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While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Archives for November 2009

To the burglar who stole my computer last night: Happy friggin Thanksgiving.

November 26, 2009 by heidi 14 Comments

IMG_1184

This Thanksgiving I’m grateful for the the fact that I’m with my two sisters. I’m at my sister Heelya and her boyfriend Brian’s place in Conway, S.C., which is a darling house, despite what happened last night.

The bed I’m lying in right now, tucked under layers of blankets next to PK, is so warm and plush. Even Heelya’s pug Owen snoring under the covers, is warm and plush. He’s curled up on my feet. I can feel his chin resting on my toes. My foot vibrates every time he breathes in.

It took PK and I nine hours and three tanks of gas to get here. I’m grateful that my old Honda held up. We took the back roads through the middle of Florida, passing every tumbledown neon fruit stand selling oranges and peanuts from Ocala to Jacksonville.

It’s chilly out and I’m grateful for that. The weather in South Carolina is at least 20 degrees cooler than Florida. We bundled up last night when we went out for Mexican food followed by beers at a bar called Fats, where we played darts and Baba O’Riley on the jukebox.

I’m grateful I filed at least one story for the newspaper before I left town, because last night when we got back to Heelya’s house, her front door was ajar, the window in her living room was shattered and my laptop with every assignment I’d ever written and every subject I’d ever photographed since August 2007, was stolen.

It was the only thing lifted.

[Read more…]

Fünf sachen

November 24, 2009 by heidi 2 Comments

I needed a non-writing related pick-me-up this morning. Here are the first five things (fünf sachen in German) that came to mind:

michelle williams_short hair

Michelle Williams’ hair (photographed by Mario Testino for Vogue, October 2009). I used to bring photos of Sienna Miller to my stylist in St. Pete. I’m over her now and onto Michelle.

apcnavydress

 apc denim dress. I’m going to my sister Heelya’s new house in South Carolina for Thanksgiving. I can’t wait to walk her Bullmastiff puppy Olive in my new denim shirt dress. 

corn_chowder

Corn chowder by vegalicious. I made it last night after a bike ride with Joe. I ate enough for the both of us and apparently smelled like corn chowder all night long. 

lutz-patmos-klimt-cardigan

Lutz & Patmos Klimt Cardigan. I’d be naked without cardigans.

El Corazon Hammer Press

El Corazon art print by Hammerpress in Kansas City, a wedding gift from my friend Meg. The human heart as art is hot. The second I received this package, it was out of the box and on the wall in my living room. 

The band fits!

November 22, 2009 by heidi 1 Comment

Leilani_headbandLeilani_headband2

I must acquit. 

For the back-story on Leilani’s headband see previous post. 

Keeping up with the Bardashians

November 20, 2009 by heidi 5 Comments

IMG_0974

The alternate title for this post is the early bird finds the evidence. And it begins like this:

I’ve been trying FOR A MONTH to run in the morning. Every morning I set my alarm for 7 a.m. and every morning I hit snooze for an hour. When I walk the pug in my pajamas, I stare with contempt at the svelte joggers who zip past in a blur of Spandex. Damn perfect in their Under Armour and Nikes, damn focused, listening to their iPods, pounding the pavement in the early morning fog.

I’m so desperate to develop a morning run habit that I’ve asked Ro to text message me at 7:30 for motivation. 

Well, Wednesday morning I did it all on my own and because I was so proud of this feat, I ate two chocolate truffles for lunch. 

I started the jog at a good clip. Rounded the block near the park by my house. Ran full throttle up Coffee Pot Boulevard –– full throttle because how could I not run full throttle up a street named Coffee Pot Boulevard? At a half-a-mile in my legs turned to Jell-O and my heart turned to applesauce. I actually hate running. While I’m fast and for five years played forward on my high school soccer team, I have knock-knees and flailing arms. When I run I look like Olive Oyl. I look like a blonde Olive Oyl.

Oliveoyl

[Read more…]

The object of ambition

November 14, 2009 by heidi 13 Comments

me at oo

This picture is five years old. I am 22 years old here. Fresh out of journalism school and a new hire at The Osprey Observer, a newspaper that no longer exists. I look bitchy in this picture. Cold and sinister. Actually, I don’t look like myself at all. My hair hasn’t been this long in five years and the Blueberry iMac I’m using expired shortly after this picture was taken. I’m wearing a pink button-down shirt from the Goodwill that I just recently donated, among other things, to The Salvation Army. 

The Osprey Observer, though now defunct, was published by the same family-owned string of community newspapers I currently write for. 

The guy who took this picture, his name is Adam. He married my friend Kat who also worked for the paper. They live in Laramie, Wyo. now and I miss them like hell. When none of us had families or spouses or boyfriends or girlfriends to spend holidays with, Kat and Adam would host dinner parties at their home in Bradenton. There’s this beautiful scene in the movie Funny People that reminds me of these dinner parties. If you’ve not seen the movie, rent it when it comes out. Netflix it. When you watch the scene, where a group of young aspiring actors gets together for Thanksgiving dinner at an apartment in L.A., you’ll know what I’m talking about. 

My eyes are narrowed and my lips are pursed in this picture because Adam liked to say things that would piss me off. There were these little grommet holes in our cubicle walls that if you stared through them, you’d see into your neighbor’s cube. This was how I first met Adam: through a shared hole in our cubicle walls, his one eye peering suspiciously at mine like two office-dwelling Cyclopes.

I knew nothing of Adam, but I certainly knew Kat. My editor had mailed me a stack of Observers prior to my move so I could get a better feel for the paper. Her byline was everywhere. She had written a story about a chef on Longboat Key named Marcella Hazen that I read a dozen times on the flight from Buffalo to Tampa.

Behind that glare I am scared shitless. Although scared shitless is not an ideal place to be, it defines you and drives you. I remember driving back to my apartment at night and pinching myself because I couldn’t believe I had a job as a reporter in a town with a ballet, an opera, an orchestra, and a circus! I was a nobody from a town nobody had heard of, wearing my first pair of high heels, barely sleeping at night because my nervous system was so shot from the move.

My bones, my brain, my organs were in shock. I was a fish out of water, more determined to find my place than ever before. I’ve not experienced this kind of hungry ambition in years, which frustrates me because above all, I consider, or rather I considered, myself ambitious.

[Read more…]

PK on jeans, Greek bread and carpet stains

November 8, 2009 by heidi 14 Comments

momjeans

It’s been 11 months since I interviewed my surly sister PK, which is a unfortunate, because many things have happened in little PK’s life since December. One: she got a new job in St. Petersburg closer to me and Joe. Two: Last month she moved into a very tropical apartment complex with vaulted ceilings and granite countertops only five miles up the road from me.

On the ONE day we had 50-degree temperatures, PK and I carved pumpkins and soaked in her apartment hot tub. Since nearly a year has passed since we last heard from the 23-year-old minx, I decided to bring along my tape recorder and fire off a few questions in the rub-a-dub-tub.

However, tape recorders, as every journalist knows, cannot be trusted. In the middle of my conversation with PK the damn thing quit, which is why, in 1999, I stopped bringing tape recorders to interviews. 

Anyway. Here’s what remains of the Q&A…

[Read more…]

Why do I even blogger?

If you really want to know why I continue to write here, read this post.

Lance lately

  • Old School Values
  • Land of Hives and Honey
  • The Happy Camper
  • Truth Bombs with Henry [No. 2]
  • Truth Bombs with Henry [No. 1]
  • By now I’d have two kids

Social commentary

  • Crystal on Pug worries, or what to do when your dog starts having seizures
  • heidi on Land of Hives and Honey
  • Roberta Kendall on Land of Hives and Honey
  • Jane on Pug worries, or what to do when your dog starts having seizures
  • reb on The Happy Camper

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Oddities

Reading material

Wild by Cheryl Strayed Travels with Charley Home Game bossypants just kids the time travelers wife Boys Life The-Liars-Club My Uncle Oswald Stephen King On Writing

Me.

Heidi K

Joe.

Joe on guitar

Henry.

henry as werewolf

Chip.

Chippy in a cupboard

Buzzy.

Buzzy

Why Lance?

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

About me

I'm a journalist 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, but since we have a kid now that happens less than he'd like.

Before Henry and Chip, I used to spend my mornings browsing celebrity tabloid websites while our dog snored under the covers. Now I hide my computer in spots my feral children can't reach because everything I own is now broken, stained or peed on.

I created Lance in an attempt to better spend my free time. I thought it might jump start a second attempt at writing a novel.

It hasn't. And my free time is gone.

But I'm still here writing.

I'm 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 and I've yet to get caught up in something else, which is kind of a big deal for a chronic procrastinator.

How I met Joe

If you're new here and looking for nirvana, read this post.

And if that’s not enough…

heidikurpiela.com

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