This week I’ve been living in the future. True story. And it’s not like the Jestson’s future. I can see the good things that are heading my way. I mean I just got paid for making doodles for people. I have a client based on something I see as the most fun side project ever!
And when I met up with my good pal Christine this week she told me that I was looking way more confident than usual. And honestly, I think I am. I am not like on a Charlie Sheen “winning” high or anything. I just know that my optimism is going to get me somewhere really great. And in the middle of this icky tunnel I’m in, I see out the other end and that all the little things I can do well are really going to help me in the future, especially when I emerge from the other side. And most importantly all these things/people trying to bring me down are just temporary. In fact I have how I feel about it lusciously illustrated below:
Also I think this is the best time of anytime to share that I’m going to make this doodling thing into a side business made with heart. I want to make shirts, and bags, table cloths, pillows, and birthday party hats. I want to make custom doodles for people. I want to share my joy with as many people as possible. And I’m going to do it. Maybe you’ll pick up a bag or hat or just keep reading and smiling… stay around and watch my dream come true.
Sometimes you just know people who make your everyday so much better just for knowing them. I know this may not be true for everyone*… but it is for me! Christine is one of those people, she is like the biggest champion of my endeavors and the best advice giver of all times… basically the wind beneath my wings you know.
She is in a word….. “fanta-stic”
She is so fantastic that pretty much completes me like we exist in that Tom Cruise movie… Last night for example, while meeting up for our Lady Night I showed up with a hunger in my tummy and only a stack of paper. She showed up with presents for me, and only pens.
Then we combined our weapons like we were a part of Voltron and partied for the rest of the evening.
And also because I watch too many movies… telling me she had a plethora of pens in a parking lot reminded me of this:
* My cool pen story footnote: Someone in particular recently told me they have no one in their life that they feel lucky for knowing. Not one person… in their entire time on this planet. I mean I feel really lucky for (and totally am enamored of) the people who just read this blog and leave me a comment every once in a while. I think almost everyone is worth knowing, and so many people are worth appreciating. But this person’s sad story didn’t bring me down, I stopped listening to this person seriously when they told me they think I’m immature because I am so cheery all the time. They can go suck it in Not-Nice-Ville population: 2. The other person in not niceville is described here, they are perfect to spend an eternity together in Not-Nice-Ville…
So a few people have been asking… what is going on with the professional? Why are there no posts any more guiding me to the professional promise land? This has a complicated answer… as earlier this year the professional we knew did a King Edward VII , and abdicated his professional throne. The Kingdom of Professionalism was then thrown into anarchy and professional turmoil, after the great battle and the “Treaty of Dab and Lauren” an interesting event transpired…
I think there is a new professional in town… and her name is my name too.
And I don’t know when it happened. I feel like some sort of were-professional…
In the last week:
♥ I have been carrying business cards in my purse
♥ I was caught updating my contact list
♥ I’ve worked late 2 nights in a row
♥ I’ve had a business meeting after work hours
♥ I used the term “collated” more than once in the last 8 hours
♥ I’ve been making lists with bullet points! (Although, the bullets are love hearts ♥)
Anyways the polls are in and it looks like I’m the new professional in town:
And on a “I work in a weird place” side note yesterday Amber and I took a quiz about who we are in the office and this was my answer:
And I was not surprised. That description is my 8-5, every Monday-Friday. The only difference is I have no Jim to giggle with all day… Okay, I’m going to go CC: people on some work like things ;)
Now here’s a widely known fact… I love strange holidays. I like them obscure and delicious (ahem, taco day). And today is my favorite holiday of them all… Leif Erikson Day! And where the silly government likes to celebrate Columbus Day around these parts of the United States (and gets the day off for this). I have learned enough history from my college years, and from Spongebob Squarepants to know that Leif Ericson was the true discoverer of the Americas in which I live. My good friend Leif was like the Dark Knight of America discoverers finding America in the year 1,000 calling it “Newfoundland” (not a good namer was he) and he was like the discoverer we deserved, just not the one we need right now… hence we celebrate Columbus Day.
Also, true story… I have a personal vendetta against Christopher Columbus because I really hated having to color him in a stupid boat every year for 7 years in a row, just because Fall happened. And not one teacher would let me cover him in glitter… NOT ONE! Also don’t get me started on those cornucopias…
And a bonus over the Spanish discoverers to all of you Spanish supporters*, Vikings have better accessories, grog and far less smallpox.
Now that I have you 98.4% viking approved:
But can anyone explain why his name is Leif Ericson, but his day is “Leif Erikson Day”? Is that Columbus’ final joke? Dude, that guy is totally evil!
♥Lauren
*I bet I was related to some of his traveling buddies as my family comes from that part of the world… And everyday I dress like a flamenco dancer…but, eh go VIKINGS!
I realized my joy is getting braggy. And I’m not going to unpack the brag bags… because that is annoying. And my Inner Pam Beesly told me “Take it down a notch, the world knows about your joy.”
So I took a cue at not to make myself a real life Mary Sue, and to look at my sketchbook and pull a drawing from my archives that I already should have shared. (Hehe, I have archives!) A few months ago I was not feeling the joy, and much like the friendship of Turk and J.D. from “Scrubs” my Lady Turk counterpart (Nancy) told me to drag my booty to her house to experience the “WORLD’S GIRLIEST WEEKEND”. And we did, we watched teen movies until we passed out, we ate fancy hamburgers, we made crafts, we packed goodie bags for children, we went as lady dates to a wedding…
And
then
we
tried
to
make…
red velvet cupcakes…
from scratch.
Being our first go of making red velvet cupcakes from scratch we pulled out the recipes, and not wanting to risk making a horrible huge batch Nancy decided to cut the recipe… in 4s. And most impressively she had all the math all figured out, but that wasn’t the difficult part. The most difficult thing was attempting to mix .375 teaspoons of baking soda with a 1/2 an egg. But we were in it. We were committed. Everything was going on the good side of moderately strange until I had to add the red dye to the mixer…and like most things that were happening to me at that time, the mixer decided to stage a mutiny, and it exploded in my face, and hands and all actually over my person.
My face was red… with more than embarrassment.
However the cupcakes were then baked and finished… and were fabulous except for 2 small flaws…
1. They were burgundy and pink, like a weird steak.
2. They were crunchy on the top.
We covered that stuff up with frosting like crazy! So we may not be opening that cupcake shop like the “2 Broke Girls” afterall:
Today was a very interesting day. I fell back into an old pattern. A pattern that made everyone feel at ease… except me.
This is because I have changed. And I want better. Now for a moment, in the moment when things were how they used to be my inner young Pam Beesly was thrilled. (My inner Pam Beesly is also thrilled with candy on a desk so we try not to listen to her.) However, the more confident New Lauren/Pam Beesly that I have become stepped in and said. “NO”.
I say this because my friends have been telling me forever that I am better than my nonsense. And it took years to realize that I actually am. I am better! And all the nonsense in your everyday life… you are better than it too. If you don’t believe me ask this guy right here:
I have some art to work on after work so I’m going to make sure I have a Lauren-y movie to watch tonight and it’s all about “13 going on 30” tonight. No matter how many times I see it, I always get sucked in to all the fun and joys of Jenna Rink dealing with being a grown up.
I always find myself relating to Jenna. I somehow feel like the rest of me grew up and left my brain somewhere else. I mean I just learned today that Shepard’s pie is a meat pie, and not a pie made by a Shepard (and I’m envisioning one of the guys who hangs out with baby Jesus here.) And that is really just the tip of the iceberg of things I don’t get, that everyone already knows.
And that dream house…
Oh, I still want it. I don’t know if it’s because I’m working on being a licensed architect and I love movie houses… or just because I want some of that wishing dust, and to have a slumber party with my girlfriends where we sing Pat Benatar songs until we pass out.
Anyways I have some art to make and some Mark Ruffalo to watch. So just remember:
I am a clumsy person. Just ask anyone who has ever met me in real life. I fall while walking, drop everything on myself (today a bucket of rubber bands)… and once almost poked out my eye with an x-acto blade because I had an itch in my hair and forgot I was holding it the sharpest of all blades.
Today I was quite happy to wear this really cute retro style polka dot dress (polka dots are my thing!) And in my I’m a hot mess lifestyle, I actually thought I was looking rather dorky chic. I went to the bathroom adjusted the top, and then it happened I realized that my full circle dress, perfect for spinning around in was actually stuck in my underpants. IN THE UNDERPANTS!
This has never happened before, and what can only make it better is that my coworker caught me correcting the problem. I felt like saying “Happy Monday everyone, my underpants are pink hearts today!” But instead I turned red, and sat as low in my seat as possible.
I caught my dress being stuck the next 2 times it happened in the remaining 4 hours of the day…. before I showed my coworkers my underpants. Tomorrow I wear pants with pants on top of that.
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.
Viciously Sweet 