LaurieWrites

Bring on your wrecking ball

 

I drove to the restaurant on Saturday, for the second first time, where I worked my way through college.  

It's a small, sweet story, how I ended up logging any hours there again. Suffice to say that I walked in the door for a meal last week, and this is how it turned out, for a couple of reasons. I'm not in a position to turn down much financial opportunity, for one, the way things are going. Things are strange around here. I wouldn't call them wildly stable, but I am working, thanks to several years of writing and editing work that I did on the side of my teaching job, to the community I built up from blogging and Twitter and conferences, to the endless conversations I've had since I started talking on the internet.

And I like it. I like working, essentially, for me, although at the same time I work for, and with, lots of people, at a distance. I like being mostly in charge of my day, even though it's weird not having much of a schedule. I like working with smart, insightful, engaging, people on exciting projects. I like finally confirming, after years of knowing but not having any real, workable proof, that this non-routine routine is where my brain thrives, that I can get results (for me and for you) as a result, that I don't get sick of it, that it makes me more energized and productive and creative, every single day. 

I like being my own resume. I like telling you I'll do something at midnight and having it settled by 11 a.m. I like the people in my inbox. I can't tell you what a gift this is. 

But, economically speaking, I also like watching Rachel Maddow and Top Chef. I like having access to cable, and I'm not willing quite yet to turn it off. First of all, I live alone, do not Skype a lot or watch web video, and I hate the telephone, plus no one ever calls me except my mother and Sallie Mae (I love you, Mom.) My cable bill divided by the number of days in a month is probably worth its weight in sensory exposure that is not internet-based. Plus a certain level of the way I exist in the world is tied to pop culture, like it or not. I'd call it shallow, but I can't, because it's just part of who I am, how I think, how I connect, and how I process the world.

I also really like watching Rachel Maddow. I would have been an even uglier mess on election night without her. A daily hour of her plus, oh, one and a half minutes of Ellen dancing, is like therapy tax, whatever. 

I also like paying my rent, and buying the very occasional pair of shoes, it's true, and not eating garbanzo beans for every meal (although I would, if pressed, eat them every day. I like them that much. I'm into legumes.) And not having a regular paycheck every two weeks, even though random ones come in now and again, is an unnerving and, yes, scary situation for me. I don't know when it will happen again, or if it will happen again, but I know that I will never again in my adult life take it for granted. It not happening has made my brain different. It's changed my social life. It's changed my plans, on a daily basis and in the long-term. 

I think about everything carefully now, from the number of months ahead that I can estimate that I can watch Rachel Maddow without major stress, to the choice of whether to eat what I have in this sad little refrigerator and pantry, or go snag the steak and cheese I really, really want, for some reason. (Friday night I opted for the steak and cheese. Tomorrow I may choose differently. This is all actually really good for me, although I don't like it at all. Out of the comfort zone and all.) 

Anyway, last night I got dressed up in decent clothes and got in my car. I got on the Beltway and I started driving in a really familiar direction, to work a host shift at a place I haven't clocked in at since 1996. Since I said I'd do it, I'd been thinking about it with a mix of amusement and nostalgia, and a little bit of dopey excitement. I'd be out of the house to do something useful, maybe. I'd be working a different side of my brain. I'd make a quarter of my cable bill. 

It came clear as I drove that it was a gorgeous, mid-fall Maryland pre-sunset evening. Everything glowed. Fewer leaves on the trees meant that the light got through more obviously. I was in what I'd identify as a good mood. So I turned up the radio in my car for the first time (I'm not kidding you. I know. Come on, lucky 2013!) since I got home from my road trip in September. Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball cd was in the slot, not surprisingly. 

The song of the same name was on. 

"When your game has been decided 

and you're burning up the clock

and all our victories and glories have turned into parking lots

When your best hopes and desires have scattered to the wind

and hard times come and hard time go and hard times come and hard times go and hard times come and hard timesgoandhardtimescomeandhardtimesgo just to COME AGAIN."

I started crying and I just cried like a fool, I cried all my way to that restaurant. I cried for roads I was on again and roads I'd been on and stuff that was messed up. Around the exit where I really needed to worry about my eyes looking crazy at my destination I said out loud "What in the WORLD LAURIE?" which typically makes me stop crying but it didn't. 

I cried because it was all hitting me, that there were times on that road to and from California when I thought my pain and confusion and the fallout from my choices would literally kill me. I listened to the entire Wrecking Ball cd on repeat for a good part of that trip, including one memorable moment when "This Train" took me around Dallas and on my way to Austin, triumphant, sun blazing, one of the most beautiful moments of the whole trip. 

I had been scared, that whole time, scared of the entirety of my life and of my feelings, of leaving my job and of broken trust and the everything that was unknown and the bitch of my own fragility. I thought my game had been decided, that victory and glory were foreign concepts, that everything was what I was seeing: parking lots. 

I cried because when I came home I walked back into an unmanageable vortex that landed me in an unpleasant room with my head buried in my mother's arms, weeping, terrified of my physical fragility. I was embarrassed and afraid and yet, and yet, I gave myself over to her and to my sister, to my whole family, really, finally. And that is when it started to get better, when I said I'd been carrying all of this stuff for too long and I couldn't do it anymore, and they said, to a person, that I would be okay, and I believed them. 

It's been a slow road back, it really has, but it started moving a lot faster when I said words out loud, when I trusted in that which and who has been there for me the whole time, even and especially when I told it to go away. It's still hard, but every day, it's gotten a little better. I'm still nervous and worried and I still toss what are probably not the smartest things around in my head on a daily basis, but I'm better. I'm so much better. 

I love Bruce Springsteen for unwittingly giving me context for all of this craziness. I'm just a drop in the bucket of people who appreciate him, but nonetheless, I am so grateful, because music is in many ways my most essential filter, and when I don't use it at my worst times, I suffer. My year and my path would have been lacking without this record, and when I look back over my life, this is really only true of a select few artists and their work.

This train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This Train
Carries whores and gamblers
This Train
Carries lost souls
This Train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train
Faith will be rewarded...
 

I finally added seeing him live in New Jersey to my life list. I've never seen him in concert, and that seems like the place to do it, if I'm going to.

NOH8

Today I drove just ten minutes from my house and was a part of a movement to promote "marriage, gender, and human equality through education, advocacy, social media, and visual protest." Hey! Those are pretty much all of my favorite things. (I care about people getting married who want to, but it's not my favorite. It's...a good thing when it works. Everything else, yes.) 

It's called NOH8, and it initially began as a response to the sad upholding of Proposition 8 in California, an amendment to the state constitution banning same sex marriage. Subjects pose with duct tape over their mouths, and in most cases in positions that support the concept of silence -- silent protest, silencing of civil rights, silencing of relationships and access and all of the things upon which our interconnectedness as human beings thrives. 

I have been looking for a NOH8 shoot that I could get to since I started really paying attention to Question 6 in Maryland this year. We are stuck voting on the Maryland legislature's passage of lgbt marriage this year, because opponents took the passage to referendum with enough petition signatures to get it on the November ballot. 

Because we don't have enough other stuff to do. Because people are that threatened by the desire of same sex couples to unite legally so that they may not only solidify their personal commitments to each other, but also their rights regarding property, health care, finances -- you know, all of the things that married couples share. 

I don't know if I'll ever get married. I don't know if and when I ever opt to do so if it will be a man or a woman who rocks my organizational and emotional world in that way. Just don't. But I know that if I want to go to a courthouse and get a certificate to sign my life on with another human being's in my state, I don't want it to be my neighbor's vote that decides whether or not I get to do that, just because I happened to like that chick's chocolate better than that guy's peanut butter. 

It is that simple, people. 

So today, I got out of bed and I put makeup on and fixed my hair, on a Sunday. (THAT IS HOW MUCH I CARE ABOUT THIS.) I also may have done the same yesterday, because my friends who were going and I thought that the shoot was yesterday. So that makes two weekend days I have fixed my hair and put MAKEUP ON before 2. Or at all. And I drove to Gaithersburg, which is this small town not even ten minutes north of me, and I met my friends (who are legally married in Washington, D.C., thanks, Washington, D.C.) and got my picture taken. 

You give them some money ($40 in my case, for which I get a digital print and this experience. I consider it my contribution to the cause of waking the hell up, America. Hello. I'd pay $40 a month to that cause.) 

They put a tattoo on your cheeck, and duct tape on your mouth.

Adam Bouska does his thing.

And he is good. I have done portrait sessions, and the thing I still find most awkward is telling people what to do. It can feel false and weird, but he just looks at you and seems to intuitively know how to tell you to stand and what to do with your hands. I want to be that good at it. 

I also appreciated him taking the pressure off of me. And from what I saw on the back of the camera, I knew he was right on. (Which you can tell from looking at the scads of portraits on the NOH8 site, anyway.) 

Adam shoots them all. He travels to all of the cities where the shoots happen, and takes all of the pictures. He also hugs you at the end, and you can tell he means it. 

I will get a digital print of my picture in a few weeks. I will then, undoubtedly, make it my Facebook picture, maybe my Twitter avatar. I don't even know. I will leave it on my computer for life. 

It'll be way past November 6 when I get this picture. I hope by then that Maryland will have done the right thing and voted yes as a body on Question 6, so not only can I and anyone else who lives here throw black and white gender definitions out the window as a legal arbiter of marriageability (really, just make sure that mofo has a source of income and a VEHICLE, y'all, and that they are trustworthy and dig your scene. Let's get down to business, here.) But I can also take my own damn camera to Rockville City Hall and support my economy and our greater sense of humanity by shooting some fabulous, if tastefully understated, gay weddings. 

I cannot tell you how much I want to do this. 

I want this for Minnesota, Maine, and Washington State too -- the other places who have ballot initiatives coming up on Tuesday. I want this for our whole country. I just want people to be people, and not to have to worry about this anymore. 

Yes on 6. NO MORE HATE, or H8. It's so over. Let's do this thing. 

Middle of Somewhere -- the NaBloPoMo Series

So it's day three, and I'm already falling down on the NaBloPoMo job here. This meansit's better than other years, when I've screwed up on day two, so I'm calling that progress. 

What can I tell you in ten minutes? Not a lot, I guess. Maybe I can cash in the extra daylight savings hour? 

Nah. 

The thing is, I seem to be doing a lot better with pictures than words right now, except for editing, other people's words. I'm doing a lot of that.

I'm also working my way through my set of pictures from the trip to and from California, and one thing I'd like to do this month is write about and share pictures of some of the places I saw and shot.

Let's start with West Texas.

It was really beautiful.

And big.

And dry.

I'd tell you more, but I've only got a minute. So: lots of highway. Gigantic grocery store tortilla sections. Beer. Friends. Sun. Sky. Repeat.

I'll try again tomorrow. 

Early Voting

I decided to vote early today, simply because I'd never done it before, and I wanted to see what it was like. Also I decided it would probably be a good idea to leave my apartment at some point this week. So I discarded my paranoia that something would happen to these votes between now and Tuesday, that I was tempting fate by turning the calendar ahead somehow. I am worried enough about weirdness in areas with no power, and I don't suppose that will happen here. 

The line was long but I was out in 40 minutes. I was stuck behind a woman complaining about the line and the process the whole time, and in front of a teenager with her parents who bitched nonstop about everything. Everything. She was going to be late. No, her friend couldn't come pick her up and take her to Glen Burnie. No, she doesn't like to inconvenience people (oh, really?) Then, GOD YOU KNOW WHAT we're DOING Mom and Dad, we're TOTALLY wasting our time because it's MARYLAND, and it's not like your vote is going to MATTER. 

They corrected her, not strongly enough, in my jerkface teacher's opinion.

We get to do this. We GET to participate in our government. And I don't know what's up with the people around me, maybe it's not such a big deal to them, maybe they've had a bad day, maybe they're tired and cranky, maybe they have the audacity to be 16. But when the lady complained at me the final time about why the line was going the way it was going, and how were the people going to know to go to the back, and why and what and WHY, I smiled and said, "You know, I have no idea, but we're going to get there, and anyway I'd stand in six lines to do this, because I get to." And she didn't like that at all, no she didn't. She may have in fact said some very harsh things to me about the necessity of saying that at all, but the thing is that I'd say it again. Mostly it's because I haven't been out of my house at all for awhile because of Sandy and a list of freelance jobs that has kept me tied to this spot more than usual, hmm, MAYBE. But mostly it's because I would stand in those lines with my face in my phone for another hour or so than I had to, and I could maybe medal in complaining in some kind of complaining athletic contest, given the chance.

And I am nobody's political superhero. I haven't traveled around the world and witnessed political oppression in ways that make me even a minor league authority (although being in Vietnam during the Obama/Clinton primary race made me come home and feel like I'd be at peace with either option, which I couldn't say when I left, because again, we got to participate. We got to help pick!) I'm not a lobbyist or an active volunteer. I have no more cred than anyone else about the politics of politics. I just know that there are places where people don't get to line up and participate, where people get killed and jailed because they speak out against the government where they don't get to do those things. I know that women who I'm guessing were much stronger and mouthier and more committed to social justice than I am marched and inconvenienced themselves and put themselves and their families through public scrutiny and criticism all the way into the history books for gaining the right to vote. I know that African-Americans did the same, going through their own horrible period of trial to get the same right. People died for this. People still die for this in other places. People still face barriers here. 

By the time I got to the ballot I was a terrible emo song of political engagement, a sad one woman Schoolhouse Rock show, Laurie Liberty, the Tragic Years, the sad, sad distant relative of the superstar Preamble girl, the segment that wisely got left on the cutting room floor. I looked at the list of options and thought of all that was at stake depending who was in charge of this country and my little state, who you could trust to guide the place where you live with integrity and a sense of humanity, as well as intelligence and strategy and common sense. I looked at the ballot items that represent livelihoods and homes and governance on so many important issues. I thought about my own sense of helplessness during the 2000s, where I despaired over our electoral process and felt that it had been sold to people who didn't care about anything but their own vested interests. 

I'm sorry, people in my line at around 4:30. I am why you had to wait three more minutes. 

Then I got to check a box and contribute to a decision about whether gay people in my state who love each other and want to live in commitment can do so with equal protection under the law. I didn't want to have to check that box, because the matter was solved by our state legislature months ago, but there are people here who are so threatened by that concept that they made us put it on our ballot, and so I got to cast my vote. 

I got to check a box and indicate whether I thought that students who live in my town without citizenship papers can pay in-state tuition to get themselves educated and to contribute to an economy they're participating in anyway. 

I got to do that, and this year, it made me cry, standing right there. I took a very deep breath before I cast that whole ballot. What went through my mind is what for me is prayer. I couldn't believe how I felt. I felt a little crazy, actually.

I would have stood in line for a lot longer than 40 minutes for all of that. I get to do that. 

Because I totally want my guy to win. 

NaBloPoMo My Heart

If you can sing that subject line to the appropriate tune, we are soulmates. 

ANYWAY. Happy November, freaks and geeks. October sucked, so in order to kick off this brand new month and our collective descent into seasonal affective disorder the absolute old school way around this blog, I decided to join a surprising number of my allegedly internet-jaded friends and try NaBloPoMo again. (That's the BlogHer link to sign up, right there. I understand there are prizes.) 

Yes, the kinda-sorta-acronym (is it an acronym if there are extra letters, as in not just one per word? These are the things that keep me from solving the world's problems, these questions.) that everyone loves to make fun of and turn into other things that aren't "Blo", except for when it suits their double entendre-ish needs.

Can you believe we are here again? I had occasion to look at my archives today because I was NOT AWASH IN DESPAIR AT ALL but doing something really important, believe me, and it occurred to me that next time April rolls around I'll have been doing this thing for eight years. Eight years. Eight. 

Do not ask me about 2005. 

I don't know how many times I've attempted NaBloPoMo. I got desperate and wrote a retrospective of "NaBloPoMos Past" in 2009 that made me laugh. I've written good things under November blog pressure, and I've written posts appropriately titled Failing NaBloPoMo Five. I wrote this on All Soul's Day in 2009 for my grandmother, and reading it reminds me of that time, but also that the way I grieved her was writing through it. I think in some ways it made it so much better for me, although there are still days where I can't believe she's gone. And that was the year I finished, per this post, called NaBloPoDone. Do you all remember when I had highlights? Or when I made faces like this? Because I almost don't. 

2009 was apparently the year I threw down. Last year I didn't even bother, because things had already started to go wacky around here, honestly. This year I don't know what will happen, but why not? The past two months have been, honestly, not so great. A little dark. Challenging. And a lot of it is stuff I really can't or don't choose to write about for annoying grown-up sorts of reasons, which is turning out to be a bit of a problem for my processing, as it were.

But today was the first workable day in awhile. I will cautiously say that things may be starting to turn around a little, a thought I'm cramming into the part of my brain that isn't occupied by all of the people so affected on my coast by these terrible storms, whose lives have been so horribly disrupted, and in some cases ended, by a force that honestly cannot be controlled.

I've been thinking a lot about fragility this week, and strength, no matter what. I just keep watching what's unfolding, and hoping for the best for everyone. 

There are good things this month, definitely. There's an election, so I hear, and although I may need to be sent to my room with a hot toddy and my blankie because I'm not sure I can tolerate watching the returns without some kind of sedative, I'm ready for that to be over so we can move on. I am alternately optimistic and panicked, and I pray we make the right choices, on lots of counts. 

I will also be headed to California in a couple of weeks for Camp Mighty, and celebrating Thanksgiving with my family, so I'll have lots to write about here, even if only thirty percent of it is bloggable. 

So. NaBloPoMo. I'll give it a shot, again. Happy November, and adios, October. It was you, and me. 

Life List 2011

Camp Mighty begins tomorrow night in Palm Springs, and I'm late with my life list. 

Oh hey! Here I am! Already here, just finishing this post now. (Actually this is last night, pre-space party, to which I went without a "costume" that met the theme. This spurred another list item. Please see below.) 

Of course I'm late. Water is wet, etc. 

And oh, here I am, again! Just now posting this, on Saturday, at 3:47 PST. 

Can you tell this exercise freaks me out a little? Well, it does, to tell the truth, and to top off my problem here, the list I drafted last week (sitting in a bar, impulsively, after Kris intelligently got in a cab to go home) is in a notebook that is way, way back in Maryland, in a purse I swapped out the other day. Change bags carefully, people. Sigh. 

Anyway, I just thought that since this is supposed to be a positive, aspirational thing most of all, I'd do it over again, stream of consciousness, here. And that also I would shut up and just start writing. So here we go. 

1. Shoot an Operation Smile surgical mission. 

2. Have Boston Terriers in my house again and work more actively with senior rescue. 

3. Have a yard. 

4. Pay off all student loan debt early. 

5. Embrace my most hated holiday: go to a Halloween-type event in a costume and not feel like a fool and also not complain about it. 

6. Hike the Grand Canyon. 

7. Finish the Ancestry.com family tree for both sides of my family. 

8. Travel the regions in Ireland and Germany where my relatives originated. 

9. Digitize as many of the White family photos as possible and share them with the whole family. 

10. Have an online presence that reflects my personality and my skills, and what I have accomplished so far in writing and photography -- a portfolio, a business site and a blog. Also, to help Draft Day Suit be the best that it can be, along with the other sites I write for. 

11. Have Washington Capitals season tickets. 

12. Have competent knife skills, and a really great set of kitchen knives. 

13. Have somewhere I can go to stay on a beach that is mine, anytime. 

14. Be self-supporting strictly through writing/photo/media work. 

15. Grow a hydrangea and a lilac bush. 

16. Print out and organize copies in books and frames of all of my images that move me or that I want to keep off of the computer. 

17. Find the courage to visit my grandmother's grave, at least once. 

18. Be able to hold crow, headstand, side crane, wheel and all other yoga poses that I currently cannot successfully hold. 

19. Visit the rest of the 50 states. 

20. Have a 41st birthday party, because I wasn't ready for 40. 

21. Have my grandmother's ring resized and made more stable so I can actually wear it. 

22. Go to a Super Bowl and a Stanley Cup championship game with Sarah. 

23. Grow a garden -- even just an herb garden or a few flowers -- without killing it. 

24. Get overall financial house in order so it is not a constant source of anxiety. 

25. Have a Christmas Eve tradition that brings me joy. 

26. See every country in Europe.

27. Go back to Vietnam, and to Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. 

28. Find a place called Dodge and get the hell out of it. 

29. Understand how to competently use Speedlite flash and studio lighting. 

30. Work in a darkroom again. 

31. Publish an article in a national magazine. 

32. Get my 200-hour yoga certification. 

33. Visit the White House, go into the Washington Monument, and other things I've never done because I live in the D.C. area. 

34. Actively support surgeries for at least five children per year through Operation Smile. 

35. Go on one silent weekend retreat per year. 

36. Drive cross-country. 

37. Find a way to give back to my parents in the significant way that they have given to me. 

38. Go to Michael's Virginia Tech graduation. 

39. Get another tattoo before I turn 41. 

40. Host a Thanksgiving dinner. 

41. Have a regular practice of having people over to my house for meals and conversation. 

42. Have a women's weekend in a pretty place by the water with some of my closest friends. 

43. Read every classic novel I feel I should read before I die. 

44. Purge all belongings that have no purpose in my life -- clothing, books, stuff -- and be at peace with the basics that remain. 

45. Spend some time with Elisa and Maria in the Bay area. 

46. Visit the Alamo. Remember it. 

47. Go back to Houston and see my remarkable group of women of the blogs who live there. 

48. Catalog and recognize all birthdays for all important people in my life. Send the damn cards. 

49. Finally -- finally! -- visit Vicky in Seattle. 

50. See Duran Duran in London. 

51. Take trips on all major Amtrak routes in the U.S. 

52. Do something hands-on and helpful in New Orleans.

53. Do the Edgar Allen Poe touristy stuff and other fun things I've never tried in Baltimore.

54. Throw a crab feast for my half-birthday.

55. Learn to pack a suitcase competently.

56.  Have Maryland basketball season tickets -- men and women. 

57. Publish a book. 

58. Understand New York  -- the subway system, visit all boroughs, know Manhattan like the back of my hand. 

59. Cultivate a competent slap shot.     

60. Learn to play the drums. 

61. Go to an Orioles-Nats game. 

61. Actually record a fun and ridiculous podcast with Sarah. 

62. Go to Ireland with my sister. 

63. See all the oceans. 

64. Buy myself a pair of diamond earrings. 

65. Have someone who knows what she is doing rewrite my resume to reflect my skills and experience. 

66. Photograph a birth. 

67. Drive on the other side of the road in England. 

68. Own a pair of ruby slippers. 

69. Pay someone's college tuition.

70. Have a photo site with Laurie.

71. Understand how to design a basic website in a variety of platforms.

72. Publish an op-ed. 

73. Visit Karen and Shannon in Ottawa. See the rest of Canada and all of my friends there, too. 

74. Throw a great 50th anniversary party for my parents. 

75. Take a food and wine trip to Italy. 

76. Spend a whole summer and a whole winter at the beach. 

77. Publish a piece in Salon, Slate, Washingtonpost.com, 

78. Understand wine, maybe at the sommelier level. 

79. Take my mom on a trip anywhere of her choosing, on me. 

80. Know how to give a basic haircut without ruining someone's life. 

81. Consistently practice receiving compliments with gratitude, not apologies or self-effacing comments. 

82. Hike a (smallish) mountain.

83. Sing backup in a band 

84. Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. 

85. Complete my local Mental Health Association hotline training, finally, and volunteer there. 

86. Write a short story I don't hate. 

87. Become a doula. 

88. Learn American Sign Language. 

89. Own a core wardrobe of green dresses. 

90. Have a king-sized bed with really good sheets, an actual duvet, and pillows that don't drive me crazy. 

91. Create an annual tradition with my cousins. 

92. Perfect a variety of vinaigrettes. 

93. Become conversationally proficient in French again. 

94. Have a full Christmas tree of my own ornaments, and also a beachy, small tree with the ones I've bought on vacations. 

95. Go to Bonnaroo and the Virgin Festival in London (or at least see a show at Wembley Stadium.) 

96. Refinish and use an awesome antique writing desk. 

97. Outfit my whole kitchen with good small appliances and all gadgets I need to make me feel like I'm not in college anymore. 

98. See every artist live who is left on my list -- Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and I know there are more. 

99. Drink coffee in a Parisian cafe.

100. To acknowledge the possibility of falling madly, yet sanely, in real, live adult love with an actual functional human being who feels the same way. Maybe let them live in my house. 

And most importantly: 

100. Be able to confidently say that I love what I do, that the structure of my daily life reflects what I care about, what I'm good at, and how I can best contribute in words and pictures. Oh, and that I love where and with whom I live, and that I am content in my life.  

I picked five big goals off of this list to share with my group, that I'm going to work on extra special over the next year. There are some that I know I can do more easily that I didn't put on my five-things list. I saved some tough stuff for that one. I'll share that later. 

And if you've ever thought this activity sounds lame or ridiculous or like something you shouldn't really have to do in an organized way? Well, I thought the same thing. I blew it off and shot it down as stupid for a long time. And at least in my case, I was totally and completely wrong. I just sat in a room with 20 strangers for three hours. I stood up and I said what I wanted, I acknowledged that I need help with some of it, and I listened to the rest of them do the same. It was one of the most powerful, uncomfortable, cool, inspiring, and sometimes just plain enjoyable things I've ever done. 

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I'll keep you posted. 

Additions: 

I keep thinking of new stuff. 

102. Go to the Olympics. 

103. Go to a Sox game with TwoBusy and ClumberKim. 

What I Love

I wrote this post almost exactly a year ago. It's partly why I'm going to California, so I'm going to do the whole "don't blow NaBloPoMo by doing dumb things like repost posts" and repost it. 

As much as I really am my very harshest critic (seriously -- the trash you talk about me will never surpass the voices in my head) there are some things I like about myself too. For instance, I have better-than-average taste in music and a sense of responsibility to other people and the world at large. I understand how to competently merge on the highway. I make a kickass grilled cheese sandwich and I do not purchase cheap beer.

But when it comes down to the very awkward -- for me, anyway -- question of what I love about myself, I think the most important thing is something that I can only describe as my constant engagement with life, and a commitment to learning and experiencing new things as much as I can until I die.

That sounds wrong, and vaguely awkward. I can't really sum it up.  

EXCUSE ME WHO CAME UP WITH THESE PROMPTS ANYWAY?

But all I know is that my willingness to try new things -- to learn them or go to them or hang out with them or eat them or purchase them -- has made a profound and positive difference in my life.

It hasn't always felt like it was so great at the time. I climbed a rock wall once, for instance, and that pretty much sucked. I am a terrible rock climber. I don't have an extreme sports bone in my body, and I fear the destruction of years of reconstructive surgery and invasive orthodontia, to tell the truth. But when a (cute!) man with very serious looking climbing gear and an earnest expression handed me the little shoes and the helmet, at some point over the past decade I learned not to cry about it, but to put it on and try it until I either accomplished the goal or failed.

In this case I almost achieved the goal before I nearly stroked out -- major anxiety attack -- at the top. But the point is, I tried.

Over the past ten years, especially, I've had several opportunities to respond to negative situations -- heartbreak, depression, the impossible grief that comes with the deaths of some of the most important people in my life. And although some days it felt like swimming against every imaginable current just to meet the basic demands of my life as I was going through those things, I really never stopped living. I caved in all but the most basic, essential of ways. I raged and drank and babbled to my friends, but I never stopped, in very small and some very big ways, reaching for better.

I miraculously never stopped trying, even when the last possible thing I wanted to do was try anything. Even when the last thing I felt capable of was another activity or thought or plan.

This is the characteristic that led me to take a trip almost every month in 2005, the year the supposed love of my life left to follow his me-less dreams. I cried my way through the American Southwest for the first time, and ended up in California for the first time the following year. I also signed up for my first photography class in the deepest throes of depression following that breakup, and it would take an entire blog to describe the effect that has had on my life.

This is what led me to blogging and the rack of great friends I got from that, and back to school and across the world to take a cab across Hanoi alone and sit with kids who couldn't hear or speak, which was only one of the reasons that it didn't matter that our languages were different.

 

My rolling stone brain gives me my stories, by virtue of the hands and feet it sends on various travels and the mouth that goes along. And although my life may lack some of the fundamental things I still kind of believe I ultimately need to think it was what I wanted it to be, in the meantime I live it every day.

Because the alternative is horrifying. Because when I'm idle I'm insane. Because there is so much to do -- can't you see it all out there?

I don't wait for anyone to go with me, because I can't afford to.

Even when I'm sitting still, I'm planning. I'm dreaming and imagining and knowing that no matter how many years I have left, it will not be enough to do all of the things that I have the capacity both to rock and to fail on the face of this planet. And as much as that could be overwhelming, I'm just glad I still think that way.

I want to go everywhere.

I want to learn languages.

I want to see so much more live music.

I want to be the writer I've always wanted to be, in every way that I can possibly make that real.

I want to be part of a community -- a real one, one that is physical and that I can feel around me in my  house or on my street.

I want to take your picture.

I want to understand major political conflicts and economics and learn sign language and how to change my own oil.

And they're not all big things, either, the things I pick up. This fall I made chicken soup from scratch for the first time. It was a pain in the ass, but it was completely rewarding and now I know how and I can do it again.

As long as I'm alive and capable, I won't ever stop learning. I won't ever stop doing stuff or going places or trying things. And I kind of love that about me.

Lists suck generally so here are some lists.

It's not tomorrow in California, so I'm claiming that for NaBloPoMo. Also it's not like I'm doing this for a prize. And if I was? Oops. 

It's a little early to phone this in, but I'm in a jam because I was traveling this weekend and then there was this entirely engaging football game, so let me give you some lists rather than nothing at all. 

Five things my life eats, as in consumes them without my permission or awareness so that I can never find them when I need them, which is frequently, and have to replace them on a consistent basis: 

Hair ties. 

Contact lens holders. 

Corkscrews. 

Camera chargers. (See also phone chargers, computer chargers, any kind of charger, basically.) 

Olive green eyeliner. (I feel like I buy green eyeliner whenever I see it to prevent this problem, but yet and still, nowhere. I can always find the random brown I never use. No green.) 

Five main current earworms: 

Moves Like Jagger, Maroon Five (Hell. Hell on Earth. Plus no one will stop referencing it online, so, it's all SHE GOT THE MOOOOVVVVEEESSSS LIKE JAGGAH, SHE GOT THE MOOOOVVVVEEESSSSS LIKE JAGGAH around here) 

You Should Hear How She Talks About You, Melissa Manchester

Whip It, The Dazz Band

It's Raining Men (Hi. We're your Weather Girls.) (Horrible. Unmanageable.) 

Any of Dr. Hook's only three very famous songs, most likely When You're In Love With a Beautiful Woman, based entirely on mine and @parentopiadevra's latenight transgressions at Blogalicious. 

"You watch your friends, you better watch your friends." 

Five top-played songs on my main iTunes: 

Take It Easy On Me, Little River Band (shut up) 

Heavy Cross, The Gossip (have you heard Beth Ditto's voice? Because you should.) 

Jackson, Hem (Ditto Sally Ellyson) 

Jungleland, Bruce Springsteen (I went a little nuts when Clarence died and this upped the play count, for sure. This song will break your heart and put it back together a little. ) 

Where the Boat Leaves From, Zac Brown Band (shut up.) 

Five places I would live with little hesitation if someone presented me with a worry-free move and at least a lateral move job: 

San Francisco

Charlotte

London 

New York

Baltimore (I know. What can I say? I'm a Maryland girl.) 

Five best concerts I have ever seen (I'm just pulling the first five that come to my  mind, because it's impossible otherwise): 

Metallica, Capital Center. Just, holy hell. Holy hell. 

Elton John, Red Piano, Las Vegas

Prince, Nutter Center (ha.), Dayton, Ohio

Hem, Ram's Head, Annapolis

Raconteurs, 9:30 Club, DC

(And now I'm thinking Patty Griffin at Constitution Hall during most of which I cried, Duran Duran at Constitution Hall, 2000ish, the first time I saw them live, Pearl Jam at JazzFest in New Orleans, Red Hot Chili Peppers at Virgin Festival in Baltimore, The Killers at the Hard Rock in Vegas...I can go on and on for days. This is a tough one.) 

Five of my most frequently-stated words and phrases according to my own unscientific deduction, proving that I am neither articulate nor original in casual discourse: 

Seriously? 

Really? 

Whatever. 

Right. I know. RIGHT? 

Thanks. (I am a grateful sort in spite of myself.) 

Edited to add that I didn't include "fuck" which makes this the most inauthentic list of all time. And we hate inauthenticity around here, don't we? WE DO. 

Five things I wonder if I have enough of every time I go to the grocery store: 

Olive oil

garlic

protein sources

Milk (although I hardly drink it anymore.) 

avocados (am compulsive avocado buyer.) 

Five people who made me laugh this week: 

Kris

Deb

Samantha

Kim

Kelly

Five most very favorite yoga poses: 

Pigeon

forward fold

dolphin 

legs up the wall

Clearly I can't count. That's four. Returning to add: 

tie between savasana (corpse pose, where you just have to lie still.) and downward dog, because it makes me feel strong. 

Five most loathsome yoga poses that make me question my relationship to my namasted center: 

Chair (GAH CHAIR SUCKS OUCH CHAIR MY THIGHS BURN CHAIR BURN)

goddess (ironically named as goddesses ought not to suffer so.)

headstand (because I can't do it, mostly, and that gets on my nerves.) 

crow (see above) 

tree (I have no balance. My balance sucks.) 

There you have them. Boring. Wrong. I may supplement them later, but I think we all know that when I say I will I totally will not. 

Day Five Stream of Consciousness

I love NaBloPoMo for how it makes you scrounge a dark corner in a room, desperate for words, with five minutes left to spit them out. 

I love it for how it makes me remember that the reason why I picked this stupid name -- this LaurieWrites that I hate so very, very much -- was because I was halfway into my wine six years ago, broken hearted, desperate for an outlet, and this exact same space is what I found. 

I love it for how I know that other people I love and admire and respect are doing it, for how there is a quickening pulse in my strangely small collective of a writing world, that this year feels so much more vibrant, for some reason. 

I love how we have become more urgent as a result of what I'm guessing is our strange exhaustion. 

I love how there are three minutes left. 

I love how we're all still here. 

I love that I still think that I have something to say, that I agonize over topics and conclusions and constructs, even though there is no defined audience. 

I love that these posts don't get the perfect picture, that I don't care about the pixels and the diagrams. 

I love the messy and insane and the stressed and the everything of this. 

As a card-carrying glutton for punishment, I'm sure I always will. And I kind of love that knowledge too. 

Warm Card

I'm not proud of my behavior in Union Station last week. I'm really not. I'm also not proud of yelling at a stranger named Sergio in an unknown location, whose sole purpose in his job is likely to handle being yelled at by people like me. 

I'm also not proud of the fact that I'm listening to Air Supply on purpose right now, but the flip side of that is that I'm not ashamed, so whatever. 

YOU WANT TO CARRY ONNNNNNNNN. 

(Me, in Union Station, in happier, shinier times.) 

I took this crazy trip last week, from DC to New York to, er, Oxon Hill, Maryland, which is now herewith rechristened as "National Harbor", a fancy schmancy East Coast mini-Vegas of a place minus casinos and Elton John and coke and it's-totally-the-heat-not-the-humidity. So I'm wrong, it's minus almost all of the things that make Vegas Vegas, and I'm also pretty sure Nic Cage isn't going to be bottoming out in a hotel room there. But things are really big. 

My argument is failing here. 

Anyway, before I got back to National Harbor (good LORD people, this place is Oxon Hill. You know this, right? OXON HILL.) I was in New York, i.e., my favorite city in the whole wide world. I left Union Station because taking the train is one of my favorite things to do in life. And while I waited for my train, I decided to call my credit card company and confirm that my travel card was clear, as it certainly ought to have been, given that I returned the obscenely expensive camera lens rental six days before. 

I checked the website first, sitting amid a raucous group of Japanese tourists, all of us circled by a transit cop with a bomb-sniffing dog who really liked my bag, because hello there is always some errant piece of fruit or a whoopie pie or some shit in my bag that smells like drugs or a homemade bomb? The website said, "Fuck you, you still have that camera lens, as far as we're concerned," because of course it did. 

So I called Capital One, using the arduous iPhone keypad that I only use to enter bank and credit card pin numbers and to occasionally call a person I am required by law to call. 

"Hello, this is Capital One. This is Sergio. I am happy to help you today." 

"Hey Sergio. How are you?" (I am nice to these people. I am not an asshole. I swear to THE GOD WHO SMITES ME DAILY.) 

"I am doing well, hello, Mrs....White? How are you today?"

"I'm good, and it's not Mrs. And Laurie is good. Birthdate 12.27.70, pin number CAPITAL ONE SCREWS ME DAILY AND I LOVE IT SO HARD. 

(That is a joke. I did not say that.)

Then he asked me how he could help me, and basically I was like, look, Sergio, I need this pre-authorization code removed. I didn't buy anything, I took the shit back, it's gone from my life for half a pay period now. I didn't break it or lose it. I hate my pictures, I need to be able to buy wine and maybe a room in New York on this card because this is my TRAVEL NEW YORK CARD SO FUCKING FIX IT. 

"I am very sorry for your concerns, Mrs. White. I will see what I can do to alleviate your consternation." 

(Sergio is talking to my mom. Ignored. Bygones. Also they give these poor souls thesaurus.com with their training manuals, right?) 

"Look, Sergio, can you just clear my card? Because I have a train in 20 minutes and need an Egg McMuffin like Lindsay needs a bump, so really." 

I almost said this. Not super proud. GIRL YOU'RE EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD TO ME. (Related, that sounds like a lot of really hard fucking work. Multitasking.) 

I hear bleedeeebleepbleeps in the background that indicate that Sergio is scaring up some information about my relatively paltry financial situation. I really do just need this card to work. I had plans for this card. Dreams. 

"Hello. I see the concern."

(OMG THERE IS NO CONCERN.) 

"I see the concern, and if the camera company will please to call us soon we will remove it." 

The Japanese people started laughing more loudly, like the rotating clowns in Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

The dog sniffed everything six times. 

"Sergio. Honestly. The camera store is not going to call you." 

As I said this, I imagined the endless stream of iPhone calls I would have to make to work this out. Jack or Steve or Bill, lounging on the counter, completely disinterested in arresting his discussion of prime lenses and chicks who can't take pictures to make a phone call via many menus to Sergio in God knows where. 

I was never going to get my money back. I was not going to have my New York story financially told. And this made me mean. 

"That is unacceptable, Sergio. Unacceptable. I need you all to be able to call the camera store, if that is what you need to do, after THEY TOLD ME THAT THE HOLD ON MY CARD WOULD JUST NATURALLY FALL OFF LIKE THE LEAVES OF ADAM AND EVE AFTER A MAX OF 72 HOURS WTF SERGIO?"

He was contrite, yet unflappable. 

"This is a surprising development, I know. Please allow me to investigate further." 

And he was gone. For five minutes. And when he returned, he was saying stuff about tomorrow morning and telephone calls and the Dalai Lama and credit cards and whatnot. So, fully committing to hating myself for a refractory period of several hours, I said, 

"Hey Sergio? You got a supervisor." 

"Why yes. Yes I do. I will retrieve Melissa."

Sergio, Small Wonder, same difference. Melissa was on the line in a minute or two. I've worked with Melissa. Melissa went to my high school. Melissa was going to dispose of me in .5 minutes, and she had no idea my student council poster housed hers, hard.

"Hello, Ms...White? Yes. White. So you're traveling to New York?"

"Yes. And I  need you all to clear my card so I can move on with my life." 

"So you're going to have (redacted) call us to take care of this little charge?"

"No. I'm not, Melissa. (Because I have read the findings of repeating names and mirroring, yes I have. Also I watched The Office for years.) I'm standing in a line for a train to New York, a situation that normally takes all of my Oregon Trail survival skills, clutching an Egg McMuffin, an unconscionably hot-regardless-of-burning-lawsuit McDonalds coffee AND MY PHONE. I need you all to get in touch with the camera store, if that is what you need to do, and settle this." 

"And you can give us the number of the store?" 

"No. No I cannot. Do you have a computer in front of you, Melissa? Because, Google."

And I spelled it for her when she responded like this: agveargvaer;nhagraga;agvnbaga??????? And oh my God. I felt myself transforming into a Sleestak by the minute, but the rage, the RAGE. MELISSA! Seriously?  

And then I lost the call, because of course I did. And then the Northeastern line started moving, which, if you've never been in it? Is intense. It evokes a primal need to move and be first and elbow people that is not frequently seen outside of exercise class space placement and the lawn seats at the Indigo Girls. It is a horror show.  

As Melissa's stupid ass call dropped, the lady with the embroidered bag in front of me, who hasn't traveled since the Reagan administration, tried to Battle of the Network Stars elbow check me, and I wasn't having it. As I tried to aggressively reestablish my place in line, my phone rang.

Ringing phones: worse sounds on earth besides IT'S LATE NIGHT WITH JAY LENO, hands down.

I answered.

"Hi, Mrs....White? It's Melissa. I was able to contact (insert popular 90s name here) at (redacted) and he said all was well, that that equipment was returned unharmed several days ago. Capital One is happy to return the full functioning of your card to you, and we hope you have a fabulous time in New York City!" 

"Well. Okay. Thanks. Great." 

And I will leave it there. I will not tell you about slowly going insaner over the next 36 hours, as this company tracked my every move, shutting down both of my credit cards no matter where I went within an EXTENSIVE 500 MILE RADIUS. I won't detail talking to some guy whose complicated name I forget from a bar in New York, when they decided to "confirm" that my destination that I had told them about three hours before was accurate. I will spare you the details of my conversation with Brian, the next day, (I had learned by then to just ask for the supervisor immediately, because, well, the comedy.) who declined my card until I called to tell him I was back in Maryland, just to alleviate any more "concerns" that a thief was purchasing my one beer and rainbow roll at a dinner with colleagues, in my home state. 

It was like someone who hated me had called this place and told them I was a rogue person charging exorbitant amounts of, oh, say, $32.67 at a time. I was not to be trusted. This operation was to be shut down, before it tried to pay for another ten-dollar cab ride. 

Because I know this is my fault. I know this is our fault. This credit situation. This need for confirmations and codes and deposits, when really we'd be likely better served by stacks of dollar bills in mattresses, or trading beans for Etsy shit.

No, I won't. I'll just say this: Sergio holds it down. You want Sergio on your team. Hell, I want him on mine. He held the flare gun throughout my two days of Stockholm Syndrome with Capital One, and he made it feel like sugar going down.

I really wish I could friend him on Facebook. I'm pretty sure he would help me move.