Put on some clothing, for the love of Christ.

Dear ladies of Kenyon,

It was -3 degrees this morning, and let me tell you, it is hard to admire your shapely legs, fetchingly framed though they may be by a skirt and Uggs, when one knows that naught but a few microns of trembling nylon stand between your skin and the "I-think-my-face-is-falling-off!" weather. You look like walking icicles. Does frostbite make you feel sexy? It's time for some common sense, ladies. Put on some clothing. We are not a nudist colony.

It should be noted that this applies to select menfolk as well. Come on, guys.

Lots of Love,

Laura

Godzilla Goldfish and the Wonders of Yoga

The woman next to me in my Bikram yoga class today had two tattoos. The first was a gigantic goldfish, a godzilla-goldie twelve or thirteen times the size of your average fish, glubbing beguilingly as it gazed at me from its position on her left arm. The other, sexily placed on her rib cage beneath her right armpit, was an equally spacious affair detailing a cardinal perched on a tree branch. I can only wonder if, given the choice, she'd rather be represented artistically as an aquarium (or, perhaps, a short-lived childhood pet?) or the official State of Virginia brochure.

A Wee Explanation

"Oh Johnny's in the basement

Mixin' up the medicine

I'm on the pavement

Thinkin' 'bout the government

Man in a trench coat, badge out, laid off

Says he's got a bad cough

Wants to get it paid off

Look out kid, it's somethin' you did

God knows when but you're doin' it again

You better duck down the alleyway

Lookin' for a new friend

The man in the coon-skin cap in the big pen

Wants eleven-dollar bills, and

You only got tens."

Thus spake the immortal Bob Dylan.

There is some controversy over whether the last lines in this, the first verse of "Subterranean Homesick Blues," should in fact read "Wants eleven dollar bills, and / You only got ten." That version is boring. The other version is interesting. Decision made.

I chose it for the title of my blog for two reasons. Mostly, I chose it because it has an esoteric ring to it, and one time a camp counselor of mine whom I absolutely worshipped (he was a tight-rope walker and knew a lot about nature. Yuuuup.) said, as his chiseled but somehow endearing features were illuminated by the light of a campfire, that it would be really cool if someone memorized that whole song. What else could I do but memorize that song, if I ever wanted to feel relevant as a human being again?

The second reason that I chose it is that the line has a quirky sort of metaphorical pertinence: life is all about trying to come up with an answer to give the guy who's asking for something that doesn't exist. What would you do if someone asked you for an eleven-dollar bill? You'd have to think differently, yes?

(Almost) a New Year's in NYC

Here are some interesting stats about my trip to NYC:

Shows Seen: 2 (Billy Elliot and A Little Night Music)

Celebrity sightings: 5 (Elmo, the Cookie Monster, Batman, Spiderman, the guy who played Mark Cohen in Rent)

Conversations with Celebrities: 1 (Mark Cohen and I talked about Broadway shows in my hotel elevator. He got out on the 7th floor. I got out on the 9th floor, went into my room, and died.)

Instances of Physical Contact With Celebrities: 1 (I fist-bumped the Cookie Monster.)

Museum Exhibits: 6 (Kandinsky, El Greco, Jane Austen, JP Morgan's private study, Monet's Waterlilies, Tim Burton.)

Paintings Viewed: Don't even go there . . .

All in all, it was a fantastic way to close out the year. I was back in Charlottesville for the actual New Year's Eve, where I was entertaining two girls from Alabama who were visiting us. Hence, my night was spent playing charades (picture a little blonde eight-year-old girl trying to speak whale without sound) and watching Harry Potter. In between games, when I had an average of 0.3 seconds to myself before my young charges would go, with their adorable deep southern accents, "what're we gonna do naaooow?" I felt an overpowering feeling of gladness for what this year has given me. It's given me a ticket out of high school and into my amazingly bright future at Kenyon with people that I've already come to love. It's given me a million laughs and enough tears to make the laughs worth while. It's given me the time to grow out of acne (finally, thank GOD). So thanks 2009, it's been fun! Here's to 2010 :)

No One Else is Awake Yet!

Every year, my entire family goes to Nana's house for Christmas Eve dinner, where she fixes the traditional oyster stew. How anything as upchuck-reflex-inducing as oyster stew got to be a tradition I will never know, but the fact remains that for every Christmas since I was old enough to say "eeew" I've had to put up with slimy, brownish bivalves drifting unappetizingly in, essentially, a bowl of tepid milk. When I was younger, before I had acquired the ability to say "that makes me want to vomit" with tact and finesse, I'd just drink the creamy broth and do my best to ignore the critters accumulating gushily in the bottom of the bowl. Now that I'm older, well, let's say being a vegetarian has its perks. This year, though, when the time came to pass 'round the stew, it came out that hardly anyone else likes oyster stew either, not even Nana. Family traditions are strange.

But that isn't why my grandmother is adorable. Nana is adorable because pecan puffs, little confectioners'-sugar-frosted cookies that she's been making for fifty Christmases at least, are supposed to be about the size of a modestly successful grape. This year, they were so enormous that she was either pelting the obnoxious kid next door or playing golf with the dough balls before she baked them. (Either way, I think we all know who's hanging out in the kitchen with Nana more often). When we pointed their prodigious size out to her, she was flummoxed, and said with her adorable southern accent, "Wee-eell Ah'm sure Ah have no ah-dea how that happened!" as she examined one of the cookies, which was about as big as her face.

Hopefully, I'll be able to convince her that we should just eat giant cookies instead of --

FINALLYPEOPLEAREUPIHEARSOMEONEMOVINGINTHEKITCHENIT'SSANTATIMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The Past Five Days

I used to think blogs were silly. I still do. However, I've decided to give it a try, since I enjoy writing and am sick in bed with a wretched cold and a brutish cough; and besides, being open-minded to giving things a try only did any harm when some people decided to vote for Bush a second time.

The last time it snowed more than two feet in Virginia was in 1997. In fact, that year we got three feet, and my brother and I tunneled through the back yard and over the garden wall until we may actually have been in danger of turning into moles (that's another story). This past week, snow was predicted. I, as a Virginian, get excited over flurries, so you can imagine my enthusiasm when all sources were saying we could get up to two feet.

As is my wintertime tradition, when it started to snow I assembled a storm-kit involving disney movies, hot chocolate and a Harry Potter book before setting out for my best friend Tera's house to get snowed in. I arrived on her doorstep, rosy-cheeked and peppy, amid the first innocently accumulating inches of snow. Little did I know that I would not leave for five days, held captive by four inches of solid ice on the roads; nor had I any inkling that the next morning a scheming, evil rhinovirus would pounce upon my unsuspecting sinuses.

That first evening, Tera and I walked through the muffled dusk and drifting snowflakes, feeling as if we'd stepped into Ethan Frome (except without a conniving hypochondriac wife who will stop at nothing to ruin your life and all prospects of future happiness, and without forbidden love, and without horses, and without a creepy cat . . . so basically only the landscape. Give me a break, it was gorgeous out.) The comfortable happiness of besties reunited for a long walk in the boonies made me finally feel I'd come home, two full days after returning from school in Ohio.

The next morning, though, the only snow-like substance I could see was a white, fluffily menacing cloud of tissues ("I will chafe your nose until it falls off, BWAHAHA") in which I was irretrievably engulfed for the remainder of my stay at the Morris household. The whole family was remarkably goodnatured about it all, but I was so out of it that, when asked whether I'd prefer coffee or tea for breakfast, I replied "yes . . . please," and promptly went back to sleep.

At any rate, after five days I am back home and ready to make cookies and chocolate truffles, come hell or pneumonia (knock on wood). Just . . . don't anyone else eat them, or get within five feet of me, for that matter.