There's Something Wonderful About Stories and Open Books

I got to work at 3:06 pm. I was scheduled to arrive at 3:00 pm. No one was in the studio when I arrived. Not the cameramen or the director, not the guys that sit in the soundproof booth running the mics or the producer, my boss. No one was there. Well, except for the hair and make-up lady. She was arranging her supplies into an army regiment on a table in the corner. She had a hairspray bottle and a large tube of gel in the back, like the king and queen on the chessboard. The little eye shadow containers were pawns on the front line, their lids unscrewed and set directly behind them.

The on-set desk wasn't being used and I sat down in the fancy chair behind it. The off-duty cameras were aimed right at my nose. I suddenly felt what it would be like to be Katie Couric on the evening news. I kept thinking about how she must feel every night, in power-suits and heels with bright lights and the world's eyes on her, and I changed my mind. Sitting at an on-set desk in front of empty cameras and switched-off lights is not what it is like to be Katie Couric-- her life is way more glamorous. And with that thought I kept sitting on the set thinking that I would never know what it's like to be Katie Couric.

The make-up lady sat down in the chair next to her make-up table. I think she decided her rows of supplies were as straight as they would ever get. We were both just sitting. Just sitting and waiting. That's when I opened my mouth, "So, you said on Saturday that your husband was a contractor. Tell me more. When did you meet him? Did you like him right away?" I kept going, "And how long have you been married? What is his name? Where do you live?"

"We met at a New Year's Eve party."

"Did you kiss him at midnight?"

"No," she laughed; she must not believe in fast-movers, "but I kissed him on New Year's the next year." She went on to tell me about their first dance at that first New Year's party: they wasted no time for introductions, instead they just teased each other while swaying hip to hip. Two and a half years later, they got married. He spent a year in Iraq before their wedding and he has spent another year in Iraq since their wedding day. Their son was eight months old when her husband left the second time. She graduated from BYU where she took a lot of theater make-up classes. That's where she learned to transform a human into a television star.

And that's her story. And the best part of my day was hearing it. My favorite part of any day is hearing people's stories. I know I ask too many questions. I just can't help but ask my professor why he loves Dante though. And I want to know how my haircutter's husband's application for a visa to come over from Palestine is coming. I just want to know.

A good friend of mine told me, "Laura, your life is an open book and you read it to people." And it's true; that statement has become legend. But what is more true is that I want other other people to read their life books to me too. In my ideal world, everyone's life would be an open book that they would read to people.

In my memoir writing class every Tuesday/Thursday, we read each other our stories. We write our thoughts and memories and then we read them out loud. When I pass fellow students from that class on non-Tuesday/Thursdays, we look into each other's eyes and there is understanding and depth in the gesture. I might not even know their name, but I know their story. And they know mine.

Tell your story. I want to hear it. And have no doubts that I'll keep telling you mine.

I Think I'm Just Going to Sit Here Staring Straight and Pray That No One Drops Their Pencil

I couldn't move my neck today. I still can't. I'm sitting staring straight forward. The same way I've been staring all day. And yes, I was in fact behind the steering wheel of a moving vehicle this evening. So, the car in front of you that darted into oncoming traffic without looking both ways? Yep. That was me. But there was nothing I could do about it. Looking both ways for oncoming traffic was an impossibility. And turning my head to say hello, nodding in agreement, or throwing my head back in laughter? They were all out of the question too. Heck, they're still out of the question. I'm even having trouble lying down. It puts my neck in a painful position and then tears start welling up in the corners of my eyes and screams start coming out of my mouth. So you see, it's best that I don't move.

A guy in class this morning tapped me on the shoulder, "Hey, could you pick that up for me?" He was sitting one row up from me and he had accidentally dropped his pencil and it had rolled under the chairs, down one level, until it landed on the floor just six inches from my left foot. Picking the pencil up would be a challenge. I knew that it would. But, little go-getter me is always up for a challenge. I turned my shoulders a full 90 degrees and slid slowly out of my chair. I got down on my knees as my chair seat snapped shut, knocking my notebook and pencil onto the floor as well. I picked up his pencil, and my notebook and my pencil, then slowly brought one foot up and then the other until I was back sitting straight forward in my chair. I held the pencil over my head until my pencil-dropping classmate took it out of my hands. I think he just sat there staring blankly at the back of my head thinking, Wow. This girl is serious about picking up pencils off the floor.

And I just sat there thinking, I hope I never have to move again.

We're Scrabblin.

I'm back. It's back. What's back? Scrabble Club.

This Saturday. Three o'clock in the afternoon.

And this here is an old French Scrabble Ad. But we don't play in French; generally we play in English. But there were some requests to play in Portuguese. If there is enough interest to play Scrabble in a foreign language, we could always add a second board for the foreign language lovers.


And yes, Scrabble club does get this ugly. You've never seen competition like this.

If you're interested, you're invited. For more information, contact me. And I can always provide you with reasons to come.

My Phone is Ill With Bad Battery-itis and I'm An Insensitive Person

I'm just sitting here at my laptop in my dining room. My sister is under the dining room table taking a power-nap break from her math homework. My phone is sitting next to my computer and it's dying. I should be doing homework, but how can I be expected to focus when something so close to me is on its death bed?

Every so often, my phone beeps weakly. It is a desperate call for help. Beep. Please Laura, just charge me. Please. Please. I feel guilty, get distracted from my homework, contemplate walking downstairs to plug my phone into the charger. But then my phone is silent for a while and my mind wanders away from my dying phone and back to making adjusting entries in accounting journals. I'm productive for a time. I work away at homework until it beeps again. Just once. That's all it has energy for. Beep. I just want to tell it to quit complaining; I charged it two hours ago for crying out loud. Shouldn't it be satisfied? But then I remember that that is no way to treat the sick and afflicted.

My sister stays deeply involved in her power-napping under the table until my phone sends out another plea. Beep. She surfaces and I get reprimanded, "Your phone is driving me nuts. Shut it off."

"Show sympathy. It's dying here."

"Well let it die in silent mode."

So, I push the down arrow until the phone reaches the I'm-totally-silent-and-I-won't-squeak-even-if-I'm-about-to-kill-over-and-die mode. My sister is satisfied, puts her sweater over head, and crawls back under the table.

And now, I'm just sitting here feeling guilty. If I had bad-battery-itis, I would be pretty upset if someone covered my mouth with duct tape so that I couldn't even ask for help. But I don't feel guilty enough to go downstairs and get the charger. Because for goodness sakes, I did just charge my phone a couple hours ago. It shouldn't even be dying yet. And to demonstrate my anger, I'm just going to let it die. In silent mode.

If I Could Do Anything And Everything I Would:

- Be a food network television show host. I would pour pre-measured ingredients out of little glass bowls that would then be whisked away to other people's kitchen sinks. There would always be a hair stylist and make-up artist on call so I would always look perfect while I baked my tiramisu. My apron would be red.

-Work in a high-rise, touch-the-sky, New York tower. And I would wear pencil skirts and high heels. My specific job would be of no consequence. The important thing is that I would spend five minutes every day listening to my phone messages accompanied by the elevator music as I rode from the ground to my office on the 43rd floor.

-Eat breakfast in bed. Every day. And I would never be late for work or school because of it. My sheets would stay clean too. I would never drip syrup on my pillow.

-Spend a year in Africa. Because I love hot air and giraffes and new experiences. I would bring a single writing utinsel. Preferably a pencil. I would sharpen it with a knife, or my teeth. When the pencil became a stub the size of my baby toe, I would declare the year in Africa over. I'd bring back a journal that I wrote using the single pencil and it would be published. I'd title my journal A Lone Pencil in Africa.

- Find my soul mate who would be wearing an argyle sweater, loafers, and a scarf and we would sit on the ground with grape juice and crushed ice talking about that one time we rode bikes to the local library and I crashed on the way home because the book-filled grocery sack that was draped across the handlebars of my bike split and the books spilled all over. I ended up on the sidewalk with a nice scrape on my elbow. Don't worry, he would have laughed at me when it happened (as he put my books in his grocery sack) and he would laugh again when we told the story over grape juice. He would laugh a lot, at me. I would laugh at him too.

- Take portraits. Good ones too. And my kids would be lucky because they'd have the best portraits ever. And even if my babies were ugly, a gigantic fear of mine, no one would ever know because their baby pictures would be so beautiful. People go from ugly to beautiful through good portrait photography all the time. Think Paris Hilton.

- Shave my head to find out if I have a good head shape. Some people have good head shapes and some people don't. The people that do can pull off baldness. I've always wondered if baldness would become me. And if it would, then I'd live bald.

- Marry Winston Churchill. Take that back, I'd be Winston. In female form of course. And I would go by his wife's name, Clementine. Winston was wonderful. And superhuman. Did you know he fed his fish every morning? Seriously, who does that?! You got it-- superhumans.

-Go to bed early just once to see what it feels like to obey commandments. I wonder if God knew that the disregard for His "early to bed, early to rise" direction would be the most widespread sin.

- Plant a garden in honor of my mom and her dad. Tomatoes would be the feature vegetable (or are they a fruit; I'm never sure). I would make the unripened tomatoes into green tomato salsa in honor of Mike, our cabinet carpenter, who brought us cans of the salsa when he came to install cabinets. We paid him for the cabinets and not the salsa. He was a generous man; it was good salsa.

If I could do anything and everything, I would.

Thank Goodness the Sidewalk Snow is Melting

I fell on the snowy ice madness yesterday. It was a total collapse-- a bonk your head on the cement, go to class with snow covered jeans, people running to help you up kind of a collapse.

This happened five times last winter. Some of the falls are quite memorable. Like down the stairs outside the fine arts building. My skirt was over my head. And the best friend just stood at the bottom of the stairs laughing. Or the time I had books in my hands that were definitely not in my hands by the time I hit the ground. That particular spill caused big purple yellow art form on my thigh that lasted for over a month.

Either I have no balance or I make stupid snow footwear decisions. I prefer to think it is the second explanation. At least it wouldn't be an innately incurable lack of balance. Instead it is incredibly curable stupidity.

Holiday Review

Two handsome brothers in brand new suits on Christmas morning.


Girl's night out at California Pizza Kitchen


Christmas morning joy and madness.


Christmas Eve talents-- my brother and my new stepmom and a We Wish You a Merry Christmas arrangement.


Lovely colored Christmas gifts. Notice the book. It was given to me by my father. It is about a girl who is cynical about love. I think the book was given to me for a reason. Hmm.... well, there is one thing that I'm not cynical about, and that is how much I love the artwork in this book. It is beautiful.


Oh Christmas Tree...


A stud on the couch on Christmas morning.


Older sister and husband. Christmas Eve.


Two friends eating french toast at a January breakfast party.


Our traditional red/green lights and icicles. This picture has a fire and ice element that I love.