Archive for the 'Blogology' Category

Simple things

April 30, 2008 | Filed under: Blogology, Fotografias

“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it.  The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.”  ~Earl Nightingale

Good things have happened over the last few days. It’s usually the little things that add up to overwhelm and suffocate me, this time it has been moving past the bad to find the good. Even in it’s simplest form, things can be good. What’s hard is wading through the bad to get to it.

It’s there. I promise. You just have to do a bit of digging. And if your nails get dirty, don’t worry, that’s what a good manicure is for.

Bliss

April 7, 2008 | Filed under: Blogology, Fotografias, Whoopdie Doo

“You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.” ~Stephen King

Saturday night I laughed so hard that it burned and I bruised a rib. It burned from the bottom of my throat straight down to my waist because I kept doubling over because everything was just so damn funny. Funny like, “You said UMBRELLA!” while Chris continued point out how utterly useless Susan’s opposable thumbs are, that type of funny. I would detail each and every event so that you could feel like you were right there next to me, but midway through you’d be requesting a shot of battery acid to put in my drink and a pair of freshly sharpened chopsticks for your eyeballs. So I will spare you those details but holy hell, I have not laughed like that since I cannot remember. Really. Maybe Nixon was in the White House? I dunno.

My favorite part though other than when Y invited me to meet Rich and so I sat there and told him that the reason I wake up each Monday morning was for his America’s Next Top Model recaps and then I proceeded to stare at him awkwardly because FIERCE! VAGINA ARMS! Yeah, other than that, was when Metalia brought with her to brunch the gift that her husband had got for me in Vegas. Her husband, J, who I have never met in my life and for all he knows, I could be a masochistic sociopath with armpit hair down to my waist waiting to kidnap his wife for her lip gloss. J was in Las Vegas and saw Amani Toomer from the Giants. I happen to love the Giants and Amani Toomer. J knew this because I spent the better part of January texting Metalia about every other third down. Anyway, J saw Amani and noticed that he had several photos with him and asked if he would sign one. Instead of saying can you make it out to my wife? or to I don’t know anyone he’s ever seen in real life, he asked Amani to sign a photo FOR ME.

J brought the photo back to Metalia and said “I got something for Heather in Vegas” to which Metalia said “So this is how you’re going to tell me. I see…” It was nice and sweet and when I finally saw what it was, I got that lump in my throat and almost cried because it was such a lovely and unexpected thing. This weekend was like rolling around in a great big pile of awesome and the entire way home I kept laughing to myself because WHAT WAS IN THE BATH?! If I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it again, most days even on the days when there is unnecessary drama and I want to throw something at the computer screen and I’m giving the finger to people 900 miles away and calling some poor woman the ‘c’ word, I really, really love the internet.

Photoset here: The Manhattan Project (Part I)

Public Service Announcement

April 1, 2008 | Filed under: Blogology

Yesterday was so chocked full of randomness and awesomeness and Prosecco. The best part being not being able to find my ID or Visa when I got to the airport. One of these things I can get to DC without the other might have TSA (shit heads) chasing after my ass. They would catch me, yes. Because the airport is the size of a junior suite at the Hilton but it would be a fantastic workout. And that’s really what matters. Oh another point of order: If you live 12 miles away from the airport and have to get home to get an ID and it’s 5:45AM and your flight leaves at 6:30AM and it’s dark out and you almost run into a guardrail and you finally get home to your passport and then have to get back to the airport; well it will take a miracle of biblical proportions to make your flight.

Speaking of acts of biblical proportions, GO TO EMILY’S SITE NOW. I implore you to do so and I rarely ask of you all to do anything except listen (read) intently to my bullshit three days a week. I adore Emily. Emily once ate expensive cheese off the floor and then made me regret not eating it. So you should stop over there because I said so and because she likes good cheese and she is really, really good people, which leaves no doubt that she has really, really good friends.

And now I am going back to bed.

And soon the pigs will fly

February 12, 2008 | Filed under: Blogology, Planes trains and automobiles, Socially Awkward Barbie™

“The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live.” ~Nicolas Chamfort

In Boston this summer, I spent an entire four day period as a recluse wanting to throw my own little tea party. And of course there were tears. My cycle of social awkwardness goes: HB doesn’t like new people, HB gets overwhelmed, HB rushes into the bathroom on the ballroom level of the Westin Copley Place to have a good cry. Because God forbid I actually attempt to open my mouth and speak to someone. What might I say? What could happen? What if I confess to wanting to bludgeon half the people in the room because I cannot handle the bullshit?

The thing is that I can be a ‘large party’ kind of girl if I know several people at the party. This is how I managed to successfully walk upright in Chicago for four days straight and look like I was having fun while doing it; because I was. Otherwise, I like intimate settings. My brain goes into sensory overload when surrounded by too much at one time and to stave off the inevitable explosion (SEE: Tears) I need to step back to survey my surroundings before diving into the hors d’oeuvres and handing out business cards. I don’t recall always being so skittish and edgy around new people or large groups, but it has happened and so I must deal with it. Or else I see myself on a trajectory towards failure since talking to people seems to be a large part of my job.

Several months ago, Helen Jane, offered up a ticket to SXSW. As I recall it was the middle of the day, so I was completely of sound mind and well aware of what I was doing when I said yes. I said, yes, to spending five days in a city I’ve never been too with exactly four people I know. While it isn’t rare for me to have bad judgment and overestimate my ability to behave like a person with average social skills (and by ‘average’ I mean I can speak to people without biting them or wanting to claw them to bits), it is rare for me to face a large social gathering completely head on. I’ve been so very flippant about going to Texas, that every time someone has asked I say “Oh yeah, Texas…yeah…” Then forget about it once again. I usually do well with bloggers, perhaps because we all tend to be a little on the misanthropic side. So it ends up being a large group of people who are all prone to hermitic behaviors who love to drink. Awesome.

Anyway, I am going to Texas. I will be standing in the corner either with my margarita or with my margarita and Aimee. I am not nervous but instead, abnormally excited to be in close quarters with several thousand people that I barely even know and 70 degree weather. Oh, and that noise you just heard? That was the sound of Hell freezing over.

I bet you think this post is about you

November 19, 2007 | Filed under: Blogology, Great moments in narcissism

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” ~e.e. cummingsYou know what is funny? Narcissism. How perfectly pot/kettle black of me for pointing that out given that I’ve spent the last two and half years meticulously documenting every moment only to write about it and share with several thousand people. The funny narcissism is from those who do not realize that they are behaving as such. Like perhaps those that make disparaging remarks about a blogger and say “Watch out what you say to her in a conversation. It might end up on the blog.” Well ho, ho, ho, isn’t that rich? To automatically assume that anything said to me is going to be blog fodder. Especially when the conversation is between myself and someone that I a) can’t stand b) don’t even know and c) occurs between the hours of 9 AM and 6 PM. The chances that a conversation about printer usage and effective pedagogy are going to increase site traffic are pretty slim to none. Actually, it’s just none.I’m at a reception the other day when a coworker asks me to tell him the calamari story. A really disturbing story about eating calamari then drinking several glasses of pinot noir and then puking up the calamari to find that the calamari had turned purple. A story that I told while speaking at BlogHer this summer and then kind of forgot about. Well this coworker hadn’t and when I asked what he was speaking of he said “Well you wrote about it on the blog” and I subsequently had several margaritas and a panic attack. Though I must admit that the best time to find out that one of your coworkers has perused your archives is with a very large drink in hand.Even though it has become common there still is that shock, tightening of the chest and then sphincter clenching that inevitably comes when someone you deal with from nine to five and nine to five, only, is reading some very intimate details of your life. Like the way too much vodka makes you cry or that you have a bipolar disorder. The following question would be “Then why are you sharing if you don’t want people to read?” There is an interesting dichotomy there, on the one hand, I do write publicly about some personal things but nothing that I’m embarrassed about, yet there is just something very odd about a colleague being all up in your business, especially when others have been particularly cruel about it. I don’t care that they read, it’s comments like “You better watch out what you say to her, it might end up on the blog” that make me want to ask someone just how important they think they are in my life, because the answer would be not at all. Which means the odds of me announcing to the world every minute detail of our conversation about ink cartridges are far less likely than me announcing the world that I hate your hair or that you probably haven’t gotten laid in years, in public. Now that? People might find interesting.Thinking about it now, I suppose that those who find blogging to be somewhere out in the realm of UFO sightings and eating Foie Gras, might be bored with their lives. They need someone else’s life to make fun of and dissect as if it is their own. They are rather small people who obviously need to get some ass or perhaps enjoy some wine that doesn’t come in a box. But I guess now I’m becoming just like them by being judgmental though I can always pride myself by saying at least I never tattled on them and told their mothers, because I can be a judgmental, honest, bitch, but at least I moved away from my five year old tendencies like 19 years ago. And the next time I get drunk I’ll be sure to share every intimate detail like puking up a veggie dog on my bedroom floor. You can thank me for that one later.