Notice

Next time I move I am either selling or burning all my shit because packing sucks ass.

Thank you, that is all.

Red boots, purple sequins

"Muuh-ther, you're not going to let her wear that are you?"

As a child my assemblage of outfits were, I guess you could say, a little eclectic. This was a constant source of frustration, and probably embarrassment, to my older sister, who made it a point to be the small-town icon of fashion perfection, i.e. everything she had matched and meshed perfectly. Lacoste was her signature brand.

One of my particular favorites, however, was a deep purple sequined dance leotard with the matching tulle skirt, which was long and flowing - I liked to flap the bottom and let the fabric billow up around me. To me, this outfit was multifunctional, and I found nothing wrong with choosing to wear it to a family camping retreat.

Then, there were the red boots. God, I LOVED those red boots. I wore them with everything - even the purple ballerina outfit. The last time I was home I noticed an old snapshot dangling precariously from the side of the refrigerator. It was me, holding a puppy, sporting some bright pink pants with white stripes down the side and the red boots. And, to top it off, the red boots were actually rain boots, but that didn't matter to me.

One thing that didn't help my sister's cause was the fact that because my dad owned a clothing store I was allowed to pick out and purchase my own outfits. Often times without parental input.

Sometimes my sister was mortified. One particular occasion was school picture day in 3rd grade. I didn't tell my mom and I chose my own ensemble, which included a pink sweater with fish "bubbles" that looked like cotton balls randomly stuck to the fabric.

My mom says that people made comments to her all the time about my peculiar taste in clothing. But she brushed them off claiming that she didn't want to stifle my creativity. Right.

I'm not sure if the lack of wardrobe guidance as a child was such a good idea. Because now, I'm not so much creative of my choices as I am unsure of what constitutes a "cute" outfit or something just extremely bizarre.

My Top Five Favorite Songs of All Time:

1. Mayonnaise - The Smashing Pumpkins
2. Karma Police - Radiohead
3. Little Amsterdam - Tori Amos
4. St. Stephen - The Grateful Dead
5. City of Dreams - Talking Heads and/or Widespread Panic

What are yours?

An old favorite

Chicago
by Carl Sandburg

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your
painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: yes, it is true I have seen
the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women
and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my
city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be
alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall
bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted
against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his
ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked,
sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Thursday Morning Confession

Hey, have any of you that have Site Meter checked out the World Map locator thingy? That's really cool. Especially cool for me because I have a fascination with maps. Seriously. I've told you guys before that I'm a dork. Here is more proof. I'm not really sure when I developed this map obsession, but I remember being quite young, maybe 7 or so, and spending hours after school staring at this gigantor map of Louisiana that took up an entire wall in the law office where my mom worked. I'm talking hours. Of course, there weren't many other options for after-school activities for seven-year-olds at a law office that specialized in handgun lawsuits. I mean, I guess I could've flipped through the Glock manuals or something. But I chose to stand in front of the map, studying the cities, the rivers, measuring the distance between my town and other towns I had heard of but never visited. The main man, the big bad lawyer, who I had called merely by his last name, Goff, since I was even younger than seven, would walk by sometimes and ask me what I was doing. Most of the time, though, he walked by, angry at something, and never noticed me there. I fed the fish sometimes, until they died. (Not my fault, by the way). At home, in my childhood room, the one that was painted pink and had a white bunny rabbit border around the top of the walls, I kept a big blue world globe. I inherited it from my older sister and the light bulb that was supposed to light it up always seemed to malfunction. Nevertheless, I loved that globe. Same thing as the map. Would study it for hours - during my FREE time. So naturally, by the time geography classes came around, my paper was the one everybody chose to cheat from. Except for the other Lauren who was busy telling stories about how, in WWII, her grandfather got hit by a piece of shrapnel and would have died had he not been wearing his helmet. Nowadays, I'm still just as fascinated with maps. I have four at my desk at work. I also quite enjoy Mapquest. So there, a little Thursday morning fetish confession for you.

Other things I am obsessed with, which are somewhat more normal than staring at maps:
Jackets
Jeans
Chocolate
Cheese
TBS Reruns, including Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and the City and Roseanne
Rick Steves on PBS
Jack Kerouac
Wallace Stevens
The Grateful Dead
Interpol
Fiji water
Square-shaped drinking glasses (perhaps why I like Fiji water?)

dilemma

I am dying for a mocha light frappuccino from Starbucks. I can easliy walk across the street to get one. But here's the deal - there's sort of an unwritten rule here in the office that you don't go to Starbucks without asking everyone else if they want something. And of course there's always at least five people that want you to bring something back for them. I'm in no mood for that shit. What do I do? I can't just go and get one for myself without asking, because inevitably the questions will arise when I am spotted with my frosty cup of cheer. And then I will be impaled.

The Weekend of the Mom

I've been trying to write a post since 10 a.m. Each time I start writing, my phone starts ringing, or someone sneaks up behind my chair to ask me a question. Don't these people know that my last day is Friday and this week I am merely serving as a figurehead? Geez. Then, I finally had the entire post complete and my computer decides to freak out and it erases the whole thing. There was no chance for recovery. My computer has been posessed by demons. I wish my replacement luck as this person will inherit said demon machine. Mua. Muhaha. Muhahahahahahaha.

OK, sorry. Lapse of sanity there. So onto the Weekend of Mom. All went well for the first, oh, I'd say 18 hours. Then I started foaming at the mouth and tearing out my hair.

damn phone. hang on.

Alright I'm back. I'm just going to have to do a list here:
1. The mom came.
2. Within ten minutes she found FOX news on my TV that has no listing of channels as I am cheap and told the cable company that a cable box was not necessary. It saved me like an extra ten bucks a month.
3. We went shopping.
4. We saw "In Her Shoes." We got to the movie 30 mintues early. The previous showing had not ended. When it did end the mother did not wait for the clean-up crew to complete their rounds before entering. She tried to sit on the 3rd row back. We compromised and ended up on like the 5th row.
5. We made stuffed bell peppers for dinner.
6. The moms turned the volume up to like 35 on the TV. I usually keep it at 11.
7. We went to Target. I got the moms to buy me a carry-on bag that has wheels. In turn, she is going to try to get my dad to pay her back for it. This plan may not work.
8. We went to Chuys. Mom had a Jack and (not to be confused with regular Coke) Diet Coke. Only Diet Coke.
9. This morning we found that the living room window was mysteriously open. It can only be opened from the inside of the apartment. All of the doors were locked; the window was not open last night. The moms, although she slept in the living room, claims that she did not touch the window during the course of the night. So naturally, someone must have, during the night, opened my apartment door, with a key, walked past my mom on the couch, opened the blinds, unlocked and slid open the window, turned around, making sure to disturb nothing, left out the front door without making a sound and locked back the deadbold on the front door. From the outside.

Afternoon Delight

I've just stumbled onto a new and most delightful treat. "Chocolate Peaches." They're kind of like chocolate covered cherries (the dried cherries kind) but with peach instead of cherry. Most delightful.



Also, while searching for an image of chocolate peaches I came across this lovely piece of artwork. I have no idea what it is or what it has to do with chocolate peaches.

Lunch Break

Yeah Yeah Yeah. I know. I am neglectful. You think this is bad, you should see what it's done to my plants. Oh wait. I don't have any plants. I killed them all. Cause? My guess is, yes, NEGLECT. But I've been BUSY. For real.

So I've got three minutes and 15 seconds to spare while my Healthy Choice frozen chicken basil dinner gets zapped to tell you that if you haven't already, you should check out Martin Scorcese's "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" on PBS.

Highly recommended.

That is all.