Today is National People Day! Go get a people. Or just watch 'Lost.'

Remember cities? If you live in a suburb or beachy town, you might have forgotten what it’s like to bump into people. To listen to strangers. To sit squished next to another human on a public train. I guess that’s the reason a lot of people move to the suburbs or a beachy town. They’ve had enough of sitting squished next to other humans.

But I haven’t yet reached that point. And being in San Francisco last weekend reminded me how special it can be to feel other humans RIGHTTHERE, up against me, in my face, in my space. Their languages bounced around me. Their stories lived on their faces. They smiled at me. They asked me for money. They told me the secrets of their city. CITY!

Usually, if my foot touches another person’s foot, just for a tiny second, we both say ‘sorry.’ One day it became appropriate to be scared of other humans. Scared of touching them. Scared of talking to them. Scared of riding in elevators with them. But we’re all so interesting and different and similar. And we’re all in it together. It’s like we’re in our own season of ‘Lost.’ We all randomly landed on this strange planet, Earth. Nobody knows how we got here, why we got here, what we’re supposed to do here. And there are several fat guys who never lose weight.

At first, we might have been freaked. But now that there are so many of us, it all seems normal. It’s not! It’s weird and we have no idea what we’re doing here and so we’re building streets and electing politicians and drilling oil and having babies, but we have no idea if that’s what we’re really supposed to do.

Thankfully, we’re all stranded here together, so let’s figure it out together. Let’s enjoy that we’re part of a pretty cool species and not trapped in some dream and nobody is eating us or whatever really happened in ‘Lost.’ (never saw it-- but once I waited on Matthew Fox at a restaurant and almost cried because he was so attractive.)

I declare today People Day. Let’s go out and crash into each other (metaphorically).
Go ask a homeless guy why he’s homeless. Go tell a stranger you love her scarf. Go meet your fellow Earth-dwellers. Let’s delight in the stories of others. Let’s touch feets under the table. Let’s strike up conversations in elevators. Let’s just be the interesting, funny humans we are.

What’s that? You’d rather watch ‘Lost’ than talk to a man in the elevator? Oh.

Dirty Ponytails and Mint Leaves

I’m in San Francisco this weekend, and it makes me wonder: Why don’t I live in San Francisco? I’m in a café sitting on a ratted couch while a lady in a tie-dyed shirt strums a guitar. The place is packed with patrons straight out of Reality Bites. There are a few dogs, lots of laptops, and plenty of fancy coffee brewed one cup at a time. The tables are communal, and strangers make eyes at one another while pretending to study. All the furniture is from the Salvation Army and as dirty as the baristas’ ponytails. I can’t help feeling that I really fit in here. Not that I’m dirty. It’s just that everyone fits in here. Nobody’s propped against the wall asking ‘Who the hell are you?’ with their eyes like they do at my favorite café in Venice. Nobody in here is wearing make-up. And people are actually reading books and not scripts.

It is so refreshing to eavesdrop on people who aren’t talking about The Bachelor and their recent failed audition. Although, that’s not fair. They could very well be talking about that here, but I can’t tell because the tie-dyed lady is going to town on her vocal chords with her rendition of “On Broadway.”

I’m clapping and tearing up at the beauty of her ability to just do what she loves in a cafe all day without the anxiety of making money from it. I’m imagining a life here, a Victorian walk-up down the street with wood floors and lots of windows. The parties I’d have. The books I’d write from this very cafe. The dirty ponytail I’d wear. The cool hipster glasses I’d get.

Uh oh.
I just saw a barista pull a mint leaf from a real plant and put it in a tea. Maybe this place is actually too hip for me.

It seems like I do this with every place I visit. It’s so much more fun to imagine how great life could be if only I moved. If only I had more money. If only I could get a better job. If only I lived in Bali or Laos or Mumbai. If only. Everywhere I go I imagine a life there that would be so perfect and so much better than whatever setup I have at home. I compare.
But I think my goal is to be happy with what I already have. Imagine that.

For most of my life that’s been a scary thought. That would be settling. That would be deciding that what I have is enough. And how could a shitty apartment with a popcorn ceiling be enough? How could adult acne and a job I don’t want and a coffee addiction be enough?
Fear!
I’ve finally realized that I’m always waiting for the calm to come. Waiting, waiting, waiting. As soon as I have my dream house and my dream job and a relationship all sorted out, THEN I can settle down to the thought that I am enough.
But how long is that going to take? If I keep waiting, I’ll finally feel whole right about the time my tits are rounding the corner to my knees.

Instead, I have to trust the process. If I know I’m on the right path, then every part about it is enough. We don't buy puzzles already put together. We buy them because the act of putting them together is fun. (When I say 'we,' I mean me and my nerdy friends who have been known to delight in matching sky colors to form the outline of a Tuscan landscape. Ok, it was just me and no friends were involved.)

For now, my puzzle piece is a cute little apartment in Venice that, yes, has a popcorn ceiling and I love it anyway even though it’s not in San Francisco or India or Bali.

Uh oh.

Tie-dyed just sang ‘Landslide’ and some other man/woman (80% sure she’s a woman) sang along from across the cafe. This is riveting entertainment. Nobody is that confident in Venice unless they're homeless.
I really love it here. So, maybe... maybe just this one time, everything I just wrote is bullshit and I do have to move. Just this one time.

*Note: This mural sits in a random alley in SF. There's a baby exiting the vagina of a woman who seems to have had her face darkened and ruined by pregnancy. This is why I fit in in San Francisco. This is why I'm never having babies.

Funny Human of the Week: The Crowd Farter

Society says you’re really immature if you talk about farts. And comedy says you’re lazy if you talk about farts. I’ve been torn for the last few days because the infamous Crowd Farter has brought to my attention an intense desire to talk about farts. So, let’s all join hands and wear turtlenecks and be mature for a minute. Let’s forget that farts come from our butts and sometimes sound like sirens, and let’s just concentrate on the Crowd Farter himself.

I felt a call to action when I went to Disneyland on New Year’s Eve. My man friend and I took a delightful jaunt to the happiest place on Earth for an afternoon of casual roller coaster riding and a few hugs from Mickey and friends. We weren’t aware that New Year’s Eve is the busiest day of the entire year.

Oh.

When you arrive, they hand you a little paper that explains all the good things about the neighboring park, pretty much begging you to please go there instead. But did we? Nope. As soon as we handed our tickets to the grimacing Disney attendant, we knew we should have heeded the advice of the little paper. It was like walking through peanut butter. People and more people everywhere. And this special eve is one of those occasions that calls the fanatics out. Not one but many grown men dressed as Jack Sparrow pranced as much as grown men dressed as Jack Sparrow* can prance. Hidden among the men with eyeliner, the families wearing Mickey ears and the college kids dressed as princesses lurked several Crowd Farters.

Crowd Farters are aware of the noise level of crowds. They know there’s movement in a group so they feel safe, finding no need to walk away briskly or defensively joke about smelling it and dealing it. They wouldn’t do this at a business meeting or on a date. But as soon as big numbers ensure their anonymity, they delight in ruining firework displays, church, concerts, the theater, subway rides, elevators, mall food courts, outdoor festivals, ride lines at Disneyland, and worst of all: airplanes. They’re farting professionals.

And they need to be stopped.

But can they be? There’s no proof in the pudding, my friends. And I don’t understand that phrase because is there ever proof in pudding? I'm not sure there's ever even fingerprints on pudding. I've contemplated this, and I'm thinking anyone would be hard-pressed to brush for prints on either bread pudding or chocolate pudding. And many crowds don't even have pudding in them. Therefore, Crowd Farters cannot be identified. We all like to guess the culprit just by the expressions of our fellow crowd members, but there’s never any pudding. You know who you are, Crowd farter. Yes, you do. And I beg you to please... hold off. Do it for humanity. Do it for the pudding.

I inhaled at least thirty farts on New Year’s Eve, appropriately encapsulating the stinky year that was 2010. It wasn’t the Happiest Place on Earth for me that day. Because it was filled with Crowd Farters but also because I paid $15 for two pretzels and because Mickey was very rude when I poked him with needles.

You might say that I know so much about the psyche of the Crowd Farter because I’ve been one myself. And to that, my friends, I must guffaw. My farts are like that of this video. In fact, there are so many butterflies flittering around my apartment, I’m actually scared to sleep.




*Jack Sparrow is from some movie called Pirates of the Carribean. I never saw it, but I guess Johnny Depp wears eyeliner and long black dreads in it. Based on the costumed men at Disneyland, I will never see it.

*If you're from a literary journal, hello. No, I did not just spend six hours writing about farts. What gave you that idea? Here, look! A very mature Funny Human: The Ghayter

*Yes, I do think there is a connection between Crowd Farters and Ed Hardy shirts.

What I learned on my Christmas break:

*Winter is actually great. Since you’re always wearing a coat while out, you never have to change your clothes or even change out of your pajama top. Comfort! And... weird smells.

*For my entire life, I’ve had a dyslexic ‘YMCA.’ My ‘C’ has been backwards. I’m shocked. I’ve been living a lie for so many years. Thankfully, nobody judges you on these things. Or do they? Maybe that’s the reason they called me Laurenne-with-the-backwards-C-in-the-YMCA-dance in junior high. Totally get it now.

*There’s nothing like people who knew you when you had braces. Getting together as thirty-year-olds is so much better than getting together as thirteen-year-olds. And not just because there's alcohol. Since these chicks have woken up at my house with their heads on mice, they know me. There’s nothing better than a post-bar, 2am, trip to Walmart to buy diapers with old pals. It was amazing. And it was not because I got to gloat about not having to buy diapers. I legitimately liked seeing what my friends have to buy for their big families. Ok, yes, I did think about my bare cabinets and the lone parmesan in my fridge, but I did not think I was superior. Swear.

*It’s really not the best idea to try out your stand-up routine for your family as they sit down to dinner. Yeah. Jokes just aren’t the same when not told to a dark room full of drunks. Especially if they’re jokes about the death of your father who is also the the brother or uncle to most people at the table. That’s just awkward.

*We all wear glasses with different lenses. I’m sitting on a plane next to a Marine who’s telling me all about his knot training. It sounds so cool that I’m thinking about becoming a Marine. Then he tells me his salary. Definitely not becoming a Marine. I tell him I can only tie that one knot-- the kind for nooses. (I don’t know why that’s the one I know. I just do, okay). He looks at me shocked. He can’t believe this white woman next to him just told him about how she can tie a noose. He’s a southern black guy. Oops. The crazy part is that the word ‘noose’ causes only visions of suicide for me. Same object. Completely different ways of seeing it. Hmmmm... It just got deep up in here.

*The airlines think we’re dumb. We are dumb. Because we have not yet revolted in response to charging for baggage. Even so, airlines, I’m pretty sure we’ve seen a seat belt before. I know they’re not exaaaactly like the ones in our cars, guys. But, we get it. We get the idea. You can stop showing us now.

*I don't get Christmas decorations. Oh, there's the plushy reindeer who guarded the tissues last year.

*I hate LA. I did my taxes to find that I’ve spent about a grand in LA traffic violations this year. A THOUSAND DOLLARS. Do you know how many diapers I could buy for my friends at Walmart with that? Not that I would (because I'm selfish and vain and I'd spend it on laser hair removal). $530 just because that “camera” said I blew a light? What does he know? It was self-defense.

*It doesn’t matter what you say to that guy in the mall. He will always want to polish your nails. My mom and I tried ‘No, thanks’ at first. Then we lied, ‘We already have a nail buffer.’ In response to his unrelenting persistence, we also tried to blurt out ‘vagina’, ‘poodle’ and ‘avian flu.’ And he still wanted to buff a nice sheen on our digits. So... we did what we had to do. And now my mom might have to go to jail. It was self-defense.

Survey says... inspiration! Or broccoli.

It’s 2011. Fuck.

It’s now time for people to scoff at me and return my checks due to my failure to remember it's 2011. Not that I write checks that often. Other people do. And those people are usually in front of me at the supermarket.

Shit. This post isn’t so positive. One of my 2010 2011 resolutions is to think more positively. Wow, that shirt looks great on you.

There’s a reason for the timely negativity. A reason for my cowering in the corner, very reluctant to welcome in a new year. It’s because 2010 2011 will be one of the biggest years in my professional career. I’ve planned it that way, so that’s how it’s going to be. Shit is going to happen. My vision board agrees.

That also means that I’m going to have to make all that stuff happen. And that’s creating a lot fear and vulnerability all throughout my little body that is miraculously still pretty little compared to the amount of food I’ve eaten this holiday paired with alcohol in the hope that I’ll forget the fear and vulnerability.

You, see, I have this dick of an ego, Lawrence, and he likes to chime in and tell me I’m a failure and that it’s stupid to actually try to be a full-time non-advertising writer because I’m just going to fail. But, rejoice! I read a book about dealing with dickface egos, and it said to write out Lawrence’s words with the non-dominant hand and then respond with the dominant hand. And let me tell you, Lawrence has some bad handwriting.

It did teach me that my biggest fear is failure. And that I’m making failure out to be this horrible demon of a thing that I won’t be able to escape, a red X on my face like that on the faces of the Family Feud contestants who don’t know that the survey said broccoli.

But then I thought more about it and realized that failing is my own invention.

Some people think Obama is a failure. Others still really admire him (I swear. We’re out there.). But what’s really the most important is how he sees himself. He can choose to be mad at himself and listen to his jerky ego, or he can be proud of what he’s been able to accomplish and go to bed smiling.

My point is that fear and failure live only in our own minds. And if we have the power to deem ourselves failures, don’t we also have the power to deem ourselves winners? Let’s choose that option. Let’s all be winners.

I’m still unclear on the very objective failures like fathers who leave their kids and never call them until they’re in their twenties. That’s a parental failure, right? Well, I guess the kid could think the father failed, but if the father was doing the best he could at the time, he could still think of himself as a winner. See how I turned that around? I should really be a helpful guest on Jerry Springer.

Is that show still on? If so, I can believe it. I spent a lot of time avoiding Lawrence by watching my mother’s television this holiday season. There are some really crap shows on. Cake Boss? Seriously? See how I’m starting to go all over the place now down here toward the end? My old self could say that this is a total writing failure. But my new self declares this post a winner.

I’m coming out of hiding and am now prepared for 2010 2011, the best year yet. For real. Because I said so. Let’s enjoy it, fellow winners. Let’s be positive and make things happen. My, that shirt looks really, really good on you.

UPDATE: I don't really have a vision board.

UPDATE #2: Tony Robbins called. He wants his post back.

UPDATE #3: The guy who made up the joke about things calling and wanting their stuff back called. He said that shit is old.