For Really Reals.....No Really

Ok, I have been absent doing non-bloggy, "real worldy" type things for the past month....I also haven't wanted to blog, to share, to spew forth meaningful sentiments and thoughts because well, because I suddenly became unemployed a couple of weeks ago (Merry Christmas to me!). You have to understand that although I was unhappy at my new-ish (now suddenly gone, poof, dunzo) job I had no idea that A) I was doing a bad job, or even a semi-bad job B) things like being fired happened to me, I mean seriously I am demanding of myself and I just am still somewhat gape mouthed about the whole thing C)searching for a job during the most Holiday of times would be quite the experience that is has become.

In the grand tradition of my WASP-Y forefathers (and mothers) this is not a post to moan, to explain how terribly blue the days seem when all you want to do is something that feels vaguely useful that doesn't involve Monster.com or sitting at a computer revamping a resume that utilizes the terms "Administrative, Implemented process' and bookeeping" way too many times....Oh No this post is about making lemons from lemonade my friends. Below are my top five favorite things about this whole experience:

1.) Temp agencies all have the same automated tests - It's True! I am now registered with three different employment agencies and I have to say the worst part about the two hours it takes to register at these places is the testing. The Microsoft Word test, the data entry test, the Excel test...etc... I usually have The Dread about computer skills test that don't let you use shortcuts which are what everyone uses because, well because they are Awesometown and make things ten thousand million times easier! But after realizing that all temp agencies use the same testing software I had the last laugh! By the time I did the third agencies test I was a MENSA level computer skills genius......hoorah!

2) As an underemployed person - (phew, it still seems weird to type that)- you now have a legitimate excuse for not buying a Streetwise...

3) During the holiday season the last thing that people want to do is interview potential workers, although if you do get an interview be thankful and commiserate with them. I had an interview at a law firm the week before Christmas and we spent more time talking smack about O'Hare then we did about the position itself..I still haven't heard back from that company but, at least I had the pleasant experience of dishing about which terminal in O'Hare has the best Hudsons bookstore.....and let me say it was worth going downtown just for that....

4) When home for the holidays and underemployed realize that folks asking about your job while unaware that you until recently had a job and are still mourning the loss of that job aren't being cruel they are just being people. MAN, when you can't talk about the weather anymore people love to talk abut who works where... In this instance it is ok and not lying to pretend your job still exists because really nothing brings down the holiday spirit more than unemployement talk.....

5) When it seems impossible it really is ok. This is truth people. Bigger things happen in the world everyday then losing jobs or gaining jobs (i.e Pakistan, Iraq, cancer). If you are semi-literate, presentable and have a good phone voice (qualities I thankfully have) then you will get hired. You just have sit around watching Netflix for few days (La Vie En Rose - brilliant a bit long but the actress who played Piaf was stunning, No Reservations - Good, I wish I was Anthony Bourdain, Peep Show - One of the funniest BBC comedies I've seen, The Black Adder - Not one of the funniest BBC comedies I've ever seen, Rowan Atkinson slightly annoys me,yeah I said it!) until the holidays pass and all will right itself.

So, I went home for a week of crazy Connecticut Christmas madness...a post for another day - got a head cold lost entire portions of Christmas Eve and Day because of a deadly mix of cold medicine, slept on an air mattress in the basement of my Mom's condo, saw good friends, had lots of yummy food...yada yada...It was a nice break from all of the stuff I've listed above. During the Holidays it almost seems like everyone is unemployed.....

"Just the same old walkaways..."

So, life suddenly got bigger than this blog...which sounds almost too exciting...but really isn't. Life has switched rapidly from autumn (lazy sweater days, eating pumpkin pie) to winter (social obligations and financial stress). In between those two I visited NYC and my bestest friend, who moved there which was awesome and sad and way too brief. It's odd trying to have friendships as I grow older it seems to get harder and harder. Suddenly there doesn't seem to be enough time or enough of me to constantly keep the engine of BFF'dom going....

Thanksgiving was, I shit you not, the most delicious meal I've ever had. The boy I heart did some out of hand cookery, along with my next door neighbor. We ate and drank and the dog came over and visited and didn't tear apart my apartment. It was major!
the boy I love is moving/moved and it was quite the undertaking...An undertaking that he handled wonderfully.

I feel as though I'm suddenly boring but that can't really be the case, right? Maybe it's just that I've become one of those people who works and goes to the gym and goes home (yeah, that's right, the gym where I have been busting my cookies - a phrase I heart!- because all of my winter clothes are suddenly waaaaay too tight). Or maybe it's just this time of year - it gets dark at 4 and I'm not biking that much and so I have no hilarious "almost got doored by a car" stories...I feel vanilla, I feel boring and part of me is content with that which is scary.

To break up the monotony of me griping in an existential manner I give you this - a list of stuff I'm jazzed about:

1. Rice Pudding! - Mock not! Rice pudding has become an essential part of my day. Such as, come in check e-mail, have a cup of coffee, do whatnot and sundry and at around 11AM have a rice pudding break... It's like cottage cheese but way better! I don't know why I love it but I do!

2. Thanksgiving - Always a YAY! Yummy food, funny friends, plus my favorite dog in the world around made this Thanksgiving awesometown USA!

3. Project Runway - This season is still kinda "meh" for me = too many guest stars, projects are kind of blah. But I heart the Project Runway (just like everyone else) and I'm so glad it's back.

4. Holiday Times - And it begins the endless search for the perfect presents, the cold wind in the face, the winter and holiday times are here! HOORAH! I heart the hustle and bustle and the gifties - especially giving gifties! YAY!

Roots...

So I get a call from my Mom yesterday, she leaves a message that goes a bit like this, "Heathah (she has a wicked Massachusetts accent, for real..) I've done something I've never done before. Call me when you can." Now I heart my Mom, we talk every other day - which is way more parental contact then most of my friends have...she is the smartest lady I know. But part of me listened to that message and thought "Fuck, maybe my Mom has lost it!" I mean maybe the thing she had never done before was kill a man and in a fit of rage when her man-friend Frank didn't turn down the volume of the television (the man is 80 and deaf but refuses to admit it - this causes fights and for Wheel of Fortune to be broadcast from the tv nightly at horrendous volumes)...or maybe she had never done drugs before and was calling me high out of her mind - I mean she's my Mom, anything could happen...

So, I got out of work, biked in the wind (chanting, "please don't let me be blown over" like a mantra) down to Wellington and then back to my place and after checking that the Red Sox were handily beating the pants off of the Rockies (yipes, that was a rough game to watch and I'm no Rockies fan but talk about having your ass handed to you..) I called Mom up... I could hear the Red Sox game in the background - because she and her man-friend are perhaps the two oldest and most ardent fans, and I said, "What's shaking?" and she said "Oh Heathah! You'll never believe it! I was at the hairdressers today and she gave me a facial and then...THEN...SHE GAVE ME EYEBROWS!!!"

Yes, my Mom "got eyebrows" yesterday - I mean she always had them but they were blonde and I guess this kind hearted hairdresser dyed them back into existence. We talked about how many more exciting facial expressions she now had and how she was going to have them done again for Christmas which spontaneously led us to sing "I'll Have Eyebrows for Christmas" (which is just "I'll be home for Christmas" but with rearranged lyrics)...we are dorks and I love it!

Daylight, Moonlight, Time to go home...

My body is missing the weekend, missing it in a visceral "What the fuck happened to those two days we usually have to be lazy and take naps and do nothing?!" way. I was away this weekend, which seemed to me like finally my body was joining my mind which has been away for a few weeks now. I went on a retreat with the awesomest artists I know. We went to Michigan, a place I've never been but reminded me of Hebron, Connecticut and the backroads of Maine - i.e. it felt like home but not...

Sometimes I feel like I am bubbling over with words (many of them cleverly turned phrases incorporating various swears) but lately the well has been empty, and I suddenly feel like a peripheral character in "Idocracy". Does this ever happen to you? A dearth of actual verbiage, a sudden swarm of small talk with no consistency. This is a long way to tell you that instead of me babbling on here today it will be yet another list-style post...

Daylight:
Mornings are longer lately, it takes me at least fifteen minutes of "back to sleep" time before I can drag myself to an upright position. I've been shivering most of the bike ride to work, although I refuse to give it up. And no, it's not because I have some outstanding environmental initiative burning away inside of me or even because I hate the CTA..Nope, its really, simply pure laziness, it takes me only ten minutes to get to work when I bike which means I have twenty extra minutes to lie in bed....

I remember autumn days when I was younger cocooned in the fall colors of the Northeast. Helping to rake the back yard but really just spreading the leaves everywhere by jumping into the piles we would rake together. Swaddled in an oversize sweatshirt of my mom's, lying in front of the fire while my brother and Dad shouted at football games. This time of year makes me nostalgic and lonely and I wouldn't give it up for the world.

Work has become less strenuous which, oddly enough makes me kind of nervous that maybe I'm just not giving it my all...but, no, I'm pretty sure I'm giving it all I can and I still heart it! I especially heart all of the folks I work with who are the most dynamic group of smarties I know, outside of Serendipity and Dave and I's magnificent brain trust, of course... We all have to make videos - to make our company's website more "Web 2.0" (which is a term that makes me laugh because really, 2.0??) And I was the first to go. Which I wasn't really aware of, I thought we would all make them and share in the peculiar experience of watching yourself on a computer monitor..but no...it was just me...And let me tell you nothing is more awkward than realizing that you are writ large across all of your co-workers monitors talking nonsense about how much you love your bike...I'm still blushing..

Moonlight:

Netflix is great! It is the best replacement for theatre I've ever found. All of a sudden I am watching more movies and mini-series and dorky documentaries then I thought I ever would! It is AWESOME!

Besides consuming mass quantities of BBC min-series and old Frontline episodes I've been seeing much more of the boy I heart then I was a month ago...and it is lovely! I get too much into my head unless I have someone around to pull me out and I missed him and getting to babble out the details of my day to him every night.

I found myself wandering around a hunting campground this weekend (Yay Serendipity retreat!) and looked up at the night sky and realized that it had been a good couple of years since I had seen stars. And I went through the whole thought process I always go through when I see them... "Stars are pretty, so vast so far away, they want me to think poetically, why can't I think poetically about stars? why can everyone else do it, I mean every other poem includes stars in some form or another, wow I love Stars the rock band, I can't wait to see them soon"...and so on until suddenly it stopped, the constant inner monologue ceased and I could just breathe and look at the sky and know that in that moment it was all good...

THINGS THAT ARE YAY!:

1. Being Loved- is great and I'm happy that more than ever I feel like the most loved Heather there is....totally cornball I know but, truly true!

2. Michigan- Perhaps my favorite Midwestern state, probably because it reminds me of the rural Northeast!

3. Being Part of Something- something bigger than myself, an art collective (like Broken Social Scene but better!) and we are going to change the world!

Going, going, gone....

This is how it's been lately friends, a long slog through a foggy street. Each day passes and moments cling to the ridges of the thumbprint of the day. Moments of laughing with friends, of despair over the amount of work and responsibility that has invaded my life, moments of complete utter boredom and/or complete utter wonder with the here and now.

I can't explain how off kilter the sudden Chicago-style changes in seasons throw me. Nothing makes me wish to be back East more than autumn time....I was talking to a friend this past week (a week that literally got to be over 90 degrees - in OCTOBER! a heat wave that everyone was saying "Isn't it wonderful?!" about when NO! It isn't "wonderful" it's bizarre and grody) about how Chicago has only about two days of fall weather before it starts throwing winter in your face in a big bad way. She disagreed, saying "But that IS what fall is!" and maybe it IS what fall is here but, I was spoiled, like a rich child who has always eaten Cocoa Puffs and never had the knock off generic brand. I grew up where fall is a month or longer of playing in piles of leafs, eating apple fritters at harvest fairs (did anyone else burn with the jealousy of a thousand Tonya Harding's when, in elementary school, classmates got to ditch school for a day and go to the Big E?! They would come back full of tales of farm animals, cotton candy and carnie games...), of mornings that smelled like burning leaves and frost, haunted hayrides and overcast days that competed with crystal clear tinge of autumn days - days that are so still and peaceful and perfect for reading books and drinking hot apple cider and watching Anne of Green Gables on the PBS pledge drive...Yes, that is Fall and no place does it better than New England. I mean, c'mon it's one of the things EVERYONE (Democrats and Republicans alike) can appreciate about that area of the country...le sigh.

I haven't written here in a while due to a combination of intense ennui (I have been sighing so much it's like I'm fifteen all over again) and the overwhelming need to do actual work at work.. So instead of rambling on for paragraphs of pretty words (which I can do, I've been ups since 6 am this morning, rambling run on sentences is about all I CAN do). I'm just going to kick up a quick list of Yays and Boos....

Things that are Yay!:

1. New Hair - I was sick of my old hair - had a uniquely girly freak out about a month and a half ago where I couldn't look in a mirror without shuddering. And even though I had JUST gone and gotten my hair cut etc...I made an appointment and got a wicked awesome bob and dyed my hair much darker than it's been in a whie. I was scared friends, scared that I would turn out looking like the fabulous Liza Minnelli who, let's be honest here does not have the most fabulous hair in the world - it kind of looks like a spider of a wig fell on her head and chose to nest there...But, no Liza Minnelli spider-hair here friends! Only a fabulous bob that is short enough not to get caught in any scarf I dare to wrap around my neck this winter. Yay!

2. Good Books! - What a great time to be alive and literate! Seriously, I have read so many great books lately: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Safon, a book that literally I couldn't put down and read in three days. Three days of walking around zombie tired from staying up late reading about the cemetery of forgotten books and a mystery that made my brain hurt from the goodness of it all.. what a gorgeous book! , The Glass Castle Jeannette Wall - Disturbing and touching and mind boggling that it is non-fiction and that someone was brave enough to write about their life in such a bare bones way. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl - Don't be intimidated by the slightly too cute title, or the murder/mystery description on the back cover. Just buy, borrow or steal this book and enjoy every last clever description, plot twist and then please find me so we can discuss the ending! Hiding Out by Jonathan Messinger - Holy crap! I read this book in one night, completely shunning the Battle of the Bulge on Ken Burn's The War, not because it's easy to read or I wanted to burn through it but because it was compulsively read-able. It is full of concise stories that have the most beautiful descriptions of things, people, life that it made me think in clever, lyrical one-liners for the rest of the night. Buy it and love it!


3. Documentaries - I have ALWAYS been a fiction fan - both in film, art and books. I mean non-fiction stuff has always seemed, well, just so actual and real...what's the point I always thought? Isn't life itself real enough without escaping into more reality? But, then I started to watch PBS like it was my job and suddenly I couldn't get enough Frontline and POV and I was hooked. (Listen, I don't have cable, there is no "Oh, I'll watch the newest episode of Weeds option. It's PBS or Two and a Half Men, the choice is easy) And then Ken Burn's The War came on and I'll admit it, I'm not working on any shows (except 2nd Story! Which YAY! 2nd Story this Sunday, come drink wine and hear amazing stories!), and Dave has maybe been kidnapped by the Film Festival so free time is in abundance. So, I started to watch and suddenly I'm having end of the night conversations with the boy I heart where I eagerly say things like, "We've taken France! I think our boys will be coming home soon!" and comparing production meetings to the meeting of Churchill and Roosevelt...It was biased for sure, and it was overwrought yes but, hot damn it was great! I also just signed up for Netflix solely for the reason that I want to watch the Seven Up series which follows fourteen British children from the age of seven, checking in with them every seven years..fascinating shit...and yes! I signed up to Netflix for a dorky reason but, really if you saw my queue you would realize that the dorkiness runs deep!

Things that are Boo:

Missing the boy I heart - The boy I love started working seven days a week fourteen hours a day approximately a month ago and instead of getting used to five minute long conversations and only seeing him twice I week I still miss him every day with all of my heart. The electric ache of loneliness and longing has entered the picture and it is a boo...thank god this crazy schedule ends next week which is a Yay!

Doing Too Much and Expecting to Do More - I try to do a good job whenever I do a job and I will push myself harder than most but, lately the job I heart most (which I STILL heart most even though it's overwhelming me a the moment) has become a series of days where everyone wants a piece of me and tasks increasingly centered around financials which I went to college for theatre specifically to avoid. It's a fine balance between loving my job and sacrificing my free time to keep up with my job and I'm still finding the correct mix.

Birthdays are the Best Days

Every time I ride bikes with the boy I heart I think of this - the time in the Muppet Movie when Kermit and Miss Piggy ride bikes and the other Muppets join them and the reprise of "The Rainbow Connection" swells and general Muppet joy abounds...That's what riding bikes is for me - a chance for freedom, a chance to go wherever in the city my heart and legs decide to take me, a way to spend time with people I heart in a fun way... Well, that's what riding bikes is like for me most of the time: like the time Dave and I saw steel being made ONLY because we were riding bikes back to Wicker Park OR the time a UPS driver shouted at me "Are you turning left" and I said "No" and he replied "Then I'll let you go ahead Miss" and I joked "I don't want to mess with you and your truck" and we shared a laugh..

But sometimes riding bikes can hurt. Like, say it's your birthday and you are riding up Clark near Wrigley Field and it's a beautiful day full of yummy mexican food and drinks with a friend who is one of the best in the world to me, and going shoe shopping together and laughing that the DSW has a whole section (a SECTION people!) of metallic shoes, which is too much shiny even for me! And you maybe buy a cute pair of shoes (black mary janes the color and style that are like crack and this is the THIRD pair of black mary janes I currently have, which is redonkulous!) So, say your two blocks south of Wrigley Field and the wind is gusting and you foolishly hung the bag with the shoebox on your handlebars and in an instant the shoebox is jammed between your knee and the handlebar and a gust of wind comes and your are slow motion falling - until you look up and you are lying, actually LYING on Clark looking up at a car that thankfully stopped to witness your tumble from the bike you love, the bike that brings you Muppet-like joy...That's when bikes are not the best...

The rest of my birthday weekend was full of good stuff; good food, good friends, more good food, good time with the boy I heart and good time pottering around the apartment by myself. The silence of autumn has come to Chicago and it's nice, to just sit still for a bit and read a book....I guess it's just a sign of how old I've become.

Hot Shit!

Hot damn it's a beautiful day today! I mean, ditch work, go to a park and lay around reading a book beautiful OR even better yet - hop on blue steel (my bike) and bike the lakefront, find an empty bench and sit there and read... I love the beginning of fall, even though it apparently makes me feel like an extra from Degrassi Jr. High..

Yesterday I went downtown to the old job (the job that sucked my life away for five long years) for the last time. I had volunteered to help out and I have and now it is over. Which is a relief on so many levels. It's so strange to look back a year and realize that I was still pushing my way through every day, biting my tongue and not getting paid nearly enough to do it. This time last year I was also just closing a show and starting rehearsal on another - a schedule that I don't miss, working with people who I certainly do miss. Is it always hard to stay in touch with friends, is it harder because the folks I thought were friends were really acquaintances? Doesn't it seem redonkulous that my phone bill is constantly over a hundred dollars but, I feel like I don't keep in touch with anyone....

Yesterday on the way from job I like to job I no longer have to do I listened to This American Life from a few weeks ago (NERD ALERT! I know, I know..) It was the heartbreak episode which I had half listened to at work weeks ago but after talking to the Cazzer about it I wanted to listen again. First off I heart This American Life, I heart it because it's like a radio version of 2nd Story, I heart it because Ira Glass is so nebbish and wonderful. And I zoned out on the train and listened to stories about heartbreak, about the moment when the bottom drops out of a relationship and the mess of an aftermath. And it has happened to me, and it has happened to everyone and it is one of those universal emotions that can feel so uniquely your own. I had my heart broken in a big way a few years ago. A slow steady breakup that was never officially verbalized (as in "I think we should break up") but done in a form of excuses given back and forth (i.e. Him: "I can't do this, it's not fair to both of us" Me: "We can make this work...but, but, BUT we're in love"). And it sucked. And it hurt and it kept me up at night and the only good thing about it was that I lost weight - really that was it. The most redonkulous part about this episode of heartbreak is that unlike normal people who would nip this shit in the bud I let this break up go on for over a year - a YEAR of me thinking that maybe things would work out. So, I'm listening to this podcast of This American Life, thinking about the heartbreak in my life (which is what I LOVE about the show, that it makes me relate on such a human level) and suddenly Phil Collins was talking, and he was talking to me (and also, apparently Caz since she and I had discussed this part) or it seemed like just to me. And he said something along the lines of: you will always miss people who meant a lot to you, who broke your heart and it made sense...You can try to escape, go to Paris, London, the northside from downtown but your memories (both good and bad) will always stay with you. They are your ghosts and the house they haunt is you. ....
P.S. Phil Collins is stuck in my head now...BOO

This, That, The Other

1.THIS: The smug face of Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette, a movie that despite both of our better judgements Dave and I watched this weekend..I wanted to want to like it. I wanted there to be a story, I wanted it to be more than pretty pictures that signified nothing - I mean NOTHING. How could such an interesting story be so boring? How could Steve Coogan be in a movie and it be bad? These are questions that haunt a person...or a person like me. It has taken viewings of at least four episodes of The Office and a handful of Arrested Development to wash the taste of bad dvd from my mouth...
2. THAT - That feeling that settles over me when the first cold rainy night hits Chicago. It feels the same as the last day of summer vacation, a strange mix of loneliness and comfort and the electric ache of loss... It's strange and unexplainable. Riding home, a steady patter of rain hitting my face I felt peaceful and kept telling myself that the summer is not over and the winter is not officially here but part of me knew I was lying.. Needless to say I was all over the map last night but happy that I had a weekend that was full of laziness and much needed cleaning of the apartment, and the moment where I realized my friend Jess was riding on the opposite side of Damen and we shouted hello to each other over the rush of cars and, of course, full of love from friends and the boy and all that good shit kept me grounded while I felt that strange rush of feelings last night...


3. The OTHER - I am not a joiner by nature. I quit Brownies when I was eight years old for a myriad of reasons (ugly uniforms, pressure to sell cookies, bratty girls) but, mostly because I don't like groups they make me feel awkward and more alone than before I was grouped with other folks and they kind of creep me out. I also have been asked to join several theatre companies around town and always said no - because of the above reasons, because I wanted to do a bunch of different projects instead of settling down with what that company did, because I don't do stage/production management work for free... But, I met these people - these really awesome, amazing people who produce work that engages me, who want to do big things in big ways, who are led by one of my heroes (a ladyfriend who sneezes glitter and poos rainbows, she is so amazing!) and they wanted me - who definitely does not sneeze glitter or poo rainbows, who is slightly intimidated by the thought of doing big things in big ways - to join them. And I did, and they are awesome and Sunday night I hung out with them and it made my weekend!

Things that are Yay!:
1. My Birthday- Is coming! YAYAYAY for cake and presents and brunch with friends and even for turning a year older! I'm so excited!
2. Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls - So good, so heartbreaking and real and such a good memoir of a childhood of raising yourself...
3. Arrested Development - Who is funnier Lucille or Buster? GOB or Tobias?? It doesn't matter really because they are all so funny! How I heart the Arrested D!

Things that are Boo:
1. Cold Hands- The season of cold hands has begun and I am not a fan of feeling like my fingers are going to break off all the time.

Ticking and Tocking

Time is moving suddenly forward in stops and starts and mornings that feel like repeats of the morning before and nights that are never long enough...I have been having trouble sleeping lately which might have something do with the book I've been engrossed in reading - The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn. A book that is about the Holocaust (including nightmarish descriptions about what happens when humanity is sucked out of a population and brutality is all that is left..) and family and the mystery of why we are who we are and what role the past and our ancestors plays in uraveling that mystery...

This made me think - I know, it's dangerous - about my past, not just the recent past but, who my family are... Because to me in the present my family is myself, my mother, my older brother and my sister-in-law (plus, Mikey and Jess who are such good friends that they are family). That's a small gang, really nothing more than a handful. Of course I have more genetic family than that - Uncles and cousins who I haven't seen for over ten years, long lost family members who leave behind those ever changing family myths that are passed down in a game of telephone until one day my Mom turned to me and said "I think that your Great Aunt on your father's side was part Native American."

This lack of connection to the past - to what is essentially my shared history, my inheritance, my reasoning for why I am what I am has recently made me feel a little lost at sea. Maybe it's the end of summer, maybe it's the whole getting older thing but, the need for self knowledge - for time and space to figure out me, for that selfishness that benefits everyone- has become a priority lately.

Oh! Also, Dave and I watched Starsky & Hutch last night (god bless you Owen Wilson you butterscotch stallion) and it was not nearly as un-funny and terrible as I had remembered...I'm just sayin'...

Three Days Turned Into Four....MAGIC

This is how my Sunday morning began...Well, not that particular idyllic view that is on top of this babbling but, close...But let me back up a minute. To get to THAT I first had to 1) Get so drunk on two (only two! I am such a lightweight!!) afterwork martini's (bought by the bestest boss!) that I spent three miserable hours vomiting and saying things to the boy who hearts me most (and who I, needless to say especially after this rigmarole heart the most as well) like "How can people be bulimics OR alcoholics??" and "This is going to pass, like a thunderstorm, right?" 2) Meet up with the bestest of best friends Mikey the following morning with a mouth that felt like a cotton ball and a head that was pounding in time to my footsteps...and we had a great day - just really lovely day of knocking around Andersonville and that easy feeling of spending time with an old friend eased the hangover away. 3) Get up at 4:30 in the morning. In the morning, I say! That is early, that is not "It's so late at night it's early morning" it's so early morning that it in fact feels like a nowhere time of day because really, no one should be up that early...but Mikey and Dave and I were because....Sunday morning my friend got married, on Lake Michigan and it was beautiful and worth the early morning wake up call..

This early morning led me to feel like actually the three day weekend had magically transformed into four days...not in a lovely "Oh surprise! You've been so good you get a bonus vacation day" way but in a "You get to wake up early everyday of your vacation, making the days feel like weeks and your eyes turn into little slits" way.. It was still lovely to spend time with loved ones, best friends who make me realize that distance doesn't erase the fact that they are my family, cute boys who let me nap afternoons away while they do useful things, and brides who float down a grass path making me think for a moment that maybe this marriage thing is really a bit useful, maybe there is magic in the moment that everyone you love surrounds you and confirms that you and the person you are with are in love and will be in love for a long time...

Plus, Lake Michigan at sunrise is gorgeous...jaw dropping beauty for as far as you can see...

Downtown, Not So Much

Last night I went downtown, a place I haven't ventured to for what seems like several peaceful years but has actually only been several peaceful weeks....I went to help out my old job (because I'm a good samaritan...... and because they will pay me...) I forgot the hub bub of downtown. Just the sheer velocity of noise bouncing off of buildings that are spitting out wads of salty, scurrying people. I mean, I've been biking to work lately and yesterday I even walked (a 1.4 mile walk - ah how I love google.com/pedometer !) A half hour of quiet contemplation on the way to a rehabbed factory building is far different from the hour commute on the red line...Regardless, what I'm trying to say is now that I don't have to be there so much I have become a puss about downtown Chicago. I felt like I was visiting from Nowheresville, USA last night as I got pushed across the sidewalks and streets ans shuddered in time to the jackhammers. In the month that I've been away seemingly every block of downtown is getting some sort of work done to it.... It was overwhelming.

But not as overwhelming as walking back into my old building and going into my old office.. This is a place that I went to almost every day for five years..such a long time that it became one of those places (like my childhood home or my first Chicago apartment) that you don't even notice any details about it anymore. It's rote, physical and sense memory. Walking down the hall to my old office was like walking in a dream.
I worked on stuff for a couple of hours, trying to resist the urge to run away screaming "This is not my life anymore"... Office buildings after dark are lonely, creepy places. The quiet of no phones ringing or co-workers making small talk is eerie and intensified the weirdness of it all.

This disconnect, this realization that I am not a downtown, career gal anymore was strange and humbling and took me back a bit. I mean, working downtown is draining and my old job was not the best but, I also feel like I've lost the badge of honor that working in downtown Chicago is. I have no El stories to tell lately. I kind of miss the homeless guy on Monroe who says "God bless you! I love you" to me (and everyone else) when I used to pass him...Going to "old work" last night was like seeing an ex-boyfriend, bittersweet..

Things that are YAY!
1. Three day weekends - Hoorah! This weekend is packed with Best Friends visiting and good friends marrying and hopefully some napping...hopefully..YAY for long weekend!
2. Undeclared - The boy I heart and I just finished the DVD collection of this series the other night...It is soooo good and clever and I loved it when it was on tv but it was even better in retrospect. YAY!
3. "I Was Born A Unicorn" by The Unicorns - I've loved this song for awhile but just heard the other day and realized that I LOVE IT, like Big Grin on My Face while walking LOVE IT!

Things that are Boo:
1. Courtney Love Accusing Steve Coogan- Which is POOOP! Steve Coogan is brilliance see: Alan Partridge OR Tristam Shandy...
2. Hitting reply on an e-mail and sending it to the wrong person...at work...

"Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and my Home.."

I was biking home yesterday and almost hit a fork in the road....Not a lovely wooded glen-style fork (see up above of this babbling, yeah one of those.) Nope there was an actual dingy beat up fork lying on the side of Wilson Ave yesterday afternoon. Which I thankfully spotted, thought "Wow, way to be super literate God", laughed out loud and circled into traffic and around it...This means nothing, I mean it could mean something if I, like the God I referred to up above was super literate but, I had no "MY life has hit a fork in the road!" moment. Because really, after about a month of being in wonderful partially unemployed, partially at new fabulous job style limbo. The fork in the road has been passed! HOORAH!

I left work last night, exhausted, exhausted but happy. What kind of weirdo really feels satisfied making lunch orders, airplane reservations and doing office wide surveys about coffee?? THIS kind of weirdo, I say! I hopped on my bike and tried to zip home...tried to...but all of this construction on roads around my work is really jacking up my "cool urban bike commute" (trademark pending) and it has instead become a "cool urban, stop and walk your bike around chopped up road" commute. I've reverted to riding on the sidewalk - GASP!- I am now the asshole who rides on the sidewalk! But, really, the street has been graded, which means everything that makes it a street has been gnawed away and all that is left is uneven chunks of pavement with gravel clumps strewn about and huge potholes of death and you know what, if you had seen me take the digger seen round the world, where my bike literally fell on top of me while I skidded out on gravel you would beg me to ride on the sidewalk...

Bike riding, city bike riding, is such a complicated beast - like everything else in a city it counts on the basic tenant that there is limited space and we should share and share a like. If I am not an asshole bike rider who runs lights without looking and rides on sidewalks or in the center of the road then presumably cars will pay back my good deeds by being aware of me when driving, not opening their car doors into the bike lane without looking etc... This theory has held up over the past few months. Much like avoiding a mugging, avoiding a bike accident relies on awareness of others and surroundings...

Blah-blah blog..Got home last night and wanted to pass out on the couch so badly but, instead I did laundry and watched reruns of ANTM (new season Sept. 19th!!) and cleaned up my room. Just as I was about to go to bed the boy I heart most called and was outside with the bestest, most retardedly lovely dog in the world. I went downstairs and got to say goodnight to two of my favorite people...I mean look at this picture below, look how cute the step-dog is.. How can I stay salty about bad bike experiences when looking at such a face..

Shoreline and It's Half Speed...

This is the first post of a blog that I don't know if I will even keep up with. A place to throw up thoughts and writing and see if it sticks...A place to type randomness into the ether while looking busy at work...you know the drill.

It's hot in Chicago - a sudden heat wave that surprised me as I dragged myself out of work last night. Long after most people should be leaving work, long after I mentally left work. The new job I have is completely awesome and completely draining which is simultaneously great and bad news bears. I've been here three weeks and I love it - I mean love it more than I should love an office job which is a sad reality of getting older... Suddenly craving health benefits and stability and expendable income (gasp!) What does it mean when the pull between artistic abandonment and the need for real life things is no longer the central tug of war in your life? All of a sudden I've found myself settling into being older, to the routine of my life - wake up, cereal and vitamins, get on bike, bike to work, work, leave work and bike to the boy or to my friends or just to my house. I'm on a break from theatre and I'm missing it but I'm not missing the erratic schedule, the hours of sitting in a small room watching people emote, the noting of blocking and making of props lists. I DO miss the human interaction and the collaboration and the sheer fruity "artiness" (not really a word but really should be a word!) of putting a show together.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this restlessness with routine, and the acceptance that life is getting hum drum as I get older is leading to a NEW tug of war... More than anything right now I am hoping for balance, to balance the humdrum routine with the franticness of working full time and doing shows. Looking for a way to balance having "Heather Time" (full of sloth and reading books and dancing around to music) and having time with the boy that I heart. I think the push and pull of life will always come back to this essential problem - how do I achieve the balance I want? And for me that answer changes day to day - I mean even the concept of "what I want" changes day to day but, the luxury of getting older is that at least I admit that I want things now...not material things, sometimes the "thing" that I want is as simple as time to watch POV on PBS (which is sooo good, so good I say!).

Enough of this deep talk though - it is the week before a three day weekend. Only two days until I see my best friend in the whole world. Life is humming along and for once it's not overwhelming.

Things that are YAY!
1. The Lives of Others - This movie won Best Foreign Film at last years Oscars for a reason..because it's provoking and sad and beautiful and made me dream that I lived in a stylized version of East Germany which sounds nightmarish but I woke up feeling melancholy in the best teenage way...Just a good movie, see it!
2. Biking to Work!- YAY for not waiting for a bus or a train! Yay for not having to pay the CTA money I don't have to be late for work and things I want to do...the only downside to using my bike to get everywhere is locking it up all the time because I'm so clumsy it literally takes me at least five minutes...but all of the rest of it is awesome!
3. Rainy Nights with Folks I Heart - Nothing like snuggling with the boy I love and watching a movie when it's pouring out or having wine and good convo with a good ladyfriend - listen, the storms here lately have sucked but the company has been great!
4. Zizek! - Dave and I recently watched this documentary about the Slovenian philosopher Zizek and it made my brain hurt in such a good way!

Things that are Boo
1. Too Little Weekend - There just isn't enough nap time in two days - which is why the extended weekend is going to be awesome!
2. Teeth - Not boo on teeth as a whole, I mean they ARE very useful things to have but, boo to tooth problems and not having insurance yet and grinning (or scowling) and bearing it...