10 Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Me

Since it’s October, my birthday month, I thought I’d take some time to get up close and personal with y’all – after all, I haven’t really shared much lately other than style tips and homemade projects. So here, in no particular order, are ten facts about myself that most people may not know.

1} I’m Adopted.

I was born to an unwed 18 year old woman at Southern Baptist Hospital in New Orleans, Lousiana, in 1980. By that time, the folks who would become my parents had been trying to conceive for over a decade and had been on an adoption waiting list for more than six years. They met me when I was a two week old, strawberry-blond, blue-eyed chubby cherub and they’ve said that all it took was one little smile for them to fall in love with me. (I mean, c’mon who can blame them amirite? I’m fucking lovable lol!) Anyway, they brought me back to their apartment on Freret Street in the French Quarter until a few months later when Dad was offered a job as hospital administrator in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We moved there in 1981 and incidentally, my parents conceived and gave birth to my sister in that very hospital, exactly one year to the day that I had come home with them. It’s a really cute story that will surely someday make a great opening for the epic biopic made about my life starring Lena Dunham as me. (I wish.)

2} I’m a spoonie.

A “spoonie” is a term for a chronically ill person based on the “Spoon Theory.” I have invisible illnesses and disabilities that I’m sure you’re all vaguely aware of but you may not know exactly what they are. Well, if you want to know, my diagnoses are as follows: Fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowl Disease, mild Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, Bursitis, Tendonitis, low iron anemia, and I have a cataract in my right eye. Oh and I have a ganglion cyst on my foot that really hurts too. Pain management and strategic pacing myself have become integral parts of my life over the last five and half years since I first got really ill. (So if you message me and it takes me a few days to get back to you, or if my foggy mush brain forgets that we made plans – please forgive me!)

3} I identify as queer. And Jewish. And Viking. And Neanderthal.

I have felt I was bisexual since I was in 5th grade, but I didn’t know there were labels for different sexualities until I was a freshman in highschool, and that’s when I joined the Human Rights Campaign, helped to start our school’s first gay/straight alliance, and was an active member of the “Your Turf” youth group at the Hartford Gay & Lesbian Health Collective – I was even Prom King at Queer Prom 1997! These days, my gender and sexuality play very little role in my day to day life. Being a mother of two married to a cis hetero man, my queerness is somewhat invisible – as is my Jewishness for the most part. I was raised in a very Jewish home, keeping kosher until I was almost 20, going to synagogue every weekend, attending Hebrew school three times a week, and having a bat mitzvah when I was 13. I can still read and write a little Hebrew, and I know way more scripture than any atheist ever should. I don’t believe in God, so I don’t pray or go to synagogue anymore, but I still carry on some very Jewish traditions in my family – like Passover Seder feast, lighting the menorah at Hanukkah, and of course my Grandma Rose’s famous recipes for kugel, brisket, and matzah ball soup. My mother’s family came to America from eastern Europe sometime in the 19th century, while my father’s first came to America on the Mayflower. Being adopted, the only info I had ever been given about my biological parents was that they were French and Irish, so I was super psyched when I had the chance to participate in a DNA research study through 23andMe in 2016. I learned that my ancestors were Vikings and Normans who conquered and intermingled with Saxons, eventually becoming Celts who immigrated to the New World at some point. I also found out that I’m one of the few remaining humans who carries the Neanderthal gene….so…there’s that.

4} I don’t eat seafood.

Never in my life have I eaten any kind of lobster, shrimp, oysters, mussels, clams, whatever crustaceans you can think of. Not a one. To me they are insects of the ocean and the idea of eating that is just gross. *shudder* I think it also has to do with growing up in a kosher home where we didn’t eat shellfish, plus being land-locked where we lived in Indiana, seafood wasn’t really a big part of my childhood diet. There was a time as a kid that I would eat tuna or the occasional fish and chips, but I haven’t eaten anything from the sea since 1993, when my dad took my family on a deep-sea fishing trip. I got horribly seasick and “chummed the water” so to speak, and then had to spend the return trip watching all the fishermen clean and gut the fish right there on deck in front of me, knee deep in scaly viscera with the seagulls squawking above as they vied to catch the fish heads that the guys were tossing into the air. Ugh. It was so fucking gross I can’t even tell you. It was so bad that even now, more than 20 years later, I can’t stand the smell of a seafood or sushi restaurant. And I still have to change the channel whenever there’s a fishy ingredient on Chopped.

5} I’m a passionate nature lover.

When we moved from Indiana to Connecticut, my dad chose a home on a quiet mountainside in East Glastonbury. There were less than a dozen homes on our little street just below the peak of Kongscut aka “Rattlesnake” Mountain, and there was a lovey little pond emptying into a quaint little creek at the end of the road. I spent many happy hours romping through the woods, discovering remnants of the old mills that dot the hills along Roaring Brook and even befriending the beaver that lived in a damn in the center of the glorified puddle the fed the stream. I built a stone dock along the waterside that is actually still there as of a few years ago. Not to mention the many afternoons spent hiking at Cotton Hollow, Black Rock, and the old state forest. I’m no survivalist, but I can totally handle being alone in the middle of a large forest for quite awhile, and in fact if I don’t get out into the woods every once in awhile I get all weird and antsy. I guess I’m not truly a city girl at heart.

6} I’m a passionate pro-wresting fan.

Oh it’s true, it’s DAMN TRUE! I love WWE, especially NXT, and I adore Lucha Underground as well. I used to watch WWF in high school when Stone Cold Steve Austin was my hero, and about five years ago my husband re-introduced me to his passion – now that guy is a true mark (diehard wrestling fan) who follows independent wrestlers around the world and can call every move better than even Mauro Ranallo. My boy Neville has been my super happy number one favorite since his early days back in NXT and I am living with bated breath waiting to see what the hell is happening with Ben Satterly’s career right now. (I’ll always love you Ben, even if you go back to calling yourself PAC.) Anyway, I get into it because I love the drama of course, but I really respect the work that these athletes put into what they do – it’s like watching weight-lifting, ice dancing, gymnastics, and your mom’s soap operas all at once and I so love it! (Bonus Fun Fact About Me: pro-wrestling is the only sport – or psuedo sport – that I get into. I hate organized team sports with passions.)

7} I don’t do Disney.

OK, I know I am going to lose friends and followers over this one. I can’t pretend like I wasn’t officially obsessed with Minnie Mouse when I was a toddler and that I didn’t cry real tears of joy when I met what I thought was the real Minnie at Disney World back in 1986. But that was the last time I bought into any of that crap. When I had my daughter in 2000, I was horrified by what Disney was passing off to little girls: princesses with unreal features, unattainable physical proportions, and absurd notions that girls never grown up into women and that they’ll always need a prince charming to be perfect. FUCK THAT. Oh and you guys know that Walt Disney was a racist homophobic misogynist anti-Semite whose legacy continues to ingrain those biases in our children to this day right? RIGHT??? But I digress. Don’t hate on my hate now – I never say a word when you post pics of your grown-ass adult self at the Cinderella castle wearing mouse ears, so let’s just agree to silently disagree.

8} I can really sing.

I’m no Ella Fitzgerald, but I’ve always loved to sing, ever since I was a wee one, and I used to be pretty damn good at it. So good that my parents enrolled me in a few years of classical voice training, and I even landed a few leading roles on stage up until middle school.  It was then that I decided that my natural talents weren’t “cool” enough, and I ditched the voice lessons along with piano and clarinet, which I had been playing since kindergarten. I took up smoking in highschool and successfully abused my vocal chords pretty hard in the late 1990s and didn’t sing anywhere but the shower until 2007ish when I was invited to join a small punk band with whom I recorded a couple semi-locally-successful albums.  Every few years I show up for some karaoke and the people around me are usually shocked to find that I can carry a tune because I’ve buried my voice deep down. I’m trying to release it more these days and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that there’s still a little mojo left in me. (Now its just a matter of finding a way to share it.)

9} I am a super shy, super self-conscious recluse.

If I have somehow fooled you into believing that I am a composed, self-confident, highly functional social being by posting fairly curated pics on my IG feed, then please let me set the record straight. If I had to estimate, I would say that about 70% of the time I am a strung-out, paingry mess – and not even a hot one. When I am feeling well enough to be up and dressed, my ideal night on the town is a quiet romantic dinner with my patner – not bar-hopping or going to concerts or hanging out with tons of people. TBH, I am happiest when I am in my jammies curled up on my couch with my cat watching Netflix and actually chilling. (That’s right, actual chilling, cuz I know what #netflixandchill really means. Not cool internet.)

10} I Love Lists.

No, I’m not just saying that because I see a list. (Anchorman reference.) I am fairly OCD about planning, and it all comes out on paper. Yes folks, I use actual paper and a pen that has ink in it. No tablets. No styluses. No electronic facsimile memos lol. On average, I go through 2-4 notebooks each year – and as I’m sure you’ve guessed, yes, I am damn particular about what kind of notebooks I use. I have to have college-ruled or graph paper, and I prefer spiral-bound although I have a couple composition books that I use for event planning. I start with broad outlines, then narrow down categories, and list, list, LIST baby! Each list gets more focused and stream-lined, and it really helps me think of little details that I might otherwise forget. Why even this here blog post started life out as, you guessed it, a list on paper!

So that’s way too much information about me. Thank you for taking some time to get to know me, that was really cool of you. I’m so glad we’re friends!

xo

Lauren