The beach has come and gone but, as usual, it left it’s mark and I am not talking about the scratches on my floor. Please go to The 3rd Annual Beach party page to see the highlights or at least that which people can’t deny because I have it on film.

I got a bunch of responses to last week’s heavy talk. The responses were not from people I expected though. A number of people, yes my readership is going up again, that I didn’t realize read my page that often. I even had my friend Jet (J sounds like Y) Kous point out that she is a corporate world, weird haired, Muse listening, travel wanting, chick! So there! I do have a similar compadre (that’s redundant isn’t it?). Anyhow, all I have to do now is move to the Netherlands so she and I can hang out. I’ve been thinking about it too. There are some things I can do. I will but I am really tired right now. Long week. And to think, one can not actually catch up on sleep but just get back in the swing. I miss my sleep.

Nothing else exciting. Lifted at the gym twice this week. My body aches. I feel better though. Got an email from Mom that she finished her first 6 week “Women with Weights” program and signed up for the next one. In her message she said she lost inches (though she didn’t say how many) and 3 pounds. Yeah Mom! Everybody should go to Barnes and Noble and let her know we are proud of her.

I was in Frankfurt this weekend to help my friend Friederun buy furniture. We actually spent more time trying on clothes but did get to Ikea before 4. She is bad for me. Has very similar taste in fine clothing. She is my only friend I can talk about designers and models with. It’s fun. She listens to the same music as I do as well. Normal hair though. Of course she really is going up the latter.

I realize this is short but I haven’t much to say, believe it or not. I guess I am sort of blue but I bet it is mostly that I am tired and when I get my sleep cycle back I will be fine. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t like send me a card or something…

Almost forgot, the outfit. The center piece is the skirt. I got it on sale at the Forbidden store. It is a Jill Sander. My first Jill Sander. It has really cool asymmetrical pleats. You have to see it in person to get the whole sense though. When I called Patrick to come see it in the store and the woman brought it too me, his face lit up. I said ‘Do you want me to try it on so you can see it?’. He responded, ‘Yeah, here or at home is fine, just buy it!”. I love my husband.

I am starting this coffee talk on Tuesday. I figure, I think of stuff all the time, but often don’t remeber or run out of time when I need to get it up, so why not get it down as I think of it? Simple.

My readership has gone up 3 more people! Got a note from a good buddy back at Grad school who said nothing has changed at the biz school at Chico State but things sound really cool with me. Tis true. Though I really liked grad school. Anyhow, she got my page recommended by another Chico buddy who I guess is a regular listener. Cool! And my mom bumped into someone that said she read my talks. Asked if my mom read regularly, which she doesn’t, and remarked that she should (are you following all the shes?) Said there was a lot of my mom in my talks. I think she meant you can see my mom in my talks, ’cause I don’t think I talk about mom too much. I think I talk about my semi-homosexual husband more.

So I am having a personality crisis inside my head. Obviously most of you know me. Some pretty well. This is my dilemma. I don’t have a lots of close female friends. Well that isn’t it exactly. I know lots of females. I host poker night. I have girlie conversations at lunch about skin care, blah, blah. Today three of us completely convinced naive male coworker that yes indeed women, even in this day and age, even in our own generation are ‘secondary’ to men in most of society. I’ll go into to that more fully in another coffee talk later, but I think we convinced him. Anyhow, the problem is I spend lots of Saturday nights at home with my husband surfing the internet. And it isn’t that I don’t like hanging out with my husband, or we don’t do things, but now and again I would like the ladies to ask me out. There are notable exception. My darling friend Romy Langer always invites me to her girlie events. I haven’t yet attended one because with the exception of the first, I have been out of the country every other time. The first time, I admit, it was all German speaking natives and those events are never much fun for me because they don’t want to, nor should, speak English for me. So in that case, I should learn German and it is my own problem. I think I have partially done this to myself because much of the time people have asked me to do the bar circuit, I have not wanted to go since I don’t drink and can’t stand the smoke after about 2 hours. But it is like things dried up. I realize now that, socially speaking, you sometimes need to do what you don’t like much, to keep in the loop. Of course my favorite thing to do, virtually no one else likes since my music tastes are very different than my average friend. There is one group of girls that go to lunch at a cafe I don’t like very much, rather regularly. Since they know I don’t like it, they don’t invite me. But it seems like they never go anywhere else. Sure, I suggest things sometimes, but I want to be invited, not the other way around. That, I have covered. OK, so I need to be more flexible and choose hanging with the girls over decent food (though it seems like I do that every day in our cafeteria!). I did tell one of the members of this group that I was feeling left out and that even if I don’t like it there, I would like to be invited. And you never know, maybe sometime I will go. The other problem, I think, is I am a very heavy person. I don’t things lightly. I imagine I am a heavy person to hang with and especially on Saturday night, people want to be light. Now, many of my friends come to me when they need help, someone to talk to, or advice. And I love that. I wouldn’t trade helping my friends like that for the world. But I am afraid as a result I embody a seriousness. I can be light. I mean think about it. I am a very entertaining individual, as a girlfriend recently said. I give serious presentations about cookies! (this will only make sense if you work in IT). But on the other hand, what about being just one of the girls? I don’t want to give myself up though. Some of you may realize this, for some of you it may come as a surprise but I use to be more serious. It was once impossible for me to let any injustice, not matter how incredibly minor, go by. Of course these were injustices in my opinion, and I admit that. But everyone should admit that to themselves about themselves. Injustices are, in large part, in the eye of the beholder. Besides of course most aggressive rape, murder and the like. I know there are those that would debate that even, but again let’s save that for another coffee talk. OK, so all of this boils down to, in my mind, being more user friendly, having a better user interface (for whatever reason the IT terms just work in this case, do you think I have been in IT too long?) Don’t want to give myself up, or it still wouldn’t be fun, but I want to be more like one of the girls and have the girls see me as being light and fun like them, without losing my special ‘therapist’ status entirely. BUT, how do I do that? I asked to be invited to lunch even when it was the cafe I didn’t like. I asked to be invited even if they are going to a bar to troll for boys. But what else? How do I be more user friendly? Is it mind over matter? Do I just need to work really hard not to be heavy (think about what you are going to say Heather)? Do I need to work at keeping a smiley face when I can’t breath anymore? One friend said she thought she was embarrassed by having me, sober, see her and everyone in their silly drunken states. But I did drink at one point, ok not much, but I remember how the silly drunken state can be entertaining. Even if I am sober. Perhaps I need to look for more girls like myself. I do think it will be hard to find Corporate world working, weird hair having, good travel habiting, handcore music listening, not much drinking, females. I mean I am on the internet everyday and haven’t found anyone yet. Oh well. It just makes me blue and I want to do something about it. I’m not expecting other people to change, it is my problem, but how to balance it all. Anyhow, I just wanted to write that down. I’m not looking for a bunch of ‘oh Heather, it’s ok, we’ll take you out’ type of feedback. I’m not looking for pity or really even sympathy. I am looking for ideas though. You all know me. What do you think?

Now look at that. Exactly my point. Heavy! Isn’t the coffee talk suppose to be fun?

Eight-Off Solitaire statistics – 588 games, best winning streak 299 games, average time 3:19. Beat that!

Beach Party starts soon. Gotta go. Check the fashion page for the outfit details

OK, as I am typing this Patrick is in the bathroom waxing himself. Our 3rd Annual Beach Party is the 16th and he needs to rip the hair out of his body now, so it is ‘natural’ on the 16th. So this is what I need your help with. Is my husband a homosexual or a geek? Homosexual for the obvious reasons. Geek because as he was heating the wax he remarked:
“The instructions say to use a metal spoon but that conducts too much heat” as he is rummages through the buffet
“Use a wooden skewer.” says his lovely wife
“That’s not wide enough. But a plastic spoon is perfect!” Which he then produces out of the buffet.
“You are a geeky husband with semi-homosexual tendencies!”
“Turning would be proud.”
“Who is Turning?”
“The British Scientist that broke the code on the Enigma machine.”
“Oh, you mean the one that was gay and committed suicide after saving England?”
“Yeah.”
Now the whole thing with Turning was really sad. I mean he really did help turn the war around and then, only after, was ostracized because he was gay. But Patrick is like him, only less so. What do you think?

When you go to sleep at night, how often is it because you are tired and how often is it because it is time to go to bed? (OK Nana perhaps this doesn’t apply to you but feel free to follow along). I mean most nights I get at least 8 hours of sleep. It makes a world of difference working in IT and trying to be a perky happy person. And I have no problem falling to sleep most nights. But I don’t fall asleep with that wonderful relieved feeling. You know the one I am talking about? It is like coming down from an adrenaline high, after say…madly finishing your REL testing. A giant sigh of relief and relaxing of the body. I love feeling that way when I fall asleep at night, but rarely do. It isn’t just getting rest, it is relieving something. Some need is being fully fulfilled. Or am I the only one that feels this way?

I am reading ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman. Very freaky book. The weirdest thing is this people, who say they are gods, who do weird things, and the dead wife walking around and the ‘black hats’ all seem entirely ‘normal’ in the story. Obviously it isn’t normal and when the dead wife shows up, it is weird, both to the husband and me reading. But the way the characters, gods and all, go about their lives. It seems so normal, regular as part of the surroundings. I recommend the book so far. Gaiman did the comic book “The Sandman”. I have the Death Issue all wrapped up safe and sound.

Hey, I found out I have 4.5 regular readers. I valued friend wrote me to say she was a regular reader, though she is so busy she can’t often write. When the page is particularly entertaining, she sends her husband to read it too (that’s the half). Cool huh? My readership is going up!

Remember my fat black book? The one I write things down in? Well I have collected a couple of words I wanted to look up in the dictionary and since I have finally gotten around to it I thought I would add them to the coffee talk. I never realized how many interesting ‘o’ words there are. I got all my definitions from Merriam Webster’s On-Line dictionary. Very cool site.

Opprobrium: Etymology: Latin, from opprobrare to reproach, from ob in the way of + probrum reproach; akin to Latin pro forward and to Latin ferre to carry, bring — more at OB-, FOR, Date: 1656.
1 : something that brings disgrace
2 a : public disgrace or ill fame that follows from conduct considered grossly wrong or vicious b : CONTEMPT, REPROACH

Occlusive:1 : serving to occlude ( Main Entry: oc·clude 1 : to close up or block off : OBSTRUCT ; also : CONCEAL)
2 : characterized by occlusion (1 : the act of occluding : the state of being occluded : as a : the complete obstruction of the breath passage in the articulation of a speech sound b : the bringing of the opposing surfaces of the teeth of the two jaws into contact; also : the relation between the surfaces when in contact c : the inclusion or sorption of gas trapped during solidification of a material 2 : the front formed by a cold front overtaking a warm front and lifting the warm air above the earth’s surface )

Sorry to all you regular readers (all 3) that have been looking for a new talk. I have been SO busy. Literally no time to upload to the internet. But as a result of this furious pace, I am home sick today, so I have plenty of time (think I will go get some McD’s now…ok I’m back). I even wrote a coffee talk while sitting in the chair at the salon waiting for my hair to bleach out (before the pink). So now I will put that down plus some other stuff that has happened since.

Had a first recently. One of my many (3) readers wrote me to disagree with my Magic Wand theory. We had a lively debate and I was better able to explain my position, thus recognizing where my one directional monologue needed improvement. That is sort of the problem with this coffee talk thing. It is so one directional. I guess when you get good at this sort of thing, you get a job like Herb Caen (may he rest in peace) or Dave Barry. I’ll keep at it, since I wouldn’t at all mind having a column like Herb or Dave, I’d even keep the day job, I just want circulation. So tell your friends.

(wrote this in the chair) So I bought a beauty book while I was in the US over the holidays. I am always looking for new and better ways to have nice skin and stuff. I don’t think I am too obsessed with the beauty thing since I don’t wear foundation and blush and stuff, but I am a bit obsessed with my hair. Of course the hair chapter was virtually useless since I am pretty well versed. Anyhow…I have been reading through it and taking notes. It has lots of product recommendations for different skin types, needs and desires. Two Fridays ago Patrick and I hit Breuninger beauty and The Beauty Shop and picked up, well, have the store. OK not literally, but we got masks and cleansers and bath stuff. Even a bath tub pillow. We went back to the house and did a Spa Night thing. It was very nice. I had gotten some samples the previous weekend with my friend Annette so I knew which was I definitely liked. One of the really important things we bought was a body brush. It is softer than a hair brush and even softer than a loofa sponge. The book says to dry brush your body like every other day before your shower (don’t do it at night before bed cause it gets the blood moving and will keep you awake). According to the book if you dry brush and have normal skin you won’t even have to moisturize. And you know what? I think it’s true. Considering the acne meds I am on, I am really dry so I still need a bit of moisturizer on my legs, arms and shoulders, but it really is brilliant. I feel softer and my skin is brighter. Love it. So we did that, got into our rose and lavender essence bath water and relaxed. It was pretty funny from there. We had lit a bunch of candles, like the book said, but had more than usual because we need enough light to read the book. Once we got in the bath it was so bright in the room we had to get out and blow some out. We lay there with out ‘normalizing’ masks from Clarins (very nice) and tried to be Spa quiet. It was amusing. Finally one of us whispered something and we got into a discussion about how long one can sit in the bath and is it possible to just sit there and do nothing (not really). It was a lively discussion and all in whispers. Patrick finally asked why we were whispering and I said because we are in a Spa and you have to whisper in a Spa. After 15-20 minutes of soaking up the rose and lavender smells I hoped into the shower to use the new fruit essence body scrub (brilliant) and Milled body soap (also brilliant) from Origins. We’ve decided that Origins products are fantastic. Milled soap is the way to go too. It costs like $12 a bar but really lasts and helps to keep my skin from drying out. I had been using the liquid shower gels but found out they have a lot of shampoo in them that actually dries the skin! This was all just so great! I never went through the make-up phase as a teen since I didn’t particularly like being a girl (love it now), so this is like having a make-up party with my girlfriends, only I get to have sex at the end (since it is Patrick). Patrick even found a home wax kit he loves. My slightly homo-husband is not into body hair and has started waxing things away. It didn’t like the prickliness of shaving, so he has been waxing. Anyhow, he was happy too. The other brilliant thing I have discovered is washing my face with acne soap at night but only Cetaphyl in the morning. All of the stuff I have learned together has made an amazing difference! I’d like to get off my acne meds, since I feel that is silly, and hope I will be able to with this regimen. I’ve also started taking a multivitamin and though so far the only thing seems to be really yellow pee, I hope it will support my hair and skin rejuvenation. Anyhow, the experiment is going well and it is fun so I will keep you posted. Probably list the products I am using once I have settled on them. Even got great new shampoo to support my hair colour habit. Speaking of hair colour…

I’ve lost another colourist. Her name is Vera and she is leaving the hair biz. Not my fault but as she is the 3rd colourist I have gone through, I am starting to take it personally. Joerg had to go do his one year civil duty. Matthias got a special offer to colour in Italy for a year and now Vera wants to change careers! Not sure what I will do. Colour is important and I need a professional for bleaching and strange patterns. I realize this sounds like foolish whining but what if your favorite author stopped writing? Wouldn’t that bum you out? That is how I feel about my colourist. What happens when I leave Germany and have to give up Juergen (my cutter)? Do you think he would be willing to move to the US?

So we were in London last weekend. It was great. After working many, many 11 hour days, I needed a break. For 3 weeks in a row I had been trying to take Friday or part of Friday off, to go to the gym and do the steam thing. It finally took a plane ticket to get me out. We stayed at a slightly more expensive hotel since we were tired of the uncomfortable bed, midmorning pounding and lack of water pressure at the bed and breakfast we usually stay at. It was near King’s Cross underground stop which doesn’t have much around it but was easy to get anywhere from. The concert was awesome. The Hives rocked! They only have one album so basically they played 8 songs but it was fun and the music sounded great. The lead singer said an entertaining thing after like the second song. He asked “How many of you came here tonight to see the band?” Audience roars. Then he asks “How many of you came here tonight to be seen in your coolest clothes at the coolest show in London tonight?” Audience yells louder. They are considered a punk band but I think that is only because they are loud and wild. The music is sort of more rock-a-billy but I love it. I am so happy to say I saw them in person in a small venue in London. Of course they played The Brick Works in Chico, CA in early Dec and had I know they were, I would have definitely flow home to see them. Hope they had fun.

We went to see ‘The Vagina Monologues’ while in London as well. I think all mothers with preteen/teen daughters should take their daughters to see this. It is about pride in our bodies. It is about the greatness of our parts. It is sort of interactive and definitely friendly. The 3 women that did ours were really well balanced. You had the naughty librarian type British woman, the one-name uber thin blond actress and the sexy and unique boisterous black woman. The different monologues that ranged from what vaginas are, to finding yours, to having it assaulted, to taking back the word cunt, and finally to different orgasm sounds, were very empowering. Another way to reduce teen pregnancy in my opinion. Help teen girls to know and be proud of their vagina’s and no boy is going to be able to take advantage of it. Anyhow, you should all go see it. Take your teen boys even, so they know what they are going to be dealing with.

Been burning the candle at both ends since returning from the holidays. Which explains the lack o’coffee talk and being ill today (very thick head, sore throat). The project from hell is super close to super nova. I am preparing my EEIG death dance. I must admit though, I have learned a lot working on this project. I have learned about testing and clarifying roles and responsibilities (do you have any idea how long it takes to enter and completely process orders in SAP?) I’ve mentioned this haven’t I? It’s been just great in terms of improving my skills. I just don’t personally approve of the project. Now that it is dead, it looks like I will be concentrating on my other responsibilities and attempting to solve some mysteries. My favorite type of work.

I guess that is about it. The outfit is one morning at Mom’s house over Christmas. I have on my $9.99 Mervyn’s pj bottoms, NIN concert t-shirt from The Downward Spiral tour and Coach loafers. The hat is the most significant part of the outfit, I suppose. It is my Fiona Bennett hat. Fiona Bennett is a German hat designer who is located in Berlin but sets up shop each December in Breuninger. This year I found one that fit and I could afford. I really wanted the 900 DM Lamp Shade hat but couldn’t really justify it. It was so cool though. I will try to be a good girl and write my talks regularly again. Thanks for sticking with me, all 3 of you.