say cheese

He posted this on his blog!

secret superhero surprise

I’m still coughing. Seriously. Hacking up lungs every time I go from horizontal to vertical or vice versa. I’m starting to crave Robitussin and wonder what type of cookie would taste best dipped in it. Chocolate chocolate chip would compliment the cherry taste well, no? It says on the bottle to consult a physician if coughing lasts more than seven days. Assuming they mean earth days, I should have gone in about a month ago.

Two Wednesdays have passed. That is one more Wednesday than usual.

In spite of my designation as a “sick person” I got gussied up (read: showered) and headed to Wednesday Night Rendezvous Number One with The Boy On Whom I Have Crush. I accidentally on purpose got a little drunk and we somehow wound up thumb wrestling. (Important side note: I have never thumb wrestled a boy I didn’t later sleep with!) I think he officially “made eyes” at me when I first sat down and there were about 10 perfect minutes when our legs were touching from hip to knee. The night ended well enough - us chatting outside the bar and him asking me to stay as I walked away, waving, with Boo to her car. Which rat pack type said always leave them wanting more? That’s riiiiiiight.

We met in a bar and while that’s nothing to be ashamed of, it doesn’t give much for the best man to say during the toast, so I decided to launch a secret admirer campaign to up the cuteness a few notches and give us both something to smile about in the meantime. He has, according to his myspace page, one and a half fake teeth. I do not know the story, nor do I know which teeth. Which is a relief - meaning they are not gold nor made out of anything other than tooth-like material. His smile is flawless. Appreciating it as I do, I stitched up one an a half plush teeth complete with happy faces and mailed them to him at work in a rather plain envelope lacking a return address.

Behold the camera phone foto!


I mailed them on Monday and come Wednesday Number Two, I was all a twitter to see if he guessed it was me. I expected a pointed question about my sewing skills or some clever ploy to get a handwriting sample but upon arriving at the Wednesday Night Rendezvous HQ, he was no where to be found! The horror!! All his friends were there, everyone was chatting and drinking and chatting some more. Boo and I settled in and had a couple drinks and suddenly it seemed a good idea to confess my crush and mad sewing skillz to his office mate. Erik is a fine lad. Friendly, smart and secret worthy. After about 15 minutes of qualifying if he could keep a secret and about 10 more minutes making him promise and double promise and then super promise that he would, I said this: Did any strange mail arrive at your office this week?

His eyes big. Open mouthed smile. Finger pointed at me. He said: That was YOU?!? His mouth was still formed in the “o” shape when The Boy On Whom I Have A Crush patted him on the shoulder and we all yelped like the Beatles had just walked into the room. Erik stood up! I yanked him down! Boo started laughing! Maggie threw herself against the back of her chair! He, well, all he did was look confused and order a drink. About 5 minutes later he sat down and asked what we had all been talking about, Maggie cleverly and without skipping a beat replied: Our periods.

Like the other nights, he and I wound up sitting by each other and talking over the music. Yelling in his ear has overtaken singing in the shower as my most favorite thing to do. The gratuitous touching amounted mostly to high-fives this time around but the night ended with him saying that he would like us to hang out more. Did you catch that? He. Would. Like. Us. To. Hang. Out. More. HECK YES!

On the way out the door I grabbed Erik and found out that he was teased about the mystery crush and stuffed teeth the entire day of their arrival. He tossed out a couple names of possibility and I was not in the mix. But! He had talked about me that week. Erik also said the postmark was too smeared to read so they couldn’t even tell if this girl lived in Seattle or Denver or Nashville. Couldn’t have planned it any better!

I have two more packages in mind and after they are sent, I’m handing him a note the that reveals my secret identity as the maker of plush teeth and other delights. It’s the bravest thing I may ever do. Let’s hope he smiles.

take a picture

The new kitchen looks like all the other kitchens I’ve had and there is something very comforting about that. Old and charming with a big porcelain sink and window looking out to the back yard. Something about it makes me want to mash potatoes and bake a pie. It inspires me to fold the dish towel and hang it sweetly over the oven door handle. Suddenly, I am the maker of cozy. Stand still too long and I’ll wrap you in blankets and turn on cartoons. Watch out! I’ll smooth down your hair with a licked finger and top it off with a kiss on your forehead. Make room in your fridge because you aren’t leaving without a tupperware container full of left overs. That’s just how it’s gonna be.

Aside from the near nervous breakdown the move unlashed and the 30 hours of sleep it induced, it went pretty smoothly. The week leading up to it was filled with hard to get sales calls and me nursing a bad cough. Or perhaps The Consumption. I’d pack and swill Robitussin until which time I’d pour myself into a pair of dress pants and hoof off to the 41st floor of a swanky high rise office tower to pitch the benefits of online advertising with a smile. In three days I probably eeked out a mere 6 hours worth of work and somehow my boss was still pleased with me. God love him.

I slept after that. 18 hours on Saturday. 12 hours on Sunday. Putting away dishes and folding laundry for the few hours I was vertical, pushing the recommended daily dosages on cough syrup and Advil. Come Monday I was shocked to still be sick figuring the germs would have died from sheer boredom if nothing else. Four blocks from here is a drug store containing my next bottle of cherry flavored silence that I’ll be due to purchase tomorrow if my immune system can’t crack this puzzle. But if you think that will stop me from my Wednesday evening rendezvous with The Boy On Whom I Have A Crush, you’d be wrong. I’m going to go on the assumption that he finds cold medicine induced stoopidity charming and thinks Halls Vapor Action breath is sexy.

I have a mountain of art supplies to unpack. I was fairly unaware of the magnitude of my craft arsenal. It seems big enough to require some kind of license or registration with the state. I have enough pipe cleaners to reenact Hands Across America in stick figurine. Enough glitter to glam up the Space Needle. Paint for days. Sharpies by the dozen. I have the evil plan of turning my bedroom into an art studio in which I sleep. Ideas for shelving and storage bins are dancing in my head. I see bulletin boards with tacked up sketches and a big basket of yarn in my future. It’ll be a fine fine day when painting requires little more than sitting down and the skirt I want to make is covering my ass instead of kicking around my head. Making things keeps me happy. And out of trouble. So make things, I will.

The move was the last stressful thing on the agenda. That’s not to say another thing won’t come up and bite me in the ass, but after the break up with the Boy I Should Have Never Been Seeing, the job change, The Event ... it seems as though a break is in order. I’m playing it cool, focusing on art and work and filling my time with as much peace and glee as I can pack in. I’m shooting for a calm that borders on boring and if I even land close to it, I’ll be glad. I imagine my blog deteriorating into shopping lists and detailed cat updates. I can picture myself chatting with clients about how cool it is to watch dust settle. Like really cool, mind blowing cool. Like the plastic bag in American Beauty. You can’t take your eyes off it kind of cool.

spring is white and fluffy

Lesson of the week: Egg replacer is like magic.

Boo is vegan and into metal. She also bakes cupcakes. Jessica and I got in on the action Tuesday night and low and behold if the cupcakes weren’t as tasty and softer than regular cupcakes. If softness is a criteria for your cupcake enjoyment, I highly recommend giving egg replacer a try. It comes in a box and for $1.49 you have enough egg replacer to last a lifetime even if you have some weird longevity gene. It’s an amazing value.

Cupcake Quote Of The Week: “I wonder if you could bake a really big cupcake. Oh wait, that would just be a cake.” I said that and sadly, I wasn’t even drunk.

Saw a rock n’ roll show. Saw The Boy On Whom I Have A Crush at that rock n’ roll show. We stood by each other and yelled things over the music. Drank beer and smiled a whole lot. I blushed a couple of times. Said a couple of silly things. Had an impure thought or two while yelling into his ear. I wish I had sang a Barry Manilow song when he prompted me to sing a little something for him. I woulda picked “Can’t Smile Without You” or maybe something we coulda disco’d to like “Copa Cabana.” I would have called him Tony the rest of the night and bought him a drink with an umbrella in it. This is my favorite. The happy that comes with potential. Even if the potential is just for another Wednesday night. Giggly and smiling on the bus. A reminder that happy is perennial. Just like the grass.

My favorite thing about this boy so far: his smile.

I’m moving in less than 7 days. My apartment is a sea of boxes and my cat is nervous. The new place is lovely. Full of windows and charming. It’s in Queen Anne and handy to everything. Right now, my current place, only handy for 3am drug runs and not much else. Oh wait, handy for getting mugged. And for throbbing techno beats. There are plenty of those around. But soon there will be squirrels and morning walks and pleasant smells instead. I’m going to get a plant and maybe a fish. And I’m setting up an art space so it’s easy to paint and sew. And less easy not to. Once I’m settled in, I’ll invite y’all over for dinner.

What I’ll make: potpie. Because it’s the funniest sounding food.

I had the most wonderful email exchange with my boss. About a job in marketing that opened up and my curiosity if the new girl, meaning me, could apply. Apparently I can. And apparently, he was hoping I would. He’d still be my boss (!) and tomorrow we’re going to coffee together to talk details. It’s not even the money or the neat new title. It’s the chance to have a job where ideas are the currency because I’m rich with those. I can promote and sponsor things in my sleep. I can hang a banner with my eyes closed. If I get this, man, again - Proof! Perennial like the grass. You can’t keep the happy down. It rises to the surface like air bubbles.

Bloop bloop bloop.

learning to name things

All the milestones hit at once. I turned 35 on Saturday. Said goodbye to my proclaimed Year of Debauchery and toasted in The Year of Conscious Choices - designed solely for the purpose of keeping me out of trouble. Tomorrow is my one year anniversary of leaving Minneapolis. The yellow Ryder truck, the small Montana made me feel, the cute punk rock boy I was lucky enough to kiss. A few days after that I started my new job. Met the then strangers that would become my best friends. Met the boy I still can’t put into words. Realized quickly that a year lease is a really long time in a sketchy neighborhood. I remember getting here and thinking Seattle was all possibility. That I was going to change someone’s life. That I had changed mine. Three hundred and sixty five days later, I still feel the exact same.

Potential / potently.

Birthday events like comic book panels. Moving the story right along. A midnight donut run with Boo where we listened to a homemade fart CD. Not our handiwork, mind you. Charlie’s Greatest Hits. By track 62, I was having a hard time catching my breath. By track 85, Boo was curled up into a little giggling ball. Next. A mad chase to follow a shopping cart race. Waving and yelling as Chris and friends rode past our window, red shopping cart bouncing wildly behind them, pirate flag flapping in the breeze. Later. Someone else's birthday party. It was attended by a hodge podge of artists, musicians and indy business types. A faded rock star working on a feedback opera. A tattooed man in grad school for nursing. There was a rice crispy treat cake with frosting and mashed up Whoppers that was so dense you coulda killed a guy with it. An accidental puddle of fake blood on the driveway. An art piece that had a life of it’s own.

Birfday / burpday.

It ended quiet enough. Hidden away at the Hideout. Drinking drinks and talking talk. Further proof that Boo knows everyone: I met a boy there, friend of a friend of hers. We raced each other picking up ice cubes with straws used as chop sticks. Smiling wide the whole time. Somewhere in the middle I had that sudden awareness of how I was sitting. That shy nervousness about how close our hands would get. Plans for Wednesday. Or the Wednesday after that. An open invite. A certain rematch. When we said good night he held my hand for a second too long and looked me right in the eye, “It was nice to meet you, Heather.” Stomach knot. Butterflies. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Gun-shy / gushy.

I think this is where I say thanks, kids. For the birthday and for the year. For taking in the Midwestern girl and overlooking my inability to use hip hop slang correctly. For the happy hours gone awry and the ones that didn’t. For being the bright spots in an otherwise dim job. For letting me befriend your friends. For driving me all over this twisty city. And then for driving me all over it again. For giving me a sense of family when mine is so far away. For honest to goodness, no holds barred, without question being there for me when I needed it. For making me feel like the kid sister. For making me feel on top of the world. Y’all are living proof against the idea that Seattlites are cold and aloof. You could melt ice caps. Or boil water. You’ve made me feel right at home.

Aww shucks / awe struck.

pretty on the blue

My last post. The last two paragraphs. Have lingered a little. Hung around. Disappointed. Disappointed that I’d have those feelings. Disappointed that I’d write them down. I shouldn’t miss him. And there are many days where I don’t. But I haven’t written those days down because they don’t lay on the page as lovely. Longing is pretty. Missing is pretty. It’s veiled and soft somehow. It’s starring out a window. But the sour that boils up in me some days. That isn’t pretty. Every time I try to write the why of it, it spits out juvenile and clunky. Filled with and thens. And then, and then he, and then. I imagine myself catching my breath between accusations. Finger pointed. Wet cheeks.

So I don’t write it.

Instead it gets blown away when I’m looking for my keys, or lost in the mail. It gets packed away and forgotten about or handed off in a knowing look. It gets dropped or kicked under a table. It gets left on the bus. It falls out of my pockets when I sit down. Or stand up. It washes off me in the shower. Twirling down the drain. Married to the soap suds and smelling like cherry blossoms. You can’t always tell the vinegar by its smell. And sometimes the pretty reeks of sugar beets. My hair reaches the middle of my back now and see. Time heals all. All, time heals. Heel. He. Eels. Hey kid, it’s. Time to move on.

Off. On. Off.

On.

Had drinks and tiny appetizers with Boo and a Boy With A Very Small Head. This was overheard: I’m a hermaphrodite. This was said out loud: It was a different fucking Algerian. Number of tofu puffs consumed: 2 dozen. Number of chopsticks used on both ends: 1 pair. Number of people with dark hair: two. Number of girls: one less than three. Number of mixed drinks consumed: too times two. Did you know that in the movie, he kills her because she is terribly inconvenient. Know what else, I’ve been terribly inconvenient. So there. At least I wasn't murdered. At least. That didn’t happen. Or at least I don't think it did becuase whenever you breath out, I breath in. Positive. Negative. Positive.

NeGaTiVE.

I think I just took a step sdrawkcab.

Nah. I’m moving right along.

Another afternoon there was Brad and me. We were both wearing dress pants, slacks I said, trousers he laughed. And talking on a conference call. All his papers were dog eared and we walked away with a $100,000 contract to split. Banana split. He said she swirled her ice like Yahtzee. And I told him I thought the word sticky was a terribly ridiculous thing to have a conversation about. With the window down my hair spun around my head. An updraft (like fingers) brushing my neck. I wished for my sunglasses as we drove toward the city, across the floating bridge. I wanted to see if I could walk on water. I wanted to see if I’d sink or float. I wanted to see if it would recognize me after all this time.

Because that’s my home town.

Where everything is fluid. Where everything bobs with the waves.

look at what you did

Coming. Slow. Again. It’s been two weeks and seems like everything I wanted to say has been mushed together. In a ball. Like Play-Dough. And the happy parts are yellow. Like happy parts always are. Like street signs and banana taffy. Yellow like the sound of birds. Or yellow like taxi cabs. Yeah yellow, just like that.

There were parties. Two to be exact. But only one where I accidentally dressed like a French hooker. Black and white striped shirts and fishnets have a way of doing that. Instead of changing I made extra effort to throw my hips into my walk. Swish. Swish. Boom. Boom. I had my hair in folded up pig tails and drank red wine with a sense of purpose. The other one, we made cupcakes and I smiled wide like a 6 year old the whole entire time. Frosting with a pastry bag and choosing from trays of pretty to top the hill of buttercream. I smelled like sugar for two days. It was in my hair. My earlobes. That little place on my neck.

And then.

I made art and my hands were pewter from the wire. 5th Annual. Shrinky Dink. Invitational Art Auction. First ever. Time. I was invited. I drew colorful fancy-filled leaves and watched them curl and wiggle down to 1/5 their original size. Sticking the wire through the tiny holes and twisting it carefully around the branches of my stolen twig in the exact perfect way I’d think a pink polka dotted leaf would grow. Still more wire to hang it. Silver metal washers for balance. A few felt leaves to add a little soft. It was the biggest piece in the show and was bid on before I left. Smiling I said goodbye and wondered whose window it would be casting shadows from.

And then.

Procrastination caused an accidental meeting and a cat hair covered couch caused an accidental phone call to The Boy I Try Hardest Not To Think About. (Tuesday) Cleaning out the art space on the absolute last day we could clean out the art space, his mussed hair made him look like a little kid. He had on brown corduroy pants. The perfect brown, really. Cadbury if creamier. The color of the 1975 light brown M&M. I got my things and left as quickly as I came. Waiting for the elevator, I thought about the rock I held in my hand for two days straight and let the wave of missing him come and go. (Then Friday.) Transferred to him, I said nooooooooo even as it rang. Even as he answered. Even as he said there is a place in Fremont that takes unwanted couches. I mostly just wanted off the phone. I mostly just wanted to have been transferred to Chris. Where a call about a couch is a call about a couch. And not where a call about a couch is a call about a couch, ya know? Hanging up, I quickly started flipping though pages of market research on wine drinkers in Western Washington and figuring out ways to spend $10,000 of someone else’s money in a month’s time. When really. I just wanted to look out the window and remember how we’d laugh and kiss and how his hands would slide all over me.

But.

He looked so beautiful in the half light of my bedroom. Making me laugh and scream and pull his hair all at. The. Same. Time. Wine drinkers are 25 times more likely to visit us online than non-wine drinkers. The print buy is twice as much, with twice as much free. How do I write that? Let me try this. This. This connection could have powered a small city some days. Electric as I fed him licorice in a dark movie theater. Sparks when I'd kiss his ear. By adding online you increase your reach to wine drinkers by 35%. For just 10% more investment. How. Can. You. Say. No? He was pulling down the elevator gate as we all waved good-bye. And I was walking backwards for a second. Looking for the eject button and instead turning off the radio. Thanks for your time today. I look forward to working together to further promote and brand Washington wines.