Profile written for a non-fiction writing class at Gotham Writer's Workshop

April, 2005

“The truth is, I don’t love advertising,” Laura confesses. Her eyes are downcast as she fiddles with the wooden stirrer and plastic lid left over from her Chai tea.  It’s after 5:30, and we’re sitting at the Starbuck’s below our advertising agency on 42nd Street, where we have worked together for more than a year.

In the office, Laura Fisk is the bright star in the corner cube. Clips of art and colorful trinkets decorate her space. Her mouse pad is orange gel. Doreen still talks about the colorful socks and “crazy outfits” Laura used to wear when she first started here out of college five years ago.

Her wardrobe is more subtle these days, but you can see her creativity in the details. Today she is wearing a black wool turtleneck sweater with unstructured seams (seams sewn inside out) and triangular silver hoop earrings. On her left hand, a vintage 1920’s diamond ring clashes with the modern design of her wedding band.  She kept her maiden name. The tip of her right index finger is wrapped in a turquoise band-aid that she got at “this awesome Japanese dollar store that’s two stories tall.”

Laura reminds me of a sprite. Or an elf. She is tiny and spirited. When she talks, her wide almond-shaped brown eyes open wide and her eyebrows wiggle toward each other producing a series of V-shaped crinkles on her forehead. But when her enthusiasm or consternation fades, the lines disappear into her smooth ivory skin. She never wears any makeup.

Her hands are constantly active as we talk, chopping along the edge of the tabletop to enunciate the notion of making lists and doing things “just so,” wrapping silky strands of her fine brown hair behind her ears, and picking at dry skin on her arms.

Laura is a brand planner by day, but an artist at heart.  She knits, throws pottery and takes silkscreening classes at night at the School for Visual Arts. Her favorite magazine is Metropolis. For our Secret Santa Exchange last year, she made the wrapping paper for Alex’s present on the photocopier, from an image she cut out from a magazine.

Five months shy of her twenty-ninth birthday, Laura has resolved to use this year to become the person she wants to be: ‘productive,’ ‘calm,’ and ‘proactive.’ 

“I feel like I’ve reached a point where I’ve done all the things that I was supposed to do—I went and got a job, you know, I went to college, now I need to work hard to break the mold and do the things that I want to do. I should be starting my own business and doing all the things that I want to do and have wanted to do for years.”

“I had this epiphany,” she says, “I was like, ‘Don’t grumble about it. Do something about it. Dreams just don’t happen.’”