Author Archives: Heather

point form. because.

• doing yoga. getting bendy.
• four months of loving Bradley and it keeps getting better every. single. day.
• speaking of, we went to the island for the long weekend in May and we have now met all of our respective family members. the introductions are complete. and nobody hates anybody.  yay!
• getting excited to fly to Ontario next month for my aunt’s 80th birthday.  mostly for the, hopefully, fitting in the airplane seats easier part, if i’m honest.
• work is… work.  things aren’t awesome, but i’m trying to figure out how to help them get that way again.  i’ll keep you updated if anything major happens.
• i’ve been taking improv classes at the Vancouver TheatreSports League school:  Improv Comedy Institute.  it’s totally different than Instant Theatre, but equally as rewarding.  fun fact:  i have now performed improv on both of the VTSL stages on Granville Island.
• AND!  my improv idol, Graeme Duffy, now knows my name!  and we’re friends on FaceBook! eeeee!
• guess who has tickets to see The Book of Mormon in September?  ME! and all of my friends. I’M SO EXCITED!

next up:  birthday month and vacation and musicals and maybe even some paragliding.

 

still in love. still amazed at my new size and shape. still awesome (according to reports).

otherwise, i’m antsy and want a Big Change.  i’m jealous of Brad’s shiny-new fancy apartment with all of its empty cupboards, free space and potential.  it makes me want to throw everything away and start fresh.  but, that’s nothing new.  i experience that sensation at least twice a year.  the gorgeous springiness of the season is mostly to blame for that, i’m sure.

but, yeah.  i’ve taken a bit of a break from everything the last couple of months.  improv, fitness, etc.  i’ve been lazy and lounging on love island with Brad.  i was way overdoing it and getting sick every three weeks, so  it’s been good to chill out a bit, but i’m feeling a bit stuck and blergh which means i need to start — selectively — doing awesome things again on a regular basis.

on Sunday afternoon, after a failed attempt to paint a rainbow landscape, i ended up shopping on Lonsdale with my very favourite Lisa and my person, Brad.  introducing Lisa to Blue Sky Clothing was a revelation for her and sent me home with a lovely new spring blouse in a fabric i’ve been coveting for two years.  BSC is right next door to Plum, which is a store i’ve never been able to shop in, so now that i can, i really want to (even though it’s ridiculously expensive and way too fancy for my daily life).  so, after Blue Sky, we popped into Plum, where i inadvertently left Brad holding my bag(s) — sorry, love! — while i tried on ridiculously beautiful and expensive items of clothing.

it’s so weird to be trying on size 10’s.  seriously, size 10?!

anyway, they had this really amazing red dress.  i wasn’t going to try it on because when do i need a red dress that fancy?  plus, i’d just bought fabric to make a red dress for myself the other weekend; but, it was beautiful and i was already there.  what could it hurt?  so, i picked up the sizes 10, 12 and 14, not knowing which would work with my new body.  locking myself in the changing room, i unzipped the 10, thinking it’d be a funny joke to try that one on first.  you can imagine my face when it actually fit.  i popped out of the room and turned around to ask Brad to zip me up, as there was no way i could have done so on my own.

and… it was perfect.  it fit perfectly. the bust wasn’t too loose. the waist wasn’t too tight.  the short sleeves weren’t too short.  the length hit the exact right spot.  it. was. perfect.

too bad it was $160.

there’s no way i could afford that kind of money for a super fancy red dress i had no occasion to wear it to.  i’ve bought way more clothes than i could ever put on my (still changing) body.  there was no way to justify that kind of expenditure on a truly frivolous purchase.  so, back on the rack it went.  i sighed heavily and we left the store wishing for a winning lottery ticket or a sugar daddy to make such daydreams come true.

twenty-two hours later, i let myself in my apartment after a very weird Monday at work to find that exact dress hanging from my hallway closet door.

Brad, my incredible, lovely, amazing, awesome, spectacular, ridiculous, crazy boyfriend, went back to Plum on his lunch break and bought the dress and left it for me to find in my apartment when i got home.   who does that?  Brad, obviously, but… yeah.

to say i was shocked and amazed and overwhelmed is an understatement.  i am not accustomed to such acts of generosity and attention to detail.  i don’t feel deserving of such things and spent the rest of the night (and most of this morning) reiterating to him that i don’t need him to buy me things like that. then he reiterated that it’s not about the things, it’s about me having something that brought me so much joy and made me feel as beautiful as he sees me to be.

yeah, i know.  he’s kind of perfect, too.

last night was the second round of a speech contest Brad’s competing in, so he asked me to wear the dress to the competition.  so, i put it on and casual-fancied it up with some cute flats, slightly more shiny earrings and a cropped jean jacket.  a quick slick of eye makeup and we were ready to head out so he could put on an equally casual-fancy outfit for the occasion.  and, damn, we looked good.  i only wish we’d asked someone to take our photo.  especially after he won and will be moving on in the competition!

there are so many feelings i have about this whole situation.  i’m dumbfounded at his kindness and generosity.  i think he’s crazy to think i’m beautiful.  i am unaccustomed to being someone a person would want to show off as their partner.  i am thrilled and amazed that i’ve somehow managed to stumble into this incredible relationship with this incredible man who is able and willing to show and tell me how much he cares for me.  it is a revelation.  and, i’m amazed that i can wear such a beautiful size 10 dress from a store i’ve never been able to shop in.  *sigh*

my life, it’s pretty great right now.  i’m so very lucky.

In the last year and a half, I’ve…

• lost 125 pounds, so far
• met my long-lost soul sister
• started:  running, hiking, kickboxing, zumba-ing, doing improvisational theatre, ziplining, paddleboarding, sewing, painting and snowshoeing
• went purple-haired, then blonde and am now back to brown
• had a lot of terrible Tinder experiences
• met an amazing man and we are equally madly in love with each other
• learned that gel manicures are nail-killers
• finally accepted that I’m fucking awesome and deserve good things

It’s been a good eighteen months.  I like it.

again, i’m late with my annual blogiversary post.  i thought about it on the weekend, but i was too busy getting my hair done and riding bikes in the forest and going to america to spend lots of money i don’t have.  sorry!

so, fifteen years.  it’d like to say it’s been fifteen years of blogging, but it’s more like fifteen years of this blog’s existence.  i still can’t believe that i keep this around and that i’m still friends with people i met through this thing at the start of this millennium.  if nothing else, i’m thankful for that.  i’m glad i got to connect to so many amazing people and had a place to dump all my brain thoughts when i didn’t have as close a group of confidants as i am lucky enough to have today.

my life is very different than it was when i started putting my words on the internet in august 2000.  this year has seen a lot of big changes for me and i’m so very excited to be 43 (oh, yeah, i had a birthday) and so less filled with angst and despair.  i look back at that twenty-something girl who first started typing in that blogger.com text box and i want to give her a huge hug and imbue her with the confidence to know she’s awesome and people will start recognizing that just as soon as she does.  she suffered needlessly; it hurts to remember how much some times.

i’m not going to make any empty promises about blogging more because i know i will just renege on them.  this isn’t where i put my thoughts first anymore.  i share them with my incredible people now, which is as it should be.  i will try to keep up my anniversary posts and maybe even try to continue the year-in-review type posts either at the end of the year or on my birthday.  if i remember.

so, i’m single in 2014.

i got dumped two days before xmas. by text message. after almost eight years together.

and i still don’t know why.

to say it was a gut-punch is putting it lightly. i’ve spent the last month mostly in shock. it’s only been the last few days when i’m finally getting sad. i think i preferred the shock, though.

everything reminds me of him. everything i’ve done for the last eight years has included him. i went down to bellingham with the girls a couple weeks ago and while wandering around target i kept catching myself thinking “i should look at [blank] for chris. oh, wait.”  it was hard. it is hard.

i have a box of his things in the trunk of my car, but i can’t bring myself to go anywhere near his house. i avoided a union meeting because i just couldn’t bear to be that near where he lives. plus, we always hung out before them and, well, i really didn’t want to have to explain why he wasn’t there with me to my co-workers.

that’s the other terrible thing.  pity face.  i’ve been slowly telling my co-workers, but only when they directly ask about him. and then they get the pity face. yeah, that’s awesome.  no, not really.

thank god for my friends. they’re amazing and being so good to me. i’m sure i’d be in a much, much worse place if it wasn’t for them.

so, yeah. words. ugh.

 so, when i was in college, i fell in love with art history.  actually, back up a step.  i fell in love with art history during my grade 12 western civilization class. that’s actually why i started taking art history classes in college. i imagined myself growing up to become a well-known art restorer, working in all the most amazing museums all over the world, ensuring that priceless paintings and sculpture would not be ravaged by time and inattention.

anyway, i remember one evening in the darkened classroom (it was always dark in there because we were always looking at slides of art, duh), a photo of michaelangelo’s david appeared on the screen.  it could even have been this picture for it seems very familiar to me.  my teacher (whose name i forget, but not her horrible perfume) started talking about how michaelangelo carved david’s head and hands to be larger than normal to ensure that people viewing it from the ground would see them in proper proportion, etc.  she then made some sort of comment about david’s physique and it’s realism. i remember being confused because i didn’t think david’s hip lines were real. they seemed more like the hip joints on g.i. joe dolls than what one would find on a real human male.

you see, at the tender age of 18, i had never seen a man totally naked. at least, never a man who had the buffness of david. mom’s playgirl of burt reynolds didn’t prepare me at all.

to this day, whenever i see this sculpture i blush for my 18-year-old self and her delightful naivete.

i’m bored and tired and grumpy and emotional.  i have a blog to whine about all those things, right?

i’m tired of people asking me how my weekend was. or my last night. or my vacation. because, you know what?  they were dull. and boring. and uneventful because i don’t do anything or go anywhere because i’m either tired, sore or broke 99% of the time.

i woke up at 2:16 a.m. in an emotional tizzy, complete with elevated heart rate and rapid breathing, because of my stupid dreams which were filled with hope and excitement and fear and terror and things i both want to do so very badly but can’t and things i don’t think i’ll ever be able to do because i’m either tired, sore or broke 99% of the time.

sunburn. on the back of my neck. where my “feeling ugly” shirt collar is rubbing against it.  awesome.

yeah, i have a shirt i pretty much only wear when i feel bad about myself.  if you see red plaid, you know i’m extra delicate that day.

if someone says they’re in a bad mood or not good or some other un-positive response to your “GOOD MORNING! HOW ARE YOU?!”,  don’t fucking ask why. just say something like “oh, that’s too bad” or “if you want to talk about it, i’m here” or “would you like me to leave you alone?”. the last thing a cranky and/or emotional person wants to do is freaking explain why they’re cranky and/or emotional, goddammit.

grr.