Well hello, Heather!

1.Name: Heather Bernhard

If I'd been born a day earlier, my name would have been Natalie. See, a day earlier would have made it still technically The Christmas Season, and the name Natalie stems from the Latin "natal", meaning "birth", i.e. Birth of Christ, i.e. it is so totally a Christmas name. OBVIOUSLY.

2. Hometown:Crystal Lake, IL.

I grew up here, then went away to college and met my husband, then made him move back here with me.

3. What do you think is the greatest invention that was ever invented?

I think the greatest invention ever invented is The Internet. Really. I have been doing the stay-at-home-mom thing for almost four years now, and I think I'd feel a lot more isolated if it weren't for the communication opportunities afforded me online.

4. What is your favorite college memory?

Ha! You sound just like the student caller who called me last night, asking for money. I did not indulge her. But I will indulge you.

This is the hardest question. I have to limit it to just one?

Because here’s the thing. I met FABULOUS people in college. I met my husband in college. And I had a blast during the vast majority of college. So it’s hard to limit my answer to just one super duper anecdote. I can’t do it. I have to give you a list.

• Meeting Eileen: on the day my parents dropped me off at school, after they left, my new roommate invited me to dinner with her and HER parents. Nice, right? Except her mom put the kibosh on that, and said she wanted a special dinner with JUST DIANE. Um, okay, lady. (Cue loneliness tears!) But I? I pulled myself together, and I decided I would walk down my hall and I would stop at the first open door and invite that person to have dinner with me in the cafeteria. So I did. And that was how I met my very dear friend, Eileen.


• Watching Star Trek: I don’t remember how we started this, but there was a group of maybe a dozen of us crazy kids (Serena! Eileen! Ed! Debbie? Stacey! Jeff! Kurt! And many others!) who got our dinners to-go from the cafeteria every day, and gathered in the lounge to watch reruns of Star Trek, The Next Generation. It was on right at 6:00, I suppose. And it may sound silly, but that was the turning point for me into really getting a kick out of science fiction. Nobody had ever made it FUN for me, before. Look at that! Personal growth!


• Meeting Rob: this is great. Our sophomore year, my very dear friend and roommate, Serena, said “Oh hey, Heather, there’s this guy I really want you to meet. He’s really cute, and really funny, and really smart, and I think I REALLY LIKE HIM.” And so I met this guy. And it was Rob. And he WAS cute, and funny, and smart. And I fell head-over-heels. (Darling Serena was…serene…about the whole thing, which made it much easier.) So, after a few MONTHS of fruitless flirting, I planted a big ole’ smackeroo on the poor guy. And that was it. We’ve been together ever since.


• The Green House: My senior year, I rented a house (it was green!) off campus with four other fabulous ladies. Five girls, four bedrooms, one shower (complete with color-coded shower schedule!), a priest for a landlord, a dank and creepy basement, posters and parties and chore charts and bra-stuffing and velveeta dresses and boyfriends and reruns of 90210! And while that setup could easily have been a recipe for disaster, it turned out to be a recipe for some of the most enduring, intense, and cherished female friendships I have in my life, today.

  
  

5. If you could go back in time and take someone else to prom who would you take and why? While you don't have to use their full name you also are limited to people who were at your high school at the time.

If I could go back in time, I would absolutely, 100% certainly, accept the offer of going to Prom with this guy named Andy. He asked me, junior year, and I said no. I had some kind of stupid crush on some ridiculous skinny FRESHMAN with floppy hair, and I asked HIM to go with me, and his parents would not let him go. OR SO HE SAID. Then I asked this other guy, with the kind of big round glasses that were fashionable in 1991, who I also had kind of a crush on, and he flat out said no. Andy, in the meantime, asked somebody else, who said yes. So I ended up not going to the Prom AT ALL that year, whereas I really think I would have had a fun time with Andy. REGRETS!

6. You bump into Michelle Obama shopping at Target. What do you ask/tell her?

I don't see what all the fuss was about with the sleeveless dresses. People are too stodgy. Also, I think it's cool that you moved your mom to Washington with you. I'm glad you're our First Lady.

7. Do you have a blog/website that you would like to plug?

I keep a little journal at helloheather.com. I hand-coded the website back in the early 2000's, and I am still happy that I taught myself how to do that. A lot of the links are outdated, now, though. My poor website has fallen way down on my priority list since then. Poor thing. Still, I do get a kick out of it, and the main content is current.

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I felt like I could ask Heather some fun questions since we are twin separated at birth and it's good to know these things in case you are ever forced into some wacky situation where we go all "Parent Trap" on you and make you choose who is who. I remember cutting off all of her hair at summer camp and singing with our ukuleles. Those were the days.

Actually, that picture is totally fake. A fraud! A scam! Heather and I have never been seen in the same place at the same time. Chew on that for a while.

I, myself, have some regrets about prom dates. The day before prom my boyfriend at the time gave me an ultimatum and said, "Either do it my way or find someone else to go with." I should have called my friend Lee and told him to put on the nearest blue Goodwill tuxedo and come pick me up. Instead I suffered through the evening in my gorgeous dress and broke up with the jerk months and months later. I was no expecting Heather to name the Internet as the best invention ever but it totally is. Back in the day if I wanted to know how to get rid of the rash on my dog I'd have to ask a professional. I used to have to read cook books. I used to have to buy music at the record store and teach all of my classes in person. Anyway, I grateful for the Internet too because it's helped me meet some fine ladies like Heather. (LOL. That sounds dirty. "I have met me some FINE ladies on dem dere interwebz letmetellya.") I can't act too innocent, though. I'd like to say that I'm unsullied by the perils of Internet romance but I met my first husband on the Internet, or rather as a result of the Internet. So, there's that. For all the negative things that people say about blogging and social networking I have to say that I wouldn't have made it through college without ICQ and AIM. I actually wish that Facebook had been invented sooner....which is another story for another day. And of course without the Internet I'd be typing this gibberish into a Word document or something and you'd never be able to read it. So....there's that, too.