A brand new box of crayons.

Putting on my choir robe and walking into mass, holding my music folder very carefully, straining to see which pew my dad was sitting in.

Staying home from school even though I was sick and even though I loved school. I never knew the afternoon could be so quiet, laying on my couch when all the other children were in the classroom. My mom’s hand was always so cool when she pressed it to my forehead to check for a fever. Then she would ask if I wanted a piece of buttered cinnamon-sugar toast. And I would say yes.

My California Raisins lunch box.

Roller skating in my neighbor Samantha’s unfinished basement. It was musty and dimly lit and we’d skate around and around being careful not to slam into the metal poles holding the house up. Her older sister had a mixtape that we listened to while we skated. It played “Mony Mony’, ‘Achey-Breaky Heart’ and ‘Kokomo’ on a loop. There must have been other songs but I can’t remember them.

Sitting in the backseat of my Uncle Vinnie’s 15 passenger van driving somewhere for summer vacation. I would cuddle up to my Pillow Person and play my Gameboy. Usually, Tom and I would make up songs and stories. Our favorite being one about our cousin Michael who worked at the Sunoco gas station. I’m sure we were delightful to have in the backseat for seven hours.

When we had spaghetti for dinner with a salad on the side on which I would dump half a bottle of Kraft Zesty Italian dressing.

When the weather turned cold in the fall and my mother would strip our beds and make them up again with flannel sheets. Mine were pink with characters from Beauty & the Beast. I remember falling asleep on those snowy nights all tucked in next to Belle.

The next morning when my dad would peek his head in and say ‘No school, snow day, go back to sleep’ and he would shovel the driveway and head to work because the school he taught at was always open.

Drawing houses made of chalk in the street in front of my house with my sister.

Staying up late with my older brother Paul, laying on our stomachs in my room listening to the radio, trying to fight the tired so we could stay up and hear them count the Top 10 songs of the week backwards. All I remember song-wise from this time is Toni Braxton’s “Another Sad Love Song”. She has a line that sings ‘Be it fast or slow, it doesn’t let go or shake me’ which I always thought was ‘The passports show, it doesn’t let go’ and for some reason this made perfect sense to me.

Watching my little brother Jem learn to walk, his diaper making his little pajama-clad butt look hilarious and all of us laughing so hard as we clapped and cheered.

Getting our Christmas portrait taken at Sears every year. My mother made us all wear various Christmas-embellished ornaments and I have no recollection of feeling anything but excitement because I felt so, so pretty. Plus afterwards we got to go out to eat at a chain restaurant next to the mall.

When my sister and I would whisper ‘Are you awake?’ laying in bed. And then continue to talk until we both drifted to sleep.

When my dad would tell us made up stories about two brothers named Harry and George and the ridiculous antics they would get involved in.

Sleigh riding down the front hill.

My mom helping me take off my snowy boots.

Wrapping my red fingers around a mug of hot chocolate that was waiting for me at the kitchen table.

The love that was given to me every single day by my family.

In so many wonderful amazing ways.

And now as a grown up, sometimes I am so thrilled that I am able to repay even the tiniest bit of it.

I guess I just loved them.

I still do. So much my heart hurts.

That’s all.

My musical improv team is going strong and is one of the best parts of my life right now!

Aren’t we adorable? Come on.

RIGHT?

Anyway. We were featured on this blog last week.

(photos by Keith Huang)

I am having the best time ever, is what I’m saying you guys. (And please note display of ever-present Muppet arm in that last photo. Sigh. IT CANNOT BE ESCAPED.)

We play again next Tuesday the 20th. You should come!

Life is the best.

Fall came late to New York City so my November pictures are of leaves. Trees with leaves. Streets of leaves. LIFE IS SO INTERESTING OVER HERE RIGHT NOW! I also saw a little bit of Occupy Wall Street before they evacuated the park. Crizazy down there. And then I went to LA! Where there were leaves, but they weren’t as nice as the ones in New York. THE END. And thus, children, here are pictures of leaves and of the rest of my November which was lovely. Have an awesome weekend!

Yesterday, the usual calm and quiet on my street were pierced by the sound of gunshots as the man next door, upset about the finalizing of his divorce shot his ex-wife and her daughter inside their apartment.

The Roommate and I were already out of the house when it happened, sometime before 9 am. Our other roommate was home and awoke to the shots firing from the gun. Around 11, I had a voicemail from a reporter from the Post asking about the shooting on my street and a simultaneous text from The Roommate asking to please call him, something had happened on our block.

At noon, I sat and watched footage on my phone of police cars lining my street and bodies being wheeled out on stretchers, miraculously still alive, my apartment in full view.

I was due back in Astoria from Manhattan around 3 pm but couldn’t bring myself to go home, even though the shooter had been taken into custody by then. I wandered around the city in a daze, thinking of all the possibilities. All of the what ifs. Wrong place at the wrong time. My roommate leaving for work, the scent of his cologne trailing behind him. Me heading out of the house, the apartment door shutting with its familiar slam. How close we might have come to running smack into a man with a loaded gun who would soon storm the stairs next door. Their apartment and our apartment share a wall as the buildings on my street are all connected. What if what if what if.

I went to a yoga class and struggled in the first few poses as the instructor asked us to check in with our bodies and I thought, my body. My. Body. I was stunned that it was still breathing. I was overcome by the fact that it might not be. I thought about my neighbor, an older woman I’ve surely seen taking out the trash on occasion. Her daughter, she must be the one who often starts the car in the driveway. She is in her 20′s. I cried through most of the class.

I let myself in to my boyfriend’s apartment. I put on music so I wouldn’t feel alone. I took a shower. He walked in a few hours later with a pizza and open arms and I clung to him, inhaling the smell of his shoulder. I didn’t want to let go.

Astoria, where I live, is an incredibly safe New York City neighborhood. Old Greek and Italian ladies saunter along the sidewalks, on their way to get cheeses and fish and bread for dinner. They’ve been living here since the 50′s. In the summer, their husbands all sit on lawn chairs and smoke cigarettes and drink espresso and eat Greek pastries. There’s a daycare on the corner and the children often walk by my apartment, all in a line on their way to the park, giggling and pointing at squirrels. I go jogging all the time, at all hours of the day and have never felt the slightest bit afraid. The man who owns the bagel store lives a few houses down. I see the Spanish women who work at the laundromat shopping in the supermarket. We are a secure, safe, sweet community.

And yet.

A shooting.

Right next door to me, right through the wall.

It makes me wonder how a man like that can get his hands on a gun.

It makes me wonder how he could feel that he had no alternative but to shoot his ex-wife and daughter in the head on a cloudy Monday morning inside their own home.

It makes me wonder why he felt he had no other choice, why he had no one else to help him, why why why how.

It makes me cry in yoga class to feel my muscles stretching and to connect with my breath because you just never know, do you?

You don’t.

My neighborhood. My home. I’ve been there for over six and a half years.

And there are blood stains next door.

And I just cannot take that.

In a weird instance of ‘global warming is probably definitely a sure thing, there is no way this is not happening’, for the first time ever, New York was as warm as Los Angeles this year. I stepped off the plane expecting my usual relief of warm air and…nope, the same. Except palm trees.

And TOM, of course.

Speaking of plane ride, the woman in front of me on the way to LA was traveling alone with four girls under the age of five. It was interesting to me because most people on the plane just shot her death looks the whole time and also interesting because I volunteered to hold her baby for a second while she helped her other daughters and the baby promptly sneezed all over me. It was rather endearing. (I wiped her nose. BROWNIE POINTS.) The rest of the trip was not at all endearing because every so often, as I was dozing off, I would bolt upright in my seat wide awake as one daughter screamed at the other daughter who would whine to her mother who was trying to nurse a baby to sleep who just said to please stop kicking the seat in front of you and share your crayons and I just thought how lucky I was that we never had the money to travel on an airplane because my mom would’ve arrived at the baggage claim with a head full of gray hair. Or perhaps she would’ve sold a few of us to the highest bidder. I am not quite sure.

ANYWAY.

LA was really super chill. Tom and I had some good quality time! We ran the Santa Monica stairs, went hiking in Griffith Park, ate Thai food every day for dinner and saw three movies.

Come on over here for a second! Let me show you some of my vacation slides! Pull up a chair! It’ll only take a few hours…

See Tom! See Tom run up and down the stairs! The craziest thing I saw this time around was a man who would run up the stairs on his legs and then go back down the stairs ON HIS HANDS. IN A HANDSTAND. ALL THE WAY DOWN THE STAIRS. ON A STEEP MOUNTAIN. WHAT THE ?? I am sad I did not get a picture of him. But there’s a redhead in front of me! WHO COULD IT BE? (Also please note how far behind Tom I am. He ran up and down the stairs eight times this year. Me? Six. And I couldn’t walk the next day so, I’m in great shape is what I’m saying. Tom and I took turns rolling our muscles out on his foam roller in the days that followed and just screaming in sheer agony. So, this is always a good way to spend time, yeah?)

We did not take the dynamite spicy challenge at this Thai place because we didn’t feel like dying and yet…I regret this?

And now it’s time for: LAURA REVIEWS MOVIES:

The Descendants starring George Clooney – A+! Indie and artsy and moving without being too depressing! I cried!

The Muppets – A+! Hilarious and joyful and so nostalgic! I cried a few times!

The Artist – A+! A completely silent film! Incredible plus tap dancing! I am not telling you whether or not I cried!

The End.

The sucky thing about Tom is that he lives so far away. The awesome thing is that I get to go visit him and hang out under the palm trees and such.

Not a bad deal, right?

Tom…why so serious?

Plus for Thanksgiving we made about 27 dishes including a twice-baked butternut squash which I am still dreaming about but sadly did not take a picture of.

And that concludes my trip to Los Angeles 2011. I am sad it is over. I miss Tom. And running various places until my calf muscles are on fire and eating so many Thai noodles that I think NEVER AGAIN WITH THE THAI NOODLES and then eat them again the next evening.

But that’s life, guys. THAT IS JUST LIFE.

I leave you with this awkward picture taken while wondering if my phone was working:

Fake smiles for all! Happy Late Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow at 7 am, my flight takes off from JFK and hours and hours later after I have read 5 magazines, slept for two hours, watched a marathon of really bad reality television, the plane will land safely in LAX and I will be greeted by my nearest dearest Tom!!! and we shall skip around the palm trees for lo, it is Thanksgiving Day once again and I am in Los Angeles!

I am not staying nearly as long as I’d like this time, as flights this year were so expensive that I pondered selling myself on eBay to pay for it but decided against it because who would buy me? And also, who uses eBay anymore? No one, that’s who.

But book that flight I did! Because Tom is precious to me and has promised to freeze me to death once again in a brand new apartment because he has apparently moved out of Freezer of Death and into a brand new one I shall likely name Igloo of Doom.

(For those just catching up, Tom is my cousin/best friend who lives in Los Angeles and likes to keep his apartment as cold as possible so that I come home missing some toes and I hate him for that so much that my teeth are chattering at the mere thought.)

He sent me a text today that said “I asked if/how we could turn the heat on in our new apartment and they said no HA HA SORRY!”

Which I thought was a joke because with Tom it is always a joke and I was like VERY FUNNY, PACKED MY SNOWSUIT DON’T WORRY!

But then he called me.

And said he actually DID call to find out how to turn the heat on.

And they told him there was so much dust in the vents that the heat should not be turned on until they could clean them out.

This would happen at sometime in the future, probably next March.

“Woah,” I said. “I’ll pack sweaters as per usual. But, seriously dude? Thanks for asking.”

“YOU ARE WELCOME!” said Tom.

And then continued:

“You know, I wasn’t actually going to turn the heat on, even if they told me I could. I just thought I would ask.”

“To be nice?”

“Yeah! To be nice! But I’m not turning it on because I like it cold and there’s dust in the vents anyway and I’LL SEE YOU TOMORROW!”

Oh, Tom.

You are so, so lucky I like you.

And I’m off to pack some long underwear.

For my trip to…Los Angeles.

Right.

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: