Texting Grizzly

Here is a recent texting conversation between my friend and I. We met at Girl Scout Camp, so instead of his real name, he's in my phone as Grizzly. Grrrrrrrrr. Deal with it.

Grizzly: So how's college?

Me: I should be studying for finals. Instead: THE INTERNET!!!

Grizzly: Story of my life. How am I supposed to study when I have so much music to keep up on?

Me: I <3 design blogs.

Grizzly: Really? To the point where it's a part time profession or hobby?

Me: Profession. Full time.

Me: Reading them should be my profession. Someone hire me. I'm obsessed.

Upon which Grizzly takes half a century to reply, so I do what I normally do when no one answers: keep talking.

Me: I consider it research. I am studying architecture. Totally counts.

An hour later...


Grizzly: Fair enough. I guess my next logical career choice would be to become a music critic then. I've nailed the pretentious part.

Me (Instantly, because I am a good texter): Haha. Get some hipster clothes and you're ready to go!!

Grizzly: I'm already over the hipster thing. They have taste in music. But my glasses aren't preventing every single person I know with slight knowledge of my musical tastes from branding me as one. It's quite the dilemma.

Me: tell me about it....

Grizzly: Ok. My phone is being a quite irritating and won't download this picture. WTF.

Me: hahah funny. It's a picture of me in my equally hipsterish glasses wearing an expression of empathy.

Grizzly: Wow. Im totally missing out on this. Whatever. Empathy though, I'd love to see what that looks like.


Me: By empathy I mean, I'm crosseyed and sticking my tongue out....

Grizzly: Of course you are.



PS. picture from here.

I Can't Multitask While Walking

So I am bad at multitasking while walking. Mostly because walking is something I find rather challenging. I am simply not a talented walker. I often fall down dramatically and painfully for absolutely no reason. I think I've fractured bones at least four times. I was too lazy to ever get this x-rayed and confirmed, however, so this is simply a hypothesis.

It's not just clumsiness though. I get easily distracted when walking and tend to do stupid things. Like the other day I was walking down the stairs and someone else started walking downstairs too, but a floor above me. I glanced upwards (curiosity did not kill the cat, but it certainly shanked it in the back), and then fell down half a flight of stairs.

I walked cheerfully across the quad on a sunny day recently. I was chewing gum simultaneously. I tripped on grass and ended up with grass stains all over my white dress.

I tried talking to my friend Andrew while at his dining hall once. It happened to be St. Patrick's Day. I slipped on water (let's blame this on water ok?!) and basically shattered my knee caps when I came crashing to the ground.

Anyways, this is all a lead up to this conversation I had walking near Government Center in downtown Boston:

Andrew: These shoes cost $300.

Me: No fucking way! That is ridiculous! I've never spent more than $100 on shoes! WHY WOULD YOU SPEND $300 ON SHOES?!?!??!

Andrew: They're really nice men's shoes!

Me: YOU ARE CLINICALLY INSANE.

Andrew: They're gonna last me 10-15 years! Plus then I'll resole them and have them for another 10 years...

Me: 10 years!? Bah! That is nothing. YOU HAVE BEEN ROBBED.

Andrew: I think of the two of us, you are the crazy one.

Me: I bought this pair of boots in 6th grade for $20 and I still have them. That is significantly less than your 10 year $300 shoes!

Andrew: Yeah, but you don't wear them all the time.

Me: SO?!?! I bought them in 6th grade... how many years ago was that/

Andrew: ...

Me: I'm in like, what 14th? 15th? grade?

Andrew: and?

Me: That's like what 12 years? No... 10, No, wait. 7 years. 7 years! That is almost 10! And they were only $20. YOU HAVE BEEN ROBBED.

Man in Fancy Suit Walking Behind Us:  *hysterical laughter*

Me: No! It's 8 years! That is even better! How could you possibly spend $300 on shoes?!

Man in Fancy Suit Walking Behind Us: *hysterical laughter*

Andrew: *nicer laughter*

Me: SHUT UP! I can't multitask while walking. Math is hard.

Man in Fancy Suit Walking Behind Us: *hysterical laughter* I'm sorry, sorry! *hysterical laughter* *walks past us*

Me: wow...

Andrew: You know you're an idiot when complete strangers on the street make fun of you.

Me: Well, at least I didn't spend $300 on shoes...



This then led to a debate about the number of times men v. women wear a certain pair of shoes. I won. Of course.




xx

Laundry

Classic thought process: "The laundry basket is full. I should probably do laundry then. But do I want to do laundry? No. Definitely not. Do I need to do laundry? Maybe... Think about it, Laurel. Well, I'm out of pants. I should do laundry then. Nah, I really don't wanna do laundry. I don't need pants. Pants are overrated. I'll do laundry next week."

How I Embraced My Non-Existant Indian Heritage

Somedays, everything is fine. You wake up, you look in the mirror, you give yourself that cocky chin nod thing, and say "How you doin'?"

Other days, this does not happen. Some days you look in the mirror and think, "WHAT?! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?!?! THAT WAS NOT THERE LAST NIGHT!!"

For example, the other night I went to bed relatively early, looking forward to actually sleeping not that fencing season was over.

I looked in the mirror while brushing my teeth. I looked fine. Tired, but fine.

So I went to bed, expecting to wake up the following morning looking equally fine, but with more bedhead and possibly some large under eye circles. 

Unfortunately this was not the case. When I woke up the next morning I stared at the mirror.

Something was not right. In fact, something was definitely very wrong. I looked closer.




There it was just sitting there in the middle of my forehead, taunting me.

What. The. Fuck. Where did you come from?!!!!!!!!!?!??!????????????????

I could tell this disgusting lurker was out to get me. I could tell it purposely came up right in the center of my forehead just to be pure evil. It intended to torture me. I knew I had two choices.

Get MAD:

Or:

Embrace my inner Indian heritage.

I am not Indian, however, and despite how great I look in this sari, I will never be Indian. So I ended up going with the former.


PS. Indian dancers image from here

You Should...

... go to Tufts.

Musik

I am bad at music. I cannot play an instrument, despite many attempts throughout elementary and middle school. I listen to only a few bands regularly. Most of my itunes songs have 1 or less plays. I haven't uploaded music in over a year.

But I do love to sing along. Especially in my awesome car. Unfortunately my car is currently living at my parents house. So I have to sing along to my ipod in my room by myself, which is just not nearly as cool.

Mostly though, I hate it when I'm singing along to a song and the artist gets the words wrong.

"You're toxic, I'm slipping under. Yeah."

Oh no, Britney Spears. Get it right: "Your toxic gums slipping over me."

"I set fire to the rain. Watched pour as I touched your face. Let it burn while I cry, cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name."

Um. Nope. Sorry Adele. Try: "I set fire to the rain. Watched it burn as I cried in vain, 'cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name."

The only part of a song that every artist sings along with me correctly, is the music solos. And that's only because they're silent and I'm still making weird guttural noises and pretending to be a guitar.



***UPDATE*** 2/21/12

Just realized I've been singing "Now that I'm poor in Beijing" as part of a lyric to an Interpol song. Well turns out they've got it wrong. They are not world travelers. Booooring.

They're just "poor and aging."

BOOO.

Deutsch

I am currently taking three German classes. This is part of my desperate attempt to complete two majors in  3.5 years. So far it seems to be working.

I wanted to share with you a few thoughts on the delightful German language.

First of all, it really does not sound all that terrible. That stereotype comes from World War II and Hitler. Hitler was a truly interesting speaker. His spittle kept the front ten rows of listeners quite active as they attempted to dodge the flying liquid.

Real German speakers who aren't evil dictators actually sound rather lovely in my opinion.

I may be biased. After all, my Grandmother is German and I grew up around the language.

I have other reasons why German is the best language.

Everyone should take German. Why? Because it's damn easy. That's why.

1. EVERYTHING is phonetic. You can sound EVERY SINGLE WORD OUT. This is good for those of us who became voracious readers at a young age. Some people (such as me) learned how to read phonetically and then started reading more advanced books and then sounded like an idiot when they said such things as "Protest-ant" or "guest-ture" or "wreck-loose." Language is a difficult thing. I vote we abolish silent letters. Or we could all just speak German and pronounce everything the way it should be.

2. German is incredibly easy to learn how to speak if you already know English. Basically, English and German are both Germanic languages. Which means they're more similar to each other in terms of sentence pattern, words, idioms, etc, than English and French (SERIOUSLY WHO TAKES THIS LANGUAGE?!) or English and Spanish (ok, I can see why this one is helpful.) Want examples? Whenever I don't know how to say something in German, I just say it in English and put a German accent on it. 9 out of 10 times, I am correct. Control? Kontrolieren. Dance? Tanzt. Pepper? Pfeffer. Salt? Saltz. Dog? Hund. Cat? Katze. Brother? Bruder. Bank? Bank. Come? Kommen. Even if the word isn't exact, you can usually figure it out. Flowers? Blumen. Post office? Post. Fur? Pelz.

3. Another lovely thing is that you really don't need to learn many words to speak German. After you know a few handfuls, you just stuff them altogether to make new words. Example? Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl. Literally the words together+belonging+feeling= sense/feeling of community. Lovely. This is especially nice because I am lazy and don't like to look up words. You can basically figure out the gist of what any word means by looking at the different parts.

4. Grimms' Fairy Tales. Yes. The bloodier/sexualized versions of Disney stories. Only these came first. Did you know Snow White's step-mother was tortured to death at her wedding? Yeah, she was forced to wear white hot iron shoes while she danced UNTIL SHE DIED. Rapunzel? Not such a sweet wholesome girl. Originally, the sorceress found out about the prince because he knocked Rapunzel up and her clothes stopped fitting.

5. German is super easy to learn because there are real rules. Not English rules where they're only used every ten times, these are consistant. Exceptions are rare, not the rule. Why? Because they were made up by Germans and Germans follow the rules. Always. That's one of the rules. For instance, the verb comes second. ALWAYS. It is the second part of the sentence.

6. Everyone who speaks German is a boss. Also guys who take German are generally hot. Or Jewish. Or both. This has been my experience in German classes at least. The girls who learn German? Hit or miss. Either they're smoking or they look like a witch on crack. Which could be appealing, if you're into that kind of thing.

7. The Germans are all about sex. All the time. Everywhere. Every movie you watch in German classes will be about sex. Every story you read will have sexual undertones. Or overtones. It is a) hysterically funny and b) super entertaining and c) makes fabulous conversations. Or should I say, Konversationen?



Here is a video of my aunt torturing my grandmother. She is rather old and helpless. She can say squirrel in both German and English, though. Apparently a lot of other Germans can't. Wanna know why? BECAUSE ENGLISH IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN/SPEAK/UNDERSTAND. Especially those fucking abrevs.

Schmexy

I am feeling particularly good looking today.

Yep. I'm pretty schmexy.

Hoarding

If you've ever seen the show Hoarders you know that it's the most addictive thing since chocolate. You also know that watching it makes you feel significantly more secure about the massive amount of crap you cram into your home.

Now, I have no money and I live in a space that is literally 10 feet by 12 feet; this, however, won't stop me from amassing a re-donk-ulous amount of shit.

For instance, I have three pairs of scissors within arms reach and 6 chapsticks stored conveniently throughout my room.

In my defense, one pair of scissors is for cooking, another for art, and the last for everything else. The chapsticks are simply because I am really fucking lazy and refuse to change locations in order to moisturize my lips.

Another thing, I have at least twenty pairs of non-work-out pants. If not more. I wear probably 5 of them on a regular basis. This clearly makes no sense; I should donate them all right?

WRONG. I have been collecting these pants since I was a freshman in high school. The fact that most of these pants stopped fitting when I got boobs and hips, is simply besides the point. I NEED them. Several are multi-colored. This alone is a wonderful reason to keep them. Others will be perfect for when I get a boob job and become an anorexic model in Germany.

Water bottles are another thing I hold on to. This is not my fault. People tend to give water bottles out for free and how can I say "No" to free? I can't. That's how. There are four water bottles sitting on my desk next to me as I write this. One is full of water. One is very large and used for exercise; I don't know why it is here and not in my exercise bag. The dog probably put it there. I don't have a dog though. Getting one is on my to-do list. The other two function a lot like the chapsticks. I won't drink liquids if I have to move to get them. Laziness is a disease and is burning rampant through my body faster than my white blood cells can attack the virus.

These are white blood cells attacking a virus. Apparently this needs clarification.

Let's move on.

I have over thirty exercise only shirts. These were also mainly free. Or from concerts/fencing tournaments. The reason I require this many is due to the fact that laundry machines are evil and I hate them. They are all out to get me, I swear. Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Or however that phrase goes. Seriously, watch Homeland. That will clarify the validity of my paranoia.

Basically, anytime I do laundry I lose at least four pairs of socks, shrink one article of clothing, ruin a pair of underwear's elastic, and nothing gets properly dried. I blame the laundry machines. It is clearly entirely their fault and not my inability to sort laundry/wash things on anything, but cold (for getting out blood, duh!)/remove things from the wash that don't go into the dryer.

Also I bleed a lot and ruin clothing often. It comes from being incredibly untalented at walking. For example, I've fallen down twice today and it's not even 11am. The first fall I would like to blame on Julia. She tripped me when we played indoor soccer this morning during practice. She definitely put her foot there for me to trip over on purpose.

The second time I fell this morning was while walking up the stairs. Sometimes I get distracted by chewing gum or thinking while walking up the stairs and forget to think about where I am walking and trip. I like to think this is lucky. I fall up the stairs significantly more than down. This is a positive, because falling down the stairs is inherently more painful/destructive. For instance, last time I fell down the stairs, I fractured my arm.

This clumsiness leads me to my medicine cabinet which contains a brace or bandage for nearly every type of injury along with an incredible array of medicines, current and expired. Do I need all of this? The answer undoubtably is yes.

One thing I really don't need, however, is old magazines. Yet, I can't throw them away. I just can't. I fucking paid big bucks for those issues and I plan on keeping them for a very very long time! However, I have never looked at an issue, after reading it once, again. They just sit there in their little magazine bins on the top shelf of my desk. My argument for keeping them: what if someone is bored when they come over and want to read a magazine. However, not even I can support this argument as obviously no one is ever bored when they come to visit me. Duh.

Other things I hoard: books ( I REREAD THEM OK?!), make-up (why yes, I do still use that half full lip gloss I bought in 4th grade), nail polish (there are a ton of shades of red!!), sweatshirts (different colors and weight depending on what I'm wearing and the time of year... obviously).... and too many other things to count.

I can't help myself, ok? I have a disorder.

Why Having a Second Child Permanently Disables the First Born Part II: The Pregnancy/Birth

My mother made the mistake of telling me she was pregnant when she was only 6 weeks along. At age four, I believed this news to be the most exciting thing since body painting was invented.

And I enjoyed body painting quite at lot.

I promptly decided that I wanted a little sister to play barbies with. I refused to believe there would be any possibility of a boy. This would not have been all that problematic, had I kept this to myself, or at the very least a few close family friends. Silence, however, has never been my strong point.

I told EVERYONE that my mother was pregnant with my new baby sister. Being that my mother was only 6 weeks along and not even showing, this news surprised nearly everyone. The grocery store clerk gave me a free lollypop when I told him. My pre-school teacher congratulated me and sent a card home to my parents. Family friends wanted to know when the baby shower would be. My mother was sent an enormous amount of pink themed gifts before she was 12 weeks pregnant.

Before you are 12 weeks pregnant it is nearly impossible to know the sex of the baby. Yet, I already told the entire world my happy news.

Therefore, when my mother went in for her 12 week ultrasound, she was relieved to discover that she idea carried a girl.

This only furthered stoked the flame of my fantasy of being omnipotent. I pointed out my ability to read the future to anyone who would listen.

As the big day approached, I began to see negative effects of my mother's pregnancy. Most importantly, I could no longer sit properly on her lap during every meal, as I had previously done. (Don't let anyone tell you having a child is not a full time commitment; I refused to eat anywhere but on my mother's lap for four fucking years.)

However, as my mother's pregnancy continued and the due date of my sister approached, my mother's lap became infinitely smaller until it disappeared entirely. From that day on, I was forced to eat independently of my mother, something I neither did silently, well mannered, nor happily.

In fact, much of the damage on our nice, Amish-made dining table can be traced to me pounding silverware on it during this transitionary period.

Once my mother finally made it into her 9th month, things did not settle down. I continued to harass her during meals and questioned everything she asked.

The day her water broke, should have been an exciting and relieving moment. Unfortunately for her, I made sure the moment was entirely unpleasant.

My mother's water broke while she was asleep. I snuck into bed with my parents that night and found this event hysterical. For the next few years, I would gleefully tell anyone who would listen about the time my mother wet the bed one night.

This would come back to bite me.

My sister was eventually born and my father took me to the hospital the following day. I remember this day to be almost as exciting as when I got a dollhouse for my 4th birthday, but not quite. Regardless, my emotions were running wild and I was pleased with myself for accurately predicting the birth of this baby girl.

At the hospital, my mother placed my new baby sister, Bronwyn, in my arms. I was excited beyond belief.

I could not contain my excitement. It bounced around my body, searching desperately for an escape.

Gleeful screams of joy and all around self congratulation could not contain the excitement of the situation.

This was my own fucking little sister after all. My new favorite doll, my new best friend, my new source of entertainment. The excitement of this situation could not be contained...

...and it eventually found it's escape.





Have a great day! Do you remember the birth of your sibling? Tell me! And follow my blog!!

New Years Resolutions

These are fireworks. Just in case you were wondering; here is clarification.

1. Save Money
a. Stop buying brand name contact solution
b. Stop buying the expensive contacts that can stay in all day
c. Stop buying books on kindle. It's real money, even if I can't touch it.
d. No new clothes. EVER.
e. Don't buy new make up. If I get a zit, I just won't leave the house.
f. Don't go into to used bookstores. It's no longer browsing if I purchase 7 books.
g. Even though it looks awesome on TV, don't buy it.
h. No buying chai lattes. I don't care if I'm exhausted. Suffer.

2. Lose weight
a. Learn how to run. But not on the internet because that will just become an excuse for not running
b. Run rather than speed walking on treadmills.
c. Get over fear of ellipticals.
d. Just because the sitting bike is easy, doesn't mean it's the only thing I should do at the gym.
e. Stop eating dessert.
f. Only eat 2 squares of the good expensive chocolate for dessert.
g. Frosted Mini Wheats aren't diet food. Especially when the bowl is bigger than my face.
h. Eat salad. Even if I hate it, it's good for me.

3. Go to gym 4 times per week.
a. Sitting in the gym does not count as going to the gym.
b. Taking babies to the gym, because they like to watch basketball does not count as going to the gym.
c. Talking about the gym does not count as going to the gym.
d. Thinking about the gym does not count as going to the gym.
f. Dreaming about the gym does not count as going to the gym.

4. Make dinner plans for week on Sunday, not the night of.

5. Make 1 friend in every class.
a. Stop making fun of everyone smarter than me.
b. Learn to love slackers.

6. Stop dating assholes.
a. Being sarcastic doesn't make him funny.
b. Actually let people get within a foot of you.

7. Respond to emails professionally and in less than 2 days.
a. Stop reading emails and thinking about responding to them so much that I think I've actually responded to them and then don't realize I never responded until 3 weeks later.
b. Stop signing every email "Best, Laurel"
c. Stop being super repetitive in emails.
d. One sentence does not equal one paragraph.

8. Stop wasting hours watching TV on illegal internet sites.
a. Don't watch an entire season of a show in one day.
b. Stop watching every episode of every TV show you hear about.
c. Only watch quality television.
d. Just because it's on watchseries.eu doesn't mean I need to watch it.
e. Read a book.

9. Oral hygiene.
a. Brush teeth in the morning after practice.
b. If I'm already in the bathroom, I cannot be too lazy to brush my teeth.
c. Floss at least once a day.
d. Get new toothbrush at least every 2 months.
e. Teeth whitening?

10. Get someone to read this shit.

Queen of the Goat Herdresses

A few weeks ago I became obsessed with the idea of owning goats. By a few weeks, I really mean the day after Thanksgiving. That was the day I wondered into a bookstore in Vermont and found the book Backyard Homestead: Farm Animals.

The book talked about many animals, but the only one I paid any attention to was the goats. GOATS. I decided I wanted goats. I wanted them badly.

Then I remembered I don't own property. I don't even lease property. I rent from a semi-sketch man with a goatee. The fact that my landowner has a goatee only further inspired me. I was determined to get goats. I remembered I had parents. I remembered my parents owned land in California. I remembered they lived on this land and called it home. I remembered that it covered about half an acre.

I decided my parents should get goats. I bought the book for my mother. I gave it to her for Christmas. That night, while everyone else slept, I read the entire book.

I decided my parents were getting Nigerian Dwarf goats. Soon. I searched the internet for websites on backyard goats. It was very encouraging. I decided my mom could make goat cheese and soap from the goats' milk. We needed goats. This became only clearer the more I researched.

I dreamed of goats. I discussed goats with anyone who would listen. I lectured my parents on the environmental benefits of raising animals for their dairy products. I explained to my parents about the cheese, and the milk, and the soap, and the cream. I dreamed about herding goats in the 16th century. I googled images of goats. I researched goat milk recipes. I created a binder of information about goats for my parents.

I frequently dreamed of goat herding contests. I won. I became Queen of the Goat Herdresses.

I continued to explain the benefits of goats to my parents. My parents said they would think about it.

I won't give up the dream. Do you have goats?! Tell me about your goats!!!!!! TELL ME YOU HAVE GOATS IN YOUR BACKYARD AND I CAN COME SEE THEM BY THURSDAY!!!!!

<3