Shan't let a day pass in which I do not mention my hatred for Anna.

All I Have to do is Dream

Woke up in the middle of a terrible nightmare about Caryn. I didn't dare fall back asleep to finish it, because honestly, it didn't look like things were going to end on a happy note. I don't remember much... just lots of blood (gross, I know), which I'm thinking is related to the fact that Caryn volunteered at the Blood center last night. Let's hope.
I wonder, sometimes, where these dreams come from.

My work friend, Mike, walked by yesterday and leaned in to my desk. "You hussy!" he said. I automatically looked down to make sure I wasn't revealing any non-cleavage (that flat plane on my chest where most gals would have two breasts meeting each other), and sure enough, I wasn't. "Huh?" "I had another randy dream about you last night. " Then he laughed and walked off. No, this is not sexual harassment. Mike and I have talked like this for as long as we've known each other and he's never had any problem telling me when I appear in one of his NC17 dreams. Why? Probably because he sees no connection with what his dreaming mind creates and what he actually thinks about me, consciously.

Did you have a dream last night?

And Then, it Was Green

The week did not fly by. Hours of sanding, spackling, caulking and cleaning gave me blisters, sore arms and most likely, paint-coated lungs. Heather, did you eat paint chips as a kid?? Uh, yeah... kinda.

A girl can come up with a concise list of true friends after subjecting them to trials of manual labor from which they aren't gettin' jack squat. Jenn and Nora suffered along side me, doing things that were not what you'd call fun. They sanded, dusted, primed and spackled (though, not in that order), and haven't blocked my phone calls, threatened me with bodily harm, or thrown anything gross at me.

Jonathan was kind enough to spend hours chauffeuring me around for supplies, taping and painting, and even spray painting my once-ugly radiator to a lovely satin-finish white. It's funny how something so silly as a white radiator can make me so happy. But perhaps the kindest act he performed came after rolling the initial coat of a shockingly green paint onto the blank walls, and I had a sudden attack of regret. It had been a primed, clean, flat white. And then, it was green. It wasn't what I'd anticipated. Hours of work gone by and I'd put this color all over?? But he told me it looked great. I hadn't even expressed my dismay, or cried (which is what I wanted to do), and he said it was perfect. So I stepped back, and had to agree. It did look great. Not what I'd pictured. But maybe even better. Even Jenn's brother, Mark, said it looked really good with the white trim. Sigh of relief.

A big thanks to my very kind and very handy friends. I couldn't do it without you. If you ever need a kidney... I'm your girl.

We made the first Katinka purchase this weekend, too. A pet carrier. I'm not going to want to put that little ball of fluff into a cage when I'd certainly rather be holding her, and petting her ("naughty pet!") ... but I guess there are rules when it comes to trains and kittens.

The end.
Today, I really hate Anna.

It Makes No Sense

It makes no sense that I walk to work in heels
Drink Diet Coke with greasy, fast-food meals
I hate skinny models but love my Barbie doll
And I sit around and wait for that silly boy to call

It makes no sense that I work a job I hate
Know I must get up early but still stay up late
I own more clothes that I can possibly wear
Pluck my brows daily yet never cut my hair

It makes no sense that I always lose my keys
That I am suddenly allergic to sugar snap peas
I ignore the nice boys who fall for my charm
And fall for the ones who don't give a darn.

The end.
I hate Anna

This Old House

Last night, I caulked. And caulked. And sanded. And caulked some more. And came to a greater appreciation of what a huge undertaking my leap into the world of home-improvement has become. The task only grows in complication, due to the fact that I'm the kind to take a project just a little too far. I sure love it, though.

I have decided to do the ceiling, too. It's peeling and dingy and I think perhaps I could get away with just a quick sanding and a few layers of paint. I'm betting on at least three more days of sanding (maybe just two) before we get to priming the walls. Eric (an interiors guy at work) said that it's going to take at least two coats of primer to cover up the mess that the Pepto-Abysmal paint will have left behind. Jenn's been so good to help..even just by entertaining me while I'm on the up on the step ladder, my arms uncomfortably above my head, sqeezing gooey white caulk into the cracks above the molding.

Tonight, maybe I'll caulk some more... finish up that part of Heather-Loves-Home-Depot Awareness Month.

Manual labor does something for me that hours and hours of desk work has never been able to. Aching arms, yes. But some kind of sense of accomplishment, I suppose, when it's over. And more than that, it frees up my mind and sharpens my focus on an actual, physical goal. "I will have succeeded when... this room is no longer this god-awful color. When I have sanded the molding.. etc."
In the words of Mugatu... I'm a hot little firecracker.

I hate Anna.

A Downtown Crossing Story

I had forgotten, until this afternoon, how much I used to love being part of the flow of anonymous foot traffic in downtown Boston. Maneuvering among the vendors and dodging tourists in their khaki shorts and cameras slung over too-big Boston T-shirts. And me in black. Almost always in black, like the remainder of the Downtown Crossing crowd -- those who have escaped their places of employment for some air, food or people-watching.

Somehow, today I was not anonymous, did not blend as well as I am used to. And got mixed reviews for it. A beak-faced, African-American boy actually mooed at me on the stairs in the T. (Now, no one has mooed at me since I was in junior high and the words Heather and Heiffer were just too similar to overlook.) But not a few steps down Washington Street, still pouting over the "moo" incident, one vendor said in a rather loud voice, "Oh Lawd! Now that is what you call a beautiful woman!" I just ducked my head and prayed fervently that this man didn't have a thing for plus-sized women, that the two comments has somehow cancelled each other out. I was feeling like Boston's sore thumb.

So, I dissolved into H&M, plucked pretty items from the racks, cursing the European sizing. I refuse to try things on at that store. If I'm going to hate or love the way I look in one of H&Ms pretty somethings, it's going to be in the privacy of my own home where I may weep, or prance about freely, singing a selection from West Side Story, without drawing too much attention, or having stood in a line to do so. I have learned my lessons.

Having more than passed my alotted hour for lunch, I tried not to get antsy with the semi-comatose cashier, rather unsuccessfully. Perhaps I do not understand the beautiful complexity that is an exchange. Finally, credit card securely restowed in its proper place, I made a beeline for the T. I kept to the shady spots on the sidewalk, gracefully (I must say) avoiding tourists, fellow office drones and street merchants. No one made any barnyard sounds and no one seemed anymore aware of my presence than I was of theirs. Bless those expansive retail chains for restoring my anonymity.

Bless H&M.

Of Losses & Gains

Thursday: Lost: a few bucks in subway fare. Gained: Two real nice kids from Dallas.

Friday: Lost: 66.50 Gained: A new piece of jewelry & Brave Soldiers in the Hall

Saturday: Lost: $1.00 Gained: A pound of sugar snap peas at Haymarket & awareness of allergic reaction to said peas.
Lost: $37.50 Gained: H&M, baby.
Lost: $7.00 entrance cover to Waterworks & one sock Gained: New appreciation of "Single & Fabulous!" status of Caryn and myself. Oh, and probably about 15 pounds at IHOP.

Sunday: Lost: Two real nice kids from Dallas. Gained: use of entire queen bed. Ahhhhhh....

Ooooh, Sangria, you are sooo good to me. A big thank you to everyone who came to Tasca last night. I'll send real thank you notes later (umm...right), but Thanks to:
John, for leaving his brand new game of WarCraft 3 to come to my birthday dinner.
To Eleanor for making him.
To Amy & Jeff for the lovely card (& especially to Jeff for being such a ray of sunshine).
To Jenn for the most awesome chick book ever.
To Jonathanfor the purdy flowers (I killed one on accident!).
To Nora for wearing those pants.

Today is Midget Arrival Day. Sketti & Goik, the two best pets in the world, will be here around sixish. Hooray!

If you hate me so much, why are you reading this? I'm curious.

Three more days and I'm old. Too close to mid-twenties for my liking, and slowly (err, not slowly enough) inching my way to 30. Blech. But, I get to celebrate it by downing great Spanish food at Tasca with my pals. Not too shabby :)

Anyway, today I spent the day working on a Make-A-Wish Foundation project that my coworker is doing. A party for a four year old with Lukemia. Poor thing. She wants to have the "biggest party ever" and I'm designing the invites. It's nice to feel part of something beyond yourself.

Goik and Sketti are coming in 2 days!! Yay! And since Sketti failed to send me the flight information by the deadline I gave her, she is really going to have to sleep in the tub. We don't mess around, here.

So, we're famous. Not even just KIND of famous. Really famous. Third page Google.com famous.

Interesting weekend.

Friday night, I had dinner with PC. Actually, I got dragged around greater Cambridge, Faneuil Hall and the North End first, but let's not get mired in the details. He's a very nice guy and all... but not for this girl. Who shows up to a second date with no idea of what they want to do? Well, he does. *sigh* Not good. I was tired (he happens to be unemployed, but I worked all friggin day) and his quirkiness was not nearly as charming this time around. It's a shame, but that's how it goes sometimes. He's called each day since and I haven't picked up. I'm mean. I know. I feel like I'm going to have a harder time breaking up with the coworker that set us up than actually getting rid of PC.

Saturday, I putzed around the house with Nora (who is sick and deserving of our sympathetic attention), read some of The Brothers and basically ate way too much. Got online and found Caryn, and we played three or four consecutive games of Settlers. We're so good at being nerdy! Nora took off for the Monkees concert (well, just Micky and Davy, with opener Greg Brady) and I ended up hanging out with Jonathan, killing bastard centipedes and watching Vanilla Sky. It's good to have him back on American Soil. Who else can I command to "obey my dog?"
(PS Really liked the movie. Very cool)

Sunday, Jenn called and I took my sanding/painting supplies over for a day of restoration. Somehow, though, we never got around to any actual This Old House work. The sun was out and the patio was way too inviting. She made drinks, we swapped boy horror stories. Chris and Chris joined later, too. I was very disciplined, but I don't think Jenn has any memory of the afternoon. We'll just never know how the shower curtain got pulled down or why she was soaking wet. Some mysteries aren't meant to be explained, I guess.

"We feel this way sometimes in adolescence, too, surely most of us can call it up. [This] burning impatience for the next thing to take shape, for whatever it is we are about to become and be, to announce iself."
--- Sue Miller, While I was Gone

*Sigh*

Fuck, fuck, fuckety fuck. (If I may borrow such wisdom from Bridget Jones)
So Anna is leaving for six months (good!) but they've just told me they're bringing in some help to do her job (not good) because I'm still on desk half a day (fucking ridiculous!). They are bringing someone else in. What kind of sense does that make?? Unacceptable. I've stuck around hoping things would get better and that I'd be actually allowed to DO something. Silly me.

I'm sitting here chain-chewing (like chain-smoking, only more inclined to cause TMJ, than lung cancer), wondering if I actually had to WORK more than half the day here, how much less thinking I'd get done.
I have spent a good deal of time in the Forum today discussing the need for cancellation of third world debt...and even more time wondering what cosmic purpose there was in having our TV go on the fritz just when I'm in the middle of the third season of SITC. Charlotte was just about to get married. I mean, come on -- this is important stuff! Clearly, not as important as third world debt and starvation in Sub-Saharan Africa, but still, my life is made up of these little idiosyncracies.
Oh, I did spend some time drafting an advertisement, which made me feel useful. The result was, "Perfect! I love it!" Thanks, Joan. It was nice to be asked to do it, actually. It's time, indeed, that they stopped letting architects butcher our ads and such. I also got my mitts on the article we're sending out with the ad. If I wouldn't get fired for doing so, I'd post it here so you could mock it with me. When I mentioned some of the more atrocious errors, I was told, "Well, the newspaper probably has proof readers." Damn good thing, too.
In other news... well, I suppose I have no other news. Oh, except, I now am the proud posseser (is that a word?!) of a plane ticket to London. Hurrah. Perhaps, while there, I can run into Tony Blair and beg him to come back with me. Not as a lover, or anything (he's old!) but to save our country from Dubya.

There is a God!!!
Have just over-heard Anna say that she will be taking maternity leave from October to March. 6 months. She will be gone for six long, beautiful months. I'll make sure to send her off properly--with a promise that I'll do her job even better than she did. See ya in six months, sistah. That is, if they still need you.

The Weekend Update:

Friday: Date with Mr. Peace Corps. We'll refer to him as PC for sake of brevity, from hereon out. I had a nice time; he was a perfect gentleman. Dinner at a tiny Spanish restaurant and walk around Harvard Yard. Home by midnight. He didn't even attempt any good night kisses. Which either means A) he is unpresumptuous or B) I've lost something. Let's assume A.

Saturday: Up at Way-Too-Early O'clock in the a.m. to get rental car. Went to Target with Nora and then got Happy Meals. The toy sucked. This Lilo and Stitch thing just ruins what would normally be a very nice cheap plastic toy in my fatty child's lunch. Jenn lead us to the DeCordova outdoor sculpture garden in Lincoln. It was amazing! What a great time we had. We stumbled on a working farm afterwards, and spent an hour or so petting piggies and bunnies and chickens. The baby cow and sheep kept at a safe, but frustrating distance. Went home and watched Muriel's Wedding. WACKY film, but I really liked it. Just reinforced my opinion that Toni Collette is one of the greatest actresses out there! She had me squirming for most of the film.

Sunday: Again, got up WAY too early, this time, to drive down to New Haven to see my sister, Audrey at her "So, I wanna be a Senator One Day" smart kids' camp at Yale. It was a bunch of 16/17 year old kids running around, talking smart talk and having "lawn dates." Yeah, so I was wicked jealous. Got phone call from PC. He didn't even wait the standard three days. There's bound to be something wrong with him. Nice boys are all gay or... well... crazy.

"In London in the summer of 1985 I was afflicted by a crush, which is a terrible thing to happen to a woman."

--Helen Fielding, Cause Celeb

Been at work for 5 hours now, and have accomplished the following Non-Work tasks:

1. Made plan to pay off all credit card debt before the year is out.
2. Made budget/savings plan for year 2003. (pretty darn fiscally responsible, eh?)
3. Rented car for New Haven trip this weekend.
4. Broke savings plan & purchased two more books.
5. "Twirled & twirled" with Jack's 3-year-old, Olivia. Am quite dizzy.
6. Wandered around Harvard Square--listened to woman butcher "Amazing Grace." God will punish her.
7. Went to bank.
8. Alienated Olivia by giving her gum that was "eeew, hot!"
9. Planned September European vacation.
10. Blogged.

Now, if only most work days were this productive, my life would certainly be much more in order! Is very nice when only 1/8 of the office is here to pester me with actual work requests. It's so quiet in the office, I can hear the air conditioning in the vents and the elevators moving up and down in the shafts.

Can I go home now?

It's about four million degrees out and I wouldn't feel bad about not getting myself outta the house, but it's a friggin holiday. I'm supposed to be social and celebrating. El and John are going to meander over soon so we can get our collective act together and get some food for the barbeque we should have already been at for an hour. Make that two.

Have an actual real-life date tomorrow. Nope, not one of those, "Let's hang out" playdates where he calls five hours later with apologies and "let's re-schedule." So far, Mr. Peace Corps doesn't seem prone to such outbursts of forgetfulness (thoughtlessness??). But then again, let's not give too much credit yet.

I had an interesting conversation with Mr. Peace Corps last night.
Somehow, our few conversations have kept surprisingly distant from the idle, generic chatter of virtual strangers. Instead, we somehow have already dusted the meaning of life, religion and golf.

And last night, we talked about this strange need that we (is it our age??) have to fill up our social calendars, as if being busy somehow made us happy. Or whole. And I told him that the most important discovery I'd made about myself in the last year was that I can be alone with myself and not be lonely. Being busy every night just made me busy (and poor).

There is no need to constantly surround myself with people I don't much care for.
"Heather Hunter," he said. "You have good ideas."

Oh, you'll still find me in crowded, smoky, noisy bars with my friends, laughing and dancing. Because I like it. But I am perfectly happy to sit at home, putz around and play nerdy on-line games with my dear Caryn or read a book and chomp popsicles.
You have to take opportunities where you can get them and find happiness in every single little thing, he said.
Indeed!

Thank you Caryn! For three ever-so-fun rounds of Settlers! It's amazing that I play so much better when I'm distracted and inhaling Dutch Cocoa Cookies. Great therapy indeed! Love ya!

I've had my feelings hurt a million times and not cried about it. I guess we've all learned to let some internal calluses build up to prevent blisters that come from emotional friction. We grow a bit of tough skin to protect against little puncture wounds. But, as I learned last night, I am still not able to hold back a couple of tears when my pride has been injured. There's no thin candy shell around my pride. Yet.
He has made me feel small and insignificant before. I've overlooked it, believed him when he said he was sorry, and in general been able to pass it off. Because I thought I was the only one who noticed he did that.
And until she said, "Why do you let him do that to you and pretend you're not mad?" I had imagined that I was pathetic only to myself. I didn't feel badly until it became quite clear that others felt sorry for me. And then I was embarrassed.
When I'm making excuses for him, I know that I'm really giving her reasons why she shouldn't pity me. Don't feel bad for me. I do this to myself.

Jen: Don't go.
Heather: Don't go? Why not? To make some sort of statement??
Jen: It's my job to say those things, and your job to ignore me. It's called friendship. I know you'll go...
Heather: It's true. If you didn't say that, you'd be a bad friend. And if I didn't go, I'd be... well, I'd be anyone but me. heh.
Jen: Yep...it's a timeless ritual....I bet it started in Greece.

She waddles into the office this morning and sweet-as-can-be says, "Good morning, Heather." "Mmhmmm," I mumble and turn back to my computer. Good morning? Jeez. Three days ago she wouldn't even look at me, knowing she was about to leave me off the guest list of my closest co-worker's going-away lunch. Good morning, indeed. I hope that baby explodes right out of your ass, you horrible woman.
*I hope the baby will survive its unfortunate parentage, as I have nothing against the unborn offspring of even the most miserable wastes of human flesh*
Apart from The Ass Baby and the Duchess, and the headache I've had since trying to fall asleep last night in this miserable heat, today seems like it's going to be a perfectly fine day. I'm in touch with my inner-bitch, but I've asked her to keep it down. I have a lot to do today and don't want to spend my time disciplining.

I wanna have fun.
I wanna shine like the sun.
I wanna be the one that you wanna see.

I wanna knit you a sweater;
Wanna write you a love letter;
Wanna make you feel better;
Wanna make you feel free.

Wanna make you feel free.

--- Joni Mitchell


love me some Joni.

"Maybe you inherited craziness like you did brown eyes or frizzy hair."

"You can be two things if you're a woman. Betty Crocker or a floozy. Just remember your place -- even if it kills you."

--Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone