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December 31, 2003

New Year's Eve and I'm still at work...

Yes, I'm working on New Year's Eve.

For the first time ever, actually.

No one else is here, which makes it eerie and kind of fun, at the office. NPR without headphones. Blinds wide open, abhorrent flickering florescent lights off, flash, photoshop, and coldfusion on the monitor and IM windows in every corner.

I'm looking forward to the parties tonight, to the day off tomorrow, to a new year that has already begun to show itself as another year of very very good things.

I'm looking forward to starting the year with a freelance web design contract that very well will keep me employed for the next 6 months, if not the year.

I'm looking forward to learning.

to teaching.

to modeling.

to reading.

to hosting more dinner parties.

to guesting at still more.

to cuddling.

to all that good snuggly crap.

and I'm also looking forward to another year of picturepicture.net.

happy new year, y'all.

Posted by Heather at 02:46 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

December 28, 2003

So many good things from last weekend.

oh my god. I just finished reeling from a fabulous weekend with friends to launch into a holiday week/weekend that pushed the limits of too many good times to do justice. although I'll give it a good pathetic try with yet another laundry-list:

• movie night with the surprisingly non-geeky co-workers: If you have a few hours to see a movie that isn't fantasy, isn't romantic comedy, isn't jewsploitation, see Jim Sheridan's In America - the performances, the irishness, the financial insecurity, the romantic theatrics, all had me spellbound. moved, even.
• Burlesque with a boy: impromptu theatre-going with Ray who serendipitously provided an extra ticket to the Lavender Cabaret just when I was wondering what I was going to do with my friday night. Now, I've been to many burlesques before - sometimes, the ladies tall and slender and eventually "strip tease" becomes "strip naked", other times, they're beautiful and buxom and brassy, and most times, in Chicago, they tend to be very very casual. But this show, the gals were hot and lithe and tiny and funny, with an audience that couldn't stop hooting and hollering - I'm still a bit hoarse from the fun of it all. and I'd like to thank the powers that be for slender young ladies in fishnets and lacy boyshorts.
• before the show, we had a few drinks at our "favorite lounge" in lakeview: a trixie-free zone with fish tanks, cheap whiskey, and absolutely batty old ladies who knit at the bar and swear softly to themselves or sway dangerously off the stool while singing off-key at the top of their tiny aged lungs. Strangely enough, when we adjourned to Hala Kahiki later, we both found ourselves comparing the patrons of the two establishments - aged drunks and eastern european drunks are difficult to distinguish when you're so tipsy you're nearly falling off your chair.
• house sitting rocks. especially if they have a perfect bathtub. feels like coming home, being in andersonville. I've missed my little neighborhood - the Hopleaf, Andie's, Boost, Kopi, the little antique stores, and, of course, Rosehill. I've got pale imitators in park ridge, of corpse, but it's just not the same. I'll be sure to enjoy it while I can, this week.
• getting together with Jack, again - every single time he comes back to Chicago, it's like a new city with fabulous new people - scotch is sweeter, songs are just a little more mournful, dawn is pinker, and friends become smarter, wittier, and more attractive...thanks to him, I now know what it feels like to be smarter, wittier, and more attractive than I already feel. (sigh) Curse the California Film Industry. I shake my fist at the young woman who convinced the talented youngster at her porn parties to pursue film - little did she know he'd actually be successful at it....
• did I mention housesitting rocks?

Posted by Heather at 11:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 18, 2003

in which she housesits

I'm still working through the books from the stack I picked up last week -

Coming Home to Eat was really irritating (I am all for voluntary eating restrictions, but when he started traveling with plastic baggies of home-smoked cactus I just couldn't take him seriously)

The Man Who Ate Everything was as amusing as the recommender suggested. I can't wait to get to It Must Have Been Something I Ate, now.

Halfway through Savage Beauty, which I had to stop reading for a bit because I just started relating to her too closely. I love her intensely personal and silly letters, her meandering life story, her tendency towards baby talk. It also sparked a hilarious memory of performing Aria de Capo in high school. . .

Easy was just as crapulent as I thought it would be, I only read 80 pages into my 100-page crappy book limit, but I am grateful to the author for reminding me of one of my favorite Mae West quotes: when told she had ten men waiting for her in her dressing room after a show, she said "Send one of them home, I'm tired." Gotta love that Mae.

Who You Know was exactly what I expected. One train-ride's worth of reading. Lovely little bit of writing about online dating, but other than that, it's a morsel of a book that left me hungry for something more substantial.

I'm house-sitting for the lovely and talented Hannah and Jorge over the holidays, and, seeing as they don't have cable, I'll be sure to finish my borrowed selection well before the new year. Unless I end up just sitting and admiring their lovely home. Seriously, their place is the most beautiful house ever, even with their protests of 'mess' and 'it's still a work in progress'. I'm especially fond of the floor-to-ceiling window in their guest room, and the darling little green tiles in their amply-bathtubbed lavatory. Funny, just as I wondered about her, she telephoned with this generous opportunity - and yes, she's just as lovely, if not more so, than I remembered. . . hmmm. . . I should wonder out loud about people more often. . .

Posted by Heather at 11:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 06, 2003

Books. I read too many Books.

Every weekend, I manage a trip to the Evanston Public Library for my weekly quota of train readin'.

9-12 books usually take me from saturday to saturday, with a 50-50 ratio of chicklit and friend's recommendations. I've been going to EPL for so many years, I tend to pull books I haven't already read from the new book shelves without reading the jackets - it's all free, so it doesn't matter if it sucks, right?

I keep meaning to list the book of the day here, but I'm worried it'll make it less about the pleasure of reading and more about getting through the book so I can say I finished it.

I can't say what it is, I can't help but compete with myself.

But this week's take looks so interesting, I figure I'll list 'em before I read 'em. I'll let you know how the reading goes, as the week goes by.

Chicklit:

Alison's Automotive Repair Manual by Brad Barkely
(chicklit only because of the title and the cover, which shows a chick practically falling into the engine of a cool-looking car. )

Who You Know by Theresa Alan
(looks like sex in the city meets shopaholic takes manhattan - plus, it's a debut novel.)

amanda bright @ home by Danielle Crittenden
(although I picked this out at first for the @ in the title, so I could bitch about it later when it totally misunderstands the web community, I also confess to have chosen it because I thought I knew the author. the name sounds familiar - perhaps I dated a relative or something....)

Easy by Emma Gold
(looks like pure girly girl girl crap. which is perfect when I'm walking to the train at 7 in the morning and trying not to over-think the inevitable blind date I'll be going on after work.)

The Hazards of Good Breeding by Jessica Shattuck
(pandering to my weakness for first novels. and this author looks just like this absolutely stunning food critic friend of the most recent ex. I used to know. hmm..is it too soon to call up our mutual friends? 'cause I really wonder what ms. hannah is doing now....)

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
(I've been fascinated by the life of edna st vincent millay - and love biography, so I was delighted to see that the paperback was finally on the shelves...)

three books recommended by a friend:

Coming Home to Eat by Gary Nabhan
The Man Who Ate Everything and
It Must Have Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten.
(mentioning that you hate fish and vegetables and have a love for Anthony Bourdain when he's not writing fiction means that your chef friends will have book recommendations for you. and if you're like me, you'll take those recommendations and run. perhaps mr steingarten can help me overcome the gag reflex when confronted with bouillabaisse.)

woo hoo! let's get readin'!

Posted by Heather at 09:05 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

December 02, 2003

Soothing the Savage Beast, or, grid::brand

Okay, you know how sometimes, when you're really preoccupied with work, or healing from heartbreak, or, perhaps even possibly just suffering from the newest bout of insomnia?

So preoccupied that you should be paying really close attention to your best friend and it turns out that between the time the girls-night conversation started and the time you looked up from painting your nails, she'd put down her own nail polish brush and started silently, beautifully, heart-wrenchingly sobbing?

yeah. I'm an asshole. Next time, I'll remember to look up between coats.

but, believe it or not, I made it better. I took her to Hooters.

No, seriously. Hooters.

In this bar, two chicks, one crying, one consoling, you're guaranteed three things:

the barmaids ignore you,

the lonely guys at the bar who have been sitting there all day with no hope of scoring with the polyester-clad waitrons will send over free buckets of iced rollin' rock,

and you can mock the shiny support hose/puffy tennis shoe costumes.

all in one distracting swoop!

Hooters. A Brand Name You Can Trust.

Posted by Heather at 11:26 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack