Plus, this tiny website was my sanctuary for years. I would come here to think, to process everything, to release my inner stories onto the page and feel better. I love it. I owe it. I learned how to write on this small piece of the internet! I can’t quit it.

If you’re still reading this, hi! I miss you. We might have met right here, and for that I am grateful. I made some sweet friends from this blog, friends who taught me that “Me too” and “I get you” are sometimes all you need.

In the past two years, I’ve done some things. I rode my bicycle 3000 miles through Eastern Europe. I got engaged (ahhhhhh!!!). I’ve maintained a healthy relationship (this actually happened before the engagement, and I still can’t really believe it). I cut open a human cadaver. I started speaking at colleges about vulnerability! And… I got a book deal! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I mean, all these things are exciting, but the book deal is something I’ve dreamed of since I was a kid. More than getting married! My Barbies always got married, got divorced, got book deals. Why? I love writing. I think stories are the most important ways for us to connect. And now I will get to connect with lots of kids (and their Barbies) to let them know how special they are. I couldn’t be more excited!!!

The book is a picture book for kids four to eight. I don’t know why they put ages on picture books because I have recently been hiding in libraries and gobbling up as many kids’ books as I can. I’m 35. Some are so good I want to tattoo them all over my butt. My picture book is called You Made Me a Mother. It began as a video I wrote for a client. And then Harper Collins CALLED ME when they saw it go viral. I have sent out over 60 queries and been rejected by agents the world over, yet Harper Collins called ME! hahahaha. I made sure to copy a few of the agents who rejected me when I sent out the email announcing the book. So the book is on pre-sale! You can buy it anywhere! It’s on Amazon and on Barnes and Noble, and I just got the very first one hot off the press in the mail. Of course I cried. It’s so cool to see something I loved writing in a form that others can read and love for years to come. Eeeeee!

2016 is a year for new things. I’ll be launching my book. I’ll be getting married. These are two huge things I know nothing about. These are two big firsts of hopefully many. (Maybe I’ll only get married once.) My goal is to truly enjoy the process and the newness of it all. I hope to only scream “AHHHHHH WHAT AM I DOING?” a handful of times. Most of all, I hope to have fun through it all. There will be a book launch and some parties and lots of times where I’ll be the center of attention. That makes me want to crawl into bed for years because I so love to hide behind this screen and live in my brain and my fingertips and words. It’ll be so weird and also exhilarating and fun and full of friends and love and NEW! I’ll try not to grind my teeth off. I hope to see you there. I owe you for being with me when I was blogging about a penny falling out of my innards while in the shower. I definitely owe you.

YAY! To 2016 and new things!

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Sometimes, you can find me writing blogs (shhhh. don’t tell Humans are Funny) on Medium.

Oh hey.
Here I am. Writing! I love writing! I used to spend hours putting my writing right here. In fact, I spent three full years divulging quirky tidbits about my vagina or my hometown or my poor mom within the slippery tabs of this here blog. I was basically exploiting myself and my experiences for nuggets of relatable human truths or realizations. All for solidarity. It worked! It was an amazing three years. This blog taught me how to write. It introduced me to people I would have never ever met before. It opened avenues I didn’t even know about. It got me jobs. It got me published! It helped me feel sane. It brought me comfort, love, validation, safety. It let me empty out my brain, expose myself, and realize I’m not alone. It helped me see that humans are funny and fucked up and weird and normal and really all the same.

This blog was my best friend. And I truly loved everyone who read it.

And then one day I stopped sharing my writing. It felt wonderful to experience all those realizations and embarrassments and then keep them to myself. It hasn’t been the same going through life without letting the internet know about it, but there is something really powerful in privacy, and it’s time I explored that.

I have let this blog stagnate because I couldn’t bear the thought of letting it go. My best friend! But I think it’s time. I need some closure, man. Every time I accidentally click on its tab in my browser and see the last post from months ago, I feel funny in the tummy. It’s that guilty feeling like running into an ex that you still really care about but you know it would never work. Eeek. I will continue to write. In fact, I write a lot, though now with many more run-on sentences that fall into documents with titles like ‘imightbeinsane,’ ‘whatthefuck,’ and ‘ihatetitles.’ I will continue to publish articles in other places– maybe even a Humans Are Funny Best Of. You can always find them here: laurenne.com

Thank you! Thank you for reading. For helping me grow. For writing to me. For being my faraway friends. For being there. For listening. For laughing with me. For crying with me. For giving me advice. For teaching me things. For being my family. All ten of you. It was a great time.

RIP
Humans Are Funny
2009 – 2013

I of course thought they were dicks through my seething jealousy. Really though, I wanted to be just like them (but not in my fifties).

I quickly made some assumptions:
– Seeing pink dolphins in the Amazon is such an amazing dream. It’s so cool, in fact, it must only come true for other people.

– The Amazon is so far away and way too hard to get to. You probably have to be fifty and retired to go all the way there.

– You gotta be super rich to see pink dolphins.

So, I put that dream in the box titled ‘someday,’ and I went about touring places that seemed way more approachable, like Honduras (why? please don’t go there), Spain (Europe– just a $1200 flight away), and Papua New Guinea (home of the most dangerous city in the world— I am NAIVE AND HAVE A DEATH WISH).

This year, I decided to take my traveling to the next level. I went to the Travel Expo in LA to get ideas. And ideas I got. I saw a poster about the Amazon, complete with pink dolphins and bananas. I did some research and found that Leticia, Colombia, is a small town perched on the edge of three countries. From Leticia, you can walk 15 minutes to Brazil or take a 10-minute boat ride to Peru. And all of those places are smack dab in the middle of the Amazon (or El Amazonas, as they say in Leticia). With just some clicks of the mouse (not really. who still uses a mouse?), I found that a ticket to Leticia is MUCH cheaper than the tickets to any of the other places I’ve been going. Plus, it’s MUCH safer than Honduras or Papua New Guinea (I swear, Mom). And… THERE ARE PINK DOLPHINS there.

So, I booked a ticket and went there last month.
IT WAS SO EASY.

Note to 2008 self: don’t make assumptions.

I stepped off the plane and felt a welcoming tropical warmth. Oddly, there weren’t piles of books, electronics, or banana slicers. Just an abundance of trees and fishermen.

I booked a tour upon arrival and jumped on the first boat to glide from Leticia onto the wide Amazon river. On the right, communities dotted the river bank, morning smoke like pillows in the sky. On the left: Peru! We pulled into a quiet spot between two mid-river islands, and the dolphins greeted us there. Grey ones put on a show for us. The little babies somersaulted through the air. Then we waited. One minute. Three minutes. AND THEN PINK DOLPHINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were bigger and wiser-looking than the grey ones. They moved more slowly and did not care to put on a show. They were smart and smooth and the color of Pepto-Bismol. But best of all, they were there, in front of my eyeballs.

I’d been in Leticia 12 hours and had already seen the elusive Amazon beauties. At the end of my stay, however, the pink dolphins had lost a bit of their pizzazz. First, I found out they weren’t gay (super bummer). And when I saw ALL that the Amazon has to offer, they seemed kinda meh. Being in the jungle there is like jumping into a painting. It’s like coming alive inside a fairy tale. It’s like walking through a cartoon because the actual abundance of animals and flowers and fruits and birds and fish sounds and nature and new things you’ve never even imagined seems unfathomable in real life. But it’s real. And there are nice people there living among the beauty and green and blossoming of the Amazon every day. Some of them even have banana plantations (which are not that expensive, come to find out. You can even build your own house for a mere $2k along the river banks. Take that, 2008).

fairy tale forest!

I spent plenty of time there– enough to meet indigenous tribes and all sorts of characters. I made friends with a monkey named Shakira. I ate at least 20 fruits I’d never heard of. I had “coaching sessions” with three shaman. And, most importantly, I HELD A SLOTH.

Next time my brain tells me something is impossible or something is for ‘other people only,’ I will remember Leticia and look around my banana plantation.

“Remember when you had Jungle Fever?” they ask seventeen years later. It usually comes after “Hey, remember when you were on that show Dog Eat Dog?” which was over 10 years ago. People in my town might be racists, but they sure have amazing memories.

What saved me from falling down the racist hole were my open-minded parents. They’d seen the world and met people outside of our tiny suburb, so they were able to teach me that all kinds of people are exciting. I also think I was black in a previous life because once when I was 8 my dad told me I could have any hat I wanted in the hat store, and I chose the Malcolm X hat. Maybe I liked it because it was purple, but I probably am Malcolm X reincarnated. I’d like to note that I’ve never been in a hat store since.

It was junior year, and I was pretty excited about going to the big homecoming dance. I was pretty excited about going to any high school dance because I saw them as status symbols. In four years, I went to 5 proms and 6 homecomings. So, that means I had a lot of statuses. It also means I desperately wanted everyone to think I was cool and that my mom had money to buy me new dresses (she didn’t, but she bought them anyway).

I must also admit that junior year was a time of rebellion. We would get drunk in parking lots and go dancing at Zero Gravity, an 18-and-up dance club that served pizza while guys who didn’t yet know how to use their penises would grind them on girls from behind. And we let them because we didn’t yet know how to use boundaries. It was a wondrous atmosphere.

I had a supercrush on Rob, the bouncer. He had carmel-colored skin with hazel eyes and a smooth shaved head. This was Michael Jordan’s heyday, and Rob was a shorter version (He probably had smaller feet too and wasn’t as good at basketball.). Best of all, he lived in an apartment all by himself because he was super old, like 19. Knowing Rob was such a status symbol because that meant my friends and I could walk up to the front door of Zero Gravity in our slut costumes and get right in. Yes, you guys. I had a hook-up at the underage dance club that served pizza in the suburban Chicagoland area. You had no idea how cool I really was.

One night, my friends and I went back to Rob’s apartment (which was complete with those psychedelic posters that make you see stuff if you stare at them long enough) and, with a vodka-induced bravado, I asked Rob to homecoming. He said YES! I immediately imagined our fun night of dancing, the limo ride to a swanky-for-teenagers dinner, our subsequent marriage, and beautiful caramel-colored babies (even in high school, my mind went straight to babies. Stilllll going there.).

As I bragged about Rob’s cool posters at school that week, Travis Z, a mega popular football player (yes, I really thought like that in 1997) said that he’d wanted to go to homecoming with me. Ugh, I was torn. The whole week he begged me to change my plans, laying on his popular guy charm and using the argument that I wouldn’t have to babysit him like I would Rob. Even though Travis called me a ‘cunt’ in fifth grade, I decided to go with him to the big Homecoming gala.

Homecoming came. Travis didn’t want to dance. He seemed to hate everything about an event that I thought was as essential as air. He maybe said three words. He came over to my house after the dance and threw up all over my room, leaving a stain that we finally just got rid of last year. I yelled at him through pukey sobs, and he screamed:

I didn’t really want to go to the dance with you. I just didn’t want you to go with a black guy.

Yeah. He said that. He planned that. He got dressed up in a suit, bought a ticket, reserved a limo, and endured weeks of me talking about our plans and my dress only so a black guy wouldn’t come into our school. He ruined my night because he didn’t want a black guy in our school. He spent an entire night with me (you’ll never guess it, but I was probably not the funnest in 1997) JUST because he didn’t want me to bring a person of color into our school. I’m feeling sick just writing this out.

That is some serious hatred right there. Disgusting. Racist. Hatred.

But I don’t hate him back. We learned about projections in psychology school, and I love seeking them out in myself. The gist is that we are unable to judge people or feel a certain way about a person unless we recognize those same feelings within ourselves. It works positively and negatively. For example, I admire Oprah because she’s ambitious, creative, and is fascinated by people. If I take a look at myself, I will find that I’m ambitious, creative, and fascinated by people. And it works negatively. Whatever Travis hated about a different race, he surely hated about himself. So, I am guessing his life and the life of any racist or bigot is probably pretty horrible, filled with self-judgment and unworthiness and lots of lots of hatred from the inside. So, today I’d like to ask to send compassion to that hater and all the haters the world over. Let’s add them to our carts that are already filled with the celebratory toasts of mixed-race presidents, Civil Rights leaders, married gay people, and everyone else who deserves a hug and a shout and a ‘FUCK YEA!’ because we have come a long, long way from when MLK Jr took the stage and even from when I had Jungle Fever for the very first time. And the second few times. And even just from four years ago when our country elected a president because of who he was and not because he fit a mold. Our congress doesn’t get along and there are crazies shooting kids and climate change is ruining our crops, but we DO have a lot to be proud of. I really think there are less Travises today. Maybe not in congress, but definitely in the world.

And if that doesn’t make you feel better, find solace in the fact that Travis Z. is currently serving three years in federal prison for extortion!

I haven’t written a word lately.
I’ve been trying this new thing. It’s called privacy. Pretty amazing.
My whole life has been on this blog for the past three years, and whenever I go on a date, undoubtedly the date knows way more about me than he ever should.

Me: So, do you have any brothers or sisters (why is that even a common question?)?

Guy: I know you don’t. Ok, I Googled you. (blushing) I also know you are from Chicago, you don’t like it when people sit on your bed in street clothes, you recently went to Europe with your mom, and you have a white patch of pubic hair.

Privacy!

The thing is, I don’t even have a white patch of pubic hair anymore. That’s what I’ve spent the last two years in psychology school learning: We are not our stories. I am not what you read here. I am who I am in one moment, and that moment is but a flash of time in my life. I am no longer sad about my mom selling my childhood home. I am no longer going through an existential crisis. I am no longer really into Renaissance fairs (okay, never was). I’m just whatever I am rightnow and that is already gone. To quote Mitch Hedberg: We’re younger in every picture. (his response when people say ‘This is a picture of me when I was younger.’)

My psychology program ended in August, and I’m still feeling the echo from its core. Nobody really tells you what you’re getting into when you start any type of psychological study. You think you’re going to learn how to help other people or figure out how to manipulate family members. But once you realize how the human brain works, you become aware of all the lies you’ve ever told yourself: I’m not good enough to ask for more money. I have to be prettier in order to have a boyfriend. People who invite me to events on Facebook don’t really mean to invite me.

Stupid shit that makes you feel like a stupid shit.

This is a huge awareness. You have to re-evaluate every thought you’ve ever had. You have to start everything over. You have to look at every single relationship/challenge/tragedy/goal in your life and ask if it’s really for-real-real. Was that really a big deal or did I make it out to be one in my head? Was that a real relationship or was I just feeling unworthy of a partner so I got married and played along? Is the relationship with my parents really that bad or am I holding them to unreasonable standards? Am I really insulted by someone’s political views, or is my ego just telling me I am? I MEAN EVERYTHING. Every. Damn. Thing. Becomes. A. Question.

I even took a step back from writing and asked myself if I’m writing this blog because I want to or because it was the easiest way to make me feel like a ‘real’ writer? Or is it because here I can say weird things about myself, meet others who relate, and then not feel so weird? Or, is it just for the validation I get when people say I’m funny, (quick! I need a joke right here SO PEOPLE WILL SAY I’M FUNNY!!)?

Do you know how torturous this questioning can be? It is blood curdling hard. Tears on the living room floor and while driving and while showering hard. It requires some super ‘roided out raging strength to sit down and be honest when there are millions of other things to do with your day. “No, I would not like to go to that movie with you. I think I’m just going to stay home and ponder my childhood instead.”

If I were to talk to my 2010 self, she would tell me that 2012 looks pretty pathetic. She would say that I don’t yet own a home or have a relationship or kids. She would say that I’m a failure (Uff, and the 1993 self would be devastated to know I don’t have six kids by now—- all with names that begin with N). But when I sat down on New Year’s Eve to make a list of everything I did in 2012, I filled up twelve whole sheets of paper (big ones). This year taught me that my biggest life accomplishments are invisible. And they all happened this year (So take that, 2010 Laurenne. And stop dating that DJ.).

I hardly made any money this year. I didn’t publish the book I wrote. I spent hours screaming in my car. But I let go of so much fear. I completely abolished so many misunderstandings I had about myself and the world. When school was all over, I sat down to tell myself the good things about me, and that conversation lasted an hour. Two years ago, it would have been less than a minute. I’m no longer hard on myself. I’m no longer trying to prove my self-worth to my parents, the world, or God. I felt every single emotion that exists at some point this year, and they all led to now. Now I’m feeling calm. Now I am truly just here. No story. Just here. And I’m cool with that. I have no idea where to go from here. I have no idea what I want. Yet, I’m still calmer and more optimistic than I’ve ever been.

This year was something that goes up and down (something less cliche than a roller coaster or tidal wave. I’M SO LAZY AND IM OKAY WITH THAT). I was selfless and really fucking selfish too. I was encouraging one minute and then missing the next. I was the most scared I’ve ever been and the bravest. I cried harder than when I was born, and I laughed more from my gut. I was the ugliest and the most beautiful. I felt confused one day and enlightened the other. I made horrible jokes. I asked impossible questions. I probably insulted you.

It was hard to be my friend during these past two years. And probably harder to be my family. So, I really and truly deeply thank you for being there. For talking with me. For pondering. For calling. For making me laugh. For taking me in. For making me get dressed and go out. For listening. For seeing me. For just showing up to life the way you do.

Thank you to everyone for existing and being part of my 2012 and my life. Here’s to doing crazy shit in 2013 and analyzing it later.

I love you.

I’m back.

I have spent the last three months in Europe enjoying every moment, drinking every wine, walking every winding street, talking to every stranger.
I learned a lot. I danced a lot. I ate a lot. I said ‘yes’ a lot. I got lost a lot. I smoked a lot. I smiled a lot. I tanned a lot. I thought a lot. I didn’t think a lot. I wrote a lot.

I wrote about my feelings. And my experiences. And the people I met. And I didn’t share those writings with anyone! I decided those writings are for me. They’re not doughnuts! They’re just for me.

I will share what I learned:

I learned that things change.

(My dad lived here in the sixties)

I learned that traveling is always good for a makeover.

(before)

(after)

That cousins are the siblings I never had.

That moms will take risks if you start selling them on the idea days before.

That it’s actually fun to do stuff tourists do.

(like this)

(or this)

That I’m in love with Madrid.

That I’m scared of Spanish butchers.

(Seriously. That chick is scary.)

That there are probably millions of ‘Robertos’ in Spain and Italy alone.

That gazpacho is a treat we should savor more often.

That trying things is really imperative to knowing whether or not you like them.

That free will does exist once you stop caring what other people think.

That everyone should go visit Auschwitz and eat more candy (at the same time or not).

That there’s no better feeling than knowing you’re doing whatever the fuck you want.

That there’s no such thing as ‘tired’ if you’re having fun.

That shoes explode after three months in the heat of a car.

That I will travel alone once a year until I die.

That I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up and I don’t care.

That my new mantra is ‘Fuck it.’

That there’s no place like home:

(Venice Beach, Labor Day 2012, where we found a stuffed tiger and a boombox that played 90s music)

Fuck it.

After two weeks with my mom and two weeks with my cousins, my luggage wheels were traversing the Spanish cobblestones alone.

Traveling alone is the best and the worst. It’s the hardest and easiest. When you’re alone, there’s no need to tell a companion that you have to walk in to this store really quickly to grab some laxatives (an example). No need to feel pressured to go see the Pharmacy Museum in Krakov because your friend wants to go (Ok, I wanted to go. Hint: You can skip the Pharmacy Museum in Krakov.) When you’re alone, there’s no need to apologize to anyone when the dinner you made turns into midnight cheese sandwiches (Seriously, how did that broccoli end up tasting like bad breath?)

Plus, there are spiritual benefits to traveling alone, as it opens up a whole new world of awareness. With no phone or Facebook in a foreign land, dinners, lunches, breakfasts, and pretty much everything in between is spent listening to thoughts and getting to know what goes on inside your head. By now, I REALLY know what goes on inside my head. (It’s insanity in there.)

That new awareness leads to good, but it’s also the hard part. There are phases to this hard part. The first is fear. Maybe not for everyone, but I am prone to outbursts of that worthless emotion (Don’t try to say that there’s some good in fear because whatever.) I fear getting lost. I fear asking for directions. I fear being seen as a tourist (which is what I am, so this one makes no sense– my brain wants me to be cooler than a tourist.). Since I am alone, I am completely aware of it, which is even more frustrating. –What if I say something wrong and he can tell my Spanish isn’t as good as his? –Your Spanish isn’t supposed to be as good as is, as he is FROM SPAIN. –You’re right, but still I’m scaaaaaaaared. –You’re being really scared of some stupid shit right now. —Waa.

This lasts for a few days.

And then come the couples. Suddenly, you look around and realize that everyone on vacation is here with their extremely significant other. Your pupils become sniper eyes as you notice every little held hand, every fucking beach kiss, every cute eye exchange when the baby needs a new diaper. You see it all. And to top it off, waiters just can’t get over that you’re a girl on vacation all by herself. Every time you sit down to dinner, they’ll say, “JUST YOU?” and feign some crazy shock. A few nights ago by the Madrid airport, my waiter said that my boyfriend must have been killed in an airplane. I looked him in the eyes very seriously and said, ‘Yes. Yes, he was.’ And then I looked away. Not really, but I should have because WHY CANT A GIRL JUST TRAVEL ALONE? SO WHAT IF HER OVARIES ARE AGING AND SHE DOESN’T HAVE ANYONE TO TRAVEL WITH?

That’s the self-pity phase. It lasts for a few days.

And then there’s an outpouring of love for family and friends. Well, if Rahul were here, he’d love this place. And if Andrea were here, she’d be making fun of that guy’s Speedo right now. And, boy, my mom would want one of those mumus over there. Man, my friends and family are pretty sweet. WHY AM I SPENDING THE ENTIRE SUMMER WITHOUT THEM? I’M SO DUMBBBBBBB. I miss everyooooooone. Waaaaaaaa. Even my landlord. And my mail woman. What is she up to right nowwwwww?

That’s the regret/longing phase. It lasts two days tops.

Then comes the I-don’t-give-a-fuck phase. This phase is freedom. It’s still introspective, but whenever fear comes up or self pity walks in, you can stop them at the gate and say, ‘YOU ARE IN SPAIN RIGHT NOW. LOOK THE FUCK AROUND AS THE SEA IS RIGHT BY YOUR FEET AND YOU’RE NOT WORKING AND WINE IS $3 FOR A GOOD BOTTLE AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE.’ AND LOOK HOW MUCH YOU REALLY LOVE CAPITALS!!!!

I’d been hoping with fingers double-crossed for this phase to hurry up and come. Please come, freedom to speak and be and frolic and talk to everyone and dance with old people and eat foods that are weird and sticky!

I realized it had finally arrived as I sat in the jump seat of a huge tourist bus, the very last passenger on board. My bag stumbled around on the floor as we zipped around a rotunda more than once. The driver was simply driving, not ready to arrive at my stop. He was telling me all about his wife’s suicide. She was too tall to hang herself from any beam, so she held onto her ankles until she died. She could have simply stepped to the floor, but she didn’t. She held on. AND THIS MADE ME SO HAPPY! Not because I’m a morbid human being with a suicide obsession (although also a possibility). It made me happy because this is exactly what would be happening in my own country. I wasn’t feeling alone. I wasn’t scared of saying something wrong in Spanish. I wasn’t missing anyone. I was myself. And I had found someone who wanted to talk to me about his life, which is exactly what happens in the States. People with stories always find me. Or maybe I find them. Especially “suicide survivors.” We always seem to find each other and share stories like old ‘Nam buddies. I was myself, and he was himself. And there we were, listening to each other and driving around Spain! If we were in the US, you bet that guy would be appearing in the next Taboo Tales.

Feeling free, I danced that night until six in the morning with the Salsa champion of Italy! And after that I went to the biggest water park in Spain and GOT A FAST PASS! Then I had dinner with a piano teacher named Rosa. After that, I debated prostitution laws with a hot cop (it’s totally legal and only 20 bucks for the WHOLE SHEBANG!). Now, I am in Madrid writing this from the center of a square surrounded by Germans and luggage shops and jars of sangria and umbrellas and cigarettes and walking dogs and frozen yogurt shops and old women peering from balconies. And I feel calm and not scared and not alone. AND I NEVER WANT TO LEAVE. AND I STILL LOVE CAPITALS.

Are people from Tobago called Tobogans? 

If so, do they get discounts on sleds?

Do all of Sara Lee’s ex boyfriends cringe and say ‘I dont!’ when the jingle says, ‘Nobody doesn’t love Sara Lee?’

Why did Sara Lee ever even go for a double negative in a slogan?

Do conservatives eat eggs? 

Should I tell them they are abortions? 

I mean, they kind of are. Or maybe they’re just hen menstruation. Henstruation.

Pretty sure they’re abortions because once I found a dead fetus in an egg when I was making a cake with my friend Karina, which I’ve mentioned already here.

I never baked a cake again.

Why do hotels still give out shower caps? 

Who uses those shower caps?

Did any hotel owner ever think ‘maybe I should spend the money on wifi instead?’

Or pillow chocolates?

You don’t see enough pillow chocolates these days.

Do hummingbirds sleep? 

Why do we feel more free when we’re on vacation? 

Why can’t we get all crazy and careless and spontaneous and meet strangers when we’re in our homelands? 

Or is that just me? 

Will you guys make sure I get all crazy and careless and spontaneous and meet more strangers when I come back? 

Are all maps wrong, or am I just really bad at reading maps?

Pretty sure all maps are a little wrong.

Do famous people get together secretly and say, ‘Can you believe how famous we are?!’ and then jump up and down?

I would.

What is the deal with Duty Free shops?

Is it really worth carting around a huge bottle of scotch to save four dollars?

And why do they only sell perfume and liquor in those places?

I am really happy I don’t own a duty free shop.

I am really happy I don’t own a Hummer, a sexually transmitted disease, or a cockroach farm.

Although, I am warming up to cockroaches.

They are always there for you.

Why don’t you read more questions here or here.

Why don’t I go explore? I am here!

I’m in Spain! I’m here to work on my Master’s thesis, which is about perfectionism, a disease I contracted long ago. If something I do isn’t done perfectly (speak Spanish), I get mad at myself. At least I used to. Now I’ve been working on it for two years, so I’m getting better. Look, I’ll even spell a word wierdly and leave it just like that.

Before Spain, the country of my dad’s family, my mom and I hit up Poland and Italy, the countries of her parents. It’s been an Adventure in Ancestry, a Raucus Ride into our Roots. We didn’t meet any actual ancestors though. I imagined fat Italian ladies pinching our cheeks and forcing five courses down our delicate American throats. Okay, that did happen, but they weren’t our relatives. Ancestry.com claims to be a gateway to long-lost family members, but it really just shows you records from before they had computers. While it is cool to see my grandpa’s signature on the Ellis Island register from 1937, those documents did not lead me to long lost cousins who would take me in, invite me to Ibiza, and leave me huge inheritances. I hate Ancestry.com.

Still, our trip did help us understand from where we come and why we are who we are. And after fifteen days with my mom, we were still alive. FIFTEEN days STRAIGHT after living apart for fourteen years. That’s a feat. We actually had a great time, and we learned a lot of deep things about each other like we both hate tomato seeds. She’s been back to the comfort of her own sofa and her non-spotty internet for over a week now (besides that whole storm/lack of electricity thing), which means I’ve been alone for over a week.

Being the detail-oriented perfectionist that I am, I had a list of things I was planning to get to the moment my mom swept herself back to the land of dollars. I always have a to-do list. There’s never not something to do, to write, to finish, to email, to edit, to study, to read. Since the last time I traveled in 2009, I’ve been glued to lists. And meetings. And traffic. And things and things to do.

When she left, I cried. Then I pulled out my list: Send postcards. Talk to strangers. Walk around the city. Write a book or two. Come up with a million-dollar business plan. Fall in love. Email all the people I’ve been wanting to email forever. The yoozch. The yush? The ush? The usz?

But something came up, and it’s something I’ve never done before. It’s something everyone has always told me to try, but I’ve never let myself try it for fear it would interfere with my perfectionism. It’s called: Nothing. I AM DOING NOTHING. Nothing. This is the first time I’ve written something in weeks. I haven’t peeped at an email. I’m only half writing this because I’m also watching the most fascinating Spanish game show (Joder! Tienen los mejores game shows aqui!). I’m waking up at 11am. ELEVEN! I’m taking baths for so long that my fingers actually have grown prunes on them. And when I get tired of the bath, I walk to the beach. And when I get sick of the beach, I sit at a restaurant and watch people make me food. I talk little. I wear the same thing every day. I sit silently. I didn’t even move when a huge cockroach flew through my window.

From afar, one might think I’m depressed. I probably look like someone’s just died or like I’ve just escaped a violent relationship. But I’m simply in shock. I can’t believe how great it feels to do nothing. I don’t have a TV in my apartment in America because I feel like it interferes with my productivity. And now I’ve put everything off so I can stay in and watch a semi-less trashy Spanish version of Maury Provich. It’s so good (But I don’t understand why that one guy’s long lost sister didn’t come on the show! Doesn’t she want to know her biological family? I would definitely do the show if such a nice invitation in such a big envelope arrived for me– duh, hermana!).

I’m totally letting myself not DO, and it feels pretty fucking great. It also means I’m not perfectly finishing everything I’ve set out to do. But whatever. Maybe that means I’m finally cured and I can come home. I have a whole lot of American TV to catch up on.

::I hope everyone’s out doing something patriotic today on this very special day of Independence. I passed a Burger King today!::