Monthly Archives: May 2016

Dear Lauren, Love Lauren

The following is a completely fictional recorded conversation between my past and present selves. It is transcribed as it was spoken and it is also not real.   18-year-old Lauren: Dear 25-year-old Lauren, I hope you’re no longer miserable. Please tell me that...

Dreaming Again

I feel sort of like Cinderella using every available moment to frantically clean up my life so that I might finally get what I want, except I have no animals, no magic, and no shoes made of glass (thank god).

Writing Space

Perhaps the trick isn’t finding the perfect place, the perfect pen, the perfect aesthetic, the correct combination of elbow patches, pipe smoke, and whiskey. Perhaps the trick is simply to not have a trick.

A Grandmotherly Half-Truth

It frustrates me to hear people complain that they feel like they’re choosing between two evils or that they’ll just stay home on Election Day or that they’ll pack up and move to Canada if things don’t go their way.

The Big Clean

I drag around furniture, scramble on top of kitchen counters. I dust, I sweep, I wipe. I also bleach and mop, neaten, vacuum, air, fluff, and polish.

Tiny White Moments

Reaching through the grated door, I run a fingertip along the tiny white foreleg of a tiny white lamb curled on the straw inside. He slid into the world less than a week ago beside his glossy black sister.

Double Dutch

The dancers separate into groups of eight and begin the dance. There’s nothing quite like the sound of hundreds of wooden shoes clomping along the asphalt in rhythm. Or the semblance of rhythm.

I Quit

This was a tantrum that got out of hand, causing me to forget that my desires are not the most important thing in the world.

Like Riding A Bike

I could feel the wind teasing my pigtails. I was positively gliding. Then I glanced backward, realized my dad was no longer behind me, and promptly fell off the bike.

Delayed

Terminal A is actually still a part of the old Soviet Union, and has been under construction since before planes were a thing. Want food? One option: The Earl of Sandwich.

Pastor as Friend?

Pastors aren’t just professionals, they’re sisters and brothers in Christ with the rest of the congregation… so does that mean they can be friends?

Playing Hot Potato with Kindness

I want selfless people to have blissful, perfect lives. When I argue with someone about selfishness—“it’s a virtue. The Golden Rule just makes betas feel better about not standing up for themselves”—I want to point to loving families and say, “See? This is possible. This is good,” but I can’t.

Scaling Down Giants

I’m not painting out such writers, or any writers, for that matter, to be dull; rather, what’s been more fascinating, and all the more reassuring, is that such giants were people first and writers second.

the post calvin