Oh sick day

Laying in bed in a semi-codeine cough syrup coma, watching Couples Retreat in an old tshirt from Cabo San Lucas, getting poked by my own leg hair stubble, my upper torso slathered in Vicks Vapo Rub like I was 5 years old again, I try not to inhale my slobbery bite guard as I cough so violently my brain begins to throb and then...I laugh. I laugh at me and the scene that could fit right into Bridgette Jone's Diary. Oh sick day...welcome to my comedy.

Hey Mr. DJ, play me a tune

and it continues...
Miles Davis
James Taylor
AC/DC
Justin Timberlake
Andrea Bocelli
The Black Eyed Peas
Marvin Gaye
Lynard Skynard
Rascal Flatts
3 Doors Down
Jay-Z
Maroon 5
Randy Travis
Christina Aguilera
Alicia Keys
P!nk
Kings of Leon
Charlie Daniels Band
Janis Joplin
Will.i.am
Muse
Billy Currington
Ella Fitzgerald
Bryan Adams
Trisha Yearwood
Emmylou Harris
John Hiatt
Jason Mraz
Dave Matthews Band
and I'm just scrathing the surface...

The Ipod storing never ends. If CD's were currency, I'd be a millionaire. I've discovered that I have a great ifinity for motion picture soundtracks.
Chicago
50 First Dates
Save the Last Dance
Coyote Ugly
The Notebook
Braveheart
Romeo & Juliet (both volumes circa Leo DiCaprio, yeah, don't ask)
Office Sapce
Hitch
Sleepless in Seatle
Moulin Rouge
Mamma Mia (the Meryl Streep version)
Ally McBeal (like 4 seasons worth)
Armageddon
Titanic (just jump overboard already)
The Lion King (Broadway, which is fabulous by the way!)
Zumanity (Las Vegas, which I haven't even seen...)
Movin' Out (the Billy Joel musical which is signed by the lead singer/piano man - no, not Billy Joel, some guy named Darren)
Pulse: a STOMP Odyessey (purchased in London after watching STOMP - yes, garbage cans, music made of garbage cans)
I mean really? Who has this stuff?

If not to make things worse, I have a constantly growing list of new music to purchase. There are more new bands and artists with incredible talent than you can reasonably keep track of. My list...my list...it took all I had earlier today to not spend 27 1/2% of my tax return on an iTunes gift card entirely for myself.

Hi, my name is Lauren, and I'm a music hoarder. But...I'm not really. I am currently at 13.48GB of music....that's 8.2 days worth, 2919 items and counting. I guess it would be hoarding if I let it sit there and grow mold, go unheard, and not pushed up on friends and played openly to new listeners. I see 8.2 days worth of music and think of all the places I'm going to drive to with my ipod plugged into the car steroe speakers. I love the thought of being able to listen to anything I want to at the touch of a button while I fly 35,000 feet above the earth. I love the idea that I can get double use out of a CD purchase...load it on my player and then send the CD to someone else to enjoy.

What a collection to have. Crazy how much we can accumulate these days in mass quanities or instantly to a MP3 player that is smaller than the size of a credit card. I can't imagine what it must have been like to wait for a vinyl to become available and shipped in a giant sleeve the size of a toilet seat cover. Waiting patiently for the needle to pick up the song and not scratch the record that was the size of a steering wheel while all your friends and family gathered around to hear the sweet sound of music come out of a wooden box. Those were the real music lovers. The ones who had to wait patiently for one album at a time.

Early records could only hold a song or two. Now you can speak to your car and have it play an entire genre of music for you beamed down from satellites circling the Earth. Crazy. Does it ever seem like we are the Jetsons, here, now, today. Maybe back in the 50's and 60's the view of the future was....this.....computers the size of your hand, being able to talk to someone on the other side of the world at the snap of your fingers, cars that ran on oil and bio fuel and electric power, computer graphics that put you IN the movie. Yeah, maybe we're not floating on moon boots or travelling back and forth in time, but we're not doing too shabby.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wander back to Tower Records Jr. and shuffle through the small empire I have built. Viva la Musica!!!

Happy Birthday!

0301 hours: "911 Emergency:"
0301 hours: "27 year old female in labor"
0302 hours: "baby is born"
0303 hours: "mom is ok"
0304 hours: "full term baby boy"

In the midst of a felony hit and run, domestic violence victims being dragged into apartments, suspects at gunpoint, drunken arguments, out of control parties, not enough officers, code 3 runs, fire alarms, suspicous overdoses/dead bodies, and all manner of public safety emergencies, a baby was born in the IHOP parking lot, healthy, full term, and crying his little lungs out. As it would be, of all the passerbys to notice a young couple in the parking lot at 3am, a woman with labor and delivery experience delivered the baby and helped it breathe it's first breath.

Before I left I noticed these two calls sitting side by side:
01:53:22 DEADBODY
03:01:22 MEDCOMPLEX (IHOP Baby)
We are in a constant state of leaving and entering this world.

Sometimes, I really, really love this job.

Happy Birthday Baby!!!

Valentine's Day

It doesn't matter how old you are, your dad is always your first Valetine. :)

Blind Date Monday

Mondays are my reality TV guilty pleasure days. I don't get involved in too many of those mind numbing "reality" TV shows, but I got sucked into this season's The Bachelor (ok, and last season's The Bachelorette with ED - E.D. Ed). Who can't resist a house full of caddy women comically bearing their souls and their bresteses in competion for the heart of one man who is simultaneoulsy dating them all AT THE SAME TIME. Really, it's like the most fabulous social studies experiment ever!!! Monday has come to be known as Dumb Bitch Monday, DMB for short.

I am normally happily satisfied sprawled out across my couch with no makeup, hair a mess, wearing Sunday's clothes, and ready to roll right into Tuesday without so much as a thought about accomplishing anything for the rest of the night.

I pulled a fast one this week. A fast one for Monday and a fast one for me in general. I went on a blind date. "How Lauren," you might ask yourself "how do you get yourself into a blind date situation on Dumb Bitch Monday, if you don't ever leave your house except to go to work or leave for the airport?"

Well, I have 4-7 dormant dating profiles out there that occasionally get some kind of response and occasionlly result in one of the smart ones finding my messenger ID by reading in between the lines. Two such individuals found me a few weeks back before Christmas and hence, the chat began. What would catch my attention so intently? Music. Music as a whole, as blues, as country, as pop, and jazz...these guys both know music and they appreciate it as much as I do. You can get to some people's hearts through their stomachs, through their wallets...me, you can catch my attention with a good love of music.

After changing work schedules and driving across the country and narrowly missing a kidney infection, I plain ran out of excuses to not meet for "coffee or a movie or something" and in my haste, agreed to go out on a date with the one guy who I thought was the other guy, and well...that's how Dumb Bitch Monday (DBM) became Blind Date Monday (BDM).

Fast forward to Monday at 7:20pm, after blinding my right eye with a wayward squirt of Model in a Bottle (go ahead, laugh), I was literally blind in one eye for my blind date. As I played on my iphone pretending not to be listening for the door to open, I noticed a wheelchair bound person rolling past my window seat and towards the door and thought "I could very well be getting punked right now. What do I do if this guy is in a wheelchair? Or if he's a midget?" I wasn't nervous while I was getting ready, while driving the 30 minutes it took me to get there, while I sat in my car out front killing time watching unsavory characters smoke and spit lugies at the corner liquor store, but now going on 25 minutes late, I was nervous.

I have to stop here to say that this scene in itself is not me. At all. I don't date. Ask my closest friends...they can't even tell you the last time I ever went on a date. Yeah, I'm 28 and single and I don't date. I don't know why exactly. I'm not incapable, I'm not afraid, I'm not socially damaged, but I am mostly uninterested. I know, I know...get interested. Get unsingle. Find someone fabulous like yourself. I know. I never posted a list of 2010 resolutions at the beginning of this month, but I had in the back of my mind to do something simple. Go on a date. And so I did...

Back to Momiji sushi (which by the way, 2 thumbs down) my date arrives and very shyly says, "Lauren?". He's big. A big, big guy...not unkept or slobbish or wobbly like Santa Claus. But big, tall and wide, like Paul Bunyan with a big head like he was part bulldog...and hairy. Very, very hairy. Like Chewbacca's cousin kind of hairy. His knuckles had eyebrows. His eyebrows had unibrows of their own. The sushi was not good (my bad), but the conversation was much better, the movie afterwards was superb, and over all the blind date was not a total failure. If it was grading it, I'd say it was a B. Ok, maybe a B+. The grade was good enough that it lead to BDT the next day. Yup, Blind Date Tuesday. (editor's note: Jen's gonna kick my ass for not telling her about BDT til now)

Blind Date Tuesday was kind of as a result of BDM...I said yes to one and I was weak when in the same hour the second one asked me to go out and I said yes again. Like I said, I ran out of excuses, they had both been asking for a few weeks.

A few texts later and then a few phone calls, BDT commenced on the streets of my local college town. Steve the car salesman. Steve the car salesman parked about 6 blocks away from where we were supposed to meet, which left me walking down the cold, wet street to find him. I knew he was tall, but 6'5 on paper is a lot different than 6'5 in real life. My neck still hurts from having to look up to make eye contact. A little jaunt around sleepy Davis and we decided to just settle in the (empty) movie theatre about 30 minutes early. Great, 30 minutes of dim empty space next to a stranger. Despite my perpetual single state of existence, I am not a super picky woman when it comes to men. I date ugly, I date short, I date big, I date emotionally damaged mamma's boys. But...there are still things that I cannot get over. Small, delicate-looking, manicured, long fingernailed hands are not something I can get over. In the dim light of the movie theatre as he joked that he could have Torettes freely, and I quote "I'm really bothered by that large bump on my testicle!", I noticed the pale, uncalluoused hands of the basketball star sized date next to me and said "Self, those are a deal breaker" Again, the conversation wasn't bad, the movie was great, and inviting Lurch to go back a bar with me to hang out with some friends until we closed the bar down wasn't bad either...but we're still talking about a B.

Post date Monday, explaining my spur of the moment actions, my BF asked me if going out made me want to get out on a permanent basis and "date". No, not really. I wouldn't not go out again, but there were no sparks, no fire, nothing to preoccupy my train of thought post-date for either one of them. Well except for the fact that they both were definitley not midgets. Score for me.

My best and most accurate description of the whole two-night date process is simply that I was underwhelmed.

Now a week later, sitting here in my living room, typing away about my dates, I am ironically listening to a live performnce of John Mayer's "Perfectly Lonely"

Nothing to do
No one but me...
a simple kind of free...
...is it really hard to see?
I'm perfectlly lonely...
I have to thank the wrongs
that lead me to a love so strong
I'm perfectly lonely...

I'm overwhelmed in a life full of good things and great people. I see no reason why I shouldn't be overwhelmed in a love just the same. Underwhelmed is no way to be...perfectly lonely is simply poetic and I'm still ok with that for now.

my soundtrack...

It's 10 to 4 in the morning.
I'm wide awake.
I'm home alone watching the Grammys.
One of my all time favorites, The Dave Matthews Band is serenading me...
"You and me together, we could do anything, baby..."
I can't wait for Summer and the concerts it's going to bring.
I've been home for less than a month and I have an itch to go somewhere new and see something beautiful.
I love 4ams like these...<3