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While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Pregnancy Confession No. 5

March 17, 2011 by heidi 10 Comments

[I want beer.]

This does not mean I've had a beer.
It just means I want one.

Or two.

I want the bubbles.
The foamy head.
The cool carbonation sliding down my throat.
The bottle sweating in my hand.

The buzz.

The subtle clinkety clink of the bottle hitting my wedding ring.
The white vapor tickling my nose

A fine mist
rising from the bottle neck
like a genie
granting me a wish the second I crack the cap.

The way one sip brings me home.
To my roots.

My beer drinkin
campfire sittin
motorcycle ridin
muddy
country
dandelion roots.

I was chatting with a fellow preggo the other day
and she mentioned that there's a bar in downtown Sarasota
that serves delicious non-alcoholic beer.

Clausthaler.
It's a German brew. (Like me.)

"You walk in with your belly and I promise you,
they'll hook you up," she said.
"The bartender loves pregnant ladies."

---

PS. Happy St. Patrick's Pug-trick's Day.
Guess where I'm going Saturday?

Western NY must sip: Winery of Ellicottville

February 19, 2011 by heidi Leave a Comment

Over the summer, one of my nearest and dearest childhood friends opened a winery in Ellicottville, N.Y.

Psssst … Joe and I got married in Ellicottville in September 2009. Sam Sheehy and his father-in-law, Dominic Spicola, opened the Winery of Ellicottville on Monroe Street in the village just one year later.

Had it been open for our wedding, you can bet our bridesmaids and groomsmen would have enjoyed wetting their whistles here.

[Read more…]

Peace. Love. And cold.

December 28, 2010 by heidi 5 Comments


I’m cool with the cold.

It can stay for a bit longer.

I know I moved to Florida for a break in the gray. For warmth. For sun. For sundresses. Flip flops. Enormous sunglasses.

But I miss the cold. I miss bundling. I miss warming my face over a hot cup of soup. I miss the crunch of snow. Skiing. Snowmobiling. The utilitarian function of long baths. How when you step outside on a bright white day, the air doesn’t move. Even your breathing is silent, as if your lungs are also wearing a sweater.

I realize how much I miss the cold when the square-jawed weathermen in Florida start shaking in their Izod shirts and advising people to cover their plants and dress their children in snowsuits every time the temperature drops below 50.

The cold is such a novelty in Florida, like juggling monkeys or monogrammed pillows.

[Read more…]

Flight 10.10.10

October 26, 2010 by heidi 8 Comments

| Flight 10-10-10 |

I shot this footage Oct. 10, 2010 back home in Western New York as part of the One Day On Earth project. My father is the pilot. On this particular flight, he took us from Gowanda, N.Y., where he keeps his two-seater Cessna at a gravel pit that doubles as an air strip, to Dansville, N.Y., where we walked across the street to McDonald’s for vanilla milkshakes. On our walk back to the airport, I spotted a group of kids awestruck by the planes taking off and landing. They’re the heart of this video. I imagine when my dad was a little boy, he looked a lot like the kids I filmed climbing the fence along the runway.

The One Day On Earth project is a collaborative documentary shot by people all over the world. It was open to all people. Anyone with a cell phone camera capable of shooting video could submit footage. The overriding tenant was that ALL footage had to be captured on 10.10.10, hence the name ONE Day On Earth.

I happened to be home Oct. 10 to photograph Kim and Jon’s wedding. So when my dad asked if I wanted to go up in the plane that Sunday, I said sure, on one condition: be cool with me sticking a camera in your face.

The resulting six-minute video has been edited in a way that might make you dizzy. For some reason it made sense to speed everything up.

The first song is Blue Turning Gray by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

The second song is Walking, Running, Viking by The Benevento/Russo Duo.

The third song (one of my personal faves) is Io by Helen Stellar.

10 things you (might not) know about me…

May 10, 2010 by heidi 16 Comments

…and probably don’t want to know about me, but since I’ve been away for a little bit, I’ll treat you to something revealing and narcissistic just because that’s the kind of mood I’m in.

1. I own a pair of Arizona cutoff denim shorts from 6th grade. (Yes, that’s them above.) They’re high-waisted as hell and at one point in my teenage life I cut them shorter than their original Bermuda-length. I received them as a birthday present on my 12th birthday from my old friend Sarah, who loosely inspired the name of this blog. (Lance. Not While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping.) No, I don’t wear these suckers. I save them for body image purposes. Feel free to elbow me in the face for this, but these shorts represent a standard to which I hold myself. I don’t slip them on often; maybe once or twice a year. I use them as a means to gauge my weight and fluff my ego. I can’t possibly be the only woman who holds onto an item of clothing for the mere purpose of being able to say, if I can still fit into these coochie cutters, I’m doin’ alright. Last week, I sauntered out of the bedroom wearing the Arizona cutoffs and Joe just shook his head in disgust. “That’s a disappointment waiting to happen,” he said. “What?” I asked, appalled by his response. “After you punch out a few kids those things are never gonna fit.”

2. I haven’t been to the dentist in 16 years. The last time I went to the dentist was around the same time I received the Arizona cut-offs. No, my teeth are not rotting.

3. I unabashedly love country music. And the same goes for country music videos. It comforts me and reminds me of home. It gives my erratic consciousness something simple to focus on. It fills me with warmth like a cold beer on a hot day and makes me wistful for dusty roads, lemonade, orange Popsicles and corn on the cob. Like most popular music, country music has been bastardized by corporate branding and political pandering, but that doesn’t mean I don’t cry when I hear an old Alan Jackson song. Remember when we had Verizon FIOS for less than four hours before our flat screen imploded? Those four hours were spent tuned to CMT. While I worked in my office, Dixie Chicks and Brad Paisley videos played out on the flat screen. I’m certain if I reveal this, my non-country-music-loving husband will have some wiseass thing to say about what really fried our TV, but I’m putting it out there anyway. I might not always agree with the politics of country music, but I can belt out Tobey Keith’s Should’ve Been a Cowboy better than a drunken Texas frat boy on a Friday night. Sure, the Top 20 stuff is hokey, aw-shucks, good ‘ol days, god-fearing boozy righteousness, but it’s the chicken soup to my homesickness. So alert the hipster police. I’m a card-carrying, shit-kicking redneck at heart.

[Read more…]

He rotted before his time

October 28, 2009 by heidi 6 Comments

pumpkin head

 

Why I won’t have a pumpkin this Halloween:

Because the weather here in Florida is swamp assingly hot. Because I carved a pumpkin with my sister PK two Saturdays ago only to have it rot and fill with bugs one week later. Because I spent $25 on three pumpkins two Saturdays ago only to have all three rot and fill with bugs one week later. Because I even carved a pumpkin for THE PUG that resembled the pug and looked like Pikachu when it was lit. Because both of these pumpkins were so delicately rendered, so beautifully carved and cleanly gutted that I’d never be able to replicate them. Because replicating their faces so soon after their demise would be disrespectful. The grieving process has just begun. 

The day of the epic carving the weather dropped below 50 degrees. It was glorious. Crisp. Chilly. I wore a lightweight scarf and a long-sleeved shirt. When I gutted the squash, my hands were so cold I rubbed them together for warmth and then I saved the seeds, coated them in salt and baked them at 350 degrees. I drank warm tea and soaked my bones in PK’s hot tub. It felt like fall for 24 hours and then one day later, it was over.

For one day I was able to go without deodorant. For one day I was spared the onslaught of weird, random bugs that are STILL nesting under the hood of my car. For one day I was able to open the windows in my house and fall asleep to the sound of cicada bugs. For one day my pumpkin and the pug’s pumpkin sat lit in the front yard, their big round eyes fresh from carving, their pokey  smiles oblivious to the impending rot. 

The morning I tossed them in the dumpster I called PK for moral support. 

“Hey. How rotten is your pumpkin?”

“It’s not bad. I mean, there are bugs in it and it’s a little mushy, but nothing too gross.”

“Have you looked at this morning?”

“No.”

“Open your door and take a look.”

<Shriek.>

“Yes?”

“It’s a rotten monster!”

—

In praise of index cards and blowing kisses

October 21, 2009 by heidi 9 Comments

grocery list

Stressed. Hectic. Busy. Chaotic. Overwhelmed. Exhausted.

Stressed.Hectic.Busy.Chaotic.Overwhelmed.Exhausted.

StressedHecticBusyChaoticOverwhelmedExhausted

Crazy how we often use these words to describe our lives. Crazy how we always promise ourselves it’ll get better next week. Or better next month. Or better next year. Crazy how life doesn’t bend that way, no matter how much we think the passage of time will make things easier.

Once the wedding is over. Once I graduate. Once he graduates. Once I finish this story. Once I lose 10 pounds. Once the baby starts to sleep through the night. Once I retire. These are just a few of the things I hear from people I know, including myself. 

Once that happens something else happens. Worries and fears grow up with us, as do our coping mechanisms, which is why I think getting older is supposed to make us wiser.

On my kitchen counter is an index card I scribbled a grocery list on six months ago. It’s 3-by-5 inches of pure ordinariness except for one thing: six lines down, in the space between memory card from Radio Shack and butter, my best friend Ro wrote, “a 2nd residence in NY.” 

Last April, she and my sister Heelya spent their Easter break at my place in St. Pete. I came across this card while I was cleaning my kitchen, long after they flew back to Buffalo. I was going to toss it in the garbage until I got to line six and read Ro’s note.

A second residence in New York. 

Funny little Ro, I thought, sneaking in such a humble request on my grocery list. And then I stuck the card on my refrigerator and laughed and cried dumbly at once. The laundry was humming in the washer, three deadlines were hanging over my head, an engagement ring was on my finger and an empty container of cottage cheese was on the counter. Humdrum hoo-haa. Toilet paper, mustard and bread. Check. 

Life is stressful and hectic, overwhelming and exhausting, but little things are what make one day better than the next. Often they go uncelebrated as we habitually explain to family, friends and coworkers that we’re busy, exhausted and overwhelmed, as we apologize for being late to work and apologize for snapping at our mothers and apologize for pissing off our husbands. 

This post is in praise of little things, so many little things that I chose to focus on just one.

Well, maybe two. 

The second little thing happened last night before I fell asleep. It was short and sweet and fleeting.

As I clapped* off the light in our bedroom, Joe asked: “Did you see me this morning out your office window?”

“In the driveway?”

“Did you see me blow you a kiss?”

“Oh no! Shit! I missed it!”

“That’s OK,” he said. “It’ll be waiting for you tomorrow. In fact, I think I hear it knocking on your window right now.”

“I hear it! It sounds jilted.”

“Yeah. Don’t forget to let it in.”

“I wont.” 

And I didn’t 

—

*Yes, we have a Clapper. I think applause in the bedroom is good for your ego.

Roger that.

July 23, 2009 by heidi 6 Comments

*IMG_0427

This one is for my buddy Roger, who just last week put in his two week’s notice at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, where he worked as a city hall reporter for two years, notching more front page stories than anyone I know.

Prior to that, Roger worked with me at The Sarasota Observer. Next to Zipper Boy, he is my oldest, truest friend in Florida. And by August he’ll be living in Miami, near his beautiful and talented writer girlfriend Rachel. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but Roger and Rachel have successfully managed a healthy long-distance relationship for what seems like an eternity. (In actuality, probably one year.) 

Roger was accepted to Florida Atlantic University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. Even more impressive, he was one of only a handful of students to receive a teacher assistantship. 

Back in December, he asked me to write a letter of recommendation to three Miami grad schools. He was worried his journalism background might quash his chances of getting accepted to a creative writing program, so he asked me to stress the fact that despite his newspaper sensibilities, he’s really just a tortured writer; a victim of poetry, romance and longing. No more grounded or level-headed than say … Truman Capote. 

“Of course I’ll write you a letter,” I chirped, meanwhile inside my chest, my heart hardened into a heavy blue brick. Sure I’ll write you a letter of recommendation, so you can move away like every other awesome and amazing friend I’ve made in Sarasota. Of course I’ll recommend you. It would be my pleasure to rub salt in my own wounds. 

A few weeks later, I sent three copies of the letter to English department chairs at The University of Miami, Florida International University and FAU. I refused to let Roger read it. I told him I’d share it with him if he received at least one acceptance letter. 

So as promised, here’s the one I mailed to FAU:

 

December 30, 2008

  

To whom it may concern:   

 

The first time I met Roger Drouin, I was an entry-level reporter at a weekly newspaper on Longboat Key. Roger, the paper’s government writer, offered his pick-up truck to help move my dresser, and in a muted New England drawl, inserted a Charles Bukowski quote into the conversation.  

Like most of Roger’s colleagues, I grew accustomed to his Bukowski quote habit. His propensity to introduce the poet’s words into everyday discourse was a knee-jerk colloquial quirk. And when he left our weekly newspaper three years later to write for the New York Times-owned daily in town, I secretly hoped this humbling idiosyncrasy would not be eclipsed by daily newspaper success.

It wasn’t.

Nearly five years have passed since Roger and I met in that bungalow-of-an-office out on Longboat Key, and I’ve come to learn his stock of quotes is not limited to just Bukowski. He’s as devoted to Hemingway and Hiaasen, Hunter Thompson and Tolstoy, as he is to Bukowski.

Employed as a newspaper reporter for as long I’ve known him, Roger has always worked the city hall beat. He’s a pen-to-paper traditionalist and a staple at government meetings. Though his job is more black and white than I think he’d like it to be, the grind has never snuffed out his love of fiction.

Roger writes and reports for newspapers with contagious affability and nary a complaint. When he’s not working, he scrawls poems in a tiny gray journal. On Sundays, he writes short stories and shares passages with established writers’ groups in downtown coffee shops.

To Sarasota’s daily newspaper readership, Roger Drouin is just a city hall reporter. To those of us who read his creative work, he is, at heart, an aspiring novelist.

His characters are feisty, pensive and sometimes jaded. As cynical as reporters can be, Roger’s imagination is still colorful. His characters are sweetly ordinary, believable and honest. Even better, his dialogue is sparse, touching and instinctive.

I credit his journalistic wit. A slave to newspaper inches, Roger has developed a skill for choosing words wisely. Some friends compare his style to that of Florida swamp lit writers, Tim Dorsey and Elmore Leonard. I say give Roger Drouin a few years to ferret out his first novel. With the proper guidance, tools and time, Sarasota’s 29-year-old city hall reporter will hammer out his own story soon enough.    

 

Sincerely,
Heidi Kurpiela

Why do I blogger?

June 23, 2009 by heidi 20 Comments

A friend of mine likes to point out, whenever he gets the chance, that blogging is a total waste of time. That friend, in case you’re curious, is Zipper Boy and I’m going to continue to keep his identity secret because he is still dating Zipper Girl might get back together with Zipper Girl ended up marrying a MUCH BETTER zipper.

He likes to send me links to stories in the Washington Post or the NY Times that illustrate why blogging is profoundly meaningless. Fruitless. A few days ago he shared with me this link to a story titled, “Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest.”

[Read more…]

For red-headed pug lovers and hometown farmers

April 27, 2009 by heidi 6 Comments

This ain’t me, but if it were, I’d be fine with it.

The hair! The pug! The ankle socks! The Mary Janes! I wish this chick lived in St. Pete so we could kick it over beer and peanuts. I wish I hadn’t just happened upon this picture while randomly searching for PUGS on Flickr.
Today I’m word-loose and Lancey-free, basking in the kind of deep relief that comes with turning in a story at 1 p.m.
When he’s in the middle of an assignment, Joe, my fiancé, who’s an associate editor here, likes to say: “The story’s done. I’ve just got to write it.”
On most days, that’s usually where my head is. Floating somewhere between Story’s Done and Just Got to Write It.
But not today! Today I turned in a big story – a cumbersome but interesting one – then I took the pug to Coffee Pot Park and I sat on a bench by the bay with my eyes closed for 20 minutes and daydreamed.
It was glorrrrious. 
I called my Nana, and then my mother and I sat for awhile longer on the bench and listened to water lapping at the break-wall. The sloshing reminded me of my childhood spent on a sailboat in Lake Erie, so I closed my eyes again and willed memories into focus.
The pug, happy to be in the shade under the bench, was so quiet and grunt-less I forgot he was with me, so I let the leash go slack.
Then I walked back to my house off Coffee Pot Drive, scheduled a few interviews and retreated to the backyard, where I sat in my Sky Chair and contemplated something my mother had said:
One house down from the house I grew up in, lives a man named Norm who owns the grape fields stretching up and down Langford Road.
He’s about 90 years old, dour as hell and drives a rusted truck. When I was a kid he used to pull into our driveway and lay on the horn whenever he wanted to talk to my dad. According to my parents, he still does this today except lately his visits are fewer and far between.
My parents say it’s been years since the red-headed goose-haired farmer stopped in, so when his pick-up truck pulled into the driveway yesterday my mom kind of did a double-take and my dad kind of sat back and waited to hear a horn-honk.
When that didn’t happen, my dad went out to the truck to see what was up and a few minutes later walked back in the house with a bemused look on his face.
“Do we have any masking tape?” He asked my mom.
“MASKING TAPE?” My mom yelled from the kitchen.
“Yeah,” my dad said. “Norm needs a piece of masking tape.”
“MASKING TAPE? What?” My mom asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” he sighed. “Just rip him a piece.”
So my mom ripped my dad a piece of masking tape and my dad brought it out to Norm, who was waiting as usual in his jitney truck, and the two sat in the driveway for awhile catching up on stuff.
That night, my dad wondered out loud if maybe Norm just wanted someone to talk to. He apparently needed the masking tape to adhere his crumbling car inspection sticker to his windshield, but my dad has a hunch the old man’s just lonely. His wife died not long ago and since then, Norm’s been up to all sorts of nice things. For one: he reconciled with his estranged brother Carl, who lives one door down from him on Langford Road, and whom he hasn’t spoken to in 25 years.
Turns out Norm’s leaving the country for the first time this summer. His daughter is taking him on a Caribbean cruise.
Well, my dad said, wouldn’t ya know the old bugger doesn’t have a birth certificate! He’s come across nothing but trouble trying to get a passport for this cruise. He tried talking to the town clerk about it and she suggested he talk to someone in New York City.
The Office of Vital Records in New York told Norm they only deal with ancient birth certificate requests in person. So next thing Norm knows, he’s flying into LaGuardia to deal with the matter face-to-face.
When he got there, the agency suggested he find someone who was at least eight years old when he was born to prove he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on the government.
“That’s gonna be tough,” Norm said. “Nobody that age is still alive.”
So the agency let it slide, using testimony from Carl, who’s three years older, to prove that yes, Norm was born in the United States and has lived in North Collins, N.Y. since the Paleozoic Era.
“All of this to go on a cruise?” I asked my mother.
“Hell,” she said. “It’ll probably be the first time Norm’s left the state!”
—
PS. Lance turned one year old on Friday. Happy belated, pal.
PPS. R.I.P. Dorothy Zbornak.
PPPS. Pug-walking photo by Zen. For his photostream, click here.
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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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