the heidi chronicles

2008-05-05T17:37:00.002-04:00

it just occurred to me...

if i was ever engaged to marry you, please tell your little sister i said hi.

well, jamie - you don't have to. i already did that today.

but as for the rest of you...

2008-04-02T17:35:00.000-04:00

i would just like to take this opportunity to tell this man that i (heart) him

2007-09-18T16:42:00.000-04:00

the nice older couple next to me on the flight home asked, "do you live in atlanta?"

"born and raised."

"we visited once. only place we have ever been robbed." apparently they just missed someone breaking into their car in a parking garage on 5th street. 'they must have been in a hurry; all they took was my purse."

when i related this tale to the boys a few hours later, chuck smirked and reminded me that his place was on 5th.

where my truck was parked.

irony is a bitch.

2007-08-13T15:42:00.000-04:00

my childhood was awesome!

Aunt Christy, you rock!

2007-07-27T15:14:00.001-04:00

potter geeks

2007-07-24T21:09:00.000-04:00

missed one... and a very important one at that

2007-07-19T19:38:00.000-04:00

30 days until 30 years.

my 20's are over soon.

a few wishes for my third decade:

- a pair of wellies

- to see japan, ireland, iceland, venice... not necessarily in that order

- to live in a new city

- more blue hair

-to be healthier (if not a bit thinner and more in shape)

- people to stop asking when we're having kids (i would like my husband to myself for a while, thank you)

- to have one job

- or perhaps to go to grad school

- for snow patrol to stop sucking

- for america to be as smart as it is obese

- to find my long lost copy of the YELLOW SUBMARINE cd, or for whoever has it to realize that it is not theirs

- for the last two Harry Potter movies to do the novels justice

- to see more Broadway

- to see more UK

- drawers full of new underwear and sandal socks

- new danskos

- to have more me time

- a continued happy marriage (i heart my russian)

- new tires and windshield, perhaps even back bumper, for the pick-up

- for my friends to be happy and successful

- for my place of employment to be happy and successful (i heart my job)

- to see Equus again when it comes to NYC

- to never lose any of the friendships i currently hold dear

2007-07-19T19:36:00.001-04:00

welcome to the world, miss evelyn!

we're glad you're here.

2007-07-16T19:33:00.000-04:00

things that have happened in my half-year of blog absentia:

- we moved into the bigger half of our duplex when our awesome landlady moved to france for two years. Now we have a living room! And a Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

-i have a new boss, not a new job

-i retired from props. forever. (we'll see)

- we got our greencard! the interviewer was an immigrant himself. he totally didn't understand what i did for a living - ("Shakespeare? Like the guy who wrote plays?") and asked more questions about the russian's doctorate program than about our marriage...

The highlight was when he asked this: "Ilya, have you ever been convicted of a crime? Were you in the Komsomol?" crime and communism - they go hand in hand, you know.

- with our shiny new greencard, we traveled to the UK. There I saw the splendor of old York, spent Easter Sunday drinking a Guinness in beautiful Avebury, set my watch to official PM time, and saw Daniel Radcliffe take his kit off. (He was truly magnificent in Equus, btw.)

- died large chunks of my hair blue - as you may have noted from last night's post. it faded to purple. then i did it again. well, my stylist did. (she's awesome!)

- saw many a concert, with many more to come this year. high on the list of favorites: Bloc Party and the Decemberists with the Atlanta Symphony!

-started playing music trivia. which rocks my world.

- and worked. way too much.

2007-07-15T19:49:00.000-04:00

for those who ask, "why the blue hair?"... here's the progression of childhood obsessions leading up to it...

i am showing my 30 years, huh?

though i will say, i never expected that people would almost only comment to compliment. i guess that means maybe i don't look like a blue-haired freak!

2006-12-21T11:23:00.000-05:00

can i just say that that guy i married... the russian one...

he effin' rocks.

2006-12-04T16:02:00.000-05:00

Samurai husband.

Kuntskamera

This and more here.

2006-11-13T01:50:00.001-05:00

I am leaving Syktyvkar today.

What follows is the speech I have given to my husband's parents what feels like a zillion times in my head, but that I am too afraid of sobbing to tell them out loud, the way I do when I merely think about it:

I am always incredibly self-conscious when I travel. Over time, the more cultures I have experienced, the less and more self-conscious I have become. Less about my appearance, as i have come to realize that my own culture is the most superficial I know, and moreso about being seen as such simply based on my being American. It's sad that I feel this shame, but right now it is well-founded.

Imagine then, how anxious I must have felt to be not simply visiting Russia - a place that during the Cold War, which I and my husband grew up on different sides of, was "the enemy" and my country theirs - but to have married into it as well. To have my in-laws there. In America, there is already an expectancy that your spouse's family will love you or hate you and there is little in between.

However, I am humbled to find that I have should have known all along that I would be accepted here.

There is this thing in Ilya - something warm and loving and caring and giving - that made me love him in the first place. Instantly I saw the same thing present in Dasha and I loved her on sight. It would only make sense that as you made them, you made them the beautiful people that they are. That this light they carry is a gift from you.

I am amazed that having grown up being told that Russians are cold, miserable human beings - though as I grew to think for myself I knew this could not wholly be true - to find that Ilya's family - mama, papa, Dasha, Tania, all - are a structural unit with the kind of loving support system that extends only barely beyond parents and children in my normal world.

As my husband is now calling me Tolstoy because I have gone on so much, let me leave it at this. I am happy and honored and privileged to not only have been embraced and welcomed into your family, but to have spent this time feeling as if I had always been a part of it.

I love you.

2006-11-12T03:51:00.000-05:00

yesterday i felt like i was in a spy movie.

museums in Russia charge a higher admission to foreigners; in the case of the national gallery in Syktyvkar, that is admission is four times as much. however, my quiet manner fooled the staff and they didn't even bother to ask ilya if i was a local. afterward, ilya told me to speak as little english as possible. i kept my mouth shut the whole time - that is what you should do in art museums anyway, right?

of these works, all wholly unfamiliar to me, many were striking and many were dull, but all were new to me. though i could not read their titles, i remember one that i named myself "Still Life with Communisti."

on the way home, i was convinced our bus driver was frank black.

i bought out the souvenir shop - not really, but we managed to spend 1800 rubles... and returned home where ilya's family threw us a party. many toasts and several glasses of wine - the best wine form a box i have ever had, in all seriousness - but still i have not managed to partake of the vodka. what is wrong with me?

i am grateful that i don't know how to read metric scales well enough to be bothered to weigh myself. there's no way i will not have brought back some extra flesh as a souvenir.

here i will attempt to list the things i have eaten in the last 24 hours. note that some, but not even most, of these were consumed in single portions. the rest, as moy moozh's mama would have it, were in numerous doses: tea; bread with meat and cheese; pickles; pickled cherry tomatoes; tea cake; salad of crab, egg, and corn; salad of cabbage, carrots, and corn with mayonnaise; olives galore; salted mushrooms in sour cream (YUM); more meat and cheese; more bread and butter; morse (or nectar of the gods); cranberries in sugar; salmon; golubotsi - meat, peppers, and rice wrapped in cabbage leaves; chicken; mashed potatoes; sauteed mushrooms; lavrik's famous meat salad; cucumbers, tomatoes, and red bell pepper straight from the garden; chocolates; wine, wine, and more wine; pepsi; more tea cake; fruit - oranges, pears, grapes; ice cream; ice cream with raisins; more chai - tea.

that was just the last 24 hours. don't get me started on Alina's borscht or the shainga aunt Tania brought me at theatre.

friday night - late morning for most of my world - i was treated to a traditional dance and music performance. though it was in Russian for this performance, Asya Kria normally perform entirely in Komi, the native tongue of this region. i couldn't understand a word, but much as i imagine opera fans feel, that was completely irrelevant. it was a sight to behold in spite of any language barrier, if for the dancing alone. and the opportunity to bond with ilya's aunt Tania, whom i completely adore.

leaving the theatre, i heard the other American in Syktyvkar at the moment exiting behind me.

today is my last full day with ilya's family. the toasts made at yesterday's celebration, though ilya had to translate them, made a crybaby of me. i wanted most then to speak russian so i could toast his family and return their incredible kindnesses. i cried this morning as i thought of the simplest way to tell my Russian family how humbles and honored i am to be not only accepted by them, but treated as if i was always meant to be here...

my next post will be mushy like this. you have been warned.

2006-11-10T02:01:00.000-05:00

071161 - I made my wish and ate my magic ticket. A few moments later, I thought to myself, "Perhaps I should have wished for this bus not to tip over the way we're fishtailing on this ice." Alas, the driver was a seasoned one, and my wish would have been wasted.

I kissed Lenin on the forehead. There is photographic evidence. Dasha says that the CIA might take a special interest in such a picture. I say I have my answer for them ready -
"Oh, I thought it was John."
Nevertheless, you'll find no link to my portrait with Vladdy.

I have yet to have even a drop of vodka. What is that like?

Alina Adolfovna is, as Ilya put it, feeding me to kill me. Better this, I guess, than my mother-in-law actually feeding me to actually kill me... eh?

Night starts to fall here at 3 in the afternoon. My body has held out or Russia to start responding appropriately to such things. Husband says wifey "hibernates like bear."

While the rest of you are starting your day, I watch the sun melt into a blanket of snow.

Maybe I have lost weight. But I probably just feel thinner because here, I am not thought remotely close to fat. I find the only thing to be self-conscious about is being American. And that whole falling on my ass in the street thing.

Trying to read Cyrillic is like deciphering secret code.
A is A. B is V. C is S. N is E, but backwards. For that matter, so is E. P is R and M is M, but 3 is Z. My name starts with X and there isn't a single H in my name. My mama's name - Sherry - it begins with W. The rest might as well be Greek.

You have been reading Xaugu Kpohuku.

2006-11-09T08:07:00.000-05:00

today i found myself naked in above boiling point temperatures being beaten with fir limbs... for pleasure.

and i resisted the utter temptation to run out into the snow in the buff.

it was some beautiful russia i experienced this day.

2006-11-07T08:27:00.000-05:00

the things russia/russians has/have given me thus far (besides the best husband ever):

a warm reception, literally - complete with fur coat - see #4

the knowledge that moscow is a dismal place, in spite of its Ikea

an incredibly caring pair of inlaws (with tons of loving relatives to boot)

the genuine need to wear a fur coat (we cannot decide if its mink or squirrel)

the chance to experience a real winter

an appreciation for the things i have at home; especially the roof over my head

scarves out the wazoo

the best mushrooms ever

the joy of being told in earnest that i am too thin

more tea than in china

a greater fear of the communist party

more to come... my baby just got back

2006-10-11T12:19:00.000-04:00

Russian, I love you.

Russia, I hate you.

the "n" makes all the difference, apparently.

2006-10-09T22:24:00.000-04:00

miou-miou (the artist formerly known as d)and i insist that you see this film

2006-09-28T20:30:00.000-04:00

today i got my first ever CaT scan.

no, they did not find a cat.

it was nothing like when they do it on House (pouting).

2006-09-18T15:45:00.000-04:00

it might have been against my better judgement - and definitely against the russian's - but i joined my boys at mjq on saturday in spite of the congestion of my lungs - and had the best effin' time ever.

banquet twice on two separate dance floors. enough said.

(dear njg - i tried like hell to call you when we heard sexyback - but i'll be damned if my new(ish) service provider don't work underground!)

2006-09-05T16:53:00.000-04:00

when this was pointed out to me last night, i felt i had to share it.

in my defense, my husband the native son is the one who did said pointing:

"Syktyvkar, with a population about 250,000, is one of the least appealing towns in Russia. It has no nightlife, nothing in the shops, dreadful restaurants, a high crime rate and its hotels are full of cockroaches. There is a marginally picturesque quarter of the town with old wooden buildings known as 'Paris' because it was from that area that captured French soldiers were deported during the Napoleonic Wars. The immigration police are sticklers for the rules, so if you have the misfortune to go there, make sure your visa is in order."

more here

i'll let you all know in november...

2006-08-11T13:13:00.000-04:00

things i learned in nash-vegas:

alice cooper can be approriate circuit-boy music

and so can a journey ballad

there are too few compound words in the world that end in "back"

there are too many, however, that rhyme with "sexyback"

apparently "fancy" is a redneck word

melon margaritas have more booze in them

midori is not the wimpy drink you might think it to be

aqua's "barbie girl" is alive and well

no girl is safe - not even in the gay bar - from the dj withthe fancy pool

case looks better in my sunglasses than i do

every city needs a Hustler store

it's fun to dance in front of mirrors

steven merritt made a show tunes album

super furry and paul mccartney made a something album - i don't know what the hell you call it, but i love it

case: nashville is like if atlanta and athens were the same city

someone takes pictures of their food

2006-08-06T20:31:00.000-04:00

thursday night i paid homage to case nee and pj's goth calathetics (sp?)

in the process - and amongst teh abundant new order, thank you eric - i christened some of my signature dance moves. chuck's favorite is heretofor referred to as the waitress. my spinny move is now called "my adoring fands."

2006-06-24T14:30:00.000-04:00

my shoulder is really effin sore.

my shoulder is really effin sore because last night i was in my first wrestling match.

it was my first wrestiling match and it was in rice pudding.

at the end of the match i thought these words:

"what would the stinger do?"

and moments later, i answered my own question... and came out the victor.

the victor with rice in her ass.

2006-06-01T19:33:00.001-04:00

also of note: if you look at my profile picture, i am kissing george harrison in a still from a movie that is being played at the park right now. i am not there. because no one loved me enough to want to join me. and movies by yourself are fun, but screen on the green by yourself is pointless.

2006-06-01T19:33:00.000-04:00

i received spam recently from one Angel Tatum [tkropp@activcard.com]

this is funny because if we follow the Drag queen name formula:

Name of first pet + Mother's Maiden Name

then i sent this spam to myself.

what a strange, strange world.

2006-05-14T15:04:00.000-04:00

did you miss me?

i sure have. i have managed to bury myself under work and am just now getting my head up for air and communication with the outside world.

not much to report, as piling boring work details is not what i want to make you endure, no matter how giddy i felt putting 600-and-some-odd ticket orders in the postman's hands and as far from my desk as possible.

nevertheless, i think i can conjure up a few interesting thoughts that have occurred/ events that have occurred since i last typed into this tiny little text box.

first, happy mom's day to the best mom ever and my mother in law who clearly loves me though she's yet to meet me. my gift to her is that i will now work harder with my "Learn Russian" program so i can thank her appropriately when i see her in november.

my gift to the lovely lady who raised me is my undying affection and some orchestra seats to see Wicked. boo yaa

also notable:

someone i am very proud of took another big step toward a really big goal. and she let me take this one with her. i am honored.

two of my favorite people who live in cities that are not atlanta are in atlanta as we speak. the hangover prevention gunk i took last night and this morning has not really done me any good after my late night/morning of white russians (not the kind i am married to) and waffle house hash browns with one of them, so i feel better about not offering any to the other for his evening of high school reunioning.

i am still married. shocking, i know!

someone clearly created this marvelous adaptation of 1984 and set it in modern day america. we are all puppets in the show. woo hoo.

my husband had a birthday. i bought him what he wanted most: a tshirt that says "Guns don't kill people. Kids who play computer games kill people." and a promise to get him the new gameboy ds next month. i heart sarcasm.

i still like my job. i still hate stupid people. yes, i know. that's a LOT of hate.

i have decided that it is time to make good use of my fantastic new insurance coverage. once my shoulders are clear of the pile, i hope to obtain an optometrist, a therapist, and something to take care of my migraines, my angry digestive system, and my ever fluctuating cholesteral and weight. or soon i will become a sad sack of a human being.

my hair stylist, whom i adore and who has made my hair beautiful for the last two years is going to the other coast. me and my head will miss her terribly, but congrats to her. if san fran was an option for me, i'd jump on the first train too!

not the most exciting post, but the good news is - i am still breathing.

2006-04-11T18:56:00.000-04:00

this morning's commute reading was a right downer.

i hope i never meet my new deborah harry. i am not sure i'd really like her all that much.

2006-04-08T12:44:00.000-04:00

lately i haven't felt like i have had a lot to say. especially that wasn't all me me me.

then it occurred to me that, wait, this is - my blog... and the only people who read it are people who actually care about what's going on with me and who know i am a self-centered only-child brat, so hell, that's what it's suppose to be.

but i also don't wanna bore your pants off with nonsense like the day-to-day workings of a box office manager or well, crap like i am spewing right now.

so here are some fun facts about my life right now:

i have been watching a lot of Kids in the Hall. man, that bruce mccullough freaks me the shit out. what creature ate that poor boy's torso? i swear his legs - and dude he ain't got much height on me - start at his nipples.

but damn is he funny.

but he still creeps me out.

and i still love dave foley. hell, i love them all.

and watching KITH reminds me of quality college time spent with a few of you. especially you. yep, you g.c.

in case the rest of you are wondering, g.c. is an inside joke that many would find horribly, disgustingly offensive and politically incorrect. but me and g.c. still think it's a riot, even 9 years later.

holy crap! 9 years. damn, nicole. we're getting old.

oops, sorry. i am rambling.

well, that's what i do best.

also of note, i love my job. so much i dream about it. which is not one of its better aspects as right now, it's causing me to sleep pretty restlessly. nevertheless, i feel loved and appreciated and important, and that at least kinda balances itself out.

i also love being someone's (and a particular someone that just happens to be my husband) wife. though it feels absolutely no different than when we were just cohabitating. except that i have this pretty russian band on my finger and i got more money back at tax time.

how cool is it that i got married 27 hours before the year ended, and still got credit for the whole 365 days?

i also went to an alumni event for that college i and most of you went to this past weekend. none of you were there, save that blonde girl in Missouri that i love so much and whom i am not even sure reads this. but she knows i was there anyway because we closed the place down together and fought off a drunk englishman who couldn't stop telling us how beautiful our asses were in spite of the fact that he had only seen us from the front.

and boy was he drunk.

and no one there besides my two close friends - aforementioned blonde bombshell and my very first UK-excursion companion - even recognized me. which was pretty effing amusing... and relieving to which i am sure the rest of you who did not go can relate.

but i have to say, well, no i don't have to. i said it enough about my high school reunion... so you an reference that one.

i have also learned that seeing a therapist is maybe a good idea. which at first bothered the hell out of me because i have always prided myself on how well-adjusted i am emotionally/psychologically. well, then i remembered that i would like to stay that way and how that very presence in your life has helped many people that i love maintain that... and then it seemed like a much better idea. so if any has any recommendations, i am open...

it's no specific thing, i just think all the changes in my life in the last half-year or so and my ever-fickle-and-fluctuating weight and digestive system are throwing things a little off-course.

that and i could really use some quality time outside the borders of this descending handbasket we appear to be living in.

in a (bad, but incredibly well-written in spite of my disagreement) review i read for the new supergrass album, the critic sums up the critique with a stones quote (from my favorite and one of the five stones songs that i actually enjoy) that applies to my general mentality about all this - "what a drag it is getting old."

and to end on a happy note, i witnessed someone refuse to compromise their art in the face of conservative nagging this week. and they did so without giving it a second thought and not even caring. that inspires me, in spite of the context of my previous two paragraphs.

now, my time at work is up and i am off to buy the new YYYs album.

i hope.

2006-03-13T16:09:00.000-05:00

heidi has a new job.

well, heidi has an old new job - or is it a new old job? no i guess a new old job would be my most recent resignation and that was the third time i have left that place so it certainly isn't new...

yes so heidi has a new job that also happens to be akin (that is, with the same company) as few of her (that is, my) old jobs.

and i am happy about this. but it has been very time consuming. good in that work days fly by. negative in that this is the first opportunity that i have had to post anything in a while, and even now i am kind of sneaking it in.

on that note, i also don't have too much to say. but here are a few things in my head worth posted words:

*my best friend is in texas. and still sane. i commend her. and miss her.

*sometimes i discover that i can highly underrate my non-immediate family. my parents i could never do anything but praise since, well, they are the best damn parents ever. but times occur when i am reminded and then disappointed in myself that i had to be, that there are some pretty fantastic people outside that nucleus.

*scots make good rock music.

*i am culturally burnt. i don't think i have ever experienced this.

*listening to the verve's urban hymns album makes me feel like i am in a movie and mr. ashcroft is the score composer.

*much like the who, i have now developed a new taste for oreo cookies.

*must stop driving so much. it will be the end of my mental stability.

*love indeed does not make you blind.

*technology can prove to be as good as it is evil. how nice it is to be able to talk to any of your five best friends on a regular basis in spite of the fact that you're in atlanta and they are in nashville/dallas/new york/st. louis/4 exits south on interstate 85.

2006-02-20T21:34:00.000-05:00

Dear Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,

please don't fuck this one up.

love heidi

_________________________________________________________________________________

disillusioned with those pesky grammys at an early age, i tend to be skeptical of awards shows. it was that damned jethro tull incident. you imagine the let down and betrayal poor little adolescent hair-metal me felt when metallica got slighted (and didn't deserve it yet)... but when i found the rest of the madonna-loving scratching their heads and knitting their brows and mocking the recording academy or whoever for an inability to discern hard rock from prog -

yes prog. ian anderson plays a flute for gods sake.

however, any one who knows me knows i have a bizarre love affair with the oscars.

beginning when i was upset to learn that gary sinese - the ONLY good thing about Forrest Gump if you ask me - lost to martin landau. and i mean UP SET. some years later i would finally see ed wood, and remorse would make it difficult for me to finish it. that thing was landau's hands down. somewhere around 1998 or 1999 that was - whichever year Hillary and Jackie earned a best supporting actress nomination... from that point on, i made it a point to see as many nominated films as i could before the awards to save embarrassing me in front of myself like that again.

i promise i am getting to my point.

in fact, here it comes.

there have been moments when i have been pleasantly surprised (life is beautiful getting was it best actor?, my beloved jim broadbent winning for Iris) and moments i have been seriously disappointed (hello!!!! bill murray!!!!) and for a long time those have seemed to balance one another.

yet more and more i am witnessing a trend... i am sure other people have noticed it and christened with the names of others, but i call it the sean penn syndrome. i hate the sean penn syndrome.

sean penn is a gifted man and a damn good actor. maybe a jackass, but that's beside the point. the penns are a family chock full of it - michael, you'll always be my favorite.

and sean penn has deserved an oscar about eight times in the past that he's either been overlooked on the ballot or just left off altogether. dead man walking. seriously people. and suddenly the academy realizes it and says here... what did he do this year? oh that mystic river movie was great. i mean, he played a character he's played so many times he could have emailed it in, but since tim robbins was so fucking fantastic no one will really notice that we're nominating penn for one of his lesser career performances. that way we can give him an award and stop feeling so stupid. you know - like we did with denzel and that bad cop movie.

which was a great movie. but c'mon. how many people get oscars playing villains? and for that matter - why didn't daniel day lewis?

and thus another tangent.

slowly the familiar sense of disillusionment is closing in. and the final straw is coming.

2001 i said if benicio does not win for Traffic, i will never watch the oscars again.

he did. and i did.

2004 it was mr. tim "heidi's favorite actor in the whole world" robbins and the aforementioned Mystic River (in which he and marcia gay harding were the true bright spots).

he won and here i am.

and this time i really mean it.

and if felicity huffman doesn't win, i will not care about the oscars ever again.

four amazingly talented women are nominated with her, and i mean not to discredit them. but what she accomplished in Transamerica is above and beyond anything I have ever imagined an actress could do. a woman playing a man who s struggling to become a woman. sounds simple at first. yet if you contemplate that... it makes my brain want to explode.

once - when i was an actress - i had to play a woman pretending to be a man. and that shit wiped me out. learning to walk like a man. struggling to keep my voice low. much less focus on my character and storyline. seperate rehearsals were set up just for me.

take that and then put fighting all of those things and making it look like a fight convincingly on top. that, ladies and gentlemen, ain't a job for no daytime soap opera actress. there can be no woman playing a woman... no skipping that (pardon the pun) middle man.

and that she pulls it off so beautifully. goddamit she is... the word amazing does no justice.

judi dench i love you and Mrs. henderson is one of the best films i have seen in a while. they owe you for Iris. but not this year.

keira knightly is beautiful and it's nice to see her in a role where that is clearly not the selling point, and to see her play it so smartly and elegantly. someday she's gonna be nominated and there will be no competition to speak of. but she has time.

charlize, you won one when you truly deserved it. i don't know that you can match that again.

and reese, its the best thing i have seen you do, but tweaking your accent and channeling june cater cash - no matter how spot on you managed it - still isn't pulling off what mrs. macy has.

i feel more strongly about this than i have any oscar race before - even about bill murray's being snubbed for the role OF HIS LIFE.

i have my favorites elsewhere on the nominee list, too. but if phillip seymour hoffman loses to david straitham, he and i will both be ok with that. and i am hard pressed to pick a favorite amongst the supporting actresses. (i never thought i'd see the day i wanted george clooney to get an oscar, but that day is today...)

however, my strongest feelings lie with felicity.

break a leg, lady.

2006-02-19T16:29:00.000-05:00

the 16th was a good day.

my last full day at work. an impending date with my the band i heart most. a package patiently waiting in my mailbox, covered in teddy bears and hearts... with buckley-full goodness inside. casey so good.

and it just kept getting better.

so i don't sound like an asshole let me remind you all how much i love my husband. the nature of a tale like this is it can be easily misconstrued... not that i think anyone who really knows me would think that, but just to keep that straight...

now...

let me tell you how great it can be to have an ex as one of your best friends. a rare occurrence in this world, but a grand one if its sincere. my own honey not so much the rock child i am, he doesn't really do concerts but certainly doesn't mind that i do or who accompanies me. god bless 'im.

and as j- is responsible for all things supergrass that iniated my love affair with mr quinn, mr goffey, and the brothers coombs - and that his birthday is in hours of now - he was naturally chosen to join me.

now, i love me some rock show, but it is not often that i don't find myself anticipating the end of the encore and really wanting off my feet and my personal space returned to me... that's prolly part of why jam bands don't do it for me. well, that and i am not a dirty hippy. (sorry, that is a rant for another time)

yet true to form, my boys could not disappoint me. a show so good it felt like only half an hour had passed by the time gaz said good night for real. sure i couldn't see well, sure i was surrounded by nit wits and drunk asses. but the truth is i didn't give a shit. and that is a fact to behold.

show is over. folks are clearing out/making their way to the merch table. i run into raymomo, j- into a long-standing crush with the most beautiful name ever. betcha can't guess. i get a hug, j- gets a number. a number i make him swear to call the next day. no you won't seem desperate; you'll get your point across. one last drink and close the tab. head to the lounge area to finish our beverages and wax nostalgic. pass danny goffey standing with a bunch of people. still arguing about - wait. DANNY GOFFEY. STANDING. RIGHT THERE.

(insert fact that mr goffey is also commonly known in heidi circles as "british husband #2. #1 if you wonder is named colin. he plays bass. his baby brother plays guitar.)

drunk insistent j- come on. let's go get your picture with him. no i don't want to bother him i'll just stand here in his presence. do you want a picture - yes or no. well, YEAH. ok then it's settled.

mr goffey breaks from the group and heads off. j- in hot pursuit can't get his attention over the blaring post show feed music. finally resorts to tugging his shirt sleeve - i think.

all i remeber is that he sounds as cute and goofy as he looks. you can see the giddiness in the picture. i may never wash my super furry tshirt.

that danny goffey is sweet guy. and j- is an awesome effing friend.

a friend who had a date last night. with the crush. and hopefully hot date. he deserves to be happy. happy like me.

2006-02-17T21:35:00.000-05:00

there is a story with this, but i am too giddy when i think of it at present to spit it out... stay tuned

2006-02-14T11:03:00.000-05:00

ok. i have more to say.

this is my last week at my current job. a job at a place i love and admire, but the clients of which often drive me to the brink of utter insanity.

the LjC has miraculously not made another appearance since the count began. so here's hoping with the new log i am creating special for this my last week that the same circumstances will come into play.

the g log. at the risk again of marking myself a bad person, i will not elaborate on the initials. i am sure you can put it together. the ones who say "how you doing?" and don't wait for you to respond before they tell you what they want. the ones who balk at the suggestion that they might have read their contract before they signed it and don't know the difference between theatre and cinema and who put l's and prepositions in the midst of words/sentences that they don't truly exist in...

today - two hours in - my count is 4.

and by g i do not mean nikki.

whom i love.

happy early birthday to her.

hopes she's enjoying her comics.

2006-02-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

holy crap. i posted. on this blog.

and now i am posting here. simply to say that i am halfway through oscar frenzy 2006 (24 of the 40 full-length nominees seen so far...) and i am damn surprised and proud.

sick of seeing charlize nominated every time she blows her friggin nose, but otherwise amazed at the quality work being recognized.

my fingers are totally crossed for mrs. willaim h macy, but if dame judy whens, that's ok too.

2006-01-28T20:47:00.000-05:00

stupid racists are funny.

now, here i venture into a world of political incorrectness, so if easily offended you may wish to turn your eyes. but if stupid racists are stupid racists no matter what to you, then you may also enjoy my antidote.

i'll try to keep it short and sweet.

the night my now sister-in-law first arrived in atlanta for the wedding, we decided to head to the neighborhood pizza joint for dinner. we would go it on foot as the mojo is but three-quarters of a mile from our door and well, i drive a pickup, and believe it or not, passengers in the back of a pickup are illegal even in GA.

now, my readers may remember that my now husband and now sister are russians. slavic peoples, if you will. so when a group of neighborhood adolescents saw fit to yell "crackers!" at us, i simply could not contain my sudden onset of giggles.

i am sure those poor girls thought i was just some damn holier-than-thou white bitch laughing in their face to hide my fear like most true holier-than-thou white bitches would, but it was all i could do.

trying to explain to those poor children that they just called a couple of slavs a racial slur for stupid american caucasions just didn't seem conducive... but after all, all people with pale skin are honkies just like all East Asians are chinese even if they are from Laos and all middle easterners are all Pakistanis even if they are form India.

wow. there are dumb people in this country. if i don't laugh about it, the grief might kill me.

2006-01-23T11:12:00.000-05:00

paranoid android moment # who the hell knows:

walking through downtown atlanta in the a.m. hours, "bittersweet symphony" by the verve. the skyline closing in on me at the rhythm of the strings in the intro... someone walks out the revolving door of a huge mega-office-plex just as mr. ashcroft begins his lament. i can smell the starbucks and french fry grease. the streets are sparsely populated beyond ourselves...

2006-01-16T16:17:00.000-05:00

on a lighter note, this weekend marked the end of my anxious wait for cillian in drag, or as they call it on the marquee, "breakfast on pluto."

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despite the fact that, true to the norm, the screenplay and the actual novel are merely distant cousins - well, more like first cousins, i guess to be fair - i was not disappointed.

granted, i went into it anticipating as much, based simply on the fact that all of the press and trailers i had glimpsed referred to cillian's character as "kitten," whereas i distinctly remember the hero(ine) of the novel carrying the nom of "pussy."
nevertheless, i would normally still be begrudged, especially having devoured the book in record time (for me) - i adored it that much.

but cillian rarely lets me down (i have forgiven Red Eye) - and this time was well beyond exception... it's always my highest compliment to someone's acting abilities to say that i forgot it was them up there. that compliment is squared when i regularly refer to you as the most lovely creature nature manufactured... as i do cillian.

so let it be known that even if he doesn't win that golden globe tonight, he won it in my world.

and that is not to knock anything/anyone else in the film as a whole. brilliance all around, and stephen rae has never wronged me either.

mr. jordan your film may not be the "breakfast on pluto" that i knew, but it as a lovely lovely lovely adaptation.

2006-01-11T16:19:00.000-05:00

Pushing - and with a good deal of force - is required, but sometimes I can be a big meanie bitch.

If this thought shocks you or is something you'd prefer not to see proven, stop reading here.

Still with me? I'll give you some more time, coz I am about to do some offending, I am sure.

Ok - here goes.

I have officially been provoked to the point that I am starting a LjC log. What, pray tell, the hell is an LjC, you ask? Well, I'll tell ya.

An LjC is a human being. One that I am forced to speak to on a semi-regular basis. One who, upon hearing their name in greeting, I know I won't be free of for a minimum of 20 minutes. And one who - here it comes, you still have time - and I am serious, this is heartless - feels the need to remind me with each phone call, relevant or not (and most often not) that they are terminally ill.

This is excluding, of course, the 7-minute lecture I was miraculously spared today on their child's unique form of autism and their unbearable sob, which is ceaseless, despite whether or not conversation even begins to warrant it.

I would spare this human my wrath and offer at least my empathy, but I tried that and they still insist on milking it for all its worth... and I would refrain from being so hateful if that were not ever-so-clearly the case.

So, without furthering the extent to which i am making myself look like an ass and a half, here begind the LjC log:

1-11-2006: 9 minutes
ti count 2

2006-01-09T12:55:00.000-05:00

home from florida and the non-honeymoon, fully aware of a few facts:

i will never outgrow roller coasters

newlywed sex is great

orlando is a magnet for the british working class... maybe i don't really need to see blackpool so much anymore... i haven't been surrounded by so much scouse and cockney and eyre accents since i was last in the land of liverpudlians

and they all love golden corrale buffet restaurants... or at least it seems that way

i would still be perfectly content to live in savannah

it's never cold in florida... you'll be wearing t-shirts on new years day whether you want to or not and you'll always see at least one child inappropriately lacking sufficient clothing at each theme park you visit

i think that's enough for now!

2006-01-01T20:14:00.000-05:00

ladies and gentlemen... dr and mrs ilya

2005-12-28T16:13:00.000-05:00

this may very well be my last post as a single woman. in 52 hours i'll be someone's spouse. and then i won't talk about wedding crap here anymore.

here are a few things currently warming my heart:

a good book - breakfast on pluto; read in anticipation of seeing the film or, rather, cillian as a woman

a new sister - in russian they have a non-sibling term for it, but none of the russians i know can remember what exactly that term is... nevertheless, my sister-to-be arrived from the great white russia yesterday and i don't think any woman has ever been so thrilled to meet her in-laws

a man who is out buying a suit right now - with his sister. he also warms my bed.

incoming flights and rental cars - bearing many of those who love me enough to travel outside their state lines just to watch me tie the know, even if i secretly know that some are just amazed that it's finally happening after so many false starts... new york, st. louis, dc x 4 (though one is coming for ilya), nashville, and... which one am i missing?

cakes and ceremonies cooked up by my bestest friends, not to mention the playlists!

and how my parents seem almost as excited as we are...

...and most definitely not necessarily in that order...

i started this blog a happily single and free woman. i end this entry happy to bid it adieu.

2005-12-22T13:45:00.000-05:00

today i got a marriage license and this text message:
"Dr. Pxxxxxsigned the minor form! Fuck econ!"

congrats to us both, i say!

2005-12-19T16:34:00.000-05:00

so much for writing something every day... i have just been frightened of bombarding the innocent with too much wedding talk.

here follow some interesting details of the past few rotations on the ole axis:

the office cristmas (take that right fascists) party has left me with sore everything and a hang over from which i am still not fully recovered. damn that was fun!

a wedding intervention occurred when two of my dearest caught on to the fact that i am totaly procrastinating. and i was forced to register. this is a step no human should deny themself.

the only thing funnier than seeing your favorite hussy impersonate stevie nicks is knowing that her costume was borowed from your closet.

i discovered cillian murphy is equally beautiful as a woman.

on a cleaning frenzy and inspired by d, i started going through a large box of photographs that has been smoldering under the bed since we arrived at our kirkwood abode. the oglethorpe years collection alone filled FOUR albums. sheesh. don't let a drunk 19-yr-old loose with a camera...

this led to my long-lost friends chris and jacob being googled and contacted within a 2 hour window. we love you internet!

and here are a few text messages i have been saving on my phone because they make me giggle. it's a fun game if you try to guess who they're from:

"me love heidi"
"want to hear me karaoke?"
"i mean seriously... can't you just hear david caruso singing common people?"
"with or without you... strippers!"
"Arab Strap? hottest song EVER!"
"i am watching about flatworms having sex. isn't that exciting?"
"reception! New Order! stella!"

2005-12-15T10:39:00.000-05:00

my cell phone lives on silent. i often use the excuse that this is because i spend a lot of time in theatres and don't want to disturb the peace or be that asshole whose phone went off.

i am about to confide to you my firends/readers/both the truth:

it's because of my work. no matter where i go it seems my job always entails taking calls, and to the point that the sound of a ringing phone induces in me a nagging and painful anxiety.

so just so you, it isn't that i don't want to talk to you. it is simply that after i leave work, i want to hear to hear a phone ring about as much as a garbageman wants to go home and sort trash. even if it happens to the tune of a supergrass ringtone.

2005-12-01T14:10:00.000-05:00

ADDENDUM

i lied there is a fourth type, and my russian falls right into it. in fact, i believe he set the standard for it as others have before him.

it the handsome, oddly charming boy with the big brain.

ex. ilya, of course. colin meloy. john linnell.

ok. i think that covers it.

2005-12-01T10:34:00.000-05:00

things i learned last night

my "type" is typically one of three, each one based originally on one particular soul:
1. george harrison. putting images of him and my beloved colin greenwood side-by-side i finally answered my ex's old question of why colin and not johnny? hell, it even explains the ex.
2. my painful crush freshman year of college. he set the standard for my love of tall, gangly men. richard ashcrofts of th world, know that someone out there will always appreciate your beauty.
3.the goofy fuck who broke my heart sophomore year of college. and broke it good. goofy fucks of the world, know i appreciate you, too.

the man who will be my husband in 30 days and counting fits none of these molds... or maybe all of them in some strange way.

i think that's awesome.

i am pretty good picking my friend's types... unless those friends are boys who like boys.

also:
mash-ups of the clash and gwen stefani are no better really than whitney houston/u2 ones. being a hipster does not make it ironic and permissable.

and:
stoli is not, as i was led to believe in college, a top shelf vodka. top shelf should not give you a hangover from two cocktails.

2005-11-28T12:33:00.000-05:00

t.a.h. gave me the good news this morning.

ladies and gents, my childhood idol is being inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame for 2006.

go, debbie!!!!!!

(and clem and chris and nigel and jimmy and those other guys)

can i just say this album defined my happy like as a kid:

wait - does this mean i am old?

2005-11-27T23:51:00.000-05:00

here's what i want: daniel ash and paul hewson (sp?) to be in the same room together so i know for certain once and for all that they are not split personalities of the same person... am i the only one who thinks they look separated at birth?

here's what i am not feeling in light of my impending nuptials: relief that i won't grow old alone, the tick of my biological clock, that my life will now be validated

and here are a few things i am feeling: excited, overwhelmed, incredibly loved - by not my fiance alone

here's what bewilders me: someone - and if you are reading this blog, be assured i do not refer to you - it has come to my attention has set into panic over my getting married before them because i am younger. it ain't a race, ladies. did i mention that marriage is not necessary to validate one's life?

here's why i decided i should get married: because i want to. plain, simple. i can't think of anything better than spending the rest of my/ilya's natural days in his company and warmth - and getting a tax break to boot!

here's where i would rather be than at work tomorrow: starts with a scot, ends with land.

here's where i would rather be at work than: or-lan-do

here's an album i forgot how much i loved until i heard the artist in a south georgia mcdonald's yesterday: resigned by michael penn. a fine composition indeed.

here's what i think peter murphy is looking like these days: a child conceived by anton levy and my friend havens... if you can even conceive of such an idea

2005-11-23T16:27:00.000-05:00

clearly sometimes i refuse to believe that i am a total grownup and have to act like a total college student.

especially when a rock band is involved.

especially if that band's bassist has hugged me outside an airport i almost got lost getting him to... alas...

wish d and i luck as we emabrk on our haskins-fest 2005 this weekend, driving 8 hours to orlando for some food with his favorite aunt and some quality time with these guys -

2005-11-22T15:38:00.000-05:00

ladies and gentlemen, i am pleased to present my newly doctoral-thesis-defended-and-approved love... dr. ilya.

(watching a man in a suit speak math for an hour has never been so damned HOT!)

2005-11-19T18:01:00.000-05:00

let it be known that bono uses a teleprompter.

2005-11-17T09:30:00.000-05:00

give me an excuse to spend too much money on other people and i'll jump at it. i may not be the world's biggest christian - or much of one at all really - but damn i love christmas.

marked off the list:
a kilt
an army surplus messenger bag
a night at the theatre
pink and blue sequinny get-ups
consent to be someone's wife
knit cardigan w/ faux fur

on my list:
a tshirt proclaiming my love of all things supergrass
(especially the greatest band logo ever - see below)
theatre tickets theatre tickets theatre tickets
movie gift certificates
a happy marriage good for the rest of my natural days
(i am not obsessed - honest!)

2005-11-16T12:55:00.000-05:00

i would also like this opportunity to say that in the cultural wasteland that atlanta can sometimes seem to be, IMAGE Film and Video (who produce film festivals) are doing a kick ass job of compensating for the city's shortcomings....

2005-11-16T12:48:00.000-05:00

Sophomore year of college i attended my first Out on Film, the ATL?s gay and lesbian film festival. And it was there I got a crash course education. Stop me (oh oh oh stop me) if you?ve heard this one? or were a part of it?

A Saturday night spent in the company of three of my then favorite boys (one has since vanished from my surroundings, not sure to where) was to involve dinner and a short stroll through the park, book ended by two films. The first - and the name escapes me much to my chagrin (Prodigal Sons? Setting Sons?) - was a lovely film about acceptance and family and bi-racial love. It was indeed the type of film that keeps me coming to film festivals, as I never would have had the opportunity to see it elsewhere, or even have known it existed for that matter?

However, I made the naïve assumption the second screening might be along those same lines. Uh, no. Not quite.

Perhaps it was the fact that I was the only female in the room that shoulda clued me in, but alas, I didn?t quite catch on until the cockrings came out (and out, and out?) On the screen!!! Get your minds out of the gutter, people!

Yep, it was my first gay porn experience. In a movie theatre surrounded by hundreds of boys who probably saw me sitting there before the house lights were cut thinking, ?I bet she doesn?t have any idea what she?s in for? snicker snicker??

Cheeks flushed a little, but I decided best to see it as an educational experience. I took the opportunity to lean over to one of my companions periodically (you remember this right? I know you?re reading this) and make inquiries:

Ok ? now what exactly is the bonus of a cockring?
So, do you guys have a name for that?
Wow ? how did he do that? Do you think that would work on @!*?

I think I have told this story here before. However, last night, volunteering at this year?s Out on Film, I learned something new. A friend and I were checking out a documentary on renowned gay icon/ porn star/filmmaker Peter Berlin. Interviewed was another renowned filmmaker from the same era (early 70?s) by the name of Wakefield Poole who made the classic Boys in the Sand.

Apparently my first gay porn is a part of the cannon of gay porn. Who knew?

Now we do.

2005-11-15T14:34:00.000-05:00

i am not a pedophile.

i just think he's pretty.

i want to look longingly at his precious face the way the rest of you used to do with your teen beat pinups of the wahlbergs and those other new dorks on the block... plant big wet ones on his adorable little cheeks.

i have never had a single sexual thought about the poor boy.

but i can't promise i won't by the time book 7 comes out on film.

bigger's not older, fine. but the thought of a 4-story ron weasley still makes me giddy like a 12-year-old.

i still heart rupert grint.

2005-11-14T16:14:00.000-05:00

super furry animals...

if they come to your town, you must not miss them

they make me proud to be welsh (kind of)

(kind of welsh, not kind of proud)

2005-11-12T20:33:00.000-05:00

further observations:

every time i see a Pontiac sunfire, it has a huge dent somewhere

i completely cannot comprehend how anyone cannot believe that your sexual orientation is determined by nature and not by choice... or can believe in what is it? intelligent design? is that what they are calling it? reference here

sometimes russian seems an awful lot like spanish

i have huge body image issues

snickers do not, in fact, really satisfy. they only perpetuate the need for themselves

in 7 weeks i will be somebody's mrs.

welsh heritage sometimes feels like being part of a secret society

and ssmething else, but i forgot...

2005-11-10T11:09:00.000-05:00

columbia moment: a point in time that appears to have willingly fallen into synch with atmospheric noise. orig: this very morning when the song columbia by oasis possessed heidi's being and she felt herself moving to the exact beat and forgetting everything else around her.
antonym: paranoid android moment (similar occurrence without will involved)

and yet it kind of was an android moment if you think about the lyrics:
"i can't tell you the way i feel be-cause the way i feel is oh so new to me"

side note: a very sweet soul surprised me with a copy of Robert Freeman's photography book The Beatles this morning at work. it was such a sweet gesture i felt the tears well up.

sometimes my faith in humanity receives small renovations.

2005-11-09T09:23:00.000-05:00

further adventures... this is just getting silly

on a mission yesterday, i began to peruse the ole internet for details about traffic laws as they pertain to cyclists. the only thing i could find was a law that they must keep as far to the right as possible when in the path of flowing traffic.

returning home last night, at the same traffic circle, i was met with a posse of reflector-bearers.

all riding in threes so as to cover as much of the lane as possible, clearly intent to defy the line of headlights behind them.

isn't entitlement precious?

2005-11-08T10:08:00.000-05:00

i promise i am not bitching... i really am curious about this. because i try to be a good citizen, an informed person... but sometimes (read: often) that is frustrating.

is it "same road, same rules" or "same road, same rules when it's convenient for the guy on the bike?"
i am all for cyclists. do not misunderstand me. i am a train-taker and advocate anything that puts less junk in the air. i also advocate allowing them street space and keeping them off the sidewalks. being slowed down is a small price to pay as long as that's one less gas guzzler depleting our ever-dwindling supply of energy. and let's face it, pretty soon we might all be on 'em.

but by same rules, i understand the meaning to imply things like obeying yield signs and stopping at red lights, giving pedestrians the right of way and using turn signals, not pulling out in front of flowing traffic...

i say all of this because i almost hit a cyclist this morning. a traffic circle sits in the midst of my driving route (i have to move furniture this evening and was thus forced to drive this morning).
i yielded where i was suppose to and saw a biker approaching from my left. yet i assumed he would also heed the sign on his side and so i began to continue on, only to have him dart right into the circle and my direct path.

a mini heart attack ensued.

did i assume something wrong?

or are there just as many assholes on bikes as there are in SUVs?

i welcome comments on this. really. i mean it.

because if i am wrong, i am sure i sound like an ass.

sorry, that sounded like bitching. for a lighter side of me, read here.

2005-11-06T11:51:00.000-05:00

the soundtrack of my sunday (morning)...

sunday is my monday. often this thought induces sighs of pity from my acquaintances/friends for my benefit. but it shouldn't. rest assured i would have it no other way.

(as i gather myself together and head out the door)
all of you pretty girls as rendered by crash test dummies
from A Testimonial Dinner: A Tribute to XTC - a cd j and grabbed for 3 pound in bath
bath where my best friend is right now!

sunday may be my monday, but my that makes thursday my friday. we weekend is still a weekend, and what's more i have all afternoon friday while the other corporate serfs are still tucked safely in their cubicles to get my errands done crowd-free and enjoy matinee cinema prices.

(confronted by amazing early fall weather on this mid-fall morning walk to the station)
we become silhouettes as rendered by the shins
from the m.o.t.d.... crap-i-can't-remember-the-whole-sequence mix cd that this one made for me ages ago
better than the original i think (blasphemy! some might say)

extra added bonus: sunday's a short day for us. we open two hours later, but still get set free at the same ole 5pm.

(again with the pedestrian-hating. this time a guy in a big red work truck. que serra)
letter from an occupant by the new pornographers
also from a mix from a friend
it was stuck in my head all friday
hee... i almost wore my dirty panda shirt today

anyway, not to make this one of those posts about my ipod, but ultimately this is gonna be a post about my ipod.

(rounding the corner to hit madison ave, almost in the home stretch of my trek, wondering, "wait - should i be walking with or against traffic?")

those crimson tears by the ever-underrated ed harcourt
i bought here be monsters two years ago at the little 5 halloween fest... and yet i feel i am hearing this song for the first time

i am hooked on the ipod's shuffle function, but as of late i have getting a bit miffed. see, every time the battery is exhausted the random generator starts all over. so if before i made it 212 songs into a list of 675, i am now going to hear a good 150 of those same tracks when i start it again...

(starting to break a sweat finally, wishing i'd filled my water bottle)
have you forgotten? by red house painters
from songs for a blue guitar which played incessantly for three months in my office at that theatre on elizabeth street until i got that george harrison album for christmas

yesterday i was determined to get the new supergrass album loaded on. inspiration struck and i then proceeded to spend the next 2.5 hours completely remodeling my song list.

(amazed at how empty the train station feels, even for a sunday at 10am... i don't even see any attendants)
don't show me heaven by jason falkner
i love you, mr. falkner. through jellyfish to this author unknown album through to the beatles lullaby albums i sleep to when i am forced to sleep alone

- wait - tangent - sorry. can i please tell you how excited i was on friday afternoon when i got to criminal to purchase aforementioned road to rouen and was met with the gaze of an adorable boy at the counter on whom my smile had unwittingly done it magic. i am kinda cute, i admit that. but i never think of myself as some striking beauty queen or anything. so it feels really good to look up and see a look of clear adoration/attraction like that. makes a girl feel pretty. thank you, mr record store clerk.

(realizing i will have plenty of time to contemplate the odd juxtaposition of the cold feel of concrete and weird urine smell with the too-loud classical music that the station's atmosphere offers this morning)
somewhere else by travis
from 12 memories
"hear a song and sing along, but what does it bring?"

back to my point - i went on a mission to eliminate as many of those 150 that keep repeating as possible, no matter how much i love their composers. "the legionnaire's lament" GONE. "get balsamic vinegar!" GONE. even the fab four held no exemption. "wait" "here there and everywhere" "dr. robert" GONE GONE GONE.

(maybe if i read my book the time would pass faster, but who wants to be depressed by Rabbit Angstrom on such a beautiful day if they can avoid it?)
big mouth strike again as rendered by placebo
from the covers album... poor becca the night this finally arrived in my hands... and our poor neighbors

i made room for suede and the lucksmiths. i renovated my blur list. i forced myself to trim arab strap down to 10 measley songs.

(more waiting, getting chillier)
what you do to me - teenage fan club
lowell, MA - death cab
a night like this - the cure

it was the first real quality time i had spent with itunes in our 2 months together so far. still didn't get around to fixing things like it's seemingly arbitrary genre assignments (ex: franz ferninand as "classic rock" and xtc as "polka") or rating the new listings, but i felt better acquainted with my abbey when all was said and done.

(rummaging about my paratrooper bag for my notebook to crudely start this very post)
bedshaped by keane
this was one of those 150 the pod kept repeating before my mass overhaul yesterday

this morning, of course, was the moment of truth.

(transfer point)
song for a blue guitar by red house painters
i am convinced my this player loves mark kozelek maybe even more than i do

a mile walk ahead of me and who knows how many minutes to pass in transit. my policy being that i do not remove my player from my bag anywhere throughout the journey if i can help it. even if it's just a cheapo 4G mini, i still don't like to advertise. those stupid white earphones do that well enough on their own...

(more waiting, but this time in an atmosphere of dull 70's era orange and a constant repetition of announcements about single-tracking, the airport, and you)
catwalk by beat happening (from njg's hipster bingo mix)
late in the day by these guys who may look familiar

so once it's going there's no escaping the will of the shuffle generator.

(my good day takes its first dark turn as a woman pushes me out of her way that she might beat we other passengers to a seat by getting on before anyone has had a chance to get off... "hey, lady. how about letting them off first?" i sounded like an old construction worker... sheesh)
every planet we reach is dead - gorillaz

to learn that my time and energy were not spent in vain... to have my sunday morning routine soundtracked by a playlist that only made me smile - kind of - was a relief and a joy.

(an overwhelming lethargy hits me and i can feel the movement of the train trying to lull me into a REM state)
apology song by the decemberists
just as i spot a guy with a bike at the other end of the car

and my love of my ipod was rejuvenated.

(resuming travels on foot)
how to be dead by snow patrol
remember when this blog was like a gary lightbody fansite? i am totally remembering why...

as nik says... it speaks to me. and clearly it was saying it was tired of those old tunes too.

(the edge drones his warning again....)
"don't travel on trains"
numb - u2

2005-11-02T18:57:00.000-05:00

walking from station to work/work to station to day i was almost run over 4 times.

this trek is maybe half a mile each way.

all 4 times i was in the crosswalk.

all 4 times i was in the crosswalk while the signal showed a white familiar stick figure, the universal sign for "OK TO CROSS."

so here's my question.... do drivers just want to hit those of us on foot because they feel we "entitled pedestrians" are self-righteously mocking them with our walking?

i am just curious...

next time: the question of letting people out of train cars and/or elevators before getting on yourself... too much like rocket science?

2005-10-31T10:27:00.000-05:00

ten things i would do if i could do anything (and not necessarily the the first or top ten):

send electric shocks through drivers' bodies if they turn or change lanes without using their signal
(emergency situations excluded)

kiss danny goffey square on the mouth
(ok, kiss all of supergrass.. there i said it)

outlaw the abuse of cologne

have the powers of that guy on "superfriends" - was it elastic man? - who could stretch, but only in my legs

eat scones with clotted cream and jam every morning and afternoon with tea
(and never see the effects of this on my thighs or my teeth)

kiss colin greenwood square on the mouth

hang dj's that mash up classic u2 with whitney houston and legitimately think what they've done is a good thing

make sure every child was raised with love, care, and the muppet show

instill in every human brain the difference between a theatre and a cinema
(no ma'am we are showing "madagascar" here)

make peanut better cookies fat and carb free and travel less expensive than food

i guess that's kind of eleven things, huh?

well, it's my blog. i'll do what i want!

2005-10-29T23:56:00.000-04:00

today i got news that i have known of late was bound to come, and yet still i found myself completely unprepared to face it.

while i know she doesn't read this, i am praying to whatever entity exists that my gramma knows just how much i love her.

2005-10-28T21:43:00.000-04:00

i received this email yesterday and i wanted to share with you all, including its composer.

an idea of why i know i would go straight to hell if i really believed in it...

first, excerpts from a recent email exchange...

So, there's this guy in Nashville who keeps a blog and while I enjoy reading it, I kind of wondered about some off-color comments he made, wondering if he was, in fact, actually an asshole. So I asked via an email, Hey, you got issues?

To which he responded:
Thats the thing that nobody on the outside really realizes about my blog.
It's aimed directly at my best friends, who just happen to be black, asian,
jewish, and one extremely gay. All my best friends from my life now live
elsewhere, and this is some sort of a way for me to talk to them (even if
they're not listening). They have all in one way or the other called me and
my blog "childish" and mildly interesting.

I sometimes forget how abrasive I can sound in how I talk. I like to think
of myself as an equal opportunity offender. That's actually what has drawn
me to my friends, our open and outright attempts at deconstructing each
other. In a mean way.

To which I responded:

Whew. What a relief. If that wasn't the case, I'd feel horrible that I enjoyed reading the blog of a complete asshole.

One of my best friends and I started even WORSE rounds of name-calling back in college during a road trip... She calls me the guinea-chink or wop-flip, and I refer to her as cracker, white trash, etc. She asks me things like if it hurts to have my feet bound, or if I've put a hit on anyone -- I ask her if she enjoys fucking her relatives and burning crosses on people's yards.

I don't know why the heck we even started this, but yeah, you can imagine how well such conversations are received, if overheard. One of my cousins thought it was "horrible." Whatever.

Aww. You made me miss Heidi!

The point of all this cutting and pasting being --- I seriously miss you! Oh whitest one!

Hee,
Love,
Half-Breed

2005-10-27T09:40:00.001-04:00

my blog doesn't have enough pictures, so here's a good one....
i heart my gu-ch!!!!

2005-10-27T09:40:00.000-04:00

further bizarro events of heidi's week:

once upon a time i dated a boy on the other coast. he turned out to be a self-loathing negator (pronounced NEG-A-TORE), so that ended.

once upon a time, while dating said boy, i had a standing tuesday night trivia date with friends at a bar just down from my place. at said bar there was a really hot bartender. hot because he might as well have been boy-in-nevada's doppelganger.

ok, he was taller, darker hair, and he didn't have massive drummer arms, but beyond that... practical twins.

that relationship went down like a lead zeppelin, and shortly after we ceased our trivia-going as one of us neared a birthing (not me, i am sure you know) and two of us a venture to the land of scot.

neither the boy, nor his doppelganger were ever seen again.

until...

last night i came to see the current adult puppetry offering. i sat with our two canadian guests and let them regale me with what's great about (pronounced A-BOOT) living in (my future home) toronto.

i leaned to my right to make some pointed comment to one of my companions and caught a glimpse of something that i was not prepared for. i sat still like a deer in headlights until to my complete relief, reason came back to me and i saw that it was only the double.

2005-10-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

stepping out the door this morning, confronted immediately by the new crisp morning air, i felt a pang in my heart. a momentary lapse of reasoning caused me to mistake my surroundings - forget where i was.

i miss scotland this morning.

and not even the pulsing, vibrant scotland in edinburgh. this morning i miss stretches of solid mountain peaks laden with heather or snow scotland. i miss miles of loch scotland. i missnot a car in sight for hour-stretches of barely-two-lane road scotland. i miss standing on spot where blood was spilled in the first fight to keep scotland its own nation scotland.

i miss cheap pints of slightly warm guinness scotland where you can drop by a little shed to get fish, chips and mushy peas for 2 pound. i miss don't dare remove that scarf and gloves for fear of numbness scotland. i miss castle castle castle castle castle hairy coo castle scotland.

i miss hearing the proclaimers played daily in earnest.

i miss being as far away from my atlanta existence as possible while still being surrounded by warm people who speak your words and biting air eased in any wool shop for 4 bob... and pure natural beauty.

sorry to be so cheesy, but that's where my head (and my heart) lies this morning.

and in case i haven't explained "hairy coo..."

2005-10-25T13:05:00.000-04:00

i worked on a show.

it got a lovely review in both of atlanta's main sources for theatre reviews.

you should go see it.

ask me how.

this ad brought to you by a box office manager.

at jerry's request, links to the reviews are here and here

2005-10-24T09:23:00.000-04:00

paranoid android moment #302 (i just made that up... i have no idea)

the first truly cold, god-help-me-for-forgetting-to-locate-my-gloves-this-morning morning in the ATL. snot-dripping from my nose, hands so stiff it's difficult to clutrch onto my train-book... and i did not want to be awake.

from the station to work, i thought, "how odd to hear the beatles followed by new order."

then i felt it... everything falling in sync.

of course. blue monday.

ha ha ha ha ha.

ps - other freaky note of the day. today there are folks here from toronto to help get us adjusted to our new ticketing software. i was thinking in the frigid train station this morning, "this is your adjustment to toronto, heidi." two-thirds of the way through microserfs (aforementioned train reading), dan has just flown to ontario... biz-zar-oh!!!!!

2005-10-22T13:12:00.000-04:00

addiction is maybe one of the hardest things in the world to own up to...

those who do it without coaxing - entirely of their own devices - have my utmost admiration. those specifically in my life, you have my complete support and all the love in my heart.

i am really proud of you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

on a related note, adulthood has been slapping me in the face quite a bit lately.

76 days and counting...

2005-10-20T20:05:00.000-04:00

an update on my loss of faith in humanity as pertains to work:

last week a lady called to make a reservation using a gift certificate someone was buying for her. but no one had bought it yet. she was very upset that i couldn't give her credit for the certificate anyway. o...k....

this weekend a check arrives, no notation, from an organization that's name i just happen to recognize from this lady's diatribe as the one purchasing her not-yet-in-existence gift certificate.
however, with no notation, we haven't a clue what to do with it.

a harried gentleman from said organization calls today. gets me. also clearly upset, he explains to me that his organization sent us a check for a gift certificate for a mother and her special-needs child. she has complained to him that when she calls we have no knowledge of it. he can't comprehend this.

until i explain to him that his check arrived approximately 48 hours previous. with no sort of notation on it.

apologetically, he then proceeds to tell me how this lady has been hasseling him for days about this and her daughter really wants to see a puppet show. he's sorry, he just gets frustrated because they are trying to good things for these kids, etc.

he'll call her and tell her all is squared away and to call to reserve for her and her child.

she calls. she wants to use the certificate for saturday night.

"ma'am, the sahow saturday night is an adult show, strictly for ages 18 and up. is your daughter at least 18?"

"no"

"are you aware we can't sell tickets to minors for this show?"

"i am buying them. i am not a minor."

"but we won't be able to let her in the theatre."

"that's ok. she isn't coming."

the lady is a SCAM artist and using her daughter's disability to score free tickets for herself.

i felt a migraine setting in.

may karma find her and bite her so hard on the ass she bleeds.

2005-10-20T10:17:00.000-04:00

the place where i work is NOT:

a movie theatre (so don't call and ask what time the movie shows)

called "puppetry of arts"

just for children

a slave shop that does not allow performers a day off

a for-profit business venture/ soulless corporate money-monger (we're a poor non-profit, not "the man" - stealing from us/sticking it to us is counterproductive!)

a nazi regime (some idiot actually comapred me to a nazi for requiring pre-payment)

located in the big arts complex on 15th and peachtree

excepted from fire code statutes

free

one of those places with a playboard and sock puppets

sheesh! (i'm having an "i hate people" day)

2005-10-19T15:31:00.000-04:00

right before my birthday, christoper was in town and i met him and smith and some other lovely folks for drinkin'... at some point in the evening i was coaxed into naming the ten people non-related(immediate family and russian fiancees are a given) i would want to have on a desert island with me.

the answers i will never disclose and they'd had enough by the time i got there that i wouldn't think they'd remember, so don't ask 'em.

but it does elate me to know that i found out today that every one is scheduled to appear at my lil' shindig in december.... hooray!!!!

2005-10-19T10:28:00.000-04:00

simply my own humble moviegoer/festival-goer opinion, but it's been a really good year for film.

last night d and i caught thumbsucker. one of those largely uncomfortable films where you have to keep reminding yourself not to panic, the characters up there fucking up are just fictional characters, but concluding with beautiful redemption - for both the film and its subjects.

pure brilliance in celluloid form.

scenes like eye candy, vivid and striking. performances inspired all-around - and when i call a keanu reeves performance inspired, you know i mean business. a score and soundtrack that fit seamlessly... (go polyphonic spree!) i have never heard elliott used more elegantly.

if you like movies that don't make you think, don't bother. if you enjoy films that put a little realistic faith back in humanity, definitely do.

2005-10-18T09:53:00.000-04:00

sent to me by jerry this morning:

From: Jerry
> Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 9:37 AM
> To: Heidi
> Subject: for you:

It's the birthday of the playwright Wendy Wasserstein, (books by this
author) born in Brooklyn, New York (1950). She's best known for her play The Heidi Chronicles. She said, "I loved the theater. I just didn't think you could do it as a profession. I thought that I would marry a lawyer or be one and do productions of Guys and Dolls at my local suburban playhouse."

But she took a playwrighting course in college and struggled to make it as a playwright in New York City. During her years of struggle, she was watching as most of her friends and siblings got married and had children. She thought a lot about what she'd sacrificed by devoting herself to theater, and that became the subject of The Heidi Chronicles.

happy birthday, miss namesake!

2005-10-17T11:58:00.000-04:00

i am convinced no one reads this

2005-10-17T09:24:00.000-04:00

ok, so conformity is not necessarily something i generally endorse. yet there are some things that just seem to make sense... or not, rather.

for a society so obsessed with its vehicles - particularly with them moving about speedily and encountering as few obstacles as possible along the way, hence we have laned roads and (at least where i reside) you keep to your right so those going opposite you have your left all to themselves - why can we not seem to transfer that same clear logic to footpaths?

why can people not seem to gather that if they are traveling along a walkway/staircase/ramp/etc with two-way foot traffic, that rather than do so side-by-side with their companions/friends/acquaintances thus blocking the way for those approaching from the other direction, that it's more efficient and just-damn courteous to keep to one side and let others get where they're going too.

furthermore, you'd never simply stop your car in the middle of the interstate. you'd pull off to the shoulder. what then, makes it sensible to stop dead in the midst of a busy mall corridor or street sidewalk or even (or specifically perhaps) stairway to the northbound train platform to answer your cell or ask your pal if they wanna get coffee first? should you need to get your bearings, may i suggest simply standing over to the side... it's quite easy, really...

(i was at the airport last night... can you tell?)

finally, on a semi-related note... prior to my first visit to the uk, i was given this advice by someone close to me: WALK TO THE LEFT, STAND TO THE RIGHT.

it would appear this rule has managed to migrate west, in theory at least. now i think is the time for it do so in practice. perhaps, like in london, we could put up signs on escalators to gently guide the public toward this revolutionary idea in courtesy. and it would provide a small jumpstart.

yet, as i know all too well, you can put beacons and strobes around a sign that says "this performance is sold out" and people will still approach the box office window to ask, "got any tickets for the show?"

these are the same people that answer their cell phones when live theatre is going on 20 feet in front of them and ask what time the movie is when they call to buy those seats.

i think what the world could use is a brute force of polite police. who's with me?

2005-10-16T13:13:00.000-04:00

for god only knows what reason, i had the bad extreme ballad "more than words" stuck in my head in the shower this morning. perhaps something i read in SPIN? about nuno bettencourt being in some new supergroup (if it can indeed be called that... no offense to nuno, who i actually respect as a musician and who time has certainly not made less hot if you ask me...)

it reminded me of one of my favorite rants, which i am sure if you know me, you're pretty damned tired of. but here it is in writing so i need never force you to endure it again:

be prepared for many a derailment on our way to my point.

for god knows what reason (de ja vu, anybody?) i found myself listening to the local "lite rock" station on my way home one night. most likely i was flipping around and i managed to catch a journey song somewhere along the way. unlike most of the other idols of my childhood, i will never abandon my love of steve perry. ever! bryan adams got kicked to the curb with that lame-ass robin hood ballad, and my love affair with prince just morphed into some respect-type thing... but no matter what, steve perry will always live in my heart. so it was him or that chicago song i love so much...

back to my point.

it was the dedication hour hosted by some nitwit who calls herself lila or something of that nature. a lady emailed in or called - who knows - about how her husnband had just gone through this awful loss in his family and she just wanted to dedicate a song to him that expressed just how special he was to her, etc etc. a beautiful if not trite sentiment. only she thought our friend lila an expert and finding herself unable to come up with anything asked that she choose the song. oh. mistakes we make.

our "expert" chose "more than words."

anyone ever listened to those lyrics?

my guess is that lila thinks "every breath you take" by the police or "possession" by sarah mclachlan are great prom themes, too! nevermind they're written from the point of view of people so in love THEY ARE STALKING THEIR AFFECTION OBJECTS!!!!

and nevermind that she picked a song for htis lady to dedicate to her husband that says "you wouldn't have to tell me you love me ... IF YOU'D JUST FUCK ME." (c'mon people, it's the theme song for every teenage boy in the world who's ever had a girlfriend who wasn't "ready yet...")

point being: ballads are pretty, yes. but let's not assume that because the music is lovely that the necessarily contain harmless "i love yous" before we go off dedicating them and using them to celebrate things... the wrong message could be construed.

2005-10-15T16:17:00.000-04:00

prop hell as i know it is over.

at least for now.

and not without having to argue with a craft store clerk that august 22 was in fact, not more than 60 days ago, so can i please just return this poly foam please?

woo hoo.

now i can concentrate on that show i am doing in december... and saving for my copy of concert for bangladesh....

2005-10-14T21:32:00.000-04:00

observations and advise:

coldplay are overrated.

when ordering anything over the phone, you will get better customer service if you a) say what you need exactly right off the bat, and then b) wait for the agent to prompt you for other information. they usually have a flow and an order in which to obtain information. if you break it or rush them, you really irritate the piss out of them.

pea soup is underrated. it might look gross, but that stuff is yummy!

planning a wedding around christmas may not be healthy for your psyche.

che guevarra (sp?) tshirts should not be worn by people who only know he's the guy Motorcycle Diaries is about or less. or at all at this point.

CCCP tshirts should not be worn by people who don't know that CCCP is SSSR in the english alphabet.

being able to buy books used on amazon ROCKS!

if you can smell your own perfume you are wearing too much. you are doling out migraines to the people in your wake.

good music is a blessing. bad music can be tuned out.
good puppetry is awe-inspiring. bad puppetry is just painful.

is it really possible that there are people in the world who love and know theatre that haven't heard of caryl churchill? even if just in passing?

starfucks never fails to make a tee-total hypocrite of me. in spite of my insults and protests that they kill small business and insistence on going to the aurora in little five whenever convenient just to that very end... i still can't resist it when i am at work/at georgia tech waiting on my man/in kroger and i get a craving for a chai latte.

goddam them!!!!

nevertheless, i really (promise, cross my heart) i shall never order anything iced there ever again. such a waste of money!

2005-10-12T19:48:00.000-04:00

a russian i love is marrying me this december. the anti-wedding wedding should be a blast, and to insure so, i have put three of my favorite people in charge of the evening's music playlists.

d requested a list of do's and don'ts to insure my big day contained no three-to-four-minute disappointments. my response is as follows:

OK- so i thought to myself, the ?no? list should be short, cause these kids will know better. Nevertheless, it ended up like this:

NO:

How Soon is Now? (sick of it)

Coldplay in any form

Rolling Stones unless it?s Mothers Little Helper

found easily on a 99x playlist

bright eyes

killers

Christmas-related music of any kind

songs associated with other relationships: New Year?s Day by u2, any Oasis, Smashing pumpkins, speed metal

Hey Mickey or Come on Eileen (unless it?s the Badly Drawn Boy cover)

Bon Jovi

cheesy love longs not specifically requested on my YES list/sung by Bjork, Colin Meloy, or Ben Gibbard or a Beatle

heavy metal no matter what ilya says (hair metal is permitted w/ heidi approval)

country music

R&B

Aerosmith

rap (Gorillaz and other good stuff excluded)

showtunes

Gwen Stefani

Britney or Christina or anyone either have had sex with

anyone featured in Teen Beat

Blue Monday (there exist so many better New Order songs)

song ever featured in an iPod commercial or on TRL

songs lasting more than 7 minutes unless they are by nEw Order

u2/whitney houston mash-ups

greenday

to this case reponded: "damn, that's a good list."

2005-10-11T17:09:00.000-04:00

glancing at the blogs of women throughout this internet world of ours, it seems to me that there is some bizarre unspoken rule that to write about one's significant other - particularly male specimens - is reserved for bitching.

don't get me wrong, there is praise - most of it vomit-inducing. yet it is not nearly as prolific as the bemoaning his lack of sensitivity here and his impatience for pms tantrums there.

glancing then again at my own little journal here, i realized i don't really write about the ruski that often. he's here, without a doubt, but mostly that's it. mentioned in context, but never the lead role. i wondered at first, "am i a shitty girlfriend?" or am i simply naive and it's all i ever talk about?

but in really considering it, it's most likely a good sign being as how i generally bitch about everything else under the sun here.

nevertheless, if anyone has been privy to this thing from its initial stages, you might be thinking- as i sometimes do - "who the hell is this guy that turned our little strumpet into a full-blown marrying-type?"

i, in fact, have dear friends, so close to my heart that they have not only wedding invites, but duties for the ceremony, who have yet to meet the elusive comrade. (he's not much of a party boy, that one. our first date: "what do you want to do now? because mathematicians don't dance..." or drink... or socialize)

therefore, let this be your introduction... world, meet the man who won my heart. i swear to try and keep that last sentence the most nauseating one of the whole bunch...

first, a confession. we met here. yep, through the magic of the internet. and if i told you it was on friendster, i lied to you. to hide my guilt and shame. years of mocking and scoffing at internet-dating sites will come back to haunt me once my union is legal and the scarlet H appears at my throat, courtesy of the church of online match-making. H for HIP-O-CRIT!!!!! thank you, nerve.com for the direct hand you had in getting me to a man whom i have not a trace of doubt will make me every bit the happily married woman my mother is (married to high school sweetheart 29 years and counting, reared child/typing monkey with him and still sleeps comfortably beside him every night... i call him dad)...

the part about him writing to ask what my tattoo was, however, is 100% truth. he thought it was something he'd seen in a computer game. i heart nerds, indeed!

meet ilya:

- three masters degrees. THREE! all in math. and yet, the boy still sucks at arithmetic.
("computing is for computers!")

- upon learning that we spent our second date watching a Kurasawa film, his friend a- said, "keep her. any girl who will sit through samurai movies is perfect for you." i can't tell you how loudly that statement rings true in afterthought.

- he claims broccoli is poison, and yet he loves those disgusting hot dogs you get at the grocery 10/$1.00.

- on our first date - my first opportunity to see him in the flesh - he met me at the top of an escalator in a two-story borders. without exaggerating i tell you that when i realized that was him, my knees buckled. the boy has a lovely smile.

- normally quiet pisses off my best friend. when she met the comrade, it didn't bother her. must be all that soviet mystique.

- i was seeing this guy for weeks before i even managed a kiss out of him. REMEMBER THIS IS ME WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE - MISS "DO I REALLY HAVE TO KEEP MY PANTS ON..." (ok- i am not THAT bad...)
i was so baffled i consulted my other russian pal to see if it's a cultural thing or if he's just being a guy who's not that interested, who claimed that russian guys don't have female friends. if he is still doing things with me, he likes me.

- his best friend is a girl. good thing the important half of denis' statement was correct.

- perhaps a girl best friend, a sister, and mom (ie dad and the rotweiller being the only other males around) have something to do with it, but he seems to intuitively know how to handle my crazed hormonal episodes. pms hits me hard. as does spreading myself too thin and/or not sleeping sufficiently. reality can lose hold and cause me to freak the fuck out. he knows to leave the room, let it run its course for a few minutes, and then return with arms ready to hold tight until i get a hold of myself.

- "people who don't drink make me nervous." someone said that recently. normally i agree. but often it's paired with a self-righteousness that is hard to be around. but the comrade don't drink (me: "i am sorry, did they kick you out of russia for that? i thought vodka was in your nursing bottles?") he just doesn't drink, but nor does it bother him if i do. "just no driving."

- for someone it took FOREVER to seduce (according to me solely, he claims we probably moved a little too fast), it was certainly worth the wait. i promise not to bog you down with too many details, but let it suffice to say there are things in this (carnal) world that many women are too often denied or forced to ask for. in my world honey, it's a mandatory prerequisite. and this has never had to be discussed. YAHOOOOOOOO!!!

- he picks on me for loving "every song -" but then i catch him when i come home working on his thesis and listening to travis or the decemberists.

- it is truly a joy - and not unrefreshing - to find some trite or cliched or even just familiar piece of pop culture that is entirely unknown to my soviet-born love and watch him discover it. humming to myself as we walked to the park one day he said "what's that."
"a smith's song i have stuck in my head."
"a what?"
there are so many things i get to teach him. and so many i have to learn. my apologies to jd, who yesterday had to hear me go off on stalin for 15 minutes, after he helped me find another cheburashka tshirt.

- whereas i was raised to believe you tell people that you love that you love them ads often as possible because you never know what might happen, he only says it when he knows it will surprise me - ("the phone loves you. that is why it send that text message. not me...")

- between his analytical and practical self and my intuitive and romantic one, we balance each other out nicely.

- he is very thoughtful, especially towards my parents.

- he is the only man who can pick out jewelry for me.

- when i am getting ready to get in the shower or the bed and i bend over, he plants kisses on the small of my back.

- nobody rocks a sweater vest the way my man does. not even jerry.

- the boy loves heavy metal. we're talking the proggy evil kind with band names like haunted houses and tea flavors - moonspell, nightwish, cemetary, blind guardian - and yet the decemberists concert was too loud for him.

- a gentleman caller once drew attention to the following characteristics that define me/attracted him: love of beatles/jeff buckley, dancing, drinking, scotland - the only one of those that means anything to ilya is the beatles. and yet he is still taken with me/in love with me/ wants to marry me.

2005-10-11T09:23:00.000-04:00

a yes song on teh radio yesterday sent me into one of my rock geek modes and i proceeded to give the poor t.d. on the show i am propping a brief history of yes as pertains to me.

this reminded me of one of my proudest moments...

in the heyday of rock and roll trivia at the star bar, "the orange tang clan" often found themselves just outside of placing each monday evening. but one night - with heidi, the two justins, and mark aided by dave and james - we had managed to hold our own against the big (old) boys.

it all came down to the final big all or nothing question: put the following KISS albums in order of release - Dressed to Kill, Hotter than Hell, Love Gun, Destroyer.

we were the only team that got it right.

i was the only KISS fan in the bunch.

our beer was paid for for the next two trivia nights, and i danced home drunky drunk drunk and very pleased with myself.

next time: when my regular trivia team won years later by listing Guns N Roses #1 singles.

(oh - if you're curious - Hotter than Hell, Dressed to Kill, Destroyer, and my personal favorite Love gun...)

2005-10-10T13:24:00.000-04:00

an update from prop hell:

if this were my sophomore year of college still, i sure as hell would not have to actually search out empty vodka bottles...

(image of njg and amanda wrenching a cordless phone from my drunk and stubborn hands on the upper quad green, me just determined to make a HUGE mistake...)

2005-10-08T23:06:00.000-04:00

derived from a fired-up conversation the aforementioned hussy and i had on the ride back from the book sale today, here is my soapbox statement du jour:

any fool who agrees that it is just to not let any middle easterner/muslim within the confines of an airport without thorough search and profiling by the same token must agree this also goes for christians and planned parenthood offices.

calling them all terrorists and hi-jackers is like saying you guys are all that rudolph guy.

is it just me or this country gettin dumber by the second?

don't even get me (or t.a.h.) started on "intelligent design" or whatever that new euphemism for creationism is... read your bibles a little more closely folks. you may just see the distinct parallels between the two theories if you'll stop letting other people interpret the damn thing for you.

thank you, i am stepping down now.

2005-10-05T12:29:00.000-04:00

i'm totally cheating, but here's today's post from www.iheartsupergrass.blogspot.com:
(also see: my music diary in the bottom corner over there)

listening to They Might Be Giants just now, i was reminded of a bit from the "Gigantic..." film where someone (sorry that i can't place who) said they felt sorry for those guys because since they are TMBG, they can never really know/experience how great TMBG are.

me too.

other awesome songs i have heard on the radio (gasp!) in the last 24 hours:
no myth by michael penn
i wanna touch you by catherine wheel
common people by pulp
lots o smiths!

2005-10-04T20:19:00.000-04:00

the last week has been consumed by pursuit of the ever elusive prop... the simple white ceramic teapot. seems easy enough, right? they're everywhere... until a restraunt supply store screws up your order and you have less 24 hours to come up with half a dozen of them.

as of nine this morning, the search had ended.

god bless you cost plus world market.

2005-09-28T11:01:00.000-04:00

breakfast this morning with my best friend, who sets off on friday for her big journey abroad...

six weeks in amsterdam/northern france/the uk. my eyes are a nice shade of spruce, but i am also giddy with excitement, as she's doing it totally on her own.

happy trails, kat!

2005-09-27T13:34:00.000-04:00

no more bread, no more coffee, no more beer... seems so sad...

but not really so much.

when i lost the bulk of my weight a couple of years ago, a lot good came out of it. some bittersweet good... but good nonetheless. not just the general look better, more energy that weight loss begets, but my body had apparently been telling me things for years that i guess got muffled under all that flab and insecurity.

anyone who's sat across from me at the dinner table knows exactly what i am talking about.

once upon a time, i endured tummy problems after almost every meal. one would have thought it was just the abundance of junk i was eating, but the more i tried to "eat right" - getting a turkey sandwich and a cup of soup instead of a #8 from mcdonald's with strawberry soda - the worse it got. after four years or so of bloat and lethargy, i finally decided it was all linked to my girth somehow and decided to take drastic measures. while i do not advocate it for everybody, nor do i intend to create a shrine to the no-carb gods, atkins was the road i took and that begot more than some shed poundage.

when after a week i noticed that my meals were pain-free and my tummy wasn't violently resisting me any longer... it occurred to me to try an experiment.

at a comfortable point with 20 pounds off, i bought a sandwich. on whole wheat. imagine being rudely awoken from the most pleasant, dream-filled sleep you've ever experienced. yeah, that's what my stomach said too!

no bread. baby don't tolerate wheat or gluten. oh, well. hooray for rice.

and now thai food has become a dietary staple; i cannot begin to imagine why it never was before. and my honey makes some mean fried rice. the loss feels less and less. the only time i truly yearn for bread - poached eggs. they just aren't the same without buttered toast.

same with coffee. frou-frou $4-latte coffee is not so much a problem, as long as i keep it tall. but your run-of-the-mill employee-hallway stuff... uh-uh. not havin' it. not even the weakest of crappy office coffee is weak enough for the likes of me.

thus what was once a love cultivated across the pond has of late become daily ritual. when i am feeling sluggish, it's time for my morning/afternoon tea. the desk drawer immediately down and to the right of my head is packed to the gills with numerous varieties of the black stuff. maybe no one else gets why they drive on the other side of the road/car or put "u"s where they don''t seem necessary (colour) - but there's no denying that the english have it down when it comes to two things: breakfast and caffeination.

ok - well, i like to think i get the left-side driving thing... oh, nevermind... that's a whole other post all to itself.

i do miss beer, though. there is no decent substitute for a good ale or especially for a good stout (guinness=life). my appreciation for wine has increased immeasurably, but it still just ain't the same (and it always gives me a headache if i have enough to invoke tipsiness or beyond... no matter how schmancy the label is). plus you can never look cool at a show hanging on to a bottle of cider or a glass full o' pink stuff...

but at least i can't get a beer belly if i don't drink it...

so with my cup of vanilla infused black tea and a pizza in my sights that i intend to relieve of its cheesy-topping goodness, i say, "this ain't so bad."

2005-09-26T16:19:00.000-04:00

no rest for the wicked, i suppose...

tonight i have a date with my hussy, friday's birthday boy, and four lovely young british men.

tomorrow a former co-worker and fellow anglophile and i have a date with the brothers unibrow - here's hoping those pangs of suspicion are just in my head... but something tells me i should be concerned if they chose imposters of themselves to open...

wednesday i have reserved a day for a hellish game of catch-up where my prop work is concerned.. but won't it be nice when i can say i am done done done.

thursday the hussy and i are back together to visit our future object of polygamy, and re-experience one of the best live shows ever... me heart the dekabreestee !

and then my weekend begins... already jam-packed with even more projects.

and a happy early birthday to my favorite man in the whole world... (my daddy!)

2005-09-22T23:06:00.000-04:00

it is with both smug satisfaction and utter incredulousness that i say to j- all your chidings of "click it or ticket, heidi... click it or ticket!" over the three and half years you primarily occupied my paasenger seat... they were totally in vain.

apparently, as i learned this afternoon, seatbelt laws do not apply to me. thanks to those big fat good ole boys i knew so well in my grammar school years and that have somehow infiltrated government of late, there's been a loophole on the books for years that if you own a pickup truck in georgia (as i so proudly do - hey, it makes me feel like a badass) you are exempt from the state's mandatory "click it or ticket" crusade...

how fucking stupid is that? and it would seem this is reaking(sp?) havok on the state's budget. screw those millions in grants we could have access to. we don't want those fat country fucks having to experience the discomfort of a silly safety device cutting into their beer and cornbread bellies when their taking their F150 out to their rallies. to hell with that.

and as one raised in a north georgia town ending in "-ville" (and thus a hillbilly in my own right) i have every right to speak of my own kind this way... so no name-calling or stereotyping accusations. i grew up with these people. sadly, i know and understand how their minds work. well, understand is a strong word. let's say i know the inner workings, but i don't comprehend them to a point that i am willing to or able to defend them... anyway, off that soapbox and back onto the first one...

i reiterate... how fucking stupid! how could that have been an exemption in the first place? what, accidents don't happen on farms? has anyone noticed that pickup trucks aren't just for farmhands anymore? funny, mine was on a major interstate not 20minutes ago... gees people.

no wonder this country loves the effin' president so much. he's proof that stupid and rich can co-exist.

ugh.

and while i am ranting... sorry i seem to do this a lot lately...

you might recall a post from a year back or documenting my manifesto common courtesy of concert-going. well, let me present a second volume, this time dedicated to theatre-/movie-going:

1. while it should go without saying, shut off your cell phone and your mouth. no really. especially in live theatre. the people around you paid for their seats too. and do you think the actors can't here you?
2. if a house is not sold to the ceiling, and in fact has many many empty seats, don't ever sit directly in front of someone. it's just damn rude.
3. don't clap during scene changes if it isn't a musical. it's just silly.
4. if you can hold your bladder, you should. if you don't need to pee before the show/at intermission, try anyway.
5. as a general rule in life, but particularly when you'll possibly be this intimately close to strangers, do not bathe in your cologne/perfume. if you can smell it, it's gonna give some poor guy a migraine or an asthma attack. your scent should not linger 60 seconds after your absence... especially not if it's a chemical.

i am done bitching now. i promise to think happy thoughts tomorrow.

2005-09-22T09:22:00.000-04:00

two of my favorite boys (or men, if you'd rather) have birthdays this weekend. mix cds are currently being compiled in my brain and in ilya's hard drive, soon to be delivered into their hands (by my own or the postman's)...

in the meantime, however, in salute to each of them on their 28th year of existence, here is a small list of the reasons i love them so much. some of you may be able to tell whom is who (hopefully the boys themselves at the very least), but if you can't... well, that's part of the fun.

-defying a hussy and getting me a ron weasly t-shirt anyway
-"watching heidi dance reminds me of just how white i am"
-making sure i got home on bastille day
-the promise that no saturday night in atlanta has to be boring as long as there's c and maryoke - we're gonna sing leather and lace one of these days, boy
-literally ordering me a second and a third margarita when i wasn't looking
-being the gift-giving king (or... queen?) -instictively knowing concert for george would be a good gift
- asking to make my weeding cake
-never letting physical distance seem like distance
-paying me the single-handed greatest compliment a guy who's not your boyfriend could ever pay you... and sincerely
-the knowledge that if either one is around, i will never need for a dance partner
-slipping up and saying, "i love you too" ("i was in the bathroom. you caught me off-guard!")
-making me enjoy the new gwen stefani album
-appreciating hair metal. i bet he would've gone to see la guns with me, dammit!
-and hanging out with either/both of their fine-ass selves always makes me feel like a hot mama

happy birthday, my darling ch---(x2)

2005-09-21T09:14:00.000-04:00

i think it's time for a new photo... who's tired of looking at my ass?

2005-09-20T12:13:00.000-04:00

sick makes me feel fat and lazy. boooo!

however, i think i have finally managed to figure out how to pronounce ilyinishna (il-yee-nish-na - seems easy, right?) which is a good thing, since if i ever have a daughter, it will most likely be her middle name.

and while we're on the subject, don't say pizdets (peas-dee-ets) around any ruskis you respect. the comrade's best friend found out this is the only thing he's taught me, and i thought she'd slap him. hee hee.

2005-09-19T20:06:00.000-04:00

a bad case of the crud has had me floating through the last few days in Robitussin haze... i think i grasp why it once so popular with my parents' high school peers... that stuff can make you feel pretty trippy and jittery.

so i have been absent for a couple fo days in spite of my birthday resolution topost at least something every day... so as to avoid overwhelming my reader(s) with acerbic and/or cracked-out, illness-related crabbiness-induced ranting.

but here's a little something i find myself wanting to say... this should probably be reserved for my music blog, but it relates to post from "chronicles" past - one where i went ballistic because commercial radio is this close (fingers make less than inch gesture) to making me hate snow patrol... well, sometimes the sun shines and commercial radio suddenly forgets bands as fast as they snatched them up like an overtly spoiled brat with christmas toys... and they have. and i can love them again.

this realization came to me as i was listening to travis the other day - a band which i adore and certainly lose hipster points for doing so - and i remembered when this happened to them. and how happy i am that they had their mild american success and yet didn't get flogged about like a coldplay (next U2 my ass... we'll see wher they are in 25 years and then determine that)...

so this my "i love you" to those bands whose brief american triumph brought them into my life, and for whom my adoration did not taper off when their u.s. popularity as a whole did...

to my travis, my placebo, my catherine wheel. to my beloved supergrass (especially). to suede. even to the smiths... to badly drawn boy and manic street preachers and even to radiohead, though they may seem bigger than life still.

this list is not limited to those born across the atlantic, either. to jason falkner, mark kozelek, and our dear departeds jeff and elliott.

underappreciated and yet appreciated moreso for it.

2005-09-16T11:53:00.000-04:00

am i correct in assuming that michael jackson still owns the rights to all the beatles' catalogue? because whe i heard "the long and winding road" undescoring a GMC commercial, i saw red...overscoring that fucker's face.

2005-09-15T11:30:00.000-04:00

something i experienced my senior year of college - the greatest concert experience of my life, hands down - was something i thought would never happen again.

especially after david j himself told me that due to daniel ash's physical condition (in turn due to numerous motorcycle mishaps), that love and rockets were not planning on any touring as part of their own reuniting... (and then HUGGED ME - sorry...)

but yesterday i heard it. and yesterday i spent money i don't really have in celebration of it.

not just david and daniel and kevin, but peter too!!!!!! BAUHAUS - touring again. and coming to my precious ATL.

granted, it can never surpass the Gotham show, as it was also the loss of my bauhaus virginity, but it may damn well come in second and dethrone those radiohead people.

here's a giddy girl. a broke giddy girl.