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January 27, 2004
an open letter to my well meaning married friends.
I know you mean well.
I know that when the three of us go out to dinner, having a fabulous time, eating amazing food, talking about friends we have in common, about movies we really must see, about the hilarious book we're all going to write together someday....
when we're basking in the glow of a lovely evening, I can just see that moment when you and your incredible spouse look at each other and think "I have a friend who would love her!"
you call him/her when I get up to order another round, and the next thing I know, your recently-separated, michelob-drinking, jim-carey-loving accountant friend just happens to bump into us at the bar and I'm stuck trying to steer the conversation so no one gets hurt by thinking the four of us are on a double date or anything.
my darling married friends, my sweet, caring, friendly friends - surely you remember the simple fact: you can't just stick two single people in a room and hope for the best.
if you weren't married, you'd remember this.
you can't help that marriage has drained you--and your matching jcrew catalogue model physicist of a spouse--of your ability to judge others as potential mates. I understand this.
so let me help you help me.
Don't Set Me Up On Any More 'Accidental' Blind Dates.
not unless you can say to yourself:
"say, there's this person who is absolutely wonderful - beautiful, smart, funny, fast, cheap, and out of control - if I weren't married, I'd date this person. I think I should introduce this person to Heather because, well, it's impossible that they wouldn't get along."
in that case, give me a few minute's notice so I can run a brush through my hair or something. sheesh.
but seriously.
I need you to help me with this whole set-up thing because you know I can't just say no to a blind date. Hell, at the end of a long string of klunkers just a few short years ago, I thought I met my soul mate - a whip-smart hottie with blue eyes, curly hair, and the stamina of a nuclear-powered tantric robot. Granted, we were absolutely wrong for each other and it all ended in tears, but I came soclose to true happiness in that affair that it's still feeding the blind-date-hopefulness in me and I can't resist them without your help.
help me out, married friends, by finding comfort in going out as a threesome.
because all these blind dates are making me feel like Larry from Three's Company - a pathetically lonely bundle of hormones, looking for love in all the wrong apartment buildings with all the wrong stewardesses.
and you're not the only couple setting me up with klunkers. Remind me to tell you the story of the writer with too much money, not enough hair, and the voice of Fran Drescher. Or the one about the restaurateur who spent the entire excruciatingly quiet evening toying with his fork and sighing, then telling me our 'date' was the best time he'd had in years. Or even the dinner with the lovely asian gentleman who failed to tell me (or anyone else, I suppose) of his marital status (guess) until after he kissed me at the end of the evening.
yes, I realize that it takes two to tango. but I'm really really good at first dates. truly. and if even my expert attentions can keep the first date from going passably decently, well, I'm thinking it's not all my fault. and perhaps we should all just stop the madness.
but I can't do it all by myself.
Posted by Heather at 11:27 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
January 23, 2004
my friends know cool stuff.
it's a subtle thing. small, even.
but it makes me smile to go to this fella's site every day.
I want him to teach me how to do that cool wipe effect on *my* site.
damn. I that sounded better than it did. I suppose it's better than I didn't describe it as "cool-ass' because then I'd be using the word 'ass' in a sentence that includes the word 'wipe'. But that's the name of the effect and I'm sorry for it, but there's nothing I can do.
other than call it cool. neato. keen, even.
now. go. marvel at the small, but significant, coolness.
and play with his 26 things project, too.
Posted by Heather at 08:50 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 18, 2004
every so often, one should post a good quote, don't you think?
Just finished reading "Chasing Shakespeares" by Sarah Smith.
a fun book, reminds me of the da vinci code, but without the religious junque.
so, I'm reading along, enjoying the talk of shakespeare and his peers, the protagonist's journey to believing that perhaps shakespeare the writer was born 10 years before shakespeare the person, and I come to the quote that captures my imagination for a long moment:
You can't help it. They're just there, the beautiful wrong people; you come across them, you can't help it. Then they have you writing poems, they have you believing in things you aren't suited to believe, and the worst of it is you aren't going to come to your senses someday, your senses are here.
it's a writer's dream: that they'd have an affect on their readers. and for me, today, an author I've never met has helped me to decide that today is the day I stop feeling completely 100% responsible for the hearts I've broken (including my own) in the search for a partner.
I took the blame for falling out of love, for choosing wrongly, for kidding myself about looks or body hair or lifestyle or generosity. I took the blame for being more interesting than their current girlfriends, for letting people think that my fear of commitment was just a phase, for saying I could handle a life without meat or television or late-night talks about popular culture and trashy romance novels.
I'm not saying I'm not responsible for my participation in failed relationships. I'm just finally admitting to myself that I'm not the only person making things happen.
you knew as well as I did that we would never work.
but we both gave it a try - we couldn't help ourselves.
Posted by Heather at 02:25 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 15, 2004
Finally, a blurb about the brother.
I may have mentioned my sister a few times here... and even here.
She's still the best friend and confidante, but I realized I haven't been quite so prolific in my stories about the brother.
but we live, together with my parents, in this ramshackle house in the suburbs. We were unemployed at the same time, dual insomniacs sending IMs from opposite sides of a shared bedroom wall rather than wake up the parents with our bitching at 2 in the morning. I occasionally steal his beers, we always split our frozen pizzas, and we share a passion for documentary film and good books.
He's still tall, blonde, and handsome. Still unemployed, unfortunately. Still smart, articulate, and mischievous to a fault.
and, the other night, out of the blue, while sharing beers and watching 'the surreal life, ' he asked me "heatherheatherheather ....listen....I know you don't have any money, and you live with your parents and all, butbutbut...if I get my hands on a mechanical bull, would you go halvsies on it with me?"
I think I was waiting to write about him because the first time I really mention the kid I wanted it to be as bizarre as he is.
well, there you go. there'll be more. I promise.
Posted by Heather at 03:25 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 13, 2004
Matrix in the Suburbs
and, we baked brownies!
Posted by Heather at 03:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 11, 2004
oh my gosh, I forgot all about writing y'all!
I'm enjoying a perfectly wonderful year.
The egg-sized snowball of lovely sparkly happy is growing larger as it rolls downhill and I can only imagine what this portends for the full year, if the ball of goodness is already this big halfway into January.
The big news: the freelance web design job is now full time.
yup, I got the offer on Thursday and I'm hashing out the details on Monday! Celebrations with family members, dear friends, and dashing young suitors continue throughout the next week, as I insist the rejoicing last a day for each month I was unemployed and uninsured. Which means I'll be partying well into the end of the month - give a call if I've not called you, we'll go have a drink or dinner and you can tease me about the night you and I went out and I despaired finding any job, let alone the job and job title of my dreams....
I'm also re-designing picturepicture for the new year (starting with this front page - what do you think?, starting to save up for a replacement digital camera (all my cheap-ass ones finally gave up the ghost, rendering picturepicture.net ridiculously photo-free), and wondering if I should change hosts...any advice from my beloved readers will be well taken.
I'm sure I'll be posting more regularly once I get this page design updated and all purti-fied.....just you wait!
Posted by Heather at 08:27 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack