Archive for the 'Blogology' Category

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.

Just short of perfect

October 8, 2007 | Filed under: Blogology, Fotografias, Va-cay-cay-cay, Whoopdie Doo, World Tour

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

I almost didn’t go to California because the stress that I’ve been under has turned all brain matter into something resembling lumpy brownie mix. Things have been sloshing around up there without respite or a sign of abatement. Thus my only recourse would be to say maybe next time I will come visit. Next time being some arbitrary moment when my bedroom doesn’t look like Riyadh or when I’ve had more than 37 seconds to think about something other than work. But there is always that ‘something’ because those things never go away, those constant irritants that are always there and lurking and prohibiting one from being able to fully enjoy their surroundings and be engaging.

I needed this trip. Right now, at this juncture in my life, I need to be full of clichés and trite phrases about loving things and people and those warm fuzzy thoughts that normally make me wretch. I must say that from the moment Abigail put together an itinerary knowing full well my love for food and wine and shopping, that this would be wonderful and it was. It was the simplicity of it all, a walk on the beach, a dinner with friends and the conversation that make me unable to put the ‘good’ into words. I can say that there isn’t one minute I’d change about this weekend. Not even the part where I ate three cupcakes from Sprinkles thus giving my thighs their own zip code.

Being completely unapologetic in my need to be complimented and told that I’m doing something well despite the neverending feelings of imperfection. There are times when I need to be told that my writing isn’t complete shit or that being in the midst of writing a book proposal doesn’t make people keel over from the possible vapid nature and ennui inducing shit I’m capable of writing. There are times when I need to feel inspired and to be around like-minded funny and smart people is a nice little jolt. Most importantly, there are times when I need to be told that my cleavage looks great and perfectly firm. Which, for the record, beats almost any compliment about my writing.

Nothing was ever wrong, but this trip made me feel better.

Flaws

October 3, 2007 | Filed under: Blogology, Great moments in narcissism, Listy, Socially Awkward Barbie™

“Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.” ~Goethe

Today is The Great Mofo Delurk. I like the word Mofo though I use it so rarely because I’m much more fond of the more formal ‘Motherfucker’. As such, I am presenting you with a few of my pretty bad but not as bad as my propensity to drink two bottles of wine just because it’s in my line of sight, flaws. Feel free to delurk and divulge your flaws or just delurk and tell me how drop dead gorgeous I am or delurk and ask me a question like how I’ve managed to get through almost 24 years of life without spontaneously combusting from my overwhelming social awkwardness.

1) There are days that I feel like my only contribution to society will be rampant socially awkward behavior that will make others feel much better about their ability to communicate with other human beings. Whereas I kind of just stand there looking like I’m in severe pain, other people are able to, you know, open their mouths while making semi-coherent sounds. Though I was recently told, during a dinner, that one could sense that I’m a ‘writer’ (the noise you just heard was the sound of my eyes rolling). I choked on my fourth glass of cheap merlot and asked how and the woman seated next to me said that she could tell by the way I chose and used words very carefully. I laughed and patted myself on the back for being able to carry on a conversation for twenty minutes without sounding like I may have been dropped on my head and landed right on my soft spot as a baby.

2) I think that the telephone is the invention of Stalin and the Devil. Therefore using the phone requires deep cleansing breaths, acupuncture and a little hypnosis so that I can actually pick up the receiver. Prior to most any phone call, I write down notes on a 3×5 index card to lessen the chance of an untimely heart attack due to being unprepared for a difficult question. The ones that usually catch me off guard are the toughies, like “Is this Heather?” or “How are you?” I figure that with it being 2007 and all and with the wifi and the ability to listen to music on your telephone while wikipedia-ing ‘Squeaky Fromme’ means that one should be able to simply email a question. The phone doesn’t need to be used in every situation, in fact, I’m pretty sure that it’s use can be limited to dialing 911, ordering Chinese food, and possibly can be fashioned into some sort of weapon.

3) I received an email yesterday afternoon asking if when I said ‘Versailles’ I meant VERSAILLES. Is there another Versailles that I am not aware of? The Versailles I plan to visit next month has a Hall of Mirrors and Orange trees and Louis XIV once lived there and it’s located in a little place called France. The thing about my upcoming visit to France is that I am a notoriously awful planner. I say I’m going somewhere and then everything fizzles and my enthusiasm shrinks like a raisin in the sun, for prior to any trip there is thing called work which pretty much trumps everything at time, including eating and breathing and my ability to pee without bringing my crackberry into the stall with me. Because of this, I have two trips coming up that I have approximately zero plans for because when the enthusiasm doesn’t wane for me wanting a vacation but it wanes for deciding exactly what I want to do and see. Thus, my having to enlist Abigail to make up an itinerary for my upcoming trip to LA and the help I need right now from people that have actually been to France to tell me what I should see. I know the Louvre and Versailles and that big pointy phallus looking thing called the Eiffel Tower. Other than that I’m at a loss and the person going with me only wants to buy a bracelet at Cartier. So! Suggestions would be appreciated. For example, where can I go to get a croissant full of butter that won’t go straight to my ass?

The crazy

September 12, 2007 | Filed under: Blogology, Straight Jacket

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”  ~Ray Bradbury

When Leah and Jess started Real Mental a few weeks back, I jumped at the chance to post just once. In the hope of finding and opening up a vein to unleash the mish mash that has been going on in my head for the past few months. Before I moved back to NY – and the two having nothing to do with each other – I was diagnosed with a Bipolar II Disorder. Which in the grand scheme of things isn’t a big deal, but it’s been something of which I’ve had a most difficult time writing about or expressing. In fact my jumping at the chance is a manifestation of my desperate need to say something about it and now I’m hopeful that I’ve found that space.

I still have trouble telling people, even those that have known me for years, but I have no trouble strolling up to the pharmacist at CVS at regular intervals to get my Lithium and Klonopin prescriptions because they are the key to my not going completely fucked up, raging mad. I mean, really? It’s been weeks since I’ve given anyone the finger for having the audacity to merge.

So for now, what I once felt was sacred, I’m trying to be a little bit more open about in hopes that I can fully accept my new ‘normal’ without having an outer-body experience whenever I tell someone. Like maybe if I say it quietly they won’t hear me, better yet, maybe they’ll forget that I’m fucked up. In all honesty, my friends that know aren’t judgmental or fear me or think that I’m ‘special’ or speak to me V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y. They’re actually relieved to hear that that I have an actual medical condition and not just a permanent case of grade a BITCH.