Too soon?

Sarah: farrah fawcett was a BABE

me: I KNOW

I feel bad for her

because this [Michael Jackson's death] will steal her thunder

media-wise

which is what I'm sure she cared about on her deathbed

Sarah: total babe

yeah, like when mother theresa died right after princess diana no one really cared.

me: you know, though, if any good comes out of this tragedy, it's that I'll no longer confuse farrah fawcett and goldie hawn

Sarah: is it innapropriate to write that on my facebook right now?

me: hahaha

I don't care if you do

Sarah: this morning when i heard the news i was like 'i loved her in On Golden Pond!'

me: hahahahhahaah

Sarah: and then i was informed that that was jane fonda

THEY LOOK THE SAME

me: yeah, I worried all day about HOW KURT RUSSELL WAS TAKING IT. I'm probz gonna blog this whole dialog

Sarah: HAHHAHAAAAAAA

yeah, please do

The disclaimer, of course, is that OBVIOUSLY her death is properly tragic, &c. And other than the abstract "he died and that's sad" (with a side order of sorrow about how he probably felt very, very alone), I don't have strong feelings about Michael Jackson's death. This is odd, given that I have strong feelings about basically everything else in the known universe. Huh.

31

Tonight I sat around with my parents, brother, and future sister-in-law, listening to a tape we recorded for my grandmother when I was a little girl. We were a ridiculous, lovely family back then (and we still are), and so the tape included such highlights as my use of the word "unpredictable" at the age of 3, my fretting over forgetting to make a card for my uncle's birthday, an all-family rendition of "Children of the Heavenly Father," a refusal to recite a poem blamed on my imaginary friend, and a recounting of the plot of The Great Mouse Detective.

We moved on to dinner afterward. My family's long since given up trying to find a restaurant that serves "Lauren food." I'm a notoriously picky eater -- I'm better than I once was, when I went off to college with a roster of maybe five foods I enjoyed eating. I settled on pesto pasta, which I usually like, but what arrived at the table wasn't something I enjoyed. I finally passed a forkful over to my mom.

"Taste this and tell me why I don't like it."

She chewed slowly. "Too much basil." Exactly right.

Just an ordinary night, spent celebrating a 31st wedding anniversary with my family. Nothing too special. But when I think about how lucky I am to have them, it knocks the wind out of me.

How I Roll.

So, on the one hand, I'm crazy (by DSM-IV standards [this is another example of how humor makes it okay, so let's just run with it]). On the other hand, I'm just really weird. I'm a nerd and a total spaz and I live alone, which means my apartment just gets RIDICULOUS most of the time. I talk out loud to myself constantly, which isn't so very out of the ordinary, but right now, I've decided I'm really into the word "discourage," so I'm saying that in different sorts of voices, and then cracking myself up. I'll also be making a plan in my head, and then the voice that's NOT in my head gets involved. I was thinking about my errands the other day, and thought to myself, "I should go to the library and THEN the pharmacy so I won't have to carry all my books there." And then I said, out loud, all supportive and proud of myself, "Ohhhh, that's a good point!"

Then there's the sleep-eating, which meant that this morning I woke up in a puddle of Caffeine-Free Pepsi. Then there's the part where I usually make dinner at oh, say, 11:30, then often fall asleep with dishes in my bed. Then there's the fact that I like to give myself Tank Girl-esque hair before bed so that when I wake up in the morning, I can giggle at how ridiculous I look and try to snap myself out of the maudlin before it hits, like so:



You can print that and frame it if you want. It's SUPER pretty.

Then there is the part where I like to make a fort out of pillows and blankets, and then get inside of it, and then listen to Stockard Channing reading Ramona Forever. I may or may not be doing that right now. You decide.

I put the "ho" in hope. (No, I don't.)

I can be a little cynical.

(I will pause for a moment while those people who know and love me take a second to react to that SHOCKING REVELATION.)

For the record, I am trying to be more hopeful -- to the extent that I'm getting the word "hope" tattooed on my left arm in tiny cursive on my birthday. But I am, if we're talking about it in the parlance of Grey's Anatomy, which is the manner in which all things are best discussed (see, here I'm being SARCASTIC, which is DIFFERENT from being cynical, a distinction swathed in shades of grey NO PUN INTENDED [I realize I'm being insufferable right now]), I am far more "dark and twisty" than "bright and shiny." I'm the sort of person who RECOGNIZES the fact that life is full of moments of beauty and connection, but I need to see those moments for me to truly BELIEVE that.

Yesterday was not that sort of day. Indeed, yesterday was the sort of day where one watches a drunk man berate a pregnant woman (a stranger to him) on a bus for stop after stop after stop, ignoring the other passengers asking him to knock it the fuck off, until he finally gets off and she bursts into tears, and one bursts into tears with her, because she was treated so unkindly.

But today came on strong and won me over. My former co-workers took two hours out of their workday today to feed me lunch and laugh about everything and nothing, and at the end of the meal, after I'd scarfed down a portion and a half of lunch, asked kindly and with no condescencion if I was okay to afford food, completely willing to help out if I wasn't. My bus driver saw me sprinting uphill to the nearest stop in a dress and flips and pulled over at a stopless corner. Twitter rescheduled its maintanence after they were innundated with tweets asking them to please put it off so the voices of Iranians only able to communicate through that medium wouldn't be silenced -- it amazes me that a corporation was asked by its customers to do the right thing, and the corporation said yes.

There were other nice things -- a baby to snuggle, Ramona Forever read by Stockard Channing waiting for me at the library -- but it wasn't till I came home and read this that I was ready to call this a good day, ready to climb in bed with a bowl of ice cream, ready to let myself hope that tomorrow would be good too.

Otherwise.

This weekend brought with it many things. One of those things was watching the TONY awards with my mother, who is always (and, by and large, intentionally) hilarious, and that's probably a post all its own. It also brought with it the news that a good friend from college got engaged.

She is lovely, he seems great, and I'm sure they'll be very, very happy together. The feelings I have about them getting engaged are simple: happiness. The feelings I have that their engagement stirs up are a little more complicated. Their engagement means that, of the ten or twelve people I'm closest to, all but three are engaged, married, or married with children. That's.....over 70%. I don't know. It just brings out a funny little color on me. Lauren Hoffman: happy for you in a complicated way since 1983!

To wit (taken from a gChat conversation with Sarah):

Sarah: totally, i completely get that.

2:38 PM me: I mean, out of the people I'm closest to, now almost everyone is married or engaged

2:39 PM I'm celebrating by buying myself a special tool to cut biscuit dough

2:43 PM Sarah: haha so much better!

me: totally!

2:44 PM from the martha stewart collection!

I have such a complicated relationship with that collection. I tell you what.

2:45 PM Sarah: HAHA

me: "congratulations on your engagement, sara and joe! we love you. best, lauren and the martha stewart collection"

I just hope the collection will be available to escort me to the wedding, too. I'd ask my imaginary boyfriend Wyatt to take me, but he's pretty busy at work and/or bicycling around the country for children with disabilities.

I Lack the Good Sense God Gave a Doorknob

I am on my way to a friend's birthday gathering at a bar a few blocks away. I just -- five minutes ago -- decided, "Oh, hey, I'll take all my night medication now so I don't have to worry about it when I get home!" Except my night medication PUTS ME TO SLEEP, and so now I will have to hurry.