Once upon a time in a copywriting class I was introduced to the writing of Amy Krauss Rosenthal. We were asked to come up with our own little versions of her Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life – what began as a class assignment has become perhaps the best compilation of everything I love to write about most.

Hope you enjoy:

A

My sister, cousin, and boyfriend were all born on April 12. Allison, Ashley, and Aaron, all Aries born in April. I feel like this should mean something. All it really means is each April I have to find a way to make everyone feel like they are more important that the other two.

Aaron

The first name in my cell’s phonebook, my first and last call of the day. Two AA’s in a row pretty much assure you’ll be the first in any list. All I have to do is press the down arrow on my phone; he is above speed dial. Or should I say “quick keys” (gah I hate when they change things that don’t need changing; I didn’t even know a more PC term for speed dial existed). Aaron’s full name is James Aaron Paulding McKechnie. Why, we may never know. But more importantly, it is important to know, as he offers different names according to the situation. “Aaron” is used solely for family members and close friends. “James” is used at school and work. And “Wally” is used for close friends from high school, for reasons I will never fully understand. When I sold my bike on Craigslist I introduced him to the couple that bought it as “this is my boyfriend Aaron.” He then shook their hands, said “Hi, I’m James” and made me look insane. Oddly, I don’t think the couple even noticed. Amazing how little effort people will put into fake caring.

April 2005

Wednesday April 27, 2005

Send us the cure, we’ve got the sickness already.

Yes, it is that most blessed and cursed time of year. The time of year where the temperature rises, resolve fades, and all motivation for schoolwork is lost. It’s almost summer, ladies and gentlemen. The summer, that, in all honesty, I believed would never arrive. When life changes, you never think very far past the change. And by “you,” I guess I mean “I.”  Moving to college became so monumental in my mind, I never saw through to the moving back. But regardless, a very strange three months of life back at home awaits me. I can’t help but think about old friends, and where exactly to pick up – if I should pick up at all. I hate the taboo on high school friends. Why? I ask, why? Why can’t I still communicate with people who were most certainly good enough to hang out with for the last four years of my life, why all the sudden are they sub-par? What if there really are no better friends out there? And even if there are, how does that translate to the dumping of the old?

I can’t help it if I’m a little excited about falling into old groups and old habits, even if it is just for a little while….

Thursday April 28, 2005

Everything I’ve ever thought the beach smelled like is really nothing more than sun block and salty sweat.

I’d like to believe a strong wind blew the faint smell of ocean all the way from the shore of Galveston hundreds of miles to my wishful-thinking nose this morning as I climbed the stairs to class. Landlocked, I stood searching for the source…. finally deciding it was either sun block or a mirage. Perhaps it was just a mirage – but I believe summer is here. It’s in the air. Breathe in deep enough and you can even taste it.

Autobiography

Today I read 300 pages and wrote an eight-page essay about it for Campaigns class. I must say I haven’t tried to pull off something like that since high school, but I’ve still got it. I began around noon this “morning” and by the time I finished almost twelve hours later, I was ready to begin my day. Sadly, no one else was. Finding it impossible to sleep, I decided to quit kidding myself, turn on the TV and see what I could write. To get myself in the writing mood, I usually go through things I’ve already written, see what has changed, and in general remind myself that I used to be able to write well. Long story short, I have a bad little narcissistic habit. In the book I read today, a creative director for Wieden & Kennedy made it a neurotic habit to vent his frustrations by writing taunting and bizarre letters to George Bush. What do I do? I write the introduction to my autobiography. Currently, I have about three or four aforementioned indulgent prologues. I sometimes wonder if this type of crazy I am cultivating will benefit me in the long run, or if it will just take longer to sort it all out in therapy.

Birthdays

Twenty-two. The beginning of the birthdays that mean nothing other than “you are older.” One might ask, so what do you do for a twenty-second birthday? Answer: same thing you did for the twenty-first.

Oddly, in my case this means not having a drop of alcohol. The pressure to be an interesting person on this particular day of the year is unbelievable. People are always going to ask what you did on your “big day” and it is always going to be just lame enough to be an unacceptable response. Is lying about how I spent my birthday as horribly pathetic as I suspect it is? The truth is I would rather lie and go on enjoying the lameness I have chosen.

I spent Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at home in my PJ’s. I skipped class, I didn’t shower until 2 PM. I checked the mail. Aaron came over and made me “lunch” around three. We did some light shopping, played large amounts of Guitar Hero, and then ended the evening alone on the couch with seven or eight episodes of Sex and the City.

I am Bridget Jones. I feel no remorse for these past decisions, only concern for their future implications.

Bravenec

Czech surname meaning “fire ant”

Pronounced (by a fourth generation Texan no longer taught Czech): “Bra- (as in support bra) Venn- (as in the diagram) Neck (as in duh)”

Variations on this Theme: Brave-nick, Bruh-ven-neice, and the ever popular Breffenich.

Our last name is misspelled in the phone book as “Braveneh,” ensuring that if any telemarketer should happen to make it through the treachery of our Slavic heritage, they will still be found out. This may be the reason my parents have never bothered to fix it; it may just be laziness. I may be the only one who is bothered by it.

Candy

Halloween is all about the candy. Anyone who tries to tell you differently is full of it. I know this because, sitting here with my two-pound bag of Yorks and Starbursts I feel like I missed absolutely nothing. I am content. Gluttonously, obesely, glucosely, content. (Yes, those are all words… well, gluttonously is). Dressing up in a costume is nice, but there is nothing quite like dumping out a plastic pumpkin full of candy onto the floor and spreading it out and making snow angels… or maybe that’s just me.

Chelsey

The youngest of my two sisters. I believe it was me who suggested we should spell her name with a “y” instead of an “a”, inadvertently making her an outcast from the monogrammed souvenir industry. That kid will never find a “CHELSEY” keychain or mini license plate, but I believe it’s a small price to pay for being unique and cool. In 6th grade I became best friends with a Chelsea and began the family crisis of never knowing for sure which one was being talked about.

Classics

I believe that most people don’t appreciate the classics because they have already been spoiled by their successors. Visiting my sister in her dorm this evening, we found it impossible to convince anyone on her floor that Annie Hall was worth watching with us. No one knew the movie; no one could be convinced to join our cause. One girl had the nerve to mutter snidely “this movie is like thirty years old.”  I can understand her concern, as clearly 1998 marked the dawn of cinematic renaissance in America.

I considered asking if anyone even knew who Woody Allen or Diane Keaton were, but almost certain I would not be able to stomach the answer, I declined. As we began the movie my own sister betrayed me, claiming the movie was too slow and boring. And while I myself can scarcely sit through old black and white movies these days, I still cling to the belief that it is worthwhile to experience them.

The problem with classics is that they are just that. They are copied so many times in so many different ways that the once novel ideas are now common and dried up. I tried to point out to her just how many things were used for the first time. How Woody Allen created the neurotic New Yorker that echoes from everything in When Harry Met Sally to Sex and the City. Those classics where were the clichés began; when they were risky, awkwardly green and untested.

She didn’t care. She revoked my Blockbuster rights and shuffled back to her room, claiming we should have rented The Notebook.

Clairvoyance

The ability to look at a person and assign to them a number of napkins they will need.

Clairvoyance is a skill. I find it interesting how off one can be in assessing another. Quizno’s man obviously judged me wrong when he looked me over and assigned me only two napkins.

I must not appear to be the complete disaster I really am.

Comforting.

Dachshund

Our family Pet’s Name and Derivations of It

Penny Roll Bravenec

1. “Oh my goodness puppy what did you do?!”
Goodness puppy!
Goodness pup!
Goo’ness pup!
Goo’ness!
Goon!
Puppa Goon!

Puppa badness!

2. “Give me kisses!”
Gimme keeeseses!
Keesay!
Quise!

3. Penny
Penna!
Whenna!
Whenna girl!

Definitions

Half-Life: The time it will take me to eat my leftover slice of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, given the pattern of eating in which I eat only half of what is there each time I retrieve it from the fridge.

Avoidant Personality Disorder: Failure to wash clothes for so many days that the overflow pile on top of the hamper is now two-thirds the size of the hamper itself.

Disappointment

Disappointment Is

Disappointment is misreading “See carton for complete information for use” on the jar of Vick’s VapoRub,
because,
well,
everyone likes a cartoon in unexpected places.

Disordered.

Do you think it bothers Obsessive-Compulsives to be labeled as “Disordered”? If anything, they are Ordered. Strangely, defectively, excessively, Ordered. If I were one, I would take it as a clear sign that the psychological community did not understand my rare form of brilliance, despite the troubling side effects. When one finally admits to them self that they are in fact “Disordered,” it must irritate them to no end that the one thing they can’t organize and bring to order is their own chaotic, restless mind.

Easy Bake Oven

A toy I never owned, yet always wanted. If I got one this Christmas, as a twenty-something almost college grad, I would be ecstatic. Gleeful even. In fact… that is a great idea. I’ve always felt gifts should give you the same excitement they did as a child, no matter what your age. It should be something interactive, something you can play with, something relatively useless. Last Christmas I got my sisters The Clapper. Everyone thought I was crazy at first, but it was the only gift anyone wanted to play with Christmas morning.

Eggplant

Eggplant purple is definitively my favorite color. In 8th grade my sister gave me a bottle of Eggplant colored nail polish as part of my birthday present and I thought she was nuts. It sat with the others for months until I opened up to its odd magnificence. Like great music ahead of its time, I wasn’t ready for Eggplant at first. Once I let it in, however, it was a part of me forever. My toenails were Eggplant purple for three years solid. I used that polish so often and held on to the bottle so long I had to begin the practice of adding nail polish remover to thin it out to a consistency that was spreadable across my nails. Years have passed since the bottle was useable, but I still keep it as the prized source of color catharsis. It stays mostly in a dark, temperature controlled, under-sink environment, but every so often, the Eggplant Revlon bottle is called upon for swatching purposes.

Favorites

Colors: eggplant purple, the color green water is in a full bathtub
Smells: almond extract, fresh cut grass mixed with lawn mower fumes
Tastes: cheap HEB cake icing, anything combining mint and chocolate
Spice girl: Posh
Seinfeld character: Elaine
Writer: E. B. White
Late-night host: Conan O’Brien
Planet: Jupiter
Animals: elephant, penguin, dachshund

Fears

1. Tunnel Slides
2. Wasps
3. Spiders
4. Eating stringy cheese and choking because part is already swallowed, part is not
5. Suddenly gaining the ability to see dead people and getting the crap scared out of me

Gary Larson

My personal hero. My dad had his books in his office, and I used to pour over them. Then I got my own books, and the Off the Wall Calendar so that each day we could share in on the odd jokes. No one else in the family found the comics funny, and in a way being in this elite club with my dad made them that much better. Now that I’m in college we each have our own calendar and conference on the phone every other day or so regarding the good ones.

Greeting Cards

The atrocities that occur every day in the greeting card industry are deplorable. Venturing away from the “funny” cards and into the sentimental section (for the first time in my life) I discovered the root of all that is evil in syntax.

“The one who loves with her whole heart loves the world, and holds in her hands. This person is you.”

And other such muddled crap that reminded my throat of my breakfast.

Habits

1. Biting my nails
2. Swishing carbonated drinks in my mouth before swallowing
3. Chewing on ends of my hair
4. Never looking at price tags before approaching the checkout counter

Hates

1. John Stossell’s voice
2. The way Leno bobs his head
3. All hours preceded by “reasonable”
4. the way cranberry juice makes your throat feel
5. all edible forms of crust; IE bread edges, apple skin, and the corner pieces of brownies

Hierarchy

They say if you want a baby to get a dog first, and see how it goes. See if you can keep it alive – feed it, bathe it, nurture it, take care of it.

Well, I want a dog. And clearly, I am in no life stage or condition to be taking care of one, so I’ve decided on plants. Plants can live on my balcony, plants don’t poop on the carpet or whine at 2 AM. Plant deaths are not as tragic (especially when you’ve killed as many as I have). I figure in my new apartment, I will take care of plants. Although I don’t have the greenest of thumbs, I’m pretty sure I’ve mastered care taking of whatever it is that comes in the hierarchy before plants…whatever that may be.

Proposed Care-Taking Hierarchy:

babies
^
pets/dogs
^
plants
^
Tamagotchi
^
Barbies
^
Pet Rock

Ill

9/4/07: Day One of Portfolio 3: Today I went home, read my syllabus, and then systematically bit off each and every one of my fingernails.

Insomnia

If ever there was a time in my life I didn’t have insomnia, I don’t remember it.

Something about the loneliness and the need to be silent for the sake of others makes it unbearable. I think I’ve spent more of my life trying to reach out to anyone and everyone I could find who spent the small hours as I do than I would ever care to admit. Sleeping people make me crazy. Their minutes and hours whiz by, and mine crawl.

Oh Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream….

Jelly

In jelly, the fruit comes in the form of fruit juice.
In jam, the fruit comes in the form of fruit pulp or crushed fruit (and is less stiff than jelly as a result).
In preserves, the fruit comes in the form of chunks in a syrup or a jam.
(courtesy of howstuffworks.com)

I have gotten in grocery-store arguments with Aaron over what the difference is, or in my opinion, that lack thereof. Apparently my indiscriminate labeling of everything as “jelly” was finally more than he could take. I love that every once in a while he is just as crazy as I am.

Kafka

The secrets people bury in their hearts and the beautiful lies they use to cover them populate almost entirely all works of literature created. One must either unearth the truth in vivid suffering or else weave their work of fiction in such grotesque detail that the truth comes to light by the very task of masking it. Kafka’s transformation into a roach comes to mind upon asserting such a theory.

I remember my senior year of high school they let us choose a piece of literature to analyze on our own. I chose The Metamorphosis. And as I read, I loathed. The uncomfortable feeling that arises when you know something is beyond your comprehension. I knew I was missing so much- so many layers, so much meaning. But for all my schooling, for all my studying and all my insight, all I saw was a man becoming a roach and a recluse.

Like contemplating the idea of eternity, my mind could not grasp what the Great Creator experienced so deeply- expressed so flawlessly. How quickly I passed from disgust to awe.

We distrust what we do not understand, yet we yearn to reveal its mysteries.

I want to build such a mystery.

Klosterman, Chuck

Tired, hungry, my mind has never felt so empty.

I glance over at my half-read Chuck Klosterman book inside my purse and think “I don’t want to talk to you”.

It sits in the chair next to me and remains silent.

Good.
I didn’t want your company anyways.

I’ve found it impossible lately to read the books of authors I don’t personally like. It would seem any autobiography, when written well, would be acceptable to me- but no. I can’t appreciate the art, I can’t get past the “you’re a real pain in the ass I don’t want to listen to you squawk” factor.

I’m starting to believe I’ve always been like this. With most art, I can’t simply appreciate-
Movies must be entertaining, paintings must be beautiful and pleasing, music must be exciting, books must be enjoyable.

I can’t read David Sedaris for this reason. His neurosis I find annoying, his outlook on life bleak. His ability to tell stories is great, but most of the stories I don’t want to hear. It’s as if Shakespeare were being read by Kathy Griffin.

It’s grating.

Although it is not within these confines that I define art, it is within them that I consume it.

Lists

I love lists. I have a planner full of them- I even have a dry-erase board for the immediate To-Do’s of the day. I run them in my head more often then not- as if preparing for some sort of quiz on myself and the world around me. I don’t know why I do it, I guess it makes me feel organized. Maybe it’s a way of fighting against my usual scatterbrained and forgetful tendencies. Maybe I believe they will be useful to me at some point in the future. Maybe OCD has just gotten the best of me.

Current Lists: 3

1. Foods I Hate:
beans
dijon mustard
raisons
sausage
fennel
cilantro
watermelon
cantaloupe
olives

2. Songs That Refer to Ages:
“…you’re only 16, you poor little thing…” No Doubt
“…someone’s built a candy castle for my sweet 16…” Billy Idol
“….all alone on the edge of 17…” Stevie Nicks
“….beauty queen of only 18…” Maroon 5
“…..ohh ohh ohh, 21 and invincible…” Something Corporate
“….nobody likes you when you’re 23…” Blink-182
“….will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” The Beatles

3. Songs With a Color as the Subject:
“Pink” Aerosmith
“99 Red Balloons” Nena
“Red, Red Wine” UB40
“Yellow Submarine” The Beatles
“Big Yellow Taxi” Joni Mitchell
“Yellow” Coldplay
“Amber” 311
“Tangerine Speedo” Caviar
“Green Tambourine” Lemon Pipers
“Blue” Eiffel 65
“Blue” LeAnn Rhymes
“Purple Pills” D12
“Paint it Black” Rolling Stones
“White Wedding” Billy Idol

footnote: lists within a list- intentional? of course.

Lauren

My mom named me after a soap star. I don’t know which soap; it was probably the Bold and the Beautiful. The theme song and pink swirl of paint over the white background are pretty much burned into all my memories occurring before age six. Anyway, she thought the girl was pretty and so used the name.

Mantras

I have always hated the saying “Work hard, play hard”. It seems to me that after a lot of hard work, the last thing you would want to do is play hard. How is that a reward? Work hard, then relax, sit on your ass, oversleep, and watch a lot of TV. There is no recuperation in working hard and playing hard. The result of either is the same- burning out, being tired, feeling drained, and dealing with the repercussions of substance abuse (whether it be coffee or alcohol). Who would want to live like this? I do not abide by the “Sleep? I’ll sleep when I’m dead” philosophy. Those people are crazies. I don’t care if we spend a third of our life sleeping. I say, time well spent. In fact, I think it should be more. The day is not divided in thirds, it’s AM/PM. That means equal parts action and rest. Playing hard should be reserved only for when sloth itself becomes exhausting. For when you feel gross from sleeping too much, when you get bored with being bored. Then, and only then, is it time to take action.

Mazda 3

I like to see my messy car as a means of preparation for what I feel to be an imminent MacGyver type situation.

Empty water bottles, a box of tissues, three non-recent copies of the Wall Street Journal, an empty helium tank, and a couple of prizes from Main Event may be all I need to narrowly avoid disaster, hotwire an elevator, or blow something up. So the junk stays. The trash stays, the smell stays. While my room remains well groomed and immaculately maintained, my car is never without the smell of whichever fast food I ate last, and a vast collection of clutter.

Metaphor

Today, I began my day with a SlimFast-milk-and-ice shake and ended it with a BlueBell-milk-Hershey’s-syrup shake. If that isn’t a metaphor for my life, I don’t know what is.

Nail-Biting

The one hobby I have never quit nor grown tired of. I have a tennis racket, a bag full of dance team costumes, a foot high stack of piano books, and a closet of acrylic paints vouching for the fact that I have quit almost everything I ever started, but nail biting is here to stay.

Activities I have began and ended with extreme enthusiasm:
• Soccer
• Gymnastics
• Girl Scouts
• Swim team
• Ballet
• Piano
• Synchronized swimming classes
• Tennis
• Dance team
• Spanish classes
• Guitar
• Marching band
• NHS
• Student Council
• Volunteering at Boys & Girls Club
• Mountain biking
• Habitat for Humanity
• Furniture restoration

Narcolepsy

One of the many diseases I crave to be diagnosed with so that socially inappropriate things I wish I could do would be excused and overlooked. The possibilities for redirecting responsibility are endless. You could make others drive when you didn’t want to, conveniently pass out during job interviews, and sleep whenever you wanted in class. The hypochondriac in me knows there must be something to which I can shift blame for my shortcomings.

Only Childs

Best Friends Throughout My Life:
Nicole Reynolds age 5 to present
Anna Jimenez age 5 to 13
Chelsea Jones age 12 to present
Katie Preston age 16 to present

Every best friend I have ever had has been an only child. I am not sure what this means about my personality, but I don’t think it’s good. My only theory, besides that our personalities somehow mesh well, is that as the oldest of three sisters, raised in an always noisy, always hectic home, I loved the escape. I used those friends for their quiet house and undying attention of their overprotective stay-at-home moms. Unlike my mom, their moms had time to make us baked goods, drive us to Blockbuster and Sonic, listen to us talk about our days, and in general wait on us hand and foot. I always found it strange that their moms knew every detail of our lives- our friends, our drama, class projects. My mom barely knew the names of my teachers. And I’ll admit it would have driven me crazy if my mom had in fact been that involved in my life, but every once in a while it was nice to escape to that little self-absorbed haven.

Another odd thing about single-child parents- they leave their children alone a lot. Whereas every minute of the day was kid time for my parents, my friend’s single-child parents still had daylight to spare for grown-up time. For dinner parties and luncheons. Always trusted as a good little Bravenec, I was invited over as the safe bet and well-behaved playmate of whatever only child was currently being banished upstairs while the parents mixed drinks and traded stock tips.

Ostentatious

I remember learning the word ostentatious. It was seventh grade, I was in English class, and we had each been assigned a WordMasters word to define and illustrate. My friend Sarah had the word ostentatious and for it she drew a fountain in front of someone’s house, claiming that this was excessive decor and therefore ostentatious. I remember thinking this was weird, random, and not a very good illustration of the definition. But as life is full of ironies, this oddity made the definition of the word stick in my mind more than any others. God, I can’t even remember what my own word was….

It’s strange which memories get replayed and recycle in the mind- a thousand times I recall this event, yet I can scarcely remember the names of my teachers throughout school or even some family vacations.

Papermate

My father has an endless supply of cheap, blue, Papermate, ball-point pens. Since the dawn of time, he has never been without them, and almost equally as long, I have been stealing them from him every time I ask to “borrow” a pen. I’ve never seen him purchase them, I’ve never seen them in the store, yet he never seems to run out. And they never change either- for the past 15 or so retrievable years of my memory, the style of the pen and consistency of the ink has never deviated from the original. The peculiarness of this hit me this morning, as I found myself insomnia-driven to steal a pen (strangely enough, it was to write, although I didn’t know what about yet) from his study while he slept, and found myself at a loss as to the location of their domain. I am almost fully convinced that they in fact emanate from his very being. They are, after all, a sheer byproduct of the person he is- a little bit nerdy (we’ll call it brainy), a bit on the thrifty side (those things without fail would always bleed all over my hand anytime I wrote), but steadfast, unaltered by time, and always there when needed most. (I could go as far as to say “true blue”, but I wouldn’t dare).

As I dug through his desk and surrounding cabinets, I eventually found the origin of such sorcery, and felt the power and weight of such a discovery. I had evaded the middleman, and was claiming a fresh, unused pen in my own name. As it sits beside me (although I found a pen, I failed to find paper on which to write- a testament to my forethought) I can’t help but think- what exactly emanates from me? What are those tiny little things that to others are so undeniably Lauren? It may take 15 or so years to even know- I haven’t even pinpointed it for my own sisters. The only other one I can think of is my mom and something tells me it involves Trident gum and the accumulated Kleenex tissue dust from her purse…

Perfection

The definition of perfection according to Lauren: 89.5%.

Procrastination

Dinner conversation with my parents was and is like learning a foreign language. They use big words, and if you don’t understand they move on without you. So I learned their language for the reason most people learn- to find out if they are talking about me. As a result my verbal skills progressed slightly faster than most kids my age. As a result I knew what the word “procrastination” meant by age seven.

Q-Tips

I firmly believe that things such as Q-tips should never be skimped on and always bought name brand. Three times now I have started to clean out my ear with Brand X and nearly gouged out holes in my inner ear because the cotton was so thin I was only raking the lollipop like stick across my ear. And some may say 3:500 is a pretty good ratio, but 1:2 ears is not.

Queen

I believe everyone has the inner capacity to only truly love one 80’s band. You can like others, but the human heart just doesn’t have room for two. I may have a taste every once in a while for some Foreigner, maybe some Men at Work, but ultimately my heart belongs to Queen. Long car trips are simply incomplete without Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen, and Don’t Stop Me Now. I suppose no one can live through a childhood of Wayne’s World and escape unaffected.

Ratatouille

I have a Ratatouille Kleenex box in my bathroom. And as a crazy person who can’t even keep magazines near the toilet because the people looking at her from the cover give her peeing stage fright, the fact that all four sides of the box have a different character from the movie (two of them rats, no less) starring intently back at her is immensely unsettling. No matter what, their faces cannot be turned away. Someone is always starring, judging. For almost two months now I have been moving the box around every time I am in there, trying to figure out which side is the least creepy, but today; I used the last tissue. Thank God I can now go back to being quietly and inconspicuously insane.

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

There are some things that, no matter how many years pass, they stick out in your mind. Some things that just poke into your consciousness and irk you all the more when someone else brings them up. Last week in my Children’s Literature class we were discussing realistic fiction- more specifically “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes”. I remember reading “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” when I was little. A little girl gets cancer, and her mother tells her a myth/legend that origami cranes are good luck and will cure you, and if you fold 1,000 of them, your wish will come true. The little girl, in her feeble state, starts folding the damn things. But she doesn’t finish. Oh no, she dies before reaching 1,000. THEN her classmates decide to start folding them for her, so that she can be buried with the 1,000 cranes.

WTF, man.

I hate this story. Why didn’t people start folding them for her earlier? What, no one in her class cared about her until after she died? They just waited around until her little cold fingers were too stiff to fold paper, and then decided she was worth ten minutes of their time. I guess the whole point is that it is supposed to be a tragedy and if she had died after folding the 1,000 cranes the myth would have been proven false. I guess that is the Sadako-fan equivalent of proving Santa Claus isn’t real. Still, the children in Sadako’s class should not be praised as philanthropists, like the book suggests. They showed up too late, did some good PR, and came out looking like the heroes. If anything, this book is an allegory of society as a whole. Only promoting causes for hunger and AIDS and such when it is convenient and there is something to be gained.

Sea Glass

I need to find a real job. A real career. I’m really trying to figure out what it is I want to do with my life, and so far the best idea I’ve got is that I want it to be somewhere in the psychologist-writer-artist-graphic designer-free lance sea glass collector-Martha Stewart successor- shopper for Nordstrom-Betsy Johnson-shoe designer Genre.

Yeah. Something where I can think, something where I can create…. but I need something that can pay the bills. I wonder how many people concede their dreams of starving artisanship for a “real” job. For better sensibility. For the real world, for real life.

I wonder if and when I will have to pull my head out of the clouds…

Secrets

Some of the most delectable words in the English language are “it’ll just be our little secret”. For as long as I can remember, my mom and I played our mischievous mind games and inner battles against our fellow family members. I was always her shopping buddy; companion amidst the thousand boring errands no others would endure, and thus default to witness her otherwise secret indiscretions.

Sideswipes of the curb in the car, temporarily lost credit cards, purchases we knew my father would not approve of; her spoiling me in a thousand ways no one ever knew about- all fell subject to this secret little world of ours.

As our latest “crime” against the family, I will be getting my teeth professionally whitened for an undisclosed exorbitant amount of money. And all the while as I gazed at the dental hygienist’s glistening white teeth bob up and down with each word of careful instruction, I was reminded of all those small moments that defined our world. I remember trips to Old Town Spring and that grin on my mother’s face as she revealed truffles carefully and secretly purchased as I meandered among the knick-knacks. I carry that look of mischief with me deeper than all others. On that look, our own little world of “it’ll just be our little secret” resides.

Sunday Outfit, The

The clothing I wear each Sunday will without exception fall exclusively into two categories. The first being the absolute worst of my wardrobe, because no one will see me that day anyways, and because by then most of my good clothes need to be washed. The second is the perfect outfit. An outfit brought on by the rare occasion that I wash clothes beforehand and thus have both an infinite selection of attire at my disposal, and the ballsyness to mix and match to my liking, without the fear of judgment, because again hardly anyone will see this outfit anyways. What usually results is satisfaction and admiration for clothing I never knew had such potential, and the swearing to secrecy of anyone that saw me wear it Sunday so that I may proudly adorn it (most of the time without washing) some time later in the week when more people (usually in a school situation) will witness its glory.

Tea

Hot tea is such a cop out.
It smells delicious; it even has a neat way to fix it. But it tastes like nothing. It’s the liquid equivalent of eating a scented candle.

Tip Lines

Receipts with tip lines are what I consider one of the great evils of our society. The high pressure of being socially awkward and the expectation to perform mental math quickly and flawlessly and assign a value to a person and their work is pure torture.

Unhinged

Today I found myself yelling at my computer

“print or I’ll kill you, bitch!!”

I think the stress might be getting to me a little.
I’m becoming unhinged.

Unwanted Opinions

No matter what I do, I can’t please everyone. Every decision I make someone is bound to have an opinion, and trying to preempt the vote and decide accordingly is crazy making, stupid, and has to stop. People pleasing has to stop. I’m finally beginning to get it. Once college comes to a close, it’s just me. No set path, no given direction. These last three years were like a “get out of judgment free” card that allowed me to live as I desired because in scope of things, I was on the right path. I was working towards a degree, doing well in class, and everyone I know could sleep well at night knowing my life was secure.

Now that graduation looms over me and my judgment free card reaches its expiration date, along with my student ID, all eyes have turned towards Austin. Everyone in my life wants to know what will happen to me, weighing my every little decision as a possible foreshadowing of my future. This summer I bleached my hair blonde- friends, relatives, schoolmates, sibling- everyone had to throw in their two cents. This week when I dyed it back brown I received about as much criticism as I did for bleaching it in the first place. And it’s just hair.

Almost three weeks ago now, I adopted a puppy. The community went up in arms. I knew what a big decision I was making when I bought her, but after just two days of feeling overwhelmed by new responsibility and strong disapproval, I caved. I sold her on Craigslist to a new family and I signed off because the thought of living with a decision my friends and family disapproved of almost ruined the wonderfulness of it. Although while I made the decision to sell her I felt I needed to because the responsibility was too much to bear, it was the lack of support- the lack of faith from those I loved that made it so.

But I can’t live like this forever. Every step towards independence is laden with opinion. Creating a life based on the need to make everyone happy will leave me in a constant state of paralyzing self-doubt. I need to work towards maturity and remind myself that the only opinion that matters is my own. It’s my life, I’m the one that has to live it, so I need to be the one that is ultimately satisfied with the decisions I make.

Valentine

There are two common sentiments regarding Valentine’s Day:

1.) It is the most romantic day in the world and I am overjoyed to participate in it
2.) It is the most disgustingly sappy, over commercialized day of the year and I would have to be lobotomized to buy in to it
Single or attached, either of the two can apply to you. You can be a single person who lusts after the perfect Valentine, or happily coupled and eager to reject the Hallmark invented occasion. The trick is that if you are going to side with one camp, you better stick with it no matter what relationship state you are in. The worst scenario is to begin as the second and convert to the first, because then you are truly spineless.

Vending Machines

There are some snacks that you will only buy under dire circumstances- almost all of which involve vending machines.
Consider for a moment, your last several vending machine purchases. There are your usual well-known, name-brand drinks and candies that everyone buys from time to time when they’re feeling a little parched or just want a sugar rush. Then there are the others. Brands that you have never heard of producing things like anchovy flavored pork rinds and lemon-orange “this package was designed in 1971″ cookies. The mere survival of such brands is dependent upon that “oh-shit” moment when your insides decide to eat themselves out of starvation at a function such as driver’s ed, night school, or other such dreary activities. Chances are that after an extensive search of the premises during a way-too-short bathroom break, you will happen upon some dusty and long-neglected vending machine. Its contents will no doubt be exclusively from this product category. Characteristically, the packages will appear old, leaving you with the misconception that the particular snacks you are inspecting through the glass have been there for at least 30 years. But this is not true. The food you are starring at is actually fairly new, give or take 30 days. And even with all your reservations, you buy the sketchy little packs of preservatives and sugar/salt. Why? Because it’s there. Because people like you and me don’t have foresight or ever pack food. It is people like you and me who are keeping Ye Old Grandma’s Pork Rind Bakery and Co. alive.
Consider this next time you have jury duty.

Vermouth

Andie MacDowell in the movie Groundhog Day saying the words “sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist” is luscious. I love the way some people’s mouths wrap around words and make them that much more beautiful.

Writing

A brief history of time: Lauren & Writing.
The NIV Lauren Translation: Successes enhanced, failures forgotten

2nd grade: The day my mom feared since my conception finally arrives. I come home with an assignment to write a short essay. She prepares herself to help me through the slow process, and begins by asking about the details of the assignment. I say, “that’s okay Mommy, I already know what I’m going to write about” and sit down and write. My mom repeats this story for years and years, attesting to the fact “she always knew” I would be a writer.

3rd grade: Miss. Cho tells me that my poems and stories are very interesting. I read and memorize a lot of Shel Silverstein. I begin keeping a notebook of random ideas hidden under my bed. The only thing I remember from this notebook is a commercial for Cinnamon Toast Crunch in which I have cast Louis Armstrong to sing “I see swirls of cinnamon and milk of white” to the tune of “What a Wonderful World”. I believe at the time this is absolutely genius.

4th grade: My elementary school holds a contest to name the school mascot. I submit “Dream Chaser”, win a computer, and become the envy and target of spite for 860 upper middle class children. I become the only 4th grader familiar with WordPerfect Works.

9th grade: I start an online journal. Others join the fad, some inspired by my own journal (or so I like to believe). Enthusiasm wanes, most people quit writing, but continue to read mine. One day I write about taking my sister to the emergency room for an allergic reaction to peanuts. The next day complete strangers come running up to me at school asking me how my sister is. I realize that writing about my life can be interesting even to people not involved.

10th grade: Mrs. Guest spends eight weeks solid agonizing over every detail of the Scarlet Letter. Although I am very quiet in almost every class, eight weeks becomes enough time for her to notice my skills. More and more frequently, when students raise their hand to answer questions, she replies with “that’s an interesting way of looking at it, but let’s see what Lauren thinks”. I become a god of rhetorical analysis. Referring students to me for revision of papers becomes common practice. Even my own friends hate me a little.

12th grade: My English teacher makes it part of our grade that we must submit one literary work for publishing before the year ends. The night before the deadline I write a poem. It gets published. I wonder for years after if they saw deep layers of meaning I never intended.

1st Year UT: I sign up for an RHE309K class, completely unaware that each class focuses on a specific topic. Horrified, I discover on the first day I am stuck in “Politics and the Rhetoric of Social Class”. Surrounded by seventeen junior and senior NPR loving, CNN watching John Stewart followers, I am the only one who knows nothing about politics, gets all my news from MTV and E!, and is generally looked down upon for lack of a journalistic background. The first essay I write gets picked over everyone else’s as an example to follow and is made into overheads to be studied during class. Unaware of my reputation in Sugar Land, my classmates are blindsided, and their disgusted looks of “she’s just dumb and pretty” become disgusted looks of scholastic jealousy. I am pleased with the results.

3rd Year at UT, fall: I begin my first semester in the Creative Sequence. Every time I bring an ad to class it is approved and I never have to change anything. I love the semester but learn absolutely nothing, my previous skills sustaining me throughout the entire process.

3rd Year at UT, spring: Marks the first time in my life I am met with resistance in any literary endeavor I have undertaken. I go back to the drawing board so many times I learn to just stay there.

4th Year UT, fall: Strangely I survive critique and move on to Portfolio 3. I set up camp again at the drawing board, but at least feel like I’m learning. Stagnating for so long in classes unrelated to writing, I finally get back in the groove of things and learn how to learn again. Refreshed and fatigued describe the paradox of this type of course schedule.

Wishes

I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and I officially have two of my three wishes. (You know, those hypothetical ones you would get if you somehow stumbled across Elisabeth Montgomery trapped in a bottle).

1.) I wish that I had no hair on my entire body, besides my eyebrows, eyelashes, and scalp. (If you knew how many times I’ve sliced my ankle with a razor, you would understand)

2.) I wish that watching exercise tapes (without participating) would have the same positive results on my body as if I had actually been doing the exercises. (If you knew how much I loathe exercising, you would understand)

…and I’m still working on the third, but I’m considering something along the lines of this: “I wish people would pay me obscenely large amounts of cash for any and all paintings that I decide to produce” Notice it’s not about talent. It’s about getting to paint whatever I want and getting rich.

Haha.

Okay, so all 3 were quite selfish. But they’re wishes. Wishes. They have to be selfish. It’s like a law. And I still have that obscenely large amounts of cash to fall back on in order to accomplish less selfish things, like curing cancer and such…

X-Mas

The abbreviation Xmas for Christmas dates from the mid 16th century. The X is the Greek letter chi, the initial in the word Χριστός (Christos) “Christ.” In spite of a long and respectable history, today Xmas is offensive to many, perhaps because of its associations with advertising. It is not used in formal writing.
-Dictionary.com

Odd. I always thought it was because it was taking out the “Christ”. People don’t want their baby Jesus taken away. When did Advertising get involved? Has advertising become the new “blame Canada”?

Youth

I find it interesting how universal it is to look down on those in life stages previous to your own.

With condescending disdain, we all become judges of our past selves. To think of how prejudiced we are as college students against freshman and high school students, for their cluelessness and stupidity, as we look forward to our lives as twenty-somethings, where we will inevitably be classified as inept and naive peons, who are stealing valuable jobs and resources from our more experienced and aged counterparts. Why do we despise who we once were? Why do we blame people for their own immaturity? For things that can’t possibly be learned ahead of schedule, for life lessons that only time can learn?

You were once naive to some things, and still are to others. Why is this so unforgivable? I believe so much of our distaste comes not from the lack of empathy that comes with forgetting youth, but from the freshness of it. So poignant is the pain of mistakes and awkwardness of being green that we can’t bare to see that reflection of ourselves in others. We want to fix it immediately and banish it from awareness. We want the awkward teens to realize the things they don’t know that they don’t know and escape their impending hard lessons.

You Feed You

When my sister was little she refused to let anyone do anything for her. Tying shoes, opening doors, deciding what to wear, all fell under her jurisdiction. By fourteen, she was more than happy to relinquish some of her duties. Discovering that my good natured parents could and would do things for her that she considered distasteful or particularly arduous, she began a cunning new habit- with her growing awareness of this fact and life’s challenges, her dependence increased. Always willing to cater to his little girls, my dad always fed her and her little habit. I believe to this day my dad will still cut the meat on her plate if she asked him nicely enough. But being the more self sufficient, not to mention equally lazy big sister that I am, we found ourselves at a particularly fateful standstill one day after school. My sister lay wallowing on the floor, whining and begging me to fix her some Ramen. I attempted to explain to her that as a fourteen year old her microwaving skills were sufficient to accomplish this without my help. This eloquently translated into yelling, “You feed you!” and stomping my feet as I brought my schoolbooks upstairs.
Some say it’s hard to get through to teenagers. Maybe it takes another teenager, maybe it takes yelling, but for my sister, it took cave-man rhetoric and a laughing through indignation. After that, “you feed you” became the anthem of our family- the slapstick judgment upon our sloth. Any act of laziness was criticized and then deflected with “you feed you”.

Zephyr

The Wreck of the Zephyr remains one of the creepiest, most lasting memories of stories I experienced in my childhood. Goosebumps books, Tales from the Crypt episodes, nothing in my later elementary reading ever rivaled the work of Chris Van Allsburg. I consider Zephyr along with The Garden of Abdul Gasazi and The Sweetest Fig to be genius. They’ve reached mythical proportions in my mind, to the point where I sometimes focus my insomniatic mental power on recalling and sorting out their mysteries. I almost afraid to go back and read them; to continue their majestic mysticism allows me to have faith in the power of words.

Zoo

I think my parents were too good of parents. I was over stimulated as a child by the breadth of experiences they exposed me to so that I am now jaded to almost all forms of traditional entertainment.

You cannot convince me that going to the Zoo is a fun idea. I’ve been there about sixteen times since the age of four and it’s always the same. The animals just sit there and it’s not enough for me to look at them lay in the sunlight. It is hot, smelly, and there is no shade. Inevitably I get some sort of leg/foot injury from tooling around bored in all that nature and end up dragging the deadweight of that appendage throughout the miles of exhibits. I have never left without blisters, nor stayed for less than six hours. Whoever I go with wants to see it all. They want to traverse all eight miles of terrain, stop by every cage to say hello. I could spend the entire time feeding the ducks out of the animal food gumball machines and go home happy.

I fear the thought of the people like me who no doubt populate my generation, taking over grown-up America in ten years or so and guiding the nation with this type of mentality. I’m afraid of what they might term inconsequential and not bother to maintain for future generations. Why plant roses when no one is stopping to smell them?