for people buying their tickets at the door. Once we got inside, we stood right by the runway leading out from the stage where Dita and the other burlesque performers would sashay out on.

"You don't want to stand there," a very kind woman told us who was facing the stage, "You'll want to stand right where I am. The performers only come out to the runway briefly and then stay on the stage the entire time. Trust me, I've been to a bunch of these shows before."

Normally I don't advocate listening to the advice of strangers (especially in WeHo) but in this case, we happily agreed. Plus the buzz of the booze we were sipping on helped coax our minds too. This would turn out to be the best decision we made because the entire time during the show, we were a mere foot away from the performers. One foot! And we weren't even VIP or sitting in the expensive booths. Fate dealt us one badass hand of luck that night.

Burlesque is a weird topic for me to bring up with friends. "Yeah, I'm going to a burlesque show." Everyone just assumes that you're going to a strip club, but that isn't the case at all. Burlesque is truly an artful performance on stage that titillates the audience with over the top and exaggerated depictions of serious acts. It's all very tongue-in-cheek, winking at you the entire time with playful performances that truly do require years of professional dancing and concentration in order to pull off. Nobody gets fully naked either. At the bare minimum, the dancers will still have a g-string and pasties on to cover their nipples.

Dita opened with her Martini glass act which is incidentally the act I first saw her do in the mOBSCENE video. She walked out in a men's suit, took it off piece by piece and hopped into a giant martini glass filled with water and studded with Swarovski crystals and proceeded to bathe herself with a stuffed olive.

Her second big act was the powder puff compact, in which she pops out of a giant powder compact, resplendent in ballet slippers and a corset and danced on pointe on the stage. Out on the runway, she'd bop a couple of people upside the head (gently) with a little powder brush. This performance is extremely popular in Paris and is quite gorgeous to watch.

The most elaborate performance was her final act, as a Geisha girl where she held on to tassels in her little boudoir to dance with. Hands in orange gloves would pop out from the darkness behind her to reach out and touch her and the entire dance was scored by a remixed Japanese-infused version of The Cure's "Fascination Street."

It is a miracle I didn't pass out from all of the stars exploding in my eyes.

Oh, there were other dancers, but I couldn't get enough of Dita. Good God, in real life she is even smaller and more beautiful than photos can do her justice of. She was pure grace and old Hollywood glamour incarnate on the stage. I could not watch her performance without feeling a constant wave of awe arise over and over again. It was so stunning, at some points it felt impossible that such a small wonder existed. Which also made me cry out in my head, why, oh why don't we have more lovely ladies like Miss von Teese around today? I have a strong feeling that should the day ever arrive that I could get to be shopping buddies with Dita, we'd get along famously.

Her real name, incidentally, is Heather Sweet. Thus, the reason why I felt such an instant kinship. Heathers and I, we understand each other.

Love to you all,
Heather

Dreamscape Reality

2011-05-08T16:36:00.000-07:00

In the midst of the sudden rush of all good things occurring in my life, my mind and subconscious have been acting up. Namely the subconscious.

I've often considered keeping a dream journal and in the past, did have a small book where I wrote the more significant ones in. Depending on where I am in life, my dreams will occasionally light the darker days with pleasant thoughts and dampen my better ones with sadder dreams. When I was working at the former job, I used to dream myself away to a better place in the evenings. Places with fields and the sun and the nice breeze. Which I suppose isn't truly any more different from where I currently live, but y'know, it was. I was different there, filled with more peace and serenity than I ever could be in reality.

The last two nights have presented me with bizarre dreams that I literally could not wake up out of soon enough. Even when I did wake up, I would slip back into the dreams, picking right back up where I left off. Ever notice how that only happens with shitty dreams and never the good ones? Yeah, me too.

Below are my dreams with some analysis included. I analyze my own dreams actively, as I am too broke to afford the viewpoint of a psychologist.

Dream 1

I'm in a subway train, sitting down wearing a white dress. I'm alone and the entire car I'm sitting in is empty. Even though I'm alone, somebody whispers in my ear. The voice tells me that my ex-bf is on the subway too, several cars up. I stand up and walk unsteadily at first to open the door to go to the next car. The subway is moving very fast and I'm having trouble keeping my balance. I get confident and walk faster, and the doors to the next cars get harder and heavier to open. I keep telling myself that this is stupid and to stop trying because reaching him isn't going to do or change anything. I finally get to his car and after throwing the heaviest door yet aside, stumble into a car filled with people I know with him at the center of the subway car space. He smiles at me and I smile back, ecstatic as usual to see him, "You're here!" Then I pretty much jump his bones in the middle of the car (nothing graphic, just some making out) in front of everyone.

Cut to a moment later on when we are both in a car together. He's driving and I'm telling him to take me to Beverly Hills so I can meet up with a friend there. I tell him thank you and he replies of course. We're both older here (in our 30's I'm guessing) and both well-dressed in very pale colors. The sun is setting and we keep passing skyscrapers. I tell him I don't mean to be a burden and he tells me I'm not and I take his hand while he is driving and feel very sad because I know that those stupid glass walls are once more building up.

***

Analysis: I am thinking too much about my alma mater's impending graduation ceremony this coming weekend. Which he is graduating in. I keep hoping for something to happen, whether I admit it to myself or not. Mostly I just don't want to lose his friendship which over the last year has been something I think has already been lost, if not buried.

I'm just tired. I'm tired of thinking of thinking about him every single day, tired of him popping up on my radar, tired that he comes into my head every night before I go to sleep, tired of wishing that I could share all of my good news with him, tired of having imaginary daydreams, tired of everyone telling me to stop thinking about him, tired of having to sit there and pretend I've moved on and am okay with hearing about him with someone else, tired of trying to connect with other guys and nothing happening because they didn't make me laugh like he did and tired of the fear that I didn't amount to anything more than some silly girl in his eyes.

And tired that he spun our story differently to other people, unbeknownst to me. In his version, I was the problem. Maybe I was. I know for a matter of fact that I was. I know I definitely said some things that were completely inappropriate and had it been the flip side of the coin and I was on the receiving end of the remarks, I would never want to speak to me again. But I said I was sorry. It was an apology I meant. He apologized too. I just never added the underlying part that I would have liked to have tried again. Sometimes I think that maybe time was what was needed, distance, to heal. But then we see each other every so often and it is good for about five minutes before he goes over to flirt with some other girl and I'm left feeling like I need to go flirt with somebody else too to prove that I'm fine with this, I'm good. In the words of one of my favorite movies, Jeux d'enfants (Love Me If You Dare), I'm "game." (Cap Ou Pas Cap)

The most significant part of this dream is that I tell myself to stop it, to let go and quit. This is the first time I've actively told myself when dreaming about him everything everyone else has told me. Even though I don't follow my own advice, I dispense it this time, instead of everyone else doing it for me.

These days I've often found myself wishing for a more private social media outlet to let myself out on as well. I do love having my blog be an open forum to read. It allows me to tell the world things they would never have known about me otherwise because I have a hard time telling people things about me. So naturally even in my dreams, there is a big crowd of people observing my life.

Dream 2

I'm living in my beautiful San Francisco. I'm working for my former employers though, with all of the same girl coworkers I had before. It's not an agency anymore though. I work as a dancer for a diner (part Coyote Ugly with some Sucker Punch mixed in) and we all have to dance for the customers in short skirts and fishnets. And I'm crying because I need to get out of there and can't believe that I'm working for them again and even though I love that city so much, I need to leave it in order to restore my sanity.

***

Analysis: That job from hell I first had upon graduating from college has forever left an imprint on me. It has taught me to be forever cautious and wary of places I work in the future. I will never again work anywhere for the prestige of a "title" if it means compromising my happiness and ethics.

For some time during my job search, when I couldn't find anywhere to hire me, I used to think to myself that this was a sign that I wasn't destined to work for anyone or any company. Perhaps it was an arrow pointing down to me that told me to begin my own business or just freelance for life. That's the beauty of being a starving writer. We are our own bosses in the end.

I absolutely love what I do now, and cannot stress it enough. I am continually being blessed with strong female role models in my life who influence me consistently. With this in mind, I've been spending some considerable time lately redefining the "ideal working situation" in my head. If the recession has taught me anything, it is that some traditions need to be broken, now.

The ideal working world, if run by me, would consist of 4 day workweeks. 30 hours would be considered full-time. Cubicles would be banished. Windows would be a must in every room as well as modern pop art paintings for the walls. The office would pay for lunches for everyone and there would be an endless amount of amusing work desk notes passed out. You would never clock in or out. There would be a paycheck every week. And guys and girls would dress swell with zero jeans included (I believe I would reinforce a dress code above most work priorities...)

Sometimes I wonder if I'm meant to be the change. If the reason why I get put in terrible situations is because I'm meant to learn from it (as it seems I'm always stuck learning some sort of lesson) and take that experience to change things for others. The more I think about it, the more reasonable it gets. Human beings are not designed to sit and numbly type in thousands of numbers for hours on a keypad. It is not fair that in this life it seems there are two groups of people: the haves and have-nots. It is wrong to me that so many people have to overexert themselves on the worst possible, menial tasks simply to make the rent every month whereas others sit around and are so bored with their lives, all they can do is complain.

I'll never forget the situation I was in before because it lasted for 9 months. Know what else takes 9 months? Being pregnant. That job was literally the child I was stuck carrying that I did not want even though it looked like a good idea at first. Those 9 months filled me with so much misery that I'm often so startled looking back on it. I can't believe I did it for that long. There are others who do it longer than me though and in the future, for every step I climb upward, I want to be sure to take others with me. I hope to give many people the opportunity to be happy within their working field, particularly since this field is communications which is one of the most vibrant fields around.

This is slowly beginning to happen, since I've just received the go-ahead at my career (it's not a job anymore, folks) to hire my own interns. I get two for the summer. Seeing as I was just as intern myself not even a year ago, this opportunity to oversee the work of others and mentor them has been gracious and immediate. I knew almost instantly who I wanted to have work for me. It wasn't a matter of picking out friends to goof off with. It was about being able to change someone's world and give them valuable job experience that they could take with them onward and upward wherever they went. I had the ability to help and turn things around, and I did it. I look forward to working with them too, being the boss that having learned from terrible bosses in the past, will not power trip or pull them aside to ridicule them or openly talk down to them or laugh off their concerns. Being firm and fair are the best ways to be a good boss to me, with priorities first mixed with laughter.

The time for the ideal working situation is now.

Cap Ou Pas Cap?

I'm game for it.

Love to you all,
Heather

Starring Zooey Deschanel as Me

2011-05-02T23:13:00.000-07:00

Let us pretend we live in a world where my life is getting made into a made-for-TV movie shall we? As I've mentioned before, I'd like me to be played by Zooey Deschanel (though Daisy Lowe is still my firm backup actress du jour).

Zooey and I, we've got the mad similarities. The brown hair with bangs, the big blue eyes, the fair skin, and the (sorta-close) body shape. However, we have an even larger amount of differences. The whole "I'm in She & Him" thing, she dated Jason Schwartzman once, and is currently married (not to Schwartzman but good God would they beget the most hip hipster baby of all Wes Anderson cinema time)...yeah. In order to correctly portray me on camera, Zooey would have to...

Not be gifted as a guitar player or pretend to play poorly. Portraying me properly includes understanding that I just like to pursue things (most things in life actually) for about two weeks before giving them up. This outstanding list includes volleyball, ballet, horseback riding and ponies in general, painting, baking with an EZ Bake Oven, and relationships with the opposite sex (not all, but most).

Be very indecisive on what to wear in the mornings. Some mornings are just tougher than others, you know? You feel fat in everything, nothing hangs right, nothing matches. Before you know it your entire closet is on the floor, with some pieces sliding off of your bed and you feel like crying and calling in sick to work because nothing is working out and the entire morning is already a disaster!

The worst part? You haven't even done your hair yet.

I feel like Zooey could play me to a T in this everyday scenario in my world.

Do an excellent impressive outfit moment. Something involving a staircase or turning around from a balcony railing. The moment where you look super cute and flawless but still effortless, inspiring others to believe "Hey, I can do that too!" My girl has this down.

Zooey playing me would have to film countless scenes in coffee shops and breakfast food cafes (lucky for her, the breakfast food cafes are in West Hollywood, steps away from the mecca of all things hipster: Silverlake). Therefore, she would have to enjoy eating pancakes and drinking iced coffee which are some of the staples of my diet. Look, she's even putting sugar in the coffee. I hope it's Splenda. I don't do anything less than the yellow packet. She's also scrunching her chin fairly akin to how I do...I'm just pointing out how alike we are, you guys. It's not creepy yet.

Here is where we get to the worst part of the made-for-TV movie. The part where Zooey, the dream girl of so very many guys in the world who all happen to be very nerdy and sweet, must portray me, the girl who sits there and raises her eyebrows to most guys as if to say "Can you believe him?" Instead, she must be able to embrace the fact that she will not be able to date any darling JGL's because most unfortunately in my world (and I dare you to contradict me otherwise), they do not exist. She'll be hooking up with colossal douchebags who never call back and pining away for her "Pretty Boy" ex-boyfriend, ~~the egocentric actor that everyone on campus hated and her friends told her was bad for her and she drunkenly swore at on the phone to in a crowded bathroom twice before.~~

I mean, what? These are all purely hypothetical situations.

There's still hope though. The movie isn't quite over. We have a hot John Stamos (there is no one else to portray him better than himself) living down the street, maybe the ex-boyfriend cleans up his act, maybe she hooks up with that cute guy she graduated with "Coachella Guy", and there are so many late night clubs to still go to in her lifetime. Meeting cute will happen.

And happen.

And happen.

Aaaaaand happen.

After all she must embody my life response to whether I'm single or not: "I'm seeing the world at large."

Accurate. No need to practice reshooting these scenes.

She has to wear black tights 'round the clock and look a little bit stressed out. I'm a busy girl. Hell, I'm getting my own intern because I'm so busy. However, Zooey still understands that looking good at work is next to godliness. She also shares my love for flats. This picture alone could be the poster for the film. Photoshop in a city skyscraper backdrop and some sassy girlfriends in the background and boom, we've got something that Lifetime could sell on DVD and make a mint off of. MAKE IT HAPPEN WORLD.

Finally...

Spot-on for what's going on upstairs in my mind.

Let's get a campaign for this film to take off happening.

Love to you all,
Heather

Coming Attractions...

2011-04-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

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

The Final Countdown

2011-03-30T19:32:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning, after having a very peaceful dream to the sounds of the birds outside of my window chirping away. I smiled, sat up and stretched in bed, drew my legs in close to me in their peach colored pajamas, and caught a glimpse of the mirrored closet reflecting me and the view from outside of my window. Blue skies, few clouds, sunlight. I got out of bed and threw open the window and let the sunlight and warmth in to bathe in its beauty.

It was 8:30am. I just quit my job yesterday. I start a new one on Monday.

Throughout a person's lifetime, it is said that we will transition through seven to 10 career position changes, something I'm already well on my way to achieving. When people ask me where I will be in five years, I shrug and smile. I stopped planning out my life after I graduated from college. Prior to that, I knew everything. I knew what I would be doing from the moment I woke up to the last hour before I went to bed. I liked to have a routine and a plan, with goals in the future and steps set to achieving them. School set a nice confine to life and allowed me to live within a time frame of predictability. There weren't many surprises and when they did happen, it threw my schedule into a crux and taught me how to adapt to change, even if I didn't like it.

When I think about my future, I see writing. I see long hours hunched over my computer, typing furiously and gazing out the window with a never ending playlist in the background. I see myself traveling to new cities, exploring the landscape and the world around me with all five of my senses. I see myself laughing mostly, spending time with good friends and family. These are really the only glimpses into my future I get. I'm not the kind of girl who is aspiring to be chained to one place for too long, looking for a husband, children, a home. The only room in the house I see myself really giving great thought to is the closet and just how many closets I can find that hold my clothes! I've always intended to live out of a series of suitcases and be forever on the journey to finding all of the puzzle pieces that make up the girl I am. That, and make out with pretty boys, but who doesn't want to do that in their lifetime?

My roommate referred to me once as "untethered Heather." There's so much truth in that. My future is bright with the written word and shine of a glitzy party dress, but while I see that, I also see how very passionate I am for one day being able to create scholarships in colleges, this dream I have of creating a chain of bookstores modeled after one I used to go to as a child, and to be influential in supporting non-profit causes for children. It has always been my firmest belief to keep both style and substance hand in hand with the work I do. If I'm going to change the world, the change will be to better the lives of others while keeping in tune with creating aesthetically pleasing environments for others as well as myself. One cannot exist without the other. You can't be all work and no play. It leads you to the story of how I quit my job that I'm about to tell you.

It needs to be noted that my tolerance level for bullshit is exceedingly higher than most. I also tend to handle my anger differently than most people do. I've dealt with numerous unfair and outrageous situations and have often been a changed person afterward, more wary and careful to guard myself. All in all, I want to believe in the good, the kindness of people, but I've also known that some people just aren't capable of it. When I'm mad, I won't say it. I tend to look too nicely dressed and just smile at people. After someone yells at me, something begins to snap in my mind and while I won't lash out at that moment, I'm gearing up for a retort in the future. Sometimes you have to pick and choose your battles wisely to leave the right imprint upon that person to never, ever mess with you again.

For the last nine months, the job I had was my battle. My copywriter position. I had the position that advertising majors, PR graduates would easily push me out of the way for. I wrote all day long and received recognition for it. Writing for a yellow pages agency, I was able to use my versatility to translate into descriptions on any topic you could name. Locksmiths, French bistros, novelty stores? Ceiling repair, florists, escort agencies? I did it all and I did it with gusto. My work was often referred to as flawless by the upper management and I was determined to stay one year to get the experience I needed to move on to a bigger company (this one was too small to advance in).

What ended everything for me would ultimately be the upper management. It was the age-old case of CEO's who were all for one and one alone with little to no perks given to the employees. Nobody likes to see this written, no company wants to see their former associate trash them on the internet, but damnit it needs to be said and hey, at least I'm not so spiteful to include their name. Everyone in upper management with that company, from the president to the thorn in my side office manager, was on a power trip 24/7 with no end in sight. They would praise your writing one minute and scream at you to stop talking or else you could see yourself out of the door the next. There was never a "good day", only days where you wondered if the next one was your last. In that way that art imitates life, my life began to disturbingly resemble the film Sucker Punch, in which I was trapped within an awful reality and needed to escape inside of my head to better places, daydream myself somewhere nice to avoid where I was and getting dragged into that damn office where I would have to answer some inane question over a spreadsheet that we already went over four times.

I knew things were ending in December when my supervisor, who is one of my closest friends, quit because she was so unhappy. When she quit, the wife of my boss who also serves as the HR head actually told her that they normally wish people good luck when they leave, but in her case they weren't going to. My hatred for my bosses only grew seismically after this-and not just because at the time they had moved my desk to the corner of the office, alone and cut off from everyone else. All I did was talk. I get it when you talk too much and can't get any work completed, then yes, you need to scale back and focus on your task at hand. But when you get all of your work done on time and are just asking your supervisor how their weekend was and boom! The office manager runs out and bitches at you to be quiet. They moved my desk into the corner "to free up some space" but all of the girls knew it was to separate us. That day was the first, and luckily the last, that I went into the bathroom to cry because I knew it was all downhill from there. I was being punished as though I was in first grade. If wearing hats was allowed, I would surely be slapped with a dunce cap. But I knew better now. Through my tears, I knew they weren't going to get away with this.

I would not go down without a fight.

The endless list of things you couldn't do there was staggering. You couldn't eat at your desk. You couldn't wear sleeveless tops, open toed shoes, hats. You were not allowed to go online to check your email or even upload a picture for your computer desktop. You weren't allowed to talk to your coworkers, about anything. No one in the copywriter department was allowed to take a lunch break together. The bagels ordered on Tuesdays for the department were inexplicably stripped from us by the boss' wife. It was, as I put it in a rather un-PC way, turning into a concentration camp run by a bunch of Jews (the bosses were Jewish).

For the rest of December, I took action into my own hands in the isolated corner of the office, far from my former department. I began to work harder than ever while writing and disappeared into my own mind in a fantastic fantasyland where I was a superhero and flying at breakneck speed in the air, where I was on a plane flying to a new place, where I was laughing and free. I had some fairly regular fantasies swim in my head during that time, some of which were old memories I would rehash. Some of my fantasy sessions included being in and exploring London and various other countries, returning to the winding streets of San Francisco and imagining the life I could have had there that I gave up last May, the thought of seeing my family again (its been two years since we last were all together), and this last one is terribly tragic, but on occasion I would envision my ex-boyfriend from college and I getting back together. Very rarely still, I would even have the Cinderella fantasy that he would magically come bursting through the front door and save me. I used to have this thought about other friends of mine, that somehow they would be able to feel my pain and come find me to save me from this room, with no windows and utter silence for nine hours a day with only the sounds of my white trash office manager, bragging on the phone to clients that she was "seven years sober" and who would casually tell everyone in the lunch room about how she was once arrested for grand theft.

The thing about fantasies and daydreams is that no matter what, they end and your reverie is shattered by the reality all around you. My reality began to change in January when I felt it begin to fall apart all around me. My former roommate quit her job out of the blue in February and declared she would move out, barely giving me and my other roommate time to find a new roommate for our apartment even though she was supposed to find us someone. I began to apply nonstop for new jobs, everywhere and anywhere I could. No time zone could get me out of that hell fast enough and while I looked for a new job, we found a new roommate after countless horrendous interviews with potential girls who were just not right to live with.

You can fight or flight in these situations and while curling up in a ball in your bed is easier, while grief will invade your spirit and suck you free of joy, while you can hope that someone will rescue you, the only thing you can do for yourself is fight. Fight for your dreams, your ambitions and goals, remain optimistic, and never let go. No one will come to you, no one will fight your battle in your place. EVERYONE struggles and hurts and my pain can hardly be compared to the pain of others so I had to keep everything in perspective and live as carefully as possible. Careful to be ready for anything to change in a moment's notice. In my case I could have been gone (literally) from my beautiful apartment and on a plane home to my parent's house before I knew it.

You have to know when your time is up and when it all comes to a head, just what you will do. When the last straw has been broken and when you are no longer skating on thin ice, but drowning in it.

My time came to a head one week ago.

The final two weeks prior to my leaving the company were marked by a series of events. My current supervisor quit, leaving me next to take the seat that four people quit in the span of one year. That evens out to a 3 month longevity, ironically enough the same amount of time before my lease on the apartment would be up. So I could be miserable for 3 months and get rewarded with a resignation or a potential firing. Let it be known, upon hearing that my supervisor was resigning, I mildly considering quitting. I didn't though. My two roommates were the reason I stayed because I loved and cared for them too much to put them, and in the case of me and my other roomie who had just been down that road, through the anxiety and hell of breaking the lease.

The next series of events were my parade of job interviews, oh excuse me, my sick days. In the span of two weeks, I went on four job interviews. That is A LOT in this economy and for each one, I wore my best suit, nicest Calvin Klein heels, and brought in various portfolios and resumes of my work in, determined to wow them over. There is a point in the interview process where you can kind of tell if you're connecting with the people you're speaking with and in my case, I watched three interviews go up in flames despite my best attempts to get the interviewers to smile and laugh and you know, display human emotion. These people literally had no idea just how much they could have saved me from drowning in my reality, but in perspective, who's to say that their "saving me" would have led to a better life? I like to think that by not getting those jobs, it was always for the best.

The last interview last Friday went wonderfully well and I left it feeling very hopeful, with little worries built up that I would not get the position. Because even if I didn't, I accepted early on that everything would be okay. How, I didn't know, but I'd do everything I could to make it better. Thank God for the girls I worked with in my department. They were my sanity, my saving grace. They still are. Something brought us together and I know in my heart it was for the best. There were also five of us altogether, just like in Sucker Punch. Life imitating art once more. Jeez, I need to stop comparing my life to the movies so much.

The catalyst that set everything into motion for my departure occurred before the final interview in the foursome. My former desk in the corner had been restored to a new room, next to a window where I sat with two of my copywriter friends in front of the CEO's office, where the door was always open. The desk was restored in February and sitting with these two girls allowed for me to begin testing a little...something. A trick up my sleeve. My nickname at home used to be "The Instigator" because I enjoyed bringing up topics nobody enjoyed discussing because of bad memories. I also have a terrible habit of laughing when people get into arguments. You can trace this to my early childhood where my parents would find me at their first apartment, pressed up against the wall, chuckling at a fight between the couple next door like it was an episode of The Simpsons.

I began to test out just how much I could get away with talking. Each day, I would be sure to say a few extra sentences, raise my voice a bit louder, with the other girls encouraged to follow suit. I'm a fairly quiet person in general, but this rule, this lack of zero communication allowed, for a former communications major, this put me over the edge. What stemmed from this were the best conversations of your life, the ones you'll remember when your old and gray, because they were from girls fresh from college who didn't mind discussing everything and then some under the sun. We were the left side of the office, the more progressive side that could discuss Russian dynasties, viral Youtube videos on bedroom intruders and leprechauns that "coulda been a crackhead", serial killers, liberal drinking habits, and Katy Perry's tits all in stride. Anything goes and it did, growing all the more louder and louder with every passing day. We all did our work and well so there was no argument for us to not talk if it led to getting everything done in time.

The day my boss broke the final straw, I was wearing my hair in pigtails a la Babydoll in Sucker Punch (consider this the Easter egg of my post) and was excited for the movie to be released that Friday (same day as my final interview). The last words I spoke before the hammer fell were to my coworker, quoting a line from Half-Baked when Dave Chappelle mentions that he's "in custodial management, but a janitor if you want to be an ass about it."

"Heather!" My boss' voice boomed behind me and I turned around in my swivel chair, a half-smile on my face lingering still as he shouted, "You are no longer allowed to talk here! Not before or during work or else you and the rest of you girls," he nodded to the girls sitting around me, "are dismissed and can go walk out the door. No. More. Talking!"

Then my raging bitch of an office manager came right up behind him and announced, "No more talking ladies or you're out." She walked out of the room behind him.

My coworkers and I were unable to speak, we were that much in shock. My friend, A, sitting on my left raised one trembling middle finger to the wall where my bosses had just left.

I saw red for the next three hours until I excused myself to go to the bathroom where I sat on the floor, unable to cry, only able to fight and dig myself the fuck out of this job. I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, where a pale face with blue eyes and red lipstick stared back. She was set. She was determined. She would leave and go somewhere better, where the pay was good, the people could talk, and hats could be freely worn.

I left the bathroom and passed my office manager in the hallway, waiting to use it after me. The look we gave each other was one I will never forget. Worse than looking at a stranger, it was a look empty of every emotion and of being human. The end was fast approaching and we both knew it would be me leaving next, by either getting hired somewhere else, quitting, or getting fired. She would lick the boots of the CEO and his wife if it ensured that she could stay because her employment life was over. 35, locked into a family, and with a criminal record. No matter where I went or the girl I became, I would be free because I would never choose to put myself through illegal activity, even if I could never handle the reality in front of me. That simply isn't how I was raised. I was taught to believe in integrity, honesty, hard work, and never resorting to becoming a second rate version of myself.

After the interview on Friday, I didn't expect to hear back until Wednesday and sat on Monday with the phone in my lap, tucked underneath my skirt so my bosses wouldn't see. (They can't tell me to lift my skirt, a big plus in keeping the phone safe.) I felt the phone begin to vibrate and saw the number for the company appear on the screen. I rushed out of the door and walked down the corridor, closer to the light after the last rainy weekend. Come to the light. So I did and heard on the other end of the phone that yes, I did get the position. Yes, they would pay me what I wanted and yes, I could start on Monday. And most importantly, yes, they were excited to work with me. Just as much as I was with them to manage their social networking process, my new position.

My coworker D was the first to find out because she was just coming out to go to the bathroom when I got off of the phone. "I GOT THE JOB!!" I screamed, delirious with joy and ran to hug her, as she was equally overjoyed to hear the news. I was done. DONE WITH THIS COMPANY FOREVER. The relief and the sudden rush of loads of endorphins overflowed within me until it felt like I might drop from exhaustion right on the spot.

I went back in and told the girls immediately who were all beyond excited for and with me. My office manager, She Who Cannot Keep Her Nose Out of Things Not Her Business, came out and critically viewed me up and down, "What's going on? Why are you smiling so much?"

I grinned extra wide at her, neatly smoothed my skirt, and looked her dead in the eye:

"I'm resigning."

Oh, the look on that woman's face was priceless. Especially since this resignation came one week after my supervisor's. Hehe. HA HA!!! Suck on that, bitchface!

The next day I came in, dropped off my resignation letter to my bosses, ignored their begging me to stay because it was too little, too late (and boy did they beg, those assholes who nearly fired me the week before BEGGED me to reconsider staying in that hellhole), and kept my final day rocking with a sweet playlist of tunes all morning and afternoon.

And I did it all in cherry red high heels.

Cheers to my new job and all those fleeing their awful ones!

Love to you all,
Heather

Closing Your Eyes and Opening Your Mind

2011-03-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's been quite some time since I last wrote a film review, but for Sucker Punch, the apple of my eye for give or take 6+ months, I'm ready and more than willing to write one.

The last time I was this excited for a movie, conveniently enough, was for director Zack Snyder's Watchmen adaptation, of which I am a huge fan of the comic book. Snyder is gifted with a stylized eye for creating gorgeous backdrops with which one can have a particularly kick-ass fight scene, a sense of staying as faithful to the book's vision as he can, and for giving us beautiful people to look at and in the case of 300, sculpted abs that would make even the biggest exercise buffs pinch themselves and demand more gym time.

Sucker Punch is different in the sense that it isn't based on any comic book adaptation, but rather an idea Snyder had spent the better part of 10 years working on. Originality in Hollywood is becoming a vastly unheard of thing and with bated breath I watched the teaser trailer, the full-length trailer, and followed the media circuit by extensively researching every aspect of the film I could, falling deeper and deeper in love with the storyline: Babydoll, a young girl, is sent to a mental institution by her evil stepfather after the death of her mother. The institution is terrifyingly bleak with no hope for escape and the promise of a lobotomy coming her way. In a manner akin to Inception's "dream within a dream", Babydoll must escape her reality by fantasizing that the institution is a brothel nightclub and further from that, a video game world where she can destroy her demons to receive her freedom.

With every photo of a costume piece donned by Babydoll and her girls, the addition of Jon Hamm in the cast, and the Sucker Punch book loaded with illustrations of set designs I poured over at Barnes and Noble, I felt my excitement building to a boiling point. I was setting myself up to be amazed by this film and trusted that it would be just as strong and tough as it promised me.

*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*

The biggest fault of Sucker Punch is that it is rated PG-13, instead of R as I had been long under the impression it would be. Prior to changing the rating, the film would have been undoubtedly much more gorier and bloodier and would have contained more scenes from the brothel of the girls dancing in their scantily-clad costumes (which having seen the pictures, I can confirm they were amazing). But the biggest downer for me was hearing that they cut the sex scene between Jon Hamm and Emily Browning; Babydoll and her client the High Roller who after exchanging money with the nightclub owner Blue, would take Babydoll's last shred of innocence from her. There was also supposed to be another rape scene, or at least a few implied ones between Babydoll and Blue as well, but sliding into the PG-13 rating cut all of this out and left it for the director's cut DVD.

I know when I say it's a downer for a rape or sex scene to be cut from a film I'm setting the feminist movement back about 40 years, but for Sucker Punch I believe that keeping it would have been necessary to the tone of the film as a whole. Babydoll's future, and the future of her friends, in every reality except for the bad guy video game slaying world, is so bleak and hopeless that even as a viewer you know there will be no happy ending. Even when you do applaud the girls for the few upper hands in the situation they receive, you know deep down that for all of them to survive will be impossible. You keep hoping though, that even in the darkest of days, they will be triumphant and Snyder is usually skilled at darkening the world to the point where you cannot imagine it getting worse. If he had kept the scenes and left the rating at R, I can imagine the film being all the better for it, but since the scenes were cut, it left the movie feeling choppy and with questions unanswered at certain points. Also, early on in the film they make a point to note that Babydoll is 20, which leads me to further push for these scenes to have been included since she is clearly over 18.

Within the first 10 minutes of the film, you meet Babydoll, played by Emily Browning who creates the ultimate in fanboy quivering and pretty China doll fantasies. Babydoll's mother has just died and her death leaves Babydoll and her sister to live with her stepfather who is sure he has received the estate in the will and is shocked to find out that all has been left to the girls. He goes to Babydoll's room to undoubtedly rape and kill her, but she fights him off and he locks her in her room to advance on her little sister instead. Babydoll escapes out the window and reenters the house with a gun to shoot him, but accidentally winds up killing her sister instead and runs away to her mother's grave. The police arrive, with her stepfather spinning tales that she is crazy and with the gentle prick of a needle, a dazed Babydoll winds up at the mental asylum owned and run by Blue Jones (a wonderfully creepy Oscar Issac). The girls at the institution act out their lives to the on-site therapist Dr. Gorski (Carla Gugino, in a series of to-die-for ensembles) but its all certain that nothing will save them in the long run.

Babydoll then falls into the fantasy of imagining the institute as a burlesque house where she meets sisters Rocket (Jena Malone) and Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung) who are "the main attraction." They dance for gentlemen clients, as taught by Gorski, who now plays the resident dance instructor, and ensure that the clients get their happy endings, so Blue gets his money and can keep running the place. When Babydoll dances, she closes her eyes and falls into the last world, a place where she is fighting off her demons with the help of the Wise Man who instructs her that in order to be free, she will need a map, fire, a knife, a key, and one last mystery object.

Using this bit of information, Babydoll tells the girls in the burlesque fantasy world that she will escape and though Sweet Pea is reluctant, they all agree to come along and help her. Babydoll is apparently an extremely titillating dancer (you never actually see her dance but it is described as "raw" with lots of "moaning and gyrating") so while she dances, the men are mesmerized and the girls run around collecting their objects, a plan that at first suspends your disbelief that these girls could find everything they need in such a heavily-armed place, but then everything comes crashing down when the girls work to get the knife from the chef.

Meanwhile, during Babydoll's dance sequences, she and the girls fight zombie SS officers, dragons in medieval times, and robots on trains with bombs as led by the Wise Man. These sequences are never boring and extremely intense, making the film stronger for it. When things begin to take a turn for the worse in this world, it is reflected in the nightclub world. In reality, Babydoll's lobotomy comes in 5 days from the doctor, and in the burlesque peep show world, it comes in the High Roller as her first client in 5 days. Yet despite these worries, there is really no sense of impending danger, no frantic rush to get the items in time, and no real sense of time in general. When Babydoll near the end of the movie finally figures out what the 5th item on the list is, I guarantee you nobody was shocked to find it out. In fact, I myself kept waiting for the swelling of some sort of friendship-themed music to start up...which lo and behold, it did.

While I enjoyed the character of Babydoll very much and also the characters of Gorski and Blue who turn out to be more than they both seem, I didn't really care for the other girls in her entourage. Sweet Pea (Cornish) has the most defined personality because she initially doesn't want to fight to leave and considers the entire plan a wash, but even then she's dull and doesn't do much outside of look after her sister (which even then she doesn't do well, ahem the scene with the cook and the chocolate). Rocket, Blondie, and Amber are all about as one-dimensional as they come. Even the High Roller, thanks to all of the scenes cut out, leaves Jon Hamm with nothing to do beyond look resplendent in a white suit. Frankly speaking, if you work at a brothel and your first client is a guy as attractive and suave as the Hamm is, you better count and thank your lucky stars that he's going to be the first guy to deflower you.

While it's worth the viewing in theatres, I prefer my Zack Snyder films to be gritty and raw and will be much more fulfilled by the director's cut rated R edition he plans to release. Only then do I believe that the film's tagline of "You Will Be Unprepared" will ring true for me.

Love to you all,
Heather

The Real Community

2011-03-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

*As a brief side note before I begin this post, no I did not get hired for the position I went on two interviews for. There are a couple of things I could say about how the final interview went. The question that literally started off with "If you had a magic wand and could wave it over your first day of work..." How I couldn't make the two people interviewing me laugh at all and barely could interpret their facial expressions (though it should be noted, the husband of the husband/wife team looked more amused by me than anything, in that way guys love to smirk at me for not understanding The Ways of the World). How my inner Jiminy Cricket conscience nearly broke a blood vessel when the man interviewing me declared his distaste for social media. How my inner Tim Gunn conscience had to hold Jiminy back from screaming a million reasons why placing working on social media outlets needs to be one of the, if not the, absolute top priorities of a cause-marketing company. Maybe I'll write this out to an entire post one of these days, but ehhh, I'd rather not. It didn't disappoint me to lose the position because I know there is one out there that is just more deserving of having me on their team. I'll find it soon. The End.*

I'm a big fan of the show Community, the one with Joel McHale and Chevy Chase portraying community college students at Greendale Community College. Joel plays Jeff Winger, a disbarred lawyer who needs to get in and out of this community college as quickly as possible to get back to his regularly scheduled lifestyle. While at Greendale, Jeff gets saddled with his study group, an eclectic group of cool weirdos. These members include Britta, the snarky former Peace Corps member in need of direction for her life, Abed, the pop culture obsessed wannabe director, Annie, the studious former Adderall junkie, Shirley, the divorced mother who is an excellent brownie baker, Troy, the former high school QB, and Pierce, the much-older tactless millionaire. Oh, and Senor Chang, the group's Spanish teacher who is forever trying to get into the study group of misfits.

As a former community college student, the show comments on a wide range of school issues, some of which I found relevant to my own experience there, but at the same time there were a whole bunch that didn't tie in with it whatsoever. (The paintball episode, obviously you can't run all over your campus having an epic paintball war though it would make school much more interesting.)

Here are some stories of my version of Community I experienced and how they stacked up against the show, NBC's version of reality.

Imma Get Smart

My views on community college, prior to my attendance, were the typical views of a sheltered young girl who stuck her nose up in the air far more often than she had the right to. When I was in high school and working at Panera Bread, I worked with one of my closest friends at the time who attended community college. The ability to get a student loan for myself without a cosigner had left me with the option of either no school or community college and I made some remark on how "community college wasn't for intelligent people" to my community college friend who by all rights was upset with me for saying something like that when it isn't true. We rounded out the night, silently scrubbing out the soup well, with me wondering if a) I had just lost a really good friend for my mouth's verbal diarrhea, b) the indignation that comedians and generally most people could say what I just said and not face repercussions, and c) why must I be taught a lesson for every little thing I say/do that isn't considered kosher with others?

I apologized. I do get it when I'm behaving like an ass. And just like the time in high school when I regularly made fun of this one guy in my grade for riding the bus after school, I was about to get some fate-approved lessons taught to myself.

Community college isn't a terrible place. Nor is it a place for those who are burnouts or slackers alone. Some of the classes I had I was a regular Annie Edison in, constantly raising my hand to volunteer an answer (the pop culture class that I wrote an extensive paper on the history of horror films). Others I was an eye-rolling Britta Perry in (all math classes, that hideous Zoology course). Still others I regularly napped in (insert class name here if you can remember it). I only went to school twice a week, but it was a full day both days. During the summers, I went 4 days a week and did online coursework. If you ever have the chance to enroll in it, online classes are the shiz. You don't have to leave your home to go to class. You can take a quiz while watching Entourage. Some of these classes even offer online tests, many of those I did with my textbook on my lap, thumbing through the pages in the index for the answers.

I like to think of myself as a "selective learner."

Experience is the Teacher

My foreign language credits rolled over from high school ensured I didn't need to take another Spanish class in my life so I didn't get the pleasure of working with a Senor Chang. However, I did get stuck with a series of teachers who were both fairly good and downright awful.

Some of the better ones included my Psychology teacher whom I thanked after the classes were over since I felt like I actually learned a thing or two in that course. My Intermediate Algebra teacher who didn't mind if I would occasionally slip out of class early on bad weather days and even changed my grades a little bit after reviewing my terrible tests together. Even my Pop Culture instructor was a good guy who was always interested in where I would transfer over to.

Then there were the bad ones. Specifically my Biology and Intro to Mass Media teachers. The Bio teacher, Skeevy McGee, was one of those young, hip, "I'm in my 30's but I can still relate to a bunch of 18 year old's" guys who picks one guy in the class to be buddy-buddy with and crack jokes at his expense. He also had a thing for young girls. Specifically of the 18 and under freshman set. On my first day in class Skeevy went around the room asking us what our life ambitions and plans after this school entailed, I very loudly and assertively announced what I had planned after and the university I had in mind to attend. After I finished, I smiled at him and the rest of the classroom as a whole.

Skeevy just gave me that amused look (see above, this crap is a regular recurrence in my life), that older guys will occasionally give me. It's a lot like a smirk and it usually says, "Righhhht."

He told me, "You sound like a game show host." Smiling the entire time.

What. The. What. Most of the girls in the room giggled. My brain silently rationed that if my chest size was two times bigger and I was blond just how this would be going down. Suffice to say, I kind of hated that course for the rest of the semester. But the additional reasons why are yet to come.

The Mass Media course, my introduction to my future major, was awful. My teacher had issues with anyone reading newspapers outside of our city. As in, no worldwide papers period. She also professed an extreme dislike for Will Ferrell and enjoyed telling the class about how she spent all of her money while in college on booze. My head spun from the confusion of this course.

And then there was my Public Relations course where my teacher and one of my classmates got into a big fight, but since my classmate was a really awful girl who rudely assumed I was a pothead two weeks in (under what grounds did that get started was what I would like to know) it was totally cool with me that the student got yelled at. That was another really unpleasant course too, come to think of it. All of the girls in that class were serious PR majors, the ones who start interning in high school and name drop clients and celebrities during classes and you can kind of already see that their future includes a lifetime of offices, Louboutins (for the name-dropping factor), and Botox.

The Art of Presentation

During the community college days, I gave a few interesting presentations. My presentations, in general, begin with a joke, involve me walking around, lots of hand motions, and as little note card glances and "umm's" as possible. While none of these presentations featured sparklers or wigs, they were still memorable in their own way.

The best one was a piece I did on the argument pros and cons for school uniforms in Psychology. Why I was doing this sort of presentation in a psych class, I don't remember. I have a long-term history of tweaking classroom work to fit my likes more than the actual assignment given. Case in point, in eighth grade when faced with writing a paper on issues like homelessness and AIDS awareness, I requested, and received permission, to write about the cancellation of my then-favorite show on ABC, Once and Again. And that paper received a round of applause. Just. Sayin'.

For this presentation, I bought a black piece of construction foam, chalk, and ripped out dozens of photos from magazines of school blazers and uniforms to create a chalkboard collage. Definitely had a blast putting it together. I tend to do very well when I'm on my hands and knees, surrounded by cut out pictures, scissors, tape, glue, and lots of good music playing in the background. The presentation and chalkboard were a hit and I was proud of the work I had done.

In contrast, for the Biology course with Skeevy McGee, I had to write a report on the heart and present it sans a PowerPoint. I printed out a bunch of information on the heart to put on the overhead projector, but midway through the assignment I had a really good idea to pull up a clip art picture of Dracula at the moment I described just how much blood pumps into our hearts in the span of 1 minute. I got the idea approved with my girlfriends who thought it was ridiculous but hilarious. Boom. Happening.

I'm in my presentation and I just finished telling everyone how much blood pumps through the human heart. I repeated the number twice, then pretended to put my hand to my ear, "What's that? I think I just heard someone else is interested in that bit of information." I slid the vampire picture onto the projector, "Aw, it's Count Dracula! Now that's information he can use, aww yeah!"

At first nobody moved. I wondered if I had lost them. Then one person started to laugh, followed by another, until the entire room was laughing including Skeevy McGee. Yay! Inappropriate blood sucking jokes for the win! I rounded out the presentation by clasping my hands together to make a heart shape. Lots o' applause and even a nod from Ole Skeevy from the presentation going well.

'L' is for the Way You Look at Me

In Community, Jeff gets around with a professor on campus and with both Annie and Britta (whom Troy refers to both as 'donuts' in one episode in that it isn't fair for Jeff to get with both of the study group girls).

I'd really prefer not to remember all of the instances of guys trying to make moves on me during my 1.5 years of community college, but two in particular stick out the most. Emo Child and $. Not a typo on the last one, $ signed his first name which began with an "S" with a dollar sign.

Emo Child sat next to me in the Bio class with Skeevy McGee (jeez, what was wrong with this class? Why didn't I transfer out?) and was very unsettling. Anytime I would get up for presentations/getting back from presenting he would tell me "good luck" and "that was a good presentation." Before class began, he would sit there listening to his metal and death rock and I, in my Rammstein phase, would sit there listening to my Till Lindemann while reading. In some ways we did look like a good match for one another, but we weren't. Some people can look like good matches but from experience, that doesn't mean jack shit.

It was $ who was the true weirdo. I took a Persuasion course (in communications, not on the Jane Austen book) where I met $ who sat next to me. Initially our friendship was formed on making fun of a guy who sat two seats behind me and was dubbed by the entire classroom as "Smelly Dude." Of course, the thing is $ and I were hardly friends. I was much closer to the girl who sat behind me and she knew I had issues with $. $ was nice....ish. He drank more energy drinks than I did, which at the time, was highly impressive in an odd way. His desk was lined up with a wide variety of Monster and Rock Star beverages and he never blinked when he talked to you.

One afternoon, I had a head-splitting headache and was walking to that class, contemplating if I could make it through. The class was canceled for the afternoon and relieved, I made the decision to skip the rest of the classes for the day and go home. On my way down the stairs to go to my bus, $ was walking up, tweaked on too much Red Bull as usual. "Where are you going?" he asked me, not blinking.

"Class is canceled for today." I replied and he nodded and grinned, "Alright, cool. Hey, want to go get sushi? I know a great place."

"No thanks," I told him, now down the stairs with $ as my reluctant companion out of the door. My head was threatening to explode on the entire student body.

"Maybe another time?" He asked and in a fuzz of blurred pain, I nodded. Through the blur, I remember thinking it was so unfortunate that he just didn't dress better, otherwise he might make a semi-fine young man.

Then I went home and slept for an hour before going on a walk in the neighborhood since it was a stunningly sunny day outside. On the walk, I recalled saying yes to the next sushi outing. My stomach felt panicked.

Of course this story has a terrible ending. He talked to me one afternoon where I expressly made it clear that not only was he ruining my math memorization, but I did not want to have anything to do with him. It was harsh granted, but necessary. I only felt better afterward. I mean, when everyone in your class is asking you about your "boyfriend" and you have to loudly clarify it that nothing is going on, then sometimes the mean route is the best way to go.

I felt even better in class the next week when the girl sitting behind me gasped out, "$! What happened to your eye?"

I briefly turned and saw that one of his eyeballs had popped out and looked as though a blood vessel exploded. Though terrible, I stifled a laugh.

Must have been all of the Red Bull.

This is only the beginning of the stories though. I haven't discussed my time writing for the school newspaper, the boy who had a crush on me on the bus, the week the hippie invasion occurred on campus. Like the Community gang on the show and myself in real life, the good news that keeps you warm on the nights you're standing outside in the snow waiting for the bus to arrive to take you home and the realization that it isn't coming and you have to wait for the next one to arrive is this. It's not forever. Maybe it's coming in two years or six months or 5 years, but I swear...

You Will Get Out

Love to you all,
Heather

The Buck Stops Here

2011-03-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

I've been a bag of nerves for a little over a week now and this morning, decided to add jittery on top of jittery with a nice grande iced Caramel Macchiato from that gleaming beacon of green and white hope dotting neighborhood blocks everywhere- Starbucks.

The bus wasn't even midway to my job yet and already I had gulped down half the glass. Normally coffee and caffeine in general doesn't do much for me. I have this rare gift of being able to sleep whenever, however, and do it at the drop of a hat no matter how much I try to pump myself up to stay awake (unless I'm going to a city I like or a bookstore...no sleep tonight with those places). This morning though, a strange thing happened. My fraying nerves connected to the java hot-wired through my body for an electric charge. ZING! POP! BOOSH! I was awake! I was rip ready roaring to go at 7am! Back off world 'cause I, in my roasted coffee bean armor, can take ya on!

In the movie Alfie, the main character Alfie describes his pretty and reckless girlfriend Nikki as going through "major highs and manic lows." All par for the course with how I felt in the span of 15 minutes that would continue to translate for the entire day. Much of my jitterbugness is stemming from the fact that by Friday, I will hear back from a cause-marketing company I've gone on not one but two interviews for. The first interview was a smashing success and felt perfectly natural whereas the second one was grueling and had me physically exhausted afterward. Evaluating the second interview in my head as impartially as possible, I felt it did go well in theory. I answered every question as truthfully and honestly as possible. I dressed nicely (if you know me though, this is nothing new). I gave it my all and more but once I got outside, I felt a weight fell off of my shoulders and a new one get tossed on. The weight of worry if they want me on their team. I fear my age is too young, I don't have enough experience, that they want someone who is older, wiser. I might be young and tech-savvy, but is it enough? My own self is my worst critic and she wishes I could have done more sooner, earlier, and faster. We all have to start somewhere, sometime, don't we?

So with coffee fueling me, I think about this position. Everything will change for me no matter what the decision is. Yes. No. One syllable and I'm a new girl. I can have it all or I can lose it all. I can rebuild myself anew or continue working on the foundation already in place. I wish I could see both versions of this Heather by brain is slowly working on, but I won't be able to. One syllable and I'm a new girl.

Yes. No.

The coffee kicks in further and my right-sided brain starts to hop all over the place. You should blog! it excitedly jabs at me, write it out! Don't go to work today, get off at the next stop, go home, and write!

Ahem, the left side of my brain taps me with a pencil, listen to your The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack instead. It puts you in a peaceful mood.

I put on the soundtrack and consider blogging these thoughts, this moment. The Starbucks needs to be tied in somehow but not in a "running out of ideas" way like that episode of Sex and the City when Carrie isn't dating any new guys and is going to write her column for the week comparing men to socks. Better than the week before when finding the perfect man is compared to finding delicious French fries (the ever-faithful Charlotte pipes up that that particular piece was "cute!"). This segue-ways into me thinking about how much I wanted to be Carrie when I was applying to college and at the time on the East Coast track...which leads to me remembering college and the dorm life...which leads to me thinking about if 111 Archer Avenue is a real place in New York...which leads to the bus announcing my stop and me getting off with the thought of the job coming back. It's so strange how when I daydream, I go from thought to thought only much later in the day to arrive to my first thought which feels so long ago, it's like I never dwelled on it at all.

Oh, that crazy hoppin' coffee bean effect on me.

The effect of the coffee begins to wear off at about 10am, but until that moment, I am wrapped in its roasted aroma embrace. It's a feeling I've known and been close to for years.

I am not a Starbucks snob. I drink coffee from other establishments as well, though not as often. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf very, very rarely. Peet's in the summer, and especially in San Francisco where I feel it is more appropriate to sip (don't ask me why). Panera Bread, from my 3.5 year stint of working as a barista there, often with carefully hidden cups of various brews I created out of boredom strategically dotting the store where I knew no one would find them and throw my treasures out. While I enjoy coffee from many a shop, Starbucks has held me captive since childhood. It was those green straws, tucked into their little clear cups with the mermaid on the outside. I would see them, see the people drinking them, and would fall in love with the image of being a grown-up I saw reflected back onto me. Someday, the younger version of me rhapsodized, I will wear red lipstick, heels that clack with every step, a full skirt, and carry a pretty pocketbook. I will live in a beautiful apartment in a bustling city and smell of roses with good manners given to all. I will write all day and have a wonderful job. I will be like Audrey Hepburn, those Parisian girls in the pictures in my magazines, and Samantha Parkington from the American Girl series all rolled up into one. And I will drink coffee from Starbucks, like a true grown up lady.

My younger self would have been a perfect focus group participant for this company.

One afternoon, in my preteens, I was at the Barnes and Noble with my Mom, just another lazy Saturday of reading piles of books until the store closed. Or it would have been if my Dad went with me. My Mom didn't care for bookstores much and was always in a hurry to leave them and go somewhere else instead. Book in hand, I headed to the cash register while she waited for me outside. As I was about to grasp the exit door handle to leave, I saw the the straight open aisle by the magazine racks leading to a Starbucks. Here, inside my bookstore! (These cafes wouldn't become more frequented until 2004, when the Wi-Fi option was added).

I checked myself out. Okay, so I might have been 11 and wearing all of the typical popular garb of the time (check it: glittery rose shirt, linen pants, Sketchers, and a million of those butterfly hair clips, I. Was. Awesome.), but still, I wanted to try Starbucks and begin that road to adulthood, paved with early elegance!

Only, here's the best part, I chickened out on ordering a coffee beverage.

"One small, I mean tall vanilla bean blended cream!" I proudly ordered. I wondered if the girl behind the counter knew this was my first visit. Can you tell just by looking at people that they're about to try drinking out of those slender green straws for the first time ever? Perhaps not. We all have to begin our journey somewhere and this would be my beginning (with an actual coffee drink purchased later that year). Later on, I would learn how to make these drinks and be able to foam a cappuccino properly, substitute the right amount of soy milk, and create aesthetically pleasing hot chocolate in a mug for even the most subjective coffee drinkers.

Though I go many places and will continue to, my dear Starbucks goes with me. It's familiar green and white slogan comforts me because I know where I am, no matter how new the land may be, I'm still connected to this place, the one I started with even though I didn't know how to order sizes properly. And even though I'm slowly working on becoming my younger self's version of Audrey/Samantha with a side of Carrie Bradshaw for good measure, I'm still learning just to order that type of life for myself. One green straw and I'm a girl who is both old and new.

A girl who is both yes and no.

And good to the last drop.

Love to you all,
Heather

Foreign Countries with Spatulas

2011-03-12T21:03:00.000-08:00

Initially this post was going to be about my s-l-o-w eating habits, but today I witnessed an event that was of greater importance. So much so it demanded a blog post.

Up by my library are a bunch of restaurants, bookstores, coffee shops, and grocery stores. In that midst, for no apparent reason, is a Williams Sonoma. To get to the library, you have to walk past this store which falls on deaf ears with me in terms of piquing my interest. Today, I watched a young man (30-something) run to the door and clasp that handle for dear life. He stopped once he had the door handle in his hand and turned to wait for his significant other who was still getting out of the car. He was huffing and puffing and beaming with pride at being only a mere moment from exploring the wild world of China plates, espresso machines, and lobster forks. Let me repeat it though: a 30-something male ran to the door of a kitchenware shop before his wife even had her seatbelt off.

Jeez, I'm honestly surprised he parked the car at all. Nothing says "I'm here to shop!" than plowing an SUV through the storefront of a boho culinary paradise. I mean, that's how I do it. Hence the reason I don't have a car.

Here is the inside of a Williams Sonoma. I'm already lost at identifying the majority of the things in the picture. I see a waffle maker. Maybe some measuring spoons. Bunch of bamboo baskets holding things that look like scented floral sachets. And wait a minute, is that a candle on the shelf?

For the domesticated person, these kinds of stores offer hours of entertainment and items to browse through that they can already envision whipping up a dessert with that's sure to please friends and family alike. For me, it's a place where I might drop something expensive and break it and get some old bitty trailing me to ask her "if you need help young lady." It's like a foreign country with spatulas and breadmakers to me. The few times I've gone, I've been with friends who speak the language there and may act as my translator when I stare at a whisk and demand to know who would spend $20 on it when there are flats you can buy for $20 more at the Macys next door.

Is it so terrible to never want to own a set of actual cutlery and spend the rest of your life using plasticware to eat? With all of its little neat compartments, why would it be a crime to transform a dishwasher into a magazine rack? When having a get-together of friends, does it really necessitate a full course meal to be made or can just cheese and crackers with a generous refillable portion of wine suffice? So long as you wear a flouncy apron and scrap off the burned edges, will the casserole still work as a crowd-pleaser? Once they get to the cold center, all you have to do is say that's how the original recipe from your grandmother that was handed down in the family for ages, clasp whatever utensil you have in your hand to your heart, and cry out "Bless her frail heart!" and boom, everyone is eating your half-baked disaster again.

I'm going to make some lucky guy a terrible/unique housewife one day.

If it helps, I do believe in keeping a nice set of wine, martini, and lowball glasses in a kitchen. You can even get them in non-breakable versions these days if you ever get a little too excited by all of your cooking skills.

Personally I get all of my cooking/hosting/crafting tips from a one Amy Sedaris...

Love to you all,
Heather

Tales From the Blind Dating Crypt

2011-03-05T18:26:00.001-08:00

When you think about it, blind dating has its similarities to crypts. Most of the time, the dates end on a less than desired note and you have to bury the memories in a place as far out and away of your head as possible. If you can't kill the brain cells that cling to those thoughts with liquor, an underground vault to hold them all is probably your next best option.

Setting me up on blind dates can go in a multitude of directions. I either get really:

a) Dry and deadpan, with a sense of neurotic verbal dialogue that makes it sound like I'm mocking you when in fact I may not be. Or I might just be. My wordplay will veer on the side of sardonic every now and then. It happens.

b) Stiff and too much like Miss Manners. My body language is very telling. I generally sit ramrod straight, cross my legs, and clasp my hands together, nails digging into the skin. I ask questions and keep the tone very cordial with a slight hint of interest. I don't say a whole lot in this situation unless asked. Several years of anal-retentive childhood behavior contributed to this.

c) Distracted by the guy in the next booth. Or the menu in front of me. Or someone's shoes or dangling earrings. But usually it's the guy at the next table making eyes that does it.

d) Relaxed and normal to be myself, enough to graciously accept compliments, make some off-color joke about the latest celebrity scandal, and just get the other person. This is once in a blue moon stuff, folks, and it's when you know you're with someone good.

e) Tipsy which leads to me getting too friendly, if you catch my drift. No further comments necessary.

I'm going to tell you about my best and worst (so far) blind date experiences. The good one was set up by one of my very best girlfriends in the entire world, whom I consider to be my sister in many ways. The other one was set up by my ex-roommate who I had a series of unfortunate events and issues with.

On with the show!

Terrible Tom Cruise Movies Bring Everyone Together

The utter irony of this story is that while this guy's face will be permanently etched within my memory bank, his name was not. The other day, I texted my good friend, Randi, who was the one who set us up on that fateful date and would undoubtedly know the guy's name. She replied she didn't remember it either. Go, memory banks, go!

In any case, I'm going to refer to him by his most distinctive trait: Mormon Guy. Not a bad thing either.

At the time, I was a junior in college and quite close with Randi, whom I met when getting lunch one afternoon after a costume class I had let me out early. Both of us were getting our meals to go, but decided to sit and eat together and get to know one another. This worked out so well we went on another lunch date the day after, and the day after, and again and again for the next two years. She's very funny and bright, like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. That's very punny of me, I know, but finding friends who instantly perk you up upon seeing them is hard to do. We had, and still have, a high policy of working hard for what we want, lots of trust between us on keeping certain matters quiet, and no judgment for anything the other has to say on taboo topics.

We also had a constant need to go out dancing on the weekends. Even though at the time she had a boyfriend and I was working two jobs and an internship, this did not stop us from going to our favorite dance club with our other girlfriends and partying the night away and escaping the creepers in the process.

One afternoon, Randi suggested we all go on a double date. Me, her, her boyfriend, and a mystery guy friend of her boyfriend's. I agreed, my anxiety quelled when she proclaimed the guy was "really cute because I wouldn't set you up with anything less." And her taste in guys is most excellent. She did mention he was Mormon briefly, but religion doesn't matter to me. If anything, I found it to be very intriguing and distinguishing in setting him apart from most guys I knew at the time.

The only snag in the situation was that the boys wanted to see this movie, Valkyrie. Remember that Tom Cruise Nazi war film? I'd like not to remember it, but if seeing a bad movie is what it takes to be with a cute guy, I'll make the sacrifice.

Just once.

The night arrived and as per usual, I'm wearing white and black and red lipstick with heels from head to toe. The boys picked us up and I got to meet Mormon Guy in all of his hottie glory. Taller than me, dark hair, blue eyes, nicely dressed, and polite. He was the male version of myself. He reminded me of James Marsden (the other guy in The Notebook apart from Ryan Gosling that Rachel McAdams is torn between). Whatever they're doing in Utah is working out. Which is where he is originally from, fyi.

Conversation comes easy about work, school, all that jazz. He pays for the movie ticket (plus sign) and offers me overpriced concession food (thumbs up once more). But it isn't until we're all sitting together that the real magic starts. The magic of saying awesomely snarky and witty things about the terrible movie trailers and opening scenes of the film. My guard is slowly dropping and I mention something that pokes fun at Tom Cruise and Mormon Guy catches it and comes back at me with a nice spot-on remark. Before you know it, our banter is flinging back and forth between each other as naturally as a fight with family during Thanksgiving dinner. It's twenty different types of perfect and feels just right.

Behavior for the night: at an e) on the grid established above.

Of course the beauty of this night is that it's one night only. Neither one of us thinks to get the others number, especially since he is a missionary (Mormon missionary, who knew they existed?), but the moral of the story is that we had a great time and Randi knows how to hook a lady up with the very best. She should seriously replace that Millionaire Matchmaker host.

The "Wigger" Incident at Blue

If I could Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind remove a memory from my memory bank, this one would be the first to go. Going back in my head to remember this blows, but for the blog I'm willing to go the extra mile.

The guy in this one does have a name that I remember all too well (hint: the kid in the wheelchair from South Park) but won't write here because like Mormon Guy, he was distinctive in another different way. He was a Wigger, defined at Urban Dictionary to a T: "A male caucasion, usually born and raised in the suburbs that displays a strong desire to emulate African American Hip Hop culture and style through "Bling" fashion and generally accepted "thug life" guiding principles."

Of course, I didn't know this. My ex-roommate at the time "A" didn't fill me on it either. At the time, she and I were on rocky ground because she had this constant desire to go out and be "social" whereupon I was a year older than her and worked literally nonstop so when I got home all I wanted to do was watch Malcolm in the Middle and eat something of questionable healthiness.

At the time, she wanted to hook up with this guy "S". S was one of your typical frat-boy asshats minus the frat with the added community college and overtime dedicated to working his biceps at the gym. Everyone knows an S, he's king of the beer pong table, but has trouble doing basic division problems. In the line of guys I would later come to see file in and out of our dorm room for A, S would surprisingly not be the more idiotic of them all. He would come close, but not quite. You have to give him credit in giving this his one-night all and nothing more.

So the four of us would be going out. Me, her, S, and S's friend. We were going to this club in the area, Blue, that briefly went through a surge of college-student popularity in the spring and summer of '09. I took the night with a grain of salt. Neutral was the only way to feel. Nothing would happen, nor would I allow it to.

When the guys came over to our dorm room, I met him. He, resplendent in a wifebeater, jeans falling off his ass, chains (chains, really now?), and oh yes, a hat that bore no purpose except to be slanted to the side, in a straight-up "yo dawg" fashion. Wigger Guy had arrived and with his arrival came his inability to impress me.

"I've seen that movie!" He enthusiastically pointed to a poster of Bertolucci's The Dreamers on my wall, the French film notorious for its NC-17 rating I loved.

"Really?" I was part skeptical and part amused, "What did you like about it?"

He couldn't tell me. At one point I had to remind him it was in French with subtitles which was a definite sign that this night had a sour beginning already. He also went around and touched my things on my desk which pissed me off. I don't like guys to touch my things without asking and I certainly don't like for them to pick up important objects without my permission. Like my framed photo of Derek Zoolander my Dad made me as a present when I was in high school. It's okay for people to touch it with permission but when guys pick it up without my go-ahead, I feel like it taints the memory that lies within the photo. It's as if they're trying to pull out the innocence from that time by touching the frame and it just makes me close myself off further when I see it happen. That's just how I think of it.

We leave and go to Blue. The car ride is awful and once I'm at the club, I'm subjected to him telling me about his future hip-hop career. Yay? It's good to have dreams, young Wigger Guy. I leave the three of them multiple times and go watch a pole dancer perform on a pole in front of a group of people. She's very flexible. I applaud and she comes up to me after and gives me a card for pole dancing lessons I should sign up for because "you would be good at this!" That will never happen, but I keep the card anyway, as a souvenir of the night.

I get back to the trio who are all pissed at me for wandering off and amusing myself. During this time, it should also be noted that I fired off a rapid round of text messages to the majority of my address book and am in the process of replying back to the many people I haven't spoken to in ages. This used to be my fallback plan when trapped with people I don't like or know very well. So I just look to my phone and stay busy with that, all the while aware of the storm rising from S who is now drinking, as we all are.

After Blue, we go to someone's house party which makes me want to turn around and run out of and not stop running until I'm home. Everyone in the house is tanned and has popped collars and is blasting hip-hop. There are no books on the shelves and everyone is playing a noisy game of beer pong. I sit on the couch and pray for a plane to crash into the roof. Nothing happens. Wigger Guy disappears and I see a girl from one of my Communications classes across the room. Neither one of us expected to see the other here. It's the most awkward nod of recognition ever. I carefully watch A to see if she's getting her "socializing" out of the way and as per usual, she doesn't talk to anyone and winds up sitting next to me on the couch with S hanging all over her and avoiding me.

We get ready to leave and go outside where suddenly S turns to me and shouts, "Why did you have to be so mean to [Wigger Guy]?"

"Excuse me?" I replied.

"He was trying to be nice to you and you were mean to him!" S slurred.

"I wasn't mean." I shrugged, "And he wasn't nice."

We get in the car and go back to the dorms. I went directly to my shared room with A and closed the door, leaving her to neck with S out in the living room. At this point, I had no intention of leaving the room and would even sleep in my contact lenses if need be and climb out the window and use a public bathroom as opposed to opening that door. I looked at my photograph in its frame and felt a sense of sadness overwhelm me. Wouldn't it be easier to be the girl without standards, who would make out with a sign post if it breathed and called you "sexy." Wouldn't it be easier to pretend to care, when you really didn't. Sure it would. If it was though, this post wouldn't exist! So I'll take my chances with being my semi-judgmental and taking cues from Woody Allen in the humor department self. I like it that way!

Behavior for the night: being a) for the entire night until the moment I'm in bed, hashing out the night where I land at d) where I continue to stay until this moment.

Love to you all,
Heather

All the Queen's Men

2011-03-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

The Setting: Wedding at a nightclub on a Sunday night.

The Character: Your blogger, Miss Heather Taylor, in a pretty little black dress with a pearl necklace and red heels. No black tights tonight, nude panty hose. I mean business. I am also well beyond tipsy at this point, as is my wont when going out.

The Scene: I snag a guy from not one but two girls in under 1:30 of Katy Perry's "California Gurls" One of the girls is one of my friends, but she is totally cool with it. Proper dancing commences. Twirls, prettiness all around. DJ puts on salsa music. Dirty dancing begins. Hello, mojo.

The Big Time: Aaaaand, we're making out at the bar. The right side of my brain is feelin' good. This is promising. He is 3 years older than me. Has a great name. Very attractive. Employed. Well, damn this is a rarity for me. Here comes the phone number! It's looking up...

The Dealbreaker: "It's a temporary number." ...until it isn't anymore. The left side of my brain snaps my right side wide open. I stand there smiling, smiling, smiling but my brain screams, "What the what? Is this seriously my life. Can I ever get with a guy who understands how to pay for his phone bill? It is the basics of bill payments people! Red flag, red flag, RED FLAG."

I'd say I'd overreacted but I never actually said any of this to his face. And he never texted or called despite the fact that he did get his real number a few weeks later.

Le sigh.

It's just another night in the journey for the single girl who is forever looking for that "Real Man" (Trademark), the elusive creature of the night that even the Wall Street Journal is also musing over its recent disappearance from our society. Pulling quotes from author Kay Hymowitz's gorgeous article, maybe the answer is right under my nose as to "Where Have the Good Men Gone?"

"Among pre-adults, women are the first sex. They graduate from college in greater numbers (among Americans ages 25 to 34, 34% of women now have a bachelor's degree but just 27% of men), and they have higher GPAs. As most professors tell it, they also have more confidence and drive. These strengths carry women through their 20s, when they are more likely than men to be in grad school and making strides in the workplace. In a number of cities, they are even out-earning their brothers and boyfriends."

If there is one thing synonymous with me, it's my work ethic. As of right now, I work as a copywriter, manage two blogs, and work as a freelance writer on the weekends. Dull moments are rare for me, and I spend my life being caught in a perpetual swing of moving motion. I multitask and how!

I'll admit I go through phases of life WAY differently than most people. When I was 13, I had a pre-quarter life crisis. They say puberty is tough for everyone but for me, it was literally a loss of identity. I didn't know what I believed when it came to religion or politics. I didn't know how I wanted to dress or what I aspired to do with my life at all. Have you ever looked in the mirror and had no idea who the person looking back at you was? Have you ever had that feeling last for three years? I did. During this time, I turned to my Dad, the self-proclaimed "man for all seasons" who would take me out for lunches and listen to me wail about my life and offer me advice. I fought with him on viewpoints he had I didn't agree with and even during the moments I pretended not to listen to him, I always was. At that age, I craved intellectual conversation which I didn't get at school and only found my voice in books, which I read through like they were going out of print. My Dad gave me great advice on where to take my future, where my strengths lay, how to begin working for what I wanted because no one would ever give it to me on my own. He told me how to invest in the stock market and to begin a stock portfolio early on. Most of all, his biggest piece of advice was "always have an edge" which he argued that at the time I did not have which I fought back with him on until we were both blue in the face.

I am confident. I don't know how I am, but I hold tight to this invisible faith inside of me that everything will work out if I make it work. This year was the biggest year of my life because it was the first year I began to work for everything I have and take it in a direction without the comfortable confines of school holding me snugly in its bubble. Breaking out of the bubble hurt, but it had to be done. Prolonging adulthood, this dream of my career I've fallen asleep to on restless nights, was never an option to me. In many ways, I have my Dad to thank for showing me direction and being able to love me the way I've always needed love: at arm's length. Close enough to be there when I need it, but far enough to let me be and do things on my own terms and learn the lessons within them.

"It's been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. The goal was to prove their competence as protectors and providers. Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing."

Here are the necessary qualities I look for in men.

*note* These are non-negotiable. Yes, I read Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink which references that during speed-dating and courtship most women will drop their ideal man in favor of the real thing, but I am not most women. I am me and I do not budge on certain traits. If I am single forever, then I'm single forever. Will I one day meet someone who will make this entire post seem girlish and moot in point? Maybe. Don't hold your breath yet...

1) Good sense of humor. Witty banter and verbal wordplay are included on this. If I'm not laughing, then I'm not happy. My happiness levels, I've discovered, are linked to how often I'm cracking a terrible joke or giggling at any given moment.

2) Sharp. Dressed. Man. I did the "date the hobo" thing and it did not work. I cannot tell you how awful it is to have an acquaintance come up to you and wonder aloud, "How are you two even together? You're so nicely dressed and he, er, isn't!" Love shouldn't be about clothes, but you're talking to a girl who gets stars in her eyes when staring at creases in dress shirts. It's probably not healthy for a girl to sit in class and fantasize a roomful of properly dressed guys in argyle and Oxfords sitting around her either, but there ya go.

3) Love At Arms Length. Because I need space and time to be alone very often. Giving up pieces of my independence comes very hard for me.

4) Able to hold their own with me. If I think I can, I will try the patience of someone with me and up the ante looking for a response. I also say inappropriate things, swear, and argue with the best of them. Just hold your ground with me. For once, I'd like the first fight to not be the last one.

5) Older than me. I have a very strong attraction to older men. I think it was genetic.

I blame Judd Apatow for the invention of the "manchild", the kind of guy that seems to literally surround me nonstop today: grubby slacker with part-time job, ramshackle apartment, and Cheeto stains on his 3 day unwashed shirt. The question is does Kay see this too?

"Where have the good men gone? Their male peers often come across as aging frat boys, maladroit geeks or grubby slackers—a gender gap neatly crystallized by the director Judd Apatow in his hit 2007 movie "Knocked Up." The story's hero is 23-year-old Ben Stone (Seth Rogen), who has a drunken fling with Allison Scott (Katherine Heigl) and gets her pregnant. Ben lives in a Los Angeles crash pad with a group of grubby friends who spend their days playing videogames, smoking pot and unsuccessfully planning to launch a porn website. Allison, by contrast, is on her way up as a television reporter and lives in a neatly kept apartment with what appear to be clean sheets and towels. Once she decides to have the baby, she figures out what needs to be done and does it. Ben can only stumble his way toward being a responsible grownup."

Oh this is so disturbing. And by disturbing, I mean that Seth Rogen in this film is supposed to be depicting a 23 year old when he is clearly way older. But look at the way this is written. Only because Katherine Heigl is having a baby will he finally begin the road to becoming an adult. Is that what it takes for guys today? Do they need the girl they had a fling with to get pregnant to pull them away from their Call of Duty and excess bongwater collecting in their bongs? Is he being a good man here-or really just being a guy trapped into a responsibility that had it not happened, he wouldn't give a second thought to?

Hymowitz writes, "Americans had always struck foreigners as youthful, even childlike, in their energy and optimism. But this was too much."

Clearly, I am destined to be with a foreign guy. While I do love optimism, there's a thin line between remaining forever a child and growing up.

"The knowledge economy gives the educated young an unprecedented opportunity to think about work in personal terms. They are looking not just for jobs but for "careers," work in which they can exercise their talents and express their deepest passions. They expect their careers to give shape to their identity. For today's pre-adults, "what you do" is almost synonymous with "who you are," and starting a family is seldom part of the picture."

There you have it. When work ethic is to Heather as salt is to pepper, you know that in the event of sacrificing my identity through my career for a guy, I would give up the guy. What I do is who I am. Writing is my world, quite literally. When life is impossible or unpleasant, I create a new one through words. A long time ago, I wrote up my dream man with all of his fantastic qualities that you see written up there. Then I gutted him with flaws and problems and birthed reality into his veins. He still resides inside of my head where I continue to tweak and fiddle with his personality. If I ever stop procrastinating and write him out onto Word Documents, I'd flesh out a person you'd never forget. Which I suppose is my biggest flaw within him: this list of standards I have that fill up even my imaginary creations. My standards may be the death of me. Any guy reading this post I feel would slowly start backing away because once more, I'm behaving too intensely, taking too much control, behaving like well, like the man. A couple of my friends have told me that I tend to embody both male and female characteristics which makes it difficult for guys to approach me. In which case all I can say is, try. I have quite a bit of respect for men who approach me first as opposed to the other way around.

I don't bite, despite my reputation.

Joking :)

"Single men have never been civilization's most responsible actors; they continue to be more troubled and less successful than men who deliberately choose to become husbands and fathers. So we can be disgusted if some of them continue to live in rooms decorated with "Star Wars" posters and crushed beer cans and to treat women like disposable estrogen toys, but we shouldn't be surprised."

Ugh, it pains me to caption a picture of the gorgeous Ralph Fiennes with this. Men of the world, read this and know that I, Heather Taylor, am always in awe of you. I admire how you dress so well, make conversation beautifully, pick up the bar tab, and hold the door open no matter what for a lady.

In contrast, guys of the world, you can be like this. I'm very much a believer that one day you will trade the Natty Light for a Manhattan, the Star Wars for Wes Anderson, and the part-time job at Kinko's to a managerial position at the nicer Kinko's down the street.

Ah, Jimmy, I know. The good ones are out there somewhere. Sometimes you just have to travel to other seas to find the right fish though.

Love to you all,
Heather

Gimme That Talk

2011-02-21T08:44:00.000-08:00

I listen to a lot of music.

Maybe this isn't sinking in yet. My iPod is literally bursting at the electronic seams from how many songs get rotated on it on a near-daily basis. With my recently-shortened attention span since graduating from college and general fear I might die without having heard Beck's entire discography, I listen to music as often as possible, whenever, wherever. I create new Pandora stations at work nonstop, download a disturbingly high number of songs on the weekends (at my peak it was over 200 songs. my peak, it should be noted, was last weekend), and generally tend to live life with my earbuds anchored safely in my ears.

I have a social life. I swear.

Music has charted my journey into growing up. You know the phrase, "soundtrack to my life?" I have soundtracks and playlists for every moment. Certain musicians define my age, my attitude at the time, and the environment around me. From the age of birth to 10 or so, my parents began my music education with The Beatles, Annie Lennox, Pet Shop Boys, Prince, Elton John, and Led Zeppelin. Not too shabby. Then I started moving myself in my own direction.

Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue, singing off-key into my hairbrush at 11.
The Cure, Marilyn Manson, and Cradle of Filth, sullen and blackened-soul poetry writing at 13.
"Heather, I was at Best Buy and nobody there has heard of Paul van Dyk or Felix da Housecat." Getting my mom to buy me electronic DJ's at 15.
Liv Kristine from Leaves Eyes, made me believe in voices of angels on my 16th birthday.
Arcade Fire, the Holy Grail journey to graduation from high school, at 18.
The Smiths, lighting the first day and drive in California, at 20.
Depeche Mode, hello college girl who loves her '80s collection when she writes reports and does projects at 22.

This list barely begins to cover it, but that's the discography life for you. Is it perfect? Was my taste forever impeccable and beyond its years? Hell no. I listened to what I liked and my interests changed non-stop. Today I might like mellowing out to Massive Attack, tomorrow it might be some obscure record by Dimitri from Paris, or I might even put on some terribly guilty good Ke$ha pop.

You grow, evolve, change with music. I used to worry I wouldn't be able to hear all of it or enough of it to satisfy my insatiable need.

Then came Girl Talk.

Girl Talk is all of the best nights of your life rolled into 16 tracks. Every dance you ever got down to, every song you hummed or drunk karaoke'd. The mix you wished existed to make those high school dances so much less awkward and the one you won't ever forget. It's the contents of your iPod, your dream playlist, all of the songs you thought you forgot about, and the ones you never could.

Mixed together by Gregg Michael Gillis (who's a really cute guy that needs his face on more printed publications ASAP), each song is one big mashup of the most unlikely pairings. Lil Mama and Metallica? Missy Elliot and Nu Shooz? The Cranberries, M.I.A., Nirvana, and Kanye West all together now? Done, done, done. It works and more than just sounding great, it's the future of music to me. Hear everything all at once and take it in, but don't dwell on one hook for 4-5 minutes. Mix it up and keep it coming.

Once you go Girl Talk, you just don't go back.

Take a listen for yourself...

Love to you all,
Heather

S.A.D. (The Other Valentine's White Meat)

2011-02-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

This week I started to notice a pink pattern on my Tumblr. Observe:

Peonies. One of my favorite flowers actually. No problems here.

Pink wine. One of my favorite shades for alcohol, along with clear and red and that amber shade you find in Manhattans and Red Bulls and vodka, if you mix it just right. Again, no complaints.

What we have here is a young woman attempting to push a huge pile of pink wrapped presents. And since the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show (it deserves the caps, trust me) and Breast Cancer Awareness month have come and gone, this can only be pointing one arrow directly to the next holiday approaching that uses up the Tickle-Me-Pink crayon to a nub...

Valentine's Day.

"Valentine's Day is the lone major holiday of February, expected to tide us over until St. Patrick's Day in March. On this day, we can watch those in love celebrate their love by buying chocolate even though their New Year's Resolution said otherwise and watching a sappy romance flick starring the likes of Julia Roberts, Matthew McConaughey and Meg Ryan."

-actual quote from an article I wrote 3 years ago for my community college newspaper. It got published.

The girls I work with in my copywriting department at work are really sweet, genuinely kind people. One in particular, Renee, is one of the nicest girls I've had the pleasure of meeting. About a week ago, she gave me a Valentine's Day card that she made herself, a pop-up card at that. It came accompanied by a little note.

Heather,
Treat yourself this Valentine's Day to something special-you don't need a man to complete you!

It's important to point out that at work, I'm a token. Token single girl in a sea of long-term relationship and married girls. Society loves to point this out and tries its very best to guide me in the direction of Noah's Ark pairings, but I'm really good about fighting and digging my feet into the ground against this belief.

This isn't to say I don't believe in love. Of course I do. People who don't believe in love...not sure about those types. I'm just a different type of romantic than most girls. As a little girl, I idolized Cinderella and had this dream (the sleeping kind) very early on that I met my Prince Charming. However, I'm bipolar in this belief in the fact that I not only thought prom was stupid and refused to participate in it, but I also do not aspire to get married or have children. My parents have been married my entire life and the longest relationship I ever had lasted 3 months (not even that). In high school, a girl I barely knew diagnosed me with having "commitment issues" and damnit if she wasn't right. I kind of imagined that the ole love life might get better in college, but haha, did that ever not happen. I mean, look at the quote I wrote up there. Still sums up my feelings for this day 3 years later.

With less than a week to go before I head off to a very big wedding celebration, and about 4 more months until the lease is up on my lovely apartment, I've been doing some thinking. Thinking that has been growing steadily more thoughtful over the past few months. If you know me, you might know that when I discuss "thinking" or "doing thoughtful thinking" it's related to me making a big decision in my life.

My thought, for now, is that I want to move overseas for some time.

Scratch the "for now" bit. I think it's fair to say I've wanted this for a really long time. And no, I wouldn't be moving because there aren't any guys in my life here or because of petty arguments with family members or friends or even our current economic state (you really can't escape debt, no matter what foreign shores you decide to take citizenship in). I've often felt like a big puzzle with a bunch of pieces missing. I found some of them when I was in college, but not all of them and deep down, I knew I wouldn't find them all. It just isn't possible. But the fact is, I found some which is incredible to me and led me to pursue more dreams I had in my heart I didn't think I would get to.

And here we are, single, solo, but still very happy nonetheless.

My theory is I'm a lot like Elizabeth Gilbert of the Eat, Pray, Love book fame. Her journey was to get divorced and out of an unhealthy relationship and travel the world for a better perspective and self-discovery.

Though my journey is much more different in the sense that I'm not married, definitely broke and should not be in pursuit of living overseas when I can barely afford to live in my own seas, and not in pursuit of spiritual awakening. I had that already and I call it Arcade Fire's Funeral album. You're welcome.

Still, self-discovery via double-decker buses! Picking up more of the puzzle pieces to completing a full Heather with at Big Ben! Is it obvious I crave London the most? England is where the majority of my ancestors came from so it's only natural to feel a bond, a tie, a love for this place I've never been but feel I need to be at if I want to unlock my true self. Something extraordinary waits for me there. It's the kind of feeling that goes through your bones and swims through your bloodstream.

I have a gut feeling that this journey, should I go all the way through with it, is going to be a labor of love. It will try and test me and push me to my very limit (though currently I'm not far from it now). Love is patient though and as many of my friends will tell you, I'm a patient person who's willing to see the best in people and give them a try and second chances.

And of course, in the event of any life journey I take on, full makeout details with hot guys with accents will be recorded for your reading pleasure. Once more, you're welcome.

Just doin' my part for all the singles out there.

Whether you refer to it as V-Day (in tribute to D-Day), V.D. ( a hilarious sex gag joke never steers us wrong) or S.A.D. (Singles Awareness Day...oh c'mon now people, this is starting to get ridiculous), you can't go wrong with funny cards. See above and below for inspiration.

Choo-choo choosing you.

Love to you all,
Heather

Jellyfishin'

2011-02-09T20:16:00.000-08:00

This is a Lion's Mane Jellyfish, the largest jellyfish ever discovered. It's bell (body) is 7 feet and 6 inches in diameter. The tentacles are over 120 feet long.

!!!!!

The sea never fails to fascinate me. Who knows what other wild and wonderful creatures exist deep down there?

Love to you all,
Heather

Heroes & Heroines

2011-02-03T21:18:00.000-08:00

Whenever people ask me who inspires me, I used to draw a blank. I find inspiration in random objects on the street more often than with people. In the last week alone, I found a queen of spades playing card and a tampon while walking to work (I kept the card for luck, for all logical reasons left the tampon where it was) I remember reading this book when I was in middle school, one of those girl-power, self-help for the under 15 year old set books written by preteen girls. Every girl contributing to the book had a hero in distinguished individuals including Hilary Clinton, Michelle Kwan, and Kate Winslet. To a lesser known, but still important extent, they also cited their mothers, best friends, and grandmothers on this list (it should be noted none of the contributing writers had a male hero). All the while I'm reading I thought, "I don't admire any of these people. None of them inspire me."

What I get more often than not, rather than inspiration, is encouragement from the people I admire. My family and friends are at the root of this. Nobody I know is going to tell me, "If you dream it, you can be it!" or "Shoot for the stars!" or any other cheesy motivational slogan that you only semi-believed when you were 10. The people who surround me are more pragmatic than sugar-coated. They won't hold my hand through life when I take the strides I need to in order to grow up, call me out whenever I'm particularly self-centered, and refuse to sympathize with me over issues that I consider to be core meltdown-esque difficulties. These same people, though realistic, are also optimistic. A bad event, even one you don't think you can recover from fully, is always viewed as a blessing in disguise. The pros generally outweigh the cons and as is my best way of coping with any trouble, laughter and clever wordplay can get you through the grayest of days.

I've given it some mulling around in the cranium and discovered that indeed I do have a few heroes and heroines. One is a comedian who's just as well know for his signature poof of hair as he is with his snark and impeccably timed wit. One is an author who dreamed a dream of getting married to an English prince and made a journey of near-Biblical (or 20-something idealist) proportions to get to London. One isn't even real, but speaks for everyone I know, young and old, in her smart and sharp narrative in 5 books chronicling her life.

Conan O'Brien

Team Coco for life. I grew up on his writing for The Simpsons (Jub Jub forever), stayed up late every evening for his Late Night show cheering when New State Quarters or Cactus Chef showed up on the screen, and even got to see him live when he did the Tonight Show.

He made me laugh all of the time. The kind of laughter where you cried and your cheek muscles ache from arching upward for an hour straight. To me, this is something not many people that I don't know personally can do. I like comedians and enjoy watching Larry David's TV shows, Chris Rock's stand-up, and think that Aries Spears and Debra Wilson by all rights should have a TV show by now, but even with these people, I don't laugh all of the time. There's time for pause which is some cases can extend itself longer than welcome. Mr. O'Brien, just by pretending to swim or flipping his orange puff of hair to the side, got me giggling like a schoolgirl every time.

He worked hard and did not get anything handed to him in life (a recurring trait in all of the heroes & heroines I have on my list). In fact, he got stripped of certain moments in life that were rightfully his. Through these moments, Conan still remained wholly optimistic and humble, defining everything he received as good fortune. You may not get what you want, but through simple kindness, the rewards will arrive in spades.

And as of right now, we can watch him goof and joke on his own show on TBS, Conan,
Just like old times.

Jerramy Fine

My Dad recommended I read her book about three years ago. I filed it into my Amazon wish list and later on dug it out when I got to my university and ordered it. Since that moment, it's gotten ratty and dog-eared, but I won't travel anywhere without "Someday My Prince Will Come: True Adventures of a Wannabe Princess."

Jerramy is a woman with a plan: leave Colorado for London in order to marry Prince Peter Philips. This dream begins early on and leads her to attend undergrad at the University of Rochester where she studies aboard as an intern at the House of Commons. Once school is over, Jerramy decides to brave her student loan debt to further push toward living in England and getting one step closer to Peter by attending the London School of Economics. This plan is not as easy as it seems, with many moments of beautiful but flighty boys, less than ideal flatmates and living situations, and the worry over getting a work permit approved both simultaneously drawing her closer and further from her dreams than ever before.

As a writer, Jerramy's voice is easy to relate to and completely charming to follow. I admire her spirit, her belief that something good was always coming and to simply never give up and work hard to achieve that dream. She reminds me of a modern-day Cinderella. Fine has her moments of doubt and documented in the book, these moments are the ones where I feel like I'm standing in her (glass) slippers. It's only natural to doubt the impulses, the feelings we have, and whether or not we're doing the right thing after all. Her heart longed for London and even though the journey isn't fully over, it's one I understand utterly.

If she writes a follow-up book, you know where I'll be...

Jessica Darling

"I know it sounds depressing, but it’s actually pretty damn funny, too. Like life." Jessica has long been my biggest heroine since 2006 when I stumbled upon the second book in the series dedicated to her, Second Helpings. Even reading the sequel with not much of a background on the first book, I instantly jumped into her world of being stuck in dull suburbia with best friend Hope having moved and only the Clueless Crew (her nickname for her airheaded 'quote unquote friends') being her remaining alternative to a social life. Jessica is strong and outspoken. She runs for cross country even though she hates it and writes a well-received column for her newspaper that she puts more of her heart into than she admits.

Throughout the course of the five books, Jessica grows up. In essence, I was along for the ride on that one. She graduates from high school, goes on to college, graduates, takes on the tough after-period of life after college, and eventually does become a success in her own right. Her relationships with her family, friends, and long-term boyfriend Marcus Flutie are put through the ringer time and time again. She never loses her snarky pop-culture infused voice, but gradually throughout the books her voice matures in only the way that time, experience, and perspective can give you. Her battles shift from month to month, as recorded in her journal style entries and grow deeper one month only to jump to less-difficult and more silly in only the way life can give you the next.

I know I say it often, but it simply cannot be said enough. In the world of teenage literature today and even five years ago when Jessica was enrolling in Columbia, she's the smartest, most introspective and keen, witty young protagonist of the Youtube generation depicted on the printed page. Hip enough to be a hipster but even hipper to mock the system and do things her own way.

Throughout my life, I've been given the luck of having lots of great older girlfriends who served as role models for shaping me into the girl I would later become. Kate in high school who was a year older than me, would dramatically impact my sense of style in later years to come. Roxy and Betty, my two college-age managers at Panera Bread (also in high school) would inspire me to push forward with attending the university I later did, even though back then I didn't need much pushing because I already knew it was kind of destiny. And Moriah, my old boss with my internship with Fender who in so many ways I can hardly count them all was like looking at my future self in 5 years. Alongside all of these real women, I have to include the fictional Jessica. She's just as real as any person could be in my eyes.

My kinda heroine.

This has been the post of the century.

Love to you all,
Heather

Go Your Own Way

2011-01-21T20:49:00.000-08:00

Defining characteristics. When you think about one of your friends, family members, or even a famous celebrity you admire, you can usually associate a couple of traits to their persona. If you know me, you'd know that I like to wear red lipstick. I bite my nails, enjoy reading, and listen to my iPod too much. I'm also fairly notorious for my anti-driving stance. If I can avoid ever buying/leasing a car or even just getting a driver's license, I will.

After some consideration into why I don't like to drive, I think it boils down to genes. Clearly none that went to my parents, avid fans of being behind the wheel. They must have trickled down to my brother Earl and I (neither one of us has a license). From the moment I turned 16, driving became something that flooded the hallways of my high school. It was a highly discussed topic of interest, a rite of passage that symbolized freedom for the oppressed Catholic school kids in my grade. The fact that my October birthday gave me an early pass into this world was deemed "lucky!" by everyone I knew. I remember smiling tightly alot those years and begrudgingly getting a permit when I was 17.

When I did practice driving, it was always terrible and ended poorly. I was an awful driver, particularly with my Dad in the front seat next to me offering far too many two cents for my liking. I couldn't parallel park, cut people off on the freeway with last second warnings, and didn't check into my rearview mirrors enough to see what was going on. Every single time I drove, I was physically exhausted getting to point A and rattled to the bone on the way back to point B. Practice is supposed to make perfect, but the more I practiced (which admittedly was not often), I was irritated at being trapped behind the wheel, unable to look at the surroundings around me with my concentration being road-only.

Driving never signified freedom to me as much as being a front seat passenger did. Even being in the back seat worked out well. Now this, this was freedom! Looking at new shops just built, seeing the mountains and brightly shaded red and yellow autumn landscapes, and yes, the importance of freeway flirting were simply not things I could focus on if I was worried about when to merge into the left lane in the driver's seat.

So I let driving drop from my list of Important Things to do When Becoming an Adult. It never was too high up on that list. I had begun creating this list when I was in grade school, I think 3rd grade sounds about right. The top priorities included big city living in a cozy apartment with a good career, pretty clothes, and a bottle of perfume in my mailbox a la Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's for a sweet spritz. Somewhere at the very bottom of this list you might be able to find a heavily erased, rewritten, and erased once more set of goals that included "marriage, children, and driving." Driving, as I recall then, was less about the actual notion of doing so and more of the image in my mind's eye of sitting in a pretty dress, sunglasses, and kid gloves holding the wheel. ("Wearing petticoats when I'm 30" was also something Lil' Heather believed in strongly and placed up high on the List.)

I took to public transportation and asking for rides from friends as my means of getting about. In the meantime, I walked everywhere. With my trusty iPod weaving a nonstop melody of words and musical notes into my head, there was really nowhere I couldn't walk to and quickly.

Then I moved to California. Southern California to be exact.

If you live out here, you know. The 101, the 23, the 5. Deadly highways prone to nonstop traffic jams and accidents daily. Of course, I still didn't drive. I'd easily be the cause of an 18 pile car build-up because my blue eyes would get distracted by some new Barnes and Noble built in Sherman Oaks. It would be all over CNN in a matter of seconds. Luckily, I have some very wonderful friends who will take me where I need to be, so long as I ask nicely and try to ensure it doesn't clash with anything special they have planned. Long ago I learned not to assume anyone will give you a ride, even if you are me. Haha. Found that out the hard way with my parents.

I also take the bus to work, which is nice. The walk to the bus stop is my quiet time to think. In the mornings, I use it to wake up in the fresh air and in the evenings, if something I don't like went down at work, I use it to simmer my upset mood and sporadic bouts of rage with the ever-present iPod at my side. Sometimes I don't even listen to my iPod. Sometimes I like to take it off and just enjoy the silence and the cars honking and police sirens underneath the freeway overpass.

So...will I ever drive?

There's plenty of reasons why I don't. Starting with finances. In my eyes, owning or leasing a car is akin to having a small child. You have to feed it gas, get check-ups or transmission checks often, pay for insurance bills every month, ensure that you treat it carefully with good driving skills to avoid dents. Like most milestones in becoming an adult, its a responsibility and a privilege. Abusing it by driving recklessly or not updating your license can damage your driving record and the car, not to mention yourself. If it isn't something you can fully commit to doing the very best with, going above and beyond 200%, getting a car shouldn't be the biggest thing for you to pursue. Before this gets any more preachy or "you dang kids with your music!" fuddy-duddy, I know myself well enough to know I wouldn't have the patience to stick to a commitment like a car. Hence the reason why I don't have one.

Then there are a bunch of side issues. Like how getting a car to me equals trapped. Stuck in one place for a prolonged amount of time, paying off car payments and doing the same job day in and day out. And then the whole growing up thing. I've been employed since I was 11 and spent the better part of my life working at ungodly hard levels for just about everything I have. I've experienced financial gain and loss and learned how to be independent with little to no help from my family. Though on the outside, I looked very much in charge and in control of the situation at hand before me, inside there were still many things I did not do simply because I didn't, and still don't, want to fully become an adult just yet. Getting a driver's license was one of those things I didn't feel ready for then, and seven years later, I'm still not ready for.

Time is a tricky thing. Society will tell you when it's your time to do something, when you should be expected to hold your own in the world. When it's your moment to leave childhood and step into the blinding, harsh, and often cold light of adulthood. There are no manuals for becoming this person and even if there were, even if you went through them and highlighted everything, and did all of the right movements according to plan, who's to say you did them at the right time? I believe you should always listen to that little voice in your head, that conscience, or go with the gut intuition feeling. Move to the beat of your own drum, as only you can.

And, while I'm piling on the optimism, never forget to let your conscience be your guide.

My conscience, if you're wondering, is a mix of Jiminy Cricket and Tim Gunn. I call him "Monty."

Love to you all,
Heather

The Spring's The Thing

2011-01-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong. I love my autumn crisp nights of warm gentle knit fabrics and my stark winters with dramatic flashes of singular colors. As of late, as it often does this time of the year, I've begun to wistfully wish for spring. For a time to wear softer colors, lighter layers, rosy lipsticks.

Here's my current dream ensemble for spring. I know I could easily make one of these on Polyvor or Pinterest, but I do love just old school copy/pasting. You can find most of the items below on Ruche.com with one mild exception.

How I Would Wear It: Springtime Fancy

A gentle gray beret with a ponytail or just hair down curled lightly...

The dress you would dare to daydream in and breezily catch the eye of any young man...

Light tights for light moods...

Sparkly Oxford-inspired shoes to sail in and out of hearts with...

And one lovely trench because it's just so.

Love to you all,
Heather

Water for Elephants

2011-01-02T22:15:00.000-08:00

"...My real stories are all out of date. So what if I can speak firsthand about the Spanish flu, the advent of the automobile, world wars, cold wars, guerilla wars, and Sputnik- that's all ancient history now. But what else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet."

As the hours between 2010 and 2011 came to a close, I spent them burrowed away in a world far from my cozy apartment in LA county. I went away to the 1930's, during a time when every circus was determined to be the newest Ringling and engulfed myself within the Benzini Bros. Most Spectacular Show on Earth. A show filled with a motley crue of dwarf clowns, Lovely Lucinda's, and a menagerie of animals including the beautifully silent Rosie the elephant. And leading the way for the show, the stunning performer Marlena with her near-magical effect on horses, her charismatic but highly volatile husband August, and young Jacob Jankowski, the show's Ivy league educated veterinarian who came in the middle of all of this world after the one he lived in came crashing down with the only option available boiling down to "running beside a moving train in the middle of nowhere." The choice that would forever begin the story of this new life for himself, a lifetime he recounts back to us at the age of 90. Or 93.

The best way I can describe this novel was summed up simply by a lovely girl I work with who had read it before me. "It's a gorgeous book."

In terms of holding your interest, clinging to your heart, and being unforgettable, I could never agree more.

Read it. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Love to you all,
Heather

To The New Year

2010-12-20T20:35:00.000-08:00

New Year's Resolutions. I never make them. Ever. In fact, New Year's Eve is one of my least favorite days in the entire year because on that day, and the week leading up to that day, every news station rolls footage of every big headline news story of the year, many of which make you go "Oh yeah, I remember that!" and point your finger to the TV screen, nodding along.

Meanwhile, during the duration of these montages, you find yourself doing one of two things. You're either quietly musing to yourself, "...what did I do this year? Seriously now, in terms of advancing and evolving as a human being or at the bare minimum, maturing enough to cut down my fart jokes. Uh yeah. I'm not remembering much...little help here brain?"

Or you're trapped in the second option, the worst one, the one that knows precisely what you didn't do or what you did and gave up on or what you procrastinated on until it literally became 15 seconds to 12am on the eve of the new year and by George, if you still didn't do it or have a basic outline prepared yet. This is when your brain bitches you out hardcore, "See? I told you 2011 was looming and you still didn't open your own bakery yet! What if next year your credit score falls to pieces and you can't get the loan? Do you realize your parents will have been right THE ENTIRE TIME?? You can't let that happen!"

Thus, to relieve our minds of the stress of not being incredibly successful at 25 and to save our remaining brain cells from death by too many glasses of Moet Chandon, eureka! The resolution is born!

We resolve to be better people. No longer will that extra slice of chocolate mousse cake land accidentally in our mouths! Instead of buying hilarious dirty joke books at the bookstore, we will donate the money to charities. The good kind that support the children. Our grades will be higher, our pants will fit looser, we'll talk to our family members regularly (all of them, even our cousins), and our ability to listen and absorb all of our friends' stories about their girlfriends/boyfriends/hook ups/single life will be fully listened to and not zoned out after the first 6 minutes. Maybe we won't be perfect, but you know what? There's always next year to resolve for perfection. This year is just a test run.

With the image of how I spent some of the more outstanding New Year's Eve's in my mind's eye (most of these follow Number 2 Scenario up there), I decided to make some resolutions for next year.

And for the most part, I truly intend on keeping them.

Paying Down My Debt

I'm going to keep this one pretty vague and nondescript since money is not something I'm ever comfortable discussing, but all you need to know is I graduated from college and I'm in the grips of one evil wench by the name of Madam Sallie Mae. Personally I'd love to see her go the way of Fannie Mae, but alas, the government has decided to not make it so.

Hair Style Change

It's either going to be short and bedhead sexy like Marion Cotillard.

Or stay long and get styled and dyed red like Rita Hayworth.

I'm such a wuss when it comes to major hair changes. If I get my hair done like either one of these vixens, it's going to call for hardcore pictures to be taken and placed everywhere I blog.

To Be Lucky in Love

With love, this is not just a reference to physical relationships. When I define Love, I think of a feeling that absorbs your entire being and takes you with it on the ride. It's scary and sure all at once. Love can be with wonderful people, with beautiful memories, with good melodies and soft fabric, etc.

I just hope to fall in love repeatedly this coming year. Just not too much. I really can't risk screwing up the debt resolution up there.

Moving On

I'm getting the moving bug again...

This time next year, I hope to be in one of two places. New York City, if not for the fact that much of my career path leads there. Plus I need to log in some East Coast adventures in my life.

But mostly, I'm finger crossing for this one:

London.

I want to live in the land of a million great accents, live in a flat, and get a work permit to work in the Queen Mother's country (because I've been working since I was 11 and won't stop no matter what oceans or time zones I cross). It's a journey that will resemble that memoir "Eat Pray Love" only my version will be known as "Kiss Kiss Kiss", chronicling makeout sessions with British guys all over the UK from one very strange, but very likable protagonist.

Yeah, I know you'd all read it.

Please let me know if any of you are making resolutions and if so, what are they?

Until then, cheers (an early cheers!) to the New Year!

Love to you all,
Heather

The Van Wilder Effect

2010-12-11T22:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I went back to school. At the tail end of the semester when finals were only a week away. I know, I never did well transferring at the right time of the year ;)

My college experience was definitely different than most people I know. It was also a far cry from those commercials you see on TV of kids moving into their dorms. There was no direct entry from high school into a 4 year university, no parent co-signing my loans for me, no big move-in day with my entire family present.

What happened followed like this. I was enrolled in advanced college credit courses in high school. Originally, my plan was to attend a school on the East Coast until one autumn day when I received the postcard that would change everything, the tiny liberal arts college on the West Coast that my heart, mind, and soul knew was the one. When you consider the sheer amount of colleges in the United States alone, the rate of acceptance, and that receiving that postcard occurred by pure chance, it seems like only a crazy person would throw everything out to the side and place all of their gambles onto one school.

I call it fate. Crazy is as crazy do.

My acceptance arrived, but in order to go to school, I would have to pay my own way through. I was 2 years from being able to legally sign a private loan for myself, by myself and spent much of the rest of my senior year moaning about this fact to anyone who would listen. Then I applied to a local community college to get the general education courses out of the way and was accepted on the last day of high school (I DO NOT recommend anyone apply to school that late.)

Upon graduating, I had 22 credits to transfer over to any college of my choice. I took the semester off to work and rest and decide on what major I would study. At my community college, I majored in communications with an emphasis in PR and advertising and began attending school that spring. 1.5 years until I could go to the school of my dreams. At the community college, I studied hard, pushed myself with credits each semester (with full class loads in the summer- I was a year-round student), and worked hard too at my jobs as well as writing for my school newspaper The Montage where I wrote movie/book reviews and later on, a column that discussed a bevy of issues I found relevant to life.

I was still undoubtedly, and eerily, calm I would be accepted again to that little liberal arts school and once more, placed my bets against fate by having no safety school lined up. The summer of 2007 was when I reapplied to that West Coast school of my dreams again and was accepted. From then on, life began running at top speed to get arrangements made for the impending move. I signed off on loan documents, gathered together the transcripts from my 3 universities (including the schools from my advanced college credit honors courses) to send off, put in my two weeks notice at work, and began packing my world away to leave. The next two years went by quickly, as it seems all years do, and majoring in Journalism this time around, I began to discover that I genuinely enjoyed everything Communications had to offer. All of the little subdivisions of the major I genuinely enjoyed. They say you change your career up to 7-10 times in your lifetime. If I'm to change careers within the field of communications, at least I chose a field I would not mind picking a new job from.

And now here we are, the graduate who returns to her alma mater.

The word "nostalgia" is composed of two words. Nostos which means "return" and algos, "pain", so if you couple them together you get something along the lines of "painful return." Sometimes when I visit certain memories in my mind, no matter just how wonderful they were, they hurt to think about. If only because we were all different people then, some of us still children or on the brink of maturity. The best memories seem nearly Utopian to reflect back on, almost as though they were gently wrapped up in cotton candy pink cellophane. And the worst ones. Generally we wish we could erase them or try to shut our minds from conjuring up imagery.

I've returned to school a few times after graduating. The first two times made me ecstatic to return. I came back on the weekends, didn't tell many if any people aside from my old roommates, and would spend an afternoon wandering around campus, its familiar and small pathways being traced by my sure footing once more. Each of these times, I clung to the nostalgia in my heart, remembering when, trying to replay the college experience once more, and pretend I never graduated.

This time, the third time, was different. I was there for more days this time, one of which was a Friday. I got to see many of my old friends who were all stressed out over finals and behaved as such, keeping our visits short and sweet and hurrying out to the library to study. Meanwhile I strolled around campus (yes, I do stroll from time to time and additionally I languish on sofa couches), unburdened by homework and tests and projects and even my work day having taken the day off from work, feeling light and free and impossibly older. Kind of like Van Wilder. I tried to convince my roommates to go to the club with me on Friday night as a means of study break, but they needed to work. Maybe not like Van Wilder. I think he would have been resourceful enough to bring the party there.

This return, I didn't think of as being a painful one. I didn't reach into my heart and spread all of my memories out on the cement and try to re-enter them. I went around and told everyone what I did, where I worked, how I loved my work, and the aspirations I had for my future. In some small ways, it reminded me of when I was little and my Dad would parade me around at his office to everyone working there, listing off like clockwork my grade point average, the extracurricular activities I did, additional writing I was acknowledged for, etc. I remember these visits starting off okay and gradually growing more uncomfortable the more people I met and had to blush and smile very hard for. I'm a pretty modest person when it comes to discussing my accomplishments. Plus, back then I was just about to hit puberty and was on the cusp of being irritated with just about anything my parents did for me.

Back on campus, circa now, I didn't feel that way. I felt proud of everything I had done since graduating. I had gotten a job in the line of study which I graduated with a degree in. Not only did I have a job (which, is in of itself an accomplishment), I managed to get one in the highly competitive field of advertising. As a copywriter, I spend the majority of the day doing what I love: writing. And recently I had some success at work which paid off nicely for me and cemented my place solidly at the company, giving way to the dream I have to move up in the world of advertising and later work for different agencies, going through entry level, associate, junior, and finally senior copywriter. If ever was a time to brag about my success, it's now. I'm determined to not sacrifice my dreams and I know if I work hard, I can fulfill them.

I will have my cake and eat it too!

So I told everyone about my new life and the great things that have occurred in it. They were all very happy for me, as I was to hear about what they were up to. After the day was over, it dawned on me that my visits to this school were also (in essence) over. It was a time in my life that I worked for, grew as a person at, and had some of the best memories ever come from. It was a decision I will never, ever regret or look back on with much "painful return" because even from the sadness and occasional lonely moments, I learned. I grew. I became who I am now.

It was simply a time, a chapter in the book of my life. It ended, as they all do, but ended with a follow-up chapter not even I could predict coming. If the book of my life keeps moving at this pace, there will be more unpredictable chapters on the way, with some of them I'm carefully moving in place even right now. Even though much of my future looks blurred, I already know certain portions I want to be easier to see and will once more, gamble the highest stakes to go where my heart pulls me.

Fate, you've met your match.

Love to you all,
Heather

I've Got a Remedy

2010-12-03T20:21:00.000-08:00

Some of you may be aware of my general frequent behavior of getting weak in the knees in the presence of anyone or anything British. For those of you who don't know, let me quote Sienna Miller's character from Alfie when she finds out her limo driver is from jolly old England:

"You're British? I love British."

Such is the life philosophy of your blogger Miss Taylor here. Since much of my heritage is composed of Welsh and English blood, I feel very connected through some odd force I don't quite understand myself to the Brits...even though I've never been to the Queen Mother's country. But never fear, I'm in the process of fixing that as I type (more for a later entry).

My favorite guilty pleasure is British pop music. Good or bad, I love all of it. I don't judge either. I'm willing to give all of it at least one listen. It all started with Sophie Ellis-Bextor and from there, escalated. Girls Aloud, Sugababes. Robbie Williams. Alcazar. Duffy. Rachel Stevens. Well, technically it started with Robbie when I stayed up late at 13 to watch the video for "Rock DJ" on the MTV2 special Most Controversial Videos. Y'know, the video where he pulls his skin off and dances as a skeleton with all of the girls on roller blades? Maybe it's just me on this one.

In any case, a few weeks ago I got on my Pandora to my handcrafted Sophie Ellis- Bextor radio station I've spent a sizable amount of time editing and sat and listened whilst writing. Then I heard a voice, of a song I never heard before, the voice of someone that sounded intriguing and just wonderful. I felt that weird prickle you get when you know you're listening to someone who will infinitely make you feel happy, even for no apparent reason, even when you feel like you'll never be happy again. The sound like peppermint candy canes crackling apart in the cold wind with the echo of laughter and gasping for breath with sleigh bells ringing. It's this wild intrigue that just tells you things are going to be swell. Your heart knows it, because it just popped 12 times its size to inflatable proportions and is know doing a wacky sock hop dance next to your lungs. It's just how I felt for those 3 minutes and 16 seconds.

Check the name.

Little Boots

I adore her.

Victoria Hesketh is her real name. Her voice is a touch difficult to place in comparison to someone else, but her music influences include a solid list of greats from Kylie Minogue to Pink Floyd and even Gary Numan.

She sits cozy in the 20-something girl singer group comprised of Lady Gaga, Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine, and Pip Brown (Ladyhawke). If you're inclined to listen to these ladies, I highly, highly recommend giving Little Boots a shot.

Key tracks to listen to include:

New in Town (note: I am aware that this song was on the Jennifer's Body soundtrack. Do not worry. I promise, it's fun and not irritating. Then again, Hole also had the song Violet on this soundtrack, but they did have an album with the same title as the movie so I guess Courtney Love had to get roped into the soundtrack somehow.)
Remedy
Stuck on Repeat
Hearts Collide
Earthquake
Catch 22

Very much worth the listen indeed. Especially if you're in the mood for an accent.

You know I always am.

Love to you all,
Heather

Returning

2010-11-26T22:34:00.000-08:00

Dearest readers and my fellow bloggers,

I'm back. Again.

This month has not been particularly good for me. A series of events from a few weeks ago sparked a domino effect with one thing falling into the other and leaving me barely standing at the end of it all. There was one week a couple of weeks ago that I cried for an entire week straight for many reasons. Some of it had to do with the fact that my desk at work was placed into a separate corner to be solitary and apart from everyone else (with vague reasons for doing so that even now I suspect highly). Other reasons were that I missed my family and really wished I could have gone home to see them for Thanksgiving. That I got yelled at by one of my roommates over a misunderstanding. That my unpaid student loan bills finally caught up to me in the worst way. The fact that I was PMSing at a disturbingly long stretch of time.

Most of it had to do with a boy (see below entry for further true-life scenario explanation). Once I blogged it out, it was as though my entire self shut down for some time. Writing is my best cure for when I'm hurt, but this time, the writing took everything I had and left me empty with nothing left of substance to say. Oh, I could have blogged something else, talked about a dress I liked or a musician who caught my ear, but it wouldn't have been from the heart. It would have been filler which isn't what I want to see represented on this site. If I'm going to sit and write, it's going to mean something or say something about me.

The important revelation that came from that night was that I watched my fantasies of getting back together with him die. All of them. I watched the dreams I secretly had, some of which included running away together to another country, living penniless but happily in a tiny apartment together, and yes, even the very small vision I had that one day we could be married, I saw these dreams fall away one by one. They were replaced by reality, one in which I saw we were on two different planes, going in two separate directions, despite living in close proximity to one another.

Watching these kinds of dreams disappear is not fun. I cried a lot when I got home that evening and even more when my roommate got home a little while later. Out of anyone in my life, she's known what I went through with this boy and was there at the very eventual end. I feel very blessed to have her in my life. If I had to be alone during this, it would have been much harder to return to my everyday life.

Another reason for all of the tears was because I rarely cry. When I was in college and felt so sad I thought my heart would burst, I would go sit on the football bleachers in the cool night breeze and let it out there. Or I would go to this public bathroom at the end of my dorm hall that nobody ever frequented and sob in the stall. I don't like to cry in front of other people because to me, it feels like I'm losing the upper hand and can't control the aspects of my life the way everyone expects me to. I've had expectations mounted on me since I was born and the feeling of disappointing someone, of not being the person they can depend on is one of the worst feelings in the world for me.

Like how I've been so neglectful of everyone's blogs. This is one of those things I know I need to do that I kept stepping around and just not doing for so long. I've been retreating into my Tumblr for some time now. It's been restful there and after a long day at work, a bit easier to work with. But I've missed this blog and your blogs very much and so here we are.

It won't be immediate and it won't happen overnight, but I'm slowly going to read through backed-up blog entries on my Google reader while writing on a more consistent basis here. Sometimes, when one is lacking glitter and spark in their life, they just have to place it there themselves and create some more happiness. I've done it many, many times before and will continue to, even if I'm feeling lazy and unproductive.

With all entries being from the heart, of course.

Love to you all, (you wonderful all)
Heather

When You Come Undone

2010-11-13T15:28:00.000-08:00

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness..."
-Allen Ginsberg

Once upon a time there was a girl. There was a boy. They had a history together.

They see each other for the first time in months last night. The girl has been wondering, pondering this moment for some time. She sees in her mind's eye the idea of how beautiful this reunion could be. Then she takes these carefully deeply seeded dreams and torches them to protect herself. To end the expectations. Every single last image burns into a thin layer of soot and she wipes her slate clean.

He calls her name. She turns her back away from him. She won't dare look at him until she has to. When she turns, he is older, brittle and worn down by time. She touches his face. "We're meeting halfway." Could he even know where that line came from, that she sees it running through her ears and blooming all around her? She did not dress up as she used to with him. A thin wall of glass is beginning to form and while delicate, it is resilient and tough. It is her shield.

They speak of nothing and learn nothing of one another they didn't already know. He hugs her goodbye and she touches his hand gently before moving away. If it's for the last time. She walks away to go to the next destination. The glittering stars in the sky scornfully stare down at her, part of the plan with the gods to never answer her wishes. Never is forever.

Tonight the gods have other plans in mind. They take the girl's ship and the boy's ship and through the heavy current of the navy seas, navigate them to collide into one another. It's a quiet collision, with the wreckage being that only she can feel. They see one another across that restaurant. He will not look at her. The glass wall grows taller.

She flits about the room, unable to stay put, talking to everyone as he stands still. She shines through her modesty, through conversation, through laughter brilliant as a myriad of twinkling lights illuminating a chandelier. There is nothing wrong. The glass drops with everyone and rises, thicker and fuller when she is around him. There is nothing wrong.

He does not speak unless spoken to first. She asks him questions, he asks her some. He is drained. Anyone can tell by looking at him. There is something cold and crystallized in his eyes. For as much as she tries to look into them and pull him out, it won't happen. And she knows this for the first time, completely on her own. The gods are moving their ships together this night, but only this night. Every other night after will be their own sail on their own uncharted destinations. Maybe they will collide again but it is not likely anymore. Where he plans to go, she plans to leave before he has a chance to be there. She longs to be beyond the sea and she will go there.

The glass wall expands between them. There is so much time lost. She used to break down these walls, but today, tonight, tomorrow, and every moment after that, she won't. He must break them down if he sees them built, if he wants this ending to become a beginning. But he won't. She can see it in his eyes. It's the only thing she can see in him anymore.

Alone in her room, she sobs herself to sleep.

Love to you all,
Heather

The Mojo (She's Crazy But I Like It)

2010-10-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

"I'm living vicariously through you and your single life."

My friends like to tell me this. I am a single girl who has never been in a long-term relationship. I've literally never had the time to invest in one. My entire life revolves around my work. Work, work, and more work. Employed since I was 11, I can't remember a time where I didn't put work (and school) prior to the opposite sex. Work also used to be a big reason why I did not have a social life. Sometimes it still is. Throughout my life, I let being busy fill my world and stayed that way, letting it sink into every crevice of the woman I was becoming. When it felt like work wasn't enough, when it felt like there was ache beginning to form inside, I filled the gaps with the things I liked. My books, writing, friendships, and fashion.

There were and still are the times when I look into myself and think, "I wish I had a special guy in my life." For years I've been under the impression (an impression that will occasionally come out when there's too much vodka in my system) that my soulmate was struck by lightning. Everyone seems to find this hilarious, but it is entirely plausible. Fate has a strange sense of humor like that. Still. There are the moments where I wish I could sit with a man, laugh with him, hold his hand and mean every word when I say I love you. When I was very little (maybe 8) I had a dream one night in which a tall, dashing man kissed me. In the dream, I was much older and we sat in a carriage, like a prince and princess. Secretly, my heart hopes and wonders for the day I will eventually meet this dream man...

In any case, that day is yet to arrive and currently we are at the 23 year old version of me. Plus with this giveaway title of the blog post, you're here for a vicarious story indeed! I never disappoint, never.

At my age, all I want to do is just have a good time. I crush all of the time, my brain focusing on one guy for an entire week or even just one day, then dropping him in favor of the next one. The sea is forever full of fishes to me, so why not keep it filled with choices? And while we're at it dipping into other seas is de rigueur, so yes, men from other countries are always a delight. When I told one of my closest friends about a guy I had met, she immediately wanted to know what country he was from. I'm just a sucker for an accent. Keep the Brits, Aussies, Scots, and Kiwis far, far from me. And great clothing is my constant Achilles's Heel. I cannot resist a man in a blazer or dress shirt, ever. Which is what led me to the tale you're about to hear.

As a disclaimer, I'd also like to state for the record that I'm just a kissing bandit. That's it. I just enjoy a lovely make-out session or two. They're grand. Even if you're in a crummy mood, they can lift you back up to your feet and find your footing in the world again. All is not lost when you've had some wonderful kisses. I don't know anyone who would disagree with me on this one.

Our story takes place two weeks ago in West Hollywood, at a bar called Saddle Ranch. I'm there with my roommate, Britney and her friend who incidentally is also named Heather. My ensemble for the evening is black dress with black stockings, black blazer, silver and black heels, red lipstick, and a black beret, my "Ebert."

A few drinks in, I head over to the bar to order us a round of shots. A voice to the left of me croons out, "Oy mate, I love your hat!" in a full-on Cockney'd accent. I look and see a beautiful man in a white dress shirt with a black sweater and jeans. Very blond. He looks like a grown-up version of Chris from the British teen show Skins. I LOVE that show. He smiles at me. Full grin with all of his teeth. He looks like he's in his late 30's (IMPORTANT).

I am smitten.

The sequence of events after that gets hazy but here's what I do remember:

~We have a conversation. His name is Tony (haha, another Skins reference), he lives in London, works for a big video game company.
~He buys me quite a few drinks. This I cannot stress enough in importance. I love a man who's willing to treat a lady to the drink of her choice.
~I meet the couple with him he's been chatting with, Roger and Stacy. They both look...older than most couples. Very proper. (IMPORTANT)
~I think I spilled something on his perfect jeans. I begin rubbing my hand all over them to wipe it off. I have no idea what I'm doing, other than giving him total bedroom eyes.

Then we're making out. I'm almost in his lap. It's intense and thoroughly satisfying.

The rest of the night blurs. At one point we're walking around the bar hand in hand. At a different point, he tells me he's staying at the W Hotel in that adorable accent. I'm pretty giggly. I think I lose him when I go to the bathroom where I make a series of phone calls, one to my roommate who isn't there that night that I vaguely remember, one to someone-who-shall not be named that I do not remember AT ALL, and finally one to the operator for no apparent reason.

We all leave after and stay at Heather's apartment for the evening. I sleep in my Ebert and do not mind it one bit. That beret is my shiny penny. It's great luck for any circumstance. The next day we recount this tale together. I tell the tale via texts to my closest friends who all love the story. I spend the day cursing myself for not getting his number

Perhaps it was a good thing I didn't.

That Thursday I arrive home from work late and my roommate Sara (who was not there at the bar that night) comes running out of her room, "Heather! You didn't tell me old that British guy you were with was!"

"He was in his late 30's." I absently replied. That's not old in my book.

"That's not what Britney said. She said he was 50!"

This is a new development. "50?" I asked. Really? How is this possible?

Britney comes home a little while later and I ask her, "How old was the guy I was making out with at the bar?"

"Late 40's to early 50's." She replies but then cinches the deal, "He had a bald spot."

Wow. I made out with a guy who was practically my father's age. Not that I mind or anything. I have a thing for older men. It's well-documented. I smiled wide at my roommates. "Well, what can I say..." I start and giggle, "I do like them older!"

This was officially the end of my dry spell, the moment in which I got my mojo back. Like Stella getting her groove back, I received my mojo, which had suffered terribly for months during the summer, but was now back in business! We discussed how it wasn't creepy at all, with Britney adding that Tony was "very well dressed."

"Of course," Sara nodded, "That's the part of the story that makes perfect sense."

And I added in my piece on before the kiss when all my giddy brain could think was "We're going to snog now! Snogging!" (Snog is British slang for kissing.)

This only means one thing.

My new destiny in life, my latest ambition, is to travel to London. Work for an ad agency there and meet all of those British boys who will love this American Girl. All of those accents....oh yes! When I set my mind to something, there's not much of a chance in stopping me.

Never fear though. Packed along for the ride no matter where I go will be my trusty Ebert ;)

Love to you all,
Heather

Make a Wish

2010-10-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my 23rd birthday. 23 on the 23rd. The Golden Birthday as they say, and as I patiently await it, I am 22 on the 22nd. An event sure to never take place again in my lifetime.

And I couldn't be more thrilled!

Ever since I was a little girl, I adored birthdays. They were, and still remain, my favorite holiday (followed closely by Halloween and Oscar Night in the top three). Birthdays never had to be celebrated the same way, year after year. Each year, as I grew up and changed, my birthday celebrations followed suit. Some years I spent with more friends, out socializing. Others were quiet, depending on the tone of the year, and spent with family in various bookstores.

Today after work, I went to the bookstore and lingered in the aisles, wistfully glancing at books on the shelves and wishing I could stay there forever. It was always one of the birthday wishes I made on candles; to be locked "accidentally" in a bookstore overnight. I wouldn't be any trouble! I would just sit and read for hours in an armchair. Doesn't it sound like paradise?

Alas, this wish is yet to come true. It was a very popular one with me when I was in middle/high school. My other two wishes were for a million dollars and a boyfriend, neither of which panned out. Kind of a good thing though, considering that at 16 I would have a) spent the money on terrible clothing and b) you don't even want to know what my taste in guys was like back then.

Not that I mind. These days, when I wish, I wish for the attainable. I made a wish last Friday on my pre-birthday party celebration for something different and closer to my heart. Since I'm a big believer in the whole "don't tell a wish 'cause it won't come true" saying, I won't say what it was.

Buuuuut....I will give you one hint.

Foreign.

That's the hint. Let your imagination take you away with that one.

As my new age dawns, I'm feelin' fine. I'm surrounded by beautiful people whom I love and love me in return. I have a job in advertising that yes, irritates me sometimes, but it's what I feel at my best doing and am unbelievably thankful to have. My family and I are all getting along swimmingly these days, somewhere there is always beautiful music to listen to with good books to read, and hehe, I did get my mojo back in a big way (thank you, handsome British stranger...a story to tell for another time).

Plus I also got a gorgeous pair of satin peach-colored pajamas from my parents so yes indeed, this birthday is hands-down > past birthdays.

Farewell to 22 on the 22nd, here's to the new age, 23 on the 23rd.

Love to you all,
Heather

Beret Love

2010-10-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

Just typing out this title alone I got too excited and accidentally typed out "ebert" instead of "beret." The excitement is because of my new beret, newly christened Ebert as of...right now.

Owning a beret has been a private dream of mine for a little while now. It's one of those attainable dreams that you just push off into an unforeseen future. Completely within your reach, but you don't reach out for it because it is so readily available. You get it and then you have it. And that's that. There is no mystery or intrigue, no second returns to the department stores to try it on and know that when you leave it behind, it (or its cousin, in navy or teal) will be there still waiting for you to try it on the next time you return.

For me, berets were always there between the ages of 6-18. Spending most of my childhood evenings in Dillards, I used to peer into the glass case where all of my little splashes of color resided in the hat department. They were simple, woolen, never embellished, always bright, and there. Maybe I didn't own one, but that was because other things kept calling my attention louder like the key lock journals and glitter pens. It didn't matter though. I always returned most evenings to spend quality time with the hats in that glass case. Even though there would be many moments to come in my life where it felt like my entire world would crumble completely around me, standing next to the beret case would instantly comfort my inner self. Those hats were always ready to go, ready to shine. I would too.

Tiffany's is to Holly Golightly as the Dillards beret case is to Heather Taylor.

My new beret arrived in the mail yesterday from Forever 21. It was very simple, black wool with a bow. The bow was also black and made from wool, to blend in nicely. I put it on and we were in l-o-v-e. Dabbed on some red lipstick and ran out to the living room to show my roommate Britney my new hat which she loved and declared I looked "just like a French girl."

Fabuleux!

The beret and I remained conjoined at the head for the rest of the evening. My gray cells almost imploded imaging the different ways I could wear my hair with this hat. Down straight, down with curls, up in a bun, up in a messy bun, braids, pinned to the side. Dare I say even just bed head?

I do dare.

It should be noted that while my love for berets is strong, I'm not really a hat person. Generally they smush my hair and bangs down and leave them limp. Also sometimes I get sweaty while wearing a hat which is unpleasant. The beret has, so far, done neither to me to which I am very happy about.

Plus my taste in hats tend to err on the side of My Fair Lady era, in both size and style. A huge wide brimmed hat with lace and flowers, despite the impracticality, is more likely to get me to buy it. Even though it will go with nothing I own...I still want it. The likelihood of it not being there the next time only propels me further.

Are any of my style icons beret fans? Let's see.

Zooey Deschanel looks to be in this advertisement...

...as does Eva Green in The Dreamers still. Both in red. Hmm. Methinks I will be investing in many more Eberts to come.

If you're on the fence about getting a beret, I say hop off and do it. Reasons include:

1) Classic, timeless, and functional especially with a trench coat, simple white shirt, and black/charcoal pants.

2) With a little tilt to the side or any angle, you can instantly change appearances. Flirty, sultry, cool, or reserved.

3) It's such an attention getter. People generally look at me like I'm some exotic plant they've never seen before (i.e. curious, but cautious). Wear the beret and EVERYONE will be utterly fascinated with you.

4) Instant je ne sais quoi. A simple hat goes a long way.

Love to you all,
Heather

My Own Private Dream

2010-09-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

There are too many days where I just long to drop everything. Let it all slid out of my fingers, fall to the ground, and leave it there. If I could, truly could, I would live in a cottage by the sea. Cut up my credit cards. Walk away from the internet. Put my phone on the sidewalk curb and never pick it up again. Disconnect myself from the "world" and learn how to open my eyes a bit wider, a bit longer, a bit stronger.

The sea breeze fluttering through my hair, setting each wisp a'flutter. In a long skirt, sitting in a decaying field, feeling each grass blade poke me in their best efforts at getting my attention. Picking fresh fruit from drooping tree branches and marveling in the wonder of how quickly the apples have ripened. Under the trees with a book to read in the morning sun. The sound of string violin overtures filling every pore of my being until I feel like the melodies live in my throat. Dancing with the wind in the sudden falling amber twilight and losing my laughter in its grip as I spin, spin, spin alone, locked in my own private dream.

It's a big shame to me that I cannot.

At least not yet. Soon, sooner, soonest. Somewhere, someday.

Love to you all,
Heather

Brothers

2010-09-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I went to sleep and dreamed. I saw a raining gray sky and my brother, the middle one Neil was there with me. He was waiting for a bus. I gave him money and balled it up tightly into his hand. Then I got into a car and drove away. It struck me while I was driving that wait, what I was doing? I could drive him where he needed to be! I turned around and drove back to the bus stop and parked. I got out of the car. He was gone and the skies continued to pour down on me, soaking in that gray sky.

I woke up on Sunday to my parents calling me. I ignored the call because it was 7am. My apartment doesn't get very good cell reception service either so if I did answer, I'd lose them before I even said hello. I called them back around 10am. In my experience, when they call at early hours it can only mean bad things have happened.

My Mom told me my brother Neil had been hit by a car. He was riding his bike and crossing at the crosswalk. An old woman hit him, not paying attention to what was in front of her. He hit the windshield and cracked it to shreds. Luckily, he was only a block away from my parents' house. Our neighbors went to go get my parents and they all went in an ambulance to the hospital. He stayed there where the doctors put a neck brace on him and ran tests to be sure he wasn't suffering from any brain clots or internal bleeding.

He's quite fine now. He went to school on Monday and everything. In a very strange way, it was as if it never happened. Though since the police ticketed the woman and my parents are resorting to legal action with an attorney, it did. I spoke to Neil on the phone briefly where he said he felt fine and hoped to see me for Christmas. I felt lumpy in my throat and told him, "We'll see." about the holidays. I can't go home though. I don't get the vacation time for it from work.

This is the second significant time I know I've disappointed my brother. I have three brothers, Earl, Neil, and Ethan. All younger than. There is a two year age gap between Earl and I, and 10 years with Neil, 12 with Ethan. The first time I disappointed my brother, it was Earl. I was 13 at the time and in my tweenager, angry phase. The phase I went through where I would come home and throw everything in my room for no reason but to throw things. Earl and I used to play with stuffed animals together and would take them on adventures as children. We were very close. Once I remember having a terrible nightmare and running to his room where he slept and I sat on the edge of the bed, still scared, but close to him so I knew nothing would touch me. So, Earl at 11, comes to my door with his arms full of stuffed animals and eagerly calls out to me, "Hey Heather, want to play?" with a big wide grin on his face.

"No!" I shouted back, enraged, "I'm too old for that. Leave me alone!"

I'll never forget the look on his face in my entire life. It was the most crestfallen expression, so lost. He saw in that moment that I was growing up, even though I feel like for my entire life I've been forever growing up. With his hands still full of stuffed friends, he turned and went back to his room.

If my future self could have, she would have slapped me across the face and screamed at me. Life is too precious, too short, and too full of sadness and the loss of innocence for me to have behaved like that. But I did. I kept it up for too long with all of them. Sometimes I'm so ashamed of how horrible of a person I was then that I can't even look at myself in the mirror. I want to smash the glass. For as much as I try to make everything look just right on the outside, I'm just a mess on the inside, swimming in a sea of regret and wondering just how much longer it will be before I drown in the memories of the sea. The good thing is that my brothers are forgiving and I am learning and have learned over the years how to stop being my own number one priority and put everyone before me. It's a much better me these days than the old girl I used to be.

My brothers and I are all quite the same and different at the same time. Earl loves video games and is the military right now where he's growing up into a man. Neil loves to bike and idolizes skateboard legends. Ethan is deeply immersed in art and music at all times. We all move to the beat of our own drums and seek comfort in the arms of one favorite stuffed toy, something that will most likely hold true with all of us no matter how we age. We all tell jokes with each other and love to make one another laugh until tears flow. I am fiercely protective of them, especially Earl. When I was in middle school, I threw a boy up against a wall after a church Sunday school service for teasing him. My all-black wardrobe at the time scared everyone in the grades below me and this boy was no exception. Earl with his eyes shining, thought it was the coolest thing ever. I used to dream of saving him when I was little, running and pulling him out of harm's way just in time. The older I got, and the more he began to stick up for himself, the less I dreamt like that. But the feeling never left. I'd sacrifice myself for any one of them in a heartbeat. In no way is my life ever more precious than theirs. Simply no way.

Last summer, my parents and I decided that if something should ever happen and they were to die suddenly in an accident or otherwise, I would be the legal guardian for Neil and Ethan. (With responsibilities for Earl, but he's only 3 months from being an adult so he isn't considered to be part of this responsibility pile.) Sometimes I wonder about this. It would change my life forever if something happened to them. What would I do? Would I get on a plane and go home, sell the house, lock everything into a storage unit and take them back to California with me to move into a different apartment? Would I just move home and live in the memories like a modern-day Miss Havisham? Would I sell everything and move the three of us somewhere new to start over fresh where nobody knew who we were? A different state? Or a different country? I don't know and I hope I am never in the position of losing both of my parents to find out. Nobody knows how they'll act in a different circumstance until the moment hits them and then they have to find out in that moment.

Anyway, the point of this post is just to say I love my brothers very much. I know I have a funny way of showing love, but when I say it, I always mean it truly and fully. I don't say it often, but I should start. Because I love too many people in my life to never let them know how much I do.

If you're reading this, and I know you, I love you.
If you're reading this, and I don't know you and never met you or maybe we met once or twice or three times but I forgot your name or I can't place you for the life of me, I still love you.

And if you're reading this and you're related to me, know that the sea of regret I used to swim in, I have since parted. I sail on my new sea of understanding and quiet love for all of you.

Forever until forever.

Love to you all,
Heather

P.S. This was a very difficult post to write.

Shake The Dust

2010-09-08T20:04:00.000-07:00

Poor neglected blog! I need to blow the dust off of this one. And to that end, I'm sorry to have been missing in action on the blogs of everyone I follow (and my followers). I've been on my Tumblr all too often these days and sometimes it's just too easy to sit there and stare at photos rather than words. This is all just a polite way for me to avoid saying that I'm just incredibly lazy after work most days. I feel like Gilly in SNL. "Sorry." But you know, less sarcastically.

Fall is in the air out in SoCal. You can feel the snap in the wind change in the morning, the cool breezes fluttering on every bare spot on your body, the skies shaded gray throughout the entire day. It's been like this for two days and I am enamored. Don't end. I'm like some bratty girlfriend with this weather. I will refuse to look it in the eye if it up and leaves me. Autumn is my favorite time of the year. It is also the one time of the year where I begin to grow terribly nostalgic for my old city, Saint Louis. If I had the money, I would rent an apartment exclusively in September and October there. Of every season, this is the one that was done right, not too cold, not too warm, enough brightly colored crisp leaves on the ground, and a royal purple sky at night you could stare up at for hours. I used to walk for hours with my iPod around the park near my house, wadding through leaves with slightly pink fingers and ear tips by the end. It was addicting, that chilled weather, and I needed a fix constantly. Hence the reason why I spend so much of my time walking and refuse to drive. I think you miss more of the world that way...

My world when I walk is filled with music. My iPod and I are very close. It's a little bright purple nano named Yves (I have a habit of naming my iPods after couture designers). Whenever I walk, I listen to it as much as I can. Listening to music on my iPod is almost a trance-like experience for me. My friends refer to the way I look as "my iPod face." I'm in another world, literally. Before my eyes, I see invisible images and people and string together my own music videos to the songs I listen to. Crazy? Unusual? I don't think so. I'm sure other people do this when they listen to extremely touching songs or just damn good music in general. Besides, those adjectives can only mean good things in my world.

This fall, I'm filling my iPod once more with some good songs. Not a whole lot of people know the kind of music I listen to so I'll share a few of my favorites with you and the way I feel when I disappear into these albums.

Jem Finally Woken

Yearning for what could be, but resigned to reality. Also some calculation. Not the math kind mind you, just careful thought. The kind that referred to as almost clinical in nature. Stripping down to the barest of bones.

Massive Attack Heligoland

Like I'm wandering lost in a labyrinth but I'm not scared. Instead, I go deeper into the maze, feeling and touching everything new and sacred and ruined all around me. It thrills me and I like it that way.

*Note: This is generally how I feel when I listen to Massive Attack. It's quite the experience. Lots of out of body moments.

The Engine Room A Perfect Lie

You might know it as the theme song from Nip/Tuck. There's so much gravity in this song. I often feel buried in it despite the fact that the song stresses to rid you of imperfections that could weigh you down.

The OC Soundtrack

For those who dream in eternal summer, it's long car drives, bonfire laughter, stolen moments, broken hearts, and aching to grow up right now.

*Note: I have too many soundtracks on my iPod. It's worrisome. Call for help.

The Rolling Stones, Let it Bleed

Just a classic. How do you properly describe a classic other than to say you feel everything with it, good and bad?

Til Tuesday Voices Carry

I kind of want to lie in my bed and cry when I listen to this song. Even if it is an '80s pop song. Still. All the same, it makes me want to pull at my bedsheets and just ball up inside, like a private cocoon. Not a bad thing either.

I do love music suggestions too so if you have any, send them this way!

Love to you all,
Heather

I'm Okay (I Promise)

2010-08-28T21:06:00.000-07:00

Last time blogging, I kind of left everyone hanging with a thoughtful poem and little else accompanying it except for a cryptic "thinking..." ending at the bottom. I just want everyone to know that I'm doing just fine right now. Possibly better than fine. Well rested is the best term for it.

Meet the culprit. The new bed.

Allow me to explain my former bed situation. When I moved to the new digs in Calabasas, I uh, didn't have one. For two months to be exact. I slept on a piece of memory foam instead. On the carpeted floor with my comforters and pillows and all. For two months.

This is the moment where everybody looks at me strangely and slowly mouths, "Why?" stretching the word out super long with a look that is the perfect mix of incredulous and horrified. Why did you not have a bed for two months? Why? Why? WHY CHILD WHY??

Hey, it never bothered me. I found it to be oddly comfortable. The real reasons why I didn't buy a bed were:

1) They're expensive. Bed frame, box spring, mattress, headboard. They all add up to a very disturbingly pretty penny. There are ways of getting around the expense but my issue here is would I spend that kind of money on a bed or on new clothes? The sad thing is, generally no matter what situation I'm in, clothes win. There was a time when I was a little girl when my parents couldn't afford any dressers for my brother and I for our bedrooms or other bedroom items like end tables and whatnot. Did this stop us from still possessing the best wardrobes and plentiful shoe piles around? Nope. It appears small moments from my childhood are creeping into my adulthood. Either that, or I may have an addiction to shopping. Clothes are also easy to pack and jet out with at a moment's notice which brings me to my second reason...

2) Nomadic tendencies. Have you ever seen that movie Chocolat? There is a scene where Vianne, the main character, is standing by the river and staring off into the sky. She often remarks that the Northern wind pulls her and her daughter into certain directions and she moves when she feels the wind pull. You might as well call this my life because I feel the exact same way. Sometimes I'll be sitting and having lunch with my friends and I'll gaze up and feel trapped in my chair. It takes so much effort not to run out of the room to the airport and book a flight, somewhere, anywhere. The sheer feeling of flying, of being in motion, of a new destination is a feeling I love and treasure and try as often as possible to consistently partake in. When my Dad was my age, he lived overseas by himself in Amsterdam and Paris for awhile. He was a lot like me, drifting where he liked and being independent.
When I moved into the apartment, my parents panicked over my decision to begin purchasing furniture because it indicated I would be staying there for some time. I panicked too, but in a more quiet way. There is a part of me that craves having a safe, secure place to call home, where I can sit and read and listen to music and write. There is another part of me that fears I'm not "home" yet. I feel like my entire self is just a big jigsaw puzzle and that while I have some of the pieces, I've got so many more to put together.

Eventually though, I decided to get a bed. This bed would be bought right as my first truly adult home purchase. I would not be assembling it myself in case my crappy handiwork ended with the bed breaking apart with me sleeping in it. There would be no box spring because I really don't need that. No King or Queen size because this girl does not need all of the excessive space. Just a good twin bed that would be delivered to my place and assembled for me.

Who would make the bed of my dreams?

Pottery Barn!

This is my new bed (though not with such a huge, well-lit bedroom seen in the photo), but the bed is still mine. I dreamed of this bed for ages and as you know, I'm a big advocate in making dreams become reality. Luckily for this one, I had a wee bit of financial aid from my parents which has since rebuilt our relationship together again.

It's beyond comfy and cozy. Pretty and roomy. When it arrived last Saturday, I immediately pursued a test try nap. That nap, I told my roommate, was so good it lasted 3 hours.

This is a lie.

That nap was so good, it actually lasted 5 hours. Dayum Serta mattresses, why you gotta be so soft and spectacular like that?

Love to you all,
Heather

Dreams

2010-08-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow...

-Langston Hughes

I've been thinking a lot these days. Contemplating life and all that jazz.

Love to you all,
Heather

Destination: The Suburbs

2010-08-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

This is a late post for me since this album released on August 3rd. Apologies for it, but as with all Arcade Fire albums, I need a week of solitude with frequent listenings.

And as per usual, I fell deeply in love with it.

I've been listening to the Arcade Fire since the tail end of my senior year of high school. The first song I heard by them was Rebellion (Lies) and the change in tempo at the 1:50 mark (or the dropoff as I call it) was remarkable. I'm not the most spiritual girl in the world, but this album was truly a deep listening experience. I couldn't bear the thought of waiting to order it online, so my mom and I went on a Borders journey that was like my version of finding the Holy Grail to find the first album, Funeral. I listened to it obsessively, likewise with the second album Neon Bible. Enjoying the theatrics in songs like Black Mirror and the teary wistfulness of wanting in Crown of Love. During autumn, I used to go for walks energized with Keep the Car Running as my background song and in the winter, running through the snow with Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) seemed perfectly placed.

They're my favorite band of all time. My music taste is prone to change without warning often, but the Arcade Fire holds too much of my heart in their music. It seems to me like Win Butler and Regine Chassagne (the husband and wife singing duo leading the seven member band) know far too often what I'm thinking and how I feel.

With the new album, The Suburbs, we literally went back to the suburbs. A place that I haven't lived in for years, but lately felt the pull in my heart to return to. Simply for the safety of it. It stays simple and quiet and safe. Of course, the safety of it all reminds me of just how bored I was there, but these days, when nothing in my life feels like it will stay still or not be unpredictable for one moment, I miss the safety of nothing occurring. I think the band understood this feeling of growing up, of losing innocence and in my case at least, desperately clinging to it in small ways.

I love the title track The Suburbs for capturing all of these feelings perfectly. It's as though they reached into my heart, dumped the contents onto a table and made music out of it. This track segued into Ready to Start, a fast paced song about being with someone versus just being alone (there are a lot of interpretations to this song, but I came away with this one.) "I would rather be wrong/Than live in the shadows of your song" is one of my favorite lines.

Rococo, a glittering gem of a song, is about culture and how we're so obsessed with appearance and fixated with getting it just right, but really losing the point in the process, if we ever understood it at all. It makes me feel like smashing everything related to pop culture and throwing it all away because in the end, what it is all about? Why can't we just be without appearing or pretending to be? It's deep, I'm telling you. Very thoughtful to say least.

Empty Room thrives in a whirling frenzied beat while Half Light II (No Celebration) brings more celebration than you'd think (I imagine it being lit with candles.) Month of May is now on my own personal life soundtrack. The entire song sounds like a race to the finish. 2009, 2010/Wanna make a record how I felt then/When we stood outside in the month of May/And watched the violent wind blow the wires away. It sounds exactly like how I wanted to be this fully published accomplished author by then, but could not due to lack of inspiration and other sidetracking items.

If you listen to one song on this album, make it Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains). Damn. This song is too powerful for words. Just the lyrics alone arrest me in the fact that they are everything I've ever heard in my head over and over, and that I know I'm not alone in this feeling. Not now, not ever.

"They heard me singing and they told me to stop,
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock,
These days, my life, I feel it has no purpose,
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface.
Cause on the surface the city lights shine,
They're calling at me, "come and find your kind."

Love to you all,
Heather