amber

The Investment

| Viciously Sweet

Have you ever met someone who makes your head wobble like a bobble head?

A person who would rather not get what they want because the have something already they are just to lazy to give up? A person who has no sense of adventure or desire to go out in the world and do what they really need to do to make themselves happy? A person that you constantly root for only to have them eternally disappoint you? A person who chooses to live “a life of quiet desperation” like an anecdote of Thoreau? A person who you have no reason to have an affinity for besides the fact that your gut tells you, you should? I have one of those people in my life, and sometimes they read this blog. I must say I find this person fascinating in all the ways they are not anything like me. And I like the way that this person uses logic to always make himself feel like he is doing whats best, but he’s really not living on anything more than a sense of duty. But what I don’t like, is that all time they make me sad.

You may be saying, those are some pretty heavy words for a gal like Lauren. And, I know that I am far from perfect. I laugh a little too much, have self deprecating humor, a head constantly stuck in the clouds, I believe in people and general goodness a little too much, and I am currently drawing a rooster at my desk as we speak. I am a weirdo, I am socially awkward. I wear dresses that never ever hide my cleavage, because I ran out of caring for the constant staring at my person. But I would like to think that try to be a good person. And that I have things in my life that I love and that I choose to have in my life because they make me happy, and I have weeded out things that just don’t. And yes I have made risky moves… like getting nearly kicked out of the program in college for challenging a teacher who was terrorizing non-white students, that time I wore a dress with polka dot underpants to work to find out at about 3pm that my dress was see through. Recently hiking against my doctors wishes… And more seriously ending a relationship of nearly 5 years because we were not suited to go through the rest of our lives together as a couple. And yes it sucked, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done… but I think I’m better for it (and p.s. I have never worn that dress again with polka dot underwear.)

And life changes everyday, because WE CHANGE EVERYDAY. And that is important, because we are not Garfield comic strips (Urg. Mondays!). And some times we can get everything we want, especially and most easily when it’s presented to you. And sometimes we have to settle for not exactly the thing we need, but we get by. It’s important to know when to take the risk, and when to go for the gold. Frankly I’m 26 years old and I still go for the gold because I think life is too short to not be the happiest that we can. And I make mistakes, LOTS of them… but I learn from them. I would hate to be old and haunted by never getting what I wanted… because I never tried.

And now after all that mire of text you just got through. I present to you life lesson #2 presented by Amber:

Take my frequent buyers card, and now you can never ever get pizza.

Sometimes its as easy as buying a pizza, sometimes it’s as complicated as admitting you want to do something different with your entire life.

♫Lauren

Sprinkler dreams and Prank Nightmares

| Viciously Sweet

Today at lady lunch (a lunch consisting of just Amber and me) I was talking to the waitress. And let’s just be honest, she’s our favorite in the history of ladies who bring us food. So I was telling her it’s been such a long work week. She told me “It’s only Tuesday.” And I responded “still being haunted from last week.”

And boy am I.

I pulled a little tiny harmless baby prank last week, and it did not go over well. I have a certain coworker who is now mad at me because he may have been made the background of our office laptop with a slogan about his *ahem* professionalism, and it may have even been this picture (which makes a stunning background, btw)… and fancy people may have seen it, even though he was supposed to be using it to measure a building… and not showing the computer about to people. *throat clearing sound* I mean was that really that bad? I would have joked the embarrassment away personally… *mmm hmmm*

Well, there isn’t a super lot I can do about that right now… but I can segue into a better subject with the help of my good friend the ellipsis…

…The weather is changing like crazy here, which is also something I have no control over. In California the fall can be incredibly hot, and then incredibly cold. Today is a mildly warm day and because I have been cramped in a cubicle for so long… I have a dream to get home, turn on the sprinklers… and then run like hell through those sprinklers:

And while I dash through that sprinkler I will listen to this song, and not melt the night away:

♫Lauren (the lady version of Jim Halpert)

My So Called (Unicorn) Life

| Viciously Sweet

Earlier this year I adopted a life motto I couldn’t have said better myself:

“No one looks stupid when they are having fun.”-Amy Poehler.

And since then I have really embraced it, I accept all offers if they sound like fun. Sometimes even if they don’t… and I know I can make them fun. And since then I have realized a few things.. the most important is, I live a fabulous and rare existence.

I really do.

I love to dance all over my house to Aretha Franklin songs. Drive to work singing along with Pitbull, drive home singing the songs of Phil Collins. And I draw for hours, sometimes I get paid for it… And then I also doodle in addition to that, just for fun. I can and do decided to go on super fabulous adventures on the drop of a hat… but not to Sea World on a Saturday (you can’t win them all.) I have a closet full of fabulous threads. Tons of lip-glosses and nail polishes… scads of jewelry and shoes. I also just got a pair of sparkly tights in the mail… I really do live a charmed life. And best of all is I have some fabulous friends who let me exist in my sparkly universe, and stop on by on occasion to watch it in real time. And my friends are all so different and deliciously brilliant, I get the thrill to appreciate each wonderful thing about them!

Now about a month ago if anyone had mentioned the fact that I live a rare magical existence I would have burst into tears, because I desperately wanted to be grounded like everyone else I know*.  But lately I realized through a few fantastic people… that I make their days a little brighter. And that really changed everything. I thank you friends for making me feel like the most magical unicorn that has ever existed. I may care more about concerts and charities than business and finances and I don’t know stock options and refinancing… or whatever serious people are into… but I do know that sometimes there is nothing better than watching a Disney cartoon and eating pizza after a hard day.

The world doesn’t have to be such a serious place, it can be full of the joy we make. And I think that is a choice that we make… I choose the fun, even if I look stupid.

 

Thank you friends for letting me be your unicorn.

♫Lauren

Wool Gets In Your Eyes

| Viciously Sweet

I have been growing up a little more lately. I still want to be a goof, but I realized to “get along” with a broader spectrum of people I have to pretend to be a “professional”.

I know, I know that is a total blurgh in the face. Especially when your initial thought of a great day is show up to work and tell your coworkers that it is time to Wang Chung tonight, and hand everyone a bag of chiclets! And when you know in reality, they just want you to greet them with a “Hello. Business is splendid.”

I think that because of recent events in my life, I have been seeing the world more clearly now… work is not supposed to be a place where you have fun, because most people aren’t satisfied with what they do, they just do it because that is what they think they should be doing. (I like what I do though, it’s beyond rad to draw for a living!) And this has further led me down a path of understanding what I am expected to do in certain situations, and understanding what I want to do. And guess what? In true Lauren fashion, they are very different things.

And lately to get through the days at work I have turned to television to help a girl out. And what is a better learning example about working in an office, than “The Office”? I’ve been taking advice from sassy Pam Beesly of season 3. I want to be more honest and gutsy, I want to have an art show, I want to tell Jim that he should be my friend. And I want to stress like Pam did, Jim isn’t the important part of being a shiny new Beesly… being happy with yourself is the answer for that. You can hear her say this in the link below:

Pam’s Awesome Beach Speechs.

Here’s an important part of her speech for you non link clickers:

Anyways, I’m done with the woolly eyes. I want to see the truth, and I want people to respect that. I want people to know that I like me, and I can do anything, and not because I have to… Because I want to. And maybe sometimes I will be too helpful and emotional… but that is how I am, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that!

♫Lauren

Also I really love to draw little doodle sheep.

Get into my cubicle groove!

| Viciously Sweet

If you are a person and were on the internet today… Madonna did a Youtube concert.

I made my coworkers listen to the whole thing… I think my cubicle neighbor was moved to the “Borderline” of insanity as he would not like to hear me play “Material Girl” just one more time… and he’d prefer if I listened to some Led Zepplin instead. He was a good sport to listen to 4 songs in a row before turing on his own music.

And I think on the other side of the office Amber is trying to crimp her hair and get some stretchy bracelets. And the professional is ignoring this not scheduled musical attack.

But come on, what is Thursday without having a Madonna party?

I’m not the biggest Madonna fan, but there is something about her music that makes me smile… some of it reminds me of Childhood, or of Dick Tracy, or All those MTV Music Award shows, and some of it makes me wish I too had a bit of a fake British accent.

And you know what is really wonderful about Madonna>? She could care less about what I am writing about her. And that is something I would like to take from her as a lesson about being a grown up. It’s fun to be yourself… sometimes, it’s better when being you makes people a little mad too.

Now back to my office:

While we are celebrating the magic of Madonna’s music I would like to dedicate a few songs to a few people I work with:

-To Amber I send you “Like A Prayer”, for several reasons… Firstly you like Jesus (thumbs up to the Lord) and secondly, I want to see you dance like this in the office in front of our printers, and I want to drink Pepsi Cola with you:

-To Dabby I dedicate to you “La Isla Bonita” because it’s the only Madonna Song that has Spanish in it that isn’t from Evita. And you are spicy and not Argentinian:

-To the Professional I dedicate “4 minutes” because it seems like a quantitative professional time in it, I think it is the equivalent of like updating a few contacts in your outlook, or just meeting a deadline. And I emphasize that sentence with no humor… because that is the professional way:

And then I dedicate this song to me because I really am feeling what she is saying in this song.
And I need to post it, because our lady Madonna would want me to be honest:

And I’m not sorry… for listening to Madonna for hours in my cubicle either, thanks for making my windowless cubicle a little more fun today Madge!

♫Lauren

That’s What Friends Are For…

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Much like a Dionne Warwick jam, it is really great to spend time with your friends. Especially if your friend is Rupert Evert singing “I say a Little Prayer For You”. Oops wrong song reference… and on the note of Rupert Evert, I sent him a friendship bracelet in 1998 and he’s never gotten back to me. He must be so excitedly wearing it that he forgot to send a thank you.

As always I digressed.

But this weekend a conversation happened between me and Christine that just shows you the magic of friendship. And if it were crafted into a 2 hour movie… it would win all the awards.

I present to you today’s doodle:

I imagine the movie based on this doodle starring Kate Winslet and Penelope Cruz, in the roles they were born to play.

However I would like to point out today is Amber’s birthday and she will have a smashing doodle on this page tomorrow. Happy Birthday Am-bear.
I am just too busy with all this work silliness to make a proper doodle today… but oh tomorrow there will be doodles!!!!
♫Lauren

Missfit VS the Boys Club

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I am a little weird. I am 26, I like to listen to Phil Collins at work, I am pop culture obsessed, I can talk in song titles (shout out to Jen & Tonic), and I have a cubicle that can rival the childishness of any Pixar employee. Problem is I don’t work for Pixar. I work in the “real world” and the “real world” is not like that Matchbox 20 music video with the same name.

The real world is kind of serious, and also has stupid social rules. Like no limbo-ing during the 9-5. Or actually maybe just my office. It’s such a boys club up in this office that it’s very obvious that sometimes me and the Amber just don’t really get what’s happening.

I think our new sashes demonstrate this:

I think there is nothing we can do except create an X-Men like community… I’m going to say I want to be Jubilee she gets a yellow jacket.
♥ and Lollipops,
Lauren

The Mostly Sunny/ Partly Cloudy Conundrum

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I just checked my phone for the weather.

It responded “72 degrees and mostly sunny.”

This made me laugh because I just tricked Amber into the half full/half empty game. She said my drink was half empty. There is nothing wrong with thinking a drink is half empty. It leads to hilarious results, like causing her to think every time Professional Eric cracks his neck that he’s going to burst an artery and die… but I digress.

This leads me to my current brain query. Where is this line we create to differentiate things like… is the drink really half gone or like my response “still pretty liquidy in there”? Will my phone ever tell me that it’s not longer mostly sunny, and is in fact partly cloudy? What is the difference between yellow-green and green-yellow? When will I go from moderately wanting to hit someone with my car to rolling over them?

The mind is a mystical thing.

I’m going to go contemplate life now… and draw some bathroom details.

♫Lauren

Amber’s Description

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Sometimes the people I know say the best things. I was there at the moment where Amber was describing her friend’s boyfriend, or a guy we work with, or a stranger, or a the cousin of the Brawny guy, or someone who works at Target… and it went a little something like this:

I couldn’t describe it better myself. Thanks Amber!!!
♫Lauren