LaurieWrites

D

I know you now through ink and envelopes. My eyes trace the lines and swirls because they're pretty, so even. I remember, read a bit, eat dinner. I don't like the someone they remind me I was. She is better, safer, gone – no forwarding address, a stranger moved to throw sadness in the trash. She still sees you as a sign of Christmas, another shiny thing to put behind her, to remember and erase.

Sissy

My remarkable grandma is 86 today. Rock on, Grandma. Pictures later. We had a bang up time and she had a Bourbon highball and a big old brownie sundae at the Red Rock Canyon. I bought her a Marshmallow Bear at Borders on my way because I am a slacker child with negative shopping time and even less focus and the only thing I know she loves besides us in her post-stroke cognitive state is stuffed animals, so I went for it. She HEARTED him. It was excellent. I was actually kind of jealous because he is quite fluffy and nice, but she wrestled him away from me.

Herewith, a blown up, special edition, 86 for 365, in her own, archived, words.

"Watch out, you'll bust your head open."
"Need a bag for that?"
"Laurie Anne, you're overtired."
"I saved half of my Lean Cuisine for you."
“Turn a light on. You’ll ruin your eyes.”
"Yahtzee! Haha! I win!"
“You can’t move away. I won’t have anything to do.”
"Are you hungry? Surely you're hungry."
“You work too damned hard.”
"I'm watching All My Children."
“You carry so many damned bags you’ll wreck your back.”
“Jesus master, Mary and Joseph.”
“Forget you? Why would I? How could I?”

Cindy Lee

My friend Erica called from San Diego last night to tell me that our friend Cindy died suddenly in the Barnes and Noble where we all used to work. She was 50 years old. I'll write the 75 words first, but then some, because...because.

"Sometimes we cut a wide swath, baby, and that's okay," she said at my goodbye party, as I worried over leaving everything that knit my Dayton life together. She hated bullshit and I loved that. I’ve repeated her words to myself many times since, a Cindy mantra that soothes me. I just knew even then the loss of leaving people like that, people who tell you the truth, who you stupidly lose sight of but never forget.

These are my extra words for her:

She let her husband Bill get another car once. He likes classic cars of some money-sucking sort that I can't remember now. She came into work after the decision had been made, and he called her during the shift to tell her, just in case she didn’t know it, that she was “so fucking cool.”  Cool because she didn't give him any shit about getting the car. Cool because she laughed and said some stuff like "that man" or "his toys" or whatever, and she just moved on from it. She knew he loved them, and because she handled the money, as I recall, she'd just make the thousand dollars or whatever it was happen, and she'd pull her car out around the extra vehicles in the yard. Because, she said, there was nothing she could really do about it but do it, because it made him happy and it was no big deal anyway. Another car, a few more dollars.

They were one of the great love stories I've ever met in person. No one wrote stories or made movies about them, but they just honest to God really loved each other, and loved their pets and house, and whatever it was that made their lives tick, and I find that one of the most underrated beauties of life, maybe because I don't hear about it or see it that much.

He came in to the store the other night, apparently, just to be there, to be where she really did love to work after escaping mindless shifts of “Hello, thank you for calling Hugo Boss fine leather goods, how may I help you?” Erica said he said he didn’t know what he was going to do without her. Sometimes it's hard to know, beyond just putting one foot in front of the other.

Cindy was always kind to me. She always made me laugh. She was one of the coolest women I've ever met. She rarely went out socially, and when she came to my goodbye dinner, it really, really touched me and made me feel pretty special too. She inspired in me absolute positive regard, something I'm ashamed to admit doesn't come along as often as it maybe should.

The photos below are from the summer of 1999, when I left for home and Vic moved to Seattle, and we had parties all season to say goodbye.

The top photo is Vic on the left, Cindy on the right. The next one is Cindy on the left, Erica on the right. I really, really love these women. It was such a good time for friends.

And yes, sometimes you do cut a really wide swath, and it just has to be okay.

D

*I covered a story tonight in the same place where my senior prom was held 19 1/2 years ago. I'm still in touch with my date...we've been friends for more than half of my life. He's a good guy.

We argued prolifically. I wasn’t patient, you said. Don’t look at me with those EYES. You wore high-top sneakers and a black concert t-shirt daily. We grew our hair. We grew up and away. Before, we talked everywhere - under parking lot lights, in bars, on the beach, work when you rode your bike over and I edited your papers. Once  we threw cake at each other and hugged, spontaneously, people and icing everywhere.

Nikki

I stayed in my car last night listening to "Too Late for Love." I saw us flying down Riggs Road in your Chevette on free periods, me learning how to smoke and listen to Kix, alive. You cleaned out your purse in creative writing, shaking out pot seeds I’d never seen. ‘Laurie, you’re so good honey.’ You lived in a cemetery, loving Prince and heavy metal. You helped me rock first. I owe you big.

Audrey

We needed to choose. I saw you across the room, welcoming and safe. I pointed, you pointed, and we were fish partners. Grace.

You are primary colors. You are open arms and gingerbread lipstick. You take sweatshirts and pencils to Africa, to men named Wisdom who come down the mountain for accounting class and find you, arms open. You make whiskey slush and a real tablecloth dinner for my birthday. Grace is at your table.

75x365

I love this idea. 

This started with one guy who wanted to mark turning 40 in a cool and meaningful way, now people all over the world are making a list of 365 people they've met during the course of their lives - people who left an impression and whose name they remember - then they're randomly writing a set number of words about someone on their list. They're doing this once a day - for a year.

The results are stunning. Have you made the list?

No I have NOT indeed made this list, but I'm going to try. I don't know if I can maintain a commitment to doing anything daily right now, other than surviving and breathing (and who thought THAT would be such a challenge right now, eh?)

But I am committed to working on my ability to translate my powers of observation into the written word. I'm focusing so much on the mechanics of writing and reporting that I'm afraid some of the fun is going out of it. This will let me do that, plus force a word limit, which is helpful for the whole brevity endeavor. And although I'm not quite turning 40, 37 is sort of a weird number to be facing sooner than I'd like, so best to focus on other, more productive things than OH GOD NO WHAT BIRTHDAY???? WHO? Why yes, Baby Jesus, who is now a couple thousand years old, give or take? Surely not MINE.

Therefore, I'll do 75x365 (because I can't do anything in less than 75 words.) First person, next post. Swear.