Places I've Lived

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).

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.

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.

Oh, faithful readers. I love you so so much, especially when you think I’m funny or when I want to bitch about something. And right now, I want to bitch about something. I need to tell someone, my loves, and you are the perfect people.

I am having a particular kind of week. I am having the kind of week that makes me want to throw all of my valuables into my Audi “impulse purchase” A4 and drive 2000 miles away from Boulder to a place where I know absolutely no one and, thus, can stop having the kind of week that I’m having. I will reinvent myself and dress only in classy black clothes so as to emanate an air of mystery, sitting alone in coffee shops penning poetry and tending to my herd of cats. And I will never grow my social network to what it has become in Boulder.

Let’s begin with Valentine’s Day. You may recall that I went into Valentine’s Day feeling absolutely fine. I had no broken heart, no unrequited love of which to speak, no ill feelings other than the general squeamishness I have for kitsch on any holiday. I had a delightful single people brunch that was much more 10 people making jokes and drinking mimosas than 10 people lamenting their solitude and taking shots. I had a night at work that made me feel good about my ability to do my job.

And then my “ex” came in to my place of work to have a drink. And by “ex” I mean subject of the blog entry titled “Pathetic.” And by “came in to have a drink” I mean brought the girl he’s dating who I KNOW FROM HIGH SCHOOL. So what did I do? Naturally, I engaged in an “OH MY GOD HOW ARE YOU I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN SO LONG” kind of conversation, didn’t make eye contact with him even one time, and then sidled on up to the bar to have a drink or 5 with a couple of the regulars, 1 of whom is the kind of person who shouldn’t intrigue me but does.

After several minutes of slightly awkward conversation that I couldn’t comfortably settle into because of my ugly work shoes, my roommate thankfully showed up to haul me off to some stupid anti-Valentine’s Day party where we drank ¼ of an unsatisfying IPA before bailing. As the night was continuing to slip downhill, we headed home, only to find ourselves binge-eating sweets and filling out the ENTIRE eHarmony questionnaire TOGETHER for ME. WHY? WHY? Well, because someone I know was recently successful on the site, and I wanted to see who eHarmony matched me up with. So after a resentful hour of filling out 9 million questions about things that are important to me, my matches FINALLY popped up. Guess who was number 1? The regular who I shouldn’t be intrigued by but am. Fuck you, eHarmony. I deleted my account immediately. What a waste.

And then there was tonight. Do you remember the Super Bad online first date? Here, allow me to refresh your memory. Sadly, the super bad online first date blog post is not the end of that storied tale. You may have noticed I’ve become a little gun shy in my recent posts on this forum. That’s because my super bad online first date FOUND the super bad online first date entry and wrote me hate mail. Heart-wrenching hate mail. And it made me feel like a really, really, really bad person. Here I am, writing things I like to write to make other people in the world laugh at my misfortune, and I’m ruining lives. I’m making it so some young man will never date again. I’m responsible for the crushing fall of some guy just trying to make it in the world. I am a bad person.

In that entry, I noted that the last person I want to see on an online first date is a current or former fling or a guy that I think is cute and want to think I’m cool. Guess who the last person I NOW want to see on an online first date is? Oh, probably the guy that hates my guts because I talked all about our super bad online first date to the whole entire universe. Probably the guy that has every incentive in the world to make any future online date in which he sees me taking part as miserable as he possibly can. I think you know where this is going.

Maybe it’s my fault. After weeks of technological exchange with an interesting young man, I agreed to return to the scene of the incompatibility crime for a cup of coffee. It was a good set up. He had some writing to do, I had some writing to do, we thought it might be nice to spend the first hour of our real life acquaintance in complete and utter silence crafting things in the written word.

I arrived early, so as to spend a few minutes typing hastily on my laptop over a large chai tea and noted that the band was pretty good. Win. And then I looked closer at the MEMBERS of the band. Who’s playing the drums? “HI MY NAME IS —-.” Yep. Yep. Our eyes met for a few horrifically awkward seconds and the panic attack started. What was I going to do? Stand firm? Lie in the bed I’d made? Pretend it wasn’t awkward? Hell no. I gulped down my large chai, effectively burning my throat and esophagus, and began the frustrating quest for another coffee house that’s open late.

This town is too small. Get me out of here.

For me, the biggest source of stress this holiday season is coming not from family or friends, or the airport check-in lines, or even the icy roads. It’s coming from Whole Foods.

I am proudly a Whole Foods shopper (at least when I’m not being a proud farmers’ market shopper). I drank the (all-natural organic) Kool-Aid long ago, deciding that rather than ingest chemical processing and pollute, I’d like to save the earth and my soul, one free-range chicken at a time. I like to wander the aisles, stocking up on $25/lb bulk goods and cookies made with just whole wheat flour, agave, and love. I toss a package or two of fair trade coffee into my cart, tapping my foot to the sounds of vocal jazz, while smiling at the little munchkin clothed in hemp, playing with a Sigg water bottle plastered with stickers cleverly using the signs of all major religions to suggest that we “coexist.” I make my way to the Whole Body aisle to purchase $39 soap and toilet paper. And I build lunches, dinners, and the occasional breakfast from the prepared foods section, perching haughtily in my ivory wholesome food tower above my more frugal co-workers who opt for the likes of McDonalds and frozen burritos.

I’ve embodied it. Whole Foods is engrained in my identity, and there’s no escaping it. It has infiltrated my family. We’re card-carrying (and by that I obviously mean reusable cloth bag-carrying) members of the middle class white person tribe. Our conversations about Christmas cover which charity we’re supporting with each gift, what community service we’ve done since we last gathered, what fair trade coffee shop is open on Christmas morning, and what Whole Foods sides will be present on our table of feasting come Christmas Eve.

My point is that I spend a lot of time in this store because it’s normally a pretty pleasant experience that fills my post-yoga soul with a strange love for humanity and desire to hug my global brothers and sisters. I try to go at least 5 times a week to make sure it remains part of my personal brand. But this holiday season, the campaign to feed a family is really throwing me off my game.

Now, I’m not really a bad person. In fact, I think I’m a generally pretty okay person. And if not, I’m a person who believes in karma, so I like to act accordingly. If you’ve been reading this blog since last year, you know that I really like to bank karma during the holiday season because it’s so easy. So the first time I was asked by the Whole Foods cashier if I’d like to pay to feed a family, my answer was, emphatically, “Yes. Yes! I would like to shell out an extra $10 so the impoverished people up the street can eat Whole Foods for lunch! Everyone should have access to cage free eggs! Merry Christmas! And a very happy New Year!” And then I went on my self-righteous way, happy to be bringing sustainable food culture to a whole new demographic of society.

Here’s the problem. This campaign started right after Thanksgiving. By my calculations, that means I’ve been asked if I’d like to feed a family at least 20 times. All of a sudden, my reactions are less emphatic. “Um, well, I already did that, you know, like, yesterday soooo….” And then the cashier and I stand there, looking at each other passively, trying to pretend like we’re still experiencing the brother/sisterhood of humanity and that this interaction is not awkward and that we still love human beings.

I know what that cashier is thinking. They’re thinking, “What, this middle class white person is buying a $13 grilled cheese sandwich but they can’t afford to give $5 so some poor people can eat? Who are they kidding? They think they’re getting away with this? This is why the world is going down the drain. This is why there’s an income gap. This is why welfare is SO NECESSARY. This is why AIDS is killing people in Africa.”

In MY head, I’m thinking, “I’m a terrible person. Really? Really I’m buying a $13 sandwich wrapped in recycled paper and I’m refusing to feed a family? Really? I should starve to death, I deserve it. But, on the other hand, if I give $10 every time I come into this store, I’M going to be one of the people who needs that free meal. So, no, Whole Foods cashier, I don’t want to donate this time. I want to buy my $13 grilled cheese sandwich and $9 4oz. cup of tomato soup, get in my fuel-efficient car, and be on my way.” Whoever came up with this campaign is clearly a genius. The only things White People like more than Whole Foods are saving the world and embracing cultural differences in the name of equality. This campaign covers both bases. It exploits the self-imposed obligations of the entitled class. Jerks.

If I were in a more aggressive place, like maybe Safeway in a blue-collar neighborhood, there’d be a stand-off involved. We’d be able to discuss the fact that I wasn’t donating AGAIN like mature, hotheaded adults. But we’re in Boulder, and we’re in Whole Foods, and when in Rome, aka Boulder, I do what the Romans do, which is to passive-aggressively avoid eye contact and drop a lot of names of charities that I’ve donated to in the past month (uh, 5 years) before the cashier has a chance to ask me if I’d like to feed a family. I tap my feet to the Louis Armstrong Holiday mix, make a reference to the vegan lentil soup I’m making, and bada bing, bada boom, I’m on my way, no longer staring cashier or the hungry family in the face, free to enjoy my overpriced lunch with peaceful thoughts of how much I’m helping the world.

But the guilt’s there. It just is. So in reality, while I imagine being able to skate unscathed through this interaction, I get through the avoid eye contact part, I get through the jokes about vegan lentil soup, and then they manage to slip in that question: “Would you like to feed a family?”

And every time, my answer’s the same: “Nnnn—nyes! Ok! Great! Great. I’m having a great time here in Whole Foods.” Every time.

Merry Christmas.

I recently saw a silly greeting card on someecards.com that read “You’re going to love hating living in New York.” Soon after, I stumbled upon this article in the New York Times. Big shock, New Yorkers are the unhappiest state population in the union. The happiest states include much of the south and a handful of less-populated states in the west.

I happen to find this hilarious. Oh, I think the New York part is probably about right. When I lived in New York, I complained constantly about my quality of life. I bitched about subways, commuting, the cold, the way my hair looked in the humidity, the gray sky, the lack of exercise culture, the aggressive work week, the dirty martinis, the lack of Mexican food, the grime, the wind, the rain, and just about anything else that happened to infringe upon my comfort zone. So did everyone, because we could. And then we went on with our lives, self-analyzing, drawing on inspiration, generally doing business that makes the country run, and feeling slightly superior for living where we lived.

The places on the happy list are in poor areas with low levels of education. I’m sorry, but isn’t there a hint of “ignorance is bliss” in this list? Are these people happy? Or do they simply not know any different? I think there’s also a negative correlation between IQ and happiness; I have a hard time believing that the general population of Mississippi is as smart as the general population of New York.

Smarts aside, I think the city-happiness correlation is like the relationship-happiness correlation. I happen to live in a pleasant city right now. Boulder’s like the hot significant other that’s really nice, pretty friendly, funny enough, but the spark just isn’t there. I like to walk around and hold Boulder’s hand. I like to snuggle up on the couch with Boulder and watch a movie. But if I ever brought up a deep topic with Boulder? Ha, we’d drive each other nuts, Boulder trying to calm me down and telling me to let it go, me feeling stifled and like we’ll never understand each other. Boulder’s nice, it really is, and we could probably be together forever, coexisting in our separate spheres, smiling at each other without understanding, having only the occasional affair. But I’d know it’s just 80%. I’d know I wasn’t pushing myself to my full potential.

New York, on the other hand, is like the fiery passionate love affair. New York’s a little bit ugly, but man, has it got wit, a sense of humor, a drive to get things done, and fierce independence. Half the time we’re involved in passionate embrace, half the time we’re throwing the champagne flutes at each others’ heads, threatening to end it and move out. We engage, we push each other, we analyze, and we help each other grow. We seek to understand, and even though we get comfortable, there’s always something there that we didn’t know about each other, the discovery keeping the relationship interesting forever. We’re both sublimely happy and awkwardly miserable, but we can’t muster up the strength to find someone else.

I don’t know if I can marry either city. But when it comes to long term, I’ll take harsh reality over bread and circuses, maybe just cohabitating with NYC until it becomes common law.

Sometimes I feel like everyone else out there is walking around with some secret to life that makes them attractive, confident, and sophisticated, and I’m perpetually fighting with everything I’ve got to come off as just slightly less awkward than the world. I’m the person who is somehow constantly dressed without a belt in the sea of perfectly-coiffed passersby: still looking alright, but my outfit isn’t quite as complete.

Don’t believe me? It’s been a pretty average 24 hours. Here’s a rundown of some of the events:

-I started taking the stairs to floor 6 at work because a skinny French woman told me it was a good idea. Obviously, I’m not yet in stair-climbing shape, so by floor 4, I wheeze like an asthmatic. Yesterday, I ran into a co-worker on the stairs as he was coming down. Instead of smiling and continuing, I panted, red-faced, “Yeah, stair buddy, what what?” He said nothing and continued past me. Welp, see ya later.

-Someone I know on a very casual level came to my restaurant yesterday. At the end of the night, he waved at me. Instead of waving back, I squinted like I had disabilities then advanced, retreated, advanced, retreated, unable to decide if he wanted me to come over and say something. I finally decided he didn’t, and abruptly headed straight for the kitchen, effectively leaving him hanging, and hid there until he left.

-While talking to Lindsay and polishing glassware, I aggressively slammed a wine glass into the counter and shattered it.

-I made prolonged eye contact with an attractive foreigner sitting at the bar, resulting in about 3 hours of “accidentally” meeting each others’ eyes 400 or so times and trying to figure out who was staring at who.

-I stared down the dude who’s in danger of becoming my work crush until he looked up. Even though it was obvious what I was doing, I glanced around dramatically, as if I’d been doing that the entire time. He once cornered me in the wine cellar and asked me if people make out there after hours, though, so I think we’re even.

-One of the Mexican dishwashers (who I encouraged to speak with me in order to practice his English) gave me a 12 minute monologue on the difference between Mexican women, who want a husband, and American women, who want men to “fuck ‘em and leave ‘em.” Direct quote, said at least 148 times. Looks like he learned that slang well. He also told me he prefers the Americans. Good.

-I bent over to recycle a bottle only to stand up and smack my head (uh, hard) against the rack of dishes in front of the entire serving and kitchen staff. I’m not sure which hurt more, my bleeding skull or my pride.

-On my way home, I was listening to Christmas music and smiling like an idiot until I slipped on the ice, precipitating a fall, Home-Alone-criminal-feet-in-the-air-style. Lying on my back in the middle of Pearl Street as the bars let out at 2 am was an experience I’ve had in various forms a few too many times in my life. Bad times.

-I created a Norah Jones Pandora station at work in the wee hours of the morning and then strategically mixed it with a number of other stations (namely Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong) to supplement guilty 40-year-old makeout music with classics. Sarah McLachlan is getting a lot of play time, and I keep turning up the volume while making my guilty pleasure face (look to the left while sheepishly smiling), ignoring the stares of my coworkers who clearly don’t vibe with my taste.

-I’m wearing slippers in the office. I’m also wearing yoga pants and my glasses. And I didn’t shower today. No one is pretending I can get away with this.

See? No belt. I’m just saying.

I’m taking a moment to smell the storied roses.

Last year at this time, I was a real person.  I was deeply mired in a consulting project examining the state of global financial accounting.  I slept 6 hours a night if I was lucky, spent 14 hours a day at the office, worked out like a crazy person, and drank at least 8 cups of coffee a morning (/afternoon).  I found myself constantly facing the decision of whether to improve my social life or improve my career.  My inbox had about 800 emails in it, my phone had to be on at all hours of the night in case my project manager had an “emergency,” and I navigated the streets of New York City for networking dinners, client happy hours, and analyst meetings.  I had a corporate credit card, a slew of airline miles, and the entire Banana Republic Fall office-wear line.  Suddenly, the whole “day-to-night-in-the-same-clothes” feature of fashion magazines was relevant to me, and I was no stranger to the working lunch.  I wore expensive perfume, I relished my weekends, and I took myself pretty seriously.

Next year at this time, I’ll be a real person, or at least on my way to being a real person.  I’ll be frantically finishing my first semester of law school, likely pulling a series of all-nighters to bust out my final papers and finish studying for my exams.  I’ll be back on the East Coast, networking with future employers and attending 1L social events.  I’ll be writing, but mostly things of a legalistic nature, and I’ll be trying to strategically line up my summer internship, in anticipation of yet again billing by the hour and buying things with the corporate credit card.  Those Banana Republic pieces will make their way back into rotation, and I expect my caffeine intake to double or triple.  I’ll probably be, once again, taking myself pretty seriously.

But right now, right this second, I live in Boulder where I sling wine, write about restaurants, and book people into luxury resorts.  I’m still sort of a real person, but I’m also sort of a silly person.  Living in Boulder facilitates utterly wonderful whimsical nonsense.

Last night, for instance, I cooked myself a fancy omelet, paired it with wine, and sat in our erratically lit (several of the light bulbs are burnt out, several of the other light bulbs work about half the time) apartment chatting with Lindsay.  One of us was sitting on the floor in gym clothes next to the cupboard eating chips.  The other of us was wearing a sweatshirt that said “Grandma’s Nest:  Where the Flock Gathers” as well as a barrette with a jingle bell on it. Louis Armstrong was emanating from a laptop as we made several calls from our landline, set up because there was a cute phone we wanted to use:  a few prank phone calls, a call to Paige at work (during the end of a peak time at the restaurant that employs her) to ask what to use in lieu of a glass baking dish for an apple tart, and voicemails of the Taka Taka Taka monkey chant for Lindsay’s siblings.  We made plans to take a night off of work for a 600 person graduation party and discussed whether red does in fact go with purple.  Several other friends (some of whom are 5+ years my senior) came over for a couple of glasses of wine, and we proceeded to take about 100 pictures posing as a wholesome family from the early 90s.  After everyone was sufficiently ready to start the night, we drove up an icy road with hairpin turns to a silly house party in the mountains where adults aged about 25-40 were dressed in glitter, drinking crappy keg beer out of compost-safe cups made from corn (this is Boulder, after all), making out in dark corners, and stomping their feet wildly to a live bluegrass band.

No big deal, just a typical Friday night.

Everyone here is playing adult, dressing up in their parents’ clothes pretty effectively, but still unable to conceal the fact that they have tiny feet in Mom’s pumps.  We’re all walking the fine line of Neverland (not the creepy Michael Jackson Neverland), and it manifests in our daily lives.  I oft find myself discussing whether a smoothie or a bear claw is a more appropriate breakfast on a particular morning.  Sometimes I go hang out in the library with an astounding number of people or find a willing chess partner at a nearby coffee shop at 2 pm on a Tuesday afternoon, and sometimes I wade in a creek or get asked out on a date that involves Frisbee golf.  I wait for friends who are late to a classy dinner excursion by exploring 10,000 varieties of tea in the tea shop; I inevitably end the night at the Downer, Catacombs, or the Pub, where everyone crams into a sweaty basement and drinks $1 whiskeys and $2 beers.   The Tesla dealership that just went in on Pearl Street didn’t elicit stares, but walking barefoot down the block to get a chai doesn’t cause anyone to look twice, either.  People skip work to go skiing, no one looks both ways before crossing the street, and every day is bike-to-work day.

Sure, there are conference calls, business travel, career-ladder climbing, and corporate dinners going on behind the scenes, but they’re pretty hard to imagine on a packed bakery patio at 10 am on a Monday morning.  In the timeless words of the Talking Heads, how did I get here?  Once in a lifetime, I suppose.  Delightful.

PS: Lindsay pointed out that she pretty much deserves a by-line for this entry, which is true. Somewhere in the course of a night, her words became my thoughts.

I’m having one of those nights: it’s not that late, I’m home from a drinking excursion, and I’m kind of wishing I was a turtle so I could pull my head into my big old awkward shell for a couple of hours. Lindsay suggested I crawl under my rug in my room until it blows over. I think this is a fantastic idea. I’m just off, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

It’s not that anything particularly bad happened. This night started harmlessly. I saw a double feature with Paige that may or may not have included a vampire movie with a lot of washboard abs and rippling shoulder muscles paraded around for a couple of hours. In hindsight, this is probably where things started to go awry. Man candy kills my brain cells in real life and renders me stupid and useless, so it’s probably not a huge surprise that a movie could have a similar effect.

I came out of the movie to a text message from Rusty, suggesting Monday Night Football and beer. I know nothing about MNF, but I like beer, so I agreed. Then, much to my delight, Natalie and Adam showed up. And that’s where things disintegrated. It’s like I grew a brain tumor and changed personalities. I was suddenly unable to make a funny joke, witty retort, or do anything besides laugh stupidly at what was going on around me. I spilled beer on Rusty when I clapped him too hard on the arm, I said a lot of dumb things, and I suggested throwing a party with the theme “come as your favorite biblical character.”*

I hate these nights. It’s like a series of interactions that feel like the classic “How’s it going?”-“Nothing” faux pas—I’m just not on the same wavelength of anyone around me. Usually, I suddenly find myself talking way too long and way too loudly about something not that funny that happened during the day, and when I finish, everyone, including me, kind of wishes they were somewhere else. I run into things, I tell bad stories, I even order wrong. I stand alone with my awkward look on my face: shoulders hunched, eyes wide, half smile, half I-smell-something-gross. Because the universe is cruel, I typically also run into someone I know, especially if that someone is a dude I think is kind of cute, and I have a horrific small talk conversation with them, trying to act laid-back because I have so much anxiety inside of my soul:

“Hey Laura!”

“What’s up dude?”

“Not much, what are you up to?”

“Good. Oh wait, you asked me what I’m up to, I mean I’m drinking.”

“What?”

“Uh, nothing. What are you doing?”

“Drinking.”

“Awesome. Well, ok.”

And then we part ways and make silly eye contact all night because our conversation was so dissatisfying.

I have a word that I say when the night turns out like this: Salt. Naturally, there’s a back story.

An old roommate and her new love interest had been enjoying their first kiss after a hideous couple of minutes in which they lined up their first date. The cat, who my roommate was inexplicably holding, started to squirm. She pulled back and said to the cat, “Kitty cat, are you throwing salt on my game?”

Naturally, my friends and I latched onto this incredibly unique phrase and used it regularly in conversation. So a few days later, after that roommate and her man had become enough of an item to go with us all on a group outing for Vietnamese food, another of my friends let the phrase roll off her tongue like it was nothing.

Everyone except the awkward roommate, who was trying not to die of embarrassment, started convulsing in silent laughter. Everyone, that is, except for me. I had grown one of those mysterious social brain tumors and couldn’t figure out what had happened to cause this strange behavior of my friends. So I went back to repeat the phrase, realizing the second I opened my mouth what was going on, so instead I just said “Salt” in a completely monotone voice.

Picture it. Uncomfortable silence pierced only by “Salt.” Smooth.

This entry is starting to feel like my night. Salt. I’m going to bed.

*Note that this is an idea that has been tossed around since I was a senior in college and can be credited to Emily, who wanted to go as Bathsheba.

Some terrible things have happened today.

The first was a terrible thing that happens every Sunday: I’m at the office, bloated, slightly hungover, caffeinated, and generally miserable because my life is a joke.

I was more excited than usual to get to the office today, however, because I was looking forward to a productive Sunday of writing cover letters and craigslist postings and generally beginning the epic task that lies ahead of me: getting my shit together. In the 10 months of living in Boulder, my shit has become heinously scattered, probably because I’ve had no reason to have it all together. Entropy obviously ran its course, and now my shit is everywhere, and I’m sort of tired of that. So now I’m in a silly video game, gathering pieces of shit and putting them in my little bundle so as to move on with normal adult life. This metaphor has become filthy and disgusting.

In order to do that, I banned myself from all of my normal forums of entertainment which include, but are not limited to Facebook, gchat, textsfromlastnight.com, Twitter, thesartorialist.com, the Huffington Post, the New York Times online, Gawker, the Economist online, and this blog. As a total digression, yesterday was my favorite day of the year: The Economist outlook for 2010 arrived, and I almost cancelled my plans for the night to pore over the glossy pages of predictions that I will inevitably obnoxiously quote in arguments until at least April. I had to exercise A LOT of restraint to not bring that bad boy to the office today.

Clearly you can guess what happened because I’m writing a blog entry. Drowsy, I decided to check out the headlines, which turned into checking out all of my various websites, and then, irritably, there were a bunch of phone calls I had to answer, and now here I am, 4 hours into my day and not even one piece of shit gathered into my little bundle. Great. Hooray for today.

Frustrated with the way things were going, I decided to take a deep calming breath and partake in one of my favorite daily rituals: making a latte. The coffee machine at the office is unnecessarily fancy and initially incredibly intimidating. There are buttons everywhere. There are symbols everywhere. There is a large pointy stick thing that is used to heat milk and make foam. Normally, I would avoid this machine at all costs, act slightly superior for drinking black coffee, and secretly envy those who had mastered the machine to open up the world of free fancy espresso drinks. Normally. But when you’re sequestered in an office with a stupid little microphone around your neck all day, it suddenly becomes fun to learn difficult things, if only because it helps you kill a minute or 30.

My first experience with the fancy coffee machine was disastrous. My milk had no foam, the espresso sat there so long it got cold, and I had an intense urge to quit my job and move to a different city since the whole ordeal was witnessed by someone waiting to use the machine after me. They were likely laughing inside, immensely entertained while waiting to make their perfect latte. I was crying. The second time was better, except that I overcorrected my no-foam problem and ended up with a cappuccino. 3^rd time’s a charm, though, and having conquered technology, I decided to use it each and every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and have all the Starbucks lattes I could ever want absolutely 100% free. I even graduated to syrups and, for a real treat, mochas (non-fat, no-whip).

I look forward to this ritual. It is part of my routine. So when things go awry, like today, I get upset. The tragedy of today: there was no regular espresso in the machine. This may seem like a small problem to those of you who drink herbal tea, but I can assure you I need caffeine in order to avoid killing some unsuspecting ass hole who asks me a question about room rates or spa treatments, so decaf is not an option. Boring black coffee it was. I cursed at the latte machine, made my cup of joe, and promptly choked on it, spewed it all over the counter, and had a couple of terrifying minutes of wondering whether the scalding black liquid all up in my lungs was going to kill me. Hooray. Penance for my lack of productivity.

And now I’m writing this blog about it because I’m remarkably irritated.

On a semi-related note, only because it also happened today, it is never appropriate to talk to strangers in the bathroom when you’re in different stalls unless you have some dire emergency like you pooped your pants or cut off your hand. Telling me you put your shirt on inside out while I’m trying to make pee pee is not okay.

On a less related note, I had my first customer call center experience last night since starting this silly job. It was wonderful. I asked Marge at Xcel Energy all about her hopes, dreams, family life, and astrological sign.