I am connecting the dots to the last time I felt this way — happy without hesitation (no buts, just joy), polite without thinking, kind with pure enthusiasm, beaming as I float around my days.
I am realising that while I am in LA, I am my friendliest self. What is it about LA where everyone says hello and good morning and I hold back my urge to cry with joy from under my sunglasses at something I didn’t realise I missed? Why is it that people want to take that extra second to be kind, happy, and genuine? To initiate and reciprocate human connection? Why does it lack in so many other places?
I love it. I am there making small talk with security guards and before I know it ten minutes have passed and my basket is still empty.
And Lyft drivers? I have gotten career tips and travel tips and given advice of my own. Why sit in silence when you can make a new friend and keep your mind off motion sickness?
Not to mention neighbours out and about early, also walking their dogs while the grass is still wet with morning dew, locking eyes and grinning big and wishing me a fabulous day.
Or construction workers waiting for the bus to go to work who greet me with the most lovely of good mornings and I return it with the most genuine smile because I feel that good morning from my head to my toes.
Or people showing me to my seat in theatres, who make conversation the whole way there and the people as equally as excited about being at the show who sit next to me.
Or the people who like me are also doing groceries at the opening time before the crowds arrive. Just you, me and the squeaking of our carts, the cracks of our smiles and a cheery hello.
Or baristas who want to chat from the moment they punch in my order and swipe my card to the moment they’re placing the heart topped steaming oat milk latte on the counter with a grin.
Or bartenders who, after serving me my pepsi in a paper cup and taking my payment — a cup which is now almost empty as we keep chatting — ask me to promise to look out for them the next night when I come to another show. Bonding initially over our love for mango flavoured water but parting ways knowing it’s more than that when we learn we have the same name.
What about the party I went to where six different strangers came to tell me how much they loved my hair?
Or what about Lois? The woman in her late sixties whose house I was welcomed into for seven days and who trusted me to take care of it and her gorgeous fur babies? Lois who greeted me on the driveway when I arrived with a big smile and wave before showing me around, including how to use the outdoor hot tub (that she is usually in every night but recently twisted her hip from karaoke dancing so hasn’t been able to climb in for a few days). Lois who left meals for me, opened her home to me — a stranger — and gave me the vibes that she was everything I want to be.
Or Ray who checked me into my hotel at 11am even though check-in was 3pm, without me even asking and then when I checked out, remembered small details about our conversation and we chatted about them.
Or the day I wore shorts and got told four different times how beautiful my tattoos are. I have been told this before, but in LA they say this without longing or expectation in a way to hit on me. Just telling me “what an excellent job” or “the colours are so vibrant” or “you’re really cool”. Then they keep walking to continue on their day of bliss.
I have had interactions like this in other places, yes. But they’re followed by a transaction or by an invitation to give me their number or unwanted advances.
In LA the people will just keep on walking, having made their comment that has made my day.
I was only there a week this time but by the end, I was significantly better at taking compliments. More importantly, I was piping up and giving them out to strangers too. I wasn’t just thinking “wow your outfit is absolutely incredible” but instead I was stopping them to say it to them.
What is it about LA that makes me the kindest version of myself? Is it the sun making us all so happy? I think it is something deeper, I feel it in the pit of my tummy. What do you think? To me, I think it is because it is a place where everyone is full of hope. Whether they are there to follow their dreams or rooting for those who are, the energy in the air is impossible to ignore. It is infectious and electric and I am obsessed with them all.
I love you,
Lauren xoxo
Three things I struggled with this week:
👏 When I was at Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin this past week I cried, overcome with emotion. I also laughed and laughed until I cried from laughing. I clapped until my hands hurt and I screamed until my throat said no more. The woman sitting next to me very much gave me a vibe that said she wished she was sitting anywhere but next to me. That my enthusiasm was too much. That she would move as far to the side of her chair from me as she could. So I stopped, I dimmed my applause and I toned it down. For her comfort.
But it is Jane and fucking Lily, man. I didn’t and couldn’t last long and thought “FUCK THIS. I will never be in the same room as my favourite heroes again I will give them what they deserve (and the cameras too). They deserve a Netflix special where no one holds back because they have never held back and they have always given us their all”. I started standing ovations, I verbalised every ounce of joy in me and I had the night of my life. When the show ended (and my heart broke) the woman next to me spoke up. She said “Thank you. You are so great. You are a producer’s dream and I bet they wished they could have cloned you and scattered you throughout the audience. Your enthusiasm was amazing and I am so glad I got to sit next to you because it made it so much better”. WOW. I learned a lot that night.
🎫 My friend got me into a show by lying about where I work. I hated it. It wasn’t so much I felt guilty about lying, even though I did. It wasn’t so much that I would have happily just bought a ticket, because I offered. It was that now instead of a fan, blending in, able to have a laugh and maybe even gush over a celebrity hero spotting, I now had this label on my head to look and behave and react a certain way as if I was there for work and had some kind of power that I absolutely do not have. Things were expected of me and I just wanted to laugh. Most of all it really made me wish that I was unknown, and if anyone was going to know me, it would be for me, not for where I (used to) work. I went back to the venue as a fan on two other nights, and it was the best.
🧾 I was a huge hypocrite this week. I really fucked up and I didn’t sleep that night, tossing and turning trying to figure out how to make it go away. I can’t. I got to learn a lot about myself in the process and hope, given the opportunity again, I would do better.
Three blessings from this week:
☀️ Just bloody walking around on a Sunday in a bikini top and white linen pants, playing my favourite music that makes me cry and sing and feel. Enjoying the warmth of the air coming through the front door and flowing all the way out the back door, with the presence of the cat and dog sleeping near me as I clean the house.
🥲 Leslie Jones (yes THIS Leslie Jones) was one of many people on this trip to say so, but she stopped in the hall of the Comedy Store (my happy place) as she walked by me, touched my shoulder in sincerity, smiled and said “Wow! I love your hair!” So I immediately text my beautiful hairdresser, based in Montreal, and told them I need to them to move to Vancouver ASAP. At the time of writing, I have not gotten a response.
🛬 Far out I love the feeling of the plane landing. From the moment you feel the gravity shift and that you’re descending through the clouds feeling like you’re falling with grace, to the tummy jump and lurch-bounce of the touchdown — it is all excitement and adrenaline that continues as you get the feeling of brakes pumping like the end of a rollercoaster ride. What a rush.
Three goals for the coming week:
🧃 At Armchair Expert this week, I was in the same room as an idol, Dax Shepard — the man I listened to obsessively as I got sober, and still listen to obsessively as I stay sober — who called on the audience for questions. As a lead-in to her question, an audience member told us all that she was in recovery. As the audience wasn’t mic’d, Dax would repeat the questions. He started with “This is X and she’s in recovery” and the whole theatre erupted in applause. Not woos and cheers of us fans excited to be in the same room like when Dax and Monica or the guest Ike Barinholtz (!!!) came on stage, but rather deep, deep knowing and respect. I felt the wave of so many sober folks in the crowd (amongst very not sober ones, too) applaud as if their hands were extensions of their hearts. I have never been in a room with so many people who just feel that accomplishment on that level and it sent chills up my spine knowing we were all in this together, complete strangers but all of us proud of each and every single one of us. My goal is to find more reasons to be happy for strangers every day.
🤗 At my first show of the trip, where I last minute decided to buy a ticket and thought I was purely anonymous, I showed up alone ready to have a laugh when I heard someone call my name. I turned to see my Life Coach. This is the woman who without her I wouldn’t be writing, I wouldn't have had the courage to get sober, seek recovery, seek different work and follow my dreams, have been able to let go of a lot of trauma from my past and reconnect with people I had tarnished relationships with. She has changed my life for the better in so many ways. I had planned to see her the following week at our first in-person meeting and I was stressed thinking about how to accurately greet the person who has done so much for you and the magnitude of that meeting and how I would best portray my gratitude. The universe had other plans and decided that her boyfriend was going to be the best friend of the comedian I was going to see, a comedian who I also happened to know from many years ago. The universe decided the way I was going to tell this woman how much she means to me was to say “Woah what the heck? Oh my god!” as she hugged me. This small world moment made me realise that there is literally nothing I can worry about that my higher power isn’t already taking care of. Big or small. My goal is to let go more.
📱 Turn my phone off from 9pm until 9am.
What I am enjoying this week:
THIS, THIS ALL OF THIS! “Tomorrow makes decisions simple…”
BONUS! My future wife brought out a new LIVE album. The cover of Janis’ Maybe made me feel some things. Also, listen to the end of Jolene because her speech gave me fuck yes chills.
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volume forty-two
LA must really give you something incredible. Even your newsletter feels different this week. 😘
So there’s this book I really like called “sorry I’m late, I didn’t want to come” by Jessica Pan. She wrote that when she initiated greetings, 100% of the people responded but when she didn’t, most people just kept to themselves. For context, I think she was in London and this was part of an experiment. I wonder what results you’d get if you said hello to people (outside of LA). I’m curious about this myself!