Five Things Friday - Hot Men Edition

One of the girls at work told me today that whenever she’s talking to a man on the phone that she has not met, she for some reason pictures him with a mustache. 

And now for a list of five people on whom I have a crush.  I am very grammatically correct.

ONE
Justin Timberlake.

1. Looking at him is fun.
2. When I used to be a runner, Sexy Back was my motivation song.  I’d listen to it whenever I hit a wall and tell myself “that’s right Lauren, keep running, we’ve got to bring sexy back.” Being honest, in the end I never quite succeeded in bringing the “sexy” back, maybe the “average” or the “not completely gross” but either way, that song helped me get there.  And I have to believe that if Justin ever reads this then he will appreciate my honesty and love me just the way I am.  Although lately I have been bringing the “cheese” and the “cake” back.
3. He totally cracks me up, especially when he is on SNL doing the ridiculous digital shorts with Andy Samberg (see below).  Justin, I truly believe I could be the syrup and you could be my waffle. 

TWO
Andy Samberg

1. He dated Natalie Portman briefly which sort of makes him my idol, because seriously, I want to date Natalie Portman a little bit.
2. While he’s definitely funnier than I am, he’s not prettier than me to the extent where if we were out in public people would think I was his ugly cousin or the personal assistant that he hired specifically because there was no risk of him becoming physically attracted to me.  ( I think this might happen with Justin and then girls would hit on him and I would be like “I’m RIGHT HERE,” and the girls would be like “Yes why are you still here, don’t you have dry cleaning or something to pick up?” and I would be like “No, it’s not ready until Tuesday.”)
3. He could probably introduce me to Justin Timberlake.

THREE
Colin Firth

1. He played Mr. Darcy in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, which is clearly the best version of Pride and Prejudice, which is my favorite book.  In the middle of the movie he jumps into a lake wearing a white shirt.  It’s like the best wet tee shirt contest ever.  The worst wet tee shirt contest ever was when I was walking to work wearing a white shirt minding my own business when someone decided to water their flowers on a balcony overhead.
2. Recently I had started to think maybe he’s a little bit too old for me and considered actually taking him off my list but then Scarlett Johansson started dating Sean Penn and I was like “If she can date Sean then I can date Colin, I’m leaving him on the list.”  And Ryan was like “I thought I asked you to please stop talking to me through the door while I’m in the bathroom.”
3. He’s British which makes me think he says things like “quite” and “pip pip” and pronounces Aluminum like al-oo-MIN-yum, which just delights me to no end.

FOUR
Blake Shelton

1. He is a real cowboy.  He drives a truck and wears a hat and actually hunted for all the meat served at his wedding.  Yes the fact that he’s married bums me out a little bit, but, I mean, so am I right now, things change.
2. He is very tall which would make me feel tiny even if I was having a “cheese and cake” month or two.
3. He can sing and would probably agree to sing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as a duet with me at Christmas time, unlike someone else I know.  And he would definitely sing the lyrics as they were written and not all like:

                                             Me: I really can’t stay

                                             Ryan : Oh alright, well see you then.

                                             Me:  I’ve got to go away.

                                             Ryan: Yes you’ve said that, and yet…

                                             Me: This evening has been so very nice.

                                             Ryan: It’s been ok I guess.  Would be better if you'd stop singing.

                                             Didn't you say you had to leave or something?

FIVE
Changes Daily.  Currently the cupcake that is sitting on my desk looking at me all lasciviously.

Disclaimer: Ryan my most wonderful, rest assured this is just a silly list and I would never actually actively pursue any of the people/delicious cake foods on it.  Unless, of course, you know, they pursued me first.

Also please don’t ask me if the cupcake and I have a lunchtime tryst planned.  I would really prefer not to lie to you.

If loving them is wrong, I don't want to be right.

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Only Two of These Things are Interesting. Actually, Upon Rereading, Maybe Only One.

1.   Upon arriving to work each morning I have to pour out all the old water in my Sigg water bottle and fill it up with new water.  Why?  Because I have this fear that maybe one of the cleaning people spit in the old water when they were emptying my garbage.  This is a serious fear. 

2.   Before bed every night I HAVE to check for spiders in and around the bed.  It’s because I saw the movie Arachniphobia as a small child.  Once Ryan got a giant spider bite in the middle of the night and was all “Oh good job checking for spiders last night Lauren.”

3.   I don’t know what I’d actually do if I found a spider in the bed.  Because I don’t like killing things.  So I’d probably trap it with a cup and a paper plate and then have to take it eleven floors down to rerelease back into the wild.  Unless it was winter and too cold outside for Laurens and spiders.  Then I’d probably just release it into the hallway of our condo building, right next to the door of Ryan’s archnemesis, the guy that lives below us. 

4.   I have this weird hole in the side of one of my pinky toes.  It’s not gross or smelly or anything it’s just a big gaping hole like the exact size of a tic tac.  (Please don’t ask me how I know that.)  And I couldn’t find anything online about it and it started to hurt so I went to the doctor’s office.  And then the first doctor didn’t know what it was and wanted to spray some liquid nitrogen into the hole for good measure which sounded glorious and all but I wasn’t too disappointed when the second doctor decided that that was a bad idea because it made no effing sense.  But then he didn’t know what was going on with my toe either so he went to get a third doctor who was a dermatologist.  The third doctor shined a little tiny flashlight into what the three educated men were now calling my “Toe-hole” and said “hmmmmmm” and then they all left the room, I assumed to get a fourth doctor, or a camera, so they could collect photographic evidence of my mysterious toe-hole for some esteemed medical journal, which I was NOT ok with because I was having a bad foot day.  I prepared to let them all down gently. But then just the first doctor came back and told me to try Lamisil and left.  Instead of getting the Lamisil I made an appointment with a Podiatrist because seriously I am not going to take the advice of three idiots who first tried to fill the hole with liquid nitrogen and then tried to treat me for Athlete’s Foot.  So until at least this coming Tuesday I will still be walking around with my toe-hole which I have lovingly named Justin Timberlake so I can say things like “If you need me, I’ll be in the shower soaping up Justin Timberlake” to Ryan.

5.   Once when Ryan and I were in Orlando we went to the grocery store to get some vacation survival supplies, a.k.a. Lots of liquor, which is necessary whenever Ryan and I are planning on spending a huge amount of uninterrupted by other people time with each other.  So I was wandering down the dairy aisle alone, having ditched Ryan in a desperate attempt to have some me time, when some guy who was leaning over to grab a gallon of milk thought I was his friend and was all like “hey grab this” as he swung the gallon of milk back….directly into my face.  It hurt a lot.  When we got back to the hotel Ryan called the front desk for ice packs, tons and tons of ice packs.  The guy who brought them up took one look at me and then sent Security up since it was clear that Ryan was beating me and then making up ridiculous stories about gallons of milk.  It was eventually all sorted out and I got one very lovely night all to myself.

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Meet My Other Half. Notice I Didn't Say Better Half.

Time to introduce my husband (still not even close to used to that word yet.)

He is Ryan.

He is a very important trader at the Chicago Board of Trade.  This means he gets calls at three in the morning from the guys that trade for him overnight.  It’s lovely, truly.  And the master bathroom door, from behind which he yammers away about unemployment numbers and such, is totally TOTALLY soundproof.  It’s made of like wet tissue paper, so, I mean, clearly it’s impenetrable. 

He can sing.  Or at least that’s what other people tell me.  He does not sing in front of me, much less to me.  In fact, when we were dancing our first dance at our wedding, I was the one singing to him, and it was the song “You Are The Best Thing” which is sung by a bearded hippie man in real life, not a clean-shaven (at least on my wedding day), drug-free (unless you’re one of those people that count alcohol as a drug), tone-deaf, corseted to the point of almost-death girl.  The only times I have ever really heard Ryan sing are:

1.      In our high school senior talent show when he was pretending to be either Bill or Ted from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and singing Good Riddance by GreenDay.  But I wasn’t really paying attention because I was busy getting my hair French-braided by my bff .  Which is why I do not remember if he was Bill or Ted.  Also, I do not know which one is Bill and which one is Ted.

2.      When he is pretending to be Joe Cocker and singing Joe Cocker songs in his Joe Cocker voice.  Or maybe this is just his real voice?  And he hasn’t admitted this to me because one time I laughed at him so hard when he was singing like this that I fell off my chair and got a really big butt bruise?

3.      When he thinks I’m sleeping or in the shower or something and he sings songs to the dogs.  Songs in which he replaces all nouns with the names of our dogs.  One time he was all “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day.  When it’s cold outside, I’ve got my Daisy Mae.  I guess Zooey would say, what could make me feel this way? My dogs.”  And then I laughed so hard I fell off the bed and got a really big butt bruise.  In the same spot as the Joe Cocker butt bruise.

This is a picture of Ryan playing the picture and singing to the whole wedding party at our wedding.  I was off taking my individual shots, clearly.

I am glad Ryan doesn’t sing to me or in front of me.  Because as history has demonstrated, his singing makes my butt hurt.

Ryan is pretty athletic.  He loves to ski and wakeboard and is pretty good at both.  He plays soccer (with work), softball (with me!) and volleyball (even though he’s not that tall) recreationally.  He also ran the hottest Chicago marathon in history and then quit running forever.

He’s a White Sox fan.  It’s devastating.  I thought about making him sign a pre-nup that indicated he needed to change loyalties but then I thought maybe he might make me sign a pre-nup in return that would included clauses about “using his razor” and “making him wear pink ladies long underwear” and “hiding hide pizza boxes under the bathroom sink so he doesn’t know I ate the whole thing while he was at the gym.”  So I rethought that idea.

Ryan and my sister Jordan are like best friends.  They text a lot.  They do things without me.  Things like attending football games and shopping for hot sauce.  Sometimes Ryan knows more about what’s going on in my sister’s life than I do.  Sometimes I think Ryan only married me because if he and I broke up then he couldn’t be friends with Jordan any longer.  He assures me that this is not the case.  “Because even if we weren’t together Lauren, Jordan and I would have found a way to stay friends.”

Ryan doesn’t have any cooking aspirations besides sometimes turning on the grill (which I TOTALLY BUILT – upside down at first, but right side up and perfect on the second go.)  This makes me like him more.  It means I get to do all the cooking and then I get to have the cooking compliments all to myself.  Plus it means that he doesn’t have any reason to touch any of my cooking/baking stuff and then put it away in the wrong spot and totally give me a panic attack.  If he ever did that, I would knife him.  If I could find the knives.

Ryan LOVES that I cook.  It is in fact the only thing he LOVES about me.  Sure there are things he LIKES and things he DOESN’T HATE and things he DEALS WITH FOR THE COOKING, but the cooking is why he married me.  I know this is completely true because these words – they are like verbatim his. Also for our six month wedding anniversary (which I know isn’t really a thing) he gave me a card that said “I Love You because you cook me dinner” on the front.  And then on the inside he wrote “It’s true.  Love Ryan.”

Ryan went to Northwestern.  Then he graduated from Northwestern.  I don’t know how really, I don’t know if he opened a book or attended a lecture the entire four years he was there.  When they gave him his diploma he yelled “You can’t take it back now.”  It’s the same thing I yelled when he gave me my engagement ring.  Then I said, “I mean yes.”

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Jumping on the Bandwagon and The Importance of Being Unique

So I’ve been a serial blog-reader for a number of years now and I finally decided (for the seventeenth time) that it is time to go ahead and start my own little blog.  I did actually enjoy a brief jaunt as a very very serious blog-writer last year while I was planning my wedding but honestly the posts were few and far between.  I blamed this on the fact that I was planning a wedding, but truly it was more the fault of me being all sorts of lazy… Let’s hope, for the sake of this project, that getting married (a very serious thing to do after all) has miraculously transformed me into someone that is super on top of things.  But let’s face it, probably not.

Moving on.  I suppose I should introduce myself.

I am Lauren.

This is a pretty flattering picture of me. But hey, it's my blog.  If it wasn't, then I probably would have used this picture.

 I am an accountant.  I decided on an accounting degree for the sole reason that it would pay my student loans after graduation.  It was a financially responsible decision, one that would make anyone truly destined to be an accountant proud.  But in my heart of hearts I still do not consider accounting my real destiny – my fate maybe, but not my destiny.  I dreamed of majoring in journalism or library science because I love WORDS not NUMBERS (yuck!).  Also libraries smell really good and are full of people keeping their mouths shut.  Offices smell like tuna fish (seriously person one cube over, must you bring tuna fish for lunch?) and popcorn and are full of people sending me annoying emails that contain words like “amortization” and “tax”.

I ate popcorn at work today.   

I love to cook.  I love to bake.  I love to collect kitchen gadgets to use for the aforementioned cooking and baking.  I make dinner for my sometimes darling husband Ryan every weeknight and some weekend nights.  It is how I unwind after spending the day doing TPS reports.  I get cooking magazines in the mail, buy an absurd number of cookbooks and a really good grocery store makes my top ten list of favorite places.

Other places that currently make my top ten list of favorite places in no particular order:

Disney World (It’s just SO happy)

Costa Rica (hello honeymoon, I miss you, shall we visit soon?)

Our condo when it’s clean (almost never)

Bloomingdales Shoe Department

Bookstores

Wrigley Field

Nashville, TN

My head – I have an active fantasy life – not in a sick way – I just sometimes (all the time) like to imagine I am cast as Natalie Portman’s better-looking younger sister in a critically acclaimed adaptation of a bestselling novel or that I can sing beautifully and dance like Britney S. Pierce (name that show!) and do sweet sweet musical collaborations with the Justins (Bieber and Timberlake duh) while all of my closest friends, looking somewhat (lots) less pretty than me, make up my nimble hip-hop dancing troupe.  And then one day Justin Timberlake is all like “Lauren do you mind staying after rehearsal because…” Getting ahead of myself.  I love YOU Ryan dear.  And I would still love you (as an ex-wife loves her first husband with whom she is still friends) if Justin Timberlake loved me.

I read a LOT of books.  I average about a hundred pages a day.  I usually finish a book in three or so days.  Borders calls me when I have not been in to buy books in a while. (Yep that happened.)  I read when I work out.  I read before bed.  I read a quick two pages when Ryan, my first husband, takes the dogs out.  I read while I walk to work.  I read while waiting in lines.  I used to hide in the stockroom of my high school job and read a chapter or two and then go back to stocking garden hoses.  I tried to register for books.  I own thousands of books, because as much as I love libraries, my vice is buying books.  Because if I have read a book then I must HAVE that book.  I hate when people borrow books and then never give them back.  (I remember exactly who you all are and what books you borrowed.)  I organize my books by color because it looks awesome.

I need to maybe hit the gym a little bit more regularly than once every two and a half months.

I have really ridiculously long arms.  Like serious monkey arms.  I had to change into my gym uniform numerous times in Junior High because my fingertips hit my leg lower than the edge of my shorts…..because my fingertips almost hit my knees at that age.  I’ve grown into them a little bit more now.  And honestly, having long arms is helpful.  I can reach things that are really high up and I can successfully smack Ryan while staying just out of reach of his T-Rex arms. 

I married the only boy I have ever loved in my 27 years (so by default I suppose he’s the love of my life?) on December 11^th, 2010.  It rained, until 11pm, when it snowed!  My wedding was imperfect and wonderful and I will never plan another one because it was hard.  My pre-school classmate turned high school sweetheart FINALLY turned fiancé turned husband is Ryan.  We live in Chicago and have two small dogs together.  They are Daisy and Zooey (like Gooey with a Z not like Doughy a Z.) 

I have three younger sisters and a younger brother.  They are OK.  I would only trade one of them maybe two for someone a bit more awesome.

I am happy happy happy. 

I will be happier when Ryan lets me have babies.  Currently he makes me tell people we are on a “three-year-plan.”  That is not true.  He is on a three year plan and I am on whatever the plan is called where one constantly thinks about babies and commercials with babies make them cry and they read blogs on which wives with more reasonable husbands post pregnancy pics and mentally paste their own face over the lucky pregnant women’s’ faces and when they look into the mirror every morning they try to pretend they are glowing and not just pale as all hell.  Honestly I know that it is PROBABLY not THAT reasonable for a 27 year old to expect to start having babies during her first year of marriage when she and her maybe-somewhat-right-in-this-instance husband are still paying off their wedding, but then I see a baby and I hold that baby and the baby spits up all over me and I don’t care and my world feels all sorts of complete. 

When are we starting a family you ask? Oh, we’re on a three year plan.  ::SIGH::

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