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Saturday, February 21, 2009

Ten True Stories About Laura Clark

I like this game. Happy Birthday, Laura!

1. Laura lived in Chicago. Chicago, which she reminds me on a weekly basis, is a better place than Boston because of its bike lanes, grid system streets, and lack of hills.
1a. Laura rides a bicycle.

2. As part of riding a bicycle Laura used to deliver sandwiches for Potbelly's in Chicago. Bike couriers are some of the most bad ass people I know. Laura is no exception. She even has a tattoo.
2a. It's the logo from Umass Amherst's sketch group, Sketch 22.

3. Once, when we were both living in Amherst Laura and I had dinner together and then tried to go to Bart's for ice cream. We met a man who claimed that he was the inspiration for the movie The Matrix. He carried around a photocopied resume in tiny tiny font of all the movies he had supposedly written or been a part of including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and ChaRly. He told us he could tell the future. He had a large wooden stick with him and also "special" water that could enlighten/purify anyone who drank it. Of course, Laura and I drank the water. Then we spent the better part of the evening babysitting each other in case something happened. Nothing did. But that is the kind of person Laura is. She drinks the water.

4. Laura also has synesthesia. We've agreed that "5" is the meanest number.

5. Laura writes for and performs in The Dowry which is a four person sketch troupe she co founded with her man Paul Barner. The two of them started off just by writing sketches together for a class, and now a year later, The Dowry (different link this time) has became a house team at Improv Boston!

6. I can credit Laura with introducing many new things into my life that I embraced fully, including but not limited to: quinoa, The Decemberists, Girl Talk, Imogen Heap, The Wire, avocado, guacamole (I didn't eat guacamole until Laura's guacamole dip and still prefer it to anyone else's), and singing in hawkit (sp?).
6.a Blood oranges did not catch on for me. Laura loves the concept of blood oranges enough that she almost once bought really expensive soda just because it was blood orange soda.

7. Laura's mom once showed me an old home video and one of the best parts of the video was 5 or 6 year old Laura demanding that the camera be turned back to her so she could do interesting things like sing a song and dance. If I had the video I'd post it here.

8. For my birthday this past year Laura prepared a pancake breakfast for the two of us. She had to get up at the crack of dawn to do it since I leave for work at about 6am. She was up before I was and greeted me smiling and singing. As I recall, they were the best pancakes ever. That is also the kind of person Laura is. She makes the pancakes.

9. One night Laura and I "broke into" Plymouth Rock when it was under construction, and we had to climb a big stone wall to do it, and we did it anyway and we still didn't get to see the stupid rock because it was crated and and the crate was nailed shut and we didn't bring a crowbar, not having expected any obstacles between us and our first hand witness of our nation's most famous boulder.
9a. Laura and I don't plan well.
9b. Laura is my only friend who says, "OK" and gets her flip flops on when I say "let's drive to a beach right now."

10. Laura has an amazing voice. She doesn't sing for other people often, and sometimes when she does she acts goofy about it, but if you ever get to hear Laura really, really sing, (especially "Ave Maria" ) you will weep the tears of happy angels.
9a. She joined a choir here for a little while which was wonderful, but she left after their Christmas concert that year because comedy and sketch writing are the things she would rather spend time on. Girl has pipes and goals.

Bonus:
11. Laura used to scream while driving over bridges. I can not remember why. But that was basically my introduction to Laura. I drove to Worcester with her, Liz and Zach for a show at WPI. Up until then I only knew her as "Laura the funny girl from the sketch troupe who wrote the squirrel sketch I liked so much." As we went over the Connecticut River we all screamed at the top of our lungs the entire time to make it more comfortable for Laura. Sometimes now I wake her up from naps the same way.

Yay! Happy Birthday, Laura!

3 comments:

Zombonibraaaains said...

<3333333333333

Thank you, Misch :-) This made me laugh and reminisce and reprint my resume into a solid block of text. You are the loveliest.

PS. There are 6 people in the Dowry!

PPS. I love you!

liz said...

When we were driving to NJ for a too-late New Year's Eve, I did that bridge screaming thing because I thought it would take her mind off how scared she was of bridges.

Misch said...

I knew it was something like that. Sometimes I just scream in our house so Laura knows things are ok.