Just when I think my blog is old enough and boring enough to shut down because my life is really not that interesting or amusing and I’m not sure what I would write on here THE END FOREVER, the world raises an eyebrow and is all, OH REALLY? And gives me some really good material.

Like this past Tuesday night, for example.

I left my apartment around 11 in the morning that day for a long babysitting shift and I heard something in my garage as I was leaving.

(I live on the top floor of a family rowhouse in Queens which means there’s only three floors and a private garage which I am only explaining because New York City is not all fancy elevator doorman buildings full of people who look like Patrick Dempsey and I don’t want there to be any confusion about why there is a two car GARAGE in my apartment building. It’s because it’s not really an apartment building. My God, that was boring.)

It sounded like a car was running in there but I dismissed the idea because I was running late and why would a car be running in a closed garage, someone probably just got home, oooo something bright and shiny I NEED A CUP OF COFFEE! And I went on my merry way.

(It should also be stated that because it costs one thousand million dollars to live here, people in Queens do crazy things like rent out parking spaces in their garage. Therefore, I do not actually know the people who keep vehicles in the little garage because they do not live in my house.)

I had plans to meet Alayna and Sylvi for dinner after I babysat and wasn’t planning on stopping home in between but during the course of the afternoon, something tragic happened: the zipper on my boot broke. IT JUST BROKE! And wouldn’t zip up! CAN YOU IMAGINE IT? So I had to borrow a pair of shoes from the mom I work for except she wears a size smaller than me so the only thing that fit was a pair of her black crocs.

Black crocs, that is, with one single tiny decoration charm punched through one of the holes that says MOMS ROCK.

I cheerfully sported these, ROCKED THEM OUT IN FACT, with a pair of skinny black jeans which made me look…like a clown? I guess? A clown who thinks moms rock? Which, I mean, they do? My feet just looked so large and ridiculous. You might think I would rise above how I looked and just get on the subway to meet my friends for dinner but you guys, I COULD NOT GO THROUGH WITH IT. And in my defense, I was not far from home so I decided to pop in, change shoes and head out.

As I approached my house, I heard it: the distinct rumbling of a key in the ignition, in my garage.

WHAT? COME ON.

At this point, it was nearly 7:00 at night.

I opened the door and was hit in the face with the smell of exhaust in the hallway.

That’s also about the time I heard the bleating of the carbon monoxide detector going off on the third floor. (Which my roommate installed: HIGH FIVE!)

I took a deep breath, propped the front door open for circulation and dialed 911, staying outside because WHAT IS HAPPENING EVERYONE!?!?!?!?

I informed the lady on the other end of 911 that there was a vehicle running in my garage and I did not have keys to the garage and could not get in and TOXIC FUMES RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

She said she would dispatch a cop car and hung up.

Within three minutes, someone else from 911 called me back (which is so freaky, to have 911 calling YOU. It was all I could do not to pick up the phone and just scream as loud as I could. Just for fun! Just making sure my tax dollars are being put to good use!) and this woman, in my opinion, should probably not be working as a 911 operator.

“Hi, did you just call 911?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a problem in a garage?”

“Yes. There’s a vehicle running in my garage which is locked and I can’t get in.”

“Whose vehicle is it?”

“I…don’t know. Someone who keeps a vehicle in my garage?”

“So this is a parking garage?”

“What? No. This is the garage of a private family home.”

“How many people are in the garage?”

“No one is in the garage that I know of.”

“Did you look?”

“I CANNOT GET IN.”

“What else is in the garage?”

!!!!!!!!!!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS? YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS UP.

At least, I cannot. This is my real life.

The best question she asked me was “Did you call the fire department?”

I completely blanked out for a second thinking WHAT ON EARTH IS THE NUMBER FOR THE FIRE DEPARTMENT?

It’s 911. In case you didn’t know.

“No!” I sputtered. “I called YOU! Was I supposed to call some other number for the fire department?!”

“Nope,” replied the operator. “This is the number. I’ll call them for you and have them come by to check it out too.”

WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING, 911 OPERATOR OF LINGUISTIC MYSTERY!???

Pretty soon, two cops showed up and together we all waited for the fire department.

Luckily enough, only one other person in my building was home and she hadn’t been there long. She said she had smelled the exhaust but her apartment had smelled fine so she went in. She came out when she heard my alarm going off upstairs and THANK GOD, what I’m saying is I probably saved her life. No big deal, you guys.

One of the cops thought he was awesome so he kept asking me what I thought was going on in the garage.

I should state that the thought had already crossed my mind, VERY EARLY ON, that there are few reasons to put your keys in your car and rev it up in a locked garage. One reason, actually. And that would be to take your own life. So as I am remaining calm and collected and dialing numbers and talking to 911 operators who have no idea what is going on, there is an undercurrent of fear in my brain, a steady monologue of WHAT IF that keeps wondering if when we finally open the garage, there is going to be a car running and also a dead body.

“So, you think some guy’s dead in there?” asked the cop.

“I don’t know.”

“YOU GOTTA HAVE A HUNCH, LADY. YOU THINK SOMETHIN IS UP? WHY ELSE WOULD THAT CAR BE RUNNIN’?”

“UM. I DO NOT KNOW.”

“YOU THINK THIS IS SOME CSI SHIT???”

What. On. Earth.

By the way, NYPD cops actually talk like the ones on Law & Order. He called me lady. And also, what is this guy’s problem!? Was he accusing me of murdering someone and covering it up like a suicide? BECAUSE I FELT INTERROGATED! And I did not have a lawyer present.

“He was probably just flirting with you,” suggested my roommate later.

Oh. Is that how you flirt? You scream that I must have a hunch about a possible dead body in a garage, all CSI shit?

Sexy.

Also, I should mention that all night I was wearing my MOMS ROCK Crocs! So, that made me feel very alluring.

Not one but TWO fire trucks then showed up in front of the house and a very important fireman with a big hat came up to me and was all, YOU HAVE A KEY TO THE GARAGE? and I said no, I did not, my landlord moved to California awhile ago and…

He didn’t stick around to listen as he burst into my apartment and hacked down a door with an axe.

As you do.

A few dozen firemen stormed the apartment taking carbon monoxide readings while a few others opened the large garage door and what did we find?

Not a dead body, thank God. And actually not even a car.

Just a motorcycle.

With the keys in the ignition, of course, running like there was no tomorrow.

Some idiot WHO DRIVES A MOTORCYCLE decided to leave that motorcycle running in the closed garage and just took off for the day! THANK YOU SIR!!!

I was pretty annoyed but mostly relieved because no dead bodies, etc. etc.

And none of the other crap I thought might be inside was actually inside.

PICTURE TIME.

WHAT WAS ACTUALLY IN THE GARAGE:

WHAT I THOUGHT I WAS IN THE GARAGE:

Anyway. PHEW, AMIRITE?

Basically we stood outside for an hour or so while some really attractive firemen stormed into our apartment with fans and aired it out.

Turns out a concerning level of carbon monoxide is around 30.

The reading in my apartment?

500.

The reading in the garage and the hallway next to it?

900.

The motorcycle had been running so long that the carbon monoxide had obviously leaked to neighboring apartments. No one was hurt and I can’t really stop thinking about what would’ve happened if someone was home at my house during the day, as I often am, taking a nap or tapping away at her laptop.

I’m so grateful for our carbon monoxide detectors (though who on earth thought I would ever need them?) and I also feel a little confidence boost in myself. I may cry easily at commercials but damn if I don’t keep my head on straight in an emergency and call 911 and do whatever I need to do. That’s a good thing, right?

And now, I am going to find the guy who owns that motorcycle and kill him.

OH HO HO JUST KIDDING.

I am going to give him a stern talking to. And see what I can do about evicting him from our garage.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Thank you ever so much, FDNY! I hope I don’t need you back here anytime soon.

Love,

Laura

Oh hi helloooooo.

According to someone with a medical degree who I went to see last week, my lungs are clear! PRAISE BE! And I am only coughing and choking to death on a regular basis because the lining of my throat/lungs/etc. is dry! And needs to be…MOISTENED. Ew.

He recommended:

a cough suppressant at night which has the added bonus of making me drowsy!
a humidifier!
steaming my throat over some….steam once an hour for two minutes!

The humidifier is awesome.
Steaming feels amazing and totally works.
The cough suppressant made me feel drunk the first night and the second night?

Made me throw up.

That’s not…normal, right? That’s just gross. We don’t have to get into the details of cherry flavored puke, right? OH WAIT I JUST DID AHHHHHHHHHH SAVE YOURSELVES!!!

Is that the grossest throw up story you’ve ever heard? No, it’s not. Because I can tell you a better one.

Back when I was a young lass and my three siblings and I generally existed to make my mom wonder why she ever had us at all, during the summer my little sister got a stomach bug and ran to the bathroom to regurgitate all her dinner except she didn’t aim very well and got it in lots of places all over the bathroom, specifically the radiator which lines the bathroom wall near the toilet.

My mother cleaned it up because she is the best mother of all time and also, who ELSE was gonna do it? And we forgot all about Deb’s throw up of 1993 until the winter.

When the heat clicked on for the first time.

And we were all like WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL COMING FROM UPSTAIRS!!!!!?????

It was remnants of Deb’s throw up, sizzling on the radiator.

And there you go! The grossest throw up story of all time! YOU ARE WELCOME! KIDS ARE AWESOME! HAVE A DOZEN!

Anyway, BACK TO ME, I am finally feeling much better, after three weeks of ugliness. The doctor said I probably had an upper respiratory infection from the flu but my body CLEARED IT ON ITS OWN for lo, I am magical and all powerful.

I’m having a hard time getting back into a routine of any kind. When you spend three weeks kind of lolling about watching Friday Night Lights (I HAVE TWO EPISODES LEFT OF THE WHOLE SERIES! WHAT WILL I DO NEXT?!), it’s difficult to get your butt off the couch and go to the gym and write something important and pay your bills and get motivated because oh man, getting sick gives you a lovely automatic pause. You can just rest. And you feel awful. But you slow down. And I need that so much because I’m always so GO GO GO!

But now I don’t feel like go go going at all. I feel like eating some more soup and taking some more naps and that’s just lazy so HOP TO IT LAURA COME ON.

And now I am whining.

So I will stop.

I AM BETTER NOW! IT IS AWESOME!! LIFE HERE I COME!!!

Forgive me for not blogging. I have been very busy hacking up the contents of my lungs. All day. All the time.

Yes. I am still sick.

So the flu zapped me and it sucked and then I had a lingering cough which everyone said was normal because the flu gets all up in your respiratory system and it didn’t seem to be getting better but it didn’t seem to be getting worse but oh wait, that’s probably not normal, how hard I am coughing right now, owwwwwww IT BURNS IT BURNS hack hack etc. SUFFICE IT TO SAY I am going to see a doctor tomorrow morning, nearly three weeks after the initial OH HELP I AM UNDER ATTACK incident.

That’s kind of all that’s been up with me and I hate to be that person who blogs about her illness but THERE IT IS. I have the whooping cough of death. It’s very attractive and I assume everyone who sits next to me on the subway is THRILLED!!! when I let loose! COUGH COUGH YOU ARE WELCOME.

I’m just boosting everyone’s immune systems, guys. Just makin’ sure your bodies are fighting the good fight.

That’s really all I got.

It’s November, which is madness! And New York City is full of beautiful leaves and warmish weather! Which makes me so love it so so much.

What have you been eating for lunch? I made a Barefoot Contessa lentil soup which was OUT OF CONTROL, you guys. And in a sick daze, I walked to the grocery store and came back with one box of Lucky Charms and that’s it and I’m still not quite sure how or why that happened but there it is, I confessed it.

I have no idea how to wrap this up as this has been my lamest blog entry to date. I think my work is done here – cough, cereal, autumn.

Help.

October! It snowed last week! And I am still sick! So that is a really fun thing that is happening to me! HERE ARE SOME PICTURES INSTEAD OF WHINING:

Where have I been, you guys?

Guess!

Sunbathing in a tropical climate?

Eloping with a very wealthy financier?

Learning how to Irish step dance?

If you guessed ‘In bed, dying of consumption’, GUESS WHAT? YOU WIN.

Consumption is one of many of my father’s favorite ‘old days’ diseases that he busts out whenever any of us are feeling bad.

“YOUR MUTHA’S NOT FEELING WELL. MUST BE DIVERTICULITIS.”

This was all hilarious until my grandmother came down with ACTUAL diverticulitis a few years ago.

She was fine.

And then it was even funnier.

Apparently some of dad’s diseases still exist.

Just like consumption.

Which I got last Saturday out of the blue.

I was in the middle of working out, took a sip of water and thought ‘Hm, that’s a sore throat’ and by the time I got home I just stared vacantly at a wall and told my boyfriend I was pretty sure death was imminent and BAM, there it was. Fever. Chills. Sore muscles. Sore throat. Sore everything.

IT WAS THE FLU, YOU GUYS!

At least I’m kind of sure that’s what it was/is. BECAUSE I STILL HAVE IT! A week later. It has knocked me out in a way that I was just not expecting. I’m a relatively healthy human being who maybe gets the occasional cold so no matter what illness it is, I always give it 2-3 days and I’ll be brand new, right?

Seven days and counting…

I was stuck at my boyfriend’s place from Saturday until Wednesday, feeling too sick to go home. And I’m using ‘stuck’ loosely because do you know how awesome it is to have someone else bring you Theraflu, three types of soup, various juices and then a chocolate milkshake when they walk in the door from work because your throat hurts?

Geez.

Let it be said that I spent lots of time weeping at his generosity and mumbling things about the true meaning of love and self-sacrifice and…I blame the fever.

ALSO! Because he is awesome, my boyfriend has a Roku which streams Netflix directly to the television so I watched more TV in two days than I have all year. (FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS! GREATEST SHOW EVER, RIGHT GUYS? Don’t spoil anything for me, I’m on season three.)

Sadly, most of the time I felt so sick the glare of the television wasn’t even worth it and I sort of drifted in and out of sleep wondering if I had meningitis because that there is some scary stuff and I never got vaccinated and what if my life is over? Right here? Right now?

Deeeeep.

I finally left my boyfriend’s apartment on Wednesday (not dead! yes!) to get some fresh air and to head back home to Queens.

On Thursday morning I woke up and walked out the door to move my car which is a weird thing you have to do in New York City and I stood in the middle of the street staring at where my car was supposed to be wondering if I was still asleep because…what is happening? My car has disappeared? In its place was a yellow taxi cab.

The owner of the cab was walking toward me, about to move his car so I asked him if anything had happened over the past few days while I’d been gone.

“What?”

“Uh, my car? It was…right there. And now…it is gone. So…?”

“OH, THE TV!” he shouted. “THEY FILM THE TV HERE! THEY POST SIGN TO MOVE CARS OR THEY TOW IT!”

Greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

I called ’311′ and gave the lady my license plate number, my head pounding, my nose stuffy, standing outside wandering the streets of Astoria in the RAIN because I like to paint the most pathetic picture imaginable whenever I can and the woman on the phone said she had no record of my car being taken away.

“Did you call the precinct?” she asked me.

“AM I IN TROUBLE?”

“No, baby girl, sometimes with movie shoots, they’ll just tow your car around the block to get it out of the way. If you call them, they might know where it is.”

Then she transferred me to my local precinct and I talked to an actual cop which made me nervous EVEN THOUGH I AM INNOCENT and sure enough, he gave me the address of my car which was parked three blocks away.

Is that not the weirdest thing ever?

Law & Order: SVU comes to my street, shuts it down to film (WHICH I AM DEVASTATED TO HAVE MISSED!) and the cops just tow my car for free and put a big sticker on it that tells other cops not to ticket it or tow it for 48 hours because NOT MY FAULT! DETECTIVE STABLER NEEDED TO SOLVE A CHILD MOLESTATION CRIME!

What!?

In the end, I still have the flu, the remnants being an awful pounding headache every night at 7 am (someone explain this to me?), a stuffy nose, some delicious post-nasal drip and the desire to eat lots and lots of Halloween candy.

But I found my car! And I hope I get better soon. I’m just not used to being so…sick?

WHICH SHOULD HUMBLE ME.

But instead makes me angry.

Of course.

Alright, guys.

Have a healthy weekend! I hear we’re supposed to get some snow tomorrow! I BET THAT WILL BE GREAT FOR MY COLD!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The end.

In high school, I spent a lot of my time wearing a WWJD bracelet, singing along to showtune CD’s in my bedroom and chatting online in Broadway chatrooms hogging the phone line with my parents’ brand new internet connection.

(My first screen name on AOL was L24601rent – L for Laura, 24601 for Jean Valjean’s prison number and rent for the musical Rent, ‘No Day But Today’, etc. And there you go, I have single-handedly wowed you with my adolescent awkwardness.)

As such, I didn’t have a lot of time for kissing boys.

Much of what I knew about sex came from surreptitiously reading all the Stephen King novels from the school library in junior high. I’m not sure my mother knew I was reading them and I’m not sure she knew that along with being completely horrific and disturbing, Stephen King novels each contain a few graphic sex scenes.

My mom repeatedly tried to have the puberty/sex talk with me over the course of a few years (she even went to the religious ed library at church and brought home a movie or two and a copy of the book Our Bodies, Ourselves) and each time she tried, I basically put my hands over my ears and ran screaming from the room.

What can I say? I didn’t need my mother to explain to me the gross details of THAT. And thus, all I ever knew about sex, I learned from Cujo.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a callback for the spring musical, Grease. My theater director in high school took his art very seriously. This was no goof around high school cheeseball acting program. THIS WAS MUSICAL THEATER. And damnit if he didn’t require us to commit to showing up to every single rehearsal, act like a freaking grown up instead of the children we were and learn some self-discipline.

I love that guy.

Initial auditions were held privately one-on-one but callbacks were held in front of everyone else who was called back.

This was to ensure that we could handle the material appropriately in front of our friends other people.

As such, my theater director always chose the most difficult or potentially embarrassing (on a high school level) scenes from the play to use at the callback.

If there was a kissing scene, you better believe he wanted to see if you could mash your lips against a fellow classmate’s without laughing out loud or getting uncomfortable.

SO PICTURE IT:

I am fifteen years old.

I have never kissed a person romantically.

Everything I know about kissing is gleaned from It.

I am instructed to get onstage and act out the scene from Grease with Sandy and Danny in the car at the drive-in where he tries to make out with her and she freaks out and runs away.

IN FRONT OF ALL THESE OTHER PEOPLE THAT I KNOW, I AM SUPPOSED TO HAVE MY FIRST KISS.

WITH A HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR WHO HAD A SERIOUS GIRLFRIEND AND WAS, LET ME BE HONEST, NOT VERY ATTRACTIVE.

Kissing a boy for the first time is one thing.

Kissing a boy for the first time in front of a group of people and several adults is quite another.

I don’t remember much about the kiss itself. I do remember that it felt super weird and I didn’t know which way to turn my head. I also remember that my friend Jackie was sitting watching in the audience and she LAUGHED OUT LOUD WHEN IT HAPPENED SO THANK YOU FOR THAT WHEREVER YOU ARE.

And then it was over.

And I got the part.

And I kept having to kiss that senior again and again during performances IN FRONT OF MY PARENTS and he would eat tunafish beforehand ON PURPOSE.

Alas.

That is the story of my first kiss.

You’re welcome.

I’ve been really stressed out lately. It’s a culmination of things – still being unemployed, not sure what my next steps should be, tightening up things financially, getting really into hot sauce for the first time in my life and then standing in the grocery aisle wondering which hot sauce to buy because what on earth, how many brands of hot sauce do they MAKE!?

You know, usual stuff.

I was pushed over the edge Saturday afternoon while walking up 2nd Avenue talking to Alayna on my phone.

A girl my age who seemed perfectly normal walked up to me and asked me if I had a dollar or two to spare.

Now, I try to make a habit of giving money to people who ask me but I live in New York City and I just cannot give it to everyone and unfortunately right now, I really can’t spare much so I politely said, ‘Sorry! I can’t help you’. And proceeded to keep walking.

And so did the girl.

Who followed right behind me.

Leaning over my shoulder and yelling.

DO YOU HAVE A SOUL?

I…what?

DO YOU HAVE A HEART?

She kept yelling while I awkwardly asked if Alayna could hold on one second, I’m being verbally accosted by a girl who is obviously on some kind of drugs! Yay!

DO YOU HAVE A PERSONALITY??? she screeched.

At this point, I decided that it wouldn’t be all that weird if she then pulled out a knife and started stabbing me so I quickly crossed the street in an effort to get away from her and she just stood there staring after me screaming about what a huge bitch I was to anyone who would listen.

In the middle of the afternoon on Saturday. In broad daylight.

I…

Guys?

That was like, IT for me.

THE END.

I’d pretty much been walking around all week like a depressed zombie, an exhausted and exposed raw nerve and then psycho girl gets all up in my business screaming about how I don’t have a soul or a heart or a personality.

NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE TRUE, RIGHT GUYS?

I almost prefer the cracked out gentleman who walked up to me a few weeks ago and eerily whispered, “I’m going to kill her”.

GO RIGHT AHEAD, BUDDY.

This stuff ain’t personal. It’s New York City. It’s just that, my God, I can’t ESCAPE it sometimes. You walk out your apartment onto the street and there is just no buffer from anyone, really. And mostly I like that! Diversity, guys! RIGHT? ME! YOU! THE DRUG ADDICTS! JUST HANGING OUT!

I feel strongly that constantly having to get in the car to get anywhere is one of the things I like the least and that is why I love New York City the MOSTEST EVER except not lately because just leave me alone everyone, I need to go meditate in the middle of a field for like, a week.

Oof.

SO THAT’S WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON WITH ME!

Sincerely,

Laura
No Soul, No Heart, No Personality
xoxoxo

Sweet September! I went to the US Open to watch some tennis, went to Chicago for a wedding and all of my dad’s brothers were in the same room for a 40th anniversary party. All six of them! So, yahoo for September!

* I bought a Groupon for 10 sessions of bootcamp in the park near my apartment a few months back. It was $20 for 10 sessions and I am unemployed and even if I wasn’t, that is only paying $2 for someone to kick my butt. I recently realized that I should use it up as soon as possible because I am not going to want to work out IN THE PARK, OUTSIDE when it gets cold outside.

And oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that it’s at 6 am.

SIX O’CLOCK YOU GUYS.

During my first lap around the track, the stars are out above me. By the time it’s over and I’m stretching, morning has arrived, the sun glowing over everything.

It is a seriously great way to start the day. And then it’s only, like, 7 am and I’m wide awake and bouncing into The Roommate’s room with coffee going WAKE UP WAKE UP WHAT SHALL WE DO TODAY!? And he’s like, um, work, some of us have a job? And rolls over and goes to sleep and that’s the problem with being wide awake at 7 am. THERE IS NO ONE AROUND TO HANG OUT WITH.

So then I go back to bed. Problem solved!

I really like it though! Bootcamp in the dark/sunrise was such a great $20 investment!

Well. Except for the instructor who this morning was like let’s do 1400 planks followed by 10,000 crunches with this medicine ball thing and after 3 sets of this, he asked for another and I simply said “No”.

You can do that, right?

I can. I paid two whole dollars for this. I can do or not do whatever I want.

* I bought pumpkin spice coffee at Trader Joe’s. It is DELIGHTFUL.

* My iPod from 2007 finally died and I was so sad to be without my music because I LOVE MY MUSIC! Showtune Playlist, let’s DO IT! So then my boyfriend generously gave me his old iPhone to use as an iPod except…my Macbook is from 2006 and the operating system was never upgraded because I barely know what that means so it wouldn’t recognize the iPhone.

So I ordered a new operating system for $30.

I joyously tried to install it.

Lo and behold, an error message popped up that said my little 2006 Macbook did not have enough RAM to support the new operating system.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

So I took a deep breath and called Apple and was all hey you guys, how can I get more RAM? And they said SUPER EASY! Take it to the Apple Store and pay $200! $100 per gig of RAM! You need two!

And then I picked up my Macbook and threw it out the window.

No, I made a genius bar appointment and then emailed my friend Laurie and was like CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? RAM FOR $200 WHAT IS RAM? And she linked me to a website that showed a video tutorial for how to install your OWN RAM. You just need to order RAM on the internet!

So I did.

(Remember, this whole story is about how I desperately need to be able to listen to the original cast recording of multiple Broadway shows. And maybe some of Sarah McLachlan’s “Surfacing”. WHO REMEMBERS HOW GREAT THAT ALBUM IS?)

Guess how much RAM costs on the internet?

$27 including shipping.

$200 MY BOOTY, APPLE.

The RAM showed up yesterday (without antlers, which super disappointed me even though I should’ve expected as much) and The Roommate installed it for me! Because he is a computer genius! As soon as he did it, we installed my new operating system which works perfectly. And then I got on the internet and found out Steve Jobs died.

I…woah.

iWoah.

I actually took the Macbook into the Apple store anyway today because IT STILL WOULD NOT RECOGNIZE THE IPHONE and I won’t tell you what they told me and how they fixed it because I’m still embarrassed THE POINT IS, there was a memorial already outside on Fifth Avenue with flowers and notes and I just took a breath and thought man, that guy changed the world. And also my whole entire week because dang if it doesn’t take a LONG TIME to get some music back in your life THANK YOU STEVE JOBS FOR YOUR VARIOUS INVENTIONS.

* This list is getting long. My brain is really busy.

* On Tuesday afternoon, I saw a man on a bicycle in midtown STEAL A WOMAN’S BAG off her person and take off down the street. She stood there screaming after him some not nice words that my mom doesn’t want me to write on here because Father Bob reads this blog and he would NOT APPRECIATE those terms.

Anyway, as this lady is screaming at what a @#%@#!@#!@# this thief on a bicycle is, everyone is staring and feeling so helpless and just as I thought he was going to get away with it, A COP CAR SHOWED UP and blared its sirens and took off following the bicycle thief and THEY WENT ON A CHASE and the thief turned into a parking garage to try to escape and THE COP CAR FOLLOWED HIM and there is no end to the story because they drove out of sight and I have no idea if they caught him and I know you hate me because this was so anti-climactic but it was completely out of a movie and so random and so New York that I just loved it. HOW EXCITING AND HILARIOUS!

* I told my therapist today that I thought that story was exciting and hilarious and she kind of cocked her head and was like “Um, maybe not for the lady whose bag got stolen?”

Ugh, therapist. Stop pointing out how heartless I am.

* I just got off the phone with my dad and he told me that he joined a gym, asked my mom if he could get an iPhone and ordered a pumpkin ale at a restaurant and they lined the rim of the glass with cinnamon-sugar and he THAWT DAT WAS DA MOST INCREDIBLE THING.

The End.

O: That bike went through a red light!

R: That was not cool.

Me: I know, guys. It’s alright.

O: NO. LAURA. THERE SHOULD BE A LAW AGAINST IT.

Laura: Well, there is a law.

O: So he goes to jail?

Laura: Well, no. If no one sees him break the law, he doesn’t get in trouble. WHICH IS NO REASON TO BREAK LAWS.

O: So Mayor Michael Bloomberg has to catch him?

Laura: Not exactly. Police officers are the ones who notice if people break laws.

O: So if a police officer catches that bike, he goes to jail!!!

Me: Weeellll, probably not for running a red light. You just get tickets for things like that. Speeding, parking in the wrong area. You have to pamoney for those. You need to do something serious to go to jail.

Silence.

O: OHHHH RIGHT. LIKE EXPOSING YOUR PRIVATES!

Me: Um. Well. Yes.

R: LAURA DID YOU KNOW MY WINGSPAN IS GREATER THAN MY HEIGHT?!?!?!

Me: …

O: IT IS. IT’S BIGGER. WE FOUND OUT AT CAMP.

Me: Wow. I wonder if mine is. I do have long arms.

O: Louie is my friend.

Me: Awesome!

R: In first grade, he hated Louie.

O: Yes but now he is my friend.

R: He is a twin TOO! But his brother Oscar is mean.

O: Yes! Oscar is the meanest.

Me: Why?

O: He calls R stupid.

Me: WHAT.

R: Yeah, he does. He says I’m stupid all the time.

Me: WHAT?!?! THAT IS HORRIBLE.

O: Don’t worry, Laura.

R: Yeah, I always say something.

Me: You do? You tell a teacher?

R: Nope. When Oscar calls me stupid, I just say ‘Touché, Oscar, TOU-CHÉ.’

Me: …

O: R always says touché.

Me: Well done. Stick up for yourself, kid.

R: Yes. Plus also I have a big wingspan.