Laurie White - Plinky Answers

ZOMZombies!

2009-03-26T14:32:30-06:00

Tweet it.

Why Am I Here?

2009-03-24T00:05:25-06:00

There's so much to do before I die that this question is absurd. But ok.

Parent a child.
I don't know how, or whose, or when, but I have an intense desire to be a mother and I think it's important to my experience here to see if I can make it happen. I also think I'll be pretty damn good at it, and those are the things I like to try for sure.

Visit all 50 states.
I started traveling this country on my own three years ago and I'm constantly amazed by what I see and who I meet. I won't stop til I see the whole beautiful mess.

Own a home
I haven't, and I'd like to. I'm a roamer and a bit of a flake, it seems. I've tried on and discarded a few careers and a couple of towns. I think I'd just like to wake up quiet on a Saturday in my own house and work in the yard if I feel like it. It's not so complicated.

Fund a project that is of use to other people or animals
I'd like to move forward knowing I did something of value for someone or some greater good along the way.

Make a living primarily from writing and photography, but not a miserable, scraping one. One that allows me to live happily and stably and creatively all at once.
I believe in working. I've had a job since I was 18 years old and every day off since has been tinged with some kind of guilt, however slight, about what I'm not doing or ought to be doing.

I'll never starve for art because I think that's silly, but it would be nice to be compensated for my truest talents, even if it's not exactly what they're worth.

Have a season, just a season, of peace.
I'm tired of worry, of stress, of being sad and lonely and unfocused. With a season of contentment to possibly blend into the next and the next, who knows if the other problems would seem as bad?

A daylong bus trip is hell on earth enough.

2009-03-16T16:25:41-06:00

The addition of an irritating talker - and the wide spectrum of images that conjures up - would send me over the edge, and conflict would surely ensue. I don't like conflict. I like nice things and puppies and love. I don't like hating other people, either, and at times when I've been trapped by someone else's narcissistic or nervous need to yammer on on any kind of public transportation, the hatred has reached occasionally unmanageable levels.

And I know 'hate' is a bad word and I'm not supposed to use it. This is catharsis, sorry.

I like to sit with quiet people, with people who can manage their impulse control to the point that they understand the stakes of being trapped in less-than-stellar unavoidable confinement. I like people who sleep, and who ignore me with the assistance of headphones. I like people who tacitly acknowledge where we are, who will kindly retrieve my crackers from the aisle and who don't freak out when I do my inevitable dance of dropping my shit - iPod, phone, book, apple, what have you, and who will - silently, kindly, in the spirit of Agape love - help me retrieve it.

I should add if you're new that I'm an unrepentant verbal processor, a true extrovert who can talk the paint off the walls. And if I can rein it in, so can anyone else in this whole wide world. Especially when we're leaving the driving to them.

So on buses - on trains, planes, and in some cases automobiles - shhhhh. Thank you.

No exercise at all keeps me in terrible shape

2009-02-16T00:41:44-06:00

I have a hate-hate relationship with exercise. I need it, oh right now how I need it, and I don't want to do it. What I want to do is sit around and shove food in my mouth and just keep sitting there, and fail to gain any weight or die of progressive heart disease because of the plaque I'm allowing to build up in my arteries.

Seriously, I am so incredibly lazy.

I had not exercised in a year and a half and after two weeks of much angst and worry over what I would do to get back in the game, I went to a kickboxing class at the gym where I've been a $34 monthly donor for several years. It was hard. I thought I was going to expire. I was profoundly bothered by the man in front of me, who attacked this class with a drama unseen in Beijing this summer, and yet I wasn't satisfied to admire him for his energy and instead chose to judge him for his overwrought punching and kicking and for my rear view of his unfortunate shorts.

I am lazy and I am also a judger. Nice.

Really I admire people with energy and discipline, people who won't give in to their mind games with themselves, who just (oh God) do it.

I need to go back this week. I really do. I need to develop a routine. I just don't want to at all.

Two songs I've been convinced to sing at a karaoke bar and one I would, no payment necessary.

2009-02-02T23:52:08-06:00

Reunited by Peaches & Herb

Talk Dirty To Me by Poison

Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin

Roadtrip mixtape

2009-01-30T15:34:11-06:00

Coming Home by Cinderella

This song has been on my iPod since day one, and I listen to it every time I torture myself on the elliptical machine.

Show Me by Over the Rhine

It's a perfect song for a pretty day with the windows down, and Over the Rhine makes me think of Ohio, which makes me think of hours and hours on Interstate 70.

Utopia Parkway by Fountains of Wayne

I'm a little nervous about the helicopter part, but...I'd totally fly to Key West this weekend

2009-01-30T15:18:19-06:00

I'm in desperate need of some sunshine, warm weather and the ocean...with a side of Ernest Hemingway and a nice rum punch. Key West rules.