...random...

The first novel I ever read, and this is at age seven mind you, was about the random adventures of some talking pig named Melvin, or Mervin, or any other number of exceedingly unfortunate M--vin names. He had a small group of young, human friends he conversed with, he was frequently seen eating cookies, he swam away from captors, scaled fences…a real Steve McQueen of a fucking pig. To this day I still confuse that freakishly juvenile novel with Animal Farm. Orwell hates me, I just know it. It’s just that we so infrequently happen upon barnyard animals graced with the gift of speech in modern literature (and for good reason I should say.) How many talking pigs are there?…I mean really.

I made my singing debut at age ten, piano age eleven, acting age seven and dancing age three. What the fuck have I done recently? I sold out by the age of twelve. This is beyond pathetic.

I went to kindergarten with three other girls named Lauren. To tell us apart the teacher used our last initials tagged onto our names, hence, I became Lauren H. Whenever assignments asked for my name, I wrote out Lauren H. When strangers in the supermarket came up to my mother and I, made some sappy comment in regard to how cute I was and asked my name, I replied “Lauren H.” When I scribbled my name in the margins of papers, it was always Lauren H. It took me two years to catch on that my name didn’t actually include an H. I think this is what my mom means when she claims I have no common sense.