Happily Ever After... is just the begining.

5 years ago I started blogging about my 27 years of life adventures and 12 years of my dating misadventures … I’ve had wild crazy passionate affairs, I’ve been skinny dipping in multiple countries, dated those professional extreme athletes, the bad guys, the firemen, actors, models, the stripper, the bartender… I’ve learned to surf, kick box, kayak, became a yoga master, gone vegetarian, vegan, ate for my blood type, drank champagne on the beach watching the sun rise, gone on road trips, traveled with my girls, hitch hiked, back backed, gone off roading, bailed a boyfriend out of jail, met more famous Actors/ Writers/ Directors/ Producers than most people can even name, worked on more than one top 10 TV show, and more than one canceled one, gotten reviewed in numerous papers. I’ve lived in New York, moved across the country to LA without knowing a soul, left a job without having another one lined up and learned how to live funemployment fabulously. I’ve died my hair platinum, brown, maroon, and finally back to its natural blond, I’ve broken someone’s heart and had my own broken (more than once!), broken my nose, sprained my knee and ankle, gotten multiple concussions, totaled a car (well had it totaled for me), been to multiple emergency rooms, gotten a tattoo, did a walking marathon, cheered my boyfriend on when he became an ironman, lost 5 dress sizes and 40 pounds (and gained and lost many more over the years) learned to mix the perfect drink (and began writing about it), hiked an active volcano, ran from a rattle snake, gotten stung by a jelly fish, sting ray, and had a man of war wrap itself around my body, gotten caught in a rip current, under a wave, knocked unconscious by my surfboard, and even learned to put on false eyelashes (hey that one was really hard!), Traveled Europe, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica and of course the US, I’ve seen a ghost (I swear!), built a bonfire from scratch, thrown a black tie party, learned how to build a snowman, finally sung karaoke (ALONE!), gotten the answer right in final Jeopardy, built a website from scratch, met my idols, lit fireworks on the beach… in short I thought I’d experienced everything there is to in life… and then I met him. And now at 31, 1 ½ years after Mr. Hermosa and I began dating, and 2 years after we first met I’m starting to see that happily ever after is just the beginning in life and not the end as every Hollywood movie and fairytale will have you believe. But the question is what happens AFTER that happily ever after… after the initial honeymoon phase. After you begin living together. After you melt your life, your laundry and you home… After you stuff 3 bikes, 2 surfboards and 2 peoples’ lifetime of junk into 1 very small 1-bedroom beach apartment…

I've decided to start the Second chapter in Harts’ crazy life fresh with a new blog site. And maybe this chapter doesn’t have scandal… and more often than not sand on the floor and frustrated tears after another dinner I’ve butchered comes up in smoke… But it does have something that’s more important than perfect dinners and scandals and drama… it has real happiness.

So pour yourself a glass of wine and enjoy as I stumble my way through domesticity- smile on my face and of course sexy stilettos on my feet. You can check out the new digs at: http://www.beachshackdreams.blogspot.com

Smog Colored Hollywood Glasses...

When looked at from a different perspective our lives are never quite what we imagine them to be… no matter how hard things are going for us there is always someone doing better, someone doing worse, someone who probably is looking at us with envy and at least one person who looks at us as a hero. Especially those of us that work in the entertainment industry. I take it for granted that I spend half of my life within spitting distance of many the top stars. That I’ve met people that most of the world would kill to just get a glimpse of. That I’ve been on sets that tabloids gossip about… yesterday I was reminded just how rare what I do really is, and that from the perspective of a 6 year old girl anything in this industry is awe inspiring… While spending another night working on a Disney show (luckily this time it was Wizards of Waverly Place and not my arch nemesis that is Sony with a Chance) I had a 6 year girl walk up to me with the largest smile on her face, she pointed to the TV’s above the audience and said: “That’s my dad up there, he’s the star talking right now”… which wouldn’t have seemed so out of place, lots of celebrities have their kids come see their shows. What was out of place was her dad is not a celebrity, instead he is affectionately known as “Elvis”, the main valet at Lot D of Hollywood Center Studios. The warm up guy had made another one of his year behind the scene videos and her father, the valet, was transformed in her eyes through the magic of camera’s and televisions into a star… now I know he’s not a star. In fact he’s one of the lowest on the totem pole that is a studio back lot, but it made me smile. To her he’s the biggest star out there… There are many days when we grumble about our jobs, the ego’s we come in contact with, the days of unemployment (in my case the MANY DAYS OF UNEMPLOYMENT), the in between jobs we have to take in order to try and get to our dreams (the clothes we’ve sold, uniforms we’ve had to endure, phones answered, drinks served, tables cleared, unemployment phone lines we’ve wait on and been hung up on many times)… so many days that they blend together and sometimes it’s easy to forget that we in fact inspire some people. That we in fact do work in a magic industry. That all the hardships are just temporary… because we see the world through our smog colored Hollywood eyes, sometimes we need to just step back and look at our lives with more rose colored glasses. Because in someone’s eyes we are their hero.

Sometimes you have to just stop and smell the roses, or in my case fantastic pink flowers!

I’m 30 years old and until last night I had never been brought flowers by a boyfriend. Sure I got corsages when I was in high school before proms. And sure my father use to bring me home flowers when I was sick as a kid. And of course I’ve had friends bring me flowers on my birthdays…but from a boyfriend, never. It’s something that shocked Mr. Hermosa last night, his response- well I can see why you have so many ex boyfriends, I would have ended things with them too if I never got flowers… and it made me think, how have I settled for a flower-less romantic life? I’ve gotten cheese, bottles of champagne, alcohol, stuffed animals, cards…but never flowers. And never just because I was having a bad day. I don’t know how I’ve let myself settle for less in life. Partly because I have always secretly thought I couldn’t do better, but mainly because I just got so use to being treated like a convenience that I didn’t realize that there really was a guy who would treat me like a priority. At 30 my eyes are finally opening, though maybe because I’m finally ready for them to open. It’s disgusting I know, but I can’t stop smiling and every day I fall more and more for Mr. H… it’s weird because you would never be able to guess that we would work, or in his words we are “a perfect match”. In a way I would say he completes me, there is something about him that calms me down. As many of you know from following my blog these last couple of years I have a tendency to obsess and stress. I facebook stalk. I count condoms in drawers to see if they are cheating. I spend hours on the phone dissecting every little thing he says. I spend all the minutes in the day wondering if I was doing something wrong, if I said something wrong, how I was pushing them away… for the first time every I’m able to just sit back and really enjoy being in a relationship. We talk about how things are going, both just in utter shock at how amazing it is. Last night I had one of my first tiny moments of panic, I was lighting the candles around the room, setting the stage for a romantic dinner and thought- is this too much. And as soon as I thought it, he walked in. Flowers in hand and this huge smile on his face to see me and all my questions just floated away… because how can I doubt a guy who took off yesterday morning from work just to spend some time with me since he was away all weekend. Who spent his entire guys weekend in Vegas text messaging me, not drunk and horny but drunk and telling me how much he missed me and how amazing I was. Who has arranged double dates with his friends and their girlfriends so we can audition a few couple friends and because they are apparently dying to meet me. Who invited me to be a date at a wedding, not only the first date he’s ever brought to one of his college boys weddings but to a wedding in Pittsburg on New Year’s Eve. 3 months from now, and yet he’s sure that we will still be together. And the thing is it didn’t feel weird that he asked, it just felt normal. Just as it’s normal that I have just as many Dan events in my calendar as I do my own. I keep beer for him in my fridge. My bathroom cabinet is now stocked with his boy products as well as his toothbrush occupies the other space in my holder (I have a drawer at his place as well with all my goodies!). Our lives have just slowly melted into one. For this upcoming weekend there isn’t a do you want to do something kind of anxiety, it’s a so what are we doing this weekend. It’s just given that we will be spending it together. We still have managed to keep parts of our lives separate, which I think helps it work. He watches the Notre Dame football game every Saturday with his buddies, I came to the end of one of the games but I like knowing that every Saturday I have a few hours where I can go and hang out with my girls, this week I have a baby shower to go to during the game. We have 3 big weekends planned coming up- apple picking in Julian, Charger game in San Diego, and the big Thanksgiving weekend in Arizona. We also have small weekends planned coming up- his two big races (one which he is entering me into if we can heel this ankle), his birthday weekend (he’s planning his big drunken bday night and I’m planning a surprise romantic one for the night of his actual birthday) and one weekend where we are planning on spending an entire Sunday in bed watching football. We have excitement coming up and some time to just enjoy being a couple… and I have to say this time I’m happy I didn’t settle for less…because for once I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever dreamed of and more!

Broken… luckily this time it’s just an ankle and not my heart.

I have this little oddity when it comes to sex. I don’t orgasm. I know it sounds weird, especially since I really really love sex. Love the feel of it but oddly will never orgasm. I sometimes will before or after but never during. And only a handful of times have I actually been able to cum with someone else, usually it’s them finishing and then I bring out the vibrator…. Well after another great weekend of sex Mr. H had found the spot and we spent a very exciting and very satisfying morning in bed. The only problem is that when we finally got out of bed on Sunday I was very space cadetey and somehow lost my balance walking down the stairs on the way to the movies and managed to sprain my ankle and most likely rip a tendon (I even get to go see an Ortho Surgeon next week to see about how they can repair it!)… but the resulting injury has landed me in bed for the week. And sadly it’s on my right ankle so I can’t even drive!!! Luckily in the last month I’ve managed to find myself that most amazing boyfriend who has waited on me hand and foot the last week! He somehow anticipates everything that I need even before I need it. So the poor boy has been on ice pack duty, refilled glasses, went to the store for me, refilled my prescriptions (even my birth control- though really that was also in his best intrest), picked me up so I could go see the Charger Game, done dishes, had very careful sex and even managed to squeeze in dinner with my mom. In which my mom found him very charming and thoughtful. She said that he’s by far the best one I’ve dated but is trying to not get her hopes up too much since my relationships usually only have a 3 month window before they disintegrate, on hearing this he was like well tell her that since we’ve known each other a lot longer than 3 months it’s like we’ve already passed that window. And yes we’ve finally become official, facebook official that is. He asked the other morning why I haven’t requested him as my “in a relationship with”…and I have to admit I’ve gone to his page a lot in the last two days, not to stalk like I’ve had to do with other guys I’ve dated but because I just like seeing that it says he’s in a relationship with me. Yea I know I’m a super dork, but so is he so it works out great. I even got yet another mixed CD (he said he feels like he’s in high school making them for me, and I love that and them!). And when finding out that the highlight of my grandfathers youth was when my great-grandpa use to take him and all of his brothers to go see the Notre Dame football games Mr. H offered to take my grandparents to see one… his reasoning- that he’s not going to have too many opportunities to get to know my grandparents and to be able to take my grandpa to a game would be really amazing since it would mean so much to him. And I think when I look back on that moment years from now I have a feeling that is going to be the one when I say- and that is when I fell in love with him…

Happy Broken Records...

Sadly I’ve become a broken record lately- seriously how many times can one person say they have never been this happy! And happily- IT’S TRUE. Things are just going amazingly with Mr. Hermosa right now. As Date Girl pointed out it really is just like a light bulb went off in my head and I’m realizing wow this is how you are supposed to be treated by a guy that you are dating! H and I have slowly just morphed into this great relationship. He even told me that his friends have all told him to make sure he doesn’t fuck up this relationship that I’m the keeper… which made me happy, because not only do they like me but we all know that once a guy is telling his boys that he’s in a relationship he’s serious! And last night while laying in bed he said not only how happy he is but that he prefers me to be with him in his bed than to be alone, even if he did have to get up at 4. And he wasn’t meaning because of sex, he had a triathlon this am so we didn’t even fool around last night. He was happy just to have ME be with him :)

This week kind of just flew by in a blur of evenings together… Wednesday night I cooked him dinner, ok more like cooked him a FEAST. The last couple of weeks he’s been wining and dining me so I thought it was only fair that I did a little bit for him. I cooked for hours, I prettied the apartment, I put on my best slutty desperate housewife outfit… the meal came out fantastic. He was beyond excited about it and loved all my cooking. And although I was supposed to be doing something for him, when he got over he told me he wanted to show me something on his phone it was a picture of my fixed bike breaks! A few weeks ago the breaks went out on my little beach cruiser, leaving me in Venice on the side of the road sobbing…. To say I had a little meltdown was putting it mildly! So I had taken my bike over to his place last weekend for him to look at it and after a temporary fix (that again left me without breaks going down a steep hill!) we realized it needed new parts. I had left it at his place and was planning on buying the parts this week so that maybe this weekend he could look at it. Well on Tuesday night, our only night apart this week, he picked up the parts and spent the evening fixing my bike as a surprise for me. Yea I know, he’s too damn PERFECT!

Thursday night was going to be our night apart. I had a girls night planned and he had track which usually leaves him exhausted. Of course my plans fell through so I ended up having a “family” dinner with friends at the beach instead…which is conveniently 2 blocks from his house so he thought it would be perfect for me to just stop by when I was done…and I did. With a plate of food for him. Now it’s a simple gesture on my part, and I’m use to those things going unnoticed. But instead he was so happy I brought him food. And we spent a fun evening hanging with his roommate watching football. A completely ordinary evening that was just felt normal and amazing at the same time!

As for last night, Friday night, since I had taken care of dinner the last two nights he cooked me dinner. Simple pasta and veggie meal (loads of carbs so he can load up for his Triathlon this morning)… and I have to say there is something incredibly sexy watching a hot man cook me dinner! After that we just watched TV (I convinced him to watch Melrose Place with me even) and he made me yet another gift. Totally cheesy but he made a mix CD, it’s the music we’ve been listening to while we’ve been having sex…. Too funny but LOVE it. And love a guy that tells me that now he will always think of me (and probably get hard) every time he hears Jack Johnson! He even titled it “Life Guard Towers”… Jack Johnson was playing when we had sex on the towers last weekend which got us on the Jack Jack kick! He really is just too cute, right?!

And today will be a busy and laid back day at the same time. I’m again spending the weekend down at his place… and at 4:30 this morning I wished him luck as he went off for his Tri. And when he’s done it’s to his favorite Notre Dame Bar with his buddies (North End) for the ND and Ohio State games and then on to the Oktoberfest with my friends and tomorrow will be Sunday Funday at the beach. And we will have spent another great weekend just relaxing, playing in the sun, drinking with a mix of our friends (which all just blend so well together!) and just getting to know each other. I’m shocked we still have things to talk about. We’ve had a ton of sex but mainly we’ve just been talking about anything and everything. I’ve never gotten to know someone so well… it helped that we’ve been friends for awhile so all the basic and introductory questions were already out of the way and we were able to just go straight to the real stuff. And I have to say it’s just been fantastic. I’m beyond happy. I’m completely de-stressed. He already brought up the Holidays as if it’s just a given we will still be together then! And I have to say I really don’t have much to write about except my broken record of- I’M HAPPY…

Once upon a time there was a little girl… who always cried love…

It’s really hard to put the last week into words. The only word I can come up with is- DREAM. As we know I’ve dated a lot, I’ve fallen in love many times, I’ve even talked about how amazing these guys really are when I’ve taken them back. But in the long run we’ve all known that they basically treat me like the gum on their shoes. But through all the dates, the men, the break ups, the disasters and sex-capades I’ve never met the right guy… well turns out maybe I’ve known him for awhile and just was too chicken shit to do anything about it! Mr. Hermosa and I have been friends since the beginning of the year, and my crush on his has been since the beginning of the summer. Yet I didn’t do anything about it. Maybe because of Mr. Piranha and all these Mr. Wrong. Maybe because I didn’t want to really put myself out there… but man am I ever happy that he finally forced me to. It’s been an amazing 2 weeks now. It’s so weird to have things be so normal. So natural. So stress free… He still plans our next dates before I leave his house. He’s introduced me to his closest guy friends. I’ve introduced him to mine (and they all LOVE him… in fact their exact words were that they can’t believe how much he dotes on me and treats me amazingly). We’ve discussed the horrible word- relationship. He’s the first guy I’ve dated in years that said point blank that at this point in his life he is not only ready for a relationship but he’s ready to settle down. In fact when the conversation of our relationship came up he said the same thing that I’m feeling- that he’s happy riding this one out. That this is just too normal for him to think anything other than it being amazing and is unbelievable happy with how things are. And let me tell you it has been nice having sex with someone and knowing that I’m the only one that they are having sex with. And that they are happy about that! I’ve never been with someone that wants to spend all his time with me, and not just in the bedroom, but have someone that really wants to get to know everything about me. One that even the other morning told me that he just wants to make me happy… and for once he’s someone that wasn’t adding the “in bed” on the end of it!

I originally was supposed to spend all of last weekend at a friend’s house at the beach… and seeing as she lives 2 blocks over from him he figured it would be a waste for me to stay there so on his insistence I stayed with him. And I was nervous. We had been together only a week (yes he did take me out and we celebrated our one-week anniversary- who does that!). But I was nervous to spend an entire 3 day weekend with him. In the long run it was the best decision ever and it felt like we had always been together and it felt amazing. We spent Friday through Monday just bumming around on the beach, riding bikes, talking nice walks hand in hand, went to see my roommates band play, took many swims in the ocean, bar hopped with all of our friends and of course had lots of great sex… all in all it may have been the most perfect weekend of my life. And although I didn’t compare him to any other guys, this morning while talking to my mother I realized just how different he really is to everyone else I’ve dated. But it’s more than that, this is different. It just feels so right. And it’s funny because when I started to tell friends about him they thought out there she goes again… and just like the little girl who cried wolf they were just counting the days until the big blow up and it once again would be over…until they slowly have started to meet him. And as soon as they do one of the first things they say is- this is different isn’t it. And like I said, I can’t even put into words just how different this really is! And no I’m not in love with him, I’m not that crazy… but I can see this going somewhere… and luckily he feels the same. And if feels amazing. Just knowing that I don’t have to obsess, analyze, stress, worry, go crazy about and basically just do everything that my friends hate me for feels great. Maybe constantly living in the past really has prevented me from meeting Mr. Right… or maybe I just need time to be ready for him. But what I know for certain is that I’m very happy to not be living in the past anymore. I even did something that needed to be done over the weekend- I let Mr. Piranha go. I knew he deserved to know the truth, especially since he was started to freak out a bit that I was avoiding surfing with him all week. As much as I’d like to say he was happy for me that I found someone that makes me this happy (I can’t stop giggling and smiling lately!) he wasn’t… And that is enough to tell me that he didn’t really care about me. Instead all he’s done is care about himself… And as soon as I got off the phone with Mr. Piranha on Friday I noticed that I had received a text message from Mr. Hermosa letting me know he got off work early and to come over for a bike ride before dinner… And I had one thought- Could it be that I’ve finally found a guy that actually deserves my heart?! I mean any guy who brings me classic literature instead of flowers may just be different from the rest…in a very good way!

Mr. Hermosa

While all this has been going on with Mr. P, over the last couple of months there has been another Mr. in the back of my mind. I haven’t mentioned him because there wasn’t been too much to tell. He started out as just the closest guy friend of two of my girl friends…but slowly over the summer we’ve become friends ourselves. There was a bit of a flirtation but nothing major. He came to my birthday to pub crawl with us (even though he had a race the next morning- he’s a serious triathlon competitor). I went and watched him compete in the 6-man volleyball tourney. And somehow we’ve ended up with this very random inside joke regarding “I’m on a boat” so over the last month a lot of text messages have been passed back and forth. Nothing overly flirty. Nowhere near dirty…but we’ve just continued to text, facebook message and see each other on a regular basis in our group of friends. Always just within the group and always with tons of alcohol. And slowly I’ve developed a bit of a crush on him, nothing major. But a little crush that I figured was just me and would never have acted on it… until Saturday night when I realized that I wasn’t the only one that was crushing! But let me take you back to Saturday…

It was the 1 year anniversary of friends of ours moving to Hermosa. Sarah and Kendal happen to live 2 houses in from the beach down there and happen to throw these huge beach parties…this one though was a more intimate party with only close friends. I was a bit excited, things had seemed to progress a bit and for some reason I was a bit nervous to see him. But after a few rounds of flip cup I was back to my normal self and enjoyed catching up with everyone and actually spending some one on one time with him. After hours of drinking on the beach everyone finally started to get ready to head to the bars, but him and I decided to head off a bit early just the two of us. As soon as we left the party I started to go back to being nervous, wondering if maybe I was imagining that he was interested in me… we got to the Poop Deck (yea I know HORRIBLE name for the bar) and after he bought us a pitcher of beer and found a corner for us to sit and chat I started to feel a bit better, still a bit nervous but this time because it was apparent that he was interested and I started to think wow this is going to happen… and after a few more pitchers, a few more bars, and everyone meeting up with us we decided to go get a late dinner, just the two of us. And so we went… down to our favorite pizza place and settled in for some pizza and some more time without the group… and I really enjoyed myself. We’ve never spent time alone, and never spent time when we were not passed out drunk. And in fact we both had sobered up quite a bit by the time we got food….and by the time we decided to take a midnight walk on the beach we both were really sober. But as soon as our feet hit the sand and his hand found his way into mine, all my nerves went away… it just felt kind of right. And sure I had a moment when he kissed me, when I thought I’m kissing one of my friends… We ended up spending close to 3 hours sitting up at the lifeguard station, not making out as you would expect but just cuddling up and talking. We talked about everything and I finally got a really good glimpse of him. And I have to say, I really liked what I saw! After the fog rolled in and the waves started to crash down we just sat there. Talked. Cuddled a bit. But spent a lot of time actually enjoying the silence.

After that we walked to his place (he has a house a couple blocks over from the beach) and we settled in for the night. Now I’m not going to say nothing happened, but I did stop us before we had sex… I kind of wanted to see where this is going. And I felt great about the fact that this wasn’t a drunken hook up. And I definitely don’t remember the last time that I hooked up with someone for the first time sober! It felt nice… and when woke up the next morning, he drove me back to my car and I left the beach with a smile…

I was originally worried, because as with Mr. Piranha, we know all the same people. But the main difference with Mr. H is that with him we really are good friends and we do hang out all the time in a very small group, a very small very gossipy close knit group. But whereas I tried to hide my relationship with Mr. P from our mutual friends, Mr. Hermosa totally succumbed after about 5 min of grilling and it’s out in the open now. But importantly everyone is very excited about it. They were pushing for it for awhile anyway. Plus two sets of them are already couples, and another set is very close t0 going that way. So really it wasn’t too abnormal for us to hook up. And in fact the group is hoping it’s more… They were really excited when they found out that Mr. H actually considered it a date! And it was pointed out to me that it’s nice because now I don’t have to stress about when I will hear from him or when I will see him again, because we all will be going out again tomorrow night! Though he didn’t give me any time to stress, about an hour after I left his place yesterday morning I got my first text message from him. And it felt normal to hear from him. And today I got more texts again… and it feels great. There really isn’t any stress this time. I’m gonna see him tomorrow. And we are already making plans to see each other without the group later this week! And for now I’m taking it pretty slow… especially since I know I still have feelings for Mr. Piranha. But after a weekend of being reminded that there really is someone who actually wants to be with me. Someone who wants to have sex with me. Someone who wants to tell all his friends about me. And someone who I want to tell all my friends about. It’s made me realize that maybe I don’t need to hang on to the past…