Stuff I Found In My Closet, Part I

Barely made any progress on Mission: Clean Out Your Childhood Closet 2007. It's going to take me forever to go through all that stuff. I can't seem to look at more than a few things at a time before I'm rolling around on the floor with tears in my eyes because HOLY, I WAS SUCH A LOSER. My mother yelled at me from the hallway to stop making fun of my younger self, that's just who I was. But how can you not cackle like a hyena when you find stuff like this?


OHHHHH BABY!!!! YEAH! It's my 9th grade English Portfolio, with a "RENT" collage for the cover. The lyrics to "Take Me Or Leave Me" are weaved throughout the portfolio, acting as the theme I guess you could say. (I got an A+, BTW). Inside, there are many deep pieces of writing. They include a story about the first time I saw "RENT" and poems about drowning myself. You heard me. I know that I've shared with all of you how MUSICAL THEATRE CRAZY I was in my younger years but I'm not sure that I've ever expressed the darker side of my literary background.

I used to write a lot. A lot a lot and all the time. And I think, as much as the stuff makes me cringe now, that I wasn't half bad. I won a lot of poetry contests and writing contests and while it was because I was a pretty good writer, it was moreso because I was very bizarre. Bizarre and very dark. I won second place in the 4th grade speech contest for a speech on how our bodies react when we are afraid, the animal instincts that come out when we are terrified of the dark or plane rides or death. It was titled "Things That Go Bump In The Night".

The first place winner? She wrote a speech about taking a walking tour of Washington DC.

I was such a happy kid and I have no idea why I was interested in such bleak subject matter. I know that the interest grew deeper and deeper as I got older. Around the time I turned 12, I became OBSESSED with the Holocaust. Why? I have no idea but I read every book I could find on the subject. My 8th grade social studies teacher would later feed into this obsession since I had to write a paper on the subject for her class. She wanted to make sure I had specific, correct information about the atrocities committed during the second World War so she lent me some books. She wanted to be sure that I wasn't reading "fluffy, dumbed-down accounts". Her books were on a variety of topics but I remember one specifically that centered on the medical experiments of Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz.

I still don't know how I feel about my social studies teacher lending me descriptive horrific literature on the Holocaust. While I think a 13 year old is old enough to process the morbidity of such information, it definitely gave me nightmares. Maybe that was because I think it was the first time I realized just how grotesque a topic it was and how much it scared me. Like, they made lamps out of skin? SERIOUSLY? LAMPS OUT OF SKIN!? I'm in 8th grade! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?!? But it definitely allowed me to write a more accurate paper and not write things like, "the Nazis were mean and that made Jewish people sad". Which, I mean, is true, but not, as we say, the whole story.

Compounded with my fascination of the Gestapo, I spent junior high reading every single Stephen King novel in the school library. I don't know how you feel about that but I don't think this helped the situation. The two interests together gave me a very vivid, disturbing imagination which translated over into my writing assignments. It made teachers question my cheery disposition and zest for learning. In fact, in 6th grade, I wrote a horrifyingly macabre poem about suicide and later that day, my mother got a phonecall from the school principal, making sure everything was "okay at home". My mother assured him that I was not at all suicidal, just intelligent and probably bored.

Some of the poems I've written are pretty disturbing when you realize they were written by an 11 year old. And I can't stop laughing about them because I was such a happy child and that's the essence of all of this. Those dark, brooding poems were not representative of who I was, they were just a way to express and explore a part of me that I didn't know existed.

And while maybe I'm mocking the little girl I used to be, underneath the amazement and disbelief at how incredibly WEIRD she was, I feel so happy knowing that she was ALLOWED to be who she was, that she lived and thrived in a creative environment and that her imagination was given permission to run. I'm sure my parents weren't thrilled that I was going around writing poems about setting myself on fire while listening to the cast album of "Annie" on my walkman. But I was never told to stop writing or stop reading those books or stop freaking the hell out of my teachers. At the end of the day, my mother hung up the phone with the principal, talked to me to make sure I was alright, and then took the suicide poem and taped it up on the refrigerator for anyone to see, proof that no matter what I did, she was proud of me.

To Do

1. Eat two huge slices of vegan chocolate peanut butter pie for breakfast.

I can't wait to see what else is in store for today.

Thoughts On The LIRR

I'm home on Long Island for Memorial Day weekend, a combination of work and family visiting. I took the Long Island Railroad out here this afternoon and as my bare legs stuck to the plastic seat, I couldn't help but think of all those times that my cousin Tom and I would ride the train from Ronkonkoma to Penn Station, wallets full of hard-earned cash, usually spent on dinner, a sidewalk cart hot dog and one or two Broadway show tickets.

We were partial to student rush tickets, which were around $20 and probably the only reason why I saw Tim Rice and Elton John's "AIDA" three times. We also stood in long lines at the TKTS booth in the middle of Times Square, crossing our fingers that something exciting would show up in bright red on the screen, 50% off. Our last resort was to purchase tickets full price and we did occasionally since this was, of course, back in the day where you could easily show up to a box office and find available tickets in a price range of $45-$85. (Ha! I talk like an old lady! Where's my walker?!) We spent that kind of money on shows we were DYING to see or shows that contained performers we were DYING to see, shows that we couldn't get enough of, shows that we'd listen to on CD over and over and over again on a summer afternoon.

When I think of the Long Island Railroad, I think of our parents picking us up late at night in front of the Dunkin' Donuts. Or, later, walking miles and miles to my 1993 Dodge Shadow, parked in the distance, patiently waiting for us to drive it home and sing along to ABBA on the radio. I remember scanning the playbills on the train ride back reading biographies over and over and over again, cementing names into my brain. I loved tracing people's careers, not necessarily the stars but the ensemble members and understudies. I loved knowing that they could do that, that they could move from Broadway show to Broadway show, that they could make a LIFE out of performing.

Coming home always feels familiar, comfortable, easy and sometimes awkward since there is so much of me here that doesn't feel like me anymore. There is the younger musical theatre version still very present here, from the NY Times' clippings on my closet doors to the stacks of Broadway vocal selections on top of the piano. I still sit down to play and sing along and I remember that I used to do that for hours, that there was nothing else I wanted to do every evening after dinner, play and play and play and sing. Forever.

I've promised to clean out my closet this weekend--scrapbooks and clothes from junior year and shoe boxes full of photographs still linger in the dark there and I dread having to sift through all those memories. It can be so nostalgic and wonderful to re-read those notebooks and flip through those montages of all the younger versions of myself. But sometimes, like most things, it overwhelms me. I don't always like noting that I am different now. I don't always like that I have grown up, not because I don't like what I have grown up to be but because I hate leaving that other girl behind.

My house will always hold the picture of me it knows the best. I guess that makes sense since I moved into this house when I was four and left when I went to college. Tonight, I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water and caught sight of my mother's legs in the living room, stretched out easily in front of her on the couch as she intermittently read Newsday and squinted at Everybody Loves Raymond reruns. It startled me as I realized that life here goes on as usual while I'm gone. I don't know how I feel about that. You'd think by now, I'd be used to it. Tonight, for some reason, I wasn't.

I think I blame it all on the train ride. Staring out the window, watching the various Long Island suburbs go by, I couldn't help but think about all the places I've stopped at along the way, all those valuable train stations that brought me to this moment. Tomorrow night, I'm going to start going through that stuff in my closet. I'm going to trash the things that are meaningless--the clothes from 1997, the notebooks from AP Statistics, etc. But the train ticket receipts and the playbills and the autographed Broadway posters? Those? Those, I think I shall keep.

For now.

Welcome To The Dark Corners Of My Mind. Surprise! It's Lame.

Do you want to know why I haven't blogged in awhile?

It's because I just sat down to write an entry and I wrote out not one, not two but THREE paragraphs about Downy Fabric Softener. Simple Pleasures to be exact. In Lavender & Vanilla scent. And how I love it but I can't find the Rose & Violet scent. Did they discontinue it?

WHAT?! Did I think anyone would be INTERESTED in three paragraphs about my thoughts on laundry!? Wow. I must be drawing some blanks here, people. HELP ME! I shall now ramble and make lists because that's what I do when I don't know what else to say. Errr...when I don't know what else to BLOG. When I don't know what to say, I blush bright red and use words that don't exist. Anyway. Here are some things I've been thinking about. I can't say they are interesting.

I love Thai food but I CANNOT STAND Pad Thai. This seems to be the Thai food staple and what most people think of when you mention "Thai Food" and yet, ew. I prefer the chili/basil sauce with tofu and vegetables and those wide flat noodley things. You know. The kind of Thai food that doesn't make me want to throw up.

You can show me 10,000 times but I still haven't learned how to neatly fold the fitted sheet. My mom does it perfectly. In fact, the fitted sheets are folded so squarely that in her linen closet, I can never tell just by looking which are the regular sheets and which ones are fitted. The woman is THAT Good. Me? I just give up and roll it into a huge ball because well, why not?

Sheets remind me of fabric softener. I can smell my hanging laundry right now and it smells like lavender, which is lovely. I wish it smelled like roses and violets though.

I'm in an intense casting workshop class type deal thingamajig. It's seven weeks long and every week we sing for a new casting director and gain feedback from them and also our classmates. It's hands down the BEST thing I've ever done for my career. Suddenly, I don't have to walk out of the room and think WHYYYY DON'T YOU LOVE ME?! Now I just ask. And they actually say it.

Surprisingly enough, most of them tweak little bits of my songs here and there and then nod and say "Great!" There are no huge revelations like, "Wow, you kind of suck at singing!" or "I don't like your hair. It's ugly." or "You really need to step up and actually show me you have a DEGREE in musical theatre in order for me to want to cast you. Mediocrity is your middle name." There really isn't any major issue that anyone sees with my work. I'm an obvious type (young ingenue) and an obvious vocal type and therefore, a clear-cut, obvious casting choice. I dress appropriately, I sing appropriate songs, I make strong acting choices and am generally found to be somewhat quirky and endearing. If all this is true, and it must be true because why would they lie to me? then seriously, why aren't I getting callbacks? I've decided to ask this next class. So far, my own answers are:

a) There are a gazillion quirky young ingenues with blonde hair and I haven't been around that long. Need to keep at it until I stand out.
b) My resume is somewhat lacking. I think this could be the reason or at least, a minor one.
c) I joined Equity too soon. Should've gotten more credits in the non-Eq world.
d) Since I'm currently without representation, I attend a lot of required calls, meaning auditions that are mandated by the union. A lot of times, for those auditions, they have already cast the show and aren't really looking.
d2) They are lying to me and in real life, they find me ugly, untalented and fat.

This class, while amazing, has made me extremely meticulous and analytical about my career. I think some of the obsessiveness will die down when the class is over and anyway, it's not a particularly BAD thing. But sometimes, I hear myself talking about auditions and auditions and casting directors and who and who and who and I want to SMACK MYSELF because I'm reminded of my 14 year-old self who could rattle off every ensemble member of the current cast of Miss Saigon. Note to both selves: NO ONE CARES.

I bought organic argula today. Why? I'm not sure. I hope I think of something fun to do with it. Like braid it and pin it in my roommates' hair. SLEEPOVER!

Speaking of food, I ate chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast this morning with strawberries and coconut. They were totally vegan and quite possibly the best things I've ever eaten.

I ate a few spoonfuls of the twins' macaroni and cheese the other day. It was decidedly not vegan. And surprisingly, did not make my stomach explode. MMMM. FAKE PROCESSED CHEESE.

I had a hard-boiled egg white in my salad last week. It was on purpose. I craved it, wanted it, ordered it, ate it. I thought perhaps I may reintroduce eggs into my diet, or at least egg whites. But as soon as I thought that, I didn't really crave them anymore.

Am I blogging about egg whites? Is that almost as bad as fabric softener?

I've needed a new cellphone battery for at least 3 weeks. I charge my cell, take it with me for the day and by the time I get on the subway, the energy level is down to one bar. If I chat on the phone for about twenty minutes, it dies. A new battery can't cost me more than $40. I can afford the $40. But I just don't WANT TO. I think about how I have to spend $40 on a damn cellphone battery and I think what an ANNOYING THING to waste $40 on. So I ignore it. And just let my cellphone die every day around 2 in the afternoon. And a few days ago, I nonchalantly dropped $123 on three pairs of shoes. Because those? THOSE WERE NECESSARY.

For the above class that I mentioned, as a homework assignment, we had to write out full pages in our journal describing where we wanted to be in 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. That's seven pages of future talk. DESCRIPTIVE, DIFFICULT FUTURE TALK. I dare you to do it. My teacher wanted big broad goals and also little tiny details, as miniscule or encompassing as I wanted. You know what? I kind of liked doing it. Of course I did! Because I'm Type A and love writing out things! I must confess that I'm not done with it yet. I've only just started but after scribbling some stuff down last night, I went back and read over what I'd written today.

UHHHHH. If you read over what I'd written, you'd have the same exact thought that I did: That I must've drank a bottle of rum before writing out my list. The truth? I was 100% completely sober. Observe:

In my "6 Months From Now" entry, (November 20, 2007) I wrote out how many shows I want to be called back for by then, how much I would prefer to weigh, how I would like to continue my veganism and then I guess I got a little carried away because the next sentence after those lofty goals is, "I will do my Christmas shopping early!"

Just. Wow. Laura? Did you actually write that out? On paper? Did you actually EXPEND ENERGY talking about your CHRISTMAS SHOPPING?! Get thee a life, pronto.

I couldn't stop there though, no, because along with holiday shopping, I also wrote that I wanted a "pretty new winter coat" and that also in six months, my periods will be pain-free!! (With two exclamation points, seriously.) And this is why I should not be given these kinds of assignments. I will flesh out WHERE I WANT TO BE IN 6 MONTHS until it is an amalgamation of the scariest details ever imaginable. Pretty winter coats and periods that don't induce nausea and painful cramping. LAURA. I THINK YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT.

By the way, I'm only up to writing 1 year from now. Where I'll be in 5 years? In 10? I'm supposed to write out what I'd LIKE to happen, what I WANT, just to visualize it, just to put it down on paper but I get crazed by that kind of thinking. I mean, look how I handled six months!! In 10 years!? How many kids will I have? Will I still live in this apartment or a house with wooden floors and a fire place and a bathroom painted dark red? It's too much for me! So I stopped for now, at just a year. I think that's best for me at this point in time. Maybe I'll get to the other timelines tomorrow. I think that tonight, I was too overwhelmed trying to think about how many pretty new winter coats I'll need by the time I'm 30.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I think that I would like a little "Shut Down" button on the part of my brain labeled "Crazy". That way, I can stop thinking simultaneously about my hatred of Pad Thai and love of rose-smelling laundry and sopranos that play ingenues. I could just complete homework assignments correctly and without much unnecessary anxiety. I could write out the career I want to have, the kind of man I want to marry, the kind of children I want to raise and how many ab muscles I would like visible when wearing a bikini. But because I can't click SHUT DOWN, I'm left to stare at a blank page and get completely overwhelmed by the thoughts that are swimming around my cranium, crippling my thought process and rendering me helpless and unable to complete the task at hand because I just can't stop wondering about how painful my periods will be in 20 years.

La Cucaracha

I try to avoid being a "high maintenance" kind of girl.

You know who she is.

The girl who takes ten hours getting ready for dates. The girl who wears eyeliner to the beach. The girl who calls her boyfriend "Bubsy Wubsy Peanut Butter Pie" in public and drags him on shopping excursions so he can wait outside the dressing room as she takes eight hours to try on different outfits and in the end, he'll probably end up paying for them. You know, that girl. She also probably obsesses about her hair products and also, probably hates camping. Okay. Wait. I hate camping but only because I have some really good reasons for that which include frogs and tampons. YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

Point is. I try to stay as independent and low-key as possible, whether in a relationship or single. Not that I haven't had major high maintenance girl meltdowns. BUT I TRY. That is the point. It is hard to be low-key about bugs. Let's be honest.

If I see a spider on the wall, I will probably take care of it myself. I will try to let it out of the window or else I will smush it. (I TRY NOT TO but sometimes, ack I have no choice). I must admit, I don't like creepy crawly things but I also don't like killing them. So in all honesty, if there is anyone else, male or female in the vicinity, I will gently ask them to help me remove the insect. And by gently I mean exactly what I did this evening while in the shower, which was to scream at the top of my lungs to my roommate "HELP. WATERBUG. CEILING. GROSS."

I can deal with moths. I can deal with flies. Mosquitos, eh, kind of irritating. Spiders, they all freak me out except Daddy Long Legs but I will get up close and personal if necessary, repeating the mantra under my breath, "I am bigger than them, they cannot hurt me, they will not grow 15 feet tall and eat me like the ones in Harry Potter..." Hey! I can even deal with waterbugs as DISGUSTINGLY VILE as they are. But the thing I cannot stand, the bug that will send me screaming and jumping up and down?

The cockroach.

Vegan Mike has an alcove outside his basement apartment, which means that to get into his place you need to go through three doors. (And I go to his apartment frequently for Covert Vegan Operations such as Operation Steal Mike's Hummus and Operation Make Mike Buy You Grapefruit). Anyhow, the space between the first and second is very small and quite garage-ish, meaning it's essentially the same as being outside. When I go over to VM's apartment, I always make him go in first because he once commented that he always sees tons of bugs in that alcove, hanging on the walls. Bugs like spiders. And moths. AND ROACHES.

However, when I LEAVE the apartment, after breaking and entering, hummus in tow, it gets tricky because I have to go through those doors first. And alone. So I did that on Tuesday. I walked out of the first door, threw open the door to the alcove, and briskly forced my way outside into the light, unable to stand there and search for living creatures that were most likely staring down at me with beady, buggy eyes.

I was fumbling with keys and fumbling with stolen hummus and fumbling with my iPod and wallet and small children that tend to live inside the HUGE bag I carry around on a normal basis. Seriously, this big is so large. It takes me a good 20 minutes to find my lip gloss. Not that I'm obsessive about the lip gloss OR MAKE UP OR GIRLY THINGS LIKE THAT. Ahem.

So I'm fumbling when I feel a little something on my foot. I'm wearing blue flip-flops so my feet are bare and I think, "Hm. That felt kind of gross. But heyyy, my iPod! I totally feel like listening to Michael Bolton right now!" And then...that feeling again...except not on my foot...on my calf..no wait...up my leg HOLY SHIT. I begin to scream. I am screaming and jumping up and down. It was something! CRAWLING! SOMETHING CRAWLING UP MY LEG! And not in a sexy way! I'm shaking my pants! "GET IT OUT GET IT OUT!!!" I am screaming in Vegan Mike's parking lot.

And it is out. Out of my pants. It is laying on the pavement, face up, still and lifeless.

It is a cockroach the size of my fist.

I don't know whether to throw up or throw up or throw up some more. I contemplate setting my body on fire in order to get rid of the disgust I feel knowing that a COCKROACH was CRAWLING UP MY PANTS. That an honest-to-God JUMBO SIZE COCKROACH was maneuvering its way up my naked flesh. I decided to both throw up and set myself on fire. Later on, I called Mike and explained the situation.

Me: Just so you know. It really did happen. And there's a dead cockroach outside your door, laying on his back on the pavement.

VM: Wait. How did it die?

Me: It died! I was shaking my pants, I think I shook it to death!

VM: Uh. You can't SHAKE a cockroach to death.

Me: Yes! You can do it with a baby, you can do it with a cockroach!

VM: I...don't know what that means.

Later on, Mike went out to inspect the body.

And you know what? THERE WAS NO BODY. Well, no cockroach body, anyhow. Do you realize what happened? That fucking cockroach crawled up my leg, trying to find some garbage or get some action or who KNOWS and then I shook him out of there and he knew he was in trouble so he PLAYED DEAD.

Do you know cockroaches do this in order to avoid being killed? THEY FAKE DEATH!? And it WORKED. I feel for the little hugeass sucker. But not really. You know why?

BECAUSE HE CRAWLED UP MY PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Does this make me high maintenance? Uh.

Does this mean I am never stealing anything from Mike's apartment again? YES.

Does this have anything to do with the fact that my roommate killed a waterbug today and also a cockroach and that apparently, my apartment is now infested with various insects that refuse to die?

It does.

That one cockroach. He told all his friends about me. About the fun of torturing me. About how I screamed and begged for mercy. About how he tricked me into believing I had shaken him to death. That roach. He is a twisted little son of a bitch.

And now I can't sleep because I know he is waiting for me.

Waiting for me to close my eyes and drift off to a pleasant sleep, unaware of him and his family, scuttling across the kitchen floor, padding across the carpet into my bedroom and seeking out my sweatpants once more.

The Part Of The Story Where Our Heroine's Head Explodes

Hey. I wrote this on Saturday night and couldn't post it until today. So there.

Thanks to all you crazy commenters from the last post. I can't believe all the wonderful people who read my blog! (All 5 of you!) And you answered my questions! How lovely. Onto more important things. Do you want to know what I had for dinner tonight?

String beans and garlic sauce and tofu and a non-vegan chocolate chip cookie!

How's my diet going?

Fine! Well. Good actually, REALLY good. A lot less sugar, a lot less crap. Welllll...up until yesterday when I boarded a plane and consumed this blueberry scone from Starbucks that was totally not vegan and then drank 12 ounces of vanilla soymilk to counterbalance that fact and then thought about how I ate a bagel with tofu creamcheese for breakfast earlier that day and then decided, in TOTAL bad dieter fashion to throw the whole day to hell and finish it off with a plate of pasta and tomato sauce ten times the size of my head. My sugar rush was so bad that around 10 pm, I was lip-synching in the hotel lobby to that old song, "If You Don't Know Me By Now." My employer looked at me, shook his head, and went to find a glass of scotch. YOU WILL NEVER EVER EVER KNOW ME! OOO OO OOO!! Who sings that song? What? Where's my sugar?! MMMMMM.

Anyway. I boarded a plane, yes, indeed, I'm off on another one of those dang business trips.

This time, I went down South to West Palm Beach instead of over West. The boys are here visiting their grandparents and it's been quite an adventure despite the fact that I didn't meet any shrews on the plane ride this time. My life, it is so very difficult, getting dragged on vacation after vacation. SIGH.

It's 86 degrees and this morning, it was so humid that I felt like I walked out of the hotel and into a dense murky fog. Well, a dense, murky 1,000 degree Amazon kind of fog. Where there are lots and lots of old people. And I mean LOTS. Dick with a diving injury, cousin Beverly who's husband has a kidney problem, Aunt Marsha and Uncle Irving who can't stay long because they live 40 minutes away and might hit traffic on the way back, etc. I'm hesitant to write out snippets of conversation or ramble too long about what it's like to be a shiksa in Boca for the weekend because I don't want to offend anyone, first of all, because let's be fair and honest, these vibrant retirees have been so wonderful to me. They are so incredibly sweet and thoughtful, all the time and I appreciate that so much.

And yet, and yet, how can I NOT give you an inkling of what it's like to spend a weekend in a condo in Boca Raton? You wouldn't even BELIEVE ME if I quoted direct conversations. You'd accuse me of being stereotypical or unfair or judgmental. But holy, just, wow. I'm technically on a "working vacation" which means yeah, I have to run after two twin boys but also, it's so warm and beautiful that I should be able to relax a bit. But! NO! I can't! You guys! I can't breathe! I'm so stressed out because everyone down there is so stressed out and WHY ARE THEY SO STRESSED OUT, THEY LIVE IN FLORIDA ON THE BEACH!?

Can I at least say that they are very...concerned about things. And by things, I mean EVERYTHING. From what I'm eating for lunch to how bad the traffic is down to Miami, to whether or not I've applied SPF 55 in the last 20 minutes, etc. Retired Floridians from Long Island are in a class of their own and have provided me a lot of anxiety and stress as well as many delicious meals and fun-filled car rides and what? you don't eat ANY dairy? Laura! I don't believe that! Why not? OH you're one of those VEGETARIANS?! But come on, Laura! It's delicious! A little bit of cheese, would it kill you?!

Actually, it almost did. In the form of a gas bubble. But I decided not to tell them that because then I would be subjected to a tirade about hospitals and I just couldn't take that one more time, not after the lecture on cheese which was, at best, better than the lecture on speed bumps and how to avoid them at all costs lest we upset the passengers in the car. SPEED BUMPS! They are so off-putting! Let's have dessert! Is ice cream dairy? Laura, have some ice cream! What!? You don't eat that either?! But it's fat-free coffee chocolate swirl! Fat-free because of my heart, you know I have a condition, don't you? No fat, no sugary juices. Can you pass me the pound cake?

So, I was all set to spend this entry whining. (Wait, I just did.) But really, there is never enough room for whining and I wanted to whine SO SO much. I wanted to whine about my insecurities, about my fears, about how I can't book another acting job to save my life, about how I can't even get a CALLBACK, about how I'm in this casting workshop class thing that overwhelms me because all the girls are so good and they belt their faces off and I just don't know what I'm doing in that class or what I'm doing in general and OH MY GOD WHY CAN'T I FALL IN LOVE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE?

Men are interested in me and I get myself out of those potentially romantic situations as fast as humanly possible because either 1) They just aren't the right guy for me or B) I am incapable of falling in love with a human. What's the answer? I wish I knew! You decide. Let me know. I'm curious. And so are the men. SIGH. Am such a JERK. Have some cheese, Laura! A little American? With turkey on a roll? This roll, it's so fresh! What? You don't eat turkey, either? Why not? Oh! You're a VEGETARIAN! Do you want tunafish instead? WHAT? No tuna!? Just have a bite, it's delicious.

But you know. I can't whine. I can't. I'm 24 years old. I don't suck that much. I may not have an acting career at the moment or a boyfriend or the ability to let a boy into my life, but I have a job. A job that supports me financially, allows me to pay my bills and still have some leftover to put in my Savings Account which is labeled "Money To Use When I Adopt My Cambodian Child In 10 Years". More importantly, this job fills me with an amount of pure joy and wonder that I never thought possible.

I have been so blessed by having two amazing employers who take care of me in so many wonderful ways. And even better, the two little boys who I babysit for give me a sense of pride and a sense of purpose and sometimes they even share their french fries with me. I can't whine to you or complain to you about the crap in my life because these two little twins shower me with constant love, affection and various bits of food that gets stuck in my hair.

And I'm spending the weekend with them. The whole weekend. In 86 degree weather. On the beach as in the OCEAN which, for the record is a balmy 81 degrees. I've taken full advantage of this by putting the boys in their swim diapers, grabbing them by the hand and running headfirst into the ocean, while we all scream our heads off because oh my God, sometimes it doesn't get much better than that. I really really need to blow off steam like that, just to make myself relax a little because wow, these Floridians, a lot of them are mighty uptight.

I'm pretty sure screaming your head off while the Atlantic washes over your legs makes everything better. Except of course if you get sea lice. Do you know that when the water gets over 80 degrees, you could get sea lice? Or just get really sandy! Oh God, tons of sand at the beach, did you know that? The babies, they could get hurt! With the sand! Or they could drown! Are you hungry? Don't worry. I packed a lunch. Cheese sandwiches. Oh! I forgot! Laura, you don't eat dairy. Seriously? No dairy? What? Just have some swiss, would it kill you to just try a piece?

Thank God I love these boys.

Swimming!

Yes, that is a tag hanging down from Owen's hat. Very avant-garde.

We don't eat no dairy. We be the rebels of Boca, yo.