And this is what happiness is.
Oh hey.
I live on a great block in the east village, I like coffee, blue orchids, and people who hold the door open. I'm a fan of great writing and the absurd. I like jazz with scrambled eggs, big windows, and getting people to tell their stories. Ask me anything Tell me what you really think..
I live on a great block in the east village, I like coffee, blue orchids, and people who hold the door open. I'm a fan of great writing and the absurd. I like jazz with scrambled eggs, big windows, and getting people to tell their stories. Ask me anything Tell me what you really think..
February 15, 2012
December 7, 2011
"I hate the idea of a lightening bolt to know it’s “LOVE”. I much prefer the idea of a pixel. Up close, one seems like nothing. A few - ok but maybe not magic. But get some distance and you have this amazing image or work of art that is complex and morphing and full of variety. That is something to shoot for."
— One of my favorite reporters at CNN told me this
March 27, 2011
The cabbie
I was heading home from a useful day of running errands…
10th and 2nd I told my cabbie. My credit card machine doesn’t work he said as he pulled over the cab in the West Village. I had 10 dollars. I got in.
We drove through the village. A red light turned green. He didn’t budge. I noticed him looking out the window.
Excuse me, sir? It’s green, I said.
Sorry, he said, driving through.
Moments later, another red light turned green. We were at Astor Place.
We sat still.
Green again, I said, hoping to beat the impatient cabs behind us into the inevitable honking that would occur in moments.
There was something more going on with this cab driver, this man.
Something on your mind? I asked.
My mom is very sick, he said. Tomorrow he would leave for Haiti to see her.
He was going to lose her. She already had complications before the earthquake he told me. There was the asthma, the lungs were weak. He would lose her like he lost so many when the earthquake shook his hometown, taking with it the lives of his sisters, his friends, the home he knew before he left for New York to make a better life for himself.
He came to this city to drive the ambitious streets paved with the promise of success.
But success, the drive - it didn’t matter. His mind was back in Haiti, the cracked streets, the hungry mouths and the roofs patched with inevitable memories that haunted him from across the world on this chilly New York evening on our path towards the East Village.
February 18, 2011
Radiohead. Lotus Flower. Thom Yorke.
January 13, 2011
Just that kind of conversation.
“we talked circles around one another, she had a conversation and I had another.”
January 7, 2011
Do you remember?
This was my first Tumblr post. Took it down. Posting again.
Do you remember?
Last night I sat across a stranger who I once shared everything with.
I met him in a restaurant on second ave, It wasn’t late, it was planned, and after an epic breakup involving clothes out the window and immense heartache – it was quite the contrary.
We sat across from one other, asked about each other’s families, jobs, lives – we asked questions and answered, we slowly drank our drinks, he paid for our round, walked me home, kissed me on the cheek, and we parted ways.
Years ago, there were screaming matches. There were those times when we brought out the absolute worst in one another. We had become shadows of ourselves as we clung to a relationship that was clearly deteriorating. It was months of calls, deleting his number, trying to forget – and now like two old friends with a dark secret, we were going through the motions of a catch up.
It was a bit like watching a play unfold. I’m still unsure that you can ever love someone and shift gears into a platonic relationship. But we were able to look back on our ending with a perspective that only comes as years tick by and we gain life experiences apart from one another.
Sitting across from the first and only guy I’ve ever fallen in love with, I have a renewed appreciation for relationships, for caring about someone to the extent that they become a part of you and who you will become. I’ve long said goodbye to him, but I haven’t allowed myself to truly come to terms with the immense impact he had on my life, the growing up we did together, and the lessons I’ve learned from our tough end.
Flannery O’ Conner once said, “a story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.”
It would be too simple to extract a theme from my story with Dave. I would love to say we sat across from one another and delighted in our ability to now see that larger picture. But I don’t think either of us got to walk away with that packaged deal.
I walked away feeling much older, much more comfortable in these shoes, in this life. And immensely nostalgic to have cared so much, spent so much time and energy intertwining our lives together into what would ultimately be two separate products.
As I walked away from the first guy I trusted, the first relationship I dove head first into, I didn’t cry over him like so many times before. I cleaned my room, made myself a cup of hot chocolate and remembered just how wonderful it felt to share my life with someone and just how wonderful it feels to have carved out my spot alone in this city.
-LES
January 6, 2011
Goodbye Ben
Well last night marked Ben’s last eve in New York City. Unable to
obtain a visa, he’s forced to leave the states for an indefinite
time to pursue his musical aspirations back in London.
I contemplated whether I should ride over the bridge to say goodbye to
my ex hipster boyfriend. As my couch has long been freed from his naps
and guitar strumming, I’ve gained a bit of “never again” perspective
and have since allowed myself to befriend him again.
At 10:04pm, I decided to make the trek. Although the last thing I
wanted to do was trek the L train to Williamsburg, a borough I had
long since sworn off since an unfortunate attempt to live out a hippie
fantasy by subletting from a drug addict, I chose to make the move.
30 minutes and 20 fedoras later, I arrived at a bar with a foreign
name I couldn’t quite pronounce.
As I walked in, I spotted my dear hipster from across the room.
Although the hair volume seems to increase with every stop on the L,
we were only on the first stop, and Ben’s hair was the focal point of
the PBR filled backdrop for our dramatic farewell.
I walked over to Ben, prepared to hand him my written note,
wishing him well, encouraging to live out his musical dreams and
continue to pursue his passion. It was one of those uplifting, feel
good notes I save for closure and fuckups. Yes, I scrawled the note on
my reporter’s notebook against the closed doors of the L train moments
before, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t notice.
Well, actually, I don’t think he noticed much of anything. Ben was
sitting at a family style wooden table surrounded by a plaid shirt
renegade and empty Jack Daniels shots. As I approached my lanky
companion of last winter, a girl with torn jeans (Abercrombie circa
1998) glared my way. She had a top bun, a nose ring, and bracelets
piled on her thin cigarette bearing arms.
“Lawry!” Ben slurred. I was greeted with a couple nods from his fellow
hipsters and glares from the ladies as I pulled up a wooden
chair and cursed myself for that “do the right thing” voice that was
most likely just a misguided thought after consuming too many oysters
at dinner with my brother that night.
Within moments, Ben was staring blankly around the smoke filled bar
and I was being accosted by a German tourist who was a bit too
enthusiastic about his cultural new friends he’d found on Bedford Ave.
As I was forced into a conversation about his industrial engineering
job and love of Brooklyn, Ben wandered off into what I assume is a
land reserved for unicorns, musicians, and ramen.
After 7 grueling minutes I found Ben outside talking to the hipster
girl that had long since left for another cigarette break. I’m laurie,
I said extending my hand towards the girl as she took a drag. She
adjusted her hemp bracelet and look elsewhere, I’m assuming to that
land reserved for unicorns, musicians, and ramen.
“Leaving already?” Ben asked me in his northern English accent that
was once a long (long) time ago charming.
“I’ve got to write an article,” I lied, as the hipster girl stared at
me with newfound disdain having realized I had a day job.
I reached into my pocket and handed my heartwarming, handwritten note
to Ben. “Read it when you’re sober,” I suggested as he embraced me
with a drunken warmth reserved for just about anyone after 8 shots of
Jack Daniels.
I turned around and headed back to the L, back to Manhattan, and back
to the reality that I had tried so hard to veer away from when I dated
my dear British hipster, Ben.
January 6, 2011
No more secrets. This is no secret blog.
So I used to call my unimportant rambling tumblr account my “secret blog.” My good friend and CNN coworker who happened to work on branding bought me a journal begging me to “write it, not type it.”
He worried that someone would discover my awkward musings. Well he was right. Someone did discover them. So I guess it’s out in the open now. I’m reposting some stories I took down.
-LES
January 6, 2011
“Well, hot and heavy, pumpkin pie chocolate candy…ain’t nothing please me more than you.”
This is officially my go to happy video.
December 12, 2010
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Edward Sharpe’s Facebook page posted this on Sunday or Monday, keep forgetting to reblog on tumblr! It’s awesome :)
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