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February 27, 2004

there simply must be a catch.

this seems too good to be true.

The selection is limited, but I'm thinking, if I'm stuck with my bad library for much longer, booksfree.com may be a life saver.

or, at least, a train-ride-entertainer.

but not like the ones we have now on the blue line - that creepy guy in the silver paint was on yesterday...just staring...blaring Michael Jackson....(shiver).

Posted by Heather at 08:38 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 26, 2004

tiny little entry

I can't read the phrase "she throws up her hands" or any variation on that theme without visualizing someone vomiting body parts.

it's a sickness. and, a visual theme of the week, as the last 4 books I've read this week have that phrase in common.

I blame my new library for that. and plan to make a pilgrimage to Evanston for fresh reading materials as soon as I possibly can....

gotta get this awful taste out of my mouth, as it were.

Posted by Heather at 02:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 25, 2004

because I haven't posted a quiz result in a year or something like that...

I'm apparently Love in the Time of Cholera.
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Like Odysseus in a work of Homer, you demonstrate undying loyalty by sleeping with as many people as you possibly can. But in your heart you never give consent! This creates a strange quandary of what love really means to you. On the one hand, you've loved the same person your whole life, but on the other, your actions barely speak to this fact. Whatever you do, stick to bottled water. The other stuff could get you killed.

scarily, this is all true.

except for the cholera, of course.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

Posted by Heather at 04:31 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 20, 2004

I'm a fan.

In case no one here reads the morning news:

Leslie Hall Productions presents: The Best Sweater Gallery Ever.

don't forget to watch the movie trailer.

Posted by Heather at 09:07 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

February 15, 2004

"Two end tables, two arc lamps, a purse, and a satin jumper"

or, "an all-girl shopaholic valentine's day weekend.

spent the weekend with fabulous food, wine, sex-and-the-city DVDs, coughing like a three-pack-a-day smoker (this cold is hell on my throat, but fabulous for tightening the abdominals) and catching up with hannah and her beautiful puppies.

I've also finally gotten around to using my digital camera on a regular basis....I'm not very good at standing still to avoid blurriness, or deciding when to use flash...and am very very lazy about photoshopping....but, what the hell. . . I present to you, a few photos of the weekend with Hannah and her puppies and our thrift store adventure.

The Lovely Lola dog.

Lola's newly adopted spastic sibling, Addy

The Amazing Hannah, who will probably kill me for posting photos even though she is the most stunning human being I've ever had the pleasure of mooching off of.

Hannah praises Addy for not jumping on the bed.

Ms. Hannah, looking mysterious in a sparkly red chapeau.

Ms. PicturePicture, looking ridiculous in same.


we can't resist buying typewriters at thriftstores...


nor can we resist buying black satin pantsuits with pearly-rhinestone appliques, especially when they make our waists look teensy-tiny.

Yes. those are pants.

PANTS.

Pay no attention to the weirdly over-muscled arms and totally gay pose of the weblady - she'd probably never have posted this pic if she'd eaten anything other than cough drops and robitussen tablets for three days straight.

we did buy two fabulous dark-wood haywood-wakefield knockoff end tables, and two amazing chrome arc lamps, but I didn't get pics because we were busy carrying them down the street from the shop to the apt. . . thanks to everyone who honked at us yesterday afternoon instead of stopping to help. really. we appreciate all your help. especially since arc lamp number 2 had 20 lbs of (vintage!) concrete embedded in its base. from the bottom of our hearts, thanks.

eh, who am I kidding. I probably would have honked too. and pointed and laughed.

happy valentine's day, folks!

Posted by Heather at 09:33 PM | TrackBack

February 11, 2004

cribbing from my daily correspondence, to feed the maw of the weblog....

I write all day long. e-mailing and IM-ing friends and family, re-writing content and editing book summaries for clients, mostly. I've noticed, with all the various formats, that virtual limits, from pentameter to character quotas, can open up communication possibilities where an open page and a limitless topic can stifle the creative spirit. From the 150-character text messages I send from my phone on the train to the 400-word 'summaries' of books filled with impossible technological drivel that I chug out for work, from the butcher paper on the wall in the coffee room with the shelf of tempting glitter pens to the ugly beige personal-ad box, these limits paradoxically stretch my communication style in dozens of tiny little ways, from the thrill of dotting the i's with little squares (a la the fourth grade) to sparking hidden snark in an over worded departmental e-mail (may I suggest exchanging your compound "labyrinth-like" for the more concise, "labyrinthine", in paragraphs seven through forty-nine in your client proposal?) to, even, the naughty blowjob reference in a mostly - clean e-mail to friends (tax-paying usually finds me...on my knees, without even a pat on the head for a job well done....)

and no, I don't have an editor here to force me to avoid misusing punctuation in order to construct enormously long run-on-sentences....

perhaps one can find solace in open fields of white paper and crisp fences of pointy pencils, people too much time to think of what they want to say and how they want to say it...perhaps i need to set more boundaries of my own and see where they take me - why not choose an archaic meter in which to compose your voice mail messages?

I think that's exactly what I'll do tomorrow - find an encyclopedia of writing schemes to further limit my correspondence ...see how far I can go tomorrow in iambic hexameter....

Posted by Heather at 09:52 PM | TrackBack

February 05, 2004

finally figuring out what I was trying to say...I think.

Okay, thanks to your comments and the nagging feeling that my last post really needed something ... I sat down and really tried to figure out what I was trying to say. About setting people up with other people.

I've got these experiences to go on:

1) all the 'dates' my married friends have set me up with this past year.

2) all the 'dates' my single friends (who are either gay men or ms. jocelyn - which is pretty much the same thing as just saying "who are gay men" except for the hot girlishness of the dear girl) have set me up with in the past year.

3) all the dates I've set up for myself.

now, of these experiences, dates from the first category fizzle faster than pop rocks in coke. from the second category, I have reaped friends, lovers, and a few fizzles. from the third category....I've fizzled, mostly.

so, you see. fizzle from both ends, with a few fires in the middle. not too shabby. but, as it's all part of the 'looking for partners' landscape, the molehills of the disappointing fizzles become mountains...

but I'm seeing a pattern, in attitude, that I find with my single friend setup thing that I don't find with the married friend setups.

you've touched on it, however humorously, in your comments: the married friends set people up with more expectations than the single friends.

seriously. we all hope for the best, of course, that when we set someone up, they'll like each other and everything will move smoothly and whatever relationship they-all want, they'll get.

but the single fellas, they know that a good shag is as much of a success as anything - setting me up with people they would have (or probably have) shagged if they wanted. their setups are kind of like "eh, let's see where this goes" rather than "oh, they'd be so cute together! "

it seems there's so much more going on with couple setups - so much more, in fact, that the first date seems like a third interview. like you've already accepted the job and you're haggling on salary or something.

like you're obligated to hook up because you're best friends with the husband and he's best friends with the wife and if you got along, you could go on adorable little couples vacations together and plan barbecues together and watch your kids grow up together.

like if you remained single just one more minute, you'd somehow corrupt their spouse and the babysitter.

like you should settle, as they have.

or like you should settle now, because you don't deserve to find near-perfection early in life, as they have.

eh. fuck all that.

I suppose I'll just learn to not care about your expectations.

learn to be noncommittal, but nice.

learn to be brave and set myself up more often.

learn to not mind wasting a few extra evenings a month on duds, in hopes that noncommittal niceness will lead to the expansion of the friend network, rather than the appearance of "going through all the single friends until there's no one left who I haven't dated."

learn to let myself be loved, if it should happen. and to love back. it's happened before, it'll happen again. hell, it'll probably happen on the way to the train tonight.

Posted by Heather at 10:16 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 03, 2004

snowmen and alan cumming.

went out with the gay boyfriend yesterday.

(best thing about gay boyfriends is that both of you know the "farthest" you're gonna get is..er..well..nowhere, and that's the most comfortable nowhere you've ever been)

we ate food.

we drank coffee.

we shopped for the sister's b-day gift (still looking, btw - and taking suggestions!)

we sludged through snow and wondered when spring will arrive.

we made a snowman.

and then he did the unthinkable. he set me up with a straight boy.

we're just playing in the snow, trying not to get too much slush in our loafers, and his friend just happens to show up. and the boyfriend just happens to let it slip that he's straight. and single.

no fooling. he's a beaut. they're both beauts. and lemme tell ya, no one plays with your hair and touches your arms and neck more than a gay boy pimpin' you out to his beautiful straight friend. it's like being a show pony, with a smaller butt.

heaven is having your hair braided by two beautiful boys while watching alan cumming in a latex kilt.

I wish I had more to say on the subject. a deep inner 'woah, my perspective has now changed because of this experience' or even a 'wow, what an amusing story, heather' but all I got is heaven.

I wonder what I'll call it if we make out? is there more than heaven?

Posted by Heather at 08:42 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack