So...THAT...Happened

Where to begin? I know, I have been gone from here for, well...for many, many months. Before I catch you up though can I just note that for $64,000 I could buy a flat in Prague - yeah, that's right bitches! I have cable again (after eight years away) and me and HGTV are BFF's!

Enough gushing about my new bestie - so, I have been a busy bee with the 2nd Story Festival and work (oh the work that is work) and moving in with my handsome manfriend (le gasp! i am domestic - it's awesome and gross). How I survived the month of April I will never fully understand but I did it friends and now I get to celebrate by sitting on the couch watching shows about home renovations...

Life has finally settled into a new shape and it's lovely. Bike riding weather is finally upon us here in Chicago and the boyf and I biked it down the Lakeshore bike path on Saturday to the farmers market - the biggest farmers market I've been to and it was AWESOME! There were flowers and asparagus and PURE MAPLE SYRUP! What?! And they gave out samples of the maple syrup - this must be what an organically made heaven would be like. Plus we got to go to the Original Pancake House which is mayhaps the best subterrean urban pancake house in the world - total WIN!

I've also been making up with my long lost friend the gym...yup, that's right. Let me just say God bless whoever put together the compilation "The Best of Bootie 2008" because it gets me through the two hour workouts I've been putting in every other day. I know, you are probably like "Heather you beast! What are you training for? The NYC marathon?!" and no, I'm not in fact, I'm just training for walking up the steps to the train without gasping...and let me tell you it's working! Yay!

Things that are YAY!:
1. Thao and the Get Down Stay Down - Rocks my world - so good acoustic and rocking and just my favorite new band.

2. New apartments - With HOT, ginormous kitchens and plenty of room for the dog (yes! I live with a dog now...best. thing. ever!) to run around and play catch.

3. Fat Cat - Yummy food, yummy beer, two blocks away and my new fave place to spend all of my expendable income.

Things that are Boo:
1. Still having boxes to unpack....poooo

Cold Hands, Warm Heart

The city looked like this today, shrouded in misty, gray rain'ish blech. It was miserable to walk in but to look out from a warm window on the 20'something floor of a downtown building it was gorgeous. Chicago is like any city I guess, it has different faces that it shows at different times of year and the in between times are what get me...there's nothing like late fall/winter here that makes me want to laze around and listen to "Kind of Blue" and act dramatical and mysterious. I mean don't get me wrong it also kind of sucks because you know that after the first few days of being in awe that streets that used to pulse with heat during the summer are now frosty and feel so much wider and more desolate, you know that the shift has occured and days of bike rides and walking without wincing, and being able to wear skirts are long gone. Not just long gone but gone for a good almost six months...But right now, right now I'm savoring the ride in on the El, looking out at this mysterious re-made city that the rest of the country is looking at, hell the rest of the world is looking at and it is all so hushed and seems like it is only mine.

Enough poetry you say - get to the nitty gritty...Well, it's official due to the fact that there is only 45 minutes of daylight per day now I have become a hermit again. I have no motivation, like even as I type this I am willing myself to type the next word. Everything seems so exhausting, you know...that sounds completely melodramatical but it does seem lately that even simple tasks take a maximum amount of energy. I want to crawl inside a warm loaf of bread and live there, just napping, waking up to eat warm yummy bread guts and then passing out again...this is a dream friends, a dream that I hope in this new Obama era we can realize...i'm kidding...kind of..

Speaking of Obama, let me just say this... To be alive now, to be lucky enough to be in this city on Election Night is a moment I will never forget. It was a moment bigger than myself, one of those "holy shit, we are all connected and I can actually feel it" moments. I was at a bougie Election party (bunting and caviar oh my!) and we literally ran downstairs and danced in the streets. And it was so warm in Chicago that windows were open and up and down my block you could hear people screaming....It was amazing.

Work has been a bit of the hard times lately, as I can imagine everyones works have been. We have had layoffs and everday when I'm walking in I can feel my stomach tighten and the thoughts of being unemployed last year at this time and not knowing if I can do it again, the endless temping and trucking around in the dead of winter to answer questions about why being an adminstrative assistant is my dream job..I'm lucky I work with folks who make me laugh and point out that our section is so recockulously busy right now that there is no time to really sweat the bigger picture, and that we are all in the same boat.

I end with this tid bit - this snapshot, if you will (and I know you will), of my life. My man friend and I went to get winter coats last night...yeah, that's right we stimulated the economy (which p.s. please do, please buy things, because if not we might fall into a deflationary perioid and that shit could last for years and be like super duper bad times, so stop today and buy a little something, even a cup of coffee...) My awesome work friend had gotten a hot shit long down coat at Kohls and so we went there. Part One: Don't wear a coat when you are shopping for coats - don't be a dumbass like me and have to juggle a purse and your original coat while trying on new coats, it's a pain in the ass. Part Two: I thought Kohl's was like KMart or dare I say it, WalMart...if you also think this, you are wrong, wrong my friends. Kohl's is actually like Macy's prices, which must be why they have sales all the time because LISTEN I am not paying $70 for a sweater, I may stimulate the economy but not to that extent. Part Three: New coats are The Awesome. I got a knee length down jacket and that shit is like a comfy sleeping bag strapped to my back it has elevated my train naps to a new level of coziness. The man friend got a hot shit coat that has a fleece attached and now we are all set to survive another Chicago winter...

Things that are Yay!:
My Mom - She sent me not one but two great books, which I read cover to cover in 2.5 seconds. The first "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" (cutesy name but awesome book) by Mary Ann Shaffer is just great. It tells the story of a literary society on the Island of Guernsey (between England and France) that was started during the German Occupation during WWII. It has funny moments and sad moments and characters that you wish existed in real life and lived next door. She also sent me "Truth and Beauty" by Ann Patchett which is a memoir about her friendship with the poet/writer Lucy Grealy. It's not a story about Ann Patchett's life or Lucy Grealy's life but about the moments of their lives they shared and the complicated friendship they had. It was gorgeous.
The Man Friend - Just always a super yay! I'm so glad it's winter and I have someone to be cozy with..barfy but true.
Thanksgiving!!- Best. Holiday. Ever. We have already met and talked turkey and this year the thanksgiving festivities are going to be both tasty and wonderful.

Things that are Boo
Being Chilly all the time - It's that time of year again when my hands are never quite warm enough...boo...

Shimmy Shimmy Ya, Shimmy Yay

Before I begin apologizing profusely for never finding time to write my inane stories of biking mishaps and rants about public transportation (which, p.s. LADIES if you have a ginormous tote pull it in front of you when you are riding on a train. I rode for forty minutes with a Coach bag poking a hole in my side this morning, for fucks sake share space humans!) let me just say two things - 1.) Yes, the market is that bad. It is. Believe me, I work down the hall from a trading floor with a sticker that has been perputually red for the past month and YES it is that bad and YES we needed to act as a country to stop it. Believe me "Wall Street" greed got a lot of help, bitches weren't the ones signing mortgage agreements they couldn't keep. I have moved past general confusion about what the fuck is going on (because I am a theatre major and they don't really require macro-economics in a B.S. Stage Management program - it probably would have been more helpful then Acting for non-majors, but I digress..), past the daily stomach aches and panic attacks (because YES it really is that bad), to a place of innoculation - I am not rich which means I have nothing to lose, I can only do the best job I can with my life and stop freaking out... Part 2)Fall is here! OH MY GOD BLESS AMERICA I'm so happy! I heart the Fall, the leaves the sweaters, the cozying down with cute boys because it's cold out...so good! Within the last week I have made two (TWO) apple crumbles and this where part 2 comes in. Does anyone know how to keep the apples from releasing all of their watery apple goodness while baking? I am like Queen Super Yummy Crumble Top maker - the tops of these bad boys are crisp and perfect but what lies beneath, oh friends, it is all watery...Help please all two people who read this!

So, I guess September has come and gone. I finally went home and it was sad and lovely and everything that it was supposed to be. I had a birthday that actually turned out to be one of the nicest I've had in a while thanks to good friends and hot manfriend and the cool cats who I create the art, known as the theatre, known as the 2nd Story, with... I don't know if it's particular to this time of year or time of life but I feel like I'm lagging behind lately. It seems to take mountains of energy to do simple things and I've hit a two week period where I feel like I'm constantly doing things I have to do instead of things I actually want to do. Life is puttering along though - crumbles are being made and shows are being seen and friends are being bff'd out with ...it makes the idea of tap dancing with tin cans on my feet to earn money if the market crashes seem so insignificant...

Things that are YAY!:
1. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson - I cannot lie I have a lady crush on Kate Atkinson - I have read almost everything she's written and it is brilliant. Really clever, engrossing novels with these characters - OH GOD these really flawed, fabulous characters....
2. Netflix Update - Flight of the Concords - Brilliant! I had heard it was so funny and now it is confirmed...the songs alone make it hilarious but the bonus of the characters is great! Mad Men - We just finished watching Season 1 and let me tell you this is a gorgeous show and the actors truly act their faces off...so good. The Hills - Season 3 of the show that got me through Unemployment Crisis 2007 is meh..yeah, I said it it is just meh.
3. Yummy Fall Food - Crumbles and squash and baked sweet potatos!!

Things that are Boo
Being exhausticated constantly - I could Rip Van Winkle it, for real! Someday, I will pay back the Bank of Sleep for all of the hours I owe it....

Light Head, Heavy Heart

What do you do when you lose something? Shouldn't there be some sort of code of humanity written saying, "Ok it happens to everyone, here is the right way to handle it." Someone I love, who has been a constant in my life is passing away right now and i wish more than anything that this, the truest and most sour part of life could just stop, just go away for a bit and give me time to get home and say my goodbyes. Loss is hard - it sets off a chain reaction of memories and feelings and I want more than anything to hobbit myself underground until it all passes. Glibness and cleverness do not live in this part of my life so this might be a bit of a downer of a blog....

I was sorting through my stuff last night (stuff is the only term I can think of that encompasses a billion journals and mix tapes and books and paintings and letters and oh, god you know stuff) and I came across a cd I made a long time ago for someone who, at the time, meant the world to me in the sense that he was the world to me and wow was I a youngie or what - that at one time that was enough - that my world could begin and end with one person and that person wasn't me - and I popped it on my stereo (iRa the iPod is still only playing in mono and I'm sorry but this girl needs a bit of stereo now and then which is why cd's were unearthed). It took me back like only music really can, it can capture a time better than a picture or words or my own memories. And suddenly I was back there, back a few years ago - living in a crappy, falling apart apartment with two of my besties living a life that seemed so complicated at the time and in retrospect was so easy...I needed that moment, that crystalline moment of memory to realize that I have gotten off the path of my life and want more than anything to be back where I was (minus the terrible boy situation, I'm so lucky not to be there anymore, I mean he's great but I'm waaay better than that situation let me be). I've decided this Fall is the Fall of Heather getting back on track, creating again whether it's taking pics with the hello kitty camera or finishing that paint by number I started three years ago (yipes!), or making collages and mix cd's again; taking time to appreciate what I have and to grow it into more...

I can hear you yawning (or maybe it was just Sasha the dog yawning, which would make more sense since she is sleeping next to me on the couch). So I will end with this tale of "Heather's Redonkulous Life." I was biking home this week (yes, biking is back - thank god or I would have no funny tales to tell) and let me tell you Blue Steel (my bikest of bikes) and I have been duking it out lately, he does not want to ride in 7th gear and let me tell you Chicago is flat and 7th gear is the only way to go (well, 8th is probably the only way to go but I am too out of shape to really test the limits of physics that way). So, I'm stopped at a stop light, gearing up for yet another gear grinding moment when I say (in a physical way, not in a verbal "look that crazy girl is talking to her bike" way) to Blue Steel "kick it into gear bitch, let's go!" and another biker pulled up near me. And I hate it, always have. I hate having to be physically active in front of anyone else, I mean it's one thing when you're at a gym b/c everyone is doing the same sort of thing, but otherwise I get all flustered and embarassed and end up falling or tripping, OR walking so quickly home from the bus stop to prove that I am as fit as everyone else that my dress gets caught up in my backpack and everyone sees my underoos (true story, happened when I was in high school, didn't realize until I got home, wanted to die)...SO, another biker pulls up and I'm gearing up to fight with Blue Steel because we are going to pull out from the light quick and prove that we are physically fit and just before the light changes I look back and the other biker is a reeeeeallly old lady who smiles sweetly at me and says hello and I said hi back, and took off down the street laughing that this is how life is, it fools us everytime....

P.S. Another example of how redonkulous my life is. I almost choked on a chocolate Dunkin Donut munchkin this week at work, and as I was gasping for air a loud firm voice said in my head "We are not dying like this! We are not dying like a punchline for a Mama Cass joke" and that my friends, that voice, saved my life...Because really?! Choking on a donut, is just one of the worse ways to go...

Things that are Yay!:

It's a pig, a pig who hates mud so they made it little green booties and god bless Jonathan for telling me about it because this makes me smile everytime I see it!



The Olympics - STILL making me nerd out and stay up waaaaay too late...

"The Last Summer of the World" by Emily Mitchell - A great book about WWI and Edward Steichen and it's historical fiction and full of moody artists and war and love and secrets and Oh! just read it because it is super good!

My Man Friend Who lets me cry when I need to and makes me smile whenever he can...the good stuff...

Things that are Boo
Wishing I could just get home already - So frustrating...

Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines

Is anyone else losing sleep, walking around work bleary eyed because of the Olympics? I'm telling you, you know you are officially Oldsy Oldson when you are nodding off during gymnastics, thinking "Just have to see one more floor routine..". I remember during high school when the Olympics were like a summer gift - a chance to spend all the time that normally would be spent lying around listening to ani difranco reading Blake Nelson's "Girl" (and other productive stuff like that, I mean one summer I learned how to drive..on a standard car, you can't front on that) and to stay up into the wee hours watching girls my age with about 1% of my body fat perform crazy tricks. It's funny I always forget about the Olympics until the fever strikes every four years and I learn all sorts of redonkulous facts (have you heard what Michael Phelps eats everyday?!) and then promptly forget them. Hoorah Olympics! Although Boo to China for making those six year old girls put on pounds of glitter make up and tumble around for medals..

Life has been jam packed lately...I mean really can someone slow this summer down because this is vaguely ridiculous. Last week my bestie came to town and it was so good to see him! There are friends who you like to drink wine with and see once in a while and then there are friends that all of that is true and then some. Friends who are part of your family, brothers from another mother and Mikey is one of those. He was in town for a wedding, a wedding that was impeccable and both the brides were shining with happiness and looked gorgeous and featured fireworks (meep! yay wedding!). Then I began my first week as a full employee at the job and let me tell you, it's good to be officially official. I mean it's a bit anti-climatic because I've been doing the job for three months now but, after months of job interviews and worrying it's nice to have a steady position, especially with such nice folks.

And so it goes, huh? Today I biked around all of Chicago, doing 2nd Story sound stuff (we are organized now, watch out world, we are going to blow your mind with sound!), and having yummy dinner with a friend who always amazes me with what a stellar friend she is and just one of those people who makes me wish I had half the spark that they did. Now I am sitting on the couch with Ziggy (dave's cat) curled up next to me making weird kitty sleepy noises. Women are running sprints on the television (in the "birds nest" which, pardon me Olympics I know you're going for literalism here but really?! It just makes me think of this terrible tangle my hair got into one summer that only a professional hairstylist could get out while she lectured me the whole time about proper hair brushing, it was awful)...all is right with the world!

Things that are Yay!
1. Bookstores - The boy I heart and I were biking yesterday and I got kerfuffled because we were on Halsted and there were all of these SUVs and the Air and Water Show jets were breaking my eardrums and we stopped and I was cranky and Dave said, "Do you just want to bike down the block to the Borders?" (this is why we heart him) and it was exactly what I needed, bookstores are magical places.
2. The Olympics - Awesome! Commentators, not so awesome, actual events are the awesome part!
3. Good Friendies - Always a Yay!

Things that are Boo
1iPod still broken - makes me want to implode

Le Sigh

What a weekend! Packed with theatre - yes, that's right I did what I never do and actually saw theatre that other people make (people who I know and heart but, I mean, all the same..). I wonder if it's painful for musicians to go to concerts or for artists to visit the MCA or if it's particular to theatre folk that the last thing we want to do (or Disclaimer: I speak for only myself lots of folks are in love with the theatre and see it all the time) is to sit in a dark space watching actors emote. Particularly as a stage manager - it's so hard for me not to count the lighting instruments in the air or think, "wow that scene shift was f'ing EPIC". Long story short I saw three great shows this weekend and it was awesome! Of course all of them closed this weekend or I would pimp them out (to you, all three readers of this long defunct now suddenly viable again blog). Speaking of pimping out - check out www.storiesandwine.com and come to The Spot this Thursday for some dirty 2nd Story action...it's going to blow your mind!

The boy I heart left town this morning - which P.S. I heart him so much that I got up at bleep o'clock to drive him to Midway and then navigated the Stevenson on the way back to the city - which yeepers meepers highway driving in someone else's car makes me such a nervous Nelly that I had to put Bon Iver on my iPod and think happy thoughts just to get through it.. It's so strange when someone you share a life with is gone for a bit - it's even stranger that he is visiting the Homeland (also known as beautiful Connecticut - ah, CT in the summer, the ocean and frozen Charleston Chews and Friendly's watermelon roll...how I miss you!) which is something we usually do together but due to vacation timing (or lack of vacation for me, yay temping!) it just didn't work out that way.

It looks like I am going perm at my temp job (benefits and sick days and 401K Oh My!) and I am pretty excited to make it officially official. This is the first job I've ever worked (that wasn't stage managing) where it was actually work, like honest to god, every minute I'm doing something work. Plus the folks I work with work just as hard AND are some of the nicest people I've met in a long time. So, yay! Not taking a vacation pays off some times...

I fell on the way to work a week ago, like a clumsy doozer that I am, and scraped my right knee up pretty badly (P.S. I just had to make the L and non-L with my hands to figure out which knee I scraped...ah, lack of sleep, how well you make me function)..I haven't had serious ooky, gross wound-age like this in a while. Let me tell you knees bend and scabs don't and that's about as detailed as I'm going to get. It's healing and I hope it gets better by the time my friends Jo and Nicole's Yay! Lesbian Wedding gets here next week. Let me tell you my Bestie Mikey is coming in town for this extravaganza and I really, honestly cannot wait to see him and have some good old fashion best friend talks with him, it's going to be awesome..

The summer is almost over, it seems like it just got here and I have to say although it's been rough it's been full of nice surprises and new friends and I feel like I'm getting there - you know that feeling that happens a lot when you're younger and then tapers off to maybe a twice a year occurrence - it's that great, "I have no idea where I'm going but I'm getting there!" feeling...So yay Summerer 2008! I will eat a watermelon roll from Friendlys in your honor as soon as I get back to the East Coast!

Things that are Yay!:
1) Summer Days with Friendies: I hung out with Heather today and it was just the bestest! I heart friends who you can just spend a lazy summer day with!
2)Good Theatre: A rariety (except for 2nd Story but what can i say? We are just good!) Good theatre makes me happy!

Things that are Boo:
1) Sweating for no reason

The Tide Has Come In...

Do you ever feel like you have a rush of words and stories and thoughts swirling around and sometimes it will all whoosh away and you'll have nothing eloquent or witty or even halfway non-rambely to say? That is a long way of saying that the tide of words has been out and only recently have I wanted to say, well, anything.

This summer has been much more work than any other summer - both actual, real world "wake up at 6am, christ it's early, stay at work until 6:30, god it's late" work and emotionally draining, "what is the deal with my life? why am I so fed up?" work.. Fed up is an apt description of how I feel about the dearth of words, the loss of connection I feel with friends and how unengaged I am with the theatre work I've been doing recently. It has been a bit grueling to be honest. It is "life balance" (a term that I hear more and more in the corporate world and honestly chaps my ass a bit as it aptly describes something that honestly shouldn't exist - like shouldn't work not bite into my free time and shouldn't my free time not be so much work??) It is trying to figure out if being an artist is where my head is, if what free time I do have would better serve me as actual free time. It's hard friends. This struggle between the idealist, collaborator, super excited to be there 22 year old and the exhausted, salty, just want to take a nap 28 year old.

But before this becomes an existential blather about ephemeral shit, my momma did not raise a complainer, I will regale all three of you who check my blog with this sidenote. Dave and I rode in a swan boat at Lincoln Park Zoo last week. Gasp! It was AWESOME! Part One: We biked there, which thank jeebus above because I haven't been biking enough (see paragraph above, work is sucking my time away) and I miss it. Part Two: I heart the zoo! Any zoo, even if it is the Lincoln Park Zoo which makes me a little sad, especially in the summer when all the animals look so hot and miserable. The zoo is magical, you can watch penguins and the monkeys with the weird butts and pet stinky goats...magic I say! Part Three: There are non-swan pedal boats, bypass them, as the swan is the way to pedal boat the Lincoln Park Zoo lake in style. It is romantical and also a good source of cardio exercise with the one you love. Part Four: Beware if it is hot (like it maybe was the day that we did it) because you have to wear lifejackets and you are in a giant swan that traps the heat and shoves it in your face while you madly pedal to try to get to the shade of the little island in the middle of the lake...oh, but once you get to that shade and the mad pedaling ceases, it is so sweet to drift there with the one you love, in a giant plexiglass swan while all of your worries evaporate over the long neck and beak, over the tired, hot animals and the yuppies and into the Chicago sky...Life is sweet and without all of the salt we would never know quite how sweet it was...

Things that are Yay!!:
1) My awesome manfriend and amazing friendies - Who heart me even when I can't heart myself and that is the best hearting of all!
2) Spaced - Dave picked up the dvd set of this awesome BBC comedy by the same guys who did Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz this past week...It is brilliant!
3) Pineapple Express - Saw it sneak preview style and laughed so hard I cried (and no I was not blazed, thankyouverymuch)...I think this might be the comedy of the summer.
4) New Sigur Ros Album - I would write the title but I don't know how I would begin to have the letters on this keyboard to spell it...but listen people this is the best Sigur Ros has ever been, it has all of the great melodies but minus the drone and plus a pop sensibility...AWESOMETOWN!
5) Ms. Kitty - I just realized (literally while typing this, just.this.moment) that when I whistle it drives Ms. Kitty into a fit of crazy cat love and purring, which is redonkulous and also going to be abused to no end.

Things that are Boo:(
1) iRa is deaf in one ear - My poor iPod can only play music in one ear (and yes, I tried different headphones, and no it did not help). This is maddening but what is even more infuriating is that Dave and I dragged ourselves out to the Apple Store, waited an hour to be served by a "Genius" and they don't fix this problem. Instead they suggested I turn over iRa and all 28GB of jams and assorted greatness over to them and pay $150 for a refurbished iPod...and that is when (in my brain) I punched the "Genius" in the face and started screaming...Super Boo!
2) People who Litter - Seriously, this is why we deserve the ice caps to melt. There are trash cans everywhere fucking clean up after yourselves people! P.S. Chances are that whatever you throw out of your car window I'm going to have to bike over so please have some consideration and buy one of those tiny car trashbags for cry-i-sake!