I’m feeling significantly better today. Still a bit queasy and off, but oh so healthy and alive. Is it weird that I’m often grateful for illness? Because once I recover and feel better, I find I have so much more gratitude for my life and health. I wrote an entry a few weeks ago (yes, it’s one of the lost blogs) about my numerous blood disorders, and I remember I had such difficulty writing it. I felt like I was complaining. I was sure I sounded selfish… because truly, I’m blessed.

I have a body that can walk (and sometimes run!), lift, stretch, and breathe. My body does so much work for me. It never gives up, never lets me down. Sure, it has its flaws… but look at me, I’m still alive. I guess after a week of being confined to my bed, I’m feeling grateful today.

Anyway, a good friend of mine is flying in from Canada tomorrow (well, technically Utah, but whatever). I haven’t seen Dalia since last March, so I’m beyond thrilled for her visit. It’s funny. She saw my temporary home of the Bay Area and now she’ll be seeing my childhood home of Orange County.

While I’m definitely not as proud as Southern CA as I am of Northern CA, I’m still excited to share it with her. It’ll also be fun to bring a Canadian along for my Independence Day celebrations!

Have a beautiful day everyone!

Anyhow, having that terrible generic Wordpress page up for a few days inspired me to make a new layout! About time, right? I’m actually really proud of it. It features a photo I captured last Wednesday in Colorado Springs. And, to add an even greater personal touch, the header font is my handwriting!

About a month ago I decided to make a few personal fonts for the copies of A Fear of Tears I give out to friends. The novel features quite a bit of Post-It notes, so I figured it’d be fun to make each character’s font unique. ANYWAY, I wound up using Hayden’s (or, er, my) font for the new site header! It makes me giggle, because I’m a bit of a nerd.

But yes, I only have FireFox installed on my laptop, so I’m not sure what the layout looks like in other browsers. Let me know if there’s anything funny going on. I know the header is a bit large/long, but whatever. I like it.

In other news, I’ve returned to Berkeley. My departure from Colorado was rather epic, as an inane blizzard made the I-25 icy and nasty and scary and slippery and dangerous to drive on. Needless to say, the trip up to Denver was a bit nerve racking, but Fayie is amazing and still managed to get me to the airport with an hour to spare.

Somewhere in between Colorado Springs & Denver.

California is currently having a rather ridiculous heat wave (97F in Orange County/86F in Berkeley), so my body is in a bit of a temperature shock. If anything though, the physical discomfort is keeping me from noticing how much I miss Fayie, all of my other friends, and Colorado in general. The ten days passed by FAR too quickly.

To add to my mental/physical/everything craziness, I move out of my Northern CA studio and back down to my family’s house in Orange County this weekend. I have a lot of mixed (mostly negative) feelings about it, but I’m trying to stay positive. It is what it is and I’m going to make the best of it.

The pros of living back at home in Southern CA:

• I get to be with my babies Belle & Leo 24/7!

• Being able to drive my amazing Mini Cooper again! I MISS driving!
• Being with my family, obviously.
• Being near the few friends I have down there.
• Having my own bedroom and bathroom – not having to share a studio.
• Being able to save money in preparation to move to Colorado in the next year.
• Living in a nice house with a pool/spa & outdoor fireplace.
• Getting to cook is a wonderfully large kitchen again and prepare meals/baked good for more mouths then my own. I HATE cooking single serving meals. xD

I’m not going to list the cons of the OC, but focus on the pros. And the pros really are great! So it’s okay! My time in Berkeley has been absolutely incredible, but the moment has come for this chapter to close.

Anyhow. I really need to begin packing up my studio. Fun stuff!

My finger accident was much more serious then I realized. I woke up the morning after my last blog, to the bandage soaked through and my sheets stained with fresh blood. Thanks to my several different blood disorders, the cut couldn’t form platelets fast enough and therefore the blood kept flowing. It took about two… three days to finally get the small gash to stop bleeding and by then, I was anemic and weak. I hadn”t felt that weak and sick since I was 13, before my spleen was removed.

It was frightening, to say the least. At one point, I was sure my parents needed to call for a helicopter to transport me back to CHOC. I was ready to resign my healthy, vibrant life for one with an IV attached to me at all times once more. Now that I’m okay and dancing through my days again, I decided that once I’m back in Orange County, I’m seeing my hematologist and getting retested FOR EVERYTHING. I’m taking my giant horse pills of medicine, so this should NOT have happened.

On a happier note, a lovely Canadian slept on my couch for a few days this week. Dalia is a good friend of mine that I know thanks to a certain vampire series (*cough*Twilight*cough*). Anyway, I didn’t realize how much I LOVE Berkeley and San Francisco until I got to show it off to her. I was so proud and enthused to share my city with her. Plus, she’s vegan, too. So we ate up all the wonderful Bay Area cruelty free food. No animals were harmed in our epic journeys!

I’ll probably write more on our experiences later, but for now, I’ll leave you with a video. It’s pretty much self explanatory. But, um, do be warned that the language I use would make it rated R in theaters. I was rather frazzled and cold, so the F bomb was exploded a few good times.

Oh, and this was filmed on March 3rd of 2009. Like I said, I was kind of loopy – from lack of blood AND defeating hell’s fury! I swear, I’m not usually THIS annoying.

I have a friend. This friend I shall call The Swallow. When I first moved to Berkeley and became closer with The Swallow, he introduced me to the Team Game. The game basically is that whenever you randomly see a weird/ridiculous/funny looking person, you tell one of your friends that the bizarre person is on their team.

I went along with the Team Game for the past two months. I would laugh and shove the Swallow whenever a “freak” joined my team. I hesitated adding anyone to his team for the first few weeks and when I finally did, I wanted to cry. I felt so ridiculously bad about those simple words. Your team. I wanted to crawl in a hole.

I moved on the from the incident, but I never participated again. I shook my head whenever The Swallow threw someone at me. “Ha ha ha ha. Real nice.” I’d say. But silently, I would think lovely and beautiful thoughts about the person in hopes to undo the pain that The Swallow caused.

Last night I took a stand. As we walked past the long haired girl with an accordion, I stopped.

“I will no longer put up with this travesty of a game!” I announced as I folded my arms.
“Heather, dude.” The Swallow laughed.
I shook my head, the lights of Shattuck Avenue swarming my mind. “It’s cruel, Swallow. This game is just pure evil.”
“They don’t hear us, so therefore it doesn’t hurt!” He shrugged.
“You’re still sending it out into the universe!” I gasped. “No more! I do not want to play this anymore!”
“Hey Heather,” The Swallow smirked. “See that chick screaming? She’s on your team.”
“GOOD! I WANT HER TO BE ON MY TEAM! I HAPPILY ACCEPT THE SCREAMING CHICK ON MY TEAM!”
“Okay, then…”

Because seriously, what is the good in picking on people? Why must we consider any person out of the norm weird? I announce a new game! The My Team Game. Whenever I see a rad, unique person, I’ll proudly put them on my team. ANYONE! EVERYONE! HELLO!

And you are all on my team.

Have a good day.