Here's how I date...

Dear Oprah,

Here is how the day in the life of Laurie is when I have a date.

Day of, wake up at 6AM to start my day.

I do this everyday.

With all the time in the world before my first client, I am still struggling with 15 bags, shoes and trash to take out before I'm out the door with the fear of being late. I drive 1000 miles against traffic to come into people's homes with the mission to bring them yoga and peace. I hope I do that. God knows I could use someone coming to my door with a little o' that.

I rush home in school traffic or any time of day traffic and basically swim across the 405 through Wilshire to get home MAYBE in time to run and errand, take a class or go for a run. If I'm lucky, I will be able to return a phone call or email and catch up on MY life - personally and professionally - ya know the kind that doesn't make money right now, but will, you just wait. Maybe I can go to the bathroom or check my teeth. Great, breakfast has apparently held it's own within my central incisors till mid afternoon. No time to fret.

My date is most probably at 8 and I will most probably be running late but not nearly as much as my date. I will be rushing. I will drop my stuff on my pristine floor. The organized sanctuary I once lived in will become the girlie haven of hell in preparation to 'be myself' with someone else, which is quite often peppered with a pomp and circumstance rivaling a holiday dinner with the extended family, internally, externally and...exhausting. Can I just hide under the table until he leaves?

So, I dump everything on the floor in hopes I will be able to scavenger what I need for a clutch or small bag for my date. Most of my days include a carry-on sized bag for a flight or a canvas bag one would shop Ikea with - fitting all of the things one would need to get by in a day if, per chance, a nuclear bomb would blow up on 2nd street and I would not be able to return for days on end. I have a change of clothes, food, chargers for phones and bluetoothes, notebooks, pens and zip drives, cards and flyers and email lists, identification, floss (which I clearly do not use) and kleenex and yes, I have a lint roller, scissors and a Tide to go...and deoderant. But never what I need.

God love me, hate me and pity me at the same time.

It is impossible to find the few small things I will need if I have to escape the wrath of an impossible date that requires me to scale a wall to get out of. I am not Paris Hilton. Do I need electrical tape? Will the jaws of life fit into my clutch? Will the mace go off in my purse? No. Lip gloss, business cards, some cash and ID to identify my body when maimed. That is all that is required.

At 7:45, I have half an eye done and one sock on the ball of my left foot as I field phone calls and approach a deadline for the magazine. I have to sign off on one, two projects for which I am not getting paid for but love dearly because they help the common good and I can not catch a breath. I am still sweating from the one hour class I squeezed in at the studio and did not have time to wash my hair so I dry shampooed it. Yes, Pssssst is a god-send and still here in the 2000's from the 1960s. My mom used it and I use it. God bless the Ozone sucker. It has saved me...tonight.

I have pants on and a twisted bra that is testing my upper body yogic abilities to maneuver into perfect alignment and it's 8PM. Nothing fits, ever. I'm late but so is my date. I feel the pressure and fun seems like two glasses of Chardonnay away and I can't afford the calories this week.

Maybe he got into an accident. That would be bad, but I also have a new People Magazine I'd love to read.

I paste the other eye on and review...I was born and raised in NY. You can take the girl out of NY but you can't take the NY out of the girl. I hate talking about myself. Oh, that's right, it's a date. There won't be room for that.

Just so you know...I walk very fast, especially when it's cold and it's like 20 below in LA, which means its about 55 degrees. Oh, you don't know where we are going? You are following me? You asked me out and don't know where to take me. Awesome.

I watch stand up comedy before I go to bed. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord, I pissed my pants in laughter.

I have an excessive amount of lip gloss and perfumed oils.

I'm a Virgo and nothing like a Virgo. I'm a horrible planner but I organize everything from my closet to my pantry to the calories I consume. And I still can't find my keys. Oh, they're in my hand.

I love cotton, scarves and layering. I love shawl neck collars and ruffles.

I work everyday and love my work.

I love hip hop music and euro club music as well as kirtan and smooth jazz.

I sing very loudly to broadway showtunes especially in the drive through car wash. I find my greatest peace in the dark and the clean soapy swoosh of water that drowns out the notes I can't reach and I am in bliss.

Oh, I'm sorry, you need to take check your voice mail?

I spray my hair with more non yogi, Ozone trippin' spray as I uncork a bottle of white with my feet and left hand. Mama needs her wine. I'm starting to sound like my mama. And, I laugh.

Help a sister out, I scream, which is my mantra, that I speak out loud to myself often when I am in a rush and running around my cage, I mean apartment, trying to get somewhere fast.

Banana doesn't peel, help a sister out!

Sweater falls off hanger, help a sister out!

Cap falls off toothpaste and tube falls in sink amidst dirty spittle...help a sister out!!

Bracelet does not, necklace does not, dress does not clasp with one hand!!!

Help a sister out!!!

I put the foundation on. Yes, I put it on after my eyes. Why? Because I forgot. Not because it's my thing.

Powder after blush. What's my problem?

My problem? I'm not used to wearing makeup, damn it.

Phone rings, help a sister out!!!

I'm here! It's a text. Can I chain smoke my toothbrush in time?

I'm 36. Yes, 36. Did I stutter? I act and look like I'm 26 with the inner stability of a 44 year old with a family and house in the flats of Beverly Hills. Where's my house?

Wait, where are my shoes?

F-ck, where are my keys?

I can't pay my rent or health insurance but I can find and pay for that darling cardigan I'll wear forever. Insurance and rent only last a month.

I'm a girlie girl but piss and get ready faster than a guy. And I listen. And no matter how fast I'm rushing, I'm here. I'm present.

I am still trying to pretty myself up for someone, look in the mirror and think, I look like shit. Then allay my fears and think, no, you just look your age and laugh. And, at least I make myself laugh.

If I die before I wake.

My date is someone who is fine, I'm sure, but ya know what, I'm still squeezing time in for myself.

Who is kidding who?

I wanna date, but I don't have time to date for crying out loud. Give me my f-ing blog, a salad, maybe a cookie and/or a glass of wine and my netflix and I'm good.

I'm starting to mix my stories up, the same one's I've said over and over before but they are getting boring to me so I glamorize them more for drama's sake and I'm still yawning inside. I'm not hear to entertain. But I'm here all week and you still won't reach for the check.

This is too much work and I'm exhausted already and barely want to hear myself let alone you.

What did you say? You don't talk to your mom and dad? I'm really close with my family. Love them like breath, water and chocolate. You have a dog. How cute.

Where's that check?

Here's the deal. I don't want to date. I want...him.

Him is going to be the guy when all this hullaballo won't matter. Him will be where time seems seamless and it will be effortless to get together and prepare. Him will be HIM not yawning across the table from me when I've been stiffling yawns all night not to offend. Not because he's boring, but because I'm god awful tired. I don't have a day off and I'm actually ok with it. I will not be tired with him. Him will ignite sleeplessness. Him will be fit in and fine.

Him, I will wait for. Him, will WANT to ask me out and make time regardless and time will make itself apparent for both of us, tired or not, because we will be...him and her. That's how HIM and HER work. It just is. I've had it before and I will have it again. Him will find the time and so will I. Him will ask me why I wear the obvious ragged bracelet on my left wrist. Him. Him.

So, to him, I wait, but not longingly so. I have plenty of time for ME before him. But if HIM shows up, I'll be already ready and waiting, with my place and person clean and calm and hair washed with soap and water and none of this other bull-shit or obligation or weirdness. It's just NEVER weird with him and her. It never is, when it's right. So, there you go. It just happens. And it's hard. In this day and age, it just is. And the older we get, the more set in our ways and the more baggage. I only have a carry-on and a bunch of funny stories and dry shampoo. But I have a great instinct to wait for Him and not the him until then. I just don't have time for it. And neither do you.

So there. Thank you for dinner. Tomorrow's clients will pay for this nightmare and waste of a good outfit. I like you. But you are not him. And I don't want to pretend you are and you sure don't so we're done.

1AM, shut the facebook up and go to bed. 6AM, starts all over again. Every day. Tired, but fueled by passion, lost but found in service and always...

Yours...

and glamorous,

Laurie

I get it....

Dear Oprah,

I am so grateful, don't get me wrong, but there is a part of me that is frightened. I work everyday. The pendulum has swung back from the beginning of the year where the bank account was barren. Now I'm filled with opportunity and if I say no, the pendulum might swing back. So I take what I can get and it makes me wonder. My mind wanders.

I'm so very tired. And yet, I have more energy than I've had in years because when I wake up, I know I do what I love.

On my walk home from the studio the other night, the third 14 hour day in a row, I felt peaceful, balanced, and, well, maybe a bit slap happy from the lack of sleep. But, I had good music for my soundtrack home. It was late night, quiet, dark. I was tired, exhausted.
I thought, where am I supposed to be?
Then I felt a gentle foggy sea breeze and I could feel my dad with me.
I don't know what I pictured my life to look like at this age or any age. I think I just always appreciated that I had colors to chose from and crisp canvas to create... and the freedom.

Crossing California and 2nd St., two blocks from home and sleep, I thought about how funny it was that my dad is buried on California Street in New York. He went into debt to take the family to California when I was 10 years old. That's when I fell in love with California.
I don't think I could ever leave California because I think a part of my dad is always here.
Just then, I kind of got it. Death, that is.
I have the vision of life like a light, a candle, slowly beginning to wind down and burn out.
Have you ever witnessed a candle go from a tall, robust and strong flame to a tiny, wiggly and weak bud atop the wax, till nothing?

It has a process of slowing down and burning hesitantly until finally it makes it choice into darkness. It's kind of sad and sweet.

I think about my dad.

I think about my 14 hour day.

I think about plans and how very bad I am at making them.

I think about how all that doesn't matter, because as I walk home at 10PM after working all day and getting very little sleep, I'm still a strong robust flame.

When my dad passed away, I could feel his weak little light burn out allowing the candles around him burn brighter. He infused us (my family) with what he had left so that we could shine with bright, radiant energy. I feel that. Everyday.

So, as I walk home and think about my life. I could be somewhere else, I could have more - sleep, money, success, but I'm so very glad and grateful to be right here.

light and bright,

Laurie

9/11...hmmmmmmmmmm

Dear Oprah,

Congrats on entering your last season. I wish I could watch it but I'm sans TV since my recent break up with, um, very many material things in this still 'tough' economy.

But right now, I miss my dad.

My Mom and sis are off to the Toronto Film festival.

They go every year. Every year I have a memory of them going. Sometimes I am with them. Sometimes I am living in NY, sometimes I am living in LA, sometimes I am going off to work on a perfectly beautiful day in midtown and am then terrorized by planes flying into the twin towers and I remember it all like yesterday.

I remember it all and how it was so very sad and scary.

I knew then it would be very important. I knew it would change my life, everyone's life.

I knew that all that happened was so very, very...pertinent.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it made me selfish and look at my life in the wake of lives lost to realize that the life I was living needed to change.

If it didn't happen, I would NEVER be a teacher. I would never be teaching yoga or fitness training or writing a comic. I would NEVER be doing the things I was meant to be doing if people didn't lose their lives. I would have NEVER found my truth if their wasn't so much uncertainty in the fact that all of our lives could be taken so fast.

The temp job that I was placed in just one week prior had two locations, one was in the twin towers, one was in midtown. I was placed in midtown.

I was lucky.

And now, 9 years later, I just think of how lucky I am to continue to live my passion even though the last two years provided more loss for me than gain. More loss for me than 9/11.

And right now, I am grateful.

But, I remember, this time of year, when my mom and sister go away. And I am here and I miss my dad.

When I miss my dad, I listen to Pink Floyd, Paul Simon and Joan Baez. I think, listen, pick at my cuticles (a nervous habit I got from him) and I look to my left.

I remember him in the drivers seat, barely harmonizing, but doing his best.

I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.

I sing along while he looks ahead at the traffic and I feel love.

How I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls swimmin' in a fish bowl, year after year. Running over the same old ground. What have we found. The same old fears. Wish you were here.

My dad...is my muse. He's with me every moment of the day. And he's been gone over a year. 9/11 happened almost a decade ago. I didn't lose anyone there. I was there and I felt the terror close to home, but I will never know THAT loss.

Loss is loss though and in loss we can remember and gain. When the bulb of life goes off in one we love, it infuses us with more light to live our life more fully. I know this. I feel this. I don't know what 9/11 was like outside of the island of Manhattan, but in the island of my life, I understand the fear and terror of loss. Not the same, I know, but the same. No one likes to lose the one they love.

But in love and loss there is so much perspective, so much gain for all of us that have the opportunity to live. And maybe we can look at our lives and where we are at, right now and see where we can modify, change or accept where we are in gratitude that we have that ability to be whatever we'd like in life. We have life and we have choice.

In tragedy, I found my absolute truth and passion. In loss, I was infused with more spirit and fervor to achieve what I wanted and then some.

I have aspirations and I want more, but right now, I love my life and all that comes with it, trials, wins and obstacles.

In gratitude,

Lady