Because I have nothing better to write about this afternoon, I’m going to do one of those things that people do. Thanks to heidiann for it.

FIRSTS

First job: After babysitting, my first actual job with a company was Burger King. I was the goddess of the drive-thru.

First screen name: Ladibug998. So lame that I am ashamed to type it here. I was in high school, people.

First pet: We had Reagan, a terrier mix, and Kitty, a cleverly-named white cat, before I was born.

First big trip: I think from Puerto Rico to Virginia when I was but a wee babe.

First concert: Like Heidi, it was New Kids on the Block. We were about a mile away from the stage at Fiddler’s Green in Colorado. I did not wear lace gloves, but I did scream like a complete idiot.

First CD: I don’t remember, but my first tape was Belinda Carlisle. Heaven is a place on earth, you know.

LASTS

Last car ride: About an hour ago, back from our accidental 2-hour lunch at the brand-new Olive Garden in town. Yum.

Last movie watched: I think it was Bowling for Columbine, on DVD over the weekend.

Last food consumed: Soup, salad, and breadsticks.

Last time showered: 6:45 this morning, way later than I should have.

Last CD played: David Gray, A New Day at Midnight, in the car on the way to work.

Last ice cream eaten: Orange Dreamsicle, yesterday.

Last website visited: Weather Underground, because they are calling for snow.

NOW

Single or Taken: Single.

Sex: See above. Or, “girly as hell.”

Birthday: February 18, 1980. (how are these “now” questions?)

Sign: Aquarius.

Siblings: 3 younger sisters.

Hair color: Golden brown.

Eye color: Hazel.

Shoe size: 9 and a half.

Height: 5’4″. Yeah, I know, my feet are really honkin’ big for my height.

RIGHT NOW, WHAT ARE YOU:

Wearing: Brown pants, a white tee shirt and a blue zip-up sweater I stole from Sammi.

Drinking: Water.

Thinking about: I have the hiccups. And a headache.

Listening to: The space heater under my desk.

Current Mood: Headachey and too full.

Okay. Some of that didn’t make sense. But it filled space, which is the point, right?

Two other listy things. The Netflix sitting on my DVD player waiting to be watched are:

• Felicity: Season 1, Disc 3

Lost in Translation

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde

Shut up, hipster readership. I felt girly at the time.

The stuff I’m reading or waiting to read:

• Currently: The Procrastinator’s Handbook

The Four Seasons, by Mary Alice Monroe. I got this book because it’s about four sisters, which always intrigues me since I’m one of four sisters, but I’m afraid it’s going to be bad. The author has a romance author-y name and I’m just not sure about it.

Bee Season, by Myla Goldberg. I heard about this from Madame Pierce and it piqued my interest immediately, since I’m all about the spelling bee these days.

The Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethen. Readers at Amazon keep complaining that it’s slow, so we’ll see how it goes.

Book recommendations are welcome.

Get busy living, or get busy dying. Wasn’t that a line from a movie or something? I don’t remember where I heard it, but I’m finding that it’s true.

I’ve been doing so much lately, and though it probably doesn’t seem like a lot to an outside observer, for me it is monumental. I’m paying bills off. I’m working out. I’m formulating plans for moving, for doing, for traveling, for everything.

Someone asked me last week where this burst of energy has come from – why am I so busy? And I said I was getting my affairs in order, which makes it sound like I’m about to die, but that’s not it. I’m about to live. As cheesy as it sounds, it is the absolute truth. It’s goddamn time I got off my ass and lived my life.

Other stuff: my dad used to work at this power plant in Colorado, back when it used to provide nuclear power to a large portion of the state. When the plant was decommissioned we moved to Virginia, where we’ve been ever since.

A pair of bald eagles have built their nest in a cottonwood tree near the facility, and they’ve installed a camera so that people can watch the nesting. I mean the power plant people put the camera in – I don’t think the eagles put the camera in. One of my dad’s old friends sent us the link and I’ve had it running all day, checking in with the female every few minutes or so. She’s laid one egg and has been hanging out at the eyrie all day so I think she may be laying another one today sometime. I find it absolutely fascinating: Ft. St Vrain Eagle Cam.

There are also links to a camera at a great horned owl nest at another facility in Boulder, and that owl looks just like my cat in the face – my family was right. The owls haven’t laid any eggs yet. A third facility has a place where peregrine falcons nest, but so far the eagles are my favorite.

That’s all I have today.

What an absolutely lovely, beautiful day. I even wore the pink coat to work today. And now it’s too warm for it. And I have on my thin lavender sweater with the snaps, and my pretty green and purple jewelry, and my hair is good and the weather is good and life, in general, is just good.

And it’s so strange, how life works. Because this morning some guy had a case of road rage because I didn’t read his mind when he stopped dead in the middle of a lane hoping that I would let him into my lane, but without signaling. He followed me down the road screaming and honking and flashing his lights and tailgating me and it didn’t really get to me a bit. I just thought “whoa there, cowboy, easy on the crazy” and made sure I was always parallel to a car in the other lane so he couldn’t get in front of me.

On another day an incident like that might bring me to tears and/or panic, but today it’s just another Loriestory.

I have a coworker who is battling cancer. She has a particularly aggressive and rare kind of cancer that affects only a few thousand people every year, and it’s back after being in remission for three years. She had surgery before Thanksgiving to remove the tumors, which caused her digestive system to stop functioning. The doctors kept hoping that her intestines would “wake up” and start working again because apparently this reaction is pretty common after major surgeries in that area. But it’s been months and her digestive system is like “leave me the fuck alone, I quit.” At this point they’ve sent her home and have said there’s nothing else they can do about it.

People have been signing up to take meals to her family three times a week while she recuperates, and today I went along with my two friends to deliver the food and visit for a while, because I haven’t seen her since before her surgery. She doesn’t look sick – she’s not emaciated or puffy like some cancer patients. She doesn’t sound sick – she’s in good spirits and talking just fine. But she has tubes and bags and poles and IVs and stuff she has to carry around with her, and she’s most embarrassed about the feeding tube, which they had to put in through her nose because her stomach’s too damaged.

We talked for a while, mostly good stuff, but while we were there she confessed that the doctors said the cancer would probably return in six months, and it’s been three months. And they haven’t started her chemo yet because she’s not well enough, and they don’t know if it will work even when she is, and although she’s getting stronger there’s a sense that she’s running out of time. And when M & J were telling her how to heat up the food they’d brought, she said, “I wish I didn’t have to smell it – then I wouldn’t miss tasting it so much. I’m determined to be able to eat again.”

After our visit we went to get lunch and as I took the first bite, I really tasted it. And I thought about how awful it must be to maybe never be able to eat food again. And I teared right up.

That’s the part that hits me most, for some reason. Eating is something we take for granted, something that seems to accompany every moment of celebration, joy, pain, or sorrow in our lives. Food makes an occasion for so many people. We’ve been bringing food to her family to support them, to show our love for her. And she can’t eat any of it.

On another day this might have me locked in my office and sobbing. It might have me furious at the injustice in the world, that someone so wonderful and friendly and loved by so many is having to go through this. But today, even though I’m sad for her, I’m mostly thankful that she’s still here for us to visit. And if she says she’s determined to eat again, then I believe she’ll find a way to make it happen.

I’m glad I went to see her, and I’m thankful for every bite of the wrap I ate at lunch. It’s still a beautiful day.

Mark your calendars; March 1st is Flip-Flop Day.

The last time we were in Old Navy, Sam and I saw the pretty candylike sparkle of the huge peg boards filled with flip-flops. Every time we go shopping in February and I see that the stores have rolled out the spring and summer lines, I’m a little alarmed. In early February we’re still shivering in turtleneck sweaters and jeans and boots and coats, and spring seems a long way away.

But the flip-flops – Jebus, we love the flip-flops. And it was all we could do to keep ourselves away from the flip-flop racks. Because there’s something just a little wrong about buying flip-flops at the beginning of February.

So Sam and I talked about this. When’s the appropriate time to begin buying flip-flops? Too early and it’s just weird and wrong. Too late and all the good colors and sizes have been totally picked over.

We felt that flip-flop buying was an important beginning-of-spring ritual, and deserved a special day. The special day should be the first day of a month, but April 1 was too late. So we decided on March 1. Some might say that March 1 is still too early, and we agree that it might not be warm enough to wear flip-flops at any point in the month of March. But we’d hate to postpone Flip-Flop Day until April 1 and find ourselves with a weekend of glorious weather in March and only last year’s ratty flip-flops to wear. So March 1 it is.

We’re not allowed to buy any flip-flops before March 1, and neither are you. But on the first day of March, we’re going to ceremoniously plunk down a few dollars for those first bright pairs of plastic and foam, and so should all of you. After that, it’s open season. Buy flip-flops whenever you want.

But make sure to buy your first pair of the year on Monday, March 1st.

I’ll check in with you then and I expect to hear all about your flip-flops. Where’d you get them? What color? All that stuff.

And I’ve totally typed “flip-flops” so many times in this entry that it looks supremely weird by now.

When I was a kid, I always imagined 24 to be the perfect age. We played house a lot as kids; I was always 24, and had an apartment. Never a house. 24 was the year that would be the most fun, the year when I would really really live.

Okay. So it’s here now.

Last night at a pre-birthday dinner involving margaritas, one of my co-workers asked how old I would be and when I told her, after everyone expressed shock and disbelief at my youth, the co-worker said, “You know, that’s a good age. 24 was a really good year.” Which makes me feel a little better, because maybe other people feel the same way about 24 as I have for years.

So I’m 24. I don’t have an apartment or a house, but in a few months I will. I don’t have it all together but I’m getting closer.

I know that our childhood ideas about adulthood always seem to be overblown and don’t turn out quite the way we imagine, but I really do hope this is a good year.