It is What it Is

How To Make A Man Feel Special

The SO and I had our first date on August 2. We went to a Def Leppard concert, which is really another story for another day, but I will say that it was memorable. Believe it or not, when you don’t know someone very well, it’s uncomfortable to sit through “Pour Some Sugar on Me” sober.

“It’s kind of awkward that this song is so dirty, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah.”

I’m also not sure whether or not this means our song has to be “Rock of Ages,” but I try not to worry about it too much.   

Later, when I realized that we might make it past the first three weeks of hanging out, I thought I would do him a huge favor and move our anniversary to August 1. Men are infamously bad at remembering dates, right? So, if I turned our anniversary into the first of the month, how much easier would that be on him? Plus, I kind of passed my romantic phase at the age of 23, so the 24 hours didn’t really bother me.

Giraffes, Grocery Packaging And Guest Posts

I'm guest posting today, so if you'd like to read about some of the wacky stuff that popped into my head over the weekend, please head over to highly-entertaining Jamie's Rabbits written by the very talented Jamie Golden.

My Hands Are Just Too Small

According to family folklore, when my grandmother didn’t want to do things, she always said, “but my hands are too small.”

As soon as I found this out, I adopted the phrase as my very own and blamed it on genetics. Learn to use the lawnmower? My hands are too small. Time to help move the refrigerator across the room? My hands are too small. Get a ladder and reach the highest shelf? My hands are too small.

(By now, you’ve probably noticed a theme here, and that theme is manual labor.)

I’ve gotten over my issues with lawnmowers and ladders, but I still find plenty of sweat-inducing tasks to duck out of with my grandmother’s infamous phrase.

There’s no time my aversion to “work” rears its ugly head as much as it does when I’m moving.

I don’t like the packing process. I either find ways to reminisce about every single thing I’m putting in boxes – “Oh my gosh, do you remember when we took this picture outside of Graceland” – grossly slowing down the process, or, when I’m tired of looking at boxes, I go to another default mode – “Can’t we just throw it away?”

I have thrown away more pots, plant stands and random papers than any one human being should have a right to. When I left Chicago, I threw away a pot that still had food in it because I didn’t want to clean it or pack it. (Lazy, thy name is Laurel.)

No, Thank You

So, I do book reviews now. If you'd like to know what I thought about The Kid by Sapphire (in case the title of this post didn't give too much away), please follow the link below.

I won’t lie. I avoided seeing the movie Precious like the plague ... (read more)

In Which We Learn Why Laurel Fears School Yards

I can’t remember having a lot of dreams about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Before the age of 10, I accepted many Oscars in the privacy of my bedroom, considered life as a high-powered lawyer and said I wanted to be a nurse just because the girl sitting next to me in kindergarten wanted to be one, too, but clearly none of that stuck.

It was around third or fourth grade that the notion of “writer” started to percolate in my brain, but it really was more of a slow burn than an overwhelming “aha!” The "aha" came later.

As I grew up, so much of my attention was focused on getting in to college that I don’t think I did a very good job of thinking about what was going to happen after that. Once I finally did consider that I would have to do something after the age of 22, a master’s degree and Ph.D. sounded nice. For awhile, I thought I could live a life devoted to scholarship.

My Cans

Here's a little story that I told back in April of 2008.

I am a diet soda addict.

Rare is the day that I have less than two diet drinks (Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper are my two favorites, but I'm also likely to enjoy a Diet Pepsi from time to time), and sometimes, when it's dark (in that emotional "how will I get through the day" kind of way) and I haven't gotten enough sleep, I'll drink up to three. After 4:00, when I don't allow myself caffeine anymore, I might even try a Fanta Orange Zero, Sprite Zero or Diet Sierra Mist because I just like the way fizzy drinks taste.

It used to be that, when the diet soda cans built up on my desk, it didn't bother me to stick them in the trash when no one was looking. Of course, that was before we went and did a green issue of Lipstick. After reading about the ozone and lessening my carbon footprint and energy-efficiency and local eating for four weeks, I can't even think about throwing away those cans without finding myself awash with guilt (and shame from the judging stares of Tina and Nadria).

Is There Any Chance This One Is Multiple Choice?

We all get asked a lot of hard questions in life:

“Was someone roller skating in the house?”

“Are there going to be parents there?”

“What do you want to major in?”

“What is 17 squared?”

Most of us figure out the answers  -- or pretend we do. (Except for that 17 thing – that’s what calculators are for.) Even when we’re plagued with doubt, there’s usually an answer somewhere, or an answer we lean towards.

Last week, while I was visiting my doctor (aka therapist), she asked me a question that absolutely left me floundering: Where does your self-worth come from?

Laurel's Unplanned Cat Rescue Service

A few weeks ago, I found a cat behind the SO’s house. This is not really an unusual occurrence. In general, the area behind the SO’s house is kind of like feral cat central (lots of woods), and none of the cats let me get near them. This is why I occasionally feel like I’m feeding a marauding band of homeless cats Meow Mix if Kitty Cat Jones dines al fresco.

(In my mind, they’re a gang kind of like The Outsiders, and they talk to each other in lots of, “What were you thinking man?” and “Ain’t nobody going to care about a bunch of greasers.” Yes, I know I’m nuts.)

This cat was different though. Scraggly, covered in fleas and crying, she didn’t seem like she was built for life on the outside. When she let me pick her up, I knew she was different. (And as soon as I realized she was de-clawed, I knew she was most certainly not running with the other gang.)

I treated the cat for fleas, and because of the intense crying, took her pretty quickly to my vet.

(As a not-really cat person, I still have no idea how I end up with so many cats.)