Shitcanned-tivities #5: Obsessively Tear Out Recipes from Sunset Magazine...

then place each recipe in a 3-hole punch, clear sheet protector and organize them in a binder in the following categories:

• Fancy Salads I'll Only Make When Guests Come Over
• Fancy Meats I'll Try to Make When Guests Come Over
• BBQ I'll Actually Make When Guests Come Over
• Cutesy Baking Shit I'll Never Make Even Guests Come Over Because I'm Just Not Wired To Be A "Cutesy Baking Shit" Person. Ugh, I'd have to blow my candle and wine glass budget on tins and pans and Crisco and then there's flour everywhere...
• Booze

Right now, I'm now enjoying a Shaved Artisan Ice Pomegranate Mango Mojito Breeze with take-out.

Social Network Spring Cleaning

IF...

• I have no idea who you are and we never met...
• You live in a foreign country or speak a different language and I have no idea who you and we never met...
• You need to post everything you ever do during the day and I have no idea who you are and we never met...
• Your profile pic is an eight year-old black and white headshot...
• You posted way too much glitter clip art on my page...
• Your bar or restaurant closed two years ago...
• Your show closed two years ago...
• Your sketch group or band broke up two years ago...
• You last logged into your account two years ago...

I released you from my MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Please don't take it personally, it's just all too much! I'm not really reading your status updates, tweets or looking at your pics. I'm not coming to your show because I live thousands and thousands of miles away. I'm not joining your fan group because we are equally not famous and unsuccessful, and I am not your fan, I am your peer. After cleaning out all the self-promotion clutter, it's so lovely to really see and appreciate the collection of real people that matter in my life: family, friends, former co-workers, teachers, and classmates, neighbors, performers and industry professionals whose work I actually know and love. So if you were able to see the Facebook status announcing this post, I know you and I like you and you matter to me. Don't get cocky though, everyone is one "Lil Green Patch" away from getting cut.

Goals

LA loves its goals. What's your plan? What do you want? How are you going to get it? What's your vision? What's your to-do list? What's your next step? Who do you want to meet? Are you holding yourself accountable? Are you a self starter? A grown up? Do you need to give someone else money to help you get your shit together? Do you need a goal group? Do you need a bunch of magazine cut outs of models, McMansions, and Oscars glue-sticked to a piece of cardboard to help get you out of bed everyday? Goals. Tasks. Progress. Forward movement. How are you spending your time in front of the laptop at Intelligentsia Coffee?! My goal this week is to actually prepare and eat the bags of produce I bought at Vons today. This time next week, I will not be scooping out brownish-green rot soup at the bottom of the fridge. Okay, so, Brussels sprouts, hmmm....

Open Letter to An Asshole #5: A Request to Buy Back My Hubcaps

Dear Guy or Gal Who Stole Our Hubcaps: I've never paid attention to my hubcaps and now that they're gone, I can't stop obsessing about my hubcap-less tires. I'm feeling a little low-class in that "have a bunch of broken TV stacked on top of each in the living room" way. I'd like to offer you a$100 to buy back my hubcaps. I'm assuming you can use it. If you can find my GPS holder and charger that were stolen last year, I'll throw in another $25 plus some cans of Trader Joe's Turkey Chili and a bottle of Shiraz. I'll give you another $10 if you can explain to me the business strategy of hubcap stealing? What's their street value? I asked Google why people steal hubcaps and all I got were links to racist joke websites. I make no assumptions about your race or gender. I am judging you for your taste level in car part thievery. You really risked getting caught stealing hubcaps off a Nissan Versa? Not even an Altima? Tsk, tsk. Warmest Regards, Laura

Missed my Blog-versary by a day

I've been on the couch for the past five hours, half watching TV and half feeling guilty about not posting. I realized February 16, 2009 marks the birth of this blog. So in perfect LA fashion, I'm late. If you'd like to walk down memory lane, here's my first post. I think I did a pretty good job following my own rules. Some posts are more ramble-y than others. If I think about it, I haven't watched Rachel Maddow since I wrote my first post. Nothing against Rachel, I just got better cable.

Happy LA-versary!

Today marks my first anniversary in LA! A year ago I was crying in JFK and schlepping too much luggage in Burbank. I look back at my life this time last year...and it sucked. I can't believe I did that to myself. I was lonely, I couldn't identify the smell coming out of the fridge in my sublet apartment, I spent my days watching people at Coffee Bean buying their coffee while talking on their cells and scurrying to their cars, envious of their busy and important lives, and I threw up a combination Peaches and Cream Instant Oatmeal and Hazelnut coffee on my way to look at one of many mauve wall to wall carpet-ed, mirrored closet-ed, broken ceiling fan-ed, shit hole apartments. Aside from serious illness and death, I went through every personal crisis one goes through during life in short, concentrated bursts of anxiety: I want my husband, clothes, and coffee mugs back and a home to put them in. I want friends. I want to stop seeking approval of those that would end up making very little difference in my life. I want Dunkin Donuts. I want more professional opportunities. I want more money. I want to fit in. I want validation that all this change is worth it. I don't know when the shift happen, but at some point I stopped wondering if I like LA and why I miss NY and started living. This month I did very little living (and even less blogging) and was just full-blown doing. I created a part-time organizing business and began shooting a short film I've been writing and re-writing since August. It didn't really matter that I had to sit in traffic, or that I want to hurl people that complain about rain into the non-existent LA river, or that I can't find a normal, regular size egg roll. After a year of of getting used to a new town, I can now enjoy a new life.

Hey there, 2010!

Happy New Year! Happy New Decade! Happy One Month Shy of My First LA-versary! I like this time of year - even more now that I don't have to stand in the subway sweating through a coat, turtleneck, scarf, and ill fitting "work slacks." Right now everything feels full of promise and possibility. I haven't screwed anything up yet. Goals still seem attainable in the face of sleeping in and catching up on my DVR. Great big things might happen. Or perhaps I'll enjoy a consistent lull of nothing too awful happening. I feel like I should reflect upon this decade and outline the highs and the lows. Ten years ago I was preparing to start my second semester as a transfer student at NYU...and moving into my fifth dorm, and six months away of meeting my now husband. It's been sort of a blur since. This is my first decade I didn't have school years and semesters to divide my life. Basically 2003-2007 felt like one long year. And 2009 in LA felt like one long May.