Heather Anne

This year for Christmas I asked Amy for some books, and she said, no, no way, not until you do something with all those books in your bedroom. Which: quite fair, really. She bought me a whole basket full of books for my birthday, and there's no room on my bookshelves, so they have to live with the other vagrant books on my floor, where they spend each day being stacked and hoping that one of the shelf books will get lost or left on the side of the bathtub long enough to create an open home.

I invited Amy to help me decide what to do with my room to create more shelf space, which is a right-up-her-alley project because of the genes she inherited from her carpentry-minded dad, and the hundreds of hours of shows she's watched on TLC, and her monthly study of the Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware catalogs. She came into my room with a tape measure and walked around and said a bunch of numbers, and also "wasted space" a lot. She decided on four tall bookshelves along two different walls, and one long, shorter bookshelf on the third wall. I said, why not have tall bookshelves on all the walls, and she rolled her eyes and said it would be like sleeping in a library. "Sleeping in a library?" I said. "Sexy!"

I could tell by her face she was ashamed I wasn't ashamed that I think libraries are titillating, but being smart is a turn on, and it's not like I said I have this recurring fantasy where I make sweet, bookish love on the floor of The Library of Congress, after hours, and the light from the candles that illuminate my lover's face also illuminate the thirty million regular books and fifty-eight million manuscripts and million newspapers and six-thousand comic books that would stretch more than five-hundred miles if the shelves were lined end-to-end. And instead of the pedestrian, you're beautiful in this light or whatever, it would be, Thomas Jefferson sold his personal collection of books to this very library in 1815, and it has more shelf space than any library in the world, so kiss me, kiss me, and let's bask in the radiance of hundreds and hundreds of years of perfect, perfect literature. Or something. I haven't given it much thought.

So Amy picked out some bookshelves for me, and advised me on the best kind of nightstand and bed to purchase, and it was all very nice, and I was quite thankful, as spatial tasks and, well, matching aren't really my forte, but then she suggested I move my bed to the wall nearest the door and I flipped out. It was a bad, bad idea, I told her. She said it would create more space, and I said if my bed was against that wall I couldn't see when a person came into my room. She wondered why it mattered, really, and I said because on that side of the room a vampire could get into my bedroom and I would never even see it coming.

Amy smiled sweetly, because fear is fear, and she looked over at the stack of itinerant books on the floor beside my bed. There's a book with 1950s illustrations on how to be a good housewife, a set of children's text books from Great Britain. There's poetry and graphic novels and classifications of prose. But there are no books on destroying vampires or conquering irrational fears. If I had the Library of Congress to myself for the night, though, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'd find books on both of those things. Both those things and everything else.

I wonder if I could move in to The Library of Congress, or if they have some extra shelves I can borrow. I wonder who I should speak with to try to make that happen. It is, after all, an election year.

Posted by Heather Anne at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

I am going on holiday for the rest of the Holidays. Happy, happy to you and yours.

Posted by Heather Anne at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

"Heather, you have GOT to stop babying the girls on our little league team. They're eleven-years-old; if they're bleeding, they can put a bandaid on and get back out on the court!"

"I don't baby them. It wasn't just that she was bleeding; her sweat was getting into her cut and it was stinging her."

"You do baby them. You worse than baby them. You coddle them."

"I do not coddle them!"

"You do. You coddle. You mollycoddle. You're Molly Weasley."

"I am not! I'm Neville Longbottom."

"Molly Weasley!"

"Neville Longbottom!"

"Molly Weasley!"

"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"

"What?"

"Read the last book."

Posted by Heather Anne at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I am the twenty-nine-year-old kid that stood in line at Borders Bookstore in July, rocking back and forth on my heels and gnawing on my fingers, waiting to pick up my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I am the twenty-nine-year-old kid that couldn’t sleep for two days before my Thanksgiving trip to Washington D.C. because I love airplanes and monuments and hotel soaps that much. I am the twenty-nine-year-old kid that took an entire day off of work in the spring to watch a SpongeBob marathon because Nickelodeon promised a new episode at the end. Excitable is my default, so it’s peculiar how unexcited I get about Christmas.

I have had some really bad Christmases over the last several years. I mean truly horrible Christmases. Like, people in my family stealing and lying and going to prison kind of Christmases. And every year it gets worse: the gross consumerism and the shoving of the icons down my throat and the angry mall shoppers and the constant reminder that no matter how much I provide to charity, people will always need more than I can give. I hate more than I can give.

Last night I was out shopping (which I hate), in huge crowds of people (which I hate), with screaming, germy, mouth-breathing kids (which I don’t so much hate, as… well, okay, yes, I hate screaming kids. Not the actual kid, the act of screaming. And the germs. And the fact that the parents of the screaming kids can’t hear them screaming.), and everyone was shoving and they all had grumpy faces, and I couldn’t really think of anything that anyone I know actually needs. And I was just about to start crying (real, actual tears) when a man near me sneezed. I, of course, said, “Bless you” as soon as his sneeze was finished, and his girlfriend rounded on me and said, “Are you flirting with him?” And I said, “Wha?” And she said, “Are. you. flirting. with. him!” And I said, “Nu uh.” And she yelled at me. Loudly and lotly.

And I ran.

I ran to the back of the store and I huddled in a little ball in the corner and murmured, “Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” Over and over and over like maybe the ghost of Dr. Seuss himself would swoop down and rescue me from the torment of commercial Christmas.

He did not.

So I reached into my backpack, and I pulled out a book, and buried my nose inside. I read until I’d read myself into it, until I couldn’t hear the over-synthesized sounds of what used to be my favorite carols, until I couldn’t hear the shouting children, until I couldn’t hear the fist fight breaking out over the last Guitar Hero. I read and read until I was right inside that book, alighted on the back of a dragon, and the only thing touching me was clouds and sky and perfect, perfect wind.

This morning, as I was leaving a bakery with a box of breakfast pastries, I heard bells jingling. I thought, just for a moment, that they were sleigh bells, and my breath caught in my chest and my fingers trembled as I looked up into the sky. There was a part of me (a real, actual part of me) that thought I was going to see Santa Claus.

I’m the twenty-nine-year-old kid that’s been repeatedly punched in the gut by Christmas. And I’m the twenty-nine-year-old kid that’s always going to Believe. Always, just a little.

Posted by Heather Anne at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Buddy's Snowball Fight.

Who among you can beat my first-time score? NONE AMONG YOU! (Um, except Kat, who will kick my ass at this game.)

Posted by Heather Anne at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL HARRY POTTER BOOK IN MY LAST ANSWER. BEWARE.

1) You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?
At my discretion, I’d like to be able to blow up people who are mean to children.

2) You can flip a switch that will wipe any band or musical artist out of existence. Who will it be?
I just wish American Idol would stop being a show. That’s all.

3) Who would you really like to just punch in the face?
Dick Cheney. I’ve always wondered what his ugly mug would look like right before it connected with a fist.

4) What is your favorite cheese?
Parmesan.

5) You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your immediate disposal. What kind of sandwich will you eat?
Right now, I think I’d just like a plain ol’ grilled cheese.

6) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
If you don’t know that the answer is London, we’re not friends — not even a little bit.

7) An angel appears out of heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the beverage of your choice. It is?
Fresh squeezed lemonade.

8) Rufus appears out of nowhere with a time-traveling phone booth. You can go anywhere in the PAST. Where do you go?
The day my third grade teacher told me there was no Santa Claus. And I want to run up to the little, innocent Heather Anne sitting at her desk memorizing ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and I want to cover up her ears. And then maybe I'll punch Ms. Hare in the face, too. Magic-stealing tart that she was.

9) You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?
No celebrity news. At all. Ever.

10) You have been given the opportunity to create the half-hour TV show of your own design. What is it?
I’d just be happy if NBC would pay the writers, so The Office can come back on.

11) What is your favorite curse word?
Son-of-a-bitch

12) One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by ZOMBIES. The zombies aren't really doing anything, what do you do?
Text Jennie and tell her to RUN!

13) Your house is on fire! What do you do?
Rescue Amy, Margaret, Nala, and as long as they’re not causing any trouble, the zombies.

14) The Angel of Death has descended upon you. Fortunately, the Angel of Death is pretty cool and in a good mood, and he offers you a half-hour to do whatever you want before you bite it. Whatcha gonna do in that half-hour?
Apparate to Salt Lake City. I know someone who has some jurisdiction there, and the Angel of Death will get probably get arrested and be forced to leave me alone. And since I’ll already be there, I might as well take in a Jazz game and go sledding. See some sights. Read a book. You know, whatever.

15) You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What super-power is it?
I will never understand why anyone would choose any power other than flying. Also, does anyone know where can I get said radioactive vegetables?

16) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?
The morning I woke up in a Welsh farmhouse to the sound of my sister saying, “Where’s your camera? It’s SNOWING!”

17) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
Last Christmas springs to mind rather quickly.

18) You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who has super-powers. But check this out you can move anywhere. Where are you going?
Wales.

19) If you were banned from every bar in the world except one, which one would it be?
I can’t imagine that being banned from bars would change my life very much. Unless by bars, you mean El Sombrero Mexican Restaurants. Because that? Would break my heart.

20) Hopefully you didn't mention this in the super-powers question... If you did, then we'll just expound on that. Check it out… Suddenly, you have gained the ability to fly! Whose house are you going to fly to first, and be like "Check it out I can FLY!?"
Whose house am I NOT going to? I can fly.

21) The constant absorption of magical moon beams mixed with the radioactive vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead famous person of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life?
Lupin.

Posted by Heather Anne at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Yesterday StrikeSad commented and said:

"There is no more "Gossip Girl" because the "Gossip Girl" writers are on strike. As are the writers of all of your favorite shows. Because the CW and all the other networks and studios refuse to treat them fairly. As a writer yourself I know you must respect and support those who happen to work in television...If you want "Gossip Girl" and other scripted shows back, it'd be great if you read up on the strike and got your readers to do what they can to help the writers get a fair deal so they can get back to work! There is more info at unitedhollywood.blogspot.com. P.S. Your blog is great."

“There is no more Gossip Girl” is a sinister little phrase, and the sort of thing that comes out of a villain’s mouth right before the hero taps into a place of inner fortitude and kills a thousand ninjas with a shoelace.

When I read the comment, I immediately contacted Abigail, who is always just a speed-dial away, because sometimes I need true things to be false and red to be blue. Also, Abigail is always ready with an analogy about jelly beans or whatever to help me understand thermonuclear dynamics, and she anticipates my questions.

Like, this one time someone told us that she'd had a certain amount of sex in a specific amount of time, and when I heard it I let out this low whistle. I tried to do the long division in my head as I was driving home that afternoon, but it was an obscenely large statistic, so I called Abigail and I just started saying numbers, and she already had a calculator in her hand. (I still think this person’s claim was a physical impossibility. Even if sex was, like, her job. And her animagus was a rabbit.)

So I panicked into the phone about Gossip Girl, and Abigail, who predicted last week’s episode to be the slut spiral that it turned into, told me Blair and Serena, Chuck and Nate would be back on December 19th. See, because when the writers went on strike (which I support, by the way), there were fourteen episodes of Gossip Girl already in the can.

Lately I’ve been asking people who they would appoint for president if they had to choose a person they know. And the person I would choose is Abigail, because:

a) Washington DC is one of her favorite cities, and she would love to live near Kat.

b) She is good at bossing people around.

c) I think she’d make me Heather Anne Hogan, Super Special Ambassador to The United Kingdom, because:

1) I love The United Kingdom.

2) She would want me to talk her up to Prince William.

The only problem is if she made an audacious claim about how much sex she was having with the prince, I would have no way of using math to figure out if she was telling the truth or not.

Aw, who am I kidding, I’d probably believe her anyway. My views on sexuality come from Gossip Girl, and Blair Waldorf had sex with every able-bodied sixteen to eighteen-year-old on the Upper East Side last week.

Posted by Heather Anne at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Dear The CW,

I was just doing a little shopping on the Internets when I noticed an ad for your new series called Crowned: The Mother of all Pageants, which is apparently a reality show about mothers and daughters who live in a big ol' house with other mothers and daughters, and sleep in bunk beds and compete in beauty contests. I mean, for me, personally, that's the kind of tomfoolery that happens in the third circle of hell, but you have to do something with the America's Next Top Model audience after Saleshia wins tonight, so, you know, fine, whatever.

My problem is that this new show is premiering tonight at 9:00. WHEN GOSSIP GIRL IS SUPPOSED TO COME ON.

Look, The CW, all week long I give back to the world with mentoring and coaching little league and recycling and just being a good citizen of earth or whatever, but on Wednesday nights, I like to participate in morally unredeeming activities, like eating delivery pizza and watching teenagers on the Upper East Side navigate the cusp of womanhood. And besides that, when there is no Gossip Girl on Wednesday, there is no Television Without Pity reacp the next Tuesday, and how can anyone anchor their week with that kind of topsy-turvy scheduling?

I am pissed, The CW. Just so you know.

XOXO

Heather Anne

Posted by Heather Anne at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I bought the Order of the Phoenix DVD on its release day yesterday, and I bought it at Wal-Mart because Kat told me you get toys for free if you buy it at Wal-Mart. (And you do.) But last night, instead of watching Order of the Phoenix, like a good little Potter fan should, I (gulp) read a book about (double gulp) The Gettysburg Address.

Forgive me, Internets, for I have sinned.

Posted by Heather Anne at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I spent fifteen minutes at the florist today arguing with a man about what flower is best for an eleven-year-old flautist making her debut at a middle school Christmas concert. I said, how about daisies? He said, overdone. I said, daisies are friendly. And he said, daisies are no flower for a young girl on the cusp of womanhood. I said I’d just take the daisies, please, and never say cusp of womanhood to me ever, ever again.

When I attend non-basketball functions for my little league kids, I always take flowers, because my Manmaw always brought flowers to my chorus concerts and elementary plays when I was a kid. Manmaw was the only person bringing flowers, so I was the only person getting flowers, and they made me feel special and beautiful, sophisticated and entirely mature.

“I cannot accompany you today, children,” I would say when my friends would invite me to McDonald’s after we performed. “I have to retire to my abode and place my tulips—”

“Lilies,” my sister would correct me.

“Lilies in a vase.”

I sat through an hour-long concert tonight, and after it was over, I hugged my little, little-leaguer, and handed her the flowers. Her eyes grew wide and she placed her hand dramatically on her chest. “For me?” she asked.

I nodded and grinned. “For you.”

I am the oldest of four granddaughters and the only one who still rides on Manmaw’s meal ticket at family reunions. Oh, my sister and my two cousins, they cook and clean and do laundry and who knows what all. When it is required of them to bring a dish for sharing, they bring it. When people ask me what I brought, I seek out Manmaw’s casserole dishes on the table, and point.

I follow behind Manmaw in line for food so I can make sure I get the stuff she brought; I know it will be better than all the other grandmothers’ food, and it’s not like I make a show of it. “Did you cook this? Did you cook this?” I always whisper, and if her hands weren’t full of homemade pie, she’d probably be wise to smack me. But she doesn’t. She just smiles and whispers that there’s an extra pie in the big, blue cooler. An extra pie for me.

Cusp of womanhood? Yes, indeed.

Posted by Heather Anne at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Tales of the Beadle Bard. The card from my sister said, "If love were money, this would be the real thing." One of the most wonderful presents I have ever gotten in my life. Tears, there were some.

The year of the book. Not pictured: The Partly Cloudy Patriot, by Sarah Vowell. Because it's on my nightstand. I am thinking of cuddling with it tonight. I like it that much.

Ratatouille apron and hat. Because I am a sous chef, that's what.

Posted by Heather Anne at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

About an hour after I posted that last post, claiming that my birthday was the best birthday of all the birthdays, I was hit with The Plague.

Look, it’s not that I haven’t always felt a little sorry for people who died of Ebola or whatever. It’s just that I’ve always found it hard to empathize with a pandemic. But not after Saturday night. Saturday night when Amy found me shivering in the kitchen floor, begging for death.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” she asked, rushing to my side.

“Bubonic,” I whispered, wiping the cold sweat from my head with the back of my arm. “Bubonic plague.”

Amy sat up with me for hours, spooning medicine into my mouth because my hands were shaking too badly for me to do it for myself. In between each dose of Emetrol, I would crawl to the bathroom and vomit, and then crawl back out into the kitchen and curl up on a pile of laundry. It was pathetic, and the only thing that kept me from giving up and walking toward the light was that Amy had a basket of birthday presents for me in her bedroom that I hadn’t yet opened.

Early Sunday morning, I made it back into bed. Amy came in to check on me, and when I opened my eyes to look at her, I noticed a terrible, horrible, no good sight on my bookshelf. I pointed weakly at it. Amy eyes followed my finger. “But they’re all there,” she said.

I shook my head.

Amy looked all around my room, under piles of clothes and shoes and papers and Legos and who knows what all. Finally she emerged with a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. “Is this the one?” she asked. “A second copy?”

I nodded.

Amy shelved it beside its brother copy, and I smiled weakly. “Thank you.”

I slept almost all day yesterday. And today I ate nine pieces of bread and some rice. I’m on my way to recovery. Most people who had The Plague were never able to say they recovered. But most people who had The Plague probably didn’t have a best friend who knew the power of a dozen Harry Potters, stacked neatly in a row.

Posted by Heather Anne at 05:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

If you’re wondering whether or not my best friend, Amy Sue, planned my birthday party for Medieval Times; if you’re wondering whether or not Abigail flew across the country for it; if you’re wondering whether or not my friends and family spent their Saturday evening eating with their fingers and cheering for our own red knight; if you’re wondering whether or not I was Ladyshipped; if you’re wondering whether or not I was then arrested and tossed into the stocks for spreading witchcraft by my association with Harry Potter; if you’re wondering if the people jeering me loudest were Amy and Abigail; if you’re wondering whether or not I bought a sword; if you’re wondering if it was my best birthday party ever, the answer(s) is (are) yes.

It was the best. The very, very best.

I am drinking soda from a silver chalice right this very minute. But you probably already knew that.

Posted by Heather Anne at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Ordering a palm reader is apparently as simple as ordering a pizza these days. Some guy in my building ordered one (a palm reader, not a pizza) today, and once she was here she said she’d read anyone’s palm for ten bucks. With gas prices in the three-dollar per gallon range, it makes pretty good business sense to read a bunch of palms within walking distance, I suppose. I won ten bucks this morning on a bet, and decided to spend it on the palm reader because it was all very Jane Eyre meets Harry Potter, and if you don’t pause at least slightly in that intersection, I don’t think I want to know you.

First the palmist said I had soft hands, and that they smiled nice. Which: true and true. Then she got to work pressing on my hand and trailing her finger over my palm. The good news: I have a long, clear life line, which indicates… a long clear life. My head line says I am logical, sometimes stubbornly so. My heart line says I am an idealist emotionally. I have solid values, lots of physical energy, and am on the brink of great love.

The bad news: I don’t have a destiny line.

She acted like it was shocking and terribly sad. I told her I didn’t believe in destiny or fate, so really? Not a big deal. But thanks for the empathy.

Why didn’t I believe in destiny, she wanted to know.

Because if destiny was a real thing, I told her, I’d have gotten a Hogwarts letter when I was eleven, dropped out of Divination when I was thirteen, and signed a professional Quidditch contract with Puddlemere United when I was twenty. Or I would have found a dragon egg in the woods behind my house when I was a child, and be a fully trained Rider by now.

She nodded in understanding and said my palm also indicated I wasn’t a materialist. But I don’t think she got that from my hand at all. I think she got it from my new shoes.

Posted by Heather Anne at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

And the winner of Olive the Other Reindeer and the plush Olive puppy is... Tim! of On the Other Hand!

Hooray, Tim! You totally deserve this prize.

But don't look so downtrodden, Internets. If you didn't win, I am still happy to send you a Holiday Greeting Card plus a pack of M&Ms. And you can choose the flavor! So, if you commented yesterday, and you want a prize, email me your address and your preference of M&Ms. (Plain, peanut, peanut butter, those blue crackle kind that taste like feet. You know, whatever.) (heatherannehogan@gmail)

If you didn't comment yesterday, but you feel like you, too, should get a Holiday Greeting Card plus a pack of M&Ms, email me and plead.

Happy Tuesday, friends.

Posted by Heather Anne at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Olive the other Reindeer is one of my most favorite children's books. And today! I am going to give it away! (the deluxe edition!) as a prize, along with a plush Olive puppy! All you have to do is comment before 11:59 p.m. on Monday, December 3rd (Eastern Standard Time) and you will be entered in the random drawing. The person who wins is sure gonna be happy. I might even include some cookies in the prize package. So comment if you want.

And, in the meantime: my accent, let me show you it.

Posted by Heather Anne at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (35)