This morning in the shower I wrote a poem about being a linguist. I am not a linguist, but this is what would happen if I were one.
___________________
If I were a linguist
who uses her tongue freely,
I would be cunning and write a poem about
driving a lexis
and wearing a diphthong.
There’d be something in there about synnning
and taxes and that’s why
I’d be awkward and have no friends
if I were a linguist,
so I wouldn’t be much different from who I am now,
if I were a linguist.
Some of you have asked for a preview of my collection of stories. It is not finalized, and I may not even include this one, but feedback is more than welcome. Let me know what you think.
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About four years ago I began seeing a guy named Kevin. He was younger than I was, which was a change of pace from my usual interest in older men. He had a “top secret government job,” which I thought sounded sexy and mysterious.
Kevin and I had a lot of fun together. I liked his preppy style. He was a typical party guy who loved drinking and socializing, which was perfect because I also happen to enjoy drinking and socializing.
Our first date was to a really fun bar in the city on a hot Tuesday night. It was a perfect date, really, even if we did get a bit too tipsy. He was tall and I loved his cute nose sunburn, and the way he looked into my eyes when he bent down and tucked my hair behind my ear before he kissed me.
I have to admit that I am such a sucker for a hot date on a summer night with some cold drinks. Who isn’t?
When it was over he dropped me off at my house and said he would call me the next day. When he did, he invited me to meet his parents out on Friday for happy hour, and then he and I would go out afterward. It sounded fun.
That Friday I wore a pretty blue dress my mom had bought me for “something special.” I was excited, and I’ll admit a bit nervous to meet his parents on only our second date.
Kevin picked me up and we met them at a bar on the water in Fells Point, a really cute area in Baltimore City. His parents, Phil and Viv, easily were two of the nicest, most fun people I have ever met. They were young, hip and everything I could have wanted on a date with parents…until his mother took out a nail file.
It could have been the effect of the beer, but I swear to you that I watched in slow motion as his mother reached over to her son and began filing his nails. My jaw dropped.
“He doesn’t keep up with his nails very well, does he?” she commented.
“Err, I hadn’t noticed,” I replied.
“Well, he doesn’t. He’s not very good with his room, either. You’ll have to push him to clean.”
The whole thing lasted only about three minutes, but I am telling you that it was such an odd moment that I couldn’t help but comment on it later. “Kev, does your mom always file your nails like that?”
“Yeah, she does, she’s kind of a control freak.”
I kind of wish I had run at that moment, but do you think we should we really judge people immediately about things like that? He was younger than me, after all. Maybe he was just a bit immature, or maybe I was just making up excuses. I didn’t know, I was just glad it was over.
He and I went to another bar and got food and more beers and somehow we thought it would be fun to make a bet that for every beer I drank, he could drink two in the same amount of time. It turned out that he could, but as you can imagine after my four pints and his eight, I ended up drunk and he ended up extremely drunk. We kept laughing and enjoying ourselves, though. He was such a fun guy to be around!
Afterward, we decided to walk back to his house, hand in well-manicured hand. He lived about seven blocks from where we were and at block three he started picking up the pace.
“Why are we rushing?” I inquired, doubling my step to keep up.
“Sorry, I have to use the bathroom.” My roommates are out, so when we get inside just make yourself at”…and then, my friends, he pooped his pants.
Right then and there, Kevin farted and pooped his pants.
I got a cab home.
We never talked again.
I love reading creative posts and catching a glimpse of what’s inside the imaginations of other bloggers. My imagination gets wild and crazy and I can think of a few childhood experiences that certainly played a major role in that development.
One example is my love for the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story.
Cue majestic music, bitches:
When I was a kid, I made my parents rent that movie every weekend for approximately two years. Something about it truly grabbed my imagination and expanded La La Land into a vast empire where I am still a beautiful empress with a British accent. I also blame it for giving me imaginary friends (a mermaid and a turtle) that lived in the sewer.*
At night I made up related stories while curled up on the floor in my Care Bears sleeping bag. In my head, I WAS The Childlike Empress and I lived in an ivory tower made of glorious light. I imagined (still imagine, just kidding, kind of) someday walking down the aisle wearing her headpiece:
But with real pearls. Image from Etsy.
Except back then I was jonesin’ for some Atreyu:
Atreyu sporting the Auryn. Image from Google.
Is there something from your childhood that you associate with the development of your imagination? Do you still make up stories in your head as you fall asleep? Have you ever put someone’s baby on a dog and pretended he was riding Falcor? No? Oh. I guess I haven’t either, then. That would be a weird thing to do.
Also, this is the song from the movie. Look at this guy. Just look at him…and there upon a rainbow is the answer to a never-ending story.
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* My imaginary friends and I are no longer in contact.
While Nikki Finke, Editor in Chief of Deadline Hollywood, was watching the Emmys’, she wrote:
“Beautiful actresses are not funny. They don’t know how to do comedy…Only women who grew up ugly and stayed ugly, or through plastic surgery became beautiful, can pull off sitcoms or standups. Bowen isn’t a comedienne just like Brooke Shields wasn’t and a zillion more. Because it’s all about emotional pain and humiliation and rising above both by making people laugh with you instead of at you. So stop casting beautiful actresses when you should be giving ugly women a chance.”
It reminded me of an article I read in Vanity Fair by the late Christopher Hitchens. He explained that attractive women don’t need to be funny to get attention from men, that women in general aren’t childish (crude) enough to be funny and that the rare female comedians who are funny are normally “hefty or dykey or jewish” (oh my).
There are other opinions out there suggesting women in general aren’t funny.
So, can attractive women be funny? Can women in general be funny people?
Nope. You’re right, Nikki Finke and ghost of Christopher Hitchens (who quoted the 1911 poem “The Female of the Species” by Rudyard Kipling, which says women deal with the seriousness of motherhood and have no time for jest). I guess we can all agree because we all have the same views on what it means to be “beautiful” and/or “funny,” despite the variety of both female characteristics and types of humor that exist.
I really just can’t think of any funny, pretty women on TV and my lovely lady friends/the beautiful female bloggers are certainly all dull.
And yikes, Kristin Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Tina Fey never get me to even crack a smile:
Photo by Annie Leibowitz, Vanity Fair
Anyway, I’m off to make some sort of stew and have a baby or something. If readers have any examples of funny, attractive women, please share.
No? You don’t? Didn’t think so.
Last night, as I sat down to relax after my long work day, I was startled by a man right outside my window singing at the top of his lungs, “I wanna know what love is, I want you to shoooow me!”
I hoped and prayed that he was drunk and/or had the wrong house. I peered through the blinds, but it was dark and I couldn’t quite make out his face. He continued singing, “I wanna feel what love is, I know you can shoooow me!!”
I opened the window and shouted down to him, “Do I know you?!”
“Yeah! It’s me!” he yelled back. I squinted, but still couldn’t see him.
Just then, the woman across the street opened her window and screamed, “I’m over here, jackass!”
Giggling, I shut the window and watched him turn and stumble across the street. I went back to relaxing and waited patiently for Christopher to get home from work so I could tell him the story and secretly I hoped we would then have a Foreigner sing-along. We did.
Oh please, don’t look at me like that. Everyone loves a power ballad. Which is your favorite? I wanna know, I wanna know, I wanna knnooooowww…
I want to hug you
on Bahia Honda beach or
in Baltimore on an autumn afternoon.
We can hug in Central Park,
or on the glass skywalk
over the Grand Canyon.
It frightens us both,
but I want to hug you there
in snow or spring
or on state lines so
we can be in two places at once,
or four if we’re running west.
I have this feeling,
together we can do anything
and wherever we go,
I want to hug you there.
This week I learned that I, just like you, should be my own creative self. Lauren + La La = me, and I’m down with that. Thanks for playing along! Oh, and I found out just how much you people love couscous and graveyards (weirdos).
I also learned a lot about delivery and word choice. Here’s an stretch of an example from this morning that has nothing to do with blogging:
I was on the phone with my gentleman friend and we were discussing how I have nothing boring to say in today’s post. I didn’t have anything exciting to say either. When we hung up, I got out of my car and began my trek into work from the parking garage where they finally gave me a space last year (it only took three years).
Having a spot is a huge upgrade from when I to had to park in a west Baltimore neighborhood. I wore my running shoes every day and ran because it isn’t exactly the nicest neighborhood in town. A friend of mine was robbed by a bunch of girls when he parked there.
Anyway, I was walking in this morning and there was a man in the alley between the parking garage and my building. I have seen him creepily lurking around before.
As I walked by I heard him say, “Girl, you look like you got money.”
“Joke’s on him,” I thought, “I’m broke.”
And then he began following me, so I walked faster.
“WAIT! Come here!” he yelled at me. I walked even faster.
He kept following. I got out my mace just in case (and despite being frightened, I was a poet and didn’t know it). He followed me up to the front door of the building and he said,
“I meant to say you look like a million dollars and that ass is a dime-piece.”
“Oh. Thank you!” I replied, and joyfully bounded into the building.
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Just like that, the atmosphere changed from “rob and rape” to “early morning compliment of a gal’s dime-piece.” Perhaps we should keep our own delivery and word choice in mind when we post and give feedback. It sounds obvious, but it’s worth considering. Also, don’t follow anyone down an alley. That’s just dumb. You can follow my blog, though, that’s fine.
I will be out this coming week for business. I will try to comment when I can. Fun things are happening soon. See you next Monday!
This was once the view from my workplace:
London
This is now the view from my workplace:
Graveyard
Coming back to Baltimore was a sensible choice and editing science could be rewarding. Someday. Today I am editing a grant about the capacity for Env to differentiate naïve CD4 T cells into the T follicular helper phenotype. I must be sort of tired or something because my eyes keep crossing.
I work with an international group of people like I did in London, although I suppose now it’s just mostly old Chinese men and one old Russian guy.
Oh…and I guess there’s this one guy from Wisconsin named Glen who stares at me in the elevator. He has a bowl cut.
They may not give me credit for the things I do here, but it’s only a 12 minute drive from my house. Sometimes 14 minutes. Speaking of, I’m looking forward to getting home tonight because I’m having couscous again for dinner. Neat.
Looks like a rat has made a nest on my front porch. It’s pretty much the size of a Chihuahua. I saw it eating a bagel. My diet only allows those 100 calorie bagel thins. Must be nice.
Anyway, I guess the rat is here to stay. I’ve swept its poop off the stoop on Saturdays and Wednesdays for at least a month now.
Lunch time. I brought yogurt. Got to make sure my body looks like skin and bones for next summer in case I get to go to the beach or something.
– Lauren
PS – Oh my gosh, I almost forgot tomorrow is trash day. That was a close call.
I have written as La La for over a year. It’s fun. Not including those close to me, approximately 600 of you followed this blog for some reason or another (a kiss on each of your cheeks).
Recently, I was told to be more sensible and change the content of this blog. I would like to remind anyone with concerns, that 600+ readers aren’t here to read about another boring, single, twentysomething white girl named Lauren who can’t afford cable and hates her dull job.
La La is a silly, flirty, smart, observant, independent young woman who jokes around with everyone and happens to have bright rays of love and hopefulness flying out of her somewhat clumsy butt. People from all over the world have fallen for her (even a couple of ladies) and I have received many kind emails with flattering feedback.
Maybe I am La La, or perhaps I am nothing like her. Maybe I am both people. It’s even possible that I was once one person and now I am the other. Regardless, which girl would you prefer to read about?:
1. On Saturday night, Lauren ate a veggie dog on a whole wheat bun and fell asleep on the couch around 10 pm.
OR
2. On Saturday night, La La went out with her friends, took five shots of tequila and woke up on the kitchen floor with some guy’s number written in lipstick on her arm. She vaguely remembers his gorgeous smile. Should she call him?
Who grabs you? Does it matter which scenario is a true story?
If you believe I should change La La, then you’re missing the humor and hope of this blog. Normally I would say viva la La La (or something) and write whatever I want,
but instead I will send La La on vacation through Friday and give you a “thrilling” peek at some of Lauren’s trials and tribulations.
Enjoy.
Dog lover. Storyteller. Urbanite-Suburbanite. Poet. Music addict. Editor. Explorer. Wine enthusiast (Malbec, please). Anglophile. People watcher. My dream job? Writer, or a Tom Jones back up singer. Well, not Tom Jones now, but Tom Jones in the early '70s...so let's go with the writing thing.
tales of a charm city chick 