The Dog Ate My Assignment (APIWATWOL #6)

#6 in my "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words or Less" series. (For a description of how this series works, see installment #1)

Confession time. I really REALLY wanted to cheat when I pulled today's random photo for my APIWATWOL project, toss it back in the box and pull a different one. But I didn't. Because cheaters never win and winners never--oh never mind. Anyway, this photo is from the fall of 1980. And how the hell am I supposed to remember details from 1980?

At least I know that it was taken during my one ill-fated semester at Gettysburg College, the school I chose based on the fact that: (1) they had a later application deadline and I didn't think to start applying to colleges until January of my senior year in high school (d'oh!), and (2) it was the best school I got into, and (3) Gary, one year ahead of me at our high school, went there and he was smart (and possibly cute and I might've possibly had an ever so small crush on him which I might've--not saying I did--acted on once matriculated at Gettysburg). Anyway, I went to Gettysburg.

But I had this Home Town Honey back in South Jersey, who was five years my senior and had recently graduated college. Rather than reassure me that feelings of homesickness were normal for college freshmen, my HTH instead complained about missing me and why didn't I take the train home this weekend even though I had come home last weekend too. So, I took the damn train back home to spend the weekend with the HTH. Pretty much every weekend. Which meant that all my new pals at Gettysburg were getting to know one another better outside the classroom while I was busy playing housewife in a crappy apartment in South Jersey.

To my credit, and despite my complete lack of engagement at Gettysburg College, I do remember that the girl in this photo is named Cindy and that she was my best friend that semester. Although for the life of me I can't recall her last name. Or anything we did together. Or why I liked her (though I'll bet she had a strong sense of sarcasm if I'd designated her my BF). And since I can't recall a thing about Cindy beyond her first name, I decided I'd write about a few of the memorabilia that are pinned to the cork board in the upper righthand corner of the photo, small items I'd displayed on my dorm room wall as reminders of who I was--or at least who I wanted others to think I was.

But here's the thing. You can't see any of those memorabilia, can you? Or the cork board. Because I set this photo aside for the sake of procrastinating for, like, an hour. Tops. And when I returned to my writing spot to dig into my self-imposed assignment, the damn dog (yes, that cute little "fuck you, cancer" pup featured in installment #3 of APIWATWOL) had sunk his teeth into my assignment. Literally. And eaten the damn cork board. Figuratively.

Which means I had nothing to write about.

Which means I got out of this assignment.

Which means that RuPaul isn't a bad dog at all. In fact, quite the opposite.

Good boy, RuPaul. Good boy!

Happy to help, Mom!

Bald Shrimp and Benne Wafers (APIWATWOL #5)

#5 in my "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words or Less" series. (For a description of how this series works, see installment #1)

The back of Sabra's head and her gal pals: Liz, Carmen, Nina, Kara and moi (not pictured: Stephanie)

Ok, admittedly, this isn't the best photo in terms of composition, lighting--well, everything really. But I'm sticking with my own rules for the APIWATWOL project: the main photo must be picked at random, no mulligans.

Don't let the artistic quality (or lack thereof) of this picture fool you, though. My friend Sabra's 2012 Bachelorette Weekend was one of most enjoyable middle-aged chick parties ever. So much more fun than the typical 20-Somthing "Let's Go to Chippendales and Pretend We Give a Rat's Ass About Hot Guys Dancing Half-Naked" Bachelorette Party. Oh, wait. On second thought... (But I digress.)

When a group of women over the age of 40 gets together, there's a different kind of fun. The wine is better (we make more money). The housing is better (we make more money). The stories are better (we've been through more in life).

But most importantly, the sense of connection and camaraderie is palpable, as we've each had our share of hardships and have developed a sense of empathy as well as a greater appreciation for life's joyful times. We're well past the need to prove ourselves or compete in that subtle way our younger selves might've fallen prey to, be it through looks or accomplishments or job titles. Not one blowdryer or business card came out on this trip.

The beauty of Sabra's Bachelorette Weekend was that each of us--women she'd known since college, grad school, work, even the womb (she has a twin)--was there for the same reason: we adore our pal Sabra and wanted to celebrate her happiness. And that's enough. In fact, that's the best reason.

In this particular photo, we had just returned home from an afternoon of strolling the historic district of Charleston, during which we passed another gaggle of pre-wedding celebrants, two decades younger than us, who were drunk off their butts, wearing shorts and skirts that showed half their butts, and adorned with matching bachelorette party sashes and hats that were butt ugly. Thanks, butt no thanks.

While out and about, we had also enjoyed rooftop cocktails at a local hotel, where those of us who didn't grow up in the South tried to fill up on appetizers because we knew what lay ahead. Sabra had insisted that we dine on some of her childhood favorites during the weekend, and so upon returning to our rental home, she laid out a culinary spread reflective of her roots. And her roots, apparently, included "bald" (that's Southern-speak for "boiled," y'all) shrimp, slaw (as in cole), pimento cheese (don't even), benne wafers (flat dry cookies) and pecan pralines (sticky nuts forbidden by any dentist worth a damn).

I love you dearly, Miss Sabra, but shrimp aside, this Jersey Girl would take a cheesesteak with extra white American cheese and an ice cold Rolling Rock any day. Yo.

The bride-to-be enjoys a bald shrimp and a laugh

Better Wine (even with fake customized labels)

Better Housing (beachfront Charleston/Isle of Palms) 

Better Stories (who needs bars when you have a deck?)

The Journey of a 1000 Miles (APIWATWOL #4)

#4 in the "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words or Less" series. (For a description of how this series works, see installment #1)

The photo I chose at random for this installment of my new blog series, A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words or Less, was taken by Jeff in April of 2000, while my newborn baby girl was living 400 miles away with my brother’s family and I was on my sixth week in the hospital after a fairly significant childbirth-gone-bad experience.

That odd thing wrapped around my waist—the one that looks, ironically, like a baby sling—is holding four plastic containers attached to tubes inserted into my midsection for the purpose of collecting drainage from my third surgery that month. An extra hospital gown is tied around my neck like my very own Superwoman cape (and trust me, I did feel like Superwoman in that moment)—my nurse's attempt at preserving my dignity. As if I had any left at that point. 

You'll see that I am smiling—a Pavlovian response to the word cheese offered by Jeff as he snapped the photo. In actuality, I recall feeling mildly annoyed by the simple request of a photo, not out of vanity but because I felt I was going to puke any moment, the vertigo created by lying inert for five weeks rather overwhelming. I had set my goal at making it to the nurse's station about twelve meters from my hospital room, and pausing for even five seconds and raising my eyes the slightest bit to meet the camera lens felt like both a monumental burden and needless imposition. 

Beside me is Amy, my physical therapist, more upbeat than usual because it was the first time she’d managed to get me beyond the confines of my room. When I first met Amy, she asked me to lift my right leg off the mattress. No matter how much I willed my leg to rise, it lay there like a recalcitrant cinderblock. Same with the left leg. 

The next time Amy came to visit, I feigned sleep. She left without a word.

By my third Oscar-worthy slumber performance, Amy was on to me. I could no longer put her off. And so the real work of my recovery began, the work that involved greater reserves of tenacity than I had heretofore known existed within me. At that point in my life, I had completed six marathons. Not one had come close to the challenge afforded by learning to walk again.

My physical therapy sessions were grueling, both physically and mentally. Many days, I would’ve preferred to curl up in a ball and slip away to The Great Unknown, the way animals that know they're mortally wounded do. But our human ability to think is, as they say, what sets us apart. And my mind was full of thoughts of a baby I had yet to meet but for one brief visit when my brother and sister-in-law flew in for the day with Clare. Many times I thought my little girl was better off with them, hell, with anyone but me.

But every so often, such as the afternoon this photo was taken, I managed to muster up the old Lauren, the Lauren whose grit and stubborn optimism could overcome any challenge Life threw in her path. Like the task of making it all the way to the nurse’s station before pivoting and returning to the comfort of my bed and another dose of morphine. These were the moments that, I believe, helped me beat the medical odds of my illness. That allowed me to run one more marathon a year-and-a-half later just to prove to myself that I could.

Puppies and Practicalities (APIWATWOL #3)

#3 in the "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words or Less" series. (For a description of how this series works, see installment #1)

This photo was taken on December 27, 2015, the day after we picked up RuPaul from the breeder in Michigan, the same breeder from whom we adopted Gigham and Duke as litter mates a decade earlier. RuPaul is lying on the floor of our little basement apartment in my mother- and father-in-law's home in Williamston, right before we loaded up the SUV and drove back to Boulder, sneaking him into a hotel somewhere along I-80 in Nebraska.

A week before we got RuPaul, we almost didn't go through with it. All because of one brief telephone call at a truck stop in Iowa on our drive out to Michigan.

We pulled up to the gas pumps and I told Clare, 15 at the time, to go ahead to the restrooms without me, that I wanted to make a quick call. As soon as she walked toward the building I told Jeff to send her back into the mini-mart for some made-up errand if she came back and I was still on the phone, quickly explaining that my biopsy results were in and I didn't want to have that conversation in front of her. He instantly got that look, the one he gets when one of the women in his life--his mother, his sister, me--is in trouble in a way that he's powerless to fix.

Jeff began pumping the gas. I got back in the car and dialed the number.

A medical assistant took my call and explained that the doctor was out for the rest of the day, could I please call back tomorrow. In no uncertain terms, I told her that I had less than four minutes to get some answers while my kid was inside a gas station on our road trip, and that I already knew the gist of my results based on the tone of the voicemail message I'd received. If there was nothing to worry about the message most likely would've been a quick, "Just wanted to let you know your biopsy results were clear. Have a great holiday." Instead, the message had been an ominous, "Please call the doctor as soon as possible." Reluctantly, the woman on the other end of the phone shared my results with me.

Sure enough, it was cancer. Not stage-4 terminal cancer, but cancer nonetheless. Cancer that would require treatment in the coming months. Cancer that might prove to be more than originally detected once lymph nodes were biopsied during surgery. Cancer that would make adopting an 8-week-old puppy, at best--impractical, at worst--downright stupid.

When we checked into our hotel in Iowa City that night, Clare said she wanted to workout at the hotel gym and take a bubble bath in the jacuzzi tub. Perfect. I convinced Jeff that he and I should walk to the closest liquor store for a bottle of wine, but while strolling the downtown pedestrian area in search of said wine I noticed a small Irish bar.

"You know what?" I said to Jeff. "We've been together almost 20 years and we've never done a tequila shot together."

He looked at me like he didn't quite get what I was saying, probably still a bit stunned by the news we'd received three hours earlier and hadn't yet shared with Clare.

"I have cancer, for chrissake," I continued. "Will you let me play the Cancer Card and go do a shot with me?"

"Sure," he said, the slightest smile emerging as he held the door to the pub open for me.

We spent the next couple hours formulating a plan. The strategy for finding an oncologist. Timing for surgery. How to tell Clare in a way that was honest, but wouldn't overwhelm her. Whether or not to go through with adopting the puppy we were headed to Michigan to pick up during our visit with Jeff's side of the family.

Four tequila shots, three beers and a platter of sliders later, we had our plan. Getting a puppy right before embarking on cancer treatments wasn't convenient. But then again, neither was cancer.

RuPaul joined our pack one week later.

Sometimes, the best plans begin with tequila.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words Or Less (#1)

So here's the thing. I get distracted. Easily.

Case in point: I was just organizing my home office closet in order to procrastinate on writing the in-depth follow-up email I promised I'd send a new client after a conference call this morning. (See? Already distracted!) As I'm stacking box after box of old photos--the ones that never made it into the 15+ albums I have--I think, Do I really need to keep all these old photos? Do I even remember who the people pictured within these boxes are?

And then an idea hits me. I've missed writing these past couple of months as my latest manuscript is complete and out for review with prospective agents, and I've been focused on my consulting work. (Those bills don't pay themselves, am I right?) But I miss writing on a regular basis. 

So I figure, why not randomly pull a photo from of one of those boxes and write about it? And why not do this at least twice a week? No overthinking it. And no cheating if I don't remember the people or places in the photo. Just pull...and write.

So here are The Official Rules, you know, in case you want to join me in my photographic shenanigans. 

#1 - One photo, randomly selected without looking at the labels on the box exteriors.

#2 - Limit the post to 1000 words or less. Because no one ever said "a picture is worth 2480 words."

#3 - No more than an hour, start to finish, to write my Thousand Words Or Less post. This isn't about perfection or publication or praise. It's about a freaking writing practice. And my addled memory. And the fact that I've met so many awesome people throughout my life and I suck at keeping in touch. Especially ever since my mother stopped keeping my personal directory up to date for me. (Sheesh, Mom!) And we stopped sending out Larsen Original Christmas Cards because we could never top the one we did back in 2008. (But damn, that was a good one, wasn't it?)

#4 (and perhaps the most important rule of my Thousand Words Or Less challenge) - No calling for a mulligan just because I snagged a photo of me with a former boyfriend I'd rather forget...or a photo of me in my early drunken days looking, well, drunk...or because it's a picture revealing my post-baby-and-every-day-since-then Muffin Top. Though let's be honest--I've probably already torn those photos to bits.  

Sitting amidst the mess I've created in my office for the purpose of procrastinating I tell myself, No time like the present! So I pull one of the photo boxes down from the closet shelf at random--the yellow one--and reach inside without regard to any of the labeled interior separators. (What can I say? I'm a Capricorn; we're fairly anal retentive when it comes to organizing.) 

The photo I select is one of an old roommate, Kelli de Sante, and me, circa 1993, in the tiny Newport Beach apartment I'd rented solo before Kelli, whom I'd met at Toastmasters, needed a place to live and she moved into the open loft upstairs, which heretofore had served as my home office. It was the same apartment in which I had recently snuck my contraband puppy, Spike. (See those two potted plants? See that beige carpeting? Shortly after I'd drenched those plants with water one day, Spike decided to do some finger-painting, spreading plant bits and dirt and mud all over the damn apartment. Try explaining that one to the management office.)

Thousand Words Or Less Photo #1

Kelli was (and likely still is) an elegant Southern woman, the kind that wouldn't even think to go outside to pick the paper up off the driveway without first applying lipstick. Contrast that with me, the woman who willingly drives around town wearing pajamas and has gone grocery shopping in slippers because Why the hell not? Slippers are comfy!

Kelli had a new boyfriend who came to visit her from Canada. I don't remember his name but I do remember that he wasn't what you'd call a Dog Person. In the least bit. I noticed him eyeing Spike as if she were a poopy diaper to be avoided at all costs. The thing is, Spike wasn't the type of dog that was okay being avoided. Or regarded as a poopy diaper. And if Spike didn't like something, Spike let you know. In her own special Spike way. 

Despite the openness of the loft that served as Kelli's bedroom, I tried to give the two lovers their privacy (no easy task in in a 700-square-foot dwelling). One morning, as Kelli was downstairs in the bathroom showering and I was tucked away in my bedroom, I suddenly heard the boyfriend in the loft saying, rather loudly, things like, "No, doggie. No no. Oh. Oh no." 

His voice took on a sense of urgency which then shifted to disgust. I sprinted upstairs to find the boyfriend sitting upright in Kelli's bed with nothing more than her floral bedspread covering the lower half of his naked body. And right next to him on said floral bedspread was a giant steaming Spike turd, fresh from the oven. Like I said, Spike wasn't the type of dog who appreciated being avoided. Or regarded as a poopy diaper. And so she fought back. By turning Kelli's bed--sans Kelli because Spike adored her--into, well, a poopy diaper. 

Mortified, I grabbed a tissue and scooped up the offending turd, made my apologies and turned to go, Spike's collar in one hand, Spike's turd in the other. Embarrassed as I was, I suspected I'd be laughing my ass off about this incident, with Kelli, in less than a month. It actually took less than two days. And suffice it to say, the boyfriend never came to visit again. 

* * * 

Well, it's been about an hour since I pulled that random photo out of the yellow box. My home office is still a mess and now I don't feel like finishing my closet project. Or starting my follow-up client email. 

There's always tomorrow, right?

Good ole Spike. Don't EVEN think of crossing her.