update.

I finally wrote my review of Red Clay, Blue Cadillac. It's not the best-written review I've done, but I've heard this isn't his best book. So we're even.

my old friend, i've come to talk with you again.

The sheer purity of a bookstore, I believe, is the most beautiful thing. Period. And all I got to see today was a Waldens. Waldenbooks with it's crowded aisles and odd categories. David Sedaris is in fiction. Ann Coulter is in social science. Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them is relegated to humor. And Lindsay Lohan's breasts, courtesy of GQ, are more visible than James Joyce.

And yet. I love it.

It's messed up and silly. Sort of like me.

I hate the job hunt. There. I said it. I'm really miserable. Beating my head into this imaginary wall that is my own ridiculous will and high standards. I'm impatient. I'm anxious. I feel myself stretching and squirming inside my skin like a cat on a sun-bathed couch. Except cats love sunbathing on their sofa of choice. I do not like this churning.

I've been trying to start writing a book since January. I have these fabulous ideas. And I pontificate (to John) at great length. I am stuffy and snobbish and intellectual and beautiful. I can feel it. I started this on our honeymoon.

I sit, comfortably, computer in lap, and stare at this great white glowing empty Word document. And it stares back with the intensity of curry sauce at an Indian restaurant with white table cloths and long-stemmed water glasses. I am Kraft mac 'n cheese.

No. I am Easy Mac.

I am emotionally and creatively unprepared for life as an unemployed "workin' girl." Someone give me a job and a book deal! Wiggle your nose! Fold your arms and through your head down so your ponytail slaps your forehead! I am not Mary Tyler Moore. I have been misinformed.

I went to a bookstore today. I spun myself in like a cocoon. When I came out, my wings were sticky and I stumbled around like a top spinning off its course. My eyes were blurry and my feelers overloaded.

I want to fly.

laura's lense?

I bought a domain name last night. I don't have a place to put all my content yet, if I move there now though. But soon you will be able to view all this loverliness at www.lauraslens.com.

I felt really excited about buying it. It felt so...official. Of course, I messed up at first. I almost bought www.lauraslense.com. Because John and I are not very good spellers. (By the way, loverliness was on purpose. You know, "wouldn't it be loverly?") Actually, technically, I did buy the wrong name. John called them and told them, sorry, my wife and I, you see, we can't spell. Can you take out that "e" that makes that domain name, you know, contain a fake word? And they did. So it's all fixed now. I just need space on a server.

light the candles.

Happy Birthday, Mommy! I love you!

i think i started rambling toward the end there.

So today was my last day at K-RTH. And I didn't leave until 7:40.

John had been waiting in the lobby since 4:55.

When I got done killing enough trees to make John Muir officially hate me personally, I went down to the lobby and out the doors of K-RTH for good. With two T-shirts and a window cling. None of which I'll probably ever use, but they're still cool.

John and I went to Baja Fresh for the first time since May 19. (I know the date because John's mom had surgery that day, not because I'm that big of a loser. Even though I am. Ooooo, Baja Fresh, Oooooo..... Ooo.) It was delicious.

And it's a good thing we ate out, too. Because a letter shoved in our screen door told us that our water could make us sick. Because it has E. coli in it.

Now, if I've learned anything from TV it's this: 1)When you put a raw chicken on your kitchen counter, it leaves behind a puddle of your family's future sickness; 2) Sparkle paper towels are safer than cloth because they're more sanitary; and 3) Tony Danza is the coolest man alive.

Which brings me to my point. Someone dumped "chicken puddle" into our water supply and someone (hopefully not the same person) has given Tony Danza a new show.

Tomorrow, I better boil the water I'll need to use for my lunch early. Wouldn't want to miss Tony asking Mitch Albom the really tough questions.

Like how the hell he knows what five people you meet in heaven.

Five? I mean, after God and Jesus (who are pretty much the main idea behind heaven, after all) that only leaves three. Out of all the people in the world to have lived and died before you died. Including Morrie.

the game is over, the bird flew out the window.

In 1985, my family planned a huge surprise party for my grandfather. He was retiring. I was four years old. He had made his living at Lincoln Foundry, here in Southern California, making casts and molds and other such technical and mechanical things that are still over my head.

All I really remember was yelling "Surprise!" And seeing my grandmother nearly pass out. [Note: I do also remember my uncle telling Amy and I not to get up during the night because there were snakes under our bed.}

Today I noticed a book on the bottom shelf of the bookcase behind where his chair always sat. The spine said "Brancusi." Now, being married to an artist, I do happen to have a side story about this artist which includes this picture:



The story is that Kenneth (one of John's friends) hates that sculpture, called "Bird in Flight." And John was sort of being a jerk. In a really cute, artsy, no-one-really-gets-the-joke, kind of way.

Anyway, Lincoln Foundry made a cast of one of Brancusi's other works. I remember hearing this from Grandpa before, but I had no idea the guy was actually famous enough to make it into the standard art history lecture.

So I'm on the floor, looking at this book when I notice my grandfather's walkman resting on top of the books. I can see him, now, in my mind, swiveling the chair and sticking it down there after listening to the end of the Dodger game.

And I wonder, was he the last person to touch this? Is it still here because that's where he put it?

I put on the headphones and turn on the AM radio because I figure that's what he listened to the games on. But it isn't a game.

I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood,
I know I could
always be good
to one who'll watch over me.

"Someone to Watch Over Me" was added to the list of songs my mom and I play and sing together whenever we're in the mood to hurt our backs and sit at the piano shortly after we saw "Mr. Holland's Opus."

I remember my grandfather sleeping with a little, blue square radio under his pillow. I remember finding it when I would come into their room in the morning and climb from the foot of the bed up in between them. They smelled like honey and Vicks Vaporub. Grandma would hold my hand and smile at me, our cheeks soft against her pillow, face to face. Grandpa's radio would buzz and hiss. And I remember how much thinner he looked without a shirt on.

Won't you tell him please to put on some speed?
Follow my lead,
Oh how I need
Someone to Watch Over Me.

the down side of working at an oldies station.

If I hear "Brown-eyed Girl" one more time, I think I'll puke.

Oh, what's that? Nancy Sinatra? No, it was just a commercial for the station that obviously never plays Nancy Sinatra. There's just not enough air time left after playing "Midnight Train to Georgia" and "I Got You Babe" thirty times a piece. Coincidentally, not songs I really needed to hear the first time:

I've got to be with him
(I know you will)
on that midnight train to Georgia
(leaving on the midnight train to Georgia)
(whoo whoo)
I'd rather live in his world
(live in his world)
than live without him in mine.

[Cher:] They say our love won't pay the rent
Before it's earned, our money's all been spent.
[Sonny:] I guess that's so, we don't have a pot
But at least I'm sure of all the things we got.
[Sonny:] Babe.
[BOTH:] I got you babe I got you babe.

Sadly, whenever I hear "What Becomes of the Broken-hearted" I can't help but think of Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes. Which makes me think my memory is incorrectly wired. Why do I know what song is playing when Evelyn Couch imagines herself wearing a cellophane dress, but barely remember to feed our fish?

It's like I'm stuck on pause... In this world, disco never happened.

k-rth is out of this world...just check out the astro burgers.

I'm still at work.

I realized today that if I stand up and look out the window above my cubicle, I can see the Hollywood sign.

I've been going to lunch at this place called Astro Burger, down the street at Melrose and Gower. The women behind the counter have severe lipliner arches on their faces and ponytails so slick their hair looks fake. The posters on the wall cover two subjects: tourist locations in Greece and the Gardenburger.

I come in alone. Get my (superfluous) main entre, (main attraction) fried zucchini, and coke and take up half of whichever two-seater booth in the corner is available. I turn on my cell phone. But no one has left me a voicemail telling me that my stunning resume wowed them under their desk and they must, without further delay, employ me at my earliest possible convenience. So. I call my mom.

Tomorrow maybe I should go to the healthy place across the street.

Probably not.

there's nothing like walking into a lobby and seeing a billboard-size, andy-wharhol-style picture of elvis.

When I got up this morning, there was a voicemail on my phone. I never heard the phone ring or anything, but there was a message.

Anyway, it was from AppleOne, so I called back. They had a two-day assignment for me for today and Monday.

"When does it start?" I'm still wearing my nightgown with the Seven Dwarfs on it.

"As soon as you get there."

"Okay." Oh. My.

"It's in Hollywood. When can you be there?"

So I say I'll be there in two hours and she repeats a time that's closer to only an hour and a half away, but I agree anyway. Turns out she was right anyway and I was twenty minutes early.

Right now I'm sitting in the sales department of K-EARTH 101 FM in Hollywood on Melrose Ave., right next to Paramount Studios. They don't have anything for me to do right now but answer the phone. So. Here I am. And I don't know how long I'm supposed to stay. Ha.

hello, los angeles, care to give me some money? *or* laura takes a new approach to a tried and true salutation.

I went to AppleOne in downtown LA this morning. I had an 8 o'clock appointment. John and I were so worried I'd be late that we got up at 5 AM and got to downtown before 7. We ate breakfast at the Denny's next door to AppleOne.

I had the French toast platter, not the slam. No eggs for me.

Because I felt like I was going to puke.

So I'm sitting in the Denny's in downtown LA in a black skirt and black sweater and black shoes eating French toast and just knowing I'm going to drip syrupy blotches all over myself. But I don't. Instead, I just get more and more nauseous.

The minutes crawl by. I go to the bathroom, positive I'm going to throw-up everything I've eaten since I got to California on my funeral-esque "business attire."

When I don't, I envision myself walking into AppleOne and hurling on the receptionist. Excuse me I have an app--..... Pardon me, I appear to have covered your entire cubicle with vomit. I'll be going now. I'm a social and hygienic embarrassment. Good day to you.

Of course, I didn't puke at all. (Unless you count what had to have been my score on the data-entry test. Not that I actually saw the score. Oh no. They keep it to themselves. If you suck, you already know it.)

Anyway, my constant moving that I love so. much. makes my record instable.

I suppose that's true. And watching the sun come up over Santa Monica Boulevard (actually it was Figueroa, but whatever) is not as fun as Sheryl Crowe led me to believe. In fact, it made my stomach "instable."

We're going out to get applications from retail stores tomorrow. Perhaps that won't make me so nervous.