I’m 30 going on 12

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

This may or may not be a true story.

Today Julia and I were wandering down Fourth Street, a veeerry swanky part of Berkeley, California. We look cute — all dolled up — never mind the holes in Julia’s shirt and the bike shorts I insist on wearing under my skirt. Yeah, we’re cute, and we’re wandering around the CB2 store making fun of the techno music that makes you want to shop and admiring their $25 file folders and shit.

It was all pretty tame and innocent when Julia discovered these little magnetic sphere things. They were pretty fun, I had to admit. She even managed to make them into a bracelet!! Way to go Julia!! If only I had my camera out for this magic moment…

The bracelet — held together only by the attraction of one sphere to another — fell apart!! Little magnetic balls were everywhere. We laughed uproariously and I bemoaned the lack of video footage as I helped Julia track down the balls.

We got most of them, but one was behind this desk, and I thought I could bend down and fish it out. Technically, I could have, but the fact of the matter was that at that moment I had a big ass purse in tow. And that big ass purse in tow bumped a shelf and knocked the display of picture frames off in a dramatic tumble of metal and glass.

We couldn’t hide from the crash. No, that moment found us shame-faced and staring at a pile of broken glass and unsalable merchandise. And the next found us running out of the store like 12-year-olds who neglected to listen to their moms’ advice, “Look but don’t touch girls!!” Continue Reading

Something to Complain About: Window Envelopes

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I’m a huge reduce, reuse and recycle fan.  I might even be militant. Sometimes when I see a toilet paper roll in the bathroom trash my head turns red and I almost pop.  Then I remember that I live with other people with different priorities and that I’m lucky to have a house at all.  So many people don’t.

I save all envelopes for reuse. Some companies are really nice and leave the front mostly blank except for their address; that’s easy–just stick a label on top of their address and boom!  One small fraction of a tree is saved.

It is not so easy with window envelopes.  First of all, why are there so many damn types of window envelopes?  It’s like businesses think they’ll stand out by having their address in a unique place. Looking through my stack of window envelopes just now I had like fourteen different kinds, none of which easily fit my IRS tax payment form (which was obviously made for a window envelope).

A full five minutes later I’d managed to fold my tax payment form a bunch of different ways and position the IRS’ address in the window meant for some bank statement.  But what an ordeal!  Those are five minutes I’ll never get back, world.  All to save you.

You’re welcome.

The Bold Italic: Turning Me Green with Envy

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

The latest thing turning me green with envy is this awesome San Francisco blog, The Bold Italic.

Beautifully designed and featuring all kinds of hip, unique and entrancing tales from local SF Bay residents (like me!), reading it gives me a stomach ache.

I’m not sure what my favorite part is: the fabulous bios, fantastic content (like this lady who lived in a van by the freeway for two days and wrote about it and this guide to SF’s pop up restaurants), gorgeous graphics for EVERY story, or the fact that they ask us what they should write about and let us vote.

It’s so cool, it’s hot. It’s so hot…ohhh…my stomach.

Some day maybe I will be so cool.

Conversation with a Stranger

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Scene: BART from SF 16th St to Oakland. I’m tired and a little worn out. My dinner date had said, “I just want to give you a big hug! You look like the world beat you down.” This is after I went as far as to curl my hair to appear bright and chipper.

The man sitting next to me is really, really into his iPhone. I can tell that from the first second I sit down. He asks me a question about iPhones I don’t really know the answer to but I answer anyway.

Then he shares with me this cool looking astrology app and we both marvel at photos from the Hubble telescope like this:

Source: hubblesite.org

He tells me about this Nova you can see right now…brighter than all the stars in the Universe. The light we can see left that star before our galaxy was even born.

“It makes you feel pretty insignificant,” I say.

“Yes. I think that’s right,” he replies.

I am such a dork

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

We were camping last weekend and, as usual, I made the entire camping party (including the two-year-old) play the Pick Up 40 Pieces of Trash Game.

This time about half way through I offered a “special treat” to those who went double or nothing and got 80.

I have yet to figure out what the Special Treat is. Any suggestions?

Moments later I was interacting with one of the Park Rangers who was cleaning the toilet. We had a pleasant enough interaction, but I couldn’t leave it at that.

No, I had to add, “I just had to tell you…collectively my group just picked up over 400 pieces of trash!!”

That’s when I started to feel really dumb. I started mumbling. “Cause..um..you know, I had the girls do it. And I used to be a Girl Scout. And you know Girl Scouts always leave places cleaner than when they found it.”

Brilliant, girl friend, brilliant.

Are you good at spotting trash? Find the offending garbage in this picture and get a special treat!

Do you see it???

the time I baked bugs into my cookies

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

It seemed like just another day. Got a new bookshelf, had some friends over for dinner. But then, the worst thing ever happened: there wasn’t enough leftover lasagna for everyone.

We all had a decent-sized piece, but not an American-sized piece, if you know what I mean. I made extra salad, but I could tell they were still hungry. Or maybe I was just paranoid.

The decision was made: cookies were in order. I got out everything we needed and made the magic happen. Just when the magic was being perfected, my friend Kat noticed there were little specks dotting the top layer 0f the flour….specks that were–on closer inspection–little winged insects.

Oh but what were we to do??  We baked them.  We ate them.  I let our friend Adam eat two without even telling him.  Does that make me terrible?

And who is to blame for this debacle?  I want to blame my Modular Mates Tupperware containers, pictured above in their bug-harboring glory. How could you do this to me Modular Mates? How could you ruin my cookies??*

And after everything I’ve done for you. Touted you on my online Tupperware store.  Organized my pantry around you.  And now this betrayal.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you.

*To be fair, they were also mediocre for a number of other reasons. 1. We didn’t really follow a recipe. 2. I followed the advice of my friends and added an entire package of pudding. That was just crazy.

A case might also be made that it was my fault that the cookies were ruined for not noticing the bugs when I first scooped the flour.  But again, there is someone else to blame.  And in this case, that someone is booze, who distracted me and inspired me to make the cookies in the first place. Again, not my fault.