August 05, 2005
easy on sunday morning
IMG_1577.JPG
Originally uploaded by in retrospect.
this was the scene last sunday morning on bainbridge, after one of my best birthday weekends ever, celebrating ariel and andreas' anniversary gathering.
as of this morning, i'm lazing right there. still.
take a peek at more of the evidence over here.
Posted by heidijanet at 06:17 AM | Comments (2)
April 25, 2004
ah, love
solo moviegoing report. eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. such a painful movie. beautiful but painful. if you asked me why i liked it, i couldn't tell you. and it's not so much that i liked it. i mean i liked the film, loved it in fact. but i didn't much like how it slowly worked on me like a dredge, scraping up that feeling. the feeling of having something that had been packed down nice and tight polished over and silent, and in less than two hours it had expanded and burst screaming, "remember me? i'm that feeling you get when that really precious thing is torn and shredded right before your eyes. did you really think that you could forget?"
on the way home, the driver in the car in front of me reached out of his window as he passed by to pick a purple blossom off the flowering plant on the median. then he turned and offered it to his girl who was sitting in the passenger seat.
it was so fucking sweet i wanted to ram my car right through their trunk.
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April 23, 2004
warning label
i've decided. there should be a surgeon general's warning clearly displayed on the label of every alcoholic beverage:
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: If you consume more than 3 or more alcoholic beverages, check with your girlfriends before attempting to operate any telecommunication device (including cell phones, text messaging, and email). Excessive Alcohol Consumption Causes Impaired Judgement, Irrational Thinking, And May Complicate Your Social Life.
that's all i have to say about that.
Posted by heidijanet at 08:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 10, 2004
it's quirky to be single?
during my morning commute last week, one of the top editorial stories for the morning news was announced, "is it possible to be single and happy? one happily single woman calls this idea, being a 'quirky single'..."
this disturbs me. not that someone can be single and happy, but that it has been coined as quirky.
as a single, professional woman in her early thirties, i have found myself surrounded by women, and some men, that are fixated on meeting someone that will make them happy. for the rest of their life. this idea frightens me a little. but what frightens me more is that so many people perceive "happy" and "single" as mutually exclusive ideas. which annoys me to no end.
now, don't get me wrong, i'd love to meet someone that i enjoy spending time with. if that enjoyment happened to last a lifetime, all the better.
but i seem to be surrounded by people who seem to have taken on a second job devoted to finding their perfect, lifelong partner. endless hours spent researching cosmo, preening, grooming and strategizing for how to draw this one person out of the faceless crowds. lately, every conversation seems to be dominated by finding that one person to complete us and make us whole.
behavior is analyzed and over-analyzed ad naseum. wracking brains about what this or that really means. a 300-pound yoke of expectation is hung around the neck of every first date, dalliance or interlude. ultimatums are given, rigid interpretations and compatability lists are made. it's fucking exhausting.
i'm not suggesting that i don't fall victim to some of these overanalyzations and obsessions from time to time, i do. it's part of the fun. but, i'm not trying to triangulate the position of that one person to determine whether or not they are a suitable for a lifelong attachment--i'm beginning to suspect that some people just aren't well-suited to that. what i take issue with is the prevailing notion that we are not, and never will be, completely whole until a mate is found.
i cling to the idea that if i am happy with where i am right now, and become comfortable in my own skin, only then would i be able to or even interested in sharing a bit of that with someone else.
what i want to understand better is why so many of us hang our hopes for happiness and fulfillment around the necks of other people that are, in effect, doing the exact same thing. do two unhappy, incomplete and dysfunctional people make one happy, fulfilled whole?
i suspect not. and i suspect that we are asking too much of other people and not enough of ourselves.
and the idea that choosing to be happy and single can be described as "quirky" is just one more indication that as a culture we have wholly unrealistic expectations surrounding coupledom.
which of course, might explain why 50% of men and over 40% of women cheat on their spouses. it also might explain why half of all marraiges end in divorce.
so why do we cling to these romantic ideals of marraige? and how is it that being voluntarily single and happy is something quirky?
i wonder.
Posted by heidijanet at 11:30 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
January 21, 2004
knit one, purl uh knit another
i spent my monday holiday, with my mother and my step-grandmother florence. mother wanted to go to a store called the "yarn lady", thinking that with florence being the farm-raised, wholly domesticated woman that she is, she'd be tickled. of course mother didn't bother to ask if florence had ever even picked up a knitting needle. she hadn't.
what she didn't count on, was that her 32-year old unmarried childless workaholic urbanite of a daughter, who considers the coffee machine her only useful appliance and take-out food cooking at home, would walk into the yarn lady, let out a little squeal of glee at the hand-loomed, hand-dyed nobby yummy yarn and subsequently rush the crowd of greying ladies to snatch a knitting for beginners tutorial, a pair of #36 needles and 2 skeins of fantastic merino wool and plop down her credit card.
i've been knitting since monday, my fingers are sore and i've had to redo the scarf once already [damn tie off!] and i love it.
and i just know that somewhere there is a spate of exes, girlfriends and family members that are slack-jawed in shock convinced that surely the fourth horse of the apocalypse has, in fact, arrived.
Posted by heidijanet at 02:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 20, 2004
logjam
okay so my long absence from entries has created a log jam in my mind, so much has happened over the last few weeks...christmas parties, celebrations, visits and photos with family, new years, excessive consumption, unbelievable workload, travel to vegas, spectacular lapses in judgement and complete lack of sleep...i could go on and on...but it's just too overwhelming to try.
so i'll just recant my most recent lapse in judgement, mostly because the others [as usual] are not fit for print.
so i'm in the garage, digging out the christmas decoration boxes having finally decided to pack away my fabulous, if a little excessive, christmas lights and my precious charlie brown tree. i crane my neck and spy the ones i need at the top of the "box stack", towering 10 feet above my head. so i decide to scale the inevitable jumble that lives in every garage (isn't there? if you don't have a garage jumble, then give me a ring, you're hired) in front of the stack of boxes. with my right foot on the back of my grandmother's old puke-green wingchair that i refuse to get rid of, and my left on top of the dresser that holds all my childhood clothing, i reach way up to pull down the boxes. as i pull backward on the second box [you can see where this is headed can't you?] i stupidly try to do some sort of jerky pull so i don't bring the box lid down. because, you know it's far more important to _not_ lose the box lid.
at the second jerky pull [heh. no pun intended], i lose my balance, drop the box, do the slow cartoon-esque clockwise motion of my hands... "whoa...oh...no...fuck!", i reach back and grab the edge of the open door behind me, which promptly swings shut bringing me and the jumble down hard with excellent commotion on the concrete, cushioned only by my fortunately [for once in my life] ample behind. i also managed to jam the front fender of my bright-yellow low-rider bicycle into the lower left of my back. *oof* so now i have a knot bruise the size of texas in the middle of my back and my left ass feels permanently clenched.
i swear to god, i need supervision.
sigh.
Posted by heidijanet at 02:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 04, 2004
pursuit of happiness
i've had several conversations with friends about the pursuit of happiness lately. i had the luxury of meeting up with my friend ariel recently and we ended up in a discussion about her writings and how they might be organized, which led to an exchange how her perspective tends to be misinterpreted as overly positive. if there is such a thing.
the conversation subsequently turned toward the observation about how we live our lives and experience joy, in direct correlation to our understanding of suffering.
she described a woman she knows that has led a fairly positive life, great family, fulfilling marriage, financial stability, and yet this woman still manages to infuse her daily life with a tremendous amount of self-inflicted worry, complaining and unhappiness. the assertion was that we, have a need to "balance" our lives with a corresponding level of unhappiness to compensate for our good fortune. and vice versa.
while i believe that this is fundamentally true, i also suspect that in this assertion the element of choice has been left out. ultimately, i believe that as humans we are incapable of a sustained state of happiness. we hope, we strive for something better. something more than what we have. this is what drives us on a daily basis to overcome the shit that life throws our way, and also creates our common sense of "if this is good, then more is better" mentality.
a friend forwarded an article to me today about a psychologist that studies "happiness" and our pursuit of such. i found this article interesting, but also (like many "studies") predictable.
it suggests that we are, as humans, capable of extraordinary adaptability. that when asked to choose between some kind of hypothetical misfortune and another, we not only make incredibly short-sighted selections, we grossly underestimate our capacity to survive, and in fact thrive, in the face of a particular adversity.
anyone who has experienced great hardship, learns that we are far more capable of surviving than we might have ever imagined. and through this adversity, often find that happiness is not in what we achieve, nor in what we posess, but in our capacity to appreciate what we have at this very moment.
i had another friend who told me once that he would never place his faith in anything that could be lost easily. to never count on money, looks, security, health or the "bright and shiny shit" to offer lasting contentedness. and i found this to be sage advice, until i learned that just about anything can be lost in an instant.
through the last few years, through a bit of rough treatment by the universe, i found that the only thing we can control, is our reaction to any given event. that we have a choice. our happiness directly correlates to our understanding of suffering. but that this happiness is also a choice. how we intrerpret and learn from our experience. i suspect that the only thing that might offer lasting satisfaction is borne of our ability to choose who and what we love. how we spend our time and the value we accord it.
and if we mistakenly expect that there is someone, or something, that will fill this void, or become a salve for our dissatisfaction, then we are ultimately doomed to a lifetime of misery.
but more importantly, i suspect that because we are naturally inclined to balance our suffering or good fortune with its natural counterpart, it becomes more important to understand the element of choice in this equation.
i'm not sure that i've totally made up my mind on this, because perhaps in the face of great hardship we can only adapt and survive because we have no choice. but i'm not sure this thinking accounts for all of the miserable, depressed folks that have given over to their hardship nor the incredibly happy, seemingly oblivous, people i've run across over the years.
either way, i'll continue to plod on in my pursuit.
Posted by heidijanet at 11:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 26, 2003
t-day all nighter
**update on the turkey adventure**
i've uncovered crucial information on how to *brine* a turkey -- who knew you had to do that? now i get what mike was talking about with his uber-geeky MS Project chart illustrating that he'll be pulling an all-nighter tonight!
when i was strolling down the aisle at trader joe's, i had images of plopping the turkey in the pot, stuffing something in the cavity, shoving it in the oven and it would come out all nice and brown in a couple of hours! apparently this is not true.
so tonight there will be a turkey brining, soaking, brewing, roasting all-nighter party at my house. it'll be just like college, cramming before finals in the common room with a bunch of stressed out, exhausted girls in footy pajamas only to end up getting shitfaced at 3am and making the horrible decision to bleach my hair, falling asleep...and waking up with distinctly chrissy snow hair at the precise moment that i needed to be 2 miles away taking my final. then driving like a bat out of hell down to campus, parking my 1972 red bronco in the middle of the lawn in front of the testing center, sprinting up the stairs in the same footy pajamas having completely forgotten what i'd crammed into my head the night before.
that will be me. tonight. only instead of finals it's turkey. and instead of my professor it will be my mother. this is much worse my friends, much worse.
so please, come on over. bring the hair bleach and a six-pack and save me from myself, and my predictably poor judgement.
Posted by heidijanet at 11:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 21, 2003
back on 2 [wobbly] feet!
GREAT NEWS! i went my doctor's appt yesterday but i went in with little hope of any major progress -- almost 8 months of incredibly slow moving progress (pun intended) creates a bit of hoplessness in that regard -- and finally, music to my ears, the BONE IS HEALED!!
i can now wear 2 normal shoes, count 'em two! no more confusing my single flip flop wearing with undergarments (hey, give me a sec to put on my thong). no more hand controls in my car (i can now irresponsibly coffee drink and cell phone talk with thre rest of the population if i please) and best of all i can now go shoe shopping with excitement (no more "oh poor me" looking at the useless half of an adorable pair of shoes and kerplunking away).
i still limp, and it hurts and i have a cane. but no more thump clunk of the ugly boot. i might even regain my girlish gait a little. maybe even dance. the possibilities are endless.
Posted by heidijanet at 06:18 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 10, 2003
pardon my banana
at dinner after a long day and a few drinks.
woman#1: what is the unisex name for host/hostess?
woman #2: i don't think there is one.
man#1: it's host.
woman #1: why are the unisex titles always the male version?
woman #2: i don't know.
man #2: lifting up his tumbler of gin & tonic, "because men rule! here's to men!"
man #1: lifting up with whipped cream topped, plastic dolphin decorated daquiri with a banana garnish perched on the side -- "yeah! here's to men!!", banana plops into the gin & tonic.
man #2: **horrified**
man #1: **sheepish** oh, um pardon my banana.
Posted by heidijanet at 06:50 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack