fill iN the blaNk fRiday: RaNdom

today's fill in the blank friday is filled with the randomness that is lauren's brain... works just fine for me! maybe one day i'll submit questions from interviews that i did in 9th grade for the school paper. poor mr. carson tried to answer me seriously and respectfully to questions like, "what kind of toothpaste would you be?" i showed no mercy.

on with the show:

1. the most adventurous thing i've ever done is...  really dependant on what one would consider "adventurous." is shoplifting adventurous? it's my first response, but i really just think that's because of the adrenaline rush that i got while stuffing ridiculous things like makeup and cd's into my pockets in jr. high. i only felt that way again when throwing rocks at passing trains (it's a federal offense!!!) behind a local restaurant. or perhaps it was sleep on the roof at a local school with my sister when she had nowhere to go. we were both so paranoid about getting caught that we had the most amazingly freaky (and similar) dreams and woke to the sounds of summer drama campers arriving and tried to figure how to get the heck out of there unnoticed... i guess by the technical definition of the word, the most adventurous i've ever been was going white water rafting for the first time on the arkansas river in colorado which included numerous class 6 rapids. we had an awesome guide and got through flawlessly! hmmm, that kind of pales in comparison, now...

2. if i were a pair of shoes i would be converse jack purcells. casual, a little unique... but quietly refined.

3. my preferred mode of digital communication is sadly, i think facebook. texting is cumbersome for long-winded me and email is too formal. i really love being able to check in with numerous people in just a couple of minutes. call it lazy, whatever... it works for me.

4. i feel happiest when driving around on back roads when the day (or night) is beautiful and balmy, listening to great music. my brain is a convertible car.

5. a little dream I have for my life is no big secret! i want to be my own boss. still haven't decided exactly what i want to do, but my love for fashion is pushing its way to the top right now!

6. the one modern convenience I could NOT do without is anything that lets me do things myself: pump my own gas (NJ, how do you stay in your cars!!??), withdrawal from my own bank account, check myself out at the grocery store... i love it all. being able to go about my business without talking to anyone? priceless.

7. music, movies, tv or books: if i could only choose one to enjoy i would pick music. it can really change / fix / affect my mood at any given time. everything else just helps you escape from what's in your head and it's still there for you to deal with when the movie/show/book is over, but music can simply change your mindset. that's some powerful shit there. books would be a close second, since you can learn and gain perspective from books, and this could also potentially lead to a new way of viewing the world. that and, who could really imagine their world without david sedaris narrating once in a while?


looking forward to an awesome weekend! going to see my morning jacket tonight. that's actually all that really matters.  :)

fill in the blaNk fRiday - fiRst shot

1. the very best thing about summer is being able to run around in bare feet. also, spending late nights outside talking and drinking with friends. this includes the following settings: decks, patios, restaurants, and campfires. unbeatable.

2. my first crush ever was boy george. this actually speaks volumes about me. i had a little bear that was named georgie that wore a dress. georgie was most certainly a boy bear. my little brain gender-bended without question... janice the muppet has also always been a boy to me. he just has long hair and wears lipstick! i have always loved pretty boys, especially ones in eyeliner.

3. this may sound really silly but i am afraid of marriage. actually, i am mostly afraid of being someone's wife. lucky person that i am, my partner (who hates being called my boyfriend after ten years) is willing to wait until i reconcile that shit with myself.

4. i squeeze my toothpaste from the bottom, if i'm feeling ambitious. you may find me squeezing from the middle if i'm in a hurry, but i'll have to fix it the next time i use it.

5. my absolute favorite "comfort food" is cheap chicken patties, kraft macaroni and cheese, and canned spinach. with a tall glass of milk. this is what my sister and i would make for our first meal every time we moved into a new place. which happened a lot. (speaking of...)

6.a random fact about me is that i have moved thirteen times since i was sixteen. the fact that i am about to celebrate my third year in my house is truly monumental. and a little confusing for my nomadic brain. instead of moving, i cut my hair. a girl's gotta have change!

7.the one piece of technology that truly makes my life better and I couldn't live without is anything that plays music, be it my ipod, my car stereo, a record player... i could live without my computer, my phone, my car, but not without music!

wheRe's chRistmas??

typically, by this time of the year, i've been working for a while in the giant middle of retail holiday season, have had the christmas tree in the stand and decorated, and all presents purchased and wrapped. what happened this year?

is it because this is my third - i repeat, third christmas not employed in the retail sector? have the dazzling lights, loud music, and tedious window decorations finally worn off? it doesn't seem fair that i never grew tired of the holiday season the ten years that i worked through it, and now i'm growing apathetic.

is it because the boy is a scrooge? the only holiday that he participates in is halloween, and reason he hands out candy is to prevent our house from being egged, so he says. he'll help decorate the tree if i ask him to, if only to try to keep me from hanging the hilarious ornaments that his first girlfriend made for him. he'll help me make cookies, if only to ensure that they are made to be proper man-sized cookies. he'll go out and buy his own gifts, but only because i refuse to be "that" woman who takes all responsibility for gift-giving in the relationship. these are his contributions to christmas. has his "what's the big deal" attitude started affecting my childish joy?

is it simply because christmas isn't really happening this year, in all the ways that i've learned christmas to mean to me in the last ten years?

we received our official un-invitation in the mail last week for the seven fishes extravaganza that we have attended on christmas eve every year since... high school. we knew it would end one day, and as much as we sometimes rolled our eyes at all the older drunk guests fawning over our dredded friend year after year, as much as we grumbled about dressing up when it's oh!-so!-cold!, as much as we discussed starting our own party, it's with sadness that we received the news that our friends who opened their home and their kitchen to herald in the holiday in a most-official way can no longer pull off the feat of feeding seven fishes to seventy friends.

my sister won't be home for christmas for the first time ever (excluding her year in germany) this year. last year, she didn't make it home for christmas day so we held off and waited to celebrate until she could join us the following week. this year, she was home for thanksgiving, instead - which was wonderful! but kara really makes christmas morning extra-special. she may always be late... and groggy... but she jumps into all aspects of gifting (giving and especially receiving) with such wild abandon that the rest of us get giddy just from watching her. sadly, my visions of christmas morning without kara include lots of yawning and blank stares. what ever will we do without her?

lastly, jesse decided she couldn't "do" christmas this year. at first, i thought that i would still go ahead and do stockings for everyone ("everyone" being my siblings: jesse, kara, and troy) so that we weren't just sitting around staring at each other. last year was the first year i didn't do stockings, and that's because i was cooking dinner for 16 on christmas day for the first time ever, and it gave kara a chance to feel the joy of stuffing stockings. i have since changed my mind and have decided to only send kara a stocking so that she doesn't feel too homesick. i will ask her to call when she opens it so that we can at least hear the fun. maybe one day, we'll all have computers and webcams and we won't feel like anything/one's missing. aside from that, i took my mom to see the nutcracker last week. that was the gift that i bought for her before jesse made her announcement. i was not about to renege! we went, it was wonderful, it was christmas-y. my mom was really very happy. i have no qualms with sharing that experience with her and calling it a christmas present. i may take troy shopping for some clothes and shoes. he needs it very badly. i got the boy a present for the first time in years... keeping that one a secret for now! so, that leaves... no gift for jesse. which i will feel badly about, and give her something, either made or purchased. so even though we're not "doing" christmas, it's been done, being done, and will be done.

i haven't turned on my lights (which i leave up in the windows year-round because it's so much easier). i haven't bought cards to send. we're not getting a christmas tree. i have one present purchased. in my heart, all i can feel is, where's christmas??

what i Really meaN is

i miss my banana.

what i really mean is, i miss my sister. really, i miss all of my "sisters" but i have a huge aching hole in my heart especially for savanna. where to begin, explaining my big little fake sister?

savanna was my perspective, my energy, my laughter. she was brought to us in terrible loss and heartache - her life is one they couldn't make up for a movie if they tried. her story is not mine to share so i won't but know this: at some point, she needed us. she needed some semblance of a family... while kara and i were the farthest thing you could possibly find from the typical family unit, we were ready to take on the world. we prepared a budget and moved into savanna's school district and did everything we could to prove that we, two young twenty-somethings working full time jobs and attending school, were prepared to adopt a 16 year-old girl; provide a warm home, food, and all the love and support she could handle. alas, we lost out to the married lawyer with two young sons, friend of the family (the family that very suddenly no longer existed). legally, at least.

i like to think that, at some point, i was making a difference, regardless of my lack of finances, wisdom, or true understanding. i like to think that the love i felt for savanna was reciprocated, or at the very least, well-received. i wish this simply because i hope that i was able to give savanna a piece of what she gave me. i have never met anyone else so alive, so aware, so beautiful and amazing. when i was tired and frustrated from what life was handing me, all i could ever think was, "it could be worse. it could be so much worse." and on top of providing this perspective, savanna was there to bring me back to life, make me feel alive, make me laugh.

i don't really know what happened. maybe i became overbearing or boring or old. what i know is the hurt. she started pulling away and all i felt was hurt, and all i showed was anger. how unfair of me! how stupid, childish, rude, horrible, mean of me!! after all we had been through and all the love i had for her, i had to go and act like a dumb girl.

things were never the same after that... savanna stopped coming around, we all moved around, she started dating a guy and soon moved in with him. we stopped calling. we stopped emailing. i tried so hard to follow the adage, "if you love her, let her go..." and i did. i love her and i let her go. that was three years ago. we managed to be in contact a little in 2007... had mad mex a couple of times, celebrated christmas, and then i chickened out. i didn't want to be pushy or force myself back into her life. so i let her go again, occasionally sending cards in the mail to let her know was thinking of her.

savanna moved to florida this summer, very suddenly. i was in wisconsin when i found out, stuck there on an impromptu "vacation" that had felt wrong from the beginning and now i knew why. i cried... hard and often.

rob keeps assuring me that we can go show up on her doorstep when we go visit his aunt and uncle who, by some miracle, live in the same city. i don't know if i have the balls or could handle the rejection. i guess we'll see when we get there.

all i can hope is that savanna knows how much i care for her, and always will. hopefully she knows that she can call me in ten years and i will still feel that way. hopefully someday i can have my banana back.