I haven't meant to be standoffish, I've just been busy...and sore. I went kayaking for the first time ever this weekend—to say nothing of camping. More on that later, but a weekend without electricity should be a reasonable excuse for any of the lauralore.com readers as to my Saturday-Sunday absence, even that one who leaves disparaging comments.

Nick's birthday was Sunday, and I wish I had been more energetic to really celebrate the day...make it really special, but Laura was pooped. It wasn't until about 2:13PM today that I was actually able to make a fist...rowing is tough on the hands. Particularly rowing for 6-7 hours on your first-EVER kayaking expedition:



It was a rough day today...and I've finally decided why, and it's the silliest reason ever. Everything's been reminding me of Mom...I've been fighting tears all day...little memories keep sneaking up on me and my heart absolutely aches. Today my gym membership expires. I will not be renewing, leastwise not in DeForest. I've been staying active out of doors...I need to be better about it, but still.

My Mom bought me six months of membership for Christmas last year...I think that's what's triggering it. It was a membership I started with Miles—I've grown tired of the questions inquiring after my husband—and renewed due to a holiday gift from a woman I cherished more than life itself. The place holds too many hard memories for me...walking zombie-like on the days immediately after Miles left...running to the point of near-faint the week that Mom died. It is those moments that inundate my thoughts when I swipe my card and the computerized voice chimes, "HAVE A GREAT WORKOUT!"

But really, my heart has been growing heavy for many days now, it isn't just today. Sunday, returning from our trip, I told Nick that I'm afraid of my next move. I've had a complicated set of circumstances over the past several years...it's been emotionally draining and my life veered long ago from the path I wanted it to take. Lennon had it right when he advised that life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

I admitted my fear...now that some of my responsibilities have faded away, now that all of the groundwork I've labored so hard to lay is beginning to pave my way, what if I fail? What if I just can't be who I want to be? Regret is beginning to take hold, and it is the most loathsome of all...I don't believe in regret, and now I bathe in its murky depths.

My day curved up in silly's grin when an individual told me at break that I was adorable and could totally pass for Barbie—in a non-plastic, anatomically correct way—and that they were so glad I was their coworker. Cheap that this perked my spirits? Probably. Do I care? Not really. You've gotta get your smiles where you can...some days they seem to be in limited reserves.

You know my love affair with photographing flowers. I was taken with the beauty of these yesterday as I was sorting through old memories. Brenda and Debbie told me early in the day that if I needed a hug while I was going through yesterday, that all I had to do was ask.




Well, in classic Laura form, I managed to get distracted by side projects all day long, and seemed to be busy at every moment, but could not name one thing I had accomplished in full. I sat down to dinner with my aunts and afterwards we went for a ride, me going on the clause that a McDonald's ice cream cone would be my sway-factor in participation.

I let them know that I would probably be working well into the night, thanks to a self-hating habit I developed as a young girl to complete my Saturday chores when my Cabbage Patch Kid looked like so much more fun: when I begin ripping things apart to organize, I scatter bits through my walkways and upon my bed so that it must be taken care of before my day ends. I would be hauling things to the garage for hours and hours to come, I advised.

"Why the garage?" you may find yourself asking. Well, to be frank with you, I have a lot of extraneous belongings. I am sneaking up on the ripe old age of 25. Now, my aunts who have couple-two-three decades on me are of the same gene pool...which I observed earlier yesterday morning when Debbie parked at The Grasshopper coffeehouse. "Hmm...I think it's safe to say that my parking skills are genetic," I said, looking at the vehicle parked perfectly between the lines...of two stalls. Brenda agreed. We're all crappy parkers...Whee!

Needless to say, they've accrued extraneous belongings to a greater degree than myself.

Digging into my daunting task, I conferred with Brenda. "How do I dispose of this stuff?" I mean, and I'm just talking about the belongings I have stored at this house...which is nothing compared to what I have stored in my Dad's garage! Holy clutter, Batman!  I'll deal with that  local another weekend. But as both my aunts and myself have things we don't need at all—I mean, it's just the law of life that as soon as you get rid of something you'll find a use for it...and I'm totally prepared to mourn the loss of that shattered glass table-top and the mildewy pillows, both—we are renting a dumpster. Well, Brenda is renting a dumpster...well, Debbie is calling for the dumpster and Brenda is paying for it...and I get to trash things without fee or task.

So, for the mean time, the garage is a placeholder for junk. I was carrying objects there until nearly midnight, a happening that speaks so clearly of my mother's influence. My paternal grandmother would always say "When the sun sets in the West, the laziest do their best." I was always deeply offended as a witless youngster, not realizing she was referring to sleep, and told my grandmother that my mother often cleans house in the evening and I've never known a less lazy person!

Indeed, Mom would get her pick-up-and-go as the day grew dim. So it is with me...it is night when there's less to distract me, like resident baby raccoons. The tears took hold only as the fatigue set in, and I realized it's been just shy of a year since I was doing this back-breaking work last. So much has happened in a year. I observed the beginning of June to myself, the beginning of June when I first truly felt the bite of a rabid reality last year.

I collapsed into bed and felt my throbbing muscles, my shins that were already bruising...sometimes the physical pain feels good...it takes your mind off of the mess inside your head and inside your heart. In the end, I will have an emptiness and a regret, but I'll find the beauty in my surroundings again, I always do and I always will—another gift from Mom. She gave me a guide by which to live, and I will be forever grateful. This too shall pass.

Last Thursday, Nick's cell rang—his parents were on the line. A distant relative was having a party of sorts on Sunday...would he be making an appearance? He swiveled the receiver from his mouth and asked me, "Do we have plans on Sunday?" I shook my head.

Friday afternoon, I got a call from Nick who, after demanding I change my voicemail from the Mechanical, "YOU. HAVE. REACHED. THE. VOICEMAIL. OF. [laura phillips]..." asked me again if I had plans on Sunday. Thinking this a trick question, because Nick is a smart ass and pulls stunts such as these, I talked in my kindergartner's voice while purring, "We are going to your great aunt (or some relative like that)'s anniversary party."

"Yeah, I'm blowing that off."

I proceeded to record the dorkiest voicemail message ever and get a little giddy...you see, Nick would be taking me to Sunday's Brewers game! I love that Nick is so outgoing. I love that he isn't content to waste a weekend doing nothing, and I especially love that he would do just about anything to ease the weight from my chest when my heart grows heavy. Nick's quality people.

The Brewers lost, but the Polish Sausage won...Nick's Polish. As for myself and Nick's German acquaintance, we were more than a little disappointed to see the Bratwurst fair so abominably...but I was duly happy for Nicholas. The sausage race greatly entertained me...much like the race waves at The Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure which detailed where a runner ought position themselves: Serious Runners, Not So Serious Runners, and I May Never Do This Again.

I had a blast. Afterwards, we drove by the building where I would be having my second interview on Monday morning, I smiled into the late afternoon sun and felt peace. Life is a little hard to swallow just now, with 06/12, 8:30-AM, inching forward...but I've had a run of good luck, a run that even I am not too self absorbed to appreciate. Besides my completely lovely weekend on the water and in the stadium, I was offered a job yesterday after work, Google analytics finally accepted me into their program, and I'm having a totally good hair day.

Oh, almost forgot: we had Chinese food for dinner last night.

Life is good.

Brenda first emailed me about The Race for the Cure. Breast Cancer...not what my mother had. She had the "lucky number 13th" case ever diagnosed on a strain that kills so fast they haven't bothered to name it...but I figure that any Cancer research benefits the greater good, right?

I didn't know much about it, but I had it on good authority that the last-Saturday-in-April rendezvous with Crazy Legs is the last bit of enthusiasm Nick showed toward running until the advent of the next Spring.

However, when I mentioned the run to Nick, to my dual surprise and delight, he agreed wholeheartedly to participate. It's his inside running joke that he feels cheap doing these charity runs with me...I mean, if it was for a good cause and all, he says that'd be different...but Cancer!? C'mon. I mean, the proceeds don't even go toward college sports programs. Where's the honor in that!?

We headed out this morning, and it was, for me, what I call "a bad performance". Never have I been so grateful as to not be wearing a timing chip on my shoe. That much sucking need not be documented to the millisecond. So I've pretty much determined that my insides are mucked up and I've gotta start eating better...and more regularly.

Oh yeah, and the gym. Yes, I've been slacking again. Too much of this "I don't feel good" stuff...I have to remember Mom, who told me after her mega-intense surgery in 2003, after which they told her she'd never be Cancer-free, that she can't stop the disease from thriving, but she can keep her body conditioned to fight it as long as possible. She was walking four miles a day before the month-anniversary of her surgery that left with stitches from "stem to stern" along her front.

I felt badly for Nick, who could have clocked in a truly awesome time if not for his kindness in adjusting his pace to mine. I'm not above realizing that the implementation of a timing chip might have changed his decision to do so, but that's neither here nor there. In hindsight, I feel Nick's awesomeness can be attributed to his beginning the day with a smile:



I came downstairs just before we left wearing the t-shirt Nick picked up for me on Thursday, along with our running packets—he snorted, telling me I had to go change because that was the shirt HE was wearing today, and he didn't want to look like a couple. I wasn't sympathetic, and we created the ultimate faux pas, wearing exactly what EVERYBODY ELSE THERE was wearing. Originality is for the birds. Sameness, a gray-scaled existance, that's the vibrancy of life.

Gray-scale is probably a poor word choice for this event, however. Nick called it on the way to the course, "I'm going to see a lot of pink today, aren't I?" Mmmmhmmmm. But it isn't so bad! Just look! Sun Chips packages special Susan B. Komen-pink bags just for this national event...and they all have to be consumed THAT DAY. The box pictured above served as Nick's booty for the day.

Congratulations, Nick! You are now the proud owner of 104 pink-bagged Sun Chips!

Nick had an over-range microwave installed yesterday. Two friends from work came over and completed the task, for which Nick expressed gratitude by providing dinner. Nick's a wonderful host. Yesterday, in his first taste of my cookies, he actually exclaimed, "Wow! You can taste every part of that cookie! The banana! The chocolate chips! The oatmeal!" I was amused by the outburst. And after he stopped complaining that I'd been holding out on him with the cookies for however many months, it was a pleasant cookout.

And I know now that I've found a place in Nick's heart...beyond the exchange of garage door openers and the free license to rearrange his kitchen or fold his towels....but that he let me initiate the microwave with a sexy bowl of oatmeal—my diet is of an exotic nature. Thanks for the honor, Nicholas.