I mentioned in a previous newsletter that I won a speech contest in seventh grade but I neglected to tell the story of what happened after.

First, I cannot emphasize enough how much I was not a kid who won things. Ever. I was a hyperactive B-average student prone to acting out scenes from movies when I got bored (I played all the parts). My ADHD meds would throw up their hands in my prefrontal cortex and be like, “We can only do so much.” The speech contest was the perfect outlet for me and I probably would have done well if my high school had forensics or debate team.

Anyway, so I win this thing and heading into lunch, I’m feeling pretty good— too good. I was a pre-teen Icarus and the invincible vibes took me too close to the sun.

My grade school was in an old building with weird quirks. In the cafeteria, a single light switch controlled both the boys and girls bathrooms. By middle school, it was known rule that we had to leave the light switch alone.

I was throwing away my lunch when a girl at a nearby table called me over. “Andrea, did you see who went into the bathroom? It was that kid.” She raised her eyebrows. “I dare you to turn the light out on him.”

That kid was a grade-A a*****e, a constant tormenter, and I hated him. I couldn’t resist both the dare and the chance to get back at him. My poor impulse control took the wheel and not even Jesus could save me.

I flicked the light switch and dashed back to my seat. As I ran, I heard him yell out, “HEY!” followed by a splash— still don’t understand what he was doing to produce that sound effect, but when he came out of the bathroom, the kid had water all over him.

The girl who dared me tells him I did it (snitch number one!), the kid goes to the teacher in charge and rats me out (snitch number two!!), and then, in what is quite an excessive move on her part, the teacher sends me to the principal’s office (snitch number three!!!). Disgusting, I got triple snitched. I may not have been a “joy to have in class,” but I was also most definitely not a snitch either.

Our principal was a nun named Sister Catherine. I went to Catholic schools my entire educational career, kindergarten through college, and when it came to women of Roman Catholic religious orders, they either loved me or hated me. No middle ground. They found my spunk and vigor charming or they found my fidgeting and impulsivity irksome. Unfortunately for me, Sister Catherine was the latter.

I had never seen her so angry, all five-foot-nothing shaking with rage. And don’t forget, I’m 12, so everything awkward is funny. The best I could do to keep from laughing was twisting my face into a perplexed look.

She asked me why I did it and I couldn’t say anything other than “I don’t know” because I lacked the ability to put into words, “I was riding a dopamine high so intense, it felt like nothing could touch me, plus that kid is horrible to me all the time with no repercussion and it felt nice to have the upper hand for once in my life.”

“Andrea, you turned the light switch off on a boy while he was in the bathroom!” Sister Catherine was deadly serious and the next sentence out of her mouth drove me over the edge: “You have a little brother, you know how boys go to the bathroom!”

I coughed out a laugh and tried to cover it up with my hand, very unsuccessfully.

“You think this is funny?” Sister Catherine shook her head. “You are such a rude, unladylike, uncouth little girl.”

I was caught off guard by a word not on my vocabulary list. “Uncouth? What’s uncouth?”

“Look it up,” she spat out. “In fact, I want you to write a ten page essay for tomorrow on the differences between boys and girls.”

I protested that wasn’t fair, but she wouldn’t hear it. “Tomorrow. Ten pages. The differences between boys and girls.”

As I was leaving, she shook her head again. “I can’t believe you did this. And on your special day too.” To her, winning the speech was opportunity for me to finally become an upstanding citizen. Less than three hours later and I already fell from grace, except I never had any grace in the first place. I was always going to be exactly who I am.

Again, I’m 12, so this whole thing is hilarious. I go back to class and I’m like, “You’ll never BELIEVE what happened to me.” It’s around here that I realized how I could flip this around to my advantage. If Sister Catherine wanted a ten page paper on the differences on boys and girls— oh, she was going to get it.

After school, I settled into my older cousin’s computer room to write up this masterpiece. The first thing I did was set the font at Comic Sans, size 18, color purple. Hey, it wasn’t my fault there were no rules! In fact, pretty sure when Sister Catherine thought of this ten page assignment, it was ten handwritten pages, but this was the ‘90s, baby. We’re riding the information highway and typing up our essays on Microsoft Word. Get with the times, Sister!!

“The difference between boys and girls is that boys are allowed to be loud and make jokes while girls are expected to be ladylike and quiet like it’s the 1800s,” I wrote. I proceeded to list all the injustices I had endured as a girl that boys seemed to get off scot-free, like talking out in class and running down the hallway. Then, I took it further to a societal level. The differences between boys and girls is that girls have babies AND go to work. Boys just go to work! Girls have it so much harder!! I didn’t have the statistics on the gender wage gap back then but it would have been a nice touch.

I ended this feminist rant with a post-script: “P.S. If you’d like to know what’s the difference between boys and girls from a boy’s POV, I suggest asking for an essay from that kid.” When it was all done and printed out, the whole shebang came out to fifteen pages, five more than necessary. Above and beyond, some might say. A smart ass and a half, others might retort.

The next day, Sister Catherine was doing what she did every morning, wrangling with the morning rush of students in the hall. She used an old two-piece voice amplifier to try and install order. “Anthony, slow down. Hey, hey, hey, young lady, there’s no need to run. Robert, what did I tell you about gum?”

“Sister Catherine,” I said, holding out the thick stack of paper. On some level, I knew this could blow up right in my face, and I was ready to defend the essay until I died of a thousand paper cuts.

She wrinkled her nose at the paper in my hand. “What’s this?”

I paused for a second. She’s really old, I thought, maybe she’s confused. “It’s the paper you told me to write,” I said. She squinted at the gigantic purple bubble letters. “The differences between boys and girls.”

Sister Catherine made a face and shook her head. “I don’t want this, get it away from me.” She threw the essay into the nearest garbage can and told me to get to homeroom. I was left open mouthed in the hallway, too stunned to even protest. All that work, crumbled in a can.

Would Sister Catherine have remembered that punishment if I hadn’t done it? Knowing my luck, probably. I’m my own triumph and downfall all in the same package, all at the same time. Whenever I think I’m the one who’s getting ahead and outsmarting any situation, it typically ends in a garbage can.

“Summer”

You are the ice cream sandwich connoisseur of your generation.

Blessed are your floral shorteralls, your deeply pink fanny pack with travel-size lint roller just in case.

Level of splendiferous in your outfit: 200.

Types of invisible pain stemming from adolescent disasters in classrooms, locker rooms, & quite often Toyota Camrys: at least 10,000.

You are not a jigglypuff, not yet a wigglytuff.

Reporters & fathers call your generation “the worst.”

Which really means “queer kids who could go online & learn that queer doesn’t have to mean disaster.”

Or dead.

Instead, queer means, splendiferously, you.

& you means someone who knows that common flavors for ice cream sandwiches in Singapore include red bean, yam, & honeydew.

Your powers are great, are growing.

One day you will create an online personality quiz that also freshens the breath.

The next day you will tell your father, You were wrong to say that I had to change.

To make me promise I would. To make me promise.

& promise.

— Chen Chen

If you made it this far, here’s the secret: I’m a good writer, but I’m an even better smart ass. The links to more of my nonsense can be found below if you want to check those out. A cup of coffee would be greatly appreciated and you can do that here or here.

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

I read Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Morals by Oliver Burkeman about a month ago and it’s been on my mind ever since. I’ve tried to describe it to mixed results (Me: “It’s basically about coming to terms with the fact that you have less time left to live than you think and you’ll never get done with everything you want to do because capitalism will always keep making that to-do list longer despite the time management hacks that the hamster wheel turn faster, and what we really need to do is give ourselves a break and accept our own morality since we’re all going to die sooner rather than later.” My friend: “Oh, GOD.”) but for me, it was exactly what I needed right now.

I’ve been especially ruminating on this paragraph lately:

Some Zen Buddhists hold that the entirety of human suffering can be boiled down to this effort to resist paying full attention to the way things are going, because we wish they were going differently (“This shouldn’t be happening!”), or because we wish we felt more in control of the process. There is a very down-to-earth kind of liberation in grasping that there are certain truths about being a limited human from which you’ll never be liberated. You don’t get to dictate the course of events. And the paradoxical reward for accepting reality’s constraints is that they no longer feel so constraining.

Oh, right, accepting my lack of control, that’s like, Therapy 101. I can’t make people email me back, I can’t make choices for others, I can’t make a dog come to me when I call (I watched over a couple pups lately so this is on my mind). All I can control is myself, of course, of course, of course, la la la. I might not like it (in fact, I do not like it!) but whatever, I get it.

Then there’s that line: “You don’t get to dictate the course of events.” The lack of control in my personal life, that’s one thing. To world at large is something else. All of the pain from the last couple weeks makes this feel so much heavier and harder. Does it feel that way to you? Being told “Vote!” in mid-May as if I wasn’t already going to do that, as if that’s going to change anything right now, as if s**t doesn’t seem bleak. I want action, I want things to change, I want things to stop getting worse.

I’ve also been reading The Places That Scare You. One of Pema Chödrön’s big things is that we can’t rely on hope. Having hope is a way of escaping the present and avoiding suffering— which we can never really avoid anyway.

The first time I tried to read When Things Fall Apart, I threw it across the room. More than once. I eventually walked over and picked it up but I wasn’t happy about it.

In a nontheistic state of mind, abandoning hope is an affirmation, the beginning of the beginning. You could even put “Abandon hope” on your refrigerator door instead of more conventional aspirations like “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better.” 

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what’s going on, but that there’s something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world. 

The heart of it is I want to hope. It’s embarrassing, actually. I hope a lot. Hope you get home safe, hope you have a nice weekend, hope you’re okay. I want hope because I want things to work out. I really do! I say this while acknowledging that things most often do not work that way. When it comes to the state of the world, it feels like giving up. It’s something I still need to sit with and feel my way through. I don’t know if I’ll ever be on the other side of it.

Anyway, here’s hoping I can become more hopeless! Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

“For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid”

There is a country to cross you willfind in the corner of your eye, inthe quick slip of your foot— air fardown, a snap that might have caught.And maybe for you, for me, a high, passingvoice that finds its way by beingafraid. That country is there, for us,carried as it is crossed. What you fearwill not go away: it will take you intoyourself and bless you and keep you.That's the world, and we all live there.

— William Stafford

If so desired, you can buy me a cup of coffee here or here. Be good to yourself and do something nice this weekend.

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

A List of Times I Wanted To Quit and Kept Going Anyway

I’m currently Going Through It* and I wrote this for my own personal motivation, but you can read it too.

* Swimming.

Full disclosure: I have no memory of this, so it comes straight from a secondary source.

My mom: You know, it took you a while to learn how to swim. You did not like to get your face wet when you were little. Me: Well…

My mom: I mean, you would refuse to put your face in the water.

Me: Yeah, that sounds about right.

My mom: Fran [swim instructor] was very proud when you moved on to advanced beginners.Me: Aw, she was?My mom: She was. It took seven beginner classes for you to get there.

Me: Seven classes?My mom: I told you, you refused to put your face in the water. But Fran was very patient with you, and you eventually did it.

Me: Yeah, after seven classes.

My mom: It took as long as it needed to take.

* Riding a bike.My memory around how I conquered this is spotty. It wasn’t easy, I can tell you that much, and took me much longer than any other kid in the neighborhood. I’m not a very coordinated person (understatement of the year) and like most boring adults, I haven’t been on a bike in a long, long time. Would I be the exception to the old “just like riding a bike” idiom and never be able to ride again? I’ll have to find out and report back.

* Learning to drive.Seven attempts, five years, three instructors, two driving schools, and one crushed bumper. That’s what it took for me to get a driver’s license. If riding a bike was rough, ya shoulda seen this girl try to drive. Lack of coordination, depth perception problems, a difficulty concentrating— I really had it all! My younger sister ended up getting her license before me and everyone gave me s**t for it. By that point, I was determined to pass just to shut them up. Never estimate spite as a motivating factor to accomplish difficult things. Anyway, I’m a much better driver now and my license is just as valid as someone who got it on their 16th birthday, thankyouverymuch.

* Finishing college.Fall semester senior year was brutal for many reasons (struggled with my thesis, most of my friends already graduated, slept too little, drank too much) and then my aunt died in her sleep. Grief mixed with stress times depression divided by anxiety equals one big mess. I don’t think even most people in my life at the time were aware of how close I came to walking away. Like other times on this list, I don’t exactly remember how I got through it but I did. Somehow.

* Getting my last job.

I used to work at a large university and when I got the job, I went back into the application system and counted all the times I applied there over the years. It was more than sixty applications, thousands of words, so many different resumes. I can’t even say now why I kept going at it, yet it’s the reason I’m on the road I’m (trying) to go down now, so I guess I’m grateful.

I usually have a very strong emotional memory but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my memory is spotty around most these incidents. Maybe it’s some measure of self-preservation. Another trick by my brain to persuade me to keep trying.

There could also be a counter-list of Times I Should Have Quit and Yet Kept Barreling On, but let’s not ruin the vibes, no?

*A friend recently said, “You’re going through it,” and I immediately burst into tears. I didn’t know I needed the validation until I got it. So, yes, I’m Going Through It, and you might be too.

“Advice”

My friend, dying, said do the hard thing first.Always do the hard thing and you will have a better day.The second thing will seem less hard.

She didn’t tell me what to do when everything seems hard.

— Naomi Shihab Nye

Dearly beloved, thank you for sticking with me as we get through this thing called “life.” I’m here for you too. If so desired, you can buy me a cup of coffee here or here. <3 Take care of yourselves.

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

My iCloud storage is full, more than half of it from photos and videos. In lieu of actually going through it all and deleting things (perish the thought), I uploaded everything on to my laptop in order to make space in this stuffed full iCloud account. I could and should just delete everything from my phone and start fresh, except I still want to be able to access it all whenever I want, so I started putting it all into the Google Photos app, but now my Google account full too, soooooo…

Please tell me how you store your photos/videos because I clearly have a problem.

One of those problems: I take a lot of pictures of flowers.

Is this from a recent visit to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden but or eight years ago? Who can tell!!

Scrolling through more than a decade and a half of pictures and videos has revealed some patterns. Outside observers who know nothing about me could surmise my favorite flowers from the yearly photo crop: tulips, daffodils, cherry blossoms, magnolias, peonies, lilacs, roses, daisies, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, morning glories. Okay, lady, we get it, you like flowers.

Dozens and dozens of flowers, and they’re all dead now. Excuse me for being macabre, but it’s true. Is is weird to think that way? Probably. I also can’t watch an old movie with a dog in it without getting sad thinking about how that particular dog isn’t alive anymore.

Anyway, I can practically hear you right now: just delete them! Delete most of those photos! Why are you holding on to pictures of freaking flowers? Who cares, they’ll be back again next year.

Here’s the thing: Even if I tried to remind myself on a daily basis when I see a pretty flower, you have lots of near identical flower photos back home, you don’t need to take another one, it wouldn’t work. The joy comes from the moment that particular little bloom is right in front of me. It’s always about the present, never the past, and not the future. It’s a way of saying, this is beautiful and it’s right now. Enjoy it because you know it won’t last.

Plus, when I do look back on through this photo archive, it’s often not even about the flowers but everything else in my life that was swirling around them. Like, oh okay, these peonies, I took this when I was walking around the reservoir, a beautiful but windy day, and I kept getting interrupted from my walk by a flirty serial text messager, though of course, I welcomed the distraction. I don’t need a screenshot of that moment when I have these gorgeous peonies to remind me.

And if you think I’m nuts when it comes to freaking flowers, don’t even talk to me about the pictures with actual people in them.

Some peonies from seven years ago, just for you.

Is this all a pretty distraction from the worries and anxieties around me? Maybe, but sometimes we need distractions, like maybe even this silly little thing you just read.

(For real though, what’s the best way to store photos/videos, I beg you.)

“Flowers”

This morning I was walking upstairsfrom the kitchen, carrying yourbeautiful flowers, the flowers you

brought me last night, calla liliesand something else, I am notsure what to call them, white flowers,

of course you had no way of knowingit has been years since I boughtwhite flowers—but now you have

and here they are again. I was carryingyour flowers and a coffee cupand a soft yellow handbag and a book

of poems by a Chinese poet, inwhich I had just read the words “comeor go but don’t just stand there

in the doorway,” as usual I wascarrying too many things, youwould have laughed if you saw me.

It seemed especially importantnot to spill the coffee as I usuallydo, as I turned up the stairs,

inside the whorl of the house as ifI were walking up inside the lilies.I do not know how to hold all

the beauty and sorrow of my life.

— Cynthia Zarin

Thanks for reading, pals. If you like getting these weird little email dispatches, feel free to tell someone who you think would appreciate them too. It takes a lot of coffee for me to get going and you can buy me a cup here or here. <3

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

So, I came across this photo I took a few years ago of a list I made back when I was 13. I don’t have the full list right now, but I thought I’d add some context to what’s available.

“My name is Andrea Laurion. This Year I Am 13.”: An Annotated List

* "My name is Andrea Laurion. This year I am 13.” / “Some Important Events That Happened This Year to me.” Yep, still Andrea Laurion after all these years. This particular “Some Important Events” list was inspired by a scene in the book Anastasia Krupnik. Do you know Anastasia? She’s an underrated favorite of mine. Lois Lowry wrote the Anastasia books, The Giver, AND Number the Stars, a real YA hat trick.

* “I won Civic Orantions.”

Civic Orantions, or Civic Orations, is a yearly speech contest for middle schoolers. I got first place in seventh grade, near the end of the school year. I never won anything ever, so that’s why it’s numero uno.My uncle died in an accident only a month before the contest. He lived out of state, I didn’t see him often, but he was always very nice and fun. It was my first time experiencing the sudden death of young person. The theme that year was “a memorable event” and writing about it helped me process the shock.

I remember looking up halfway through the speech and noticing some of the adults in the room with tears in their eyes. Making them cry, these authority figures who supervised my recess and sold me milk in the cafeteria, is something that still stays with me. I never had that ability before, not like this. I couldn’t put it into words at the time that I was understanding the power of words.

* “I’m making a webpage.”True story: I used to write down HTML code in a little notebook and type it out, line by line. No one showed me how to copy and paste!!! So you know what would have impressed me at 13? Owning the domain andrealaurion.com, which I do.

* “I have many cousins.”

Incredible, what an important event, those many cousins.

* “I wrote a fabulous poem.”

A mystery! I wish I could recall the poem or what inspired its fabulousness.

* “I have beatiful teeth.”

Clearly, a recent dentist visit had gone very well. Good job!

* “I hurt my eye.”

There are vague memories floating around my brain of falling out of bed and bumping my head on the bedpost.

* “I went camping.”/ “I went repelling.” / “I went caving.”

All three things happened at a Girl Scout camp, so I’m grouping them together. Adult Andrea’s number one and two fears are small spaces and heights, respectively, so respectfully, I would decline in participating ever again.

* “I started 8th grade.”

And acquired a pen! Wowee.

To be honest, eighth grade was a hard year. Another local Catholic grade school shut down the summer before and most of their class ended up in ours. They didn’t want to be there, we didn’t want them there. Bad, bad energy, on top of all the stuff which make that particular school year stressful (you know, puberty). I swear the Bo Burnham movie Eighth Grade is a beautiful, poignant horror film, up there with Requiem for a Dream as ones I never want to see again.

* “I went to Myrtle Beach.”

For decades, my grandfather had a Myrtle Beach timeshare for one week each in October and April. These were the times of the year when he was driving down and back from Florida and he spent the entire week playing golf, which is basically all you can do in Myrtle those times of year. After he passed away, just to take advantage of it, my family took an October vacation to Myrtle. It was pretty uneventful, too chilly to spend much time in the water. What I remember the most is that one-hit-wonder “Lullaby” by Shawn Mullins was everywhere on the radio and the melancholic vibe fit right in with all the restaurants and gift shops shuttered for the season.

This timeshare has become a headache and a half because absolutely no one wants it. My dad cannot give it away. I don’t really get it, my generation can’t even afford to cross the street much less a timeshare, all I know is it’s a whole thing. Someday, as it has been foretold in some legally binding agreement signed in blood many moons ago, like my ancestors before me (i.e. my parents), I shall inherit this multigenerational pain in the ass. Gotta love tradition.

* BONUS: A playlist of my favorite songs (no order).

12. A few quick confirmations: Yes, Brandy’s second CD, Never Say Never, was a birthday gift that year. Yes, that song is from The Rugrats Movie soundtrack. Yes, Ma$e really was everywhere in 1998.

“How to Triumph Like a Girl”

I like the lady horses best,how they make it all look easy,like running 40 miles per houris as fun as taking a nap, or grass.I like their lady horse swagger,after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!But mainly, let's be honest, I likethat they're ladies. As if this bigdangerous animal is also a part of me,that somewhere inside the delicateskin of my body, there pumpsan 8-pound female horse heart,giant with power, heavy with blood.Don't you want to believe it?Don't you want to lift my shirt and seethe huge beating genius machinethat thinks, no, it knows,it's going to come in first.

— Ada Limón

If you liked this and think I should do more of these, let me know! Please excuse the dust aka any spelling or grammar mistakes. Links to my website and social media can be found below. You can buy me a cup of coffee here or here and I would be very grateful. xoxo

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

On Friday, I saw Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. I’ve been going to shows at the Playhouse for the last 15 years and this is easily one of their best productions. Highly recommend checking it out if you’re able (masks and vax cards required). It makes for a great return to the theater if you also haven’t seen anything live since 2019.

The thing about Angels is if you care about theater at all, you’re like, duh, of course it was amazing, it’s only the most groundbreaking play of the last 30 years, first major work to address the AIDS crisis, like nothing that had come before, blah blah. If you’re me, a girl growing up in an old coal town who thought she loved the ~theeeaaatooorr~ though her main exposure were the local high school musicals, encountering this play for the first time in Modern American Drama class elicited a major WTF. Why? Let me try to describe it:

Set in 1985, the play follows a gay man who contracts AIDS but his longtime boyfriend can’t deal and leaves him in a fit of shame. Meanwhile, the marriage between a closeted Mormon lawyer and his Valium-addicted wife also falls apart as she slips deeper into hallucinations and he grapples with his sexuality. Storylines overlap in both the real and metaphysical worlds, a fictionalized version of the lawyer Roy Cohn plays a major part, ‘80s Reaganomics is practically a character itself, the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg shows up, and after three hours, it ends with a giant angel busting through the scenery. Oh, and this is just part one. There’s a whole other play (Perestroika) to wrap things up.

So, no, not exactly what I would have caught down at the local community theater. Reading it in class, I struggled with the metaphors. The significance was lost on me. Watching the HBO mini-series helped (all plays are meant to be seen, not read, especially this one) and it is an excellent mini-series, but there’s a reason we still go to the theater. Nothing virtual can replace the living. All those Zoom happy hours are a testament to that.

This play is set the year I was born, so I was a small child in the early 90s when this was first performed. AIDS was an acronym that I heard around in the way that the news floats about your childhood orbit but doesn’t stick unless it affects your daily life. I honestly can’t remember how I came to understand what AIDS is. Cultural touchstones help us make sense of the world but I was too young for RENT, Magic Johnson’s retirement, and Pedro on The Real World. This explains why the importance of the play didn’t hit me hard in 2007. By that time, it had gone from a death sentence to a more manageable chronic condition (worth noting that as a white cis woman, I’m not in the demographic most effected by AIDS today). The anxiety of the first few months of the pandemic probably did more to help me understand the terror of that time, though this was only on a fraction of the scale.

It’s chilling how much Angels is still relevant today. To see this production as more states are looking to adapt their own versions of that horrible Florida law, as books are being pulled from library shelves, as LGBTQIA educators are targeted just for living their lives openly without shame, feels like an emotional whiplash. I know enough from history that there are always backlashes to any social progress but often everything feels so heavy and exhausting. Even just a few years ago, I wouldn’t think this is where we’d be, tethering on the edge of falling down a flight of stairs.

Despite the grief, there’s one word that best describes how I felt by the end: grateful. It’s great art and quite funny. I feel the same about sharing meals with the people I love. Good storytelling, good food, good company, it’s why we’re alive. There’s something holy about those experiences and I’ll never take them for granted again.

“What the Living Do”

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along thosewobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We wantwhoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss — we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:I am living. I remember you.

— Marie Howe

Thanks for taking the time to read this, it really means a lot. There are probably mistakes because I’m an extremely flawed person. Links to my website and social media can be found below. If you feel so obliged, you can buy me a cup of coffee here or here and I’d be very grateful. <3

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

WHY WRITE?

Babe, if I knew the answer to that question, I wouldn’t be here right now.

I’ve quit writing more than anything else in my life and since you’re reading this, you can see how well that last attempt went.

I quit because it was hard. I quit because I didn’t think I was that good. I quit because I did think I was that good and my work wasn’t getting noticed. I quit because I couldn’t take the criticism. I quit because there are better things to do. I quit because why bother. I quit because it can be a giant pain in the ass to arrange words in different combinations, like a mental puzzle that’s never completed. The only other habit that’s had me in such a holding pattern is nail biting* and that anxiety isn’t going anywhere.

Writing is terrible. Can we admit that? It’s homework that you give yourself and I hate homework!! The internet is full of flowery devotions to ~craft~ and stock photos of fountain pens but I’ve never felt connected to that side at all. The ones who speak so beautifully and sincerely about sitting down and doing the work— I wish that was me. Meanwhile, I can’t tell people I’m a writer without hearing the ghost of Chris Farley in my head: "WE GOT OURSELVES A WRITER HERE.”

It’s so easy to quit. Trust me, I’ve done it a bunch! You just walk away from that blinking cursor and don’t look back. There are so many other things to do, like laundry or trivia nights or paint your nails (not me, but maybe you). As it was written all those years ago, “First of all, try to be something, anything, else.”

And yet, every time I quit, I become the worst version of myself. I’m irritated and none of the usual things soothe me. It’s as if there’s an itchy spot on my skin that keeps moving. Everything feels darker and heavier. Even stretching back to my teen years, it’s always been how it feels when I haven’t written in a while. The only way to get it to stop is to write again.

We’re getting to the part where the question, “Andrea, are you doubting your life choices?,” might seem relevant, but this time, it’s not, I swear. I don’t have any doubts about this like I used to. The years of quitting finally drilled it in me that this is just what I have to do. Writing is how I process the world around me and I had to accept that. It’s not always enjoyable yet I do feel better afterwards. I’m a sharer. It’s just who I am. It’s taken many different forms but I keep coming back.

I’m still trying to get comfortable with discomfort (a lifelong journey, let’s be real). When I’m working out how I think and feel about something, it’s never going to be quick. I make so many mistakes that it makes me laugh looking back later. I’m not a hot take machine. I’m a flawed creature with opinions trying to put one word in front of the other. And at least for this week, I didn’t quit.

*I’ve said it before and I’ll say it ‘til I die: Nail biting is the hardest habit to break because your fingernails are always just there.

“I Want to Write Something So Simply”

I want to write somethingso simplyabout loveor about painthat evenas you are readingyou feel itand as you readyou keep feeling itand though it be my storyit will be common,though it be singularit will be known to youso that by the endyou will think—no, you will realize—that it was all the whileyourself arranging the words,that it was all the timewords that you yourself,out of your own hearthad been saying.

— Mary Oliver

I really appreciate that you opened this email/clicked this link/made whatever technological choices that lead you here. There’s probably mistakes and I apologize for them with a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Links to my social and website can be found below. If you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee here or here, I’d be very very grateful. xoSpecial birthday shoutout to my mama. <3 <3 <3 Love you!

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

Personal Recommendations

* Bob and Brad. Did you know the muscles and ligaments in your body are all connected in one wicked web? Terrible yet true. So, if you were to fall down a flight of stairs and sprain your ankle— let’s say, just as an example— after a few days, you’ll probably have some lower back pain as your body compensates for your bum leg. Someone on Twitter said these guys are an over-30 rite of passage and baby, I’ve arrived. They’re like two goofy uncles, if your goofy uncles knew a lot about anatomy and gave away massage guns.

* Time Timer. I saw this early last year on Casey McQuiston’s TikTok. I was skeptical at first ($30 timer, please) but it’s helped me in three different ways: getting focused through short bursts, reminding me to take breaks when I get too far in hyperfocus mode, and visualizing the passing of time. Mine is currently sitting right in front of me and I have 16 minutes left. My cute lil’ blue one is currently on backorder but Dreamsicle Orange is quite nice too.

* Trader Joe’s Greek Chickpeas with Parsley and Cumin. You: “Andrea, what is this? A can of chickpeas, oil, spices, lemon, and garlic, ingredients that you could assemble yourself, but instead it does that for you so the nights when dinner would normally consist of too many Babybel cheese pucks, you can sauté a can of this with spinach or even a diced onion and throw a little hot sauce on top, so you’ll feel like some semblance of a human being before crawling under your weighted blanket and calling it a night?”

Me: “Yeah, that’s exactly what it is.”

* “Walden Pond” by Attaboy.

You know those places that hold an allure in your mind from a really young age, usually thanks to books? Maybe places such as Concord, Mass., the home of Louisa May Alcott. Jo Girls know, ya know? If you can hear the score from the 1994 movie in your head, you’re my people (also, it’s excellent writing music).

Around mid-October, it hits me that I’m in New England now and that I can use my adult money to do things like take little road trips to fulfill a small childhood desire that’s lingered for over 20 years. I look up tickets for Orchard House and there was one left at the second-to-last time slot for the following day. Okay, now I HAVE to go.

Y’all know I’m a total dork, so yeah, I wore my Greta Gerwig t-shirt. I was curious if anyone would notice the connection and say anything. Here’s how it went: Everyone around me in downtown Concord: NothingEveryone around me at Orchard House waiting in line: Absolutely nothingOlder woman behind the counter when I went to get my ticket: Hello, yes— OH, YOUR SHIRT!

She calls over another tour guide, she loves it too, and now they’re gushing about how great Greta was work with on the movie and how they filmed the schoolhouse scene on the property. The lady goes, “You HAVE to sit at the same desk where Florence sat!” and I’m all, “Oh, okay, sure!” Like, if we have time, maybe, whatever.

I sit in the back for a short film presentation. After it’s over, the tour guide explains how they filmed the schoolhouse scene in that very building. Then, to the entire group, she says, “Now, if you’ll please step to the side a moment, I have to take a photo of this young lady before we can begin the tour.” She gestures to me to come forward and I’m like, oh, okay, sure?! Like, we do have time, definitely, right now.

And that’s how I have half a dozen photos of myself sitting in a replica 1800s school desk where Florence Pugh once sat for a scene in the 2019 Little Women movie while off-camera, a dozen confused strangers stood around waiting for this photo shoot to finish. What can I say, it’s great. Of course, I cried when I saw LMA’s tiny writing desk where she wrote the book and I cried some more walking back to my car on that beautiful autumn day. A+ all around.

A couple weeks later, my friend Ariana put on this song as she gave me a ride to my car and I’ve been obsessed ever since. It’s lovely, makes me feel cozy, and reminds me of how the stories that mean so much to us as kids never really leave us.

Hot tip: Parking at Walden Pond costs $8 for someone from Massachusetts but $30 for out-of-state plates (a real Masshole move, IMO). However, it’s possible to park at the gift shop for at least 20 minutes without purchasing a damn thing. Do with this as you’d like.

“The Orange”

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—The size of it made us all laugh.I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,As ordinary things often doJust lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.I did all the jobs on my listAnd enjoyed them and had some time over.I love you. I’m glad I exist.

— Wendy Cope 

Personal Recommendations: A much more affordable option to Oprah’s Favorite Things. Any typos are due to the dying battery on this laptop. The links to more of my nonsense can be found below if you want to check those out. A cup of coffee would be greatly appreciated and you can do that here or here. Love you all, take care! <3 <3

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

Second, I’m available for additional freelance work. This post best explains the kind of work I’m looking for (on top of audio work), but please feel free to email me with questions.

Okay, on with the show.

Some friends from school moved into an apartment together a couple weeks ago and they threw a housewarming party. They didn’t have a couch yet, so we sat around the living room on blankets spread out along the floor. Leaning against the windowsill, I had a strange sensation of déjà vu. I had done this before. Back in 2007, 2008, 2009, in Pittsburgh when my friends were moving into their own first apartments. And here I am doing it again.

I’m the only one over 30 from the cohort who stayed in Portland. It’s not a bad thing. It just makes for funny-awkward moments, like when everyone was playing songs off YouTube from the early-2010s and I requested “Dilemma” because in my mind, it’s the same time period, but oh no, it’s too early two-thousands and no one knew it but me. There’s an eight year difference from 2002 to 2010 and those are eight important years. Whoops!

The thing about being Lady-No Kids is that after a while, you have more friends from other generations and you may have to adjust your playlist accordingly. It’s not a bad thing. I have newfound empathy for my older friends after always being the younger friend. Not to get sappy, but my life has only gotten richer as more people have entered it. I’ve seen jokes online that no one over 30 wants new friends and I’m like wait what??? Like the worst reality show contestant, I’m here to make friends. And anxiety disorders aside, I don’t really understand the impulse to cut yourself off from making new friends. It’s a foreign language to me. But I guess there are people who would say the same about how I’m living my life right now.

I talked to an old coworker friend last week for the first time in a long while. We had a good chat about where life has taken us over the past few years, which is in completely opposite directions. He moved his way up at the same company, bought a house, and lives there with his girlfriend. I left that job after a year or two, tried a bunch of other things, and everything I own with me in Maine can fit in my car. We each still have things to figure out about the future but I think we’re both on the right path, even if these paths are completely different and he’s definitely on the path that way more people in my life are taking.

Again, this isn’t a bad thing! It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing? IT’S NOT A BAD THING. It’s not a bad thing, but it is something. I don’t know what it is. I joke that I’m in this second adolescence but I don’t think anyone’s laughing anymore. Everyone’s nodding and saying, yeah, you are. Maybe I am. Hope I’ve learned a few things and it’s not as awkward as the last.

The truth is despite my dwindling savings and the anxiety of things beyond my control, I’m more excited for what’s to come than I have been in years and I have no regrets blowing it all up. 10/10, would do it again.

The Good Life

When some people talk about moneyThey speak as if it were a mysterious loverWho went out to buy milk and neverCame back, and it makes me nostalgicFor the years I lived on coffee and bread,Hungry all the time, walking to work on paydayLike a woman journeying for waterFrom a village without a well, then livingOne or two nights like everyone elseOn roast chicken and red wine.

— Tracy K. Smith

Thanks for reading my LiveJournal 2.0. Just as with the original LJ, this is all me, for better or worse, so please ignore the mistakes. The links to more of my nonsense can be found below if you want to check those out. A cup of coffee would be greatly appreciated as I keep on job searching and you can do that here or here. xoxox

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

This past Monday afternoon, I was leaving to meet up with a friend and as I’m on the stairs, just a few steps from the door, my left ankle betrays me like it’s done many times. A quick twist and I’m down before I can even grab on to the railing. Pain pain pain, that old pain pain pain. A classic sprain. RICE, an ice pack, pain relievers, I know it all.

I joke/not joke, but ankle sprains are the worst low stakes injury. Take away the sympathy of a broken bone with the same level of pain plus the expectation to walk it off. Don’t even get me started on the instructions to stay off it for 2-4 weeks as if we live in a country where that’s a possibility.

So now not only am I stuck in my studio apartment, completely alone, incapable of leaving, but my only connection to my friends and family is the electronic rectangle that I’ve been trying flee. It was like Misery, except I’m both Annie and Paul.

The one thing keeping me grounded was knowing that I was handling this differently than I have before. Past Andrea would have limped out the door, picked up her friend, and said everything is fine. I can practically feel my ankle joint throbbing on a cold coffee shop chair as I type this. Past Andrea would have kept the temp gig she had scheduled the next day and limped down the same set of stairs and drove across town, for what, a little extra cash that would be spent as quickly as it arrived while the damage to my ankle kept getting worse and worse? Not worth it, babe. When I’ve hurt this ankle in the past and felt the need to jump back into action immediately, that was me not prioritizing the rest I needed because I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I needed to do do do, and I’ve done it, over and over, but not this time.

So what did I do instead? I read some, wrote less. I had tea. I sent voice memos to my friends. I wept to this podcast. I laid on my bed listening to sad songs and watched the light change through the skylights. I made comfort food— avocado toast, an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich, super garlic-y pasta and broccoli. I thought a lot about my friend Zo’s feature project from this last semester about rest as a radical act. I pretended the studio apartment was the setting of my one-woman show and talked about hard feelings and personal realizations to an audience of no one. I let myself not do but just be. And I made some bad art.

“Reasons to Log Off”

The girl who said she could never eat a second sliceof pizza my senior year of college is doing really well.My cousin posts a photo of a loaded gun. Have I everheard of the Second Amendment? Have I ever heardof this new recipe? Cauliflower, a hint of lemon, somechopped-up ginger root. Hey, do you want to loseweight in only thirty minutes? Hey, can I have just amoment of your time? Click here to receive a specialinvitation. Click here if you want to believe in God.Tomorrow there’s a Pride walk to support the right tomarry. One comment says: I will pray for your affliction.Another says: I hope you trip, fall down, and die.Swipe up to find my new lip filler. Scroll down to readwhy these four girls were horribly afraid. Greg isasking for your number. Greg wants to send abig surprise.

— Kate Baer

I appreciate this moment of your time. I have nothing to sell you but myself, the greatest commodity of all. The links to more of my nonsense can be found below if you want to keep click-click-clicking. I’ll be honest, I would not object if you bought me a cup of coffee, which you can do here or here. Thank you, I love you, goodbye.

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

Growing up, whenever I tried to picture Future Andrea, she always had blonde hair and carried a briefcase. Me at 30? Blonde with a briefcase, looking sort of like Dawn from The (old) Babysitter’s Club TV show if she went to law school. Not because I wanted to be blonde (no thanks) or desired any kind of employment that required a briefcase (please), but because Future Andrea felt unknowable, a complete stranger. I never thought of her as myself. She was this other person that existed in the faraway someday. It’s probably no coincidence that she was physically the opposite of who I was and still am.

The future has never seemed very clear to me. It’s like that part of my brain came with the wrong glasses prescription and everything comes through fuzzy. I truly don’t know what’s going to happen in the next five minutes, much less the next five years. Okay, I’ll probably still be writing this in five minutes, but you know what what I mean.

It’s not always negative. Just yesterday, I saw on Instagram that a local knishery was open this weekend— a rarity, they never are, and I’ve been meaning to check it out— so I put on my coat, grabbed a mask, and headed over right there and then. And guess what, the knishes were great! I like spontaneity, doing what I want when I want, and right now, my life is set up that way. It keeps things fun and interesting.

That said, it stops being cute little trips to the knishery and becomes a bigger problem when you’re still picturing yourself as blonde briefcase Future Andrea beyond your teen years because nothing has come into focus for a long, long time. Or when most people require things planned weeks or months in advance and you feel disconnected from everyone and you miss when stuff just happened right then and there. Or when the bad decisions and missed opportunities pile up along with the receipts and loose change in the bottom of your coat pockets.

I try not to what-if on the whereabouts of that Future Andrea. Imaging Future Andrea was a way to create distance from my present self. It was a way of not listening to what I wanted and instead projecting this fantasy image of who I could be in a world that never existed in the first place. I don’t know what the future holds, but I can picture myself there, the Andrea with brown roots, a round belly, and a tote bag on my shoulder. The same one typing goodbye.

Take care, friends.

- A

“Rain”

Woke up this morning witha terrific urge to lie in bed all dayand read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.And gave over. Put myself entirelyin the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?Make the same unforgivable mistakes?Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

— Raymond Carver

Thanks for reading, pals. Please forgive any spelling or grammar errors because I’ve already forgiven myself. Links to my social and website can be found below. If you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee here or here, I will happily give cheers in your name. xoxo

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

You: So! Andrea! What’s been going on?

Me: Oh hey! You know, nothing much, about the same.

You: Really, the same?

Me: I mean, okay, not the same as it was like, six months ago, but the same as it was yesterday. School is done, it was just a one semester intensive, so I’m doing what you do when you’re trying to figure out what’s next after shaking things up in your life.

You: What’s that mean?

Me: Mostly lots of walks on the beach. Higgins, lately.

You: Uh huh.

Me: I like to watch the surfers and I’ve met some really great dogs.

You: That sounds nice.

Me: It is! I love being so close to the ocean. It’s been interesting observing how much the surf changes in only a day or two. Sometimes it smells a lot saltier and I don’t know why.

You: Huh, weird.

Me: Right?

You: Okay, but really, what are you doing? Are you staying in Maine?

Me: For now, yeah.

You: It’s just funny that you’re staying in Maine when you always said how much you hate winter.

Me: I mean, I still do! It’s not my favorite time of year. But everyone keeps saying how amazing it is in the summer and I’d really like to be up here for that. Plus, a bunch of people from school stuck around and I have nothing tying me down, so I figured why not.

You: The stuff you made in school, can I listen to it?

Me: Yeah, I guess if you’d like to you can listen to what I made, go ahead.

You: And the job thing, where are you with that.

Me: I’m applying to things, waiting to hear back, you know, doing the job thing.

You: Totally, just wasn’t sure what was going on there.

Me: I mean, I think it’s okay that I don’t have all the answers this second.

You: Of course, of course, I’m just… curious.

Me: I’m excited to see what’s next, even if I don’t know what it is yet.

You: And I’m excited for you!!!

Me: Aw, thanks. Anyway, that’s where I am, at least for right now. What’s going on with you?

You: Nothing much, about the same.

Me: Okay, well, good talk.

“Getting Through”

Like a car stuck in gear,a chicken too stupid to tellits head is gone,or sound ratcheting onlong after the filmhas jumped the reel,or a phoneringing and ringingin the house they have allmoved away from,through rooms where dustis a deepening skin,and the locks unneeded,so I go on loving you,my heart blundering on,a muscle spilling outwhat is no longer wanted,and my words hurtling past,like a train off its track,toward a boarded-up station,closed for years,like some last speakerof a beautiful languageno one else can hear.

— Deborah Pope

Hey, I really appreciate that you opened this email/clicked this link/made whatever technological choices that lead you here. There’s probably mistakes and I apologize for them with a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Links to my social and website can be found below. If you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee here or here, I’d be very very grateful. <3 <3

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion

I’m excited to see what presents itself in 2022 and I’ll try to be ready to receive it. Until then, lots of love and good tidings, pals.

xoxo Andrea

“i am running into a new year”

i am running into a new yearand the old years blow backlike a windthat i catch in my hairlike strong fingers likeall my old promises andit will be hard to let goof what i said to myselfabout myselfwhen i was sixteen andtwentysix and thirtysixeven thirtysix buti am running into a new yearand i beg what i love andi leave to forgive me

—Lucille Clifton

Thanks for reading, pals. I probably made mistakes (like, spelling and grammar kind) and hope you can overlook them. Links to my social and website can be found below. If you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee here or here, I will happily drink it with oat milk and give cheers in your name. xoxo

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion