I’m Just Laura

It’s time to close the book on a big old chapter of life, kids. On Wednesday, I turned in my last sheath of credit card receipts, tossed one more lovingly chiding comment to the chefs in the kitchen, gave a big juicy kiss on the lips to my regulars (metaphorically, people, no sexual harassment panda) and ambled on out the door and into the sunset (and by sunset I obviously mean hordes of bar patrons, embracing the final few days in Boulder without college students by getting drunk and acting like college students).

After one year and three months (almost exactly), I am no longer anyone’s friendly server, backwaiter, expediter, barback, or any other position in the front of the house of a restaurant. I do not work nights (sort of… shameless self pitch: read my restaurant reviews and blogposts here). I have weekends free.

My newfound freedom is terrifying. I’d entirely forgotten what it feels like to be part of a Friday night end-of-work-week shitshow, for example. Good thing it’s like riding a bike. This girl’s a fast re-learner.

You may recall that the past year has been marked with a number of decisions to get my shit together, having thoroughly scattered said shit to the wind after quitting my adult New York City consulting job to have some fun for awhile. But nothing says “clean up your act” like having a grown-up schedule and grown-up responsibilities, so my moment arrived, at last, last weekend. I tidied my room with an OCD eye, extracted the skis from my car that had been there since February, bought new furniture, got an oil change, bought a bedskirt, got a haircut and shaved my private parts. Don’t stop me now.

Lindsay also recently became a 9-to-5-er, so our apartment has undergone a transformation. The ugly carpets and cabinets may still exist, but real potted plants are supplanting fake ones, a dishrack supplanted a mangy towel, and most days, our house is tidy and kept. I should shed a tear for our dying childhood. Despite our best efforts to remain irresponsible and immature, we are becoming adults. Special.

We have a few items that are remnants of our carefree days of drinking until 4 am and sleeping until noon, though, and we’d like to auction them off as souvenirs. If you’re interested, please contact us with your best offer.

Exhibit A

Once upon a time, when we were but reckless youth, we liked to throw parties that carried the potential for shotgunning beers on the balcony. We’re not entirely certain how old this cluster of brewed beverages is— it likely pre-dates April–but you probably won’t perish if you drink one of these classy thirst-quenchers. I don’t know that I’d try to shotgun them, though. I’m no scientist, but I’d guess that Colorado’s spectrum of temperatures has some effect on carbonation that may result in hazardous conditions upon opening the can.

Exhibit B

Five months ago, our beloved roommate Paige moved out. We were very sad to see her go. She was very nice and very fun and she did a lot of the chores that Lindsay and I don’t like to do. Like take the recycling out. Before she moved, she insisted she was going to take our full tubs of plastic and glass down to the community recycling bins that exist a mere flight of steps away. We were adamant that she leave it. Really, it was my fault that it had piled up so high. I was the one who broke up with the boyfriend who used to take care of that particular duty. Still, we insisted that we would deal with the recycling. It is August. We still haven’t. We’ll probably institute some kind of bet or competition, loser gets to handle this mess, but fully recognizing that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, we’d like to offer it to you first.

Exhibit C

Let it be known that this garbage can of standing water is a vast improvement from the garbage can of half-empty keg that stood in its place from October 2009 – July 2010. However, with the nest of mosquitoes developing above this biohazard, the time has come to let our trusty capsule of fun go. If you can figure out how to get it out of our apartment without spilling a drop of water teeming with parasites on our floor, you can have it. Perhaps if you’re a composter this will serve a purpose (I don’t really know how composting works).

I have solved my sweaty armpit problem.

But before I get to that, I would like to thank all of you who suggested Botox as a potential solution. Upon hearing about that magical little fix, I figured I must have missed something in my female education, and I headed on down to Pharamaca, Boulder’s hippie pharmacy, in search of the stuff.

See, when you said Botox, I thought you were talking about a cream or powder or lotion chock full of botulism that I could spread across my pits on a daily basis, plugging my sweaty pores and allowing me to continue on with my post-pubescent life. I never dreamed that you actually meant the procedure, complete with needles and doctors and thousands of dollars.

So when I got to Pharmaca, I stood ashamedly in the deodorant aisle, perusing the natural products made by Tom’s and Organic Glen and Pangea, with nary a Botox cream in sight. Heart sinking, I became acutely aware that I was going to have to ask for help, further bruising my fragile ego by making the attractive lone-working male aware of my overactive glands.

I approached the counter while avoiding eye contact.

“Um, hi,” I whispered. “Um, do you have, um, botox?”

“WHAT?” yelled my attractive male helper. “WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?”

I refused to raise my voice. “Um, um, botox? For, um, the pits? The, um, the armpits?”

He was clearly confused. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Isn’t botox an injection?”

“Um, yeah, but I think it comes in cream form for people with sweaty armpits,” I said, blushing furiously, moisture pouring forth from aforementioned crevices.

“Yeah, I don’t know what you’re looking for. You can ask at the pharmacy, though.”

Which I did. Only to be informed that you people actually mean BOTOX INJECTIONS. What the hell? How is that a sustainable solution for my needs?

It’s coo, though, I’ve solved my problem. I needed deodorant one night because I forgot to bring it to a, um, sleepover party, and I knew my Degree extra-strength wasn’t going to make me smell like a super cute girl all night. Which was important, given all the, uh, hair braiding and pillow fighting I was about to do.

Anywho, I stopped by a real grocery store—as in King Soopers instead of Whole Foods, which is the only grocery store that exists in Boulder, CO—and I was delighted to find that this place still sold products full of aluminum alloys and processed chemicals and a number of other scientific innovations that will probably someday cause me to die an untimely and tragic death.

And lo and behold, Secret Clinical Strength Deodorant. Miraculous. I bought a tube instantly, and slicked on a layer so thick I practically needed a trowel to spread the stuff out.

And guess what? My armpits stayed totally dry through all the, uh, pillow fighting! And later at work, I kept lifting up my arm to show my co-workers my utter lack of a wet spot. The stuff’s like cement. It clogs up all my pores so well no flood will get through. Course, it also leaves weird white residue on everything, but whatev.

Bonus: I now like how my pits smell so much I can’t get my face out from underneath my arm.

Just got off the phone with MCI, who was investigating my phone number for a customer who was disputing its listing on her bill.

It was a little harrying, a man on the other side of the phone asking who owned the phone number, verifying my name about seven times and questioning me repeatedly as to whether or not I was the holder of the line.

“Who wants to know?” I finally asked, after I’d confirmed for the eighth time that my name was, in fact, Ms. Shunk.

“Ms. Shunk,” he said.

“WHAT? YES I’M MS. SHUNK,” I yelled exasperatedly.

“You’re Ms. Shunk?”

“YES THAT’S WHAT I KEEP SAYING.”

“Ms. Shunk wants to know,” he said, confusedly.

“WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. I’M MS. SHUNK! ME! LAURA SHUNK! YOU ARE TALKING TO MS. SHUNK!”

“Laura Shunk” turned out to be the kicker. My investigator was my mother, who didn’t recognize the long-distance New York based cell phone number I’ve held since July of 2008 on her bill.  Our shared last name was what was tripping the poor fellow up.

Hi. Did you miss me?

I’m sorry. Things are happening in my life.

1. I’m writing food and restaurants for Denver’s Westword on a fairly regular basis. It seems more prudent, then, to post all my silly thoughts on my edible obsession in a forum dedicated to that very subject instead of tossing them out to the universe on my mixed-subject blog.

2. I’m dating someone, and I’m trying hard not to scare him off (by, uh, divulging all of my thoughts on the situation on this here public platform) since I think he’s kind of rad. Perhaps, if I succeed in not scaring him off, I will soon be able to write about him. So, you know, you can look forward to that.

Unfortunately, the combination of those factors kind of takes away a couple of my main sources of material, at least temporarily.

Luckily, I’m still awkward Laura, despite some of my friends’ best attempts to crush that out of me, and so there’s a choice story or two lurking in the past few weeks that may turn into written passages. Like when I opened the sparkling Prosecco at a table and sprayed everyone in a five-foot radius with a glowing arch of foam. Or when I acted like a child playing Trivial Pursuit, ending the game by throwing all the cards on the floor in the middle of a crowded bar.

But for now, I’d like to comment on something more timely: Memorial Day Weekend.

When I was a kid, I remember waiting for Memorial Day Weekend with great anticipation. There was usually a barbecue or two to be had. The pool opened for the summer. And it signified the home stretch of school, occurring just a week before I’d be free to toss all my schoolbooks aside and play outside for three blissful months. Uh, by “play outside” I obviously mean, “participate in my library’s summer reading program” in which I would competitively try to devour more stories than any other small child in my neighborhood. I would win, too, because most kids were more interested in fun than fictional characters.

Now, I like Memorial Day Weekend for Sunday Funday, chock full of binge-eating and daytime drinking. I had a busy social schedule this holiday weekend, and I found myself trying to juggle a wealth of potential activities with a mélange of foci, ranging from diner fried chicken to home-brewed lavender mead. Reasoning that I hadn’t seen my Denver-based friends in quite some time (hey, it’s hard to leave the bubble), I chose to attend the two parties to which I’d been invited down south.

The first was a do-over of the housewarming at which I made a grand entrance with half a bottle of wine. I brought beer this time, did not slip on the ice, and spent a couple of delightful hours eating meatballs with a toothpick and dissecting every pro and con of Eric’s new smoker, in which he prepared a large quantity of pulled pork over charcoal-induced flame. I made small talk with a couple of people, heard a fascinating description of a hand injury that included two gay men and a cowboy hat, and enjoyed my lawn chair in the sun, complete with a cup holder for a cold beverage. Solid start.

The second barbecue in which I was a participant was located in a stressful place for me: the country. Recently, my old friend, Brian, marched down the aisle in his cap and gown after finishing 8 years of undergraduate work. Such an occasion called for celebration (and copious amounts of alcohol), and there was no better place to hold the event than on his parents’ property in the middle of nowhere on a day when everyone wanted to get blitzed.

Upon my arrival, I was handed a glass of high-alcohol homemade strawberry wine and asked to evaluate the mix of ingredients in a pitcher of mojitos. Nothing like starting fast. Brian’s brother had prepared a cornucopia of delicious snacks, including marinated mushrooms and a jicama and papaya salad, and I found myself noshing, again, and charming an onslaught of new friends with pithy comments and aptly-timed jokes.

All was going swimmingly until the entire crew of adults decided to play whiffle ball.

Whiffle ball may not be a sport to you, but it’s a sport to me, and not a single fiber of my entire holiday-weekend being wanted to be involved with an activity that involves swinging a giant plastic bat at a giant plastic ball. I was willing to be the photographer. I was willing to be the cheerleader. I was willing to ice down a bucket of beers for post-game drinking. I was not willing to run. I was not willing to swing a bat. I was not willing to stand in the middle of a field of thistle in my mini-skirt and flip-flops only to try to chase down or—worse yet—catch something.

Brian was not to be deterred, picking me second for his team, and it was quickly apparent to everyone that he’d made a mistake. Much like my college friends would tell me to go long during flag football, I was quickly relegated to deep right field. When our team was up to bat, I was the only member of the line-up to strike out. And halfway through inning one, I cut my foot on a sharp piece of grass.

Panic set in as I experienced a flashback to my awkward phase, when I’d hunch sullenly with my arms crossed, not talking to anyone, any time my friends were enjoying a rousing team sport.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I muttered, slinking off to the house as quietly as I could. And I remained in the empty kitchen, posted up at the counter alone, nursing my injury and my pride, until dusk had firmly settled over the land and disbanded the game.

I couldn’t get my social swerve back after that, what with my shame over being whiffle ball’s least valuable player, and so I made my way back up to Boulder instead of spending the night as I’d planned. I regretted that choice in the morning when I upsettingly woke to 8 am karaoke entertaining the 15,000 runners participating in another Memorial Day Weekend classic, the Boulder Bolder, just below my bedroom window.

I won’t say this weekend’s totally lost its luster. After all, I’m not running a 10K with everyone else in town. Next year, though, I’ll plan better, perhaps with my own social gathering, full of apertifs and free of athleticism.

Fact: I wait tables.

Fact: 90% of the time, I like my job. Not in the way that I want to do this forever because it’s my calling like my job, but like it better than a lot of other things I’ve done like my job. I get paid to socialize. And I get paid more when I socialize well. 90% of the time, I socialize well, reading my tables with ease and delivering a satisfactory experience that facilitates a good time and good tips.

90% of the time. The other 10% of the time, I’m having the kind of night that makes me want to ball up my fists and stand in the middle of the dining room and scream at the top of my lungs. 10% of the time, I’m enduring an 8 hour stretch that has me desiring a good session of throwing glassware at a brick wall. 10% of the time, I’m contemplating striking a match and letting the entire establishment burn to the ground.

Last night was one of those nights.

I was thrown off of my game early by a group of bubbly blondes. Given our $10 martini prices and heavily European wine list, we’re not the kind of bar that typically caters to Boulder’s sizeable college population. I wasn’t exactly expecting, then, the entire senior faction of Alpha Chi Omega to reserve our large table for a birthday party.

I smelled them before I saw them. The heavy cloud of intermingling expensive perfume wafting up the stairs announced their 5:30 arrival, and then they emerged: straight crispy hair, orange skin, white teeth, and cleavage strapped into tight white shirts with strategically placed ruffles and lace.

“I hear if they explode they leave glitter and Diet Coke in their wake,” a co-worker whispered to me. The backwaiter was hovering. The kitchen staff offered tours. I handed our bartender a fresh bottle of Smirnoff and took stock of the lemons and limes. They were Boulder’s fabulous freshly 21-year-olds, and they were all mine.

Plastering on my shiniest smile and flipping my hair a few times to “empathize,” I interrupted discussions of which girl was the most “naturally smart” of the bunch (I thought about suggesting an inverse correlation to natural hue, be it skin tone or hair color, but I thought better of it) to round up a drink order (11 vodka sodas with limes, 3 with lemons) and dinner requests (the vegetables and hummus were the most popular, the lardo pizza the least).

In the end, though, they were the least of my worries, content to blather on without attention unless they required more alcohol. They weren’t eaters, so after every girl passed on a course two and then dessert, they were splitting their auto-gratted check 14 ways and ducking out for the rest of their night, which I expected would include young men with spiked hair and tight abs and a dramatic fight or two.

In the meantime, a couple of tables away, I had a different kind of gaggle of girls, this one comprised of brunettes wearing sweater sets and orange lipstick. One of them was incredibly confused about the concept of the wine flight. Is it 3 wines mixed in one glass? Or 3 3 oz. glasses of the same wine? Why wouldn’t we just pour 9 oz. of wine in one glass? The entire conversation was upsetting her, and she ended up ordering the wrong thing, sighing in surrender, plus a basket of that “bread stuff” (bread, actually).

As I navigated the confusing world of women, feeling like a masculine amazon amidst the feminine qualities that comprise the elusive mystique of girlishness, I found myself picking up some of the ladies’ traits on my table of old school businessmen. Brain filled with the vodka soda lime or lemon dilemma, I nailed the Balvenie one rock order, but butchered the man’s man’s Ketel One tonic with an orange request, serving instead Ketel One and soda with a lime (apparently my mind is not complex enough to grasp twists on classics). Luckily, their brains were equally addled by the cloud of scent that hung over the restaurant like a dense fog, so they spent a few moments winking in commiseration before tucking quietly into the garlic fries and calamari.

I couldn’t quite recover after a start like that. I’d been reduced to my elemental human form, romancing some tables and alienating others with the brutally honest inner personality that, like a phoenix, was trying to rise from the ashes. I was off, and I was comping a lot of desserts to make up for it.

Service is an art.  Unfortunately, last night, I was a cheap Mac photobooth imitation of Andy Warhol.

“We go under.”

I was staring at a locked door, expecting Tal to relinquish a key and remove the barrier that was the only thing separating me from a hidden greenhouse. No such luck, but there was a small gap between the bottom of the door and the ground, just large enough to allow an adult to army crawl on their belly into the inner cavern. It was raining and muddy, but all I could think about was produce. If I wanted the goods, I was going to have to get dirty.

I’m an exceptionally tall human and not particularly good at contorting my body in a nimble way that allows me to adeptly maneuver within small spaces. I hit my back a couple of times, giggling nervously as I struggled through the opening, and I emerged in a room full of disorganized garden tools and scattered seeds. Tal’s bag slid underneath the door, and then he was pulling himself through the space slightly more gracefully. He’d obviously done this before.

We still weren’t where I wanted to be, blocked by yet another door. Luckily, that door was opened by a code and required no further flexibility to overcome. As I brushed the dirt from my pants and hands, he opened the threshold and beckoned me forward.

Tal and I had bonded over a love for food, but we came at it from different perspectives: mine was meal bolstered by process, his was process bolstered by meal. Foaming-at-the-mouth Michael Pollan fanatic that I am, the sources mean less to me if dinner tastes like crap. Tal, on the other hand, couldn’t even get into dinner if he hadn’t been intimately connected to each part of the creation, ideally from planting to consumption. My happy place is New York City, where great restaurants are inexhaustible; Tal’s is a vast open garden of produce.

We met in the middle at the greenhouse.

After bouncing around the Boulder Farmers’ Market during an early Saturday morning in the season, Tal had casually mentioned his access to a wealth of edible plant life to supplement our purchases of eggs and mushrooms. I’d had a strong nostalgic moment, remembering lazy afternoons of munching on the strawberries plucked from my mother’s backyard garden, and fixated on gaining admittance to the secret spot. Excited about my newfound interest in playing in the dirt, my friend obliged, and that brought us to the greenhouse door. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that grazing, rather than admiration of photosynthetic processes, constituted my ultimate motivation.

The greenhouse inhabited a small space, not much bigger than a walk-in closet, but it was teeming with life. Tal was an excellent guide, pointing out the mint, basil, and arugula, and showing me where beans and tomatoes would soon blossom. He focused on filling a tray with goods to take home while I posted up on a wooden planter, chewing leaves that I pulled from within and using the camera on my phone to take pictures of vibrant purple flowers. Tiny slugs were snacking on the same food, gliding across the greenery slowly, leaving a trail of slime in their wake. I’m not the biggest fan of insects, so I tried not to look at them too much, unless I had to flick one aside to avoid swallowing it.

Once I’d had my fill of arugula, I moved on to chocolate mint, noshing on the leathery plants and thinking about the various ways I’d incorporate it into dessert (hi, homemade ice cream… hello, cupcake). In the end, though, I have to admit that I was fairly content to sit and eat it straight, no processing or sugar necessary.

Despite my desire to hear his wisdom on the function behind the form, Tal and I didn’t speak much in the greenhouse, choosing instead to confine ourselves in our own experiences. I’ve no doubt that he was thinking about soil type, climate, and how to make the systems better while relishing what the earth had produced, hording it and saving it for future consumption. I was content to lie there and eat, marveling at flavor, staring at the environment without questioning why it worked. The greenhouse had afforded us both a happy place, a food geekdom that satisfied both types of chow nerdiness.

True to form, when we crawled back under the door, Tal had an armful of lettuce, and I was full but empty-handed. My brain was racing, contemplating the opportunities an urban garden affords a restaurant or a cook: a salad comprised of elements lightly dressed, flashed crisp green beans, carrots picked and roasted to order. There’s no denying that produce that hasn’t spent time in a refrigerator simply tastes better, and that’s something in which I want to partake, ergo uber-local sourcing for menu creation is a concept I could get behind, though I’ll likely never plant my own window box garden.

There’s also a special kind of simple pleasure tied to the instant gratification of eating things straight from the ground. My greenhouse lunch was a deviation from what I usually pursue for sustenance, but on that rainy afternoon, there was nothing I would have preferred.

Meal meets process. Delightful.

Lindsay’s home after a two-week world tour.

This is good news for a lot of reasons. She’s one of my closest friends in Boulder. She has pithy insight on life. She cleans the kitchen on a regular basis.

I’m also super excited that I no longer have to take care of her plants.

When Lindsay skipped off to Argentina and Israel, she left me with one responsibility: I was to water her plants thrice, on the days marked on the kitchen calendar, plus or minus 24 hours. She made me put those dates in my phone. And she made it clear that she was fairly confident that her plants were going to die.

That was probably fair. I’m not good at the whole caring-for-living-things game. When I was a kid, my parents stopped letting me get hamsters because I’d never remember to clean the cage. My New York City roommates would send our cat to other peoples’ houses if I was going to be the only resident in town for a weekend. I once had a fish that committed suicide. And I’ve even killed bamboo. That takes some focused inattention.

I don’t like to let things die, so I choose not to keep living things in my home, filling the space that should be occupied by greenery and caged creatures with books or art or decorative kitchen utensils. This keeps my life full and my responsibilities empty.

Until other people trust me with their living things, and I have to overcompensate for my neglectful nature by obsessing over keeping those things alive. Ergo, Lindsay’s plants have been an epic source of stress in my life for the past 14 days.

When I soberly took on this momentous responsibility, I was determined to show my roommate that I am, in fact, a responsible adult by making sure her plants not only lived, but also flourished. I was steeled to make my home ideal for photosynthetic activities. I was ready to pour water and love into those little pots of dirt.

For the past 14 days, I’ve been watching those little green sources of life like a hawk. I’ve been checking their habitats for moisture with a gentle finger. I’ve been forgoing social activities to spend time with them. I’ve been whispering sweet nothings to their stalks, encouraging them to fulfill their potential as vibrant members of the ecosystem.

And then one morning, I noticed that one of them was turning a sickly shade of yellow. Not good.

I panicked and started frantically perusing websites and blogs of better gardeners to find a magical solution to turn the leaf back to green. Water wasn’t the problem; I’d been following Lindsay’s schedule to the minute. And given that this was a common houseplant, light didn’t seem to be the issue either. I’m not sophisticated enough to understand other causes of vegetal death, so after a frenzied 45 minutes, I was reduced to wallowing, berating myself for failing at my easy task and accepting the certainty that Lindsay would de-friend me for my inability to follow through on caring for her special flora.

Since that morning, it was just about keeping the little guy alive long enough for Lindsay to come home and fix the problem. I did an okay job. Besides the yellow leaf, the plants are, in fact, flourishing.

She’s home now. It’s a big weight off the old shoulders. And she wasn’t really that concerned with the yellow leaf, but maybe that’s because there was a plant that lives in a hidden corner of the living room that I forgot entirely:

The good news is I think he’s still gonna pull through. Apparently, houseplants are incredibly resilient.

And given my record, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

In my online dating profile, I jest that I’m comfortable with allowing any member of the OKCupid community to judge me by my iTunes library.

That is a filthy lie.

In principle, I don’t take issue with my taste. I happen to own the fact that both Mariah Carey and MGMT have a place in my rotation. I’m okay with the idea that my volumes of Bob Dylan tunes are supplemented by the entire oeuvre of Lady Gaga. I don’t need to hide the showtunes that have crept in amongst socially respectable obscure folk. And I get no small pleasure from secretly listening to the shiny vocals of Leona Lewis in some Fair Trade coffee shop while wearing all black and typing furiously on my macbook.

Loud and proud as I am about my massive collection of guilty pleasures, though, that confidence goes right out the window when I’m charged with using my playlists for a party, road trip, or other background noise occasion. Of all the stressful situations I encounter on a semi-regular basis, this one may be the worst.

Take, for instance, a romantic dinner date. I’ve made a perfectly creamy risotto. I’ve selected a well-matched Chablis. I’ve properly placed the tea lights around the dining room. I’ve crafted a playlist of sexy hits. And then, inexplicably, Whitney Houston is regaling us with “I Will Always Love You.” Bad times.

Let’s examine a party. People are laughing and having a good time to an eclectic mix of pop, rock, and rap, and then Meredith Brooks “Bitch” pops into rotation, causing the entire crowd to pause and look at me quizzically until I can run to the other side of the room and push fast forward.  Stressful.

And then there are those rare occasions where I’m shuffling the entire collection because I think I’m shrouded in privacy, and a surprise visitor pops in just as some cheesy instrumental of an Andrew Lloyd Webber masterpiece makes its appearance amidst the volumes of Ryan Adams that had been playing up until that point. Russian Roulette, that. Not fair.

As such, when it’s my music collection gracing the stereo system, I can’t relax. I can’t hold normal conversation. I’m just sitting there, one ear on the happenings surrounding me and one ear on the speaker, ready to pounce like a mountain lion on the control should I need to deal with an embarrassing situation. And I have a compulsive need to ask for validation at the start of each song: “Do you like this song? Should I fast forward? Do you think it’s inappropriate for the moment?”

I realize no one cares as much as me in these scenarios, and for that reason, I’ll relinquish the control of the soundtrack to my much more musically intelligent friends any day of the week. Hey, I’ll bring the food and booze, you bring the ambience. Sounds like a good deal.

I’d like to note that while I crafted this entry, Sarah McLachlan was Building a Mystery and R. Kelly was breaking off a little piece of the remix. No big deal.

Here’s a quick life update for those of you who care (anyone? world?):  After deciding to forgo law school in pursuit of the written word, I was waitlisted by Harvard.  Apparently, my rude email and brash personal statement were not enough to actually get me denied from America’s favorite ivory tower.  Apparently, Harvard likes a girl who talks dirty.  Touche.

In the name of keeping everyone abreast of the events of my life, below is the actual Letter of Continued Intent I’m sending to this hallowed institution.  I can’t wait for the forthcoming comments from the haters on this one.

What a funny run we’ve had, Harvard.

Just over 6 months ago, I wasn’t even planning on applying to matriculate with your class of 2013. Smart as I think I am, my scores just weren’t there, resting, tauntingly, at the 95^th percentile. Good enough for a top 10, perhaps, but certainly not for Cambridge.

Then, one day, I received a recruiting email from your Dean of Admissions. What luck! I thought. They see potential! A closer read, though, suggested that perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you were just preying on the insecurities of all Harvard-hopefuls with my stats so as to keep your exclusivity up and your endowment stable.

I was not to be made a fool, so I lashed back. I called you out on your impersonal flirtation. I wanted you to know that I wasn’t just some pretty girl in a low-cut shirt at the bar, willing to throw myself at you only to be disposed of in the morning. I was different. I wanted to be treated with respect.

And then you surprised me, Harvard. You responded. You gave me a kind word and a loving embrace. That was impressive. Maybe there is more than the good looks and cool demeanor, I thought. So I decided to give you a chance. Skeptically, I decided to apply.

You know what’s happened since then, Harvard? You’ve rumbled on unassumingly, and I couldn’t help but notice you. First there were a couple of articles from your business school that validated my viewpoints on the current economic crisis. Then there was a visit to your campus, where I felt warm and snuggly on your tree-lined paths. And just a few weeks ago, I read about the undergraduate course you’re planning on offering, bringing together some of the greatest chefs in the world to talk food science in one of your physics labs. I read that and thought to myself, now there’s an institution with which I want to be associated. There’s a school that knows what’s what.

That’s when it dawned on me: beneath that cold ivory exterior, there is something beautiful afoot. There’s something I want to know; something I want to regale with sappy love letters and flowery descriptions. At that precise moment, I just couldn’t help falling in love with you.

I’ve been just sick about it, Harvard. I’d already decided to defer law school for a year, pursuing instead managing marketing for a start-up nonprofit and, well, writing (mostly food and restaurants in the greater Denver area). But when you waitlisted me, you gave me a glimmer of hope. You gave me a vision of life beneath your romantic canopy. Perhaps my love does, in fact, love me, too, but is waiting for me to prostrate at his feet. Well, here I am, Harvard. I’m prostrating. And I’m willing to offer my services, painting you in the most beautiful of lights for my blog or yours, pitching press coverage to any publication you’d like, in exchange for three years in your company. Perhaps even a best-seller on our relationship is in our mutual future.

We’ve really had a storied relationship, Harvard. I scoffed at your advances, took notice, fell in love, was waitlisted by your esteemed committee, and now… you’re the only school I would attend.

Is this fate, my beloved scarlet society? Or merely another tease?

Only time will tell. If our love is indeed mutual, I’ll see you in the fall. If not, well, we’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.

With warm regards,

Laura Elizabeth Shunk, future esq. (?)

I knew of my friend Molly before I met her. Last October, as I was debating whether to switch places of work, forgoing fine dining for a wine bar, she was listed as one of the top five reasons to make the move. I bit the bullet and made the switch, and she now constitutes one of the top five reasons I like my job.

Curly red hair barely contained, she’s oft posted up behind the bar, shaking martinis and sliding beers to patrons with disarming directness. Her style of service is not so much elegance as it is making brusque comments that can’t help but be charming in their blatant honesty.

I know people come to my place of work just for her, and my friend crush would have been no smaller had she merely scoffed at my martini of choice while I was patronizing the place. But what makes her even more delightful is the Molly behind the scenes, where she divulges the secrets of her soul in a similarly terse manner, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to do. She doesn’t mince words, and she doesn’t hide her feelings. As such, she’s one of my favorite people in life, and she’s been the sounding board and inspiration behind a lot of the posts on this here blog.

It took me awhile to bestow myself in Molly’s good graces. I asked her to go to lunch several times, to which she’d respond that she already has too many friends. Now that I’ve slipped into one of the coveted spots of company she enjoys, I do everything I can to stay there.

For instance, this week, Molly is quitting smoking, and I’ve decided to give something up in solidarity. I’m not the only one. I’ve noticed outpouring of support, in the form of care packages and words of encouragement, from a lot of her fans.

For my own sacrifice, I suggested caffeine, more than two glasses of wine in one sitting, or things that are both savory and creamy. Because she makes me work for her love, she demanded that instead, I go without referring to myself as awkward for an entire week. Seriously.

Awkward is my calling card. It constitutes 90% of my humor. It’s my bread and butter. It’s the way I relate to and interact with the world. Accept this challenge, and I will not say anything witty (or maybe anything at all) for an entire week. Agree to this sacrifice, and I will have to carry myself with confidence and grace instead. Show support, and I will spend a week without my shield of self-effacing humor.

Only Molly could pick something so on par with the pain of quitting smoking. Dis gon be hard.  But in the name of her lungs and in preservation of her requited love, I’m going forward.  And if you know her, I think you should support her, too.