Who Has Two Thumbs (Up) & Off-Beat Opinions About Movies?

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Laurie B.

I am not artistic. I do not have a creative bone in my body. I am not woken up in the middle of the night by inspirational visions that propel me to craft incredible works that will uplift all who hear them. (Unless, of course, lucid dreams in which I’m having interesting conversations with P. Diddy at his home in the Hamptons count as inspirational.) I do not have an artist’s temperment or mindset.

In my (extremely) general (read: probably wrong) experience, artists are flighty people. I have a difficult time having conversations with many of them, because they do not appear connected to anything remotely reality-based. I cannot tell if that affectation of spaciness is their true personality or if they think they have to act like Andy Warhol in order to be considered “artistic,” or if they are under the influence of drugs or if they are suffering from a mental disease, but whatever the cause, it is difficult for me to relate to them. I find most of them to be vainglorious, narcissitic idiots.

I am such a practical, grounded, realistic thinker that it borders on stern frigidity. It is highly important to me that things make sense. Illogic disturbs me. Terrifies me, to be more precise. The scariest movie I can think of, one that I am still, to this day, incapable of watching, is Disney’s version of Alice in Wonderland. Things HAVE to make sense to me, or I lose my motherfucking mind. I do not necessarily have to agree with the logic of the presenter. But I have to be able to discern a pattern, a point, a line of reasoning that makes sense on some level. Whether or not I agree with that reasoning, as long as I can detect it, I am not turned into a quivering, gelantinous, intellectual mess.

Knowing that’s how I view the world, the fact that I cannot relate to many artists isn’t that surprising at all, when you think about it. If they have a grounded approach to life and an approach to their art that makes sense (to me), I’m fine. If they’re wandering around the world acting as if at any moment they’re going to start flinging their feces on the wall, (I’m looking at you, Joaquin Phoenix), I recoil from them. (Although, really, who wouldn’t?)

All of that jibber-jabber aside…I love movies. I love to be told a great story.

Story-telling is as woven into the fabric of human history as is our love of pets. As is our desire for sex. (Sounds like a helpful guide: Pets & Sex–The History of Us.) Stories allow us to bond through shared emotion. Stories educate us about the human condition. Or, in the case of The March of the Penguins, they educate us about the penguin condition, which, surprisingly, has turned into one of the more popular subsets of conditions that movies attempt to document. (I’m looking at you, Happy Feet 2.) Stories allow us to feel pain without actually having to experience actual tragedy. They allow us to laugh which, I hear, is the best medicine. Stories are very medicinal.

Stories told well enough can actually alter the human condition. The stories in the Bible, for example, are so popular, powerful, and well-known that they have actually influenced the way that human beings create their societies. The stories in the Bible are so powerful, in fact, that billions of people actually think that they are real. A great story can BECOME reality.

Stories can be told by artists through many mediums. Songs tell stories. As do paintings. Dance. Photography. Sculpture. I mean, okay. It’s safe to theorize that ALL art is attempting in some way to convey a message, to evoke a feeling, to tell a story.

But, movies are my go to story-telling device. And I LOVE a good story.

So. Those are the factors inside of me that shape my reviews of movies. 1)I am not artistic. 2)Nonsensical, illogical artistry drives me, quite literally, insane. 3)I loves me a good story! Everyone with me so far?

I explain this to you as a way of trying to warn you, in advance, that I tend to rip into movies that do not live up to my standards. Okay, basically, all of this was written as a way to let you know that I plan on shredding the new James Bond movie in my next blogpost. Assuming I get around to writing it. Extremely critical, judgmental writing does not recharge my batteries. If I become too self-righteous and indigant, I start to feel depressed. It can be tedious and exhausting. But, this shiny new 007 movie is such a steaming pile of crap that it has to be done. I have to do it. For you.

There will be spoilers. There will be mockery. There will be so many points of contention that I am confident that anyone who reads it will want to respond with “Fuck, Laurie, relax. It’s only a movie.”

I bet you just can’t wait to read it.

I guess I better get started on writing it.

I simply wanted to warn you first.

Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Laurie B.

FDR: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Congressman 1: “And spiders!” “Well, yes. And spiders. That goes without saying.” Congressman 2: “And snakes!” “Yes. Snakes, too.” Congressman 3: “Don’t forget werewolves!” “There is no such thing as werewolves!” ~ Robot Chicken

I worked as a polling assistant all day yesterday, the day America renewed its faith in Barack Hussein Obama. This morning my feet feel exactly as if yesterday they stood in heels for 14 straight hours on a cold, linoleum floor, so I would like to take a moment to sit down and try to explain my views about the election and what it means to me. (If that ‘moment’ happens to evolve into several hours and a foot massage, so much the better.)

Let me explain to you why last night’s Democratic victory makes me feel good.

In order for me to do that, I need to explain to you what kind of person I am. Perhaps some of you are similarly wired. Or, maybe you will think I need to seek psychological treatment, (up to, but not limited to, pharmacological remedies and/or electric shock therapy), as quickly as possible. I don’t know. However, I want to explain how I tick on the off-chance you will see that, while I am a product of my culture and society, (just like you), I am not a mindless drone for the Democratic Party. (For one thing, I’m not a member of the Democratic Party.)

“Okay, Laurie. Stop talking to us like we’re fucking idiots. We get it. Come on. I don’t have all day to read your blog. I have laundry to fold and guns to clean. Let’s go.”

(For starters, I’m the kind of person that has continual conversations with you in my head. And in my head you curse. A LOT. You should really work on that.)

Okay. Here we go.

I am a fearful person.

I have dealt with fear my entire life. As many of you know, by the age of five I was being molested/raped with routine regularity by a family friend. Holding in that anxiety and fear from such an early age undoubtedly helped shape the fear-riddled person I became. I stare at perpetual optimists with fascination, (and more than a little suspicion), because I have no idea what it feels like to be that happy. (To this day, nothing makes me quite as uncomfortable as an excessively sunny personality.) I cannot remember what it feels like to not be worried about what lurks around unfamiliar corners, or in the hearts of people who claim that they love you. There are other reasons why I am a fearful person, of course: I never received a lot of praise as a child; I grew up in a strict, sometimes physically abusive household. I watched all of my older siblings get the crap knocked out of them on a regular basis. As the youngest, I tried very hard to do everything right to avoid the same fate, but I wasn’t always successful. When I entered high school, I tried to overcome some of my fear by relying on my brother for support. He rewarded me by begging me to fuck him so that he could lose his virginity. (Since I had already lost my virginity to the man who raped me as a child, he helpfully pointed out, it would be no big deal for me, as I had “done it before.”) Needless to say, that took me back to square one in the C’mon, Laurie! Conquer Your Fear! Category. I was afraid to make close friends because I was afraid of revealing secrets about my family. And, as if all those emotional triggers weren’t bad enough, I had your basic fear of heights, fear of enclosed spaces, fear of choking, etc, to deal with, too.

In short, by the time I left home for college, I basically lived in fear of everyone and everything.

I explain all of this to you as a way of saying I understand the power of the politics of fear. Fear, in my mind, is little more than a feeling of weakness, of helplessness. You’re trapped by forces outside of your control that are going to hurt you. Those forces are trying to humiliate you, use you, discard you, degrade you, or even kill you.

I understand fear.

Fear leads to anger. It leads to short fuses and red hot tempers. Fear can make you view complete strangers as potential enemies. It can make you view loved ones as potential enemies, too. Fear can cause you to repress emotions that make you feel vulnerable, such as unadulterated joy. Fear builds walls and breaks down relationships. One way to avoid being hurt by others is for you to hurt yourself first, so fear can lead to substance abuse and self-destructive behavior. Fear can prevent you from listening to differing points of view, because if all that you have in world is the worldview that you have shaped through your experiences, the last thing you want is someone to come along and try to change it.

I understand fear. And the Republican Party’s platform is based on little else.

Oh, the Republican Party’s entire reason for existence is to create a political avenue for the aristocracy and Corporate America to create favorable laws and tax rates which will increase their wealth and their stockprices. But, once you get past the “We’ll lower your taxes” mantra, all the Republican Party tries to do is scare the shit out of people. Immigrants are taking your jobs! (I studied for years to be able to harvest that lettuce, and that goddamn Guatamalan woman with four kids took it from me!) Gays are ruining your marriage! Barack Obama is going to take your guns! Lazy (black) people are going to sit on their asses all day playing XBox and collecting unemployment while you bust your hump pulling down two full-time jobs! (I would have had a third job, but that damn Guatamalan! Grrr! <fist shake>) Barack Obama is gutting the military! Iran is going to invade us and impose Shar’ia Law! ABORTION! ABORTION! ABORTION! We’re going extinct because we’re killing unborn children!

From massing in large numbers at political rallies with AK-47’s strapped to their backs to claiming that Obamacare was going to intentionally kill senior citizens, the Republican Party has made sure that this country has been filled with uncertainty and dread for the past four years.

Now that this election has been decided, though, I would like to just say I wish the Republican Party would try a new tack. I spent the past two years having my fear receptors rubbed raw by the likes of Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Mitch McConnell, Michele Bachmann, Ann Coulter, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and I would just like to express how thoroughly fucking sick of it I am.

Since I have lived with fear my entire life, and because I am white, and because I grew up in a conservative household that idolized Ronald Reagan, I should, by many metrics, make an ideal recruit for the Republican Party. I should simply embrace the fears that they stoke and have faith that they will protect me from that which terrifies me the most.

But, life didn’t really work out that way.

Maybe it’s exactly because I have lived with fear for so long that I so violently reject the messages the Republican Party perpetuates.

It is HARD to live life as a fearful person. The self-destructive behavior. The inability to sustain long-lasting, trusting relationships. The anger. The flashes of rage. The distrust. It all takes an enormous toll. Essentially, I’ve spent my entire adult life working to reduce fear’s controlling grip over me. Luckily, I’ve made a lot of progress. (I would not be here in this frame of mind if I hadn’t.) I wish very much that others would do the same. I wish that others would work hard to free themselves from the destructive vice grip of not only republican ideals, but their own personal fears as well. Because an individual’s emotional fears, the ones that constantly control their personal life, can easily metastisize into a political worldview in which every new concept or unfamiliar group is a threat.

Here’s another thing that exhausts me about Republican fear and hate: The way they point fingers at “others.” The way they call people outside their clique “takers” or “victims” or “incapable of fostering a sense of personal responsibility.” I can only speak for myself, but that offends me because I know the challenges I have had to overcome on my way to becoming a better person. I know the inner demons I’ve battled, the anxiety I fought to keep from spiralling out of control. I know how I used alcohol to blur my perspective so that my detachment from reality wasn’t as obvious to myself or others. I spent all of my twenties in a quasi-fugue state, being so emotionally detached that the only person I related to was the literary figure Holden Caufield. Remember him? From “Catcher in the Rye”? (Please don’t ask me about that book. I cannot for the life of me remember the plot, nor do I wish to. All I know is Holden Caufield felt like he was constantly on the outside looking in, which is exactly how I felt in my twenties. That and I am supposed to kill Ronald Reagan for Jodie Foster someday.) In my mind, I can see the rocky paths I traveled down and the horrible choices that I made. I can see where I failed to make connections with people because I didn’t have the skills necessary to do so. I know what it feels like to live in dread in the closet, terrified that those tiny relationships I did manage to build would be destroyed if those people knew I was gay. I can trace changes in my life to critical moments of connection when, through the inifinite patience, my friends and lovers stuck by me despite the fact that I was an emotional challenge. I know how delicate it felt, re-wiring my brain to feel new emotions. I can remember what it felt like to mentally force myself to not freak out about intimacy. In other words, I know what it feels like to take personal responsibility, to improve oneself. And so, yes, it pisses me off when Republicans so callously refer to people like me as “victims” and “takers.” It pisses me off when they have such a reckless disregard for, and a complete lack of appreciation of, the struggles that define all of us. It annoys me to no end when they act as if they are the only group of people who are familiar with personal responsiblity. But it REALLY pisses me off when ordinary people nod in agreement at the words being spoken by those heartless millionaires. I wish those ordinary people would stop being trapped by their own fear, would stop allowing themselves to be manipulated and realize that when their leaders point the finger at the “others,” and speak about them with such revulsion and disgust they are actually pointing their fingers at EVERYONE. Including them.

As I struggled to become a more secure, less terrified, well-rounded individual, it would have been easy for me to allow that journey to make me MORE selfish. (Fearful people, are incredibly selfish. They don’t intend to be–it’s just the nature of their state of mind. They’re panicked, you see. Constantly. And living on that edge of anxiety and uncertainty makes a person react to most of what life throws at them from a perspective of self-preservation. “Fuck all of you all, I am dying over here–I have to do what’s right for ME” is the typical mindset of a fearful person.) But the beautiful thing about letting go of fear is that it leaves more room in your heart for more positive emotions. When you do not have to confront your fear every single minute of every single day, you have time to feel empathy for other people where before you wouldn’t allow yourself to. As the fear lessens, you feel a softness inside of you that, (if you’re not afraid of it), allows you to embrace compassion. And you realize that compassion is not a weakness to be feared. When you have gone decades of your life without it, when you are flooded with compassion you realize that it’s a gift to be cherished, not something to be mocked and scorned. Compassion is not weakness. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to have compassion for others.

I understand fear. I understand that it cannot be conquered alone.

As I have bumbled through my life, making mistakes left and right, dealing with the violent, unintended, lonely consequences of living an angry, fear-filled life, I have come to appreciate how important the connections are that we make in this world. There is no way that I could have made myself a better person alone. The friends that loved me unconditionally. The strangers who, on the way to becoming lifelong friends, appreciated me almost instantaneously, making me feel valuable and special. Yes, I’ve taken personal responsibility seriously as I’ve aged–but that doesn’t mean I made my improvements solely by sheer force of will. I’ve needed a community of people to help me, to have patience with me. They’ve forgiven me when I’ve made mistakes. They’ve accepted my apologies when I’ve treated them rudely or selfishly. They’ve helped me see that I don’t need to be perfect and smudge-free in order to be a better person.

Through it all, as I’ve become less fearful, kinder, more understanding, and more appreciative of my community, my country, my planet as a whole, the Republican party has congealed into this tight, dense ball of hatred and fear. Maybe that is why the starkness of their positions hits me hard. They have spent the past fifteen years tapping into the very same emotions that I am trying to reduce and eliminate on a personal level!

They’ve made “liberal” out to be a pejorative. “Feminazis.” “The gay agenda.” “Illegals.” “Welfare queens.” “Urban youth.” “Ragheads.” “Muslims are terrorists.” “We don’t want to become like Europe.” (That one I’ve never understood. Really? Happy? Healthcare? Rule of law? Relative peace and properity? Yeah. Fucking Europeans! Fuck those guys!) Republicans treat EVERY group with contempt and disdain. And it is SO stressful.

So, as this election cycles revved up, that undercurrent of disgust towards all the subcategories that make America “America, Fuck Yeah!” started to get churned up a bit faster and thicker by the Republicans. And when it does you sit there, a person who has struggled her whole life to overcome fear, a person who has fought to be brave enough to proactively engage with society and humanity, and you listen to that white noise, (unintentional pun), and you grow…fearful.

Ever since the Republicans started gunning for the White House in 2010, the fear has grown in me.

“Fox News is so pervasive, and so dominant and so biased–they are feeding people this fear 24/7! There is no way they are not changing people’s opinions!”

“I mean, if Coca-Cola can remain the world’s top beverage supplier simply through it’s effective use of advertising, you cannot tell me that Fox News isn’t branding millions of its viewers with its message of fear and contempt.”

“The Republicans show no remorse whatsoever when they say such disrespectful things about gays, about Muslims, about women–their confidence is surely powerful enough to convince millions of people that their views must be right.”

“Everyone who needs to feed their family is afraid on some level of not having enough money to survive. Maybe that fear of being unable to provide for one’s family is enough to panic millions of Americans to vote for a man who will only succeed in making the aristocracy richer.”

“Maybe human beings are incapable of being truly compassionate towards each other. Maybe we have to fear and hate people that are different from us. Maybe we’re genetically hardwired to hate. Maybe that is how humanity has functioned for hundreds of thousands of years. (Or 6,000 years, depending on whether or not you think the Bible is real.) Maybe conservatives just use that Jesus guy as a convenient cover to allow them to tap into their biases and fears without guilt.”

Those are just some of the worried, uncertain thoughts that have flitted through my mind over the past two years.

It didn’t help that the Republican candidates running for office throughout the country in numerous state races have been even more anti- than their supposedly moderate presidential ticket. When you sat back and looked at the big picture, and saw the extent to which their insidious fear had stretched across the country, it was enough to make your stomach lurch.

Of course, if you ever got a chance to talk with ordinary Republicans who were going to vote for Mitt Romney, they swore up and down that the Republican message is not about fear or hate. “It’s about lower taxes and freedom for businesses to succeed,” they would say. Right. And the Civil War was about “states’ rights.” We get it.

Of course, the illogic of that is that EVERY American wants effective tax policy. Everyone wants to pay just enough in taxes to keep our society running smoothly. No one wants the little man to get crushed under the burdens of an unfair government. No one wants our country to resemble some feudal society where the king spends money on lavish castles and unnecessary wars, raising taxes whimsically on his subjects while disregarding basic human rights and watching his serfs in the fields suffer. No one wants that, not even Democrats. Not even SOCIALISTS. So, I think it’s quite possible that, if all you wanted in life was for small businesses to thrive, you would be perfectly comfortable voting for Democratic candidates because THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT, TOO.

But, no.

You don’t vote Democrat, do you, Mr. Average Random Republican? You side with the party that wants to outlaw mosques and make it mandatory for women who want abortions to undergo additional painful, invasive, unnecessary medical procedures. You want to live in world in which medical care is controlled exclusively by private insurance companies. You want to spend billions on electric fences at the border and you want to give our border patrol the authority to shoot anyone entering our nation illegally. Even though you say you are for gay rights, you choose to vote for a party that openly advocates bigotry of gays, that wants to prevent people who have loved each other for decades the right to get married in our secular, non-theocratic society. You want to vote for a party that thinks the best way to deal with the issue of immigration is to treat people who have lived in this country their whole lives as second-class citizens. Actually, you don’t want to treat them as citizens at all. You want to deport them. Even if they’re 19 and have lived here since they were 2. Even if they’re valedictorian of their school. Even if they live right next door to you. You would rather their families be torn apart than work to address how to fix the problem of immigration humanely. You want to lock every prisoner away and throw away the key. And you don’t want to eliminate the death penalty, you want to speed up the process. You want to make it easier for our government to murder citizens. And you want to support ALL OF THAT and then look me in the eye and tell me, “You’re crazy, Laurie. The Republican Party platform isn’t based on fear.”

(Another way to ratchet up the fear in my gut is to make it obvious that the fear is being ratcheted up in this society while at the same time vociferously denying that the fear is being ratcheted up. Which, I think, was essentially the plot of the classic Ingrid Bergman film “Gaslight.”)

Needless to say, by the time Election Day rolled around, my nerve endings were raw. I was convinced that the billions of dollars being spent by outside interest groups, the non-stop brainwashing on Fox News, and the somewhat stagnanting economy were going to bring an overwhelming number of people to the polls with pitchforks and torches to figuratively run the Obamonster out of town. The prospect of watching a state like Missouri elect a rape-friendly Skeletor like Todd Akin to the Senate made me sick to my stomach. I was expecting the worst, and despairing of what it meant.

And what it would have meant is that you can never get rid of fear, Laurie. It will always exist. It will always be primal. It is too powerful for the majority of people to defeat it. You might be proud of yourself for having conquered some of the fear in your life, but you will never truly conquer it. Not here in America.

When the results started coming in, and they were generally in favor of the Democrats, I didn’t want to gloat about it to Republicans. I simply felt…joy. Unadulterated joy. Happy that this country, the one that tweets with me and argues on Facebook with me, and that hears the same messages from the same politicians as I do, collectively came together and said, “Yeah, haters. I don’t think so.” In individual races across the land, we voted for marriage equality. We refused to elect Tea Party politicians who glibly referred to rape pregnancies as God’s gift. We faced the fear and uncertainty of a foundering economy and did not panic by throwing out the man who is trying to steer us out of this. We did not let Mitt Romney become president simply because he said “I’ll create 12 million jobs!” during the first presidential debate.

In other words, we faced down our fear. As someone who knows how strong it can make a person to do that, all I can say is that I’m excited about what that means might be in store for our nation.

And that is what makes me feel good about last night’s election.

People That Annoy the Shit Out of Me, Vol. 1.

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Laurie B.

I work in a highly stressful environment. And by “highly stressful,” what I mean is that customer service is an aspect of my job. By that definition, of course, the majority of us have “highly stressful” jobs. Repeatedly throughout the day I have to patiently explain things to clients in a professional tone while attempting to resolve their issues without sighing, dropping the phone or asking them in all seriousness, “Are you fucking retarded?” I get headaches.

But because telling customers off is generallly frowned upon, I find myself bottling up a lot of rage throughout the day. Well, I don’t want to exaggerate, so maybe rage is too strong of a word. “Bottling up a lot of rage” makes it sound like I’m one moron away from strapping on AK-47s and bursting through the office door Tony Montana-style. It’s probably more accurate to say that, generally, by five o’clock I want to weep for humanity and for myself, for the choices that I’ve made to end up here. Three times a day I seriously regret never having married rich.

So today I would like to confront some of the negativity that burdens my soul. I would like to briefly list some of the day-to-day encounters I experience that cause my jaw to set and make me fervently wish I had access to the nuclear launch codes. Although my job is something that I find “highly stressful,” paradoxically enough, I will not be listing job-related annoyances here. For one thing, despite the fact that people are idiots, customer service IS an important part of my job, and it serves no purpose for me to list all the ways clients abuse the privilege of being able to reach out and annoy me. Hopefully, though, by listing all the other ways people make me want to stab out my eyes with shrimp forks, I will find the strength to help the ~~morons~~ nice people who call me at work looking for solutions to their problems Monday through Friday.

So, in no particular order, here we go:

1)People who take forever to complete that right hand turn. We’ve all been behind them. You’re going 45 miles an hour down a boulevard, and you see a car fifty yards in front of you turning to pull into the gas station. You ease off the gas ever so slightly, recognizing that, if they pull into the establishment at a normal pace, you won’t come anywhere near to slamming into their tailgate. And then, with growing frustration, you realize that they are inching their car into the parking lot as if they are afraid that contact with the concrete of the sidewalk is going to cause their front tires to pop. You end up having to slam on your brakes and come to a practical standstill because the fucktard behind the wheel doesn’t understand the concept of forward momentum. You glare at them as you move past, but they never see you because they are so clearly in a haze that they don’t recognize that anyone else is driving. They probably also don’t realize what time it is or what year they’re living in. They might be driving while on Ambien. They need to stop doing that.

2)People at the grocery store who are completely oblivious that their cart is blocking traffic for everyone else. Look. I live alone with four cats. (No, I take that back: I actually have a roommate. Hmm. I forgot about that for a second.) I feel like I live alone with four cats. My roommate is frequently gone for days at a time, so I know what it feels like to be alone with one’s thoughts, surrounded by nothing but cat hair and old episodes of West Wing. I get it. But, here’s the thing: When I step out of the confines of the Cat Palace, I recognize that it’s time for me to pay attention to other people. That includes, but is not limited to, being aware, when I’m out shopping for cat food, whether or not my cart is impeding someone else’s access to the aisle. It really isn’t rocket science. I use my eyes and my sense of perception, and when it becomes obvious that someone else is near me, I quickly check to see if they can continue about their day unhindered. I do not become so absorbed with trying to decide which flavor of Fancy Feast my feline friends would enjoy this week that I forget I am not alone in my pantry. Nor do I stand there oblivious to the world forcing other people to beg me to move like I am Galactic Queen Douchebag of the Vinegar Universe. I expect the same general sense of awareness from other people out in public. Am I expecting too much? Probably. (Note: It has already occurred to me that the people that take a week to make a right-hand turn are probably the same mouthbreathers that are blocking my access down the grocery aisles. I so don’t care. I despise them doubly and silently cast infertility curses towards their genitals in an effort to slow humanity’s slide. If we could just interrupt the cycle of stupidity for a generation…)

3)Waitresses and waiters who refuse to make eye contact with you. Really, lady? We’re gonna do this now?, I think every single time I end up with the Server from Hell. Listen, I am MORE than understanding when it comes to stressful jobs, (see above), so I can appreciate that you’re overwhelmed. Running eight tables during a hectic lunch hour may seem easy, but I’m sure it is much more difficult than it seems. I realize that you have to coordinate dealing with twenty customers all at once. And some customers are incredibly demanding–I know, I’ve eaten with some of them. Hell, sometimes I even AM one of them. But don’t let me sit here for five minutes without even acknowledging my existence! Again, I can tell from the crowd how busy you are. It’s obvious that I am going to have to wait my turn. But by not making eye contact with me, you’re essentially playing the grown-up version of “La la la! If I can’t see you, you’re not here!” Glance my way. Nod. Even give me the raised index finger, the universal symbol for “One second.” SOMETHING. Because every minute you refuse to acknowledge that your lunch hour just got a little bit more busy by me sitting in your section is a percentage point off your tip.

4)That asshole at the table next to me who won’t shut the fuck up. Oh my God, why didn’t I just bring my lunch? Not only can I not get my waitress to bring me a glass of water, I have to sit next to THIS GUY. You recognize him immediately. The table of four, earnest twenty-somethings who have that dazed look of naivete found on the faces of people who are slowly realizing that their $29,000 a year jobs are not nearly enough to cover their basic living expenses much less the student loan debt they acquired getting those marketing degrees from NC State. They all feel overwhelmed and under-qualified for the positions they’ve been thrown in, but they’re bound and determined to act just like those casual, successful 20-somethings in those Apple ads, because that is how reality is supposed to be. So they sit there, eating their turkey sandwiches on ciabatta bread or their sushi, with vague smiles on their faces as Mr. Confidence at their table dominates the conversation. Not only is he the only one who speaks during lunch–the other people are there merely to admire him and laugh in all the appropriate places–but he does so IN AN INCREDIBLY LOUD VOICE. It’s typically a conversation or story illustrating his awesomeness. It’s all I can do, when seated next to a table like that, not to shove the pepper shaker down his throat until he turns blue and passes out.

I think I’ll leave the list at that for now. Perhaps I will expand upon this topic in the future. If so, I might make addendums to this blogpost. Or, I’ll post a second one.

I feel better already. (Thank you, Therapy Blog!)

Super Sized Me

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Laurie B.

When I started exercising eleven weeks ago, I had no idea that I would eventually find myself here, eating a Granny Smith apple as a snack, perched over a keyboard, trying to talk to you about the three month journey I’ve been on.

(Did your eyes skip over that revolutionary bit? I am eating an apple. AS A SNACK, not as part of a Fear Factor challenge or a hostage-negotiation tactic. I’m eating an apple. Because I WANT to. Not fried pork skins. Not cheddar cheese popcorn. I mean, WHAT?!)

Other than the Kardashians, I can’t think of a topic of conversation I find more annoying than “dieting.” Unless, of course, that topic is expanded to “dieting and exercising.” (Oooh! Double the aggravation! One topic for each fist! How convenient. Now stand still while I use each to punch you in the teeth! Keep talking! Wow. You only use fat-free dressing now? *Kaplooey!* AND you try to do 20 minutes of cardio a day? *Kablow!*)

So, allow me to talk to you about the three months I’ve spent dieting and exercising.

People who are familiar with the exercise world may know this, but I was unaware that something called “exercise boot camp” is quite popular these days with women, (I’m assuming it’s predominantly a female thing, as women seem to dominate every fitness craze in this country, from jazzercise to aerobics to pilates to yoga to spinning.), looking to lose weight. So, in April a friend of mine encouraged me to purchase a Group-On discount for boot camp with a local trainer. I bought the Group-On voucher because it was only $35. I know I can throw $35 bucks away at the movie theater on buttered popcorn, a large Coke, a box of Bunch-A-Crunch and a shitty 3-D movie by James Cameron, so it wasn’t a huge investment for me. Essentially, I bought the voucher just to get my friend to shut up about it.

I sat on that unredeemed voucher for two months. (Considering my weight and my appetite, I’m surprised I didn’t eat it.) As I sat and did nothing, though, my friend actually began going to the classes after work. And within a few weeks, her progress was evident. She had more energy, she was more upbeat, she was losing inches. So many things were going great with her that I thought that maybe I could do it, too, after all, despite the groaning protestations from the cholesterol in my veins.

I started participating in boot camp on Monday, June 4th, and my world hasn’t really been the same since. Gone is the sedentary routine. Thanks to both the exercise class and the two week diet that is finishing up today, I don’t really have much time to sit around and do nothing any more.

When I started working out in June, I said that I wasn’t interested in trying to change my diet, and I meant it. For the first nine weeks of the program, all I wanted to was make sure that I didn’t skip classes and that I was avoiding major leg pain. (I didn’t realize when I started, but I have learned recently that I have been walking/running wrong my entire life, probably due to poor quality shoes. My incorrect stride is the reason that I have battled shin splints all of my life, and why working out has always been torture for me. Hopefully, the few corrective actions I’ve taken this past week will allow me to finally exercise without pain.)

But the thing about challenges is that, once you meet them, you find yourself ready to take on more. And sure enough, by the time August rolled around, I felt confident enough in my new routine to try the 14 day diet that they offered.

I had felt like I was developing more stamina during the first eight weeks for sure, but it wasn’t until I changed my diet that I felt like I was truly shedding weight.

Of course, I say that, but here’s the thing about me: I’ve been doing this exercise thing for going on three months now, and I haven’t weighed myself. Not once. I also haven’t measured myself. I do that deliberately. I cannot imagine getting caught up in numbers. I know that “they” say a woman of my height and build should weigh about 140 pounds–since I haven’t weighed that since I was a junior in high school, that’s depressing enough as it is, thank you very much. My trainer thinks I’m insane, and I probably am. I simply don’t like the way women become obsessed by a number, a dress size, a cup size, as if simply hitting that number will suddenly make everything perfect in their world. I think it’s the obsession itself that is unhealthy. Once a woman hits her ideal weight, (not that I’ve met many that have), then they simply transfer that obsession onto something else: the number of fat grams in their food, the number of calories in their meal, how much bread they ate this week. Guh. I hate listening to it, and I certainly don’t want to become that. All I want to do is become toned and capable of doing a hearty number of push-ups and sit-ups without feeling like I’m going to die. In short, I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost. At least a pound. Maybe a squillion. I don’t know.

By far, the best thing that has happened to me in the past three months has been the introduction of the meal plan. That, more than the exercise, has turned my life around.

For a long time now, as anyone who reads my Twitter feed can attest to, I have been disgusted by processed foods, give or take a delicious pork skin or two. I have realized that so much of what is sold to us in the grocery store and in fast food restaurants is little more than poison. Delicious poisons heaped with sugars and fats and flavorings, to be sure, but I knew that eating them was bad for me. The problem was that I didn’t know how to avoid them. Bitch all you want about how bad certain foods are for you, but unless you know how to prepare healthy alternatives, you’re kinda stuck sticking the same gunk-crusted needle in your vein.

The meal plan told me what to buy, and what to prepare for each meal. It took all the guesswork out of it. Boil lentils. Have a salad. Eat a banana. Okay.

Before I started eating all these vegetables and legumes (and CHICKEN! Holy crap, I’ve eaten so much chicken in the past two weeks I now find myself sexually attracted to Foghorn Leghorn.) I was scared because everything that the meal plan said to stay away from was everything I ate. “There is no way I can do this. There is no way I can do this. There is no way I can do this.” That was essentially the mantra in my head before I started. But, I looked at the daily meal plan and did almost exactly what it told me to do. Eat 12 almonds. Have a chicken breast. Boil brown rice. Drink this water. Okay.

(It told me to eat plain greek yogurt, but I absolutely refused to try and gag that whale sperm down. That was one food that I easily modified. I ate Chobani–the ones with the great tasting fruits in them, like pineapple and black cherry and blood orange. I told myself that if my weight-loss depended on the caloric difference between nasty plain greek yogurt and Chobani with fruit in it, well, I was just going to die obese at age 47 from diabetes, because life just wasn’t worth it.)

The meal plan taught me that couscous is DELICIOUS! (Who knew?) That lentils are DELICIOUS! (Who knew?) That brown rice is DISGUSTING! (Oh, white rice. I’ll miss you.) It’s taught me that having a ton of fresh vegetables in the refrigerator is wonderful on days when you want to make an omelet. (Today I made one with mushrooms, bell peppers and tomatoes…and it was DELICIOUS!)

It’s also taught me that preparing food is a lot of work. I’ve washed dishes more times in the past two weeks than the first eight months of the year combined. I have to want to do it. In short, it’s a lifestyle change.

Of course, part of me is worried that I am so very lazy that I will stop cooking food in an effort to get something faster that involves a lot less clean-up. That and the expense of fresh food are the two things that scare me the most about this change. But, I do have two things going for me to combat that. One is that I truly see almost all processed foods as dangerous poisons that will harm my body. Oreos are not my friend. Cheetos are not my friend. Pork skins <gasp!> are not my friend. That mindset is amazingly helpful when you’re trying to plan what you’re going to eat. Just as you would never willingly add Drano to your food as you cook, I never want to add ketchup or Rice-a-Roni or Ritz crackers.

The other thing that I have going for me is that I don’t have an addictive personality. I haven’t been dealing with any out of control withdrawals or cravings these past two weeks, even though I have completed changed my diet. Not suffering from withdrawals makes it easier to transition into new behavior, so I’m fortunate in that regard.

So, who knows? If I keep at this routine, maybe I will someday hit that ideal weight of 140 that “they” say I should be at. Not that I’ll know for sure, as I won’t be weighing myself.

What I do know, though, is that if you commit, if you try, if you let go of your lust for deep-fried mushrooms and pizza with extra cheese, you might learn that you can live with diet and exercise that you otherwise thought would turn you into a half-starved, pain-stricken she-beast.

The Taming of the Prude

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Laurie B.

It has been extremely quiet in my house for hours now. I think it is because I am still in shock that I have finished reading “50 Shades of Grey.” I did it. From cover to cover, I absorbed every word. It was, without a doubt, the longest Penthouse Forum letter I have ever read. I need to purge myself of the emotions and opinions the reading of this book has given rise to. And, since I am unfamiliar with the proper procedure required for a kona coffee colonic–I don’t even know where I would find kona coffee–please allow me to cleanse myself with this little essay, (although I am certain that a coffee colonic would give me much more energy. You drink those, right? (Note to self: Do further research on ‘colonics.’)) If I commit all my thoughts to the page, perhaps I will stop continually tweeting about the sheer awfulness of this novel. For the past few days all I have wanted to do is tweet snarky, spiteful, (albeit righteously inventive and hilarious), comments about this terrible book. I would like to go back to tweeting about my cats like a normal person, if you don’t mind.

I only have myself to blame for this. No one forced me to read this book. I CHOSE to endure this pain. So, in that respect, I am incredibly similar to the main character, (a woman I will forever refer to Anastasia Whats-her-Face, if only because her last name escapes me at the moment and I’m too afraid to open the book again to look it up.) You see, every once in awhile, if circumstances permit, I like to try and catch up on some of the pop culture that swirls around this morbidly obese, yes, I would like fries with that and, yes, I would like chili AND cheese on those fries country of ours. It helps me feel connected to this Vitamin Water-drinking, Spanx-wearing, Dancing With the Stars-watching society that typically leaves me feeling befuddled and slightly out of place. So, if everyone at the office is reading a bestseller, then, God help me, I’m gonna crack that book open and find out what all the fuss is about. The obvious flaw in this line of reasoning is that reading what “everyone else is reading to find out what all the fuss is about” only leaves me feeling more befuddled and confused by this world once I realize what a heaping pile of crap said best-seller is. (That lonely feeling of separation is not reserved for horrible literature, of course. I feel the same way when I’m surrounded by people excitedly talking about how much they enjoy the food at The Olive Garden. Really, people? Really? And I’m a woman who, when circumstances demand it, will eat Chef-Boy-Ardee ravioli straight out of the can…cold. Yet even I know that The Olive Garden is shit.) And EVERYONE in my office was, is, or has been planning on reading “Fifty Shades of Grey.” (So, Encyclopedia Brown, do I work in a office populated by MEN? For the answer, turn to page 68.)

Now.

I am not a stupid woman. Stubborn, thoughtless, tempermental, irrational and oh! so obese, yes. But stupid? No. I KNOW that some of you, (probably you), are dying to read this book, this “50 Shades of Grey.” It wouldn’t surprise me if at least one of you, (probably you), is masturbating to it right now. And for those of you that are going to be exploring this book in the near future, I assure you–I have no intentions of spoiling the “plot” for you. (I put the word plot in quotation marks because this novel has one in much the same way that an adult movie does. It’s not exactly “important.”) All I really want to do is take a brief moment of your time to explain in broad strokes why this novel makes me angry enough to want to forcibly sterilize any young woman caught reading it, so as to prevent her from spreading her clearly flawed genetic material, is all.

Please allow myself a moment to self-identify myself. (Tip of the cap to Mr. Mike Myers with that last sentence. (He said something similar in one of the Austin Powers movies.)Whatever happened to that crazy bastard, anyway? You make one, four of the worst movies of all time and all of sudden you’re relegated to doing voicework as a Scottish ogre. What? I’m digressing? Holy shit! I AM, aren’t I? Sorry! Where was I?) I am what I like to call “a lazy fucking feminist.” And, for those of you not “privileged” enough to live in my brain, a “lazy fucking feminist” is a rational human being with tits. (Copyright.) I tend to view people intellectually, not genitalialy. (Copyright.) (So, as you can see, right there I am clearly not a candidate for appreciating this particular style of book.) I strongly believe that women are the equals of men, allowing for some very natural, obvious differences in the sexes. (Men, for example, will for all time clearly dominate in the Peeing in a Bottle category. Women, on the other hand, will forever lead in the Ability to Squeeze a Bowling Ball out of Your Crotch category. So, it’s a wash.) And, were I a spiritual person, I would prefer to follow a religion that had a female creator, since a)women create all life and b)horrific, angry, powerful natural disasters like typhoons, tornadoes, volcanoes and floods could only possibly come from a female goddess on her period. (Am I right, ladies, or am I right? Up top!) The “lazy” part comes in from the fact that I don’t study feminism. Camille Paglia irritates the shit out of me for some reason. My feminism stems more from common sense and from admiring the lives of strong women such as Katharine Hepburn, Anna Quindlen, Molly Ivins, Rosanne Cash, Maria Bamford, etc. than from actually trying to educate myself intellectually. (Who has time for that?)

I DO NOT subscribe to the age-old, paternalistic notion that intelligent, outspoken women need confident, brazen, arrogant men to “tame” them. I do not subscribe to the notion that women secretly fantasize about being raped or dominated or controlled. I do not subscribe to the notion that a woman is not complete unless she has a man.

(That being said, I really need a man to come over and powerwash my house or replace the sparkplug on my lawnmower.)

I realize this is just a story. A shamelessly pornographic story about a wealthy, cold man who is into dominant/submissive sexual roleplay and the woman who loves him. Symbolically, though, this story chaps my hide more than that brown plaited leather riding crop she is so fascinated by.

Because, conveniently, this woman is Purity itself. (Does “Anastasia” mean purity or innocence in Russian? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.) So, her feminity is of the purest, most perfect kind. 1)She has never been in love before. 2)She is a virgin. 3)She is completely unaware of her own beauty which, apparently, is enough to stop the wealthiest man in the Pacific Northwest in his tracks. And, oh, 4)she has never been drunk, even though she has spent the past four years of her life at college. In PORTLAND.

And apparently, when Purity meets Carnal Desire…well. You get “50 Shades of Grey.” Which means that a 21 year-old woman can go from a virgin who has never once pleasured herself, (Really? Not even once, lady? What were you doing as a 13 year old?), to being able to masterfully control her own orgasms in three weeks time. Oh. And she can experience both external AND internal orgasms. One just as easily as the other. AND she has multiple orgasms with very litle down time. AND she can give professional-grade blowjobs AND successfully roll condoms on with no practice or previous experience.

I sound a little jealous.

And I am, of course, because all of that is preposterous. I certainly hope that no one who reads that yearns to be that ideal woman. The only thing that would make her sexual capabilities slightly more ridiculous is if she could also tie the perfect Windsor knot and make the most delicate blueberry crepes in bed WHILE being serviced from behind for her third orgasm of the night. (Of course, if she knew how to replace the sparkplug in a lawnmower, maybe I wouldn’t be so critical of her…but I digress.)

Anastasia Whats-her-Face clearly is representative of an ideal. And this novel chose to take that ideal and give it submissiveness and curiousity and obedience to some of the sickest, most degrading, controlling, domineering, arrogant behavior, displayed by a man who puts the freak in control freak…and then the author has the audacity to call that love. It is the same old story that has been told throughout the ages. And the lazy fucking feminist in me is sick of it.

I’ll let you know what I think of the second book in the series when I finish it.

Legalize It

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Laurie B.

Thunder and lightning rained down on this part of North Carolina late last night, after the polls closed. I’d like to think it was God sending a message to Billy Graham, (a famously non-political preacher who recently came out in support of the anti-gay marriage amendment), along the lines of “You’ve fucked with me for the last time, boy.” I’d like to think that the heavy rain signified God’s support of his gay children by telling them, “Don’t worry: I’ll still make it rain men.” But. It was just a thunderstorm. And today I awake in a state that hates homosexuals so much that it chose to inscribe discrimination into its state constitution.

I just want to take a moment or two to briefly touch upon this horrid moment in history.

I worked at the polls yesterday.

Regardless of the bigotted, short-sighted, hurtful thing people are doing with their votes, be it voting for Rick Santorum or amending a state constitution to say that the only recognized union will be that of a married man and woman, there is something beautifully restorative in watching democracy play out at a polling station. You are surrounded by people who care enough to vote. That is a noble, amazing thing. They don’t plot in dark basements to overthrow the government with anthrax and fertilizer bombs, (well, maybe they do), but on election day they bravely choose to make their voice heard by taking the singular action to vote. While it is happening, it is a gloriously refreshing thing. It’s only after the votes are tallied and you realize what all those proud citizens have done that you begin to doubt democracy.

Voter participation was heavy all day. There is nothing like a discriminatory amendment to get people out to the polls, I guess. Either that or North Carolinians were incredibly excited to finally help nominate Mitt Romney. Whatever happens in history when this horrible amendment goes into effect, it certainly cannot be said that a small minority of primary voters decided the fate of this. There were over 500,000 early votes cast, and I overheard the chief judge at my polling station saying at one point that we were close to 50% participation in our precinct. People made their voices heard.

And what the state of North Carolina wanted to be heard saying was “WE ONLY VALUE HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGES HERE.”

In light of that, I would like to make just a couple of observations.

1)For my so-called libertarian friends out there who despise the federal government, who find it onerous and intrusive and injust; for those that prefer “local” government, and who suggest that it is somehow better than a national government, please note that a state, not the federal government, wrote discrimination into its constitution yesterday.

2)Gay people exist.

If you accept that gay people exist, then you need to ask yourself what rights they should be entitled to. (If you do not accept that gay people exist, please re-read 2) above.) Since they are human beings and Americans, they deserve all rights available to every citizen.

Constitution amendments can be repealed, of course, and perhaps one day this one will. Until such time, life and love outside the legal bounds will continue.

The L Word

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Laurie B.

Psst. I have a secret that I want to share with you and you alone.

I am falling in love.

“Eww! Gross! Laurie, c’mon! I’m trying to eat my dinner, man!”

Go ahead. Have your “Einhorn is a man!” moment. I’ll wait. Do you have enough gum?

Look. I wasn’t expecting this, either. I was perfectly content living my completely self-contained life, reading Cat Fancy magazine, planning my meals for one, whilst occasionally drinking myself into oblivion.

And then I met Her.

I use the phrase “falling” in love to lend some pretext to the romantic notion that this emotional event is a subtle transition that is occurring in real time, that with every full rotation of the Earth I am growing closer to utterly acquiescing and completely surrendering my heart. (Wow. Lookit all the big words I just used. More and more this is starting to sound like just another article torn from the pages of Penthouse Forum.)

Saying I’m “falling” in love helps make it seem like I’m being 1)rational; 2)reserved; 3)careful; and 4)cautious. In fact, I’m being none of those. I’m 42 years old. Like Dick Cheney when he has a heart “episode”, I am old enough to recognize the symptoms. He’s experienced enough “episodes” to know when he’s having a heart attack versus when he simply ate one too many Funyuns. And I know full well that I am in love. I have been from the first spark of laughter, the first look, that we shared together. She is a very special woman and my life will never be the same now that I’ve met her.

Now, at this point, please allow me to explain something to you fine, upstanding people who undoubtedly think that I am about as stable as Anne Heche, what with the falling in love at the drop of a hat and all. Just because I’m in love doesn’t mean that I have any expectations about this relationship. I don’t. No, really. I don’t. (Because there are complications. Oh. Yes. There are. Of course there are.) But, I don’t believe in beating around…(okay, I was going to say “beating around the bush,” but I know all of my immature readers would snicker and think I was trying to make a cute lesbian pun)…I don’t believe in pussyfooting…(okay, again, it’s just an expression. Jesus! Grow up, people!)…I don’t believe in half-measures. I know with as much certainty today that I am in love with this woman as I am going to know six months or ten years from now. The only thing I don’t know about The Future is whether or not my being in love with her is enough conquer Life’s Obstacles. Trying to keep my heart in reserve while that is being determined isn’t going to save me from any heartache, if that is what is on the horizon.

I haven’t always believed in love at first sight. I guarded my heart when I was young. (It didn’t get me very far, I’ll have you know.) I held back emotionally. (It seemed like the reasonable thing to do.) And, you know what? Here is the epiphany I had after all the little dramadies that I endearingly refer to as “past relationships” were said and done: When I was afraid of getting hurt going into a relationship, not only did I inevitably get hurt by said relationship, but that fear reinforced the belief that relationships generally suck, which in turn hardened me and made me more guarded for the next one. My heart gradually became calcified by fear. (And I don’t even want to BEGIN to describe what it did to my bagina.)

Now, look. I’m a Virgo. I pack six pairs of socks for an overnight trip. I’m afraid to watch “Intervention” for fear that I’m going to become an addict through osmosis. I want my rollercoasters to come equipped with airbags. Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t ride rollercoasters! Far too dangerous. I’m not exactly wild and crazy or overly-confident. If I was in charge of naming the perfumes at Estée Lauder, the top four would be: Rational. Reserved. Careful. And Cautious. So for me to become so intoxicated like this, to tumble headfirst down this Slip n’ Slide of Love, something pretty extraordinary must have occurred.

All my life I’ve been haunted by a vision of a brown eyed woman. These dreams are never very complicated. She looks at me, we silently share an emotion more powerful than words can express and I wake up, shaken to my core by the connection I just felt in my subconscious. I’ve only had that dream, oh, about a thousand times in my life. That brown eyed woman has never been anything more than a figment of my imagination. I had so relegated her to the realm of fantasy that I did not think it was possible to share a look like that with another human being in the Waking World. And then I shared that look with Her and I realized I wasn’t asleep.

And, that’s it, basically. She now possesses my heart. There’s really not much more to it than that.

“That’s IT, Laurie? You specifically used the word ‘extraordinary.’ There hardly seems anything ‘extraordinary’ about looking at someone. God dammit, I’m unsubscribing to this blog. If you want to entice me with stories about your love life, you need to describe full-blown orgasms, dammit! You’re a LESBIAN! Wow me with some lesbian shit!” ~ I can almost hear you say. To which I respond, “Ssh, Mother. Go watch ‘Dancing With the Stars.'”

I’ve learned to listen to my instincts as I’ve gotten older. And my instincts started screaming at me almost as soon as I met Her: “She’s beautiful!” “Did you hear that laugh? Laurie!? Did you hear that? That is a woman who KNOWS how to laugh! Make her laugh some more, Laurie!” “Look at how kind she is? Did you see what she just did?” I just asked for her phone number to get my instincts to shut the fuck up, really.

I don’t know what The Future holds. Honestly–eep!–it doesn’t look great. There are A LOT of obstacles to overcome. I mean, this is the ABC’s “Wipeout” of potential relationships. So, I’m not going to think about The Future. All I can do is take it one day at a time. I’m grateful that I get to spend time with her, that I get to tell her that she’s beautiful, that I get to share that Look with her. If it all disappears tomorrow, at least we’ve had that. But…oh, the possibilities The Future holds. I’m looking forward to the day I can look into her eyes and tell her I love her. Because we haven’t reached that stage in our relationship, you see. As far as she knows, I merely like her. A lot. And maybe that’s all she wants from me. Maybe that’s all she can handle right now. And all I want is to give her what she wants.

As long as She doesn’t read this blog, She won’t be the wiser.

You. Are. Not. A. Twit.

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Laurie B.

If you’re anything like me, (Lord help us all if you are. It has taken me ~~six~~ seven! minutes to create this one sentence, so if we’re similar, no wonder nothing ever gets done around here), then you experience a thousand dissimilar, random thoughts and emotions a day. And, if you’re also like me and have a Twitter account and possess ~~very little~~ amazing impulse control, you at least have a place to type those weird teeny, tiny little thoughts so they vent harmlessly into cyberspace instead of building up behind your eyeballs to dangerously high levels until the pressure becomes so great that spinal fluid starts seeping out of your ears. (And I don’t even know if spinal fluid CAN start seeping out of your ears. I mean, it certainly doesn’t sound like it could, as your ears don’t seem to be connected at all to your spine, not even in the wildest way that I try to imagine what the inner-workings of my skull look like, which is with tubes and stuff like the evil genius from Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits. But the cranium is a very complex cavity and who really knows what goes on in there? I mean, I’m sure I could Google it to find out. I could just type in “spinal fluid leakage” and see what pops up. But, of course, I won’t because I have ~~very little~~ amazing impulse control.)

**Five minutes later**

Okay, holy crap, it CAN come out your ears. I had no idea! I thought it just dribbled down your spine like slimy water on a steamy metallic wall in that primordial egg-laying scene in Aliens. (Which I am not going to bother linking to, as you have all seen that movie a gazAlien (!) times and know exactly the visual that I am trying to express. Although, can I just say? My over-use of links is making me suspect that I am not writing so much as I am creating a web-based pop-up book. But, pardon me–I need to go back to writing my blog now.) Of course, I should probably spend another good ~~six~~ seven! minutes trying to rephrase the expression “can come out your ears,” as that is leading to a desire to google something else entirely, and we certainly don’t need me linking to THAT. (Shush, boys. NO. WE. DON’T.) So I won’t. Because I have amazing impulse control.

This is probably the point in the essay where you, my Intelligent Reader, has deduced that tonight’s topic is about Twitter and/or impulse control. And that is where you would be Wrong.

Now, just for the sake of argument we are all going to agree, (Logical Reader: “But how can it be ‘for the sake of argument’ if we all agree with you, Laurie?” Slightly-caffeinated, determined-to-stay focused blogwriter: “Shut up.”), to my original point that we all have a thousand random thoughts a day. I realize that this is not a scientific statement. I realize that some people do not flit in unfocused fashion from thought to hyper-active thought like a Vietnam POW camp surviving hummingbird on ecstasy. (Those composed people? Those who can speak in complete paragraphs and can leave the radio in the car on one station EVEN WHEN A COMMERCIAL COMES ON? Those people I fondly refer to as freaks.) The main point is that, whether we wash dishes for a living, are chefs or even brain surgeons, on some day in our life, whether we are elbow-deep in soap suds or reading Kierkegaard, at some point we are eventually going to wonder, “Who DID put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?” It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that George W. Bush, for example, was struck by that thought ALL THE TIME. And he was PRESIDENT. Here’s an example of him being struck by it. Or so I imagine.

Of course, sometimes the thoughts that dance around in our noodle are not as serious as, “Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?” Sometimes they are lighter, superficial thoughts like, “Why am I upset that a man I’ve never met decided to use Twitter to post words of encouragement and hope to depressed people on the anniversary of his brother’s suicide?” “Why does it bother me that such a trivial medium was used by someone to speak to people with serious problems?” “Who am I to judge, no matter how serious or deadly the subject may be?” Or, (and this is maybe a little bit less specific to, like, one imaginary person’s head), “Holy God. I am the worst mother on the planet.”

Heck, I’m sure that, even when hipsters order coffee-like things at Starbucks, seemingly without a care in their TV-On-The-Radio-loving, cinnamon-sprinkled, cappuccino-soaked heads, they are randomly struck by the thought, “Fuck. I’m going to die.” (And that’s even in the Starbucks that AREN’T by robbed!)

The truly weird thing about these thoughts, the thing that makes them truly unnerving and life-debilitating, is that you can’t just turn to the person next to you on the bus and say, “You know–Hi! Strangest thing: I just thought about drowning my husband in the tub if he has one more goddamn cigarette behind my back. And it FELT LIKE THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Oh! Here’s my stop. Bye!”

Most all of us have negative thoughts. I mean, not me, of course. I am perpetually sunny. Aside from that first thought of the day which is, typically, “Where am I, where are my panties and why does my ass feel like that?”, once I find my underwear I am nothing but Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm until my head hits ~~the~~ a pillow at night. By writing this supportive essay I am simply trying to empathize with my audience. I learned about doing that in that writing class I took from Bill Clinton.

Again, I would like to admit, for the record, that there are some people out there who are GENUINELY even-keeled, who never experience even a flicker of frustration, fear, self-loathing or doubt. WE HATE THEM. They should swim the ocean currents, help Dory Find Nemo, and leave the job of being a suffering, miserable piece of humanity to the rest of us. I’m not worried about them, as they are nowhere near an internet connection. Much like Ed Begley Jr.’s character on The Simpsons, they are busy powering their cars with their own sense of self-satisfaction. They are planting trees on Mt. Everest for orphans while developing a cure for rickets. WE HATE THEM.

So, how do we survive these fears and insecurities? We wake up. Walk the dog. Pee on the cat. (You know who you are.) Focus diligently on our jobs, our children, our hobbies. We answer e-mail after e-mail after e-mail. We text. We tweet. We plan supper. We tweet about what we’re making for supper. (No. Really. WE DO THAT.) We pick up the dry cleaning. We stay as busy as we can so that the stress build-up from those random, inescapable thoughts doesn’t lead us screaming straight into an oncoming bus. (Or a train, if you’re in Nebraska. But, wait. Who am I kidding? No one in Nebraska is reading this. Nebraska doesn’t have internet access.*) Like Dory, we just keep swimming. (But, that is where the similarity to Dory should end, as Dory had the memory of a rutabaga. Which is not to say that she had loving memories of rutabagas, but that her mind was about as developed as a root vegetable and not designed to sustain a cohesive thought for an extended period of time. But, listen, this is no time to discover the universal taoist principles covered in a Pixar film. I have to talk about anger and nasty stuff like that.) (And, hey, psst, listen. I have no idea if there are taoist principles in ‘Finding Nemo.’ I really don’t. I mean, there probably are–you know how those hippies in Hollywood like to indoctrinate your children and turn ’em gay and all that shit. And there’s nothing gayer than “taoism,” am I right? I mean, c’mon. The first letter is a ‘T.’ So why do they pronounce it with a ‘D’? Because it’s DUMB, that’s right.)

So many conflicts lie unresolved in your head. And they become suppurating blisters in your brain that you can never confront. “That ~~job~~ ~~man~~ woman I ~~work sleep flirt sing pray~~ live with drives me absolutely fucking insane and if I had the power to leave, I would. But I can’t. I just have to sit here and take it. Because I am supposed to ~~suffer~~ ~~support~~ endure.” You get angry or feel belittled or disrespected. And your feelings are so very hurt. And you cannot turn to the person next to you and say, “Man. I really feel like I’m losing my place in the world and that I really don’t matter. And if I have to grit my teeth and smile at one more person I’m really going to lose it.” At best, if you’re lucky, you shake your head, gulp and say, “Some day, eh?” For most of us, though, all we can do is look up and say “Paper, please. No, I changed my mind. Plastic.” Because at that moment you’re all, like, “Fuck Mother Earth.”

Now, I would like to be clear. (Annoyed Sarcastic Reader: “Really? NOW you want to be clear? Laurie. Do you actually READ your essays? Do you know how hard they are to get through? If David Foster Wallace were alive, he’d say ‘I just don’t understand this shit.'” Overly-Caffeinated, Hungry, Slightly Nauseated Blogger: “You’re hurting my feelings, making me feel inadequate and underappreciated. Also, I know for a fact that at least two of you have NO idea who David Foster Wallace even is.” Reader: “Oh shut UP!”) I am not saying that we as fallible humans are consumed by thoughts of negativity all the time. (If you are, please know that depression is a manageable disease that can be effectively treated with talk therapy and/or medication. I hope you have the courage and the strength to find someone who can help you breathe again. For me, it was a three-legged cat. But that’s another story. (See, you inconsiderate tweeting sonofabitch who shall remain nameless but oh you know who you are!? THAT’S how you talk about depression–in a fucking blog! Or maybe a magazine column, at least, I don’t know! If you’re a radio personality maybe you create a radio segment about it! I’m just spitballin’ here. What you DON’T do is type ANYTHING about SUICIDE or DEPRESSION in a fucking 140 character TWEET! Especially when you spend the rest of your time on Twitter making lame-ass jokes that are so horrible they literally make people want to kill themselves. “Hang in there, Kitten!” is NOT AN EFFECTIVE DETERRANT AGAINST DEPRESSION. Asshat.)) What I am saying is that we get pummelled by these thoughts on a fairly steady basis. They’re like solar flares headed straight for our brain. They cause us to be irritable, short, achy, a little bitchy…it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they also caused scabies or vaginal dryness. (Motherly Reader: “You are SUCH a child, Laurie. Can’t go a paragraph without saying ‘vagina,’ can you?” Hypoglycemic Blogger: “That’s not true. It’s a real medical condition. And, anyway, if I were trying to be childish I would have called it a ‘bagina.'”) But if we don’t find a way to understand and conquer them, if we can’t learn from these thoughts, then they will become soul-crushingly heavy and destroy the simple joy that we are supposed to get out of life. And then we just end up sitting on our sofas in our Snuggies eating Doritos watching So You Think You Can Dance.**

And THAT is why it is important to infuse your life with art. (Ha! This essay is about ART. Betcha didn’t see THAT coming. Not from the woman who has framed Guiness Stout beer coasters on her wall as decoration. *And a Winnie the Pooh poster! Yes, Laurie. And a Winnie the Pooh poster, too.*) You have to read, you have to explore new ideas. You have to listen to great new music. You have to really look at that beautiful painting from that guy with the weird name that kind of makes you nervous when you see it. You have to experience the world through music, or poetry, or sculpture, or literature. It is in that space that you will find the universal language that will give you your voice. You are not abnormal or unusual for your feelings of pain and insecurity. It’s through the world of art that we learn, after all, that we all go a little bit mad sometimes. (Bonus Blog Points for those of you who know that is a famous quote from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.”) (And Bonus Bonus Blog Points for those of you who are familiar with the song I just linked under “Psycho.”) (Good God. It’s like I’m going down a psycho wormhole.)

Now, sure, certainly, of course, you can find that connection to inner peace through religion, too. Since the important thing is helping you get to the point where you don’t feel like you’re going to stroke out at the thought of having to sit through another miserable family dinner with your annoying sister-in-law who thinks she’s so high and mighty and who never burns her pot roast or misses a PTA meeting and GAHHHHH!

Since the important thing is getting you past THAT, sure, if you can find it in your church, who am I to begrudge you that one bit of solace? Of course, the solace and comfort I’m referring to is visible in the eyes of real live humans, all over the globe, regardless of their religion, and I actually think it is healthier to connect to real people through genuine emotions rather than by sharing an imaginary sense of love and well-being with an invisible space entity that doesn’t really exist except through the power of your faith…oh, sorry. No, I’m sorry. You’re right. Whatever gives you strength.***

So. You are not alone. You are not insane. (Except for you. You are batshit-eat-your-feces-insane and you need to institutionalize yourself immediately because God knows we can’t just throw you into that asylum against your will because you have a little something we like to call “civil rights.” Or as you like call them, “asparagus.”)

You are not a twit.

Hang in there, kitten.****

*This is the point in history when Laurie lost her one reader from Nebraska.

**This is the point in history when Laurie lost all of her readers in Wisconsin.

***This is the point in history when Laurie lost all of her readers in the South.

****This is the point in history when Laurie lost Laurie.

If This Blog Is a-Rockin’ Don’t Come a-Knockin’

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Laurie B.

Author’s Disclaimer: I am not a musicologist. I am not an audiophile. I don’t write musical reviews, either as a hobby or professionally. I don’t even know what the great singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen meant when he wrote “the 4th, the 5th, the minor fall & the major lift” in that song “Hallelujah” except I think it has something to do with music and it sounds really beautiful when Jeff Buckley sings it. I just love music. (Except for jazz. Sorry, jazz.) So, allow me to be clear: the views that are about to be expressed are my own and are based soley upon a lifetime of listening to music in cars, in bars, thru headphones, in bed, or at concerts, nothing more. They are not based upon the remotest hint of a working knowledge of song structure or musical skill or, (what’s the word?), CHORD PROGRESSION, as I possess none of that. I don’t even subscribe to Pitchfork magazine, although I totally should. If it feels like I’m about to lecture you about music, just relax. I’m not. And, since I’m blissfully ignorant about this subject, everything I am about to say could be totally wrong. Feel free to let me know if you think I am. There IS a comment section somewhere around here. Or, you know. You could just write your own essay about the subject instead of being a dick to me about my views. I’m just saying. Oh. And, yes, I think I DO have to mention Rosanne Cash in every goddamn blogpost I write, thank you very much. I am seriously considering changing the title to “What Would Rosanne Cash Think?” It’s rumored that if I mention her in a hundred posts in a row, I get a pony.

On Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011, I drove two hours to Asheville, North Carolina (“Where Lattes Meet To Hike the Appalachian Trail”), to listen to Ms. Rosanne Cash speak about her memoir “Composed,” which had just been released in paperback the week before. (As of this posting, it was #17 in the Biographies/Musicians category on Amazon “We have a Category for That” dot com. Which 16 people in the music world could possibly be more interesting/intriguing than Rosanne Cash?, I wonder softly to myself. Well, apparently, six of them are Keith Richards, which is completely understandable. Patti Smith, a recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, also tops the charts ahead of Ms. Cash. Well done there. But…what’s this? Ace Frehley!? ACE FUCKING FREHLEY has a book that is more popular than Rosanne Cash’s?! From KISS? The guitarist? And not the cute one with the star painted on his face, but the other one? I mean, that is just wrong on so many levels. I realize that only two people read these posts but, for the love of humanity, please, click on the above link and buy “Composed,” if for no other reason than to restore sanity to the universe by putting Ace fucking Frehley in his proper place, which is well below Ms. Cash on the Amazon sales chart. Buy six copies if you have to. Together, we can change the world. Thank you.)

(Am I done here? What was I talking about? I got so distracted by Ace fucking Frehley that I have completely lost my train of thought. Oh, right. I saw Rosanne Cash speak.)

Now, for those of you who don’t know, (I’m not going to name names but Lachey Turner just the other day was overheard saying, in this exact order, “Rosanne Cash, who is that? I have to Google this woman to see what she looks like. Oh! She’s pretty!” She particularly liked the Interiors album cover photo. I said, “Yeah, but that was the year she was getting divorced from her husband. It was a rough time. She looks depressed, dontcha think?” “No, but I like it! She looks mean!” To each their own.), Rosanne Cash, a professional artist in her own right, is the daughter of famed music legend Johnny Cash, (and if you don’t know who Johnny Cash is, you can just stop reading right now and go back to whatever it is you do in your underground lair–hunting for albino catfish, licking lichen-covered rocks for nourishment, searching for The One Ring to Rule Them All, I don’t know–I don’t have time to explain him to you. I’m surprised that you have internet access in such a remote pit of hell, though.), and she has been making some of the richest, warmest music in America for about 30 some odd years, which is an amazingly long creative streak for someone who just recently turned 36. (Did anyone else just hear that? I think that was the entirety of cyberspace swooshing the expression “KISS ASS!” down on me through the ethernet. It was very loud. Really surprised no one else heard that.) Okay, so she’s slightly more aged than 36. Whatever. My obsession, my rules.

When she’s not making music, thinking about making music, or tweeting about making music, Ms. Cash apparently hits the road to talk to the public about that book I mentioned earlier, where people proceed to ask her questions about music. Which brings me to the point of this essay.

Another swoosh: THANK JESUS! SHE GOT TO THE POINT OF HER ESSAY! Everybody–you can come back: She got to the point. She got to the point, yes, she did. Praise be to God, the Glory and the Light. Here she go. She gonna get to the point right here:

On that lovely, warm, Carolina blue day, a man and his wife drove TEN HOURS from Florida to hear Ms. Cash speak. So, say what you want about how much I adore one of the greatest singers in America, but not only am I not alone, I’m not even on the top of the charts so, you know. Bite me. And when it came time for him to ask her a question, it broke my heart. To paraphrase, he talked fondly of the music he listened to back when Rosanne was getting started in the business and wanted to know where all the good songwriters were today.

Two things that immediately struck me when he asked that question: One, Ms. Cash looked exhausted. As if she felt the enormous complexity of the essence of what he was asking while simultaneously realizing that she had been travelling for several days in a row, was completely brain-dead, couldn’t even BEGIN to launch into a dissertation about today’s modern music scene and, Jesus Christ, did she really need a glass of wine like, NOW. That really did seem to flicker on her face, I swear. And, two, people are really hungry for some guidance in this vast, teeming swamp of energy and information we call Life. I am here today to try and cover that second point.

When I hear people say “They don’t make music like they used to” or “The era of the great songwriter is past” or, even more directly, “Kids today don’t know what good music is,” what I hear is “My best music memories are tied to when I was a teenager necking with Mandy Leitner in the backseat of my daddy’s car and I don’t know how to make new ones.”

If you’re like me, then you suspect that humans learned to communicate via music before they learned how to speak. This, I believe, is what makes the otherwise tedious Close Encounters of the Third Kind resonate with so many of us. It is communication at a primal level. And it is something that we can universally appreciate even if we do not understand the language in which the lyrics are written. Human beings will continue to make music long past the point where we can write language longhand and long after you and I are gone. Since there are approximately 13,000,000 bands on MySpace, though, perhaps the problem older people have today is finding it.

Well, for starters, try not to freak out about the fact that musical styles change. It’s not like the kids today started that trend. I mean, when you think about it, according to Fred Phelps, America started feeling the wrath of God as soon as Elvis Presley took the stage. But, when you go back even further, Beethoven caused a stir by being different than Mozart, who was really nothing more than the Elvis of his day. (Maybe he was more the John Lennon of his day. But you take my point.) So, this variance in musical styles goes back millenia. It is not something that portends the collapse of music as we know it. If anything, it speaks to the brilliance of the art form. The notes on the page haven’t changed since Mozart started jotting them down, and yet we keep finding a squillion different ways to use them. That should make the average listener of music feel excited about what is coming, not depressed about what has passed.

Once you accept that change is not something to fear, oh, the world of possibilities that become available to your ears. (Except for jazz. Sorry, jazz. Although I did recently listen to Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” album TWICE and it didn’t suck. So, there. That’s me being gracious about jazz.)

Now. I’m not gonna lie to you. (Except about Rosanne Cash’s age.) There is some music out there today that is just horrible. There are some songs out there so horrible that they make me want to study quantum physics so that I can invent a time machine so that I can go back in time to the moment that Justin Bieber’s parents meet so that I can destroy their budding romance so that I can prevent him from ever being born. But for every “Baby, Baby” that is being released today, at least we can all count ourselves lucky that we don’t hear Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey” every time we turn on the radio. (Please note that “Honey” was once a number one song in America. Back in the 1960s. Back when music was supposed to be so awesome. Back when they had THE BEATLES. So, you know, cut the kids today some slack. Because nothing, not even Rebecca Black, makes me want to shoot myself in the face like “Honey.” Not even “Seasons in the Sun.” Editor’s Note: Okay. “Seasons in the Sun” is actually my favorite song of all time. I’ve only recently learned that it makes other people want to shoot themselves in the face. I refer to those people as “idiots.” But, I wanted to include it here in the Batch of Horribles so that you can see that I understand the world does not revolve around my musical tastes. Although, obviously, it probably should.) And I don’t care how much you try to convince me that Eric Clapton is God, “Sunshine of Your Love” is a horrible fucking song, and if you weren’t so busy eating mushrooms and trying to get laid the summer it came out, you might be able to realize that, too.

So, really, old timer, once you accept that the world of music today is just as vibrant and as rich as back when Neil Diamond was topping the charts, an entire universe of music opens up to you. It simply becomes a matter of discovering what you like.

Were you a fan of Neil Diamond? Well, are you familiar with the musical stylings of Death Cab For Cutie? They’ll make your toe tap. Were you a fan of Gladys Knight & The Pips? Have you heard of Sharon King & The Dap Kings? Oh my geez. She’ll make you slap your mama. Country music more to your liking? Well, the Zac Brown Band is making some great music. You should check it out. Or, if you are a Merle Haggard afficianado, this new fellow named Jeff Bridges just came out with a new album that might be just what you’re looking for.

Foreign music is so much more exciting today. It’s beyond just the British Invasion. Jens Lekman is incredible. Personally, I love Robyn, too, because I’m wild and crazy like that. Oh, and I cannot let another minute go by without mentioning one of the truly most exciting pop groups to emerge from England in quite some time, Florence & The Machine.

For pure rock & roll, I have been in love with Kings of Leon since the early aughts. It’s never too late to learn about them, but I would start as soon as possible, as the band is starting to fracture. Who knows if they’ll ever make another album? Family bands and mega-rock stardom will do that to you. But, every single album that they’ve made is amazing.

For perfect pop stylings, I don’t know how anyone could find fault with Mates of State. Their Rearrange Us album is one of my frequent go-to’s when I need a little pep on my commute home.

Since I don’t write about music for a living, I don’t even know how to describe My Morning Jacket’s music. But, if you want to listen to a band that tries to capture soaring symphonic melodies through their electric guitars, you might want to check them out. They definitely know the roots of American rock and roll. And, then, of course, you can’t mention roots of American rock and roll without bowing with ultra respect to one Mr. Jack White.

The beauty of talking about how much exciting music is being created is that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface here. There is almost too much great music out there nowadays to keep track of. But, if you’re looking to get started, go to that metracritic.com website I mentioned earlier. Or, you can just follow Rosanne Cash on Twitter and pay attention to whomever she is listening to. You can’t really go wrong there. Just don’t ask her to mention everyone she loves after she’s had a hard week of work. She’s liable to just stare at you blankly while reaching for a bottle of chardonnay.

Do You Validate?

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Laurie B.

Why am I here?

I don’t mean that in a wake-up-half-drunk-next-to-a-stranger kind of way, either. Although, fumbling clumsily for your shoes under the bed while wadding your balled up underwear into your coat pocket as you search frantically for your keys as quietly as possible so as not to disturb the unidentified naked, tattooed human snoring obliviously on as you desperately mouth a typical refrain of the Morning After Prayer: “Please God, if you let my car be outside and help me find my way home I’LL NEVER DRINK AGAIN,” is a great time to ask that question, too.

I mean it on a deeper existential level. (“Existential,” for those of you, like me, who do not know what that word means unless you crack open your Random House and find it alphabetically in the ‘E’s’, means “Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of existentialism.” So. Phew. Glad to have cleared that up for you. (Don’t you just fucking hate definitions like that? I mean, what a goddamn waste of all of our time. (Which reminds me of an experience I had in elementary school. I must have been in second grade which, I think, made me eight. (Or four, if I was Doogie Howser. (I wasn’t.)) While writing a paper I asked my father, “How do you spell ‘disease’?” I knew it started with a ‘d,’ but I wasn’t sure if it was desease, decease or the much more correct disease. So, like any child in distress, (or ‘destress,’ if you’re eight), I asked my father. And you know what he told me? “Look it up.” It was at that moment that I began to despise, (dispise), the dictionary. Because looking through all the words that start with “de” and all the words that start with “di” in the Merriam Webster that we had back in the day, (It was the HEFTY dictionary! The kind in which the letters of the alphabet were segmented by the gold-leaf thumb tabs in an effort to reduce your search time through that Guttenberg-esque-sized tome. (What I mean by that, boys and girls, is that our dictionary when I was a child was as large as one of the original Guttenberg Bibles, printed in the 1500s by Steve Guttenberg. (Just kidding. Steven Guttenberg was the star of such hits in the 1980’s as “Police Academy,” “Cocoon,” and “Three Men and a Baby.” I’m referring to the man who invented the printing press. (The more I think about it, I think the man who invented the printing press spelled his name “Gutenberg.” I should look that up. (Yep. It’s Gutenberg. Johannes Gutenberg. And since he died in 1468, I am going to go out on a limb and surmise that he invented the printing press a litte bit before 1500. (Gutenberg Bible, n, an edition of the Vulgate (I am NOT looking up “Vulgate” for anyone, but based on my extensive education in word etymology, I assume that it has something to do with a vagina) printed at Mainz before 1456, ascribed to Gutenberg and others: probably the first large book printed with movable type.)))))), not out of curiousity but because your sadistic father wants to HELP YOU LEARN not by providing you with an answer but by forcing you to wade through the entirety of the English language to figure out how to spell ONE WORD out of literally dozens and dozens that you had to write for your paper on insects. (ensects.) It is a book of DEFINITIONS, Father, not a SPELLING book! (In retrospect, it is possible that my father was illiterate and his refusal to help me spell “disease” was all part of an elaborate (ilaborate) plan of his to hide his inability to read, a plan that involved surrounding himself with Will & Ariel Durant history books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, and then telling all of his children to go “look it up” whenever they had a question about anything.) In short, existentialism is “a philosophical movement, esp. of the 20th century, that stresses the individual’s position as a self-determining agent responsible for his or her own choices.”)))

I don’t want to list all my faults, because this is a blog and not my Morning Mantra, (“Good morning, Laurie, you worthless piece of shit. Try not to do anything stupid today, make any irretrievable mistakes or unduly piss anyone off. And stop stalking Rosanne Cash on Twitter. I’m pretty sure she’s sick of it.”) (I generally fail at abiding by that mantra by my first tweet, which tends to shatter all four points in one fell swoop.), but I don’t possess a lot of the things that I imagine a grounded, normal person would have. I am not especially close to my family. I don’t have any children or a significant other. Hell, I don’t even have an insignificant other. I don’t volunteer with any charities. And, not only do I not belong to a church, I don’t even believe in the endogenous spiritually that emanates from within them.

Editor’s note: Okay. Let’s all just take a step back here. Laurie, go get a cup of coffee and let the adults talk. Thank you all that are struggling to read this. If it makes you feel any better I am, too. I am a horrible editor. I am unable to focus, have a very weak educational background, and I am drunk. So very, very drunk. I may have to resign, post my resume on LinkdIn and get a job working for Yahoo!News. That being said, I do know that I haven’t made this essay easy for you, so I greatly appreciate the time and effort you have spent here today trying to understand it. I know that you have better things to do. (I just heard someone’s laundry timer go off. It’s best to get those clothes out of the dryer while they’re still warm. Fewer wrinkles to iron out.) I want to apologize for Laurie’s frantic abuse of parenthetical phrases and sentence structure, not to mention her gratuitous overuse of ginormous words. She means well. I think tonight she is trying to be the Theonious Monk of essayists. And, just like that famous jazz musician when he sat down in front of a piano, she is mangling the shit out this essay while imagining that it is dripping off of her fingers like honey. A couple of hours ago she was speaking like a normal person. But, now that she’s opened the dictionary to the ‘E’s’, she needs to embellish her eloquence with elongated enunciation. GODDAMMIT THAT’S IT, I’M SHUTTING THE DICTIONARY.

Ah, that’s good coffee!

So, my point being, I imagine that there are dozens of things (or pills) that people do (or pop) each day to keep from mentally spinning straight off this big blue marble into the infinite chasm of space. They focus on their children, for one. After all, when you’re choking over noxious diapers or worried whether or not your teenager has discovered what “sexting” is and, if so, if they will teach you how to do it, do you really have all that much time to sit around wondering why you’re here? The answer is in their expectant, upturned faces as you regurgitate food into their gullets. (Since I have no children of my own, it is possible that I am confusing the feeding habits of human offspring with that of the red-breasted robin. But, I think those of you with children get what I’m trying to say.)

Editor’s note: Just nod your heads yes.

I think it’s easy to get spooked by the enormity of the universe, by the breadth of history as it rolls over us from our ancestors’ time like an infinite tsunami that will never reach the shore. And it is extremely easy to breathe in that icy cold hiccup of anxiety-riddled truth, even if you have children: In the grand scheme of things, I really don’t matter.

So, maybe the best thing to do, when it occurs to you that you’re neither finding the cure for cancer or solving the world’s financial crisis nor are you writing the perfect song which seven billion people will love and sing in unison in perfect harmony, which causes the world to vibrate at a higher frequency which, in turn, magically dissipates all the excess carbon dioxide stored up CO2 in our atmosphere, resulting in you being the first singer/songwriter to simultaneously win the Nobel Peace Prize AND the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for having solved Global Climate Change, (while receiving the Grammy for Record of the Year. But, interestingly enough, not Song of the Year. Go figure. The Grammys are fucking weird like that.), maybe the best thing to do when that frightening realization hits you is to just take a deep breath and exhale.

Sometimes, all we can do is keep our head down, take little steps, and stop jumping against the screendoor of life like an anxiety-riddled Jack Terrier. Sometimes, we have to admit that, no matter how much money we have or how comfortable we are with the size and girth of our penis, someone is going to say something that makes us feel insignificant and small. (Obviously, I’m speaking for the men in the house there. And some of the ladies.) Sometimes, all we can do is admit that we can’t prevent stupid things from happening just because we scream and yell at the stupid people to stop doing stupid things with their stupid faces. Sometimes, we have to admit that, sometimes, that smile you shared with the cashier at the grocery store is going to be the best thing about an otherwise shitty day. Sometimes, talking about that crazy woman who eats toilet paper on that one tv show with the one co-worker with bad skin and a lazy eye who also just happens to be racist to the core is the best conversation you’re going to have all day. And sometimes we don’t even get that. Sometimes, we have to go on living even after we find out we’ve been betrayed, or disrespected, or treated unjustly, or we’ve been shattered emotionally. And it’s a life filled with uncertainty and violence and cruelty and selfishness and pain. And it’s hard to find a purpose in life when everything sucks and there’s nothing good at the movies and Modern Family is in reruns.

And that’s when you take a deep breath and exhale. And it suddenly occurs to you that finding your center in the middle of THAT is your purpose in life. Everything else is garnish.

Until you wake up half-drunk next to someone who’s name might be…? Kelsey? Kelly? At that point, feel free to ask, “Why the hell am I here?”

And really mean it this time.

Please. Hold Your Applause 'Til The End.

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