• Me.

    me for lance
  • Joe.

    Joe.
  • Our dog.

    Our dog.
  • Joe and our dog sleeping.

    Joe and our dog sleeping.
  • Why Lance?

    Because the word blog sounds like something that comes out of a person's nose. This blog is named after my old friend Sarah's manifestation of a dreamy Wyoming cowboy named Lance.
  • About me

    I'm a reporter who spends my Mondays through Fridays writing other people's stories, a chronic procrastinator who needs structure. I once quit my job to write a book and like most writers, I made up excuses why I couldn't keep at it.

    My boyfriend fiancé husband Joe likes to sleep in late on the weekends, which means I end up browsing celebrity tabloid websites while our dog snores under the covers.

    I created Lance to better spend that time. I thought maybe it would jump start a second attempt at writing a novel.

    I'm itching to get The Move On, as my dad likes to say. I'm 26 27 28 and I'm afraid if I don't start now, I'll get caught up in something else.

    We all do.

  • How I met Joe

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    the time travelers wife A gift from my sister-in-law Leilani.

Us writers love aviator sunglasses.

01 Sep 2010

I thought I’d share with you my profile of Sarasota novelist R.S. Praefke.

It’s this week’s A&E cover story in The Observer. As a journalist and wanna-be novelist, you can see why this story was dear to me.

Ryan Praefke looks like he’s just returned from a trip. He’s carrying a black case stuffed with books and a draft of the screenplay he’s currently working on but not ready to discuss.

He’s perched at a table inside a crowded Sarasota café, nursing an iced coffee, people-watching and taking mental notes, as writers are wont to do.

Things capture his attention easily: the sound of construction, the stream of eccentric coffee drinkers that spill in from the street, the whir of midday noises that clang and buzz and distract — things that fuel all writers.

In a sense, the 34-year-old author has just returned from a trip of sorts. A year has passed since his first novel, “Eternity’s Missing Children,” was bound into a 263-page paperback with a cover so black and austere you wonder if by reading it you’ll be privy to all of the author’s secrets.

For the rest of the story, visit yourobserver.com.

Growing, growing, gone.

19 Aug 2010

Oh, I tried. I really, REALLY tried to grow out my hair.

I even announced it, I was so dedicated to growing it out.

“I’m GROWING OUT MY HAIR. Just you see. I’ll be wearing ponytails by the end of the summer. I’ll be Rapunzel.”

I’ve Lanced about this topic before, in particular my obsession with Sienna Miller’s blonde crop circa 2005.  For years I walked into hair salons with a photo of Sienna. It got so bad I caught my stylist rolling her eyes.

“You want the Sienna. I got it.”

So, I decided to G-R-O-W it out, which I found B-O-R-I-N-G.

This is not to say that I find long hair boring. I find it boring on me and I have no patience for the tedious growing-out process. To those of you with luscious locks, I hold you all in high regard. I admire your ‘do’s the same way I admire people who can sing. I can’t sing and I can’t rock heavenly tresses. I’m fine with that. I look like an Afghan hound with long hair.

The closest thing I got to a ponytail required three bobby pins and a minuscule rubberband typically reserved for braces. I looked like I had a kid’s paintbrush poking out of the back of my head. It was pitiful.

So I asked my stylist to give me something blunt and bang-y. Those who know me know this a slippery slope. I’ll probably have a crew cut by October.

PS. I realize I didn’t get very far, that my hair is still short in this second photo. Nonetheless, every time I looked in the mirror I saw a Hanson brother. Well, back when the Hansons looked like sheep dogs

PPS. Congratulations to my cousins Erik and Reb on the birth of their first son, Brendan. You must see his birthday cake!

A ballerina’s belly in pictures

17 Aug 2010

Last month my friend Tracey sent me this message on Facebook:

As you know I’m pregnant! And some of the dancers and I thought it would be fun to take some maternity photos of me with a tutu and pointe shoes and my belly! I was wondering if you could possibly take these for me … nothing fancy … just so I have the memories.

It goes without saying that Tracey is a ballerina

A beautiful ballerina, at that …

With a warm Midwestern personality …

And mad skills, as evidenced by this shot. How many of you mamas stood en pointe at eight months pregnant?

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What’s eating Gilbert Gottfried?

15 Aug 2010

Yes, this post is about Gilbert Gottfried because I couldn’t think of a better follow-up to the previous cockroach post.

Joe and I were watching the Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff tonight when Gilbert Gottfried came on. Gilbert Gottfried and that voice. That VOICE.

I’ve always wondered what Gottfried’s REAL voice sounded like. It has actually plagued me for years. When I learned that the clown was married with children I figured his voice HAD to be less irritating than the Aflac duck. How less irritating, I had no idea.

A quick Internet search turned up an old clip from the Howard Stern Show, in which Gottfried’s actual voice is revealed. You’re not going to believe how sedate it is. Gottfried sounds like a stodgy accountant. WTF?

And then I started thinking: how long has Gottfried kept up this gimmick? How exhausting must it be to squawk like that your entire professional life? So, I Googled the comedian some more and learned this bit of information: Gottfried was a Saturday Night Live cast member from 1980 to 1981, but he barely appeared in sketches. Apparently he was unfunny with an ordinary human voice.

Six years later, he landed a bit part on The Cosby Show. The role required him to be obnoxious, so he started squawking and squinting his eyes. The performance stole the scene and from that point on Gottfried became The Guy With The Voice.

In short, Gottfried has been annoying since 1987.

How to kill a cockroach in your sleep

10 Aug 2010

Cockroach on an apple

If aliens exist, they look like cockroaches. Trust me.

I have a J.Crew catalog in my kitchen that I’ve never opened. Its only purpose has been to kill cockroaches. Never has a catalog filled with overpriced cargo pants been so functional.

(Full disclosure: I love J.Crew. I get the catalog because I enjoy the company’s clothes and plain-faced models. Just because I’ve taken to smearing pale pink cardigans with bits of brown bug guts doesn’t mean I’m making a statement. It was there when I needed it and for that I’m grateful. However, now that I’ve used it for mass roach killings I can’t stomach opening it to look at clothes.)

Florida is a disgusting place to live in the summer. You walk outside and your face melts into a puddle at your feet. You dress to avoid pit stains. The sun is so blinding you wear sunglasses on top of your sunglasses, your husband’s deodorant over your pH-balanced deodorant.

But this is just heat. Heat I can handle.

Swamp ass might tickle when it starts to spread, but at least it doesn’t run across your kitchen floor when you’re baking a chocolate cake. At least it doesn’t crawl out from between the folds of your washcloth when you’re about to scrub your face. At least it doesn’t have antennae.

Floridians call cockroaches Palmetto bugs.

Palmetto bugs sound adorable. Palmetto bugs sound whimsical. Palmetto bugs sound like something that might teach you a life lesson in a Dr. Seuss book.

Calling a cockroach a Palmetto bug is like calling a maggot a creepy crawler. A maggot is a maggot. A cockroach is a cockroach. People who call cockroaches Palmetto bugs are delusional.

Personally, I think New Yorkers living in Florida invented the term because they couldn’t deal with the fact that cockroaches also retire in paradise.

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Dinner Rehab #5: Friday night takeout dice

06 Aug 2010

Let fate decide your din-din.

I bet even prissy foodies order greasy takeout.

Joe and I are usually too lazy to cook on Fridays. We’re also too lazy to get dolled up and go out to dinner.

We’re SO LAZY we can’t even be bothered to CHOOSE what we want for dinner, so THIS is how we come to a decision. Big ups to Ro for giving us this ingenious little die.

Nine times out of 10 it lands on Mexican. Tonight it landed on Pizza. Perfect, beautiful Valentino’s cheese pizza. God bless Dinner Rehab #5.

PS. You too can have all you takeout decisions determined by fate. Takeout Decision Dice available at Abernook.

Newsprint ain’t dead in this office.

03 Aug 2010

Those of us in the newspaper business have got a dilemma on our hands. And no it’s not the imminent fall of print journalism. That would be too heavy a topic for this grizzled reporter.

My problem lies in the leaning tower of newspapers by my desk; the fact that my livelihood takes up space and I can’t seem to part with it. In no other area of my house is this more apparent than in my office, where I’ve stockpiled years of newspapers, notebooks and other reporter debris.

Debris! All of it!

If you were to throw a lit match into my office the room would go up in flames.

Imagine if I worked for a daily.

Now add the fact that I have a collection of newspapers from various cities and towns I’ve traveled through: The Idaho Statesman. The Oregonian. The Kansas City Star. The Hannibal Courier-Post. The Ozark County Times. The Chicago Tribune. The Logan Herald Journal. The Denver Post. Estes Park Trail Gazette. Mountain Valley News. Colorado Springs Independent. The Buffalo News. The Chattanoogan. The Clarion Ledger. The Arkansas Times. Asheville’s Mountain Xpress. (They’re all stacked in that white chest next to where the pug is sleeping.)

I haven’t even counted the European newspapers I keep in a Rubbermaid bin in my bedroom closet.

Some people buy souvenir shot glasses. I buy newspapers. Newspapers take up more room.

They were beginning to choke me. The dust was making me sneeze. The dust was making the pug sneeze. The leaning tower of newspapers was starting to resemble something from out of A&E’s Hoarders. Jesus, that show makes my skin crawl. I dare you to watch just episode and not purge your life of every inanimate object.

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A maiden changes her name

30 Jul 2010

I didn’t know I was attached to my last name until it came time to change it.

It’s this way with most things, isn’t it?

I’ve been married for 318 days, 315 of which I’ve been Heidi Kurpiela, a name that I’ve pronounced two different ways my entire life: Ker-peel-ya and Ker-peel-a.

I always give people these two options when they ask me how to pronounce it. I’m not sure which is right and which is wrong and it doesn’t much matter as long as you spell it with a “pie” and say it with a “peel.”

Kurpiela is a German name with Polish origins, the result of blurring boundaries between two countries from which my people hail. Other than my Dad’s immediate family, I have no known relatives with this last name in the United States. Three years ago, Facebook introduced me to a whole new brood of Kurpielas in Canada, but after sending a series of messages back and forth with one of them, I’ve yet to find a common ancestor.

This is unfortunate considering how much I love Canada.

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Homemade pug food or Chinese takeout?

22 Jul 2010

For someone who doesn’t like to cook, this is an odd endeavor, I admit.

For three months now I’ve been cooking the pug’s food.

Yes, like a hippie.

I combine a package of ground turkey, a 99-cent bag of mixed frozen vegetables, four hard boiled eggs and three-and-a-half cups of brown rice. It costs about $6 and feeds him for 10 days. Sure it takes 30 minutes to cook, but the outcome of this new diet has proved beneficial to the pug, who is prone to skin problems. Like me.

Hot spots. Do you know what these are?

They are fur-less bloody patches that spread across my dog’s head, back and rump. They start as crusty dime-sized scabs and turn into crusty half-dollar-sized scabs. After spending years (and hundreds of dollars) treating these things, I had given into the reality that he was just prone to them, as are many pugs.

I would walk the pug down the street and fellow dog walkers would comment on these grotesque lesions. Some would refrain from commenting, probably assuming that I was one of those dog owners who turns up on the 10 o’clock news charged with animal cruelty.

If anyone so much as glanced at the patches, I would launch into a lengthy discourse on hot spots.

“I swear my dog isn’t mangy. He breaks out in these things. They’re called hot spots. I can’t help it.”

But that all changed three months ago, after I interviewed a photographer (and fellow pug owner) at her home on Longboat Key.

Before even entering this woman’s house, I was greeted by a pug with such a silky coat I was rendered speechless in the creature’s presence.

I couldn’t help but wonder why her pug was blessed with such flawless skin and mine was riddled with hot spots?

I’ll tell you why.

Homemade dog food is why.

She told me she’d switched to a turkey/brown rice/veggie mix a year ago because her pug was prone to HOT SPOTS. Not only did the diet clear up the pug’s skin, it also softened his bristly fur.

That night I went to the grocery store and bought all the fixings. I browned the turkey over the stove and made the rice and veggies in the microwave. I froze six sandwich baggies of food and put one small container in the fridge. When Joe saw it, he thought I had ordered Chinese takeout.

“That’s not takeout!” I scolded him. “That’s Cubbie’s new food!”

“Can I eat it?”

“If you like.”

And so it’s been three months.

And guess what?

Cubbie lost five much-needed pounds and now has the alabaster skin and downy fur of a pampered show pug.

Cubbie at the St. Pete Gay Pride Parade. (It was very hot out.)

My best friend’s wedding

13 Jul 2010

a black & white fairy tale

(with a pinch of color)

buffalo | july 10, 2010

The wedding photographer asked if they wanted to frolic in this downtown waterfall. Of course they were game.

It was hot and sunny out. The water had to feel great.

I piggybacked off the shot. Look at these two love birds. They’re a photog’s dream — playful, adventurous and so in love.

Continue Reading »

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