The Other Lauren Ziemski has been very busy
What are the chances that someone who shares your (unusual) name is actually someone who seems really cool? And what are the chances that that same person is interested in the same things you are? And what are the chances that Google Alerts emails you every few weeks to let you know that your name twin has been filming herself in St. Lucia visiting volcanoes or in Venice Beach performing with a local rock band?
Okay, those odds for that last one are pretty high. I mean, this stuff IS automated, after all.
But, seriously! How surreal is it to see this person, in pictures, and in videos, doing things that you can imagine yourself doing? Like maybe this other Lauren Ziemski is ME in the future, and she is sending videos back to 2011 to say: HEY! Get on with living already! Get your ass over here to Venice Beach where it’s SUNNY and sign up to sing with a rock band and get your acting career on and make sure you bring your video camera when you go on vacation!
I first discovered I had a name twin when Google Alerts let me know that she had tweeted something about a bunch of her friends following ME instead of her. THAT must have been weird. They probably signed up to hear about her fabulous life and instead they got blog posts about intestinal worms and panic attacks. Sorry about that, Twittersphere!
One of the weirder moments I’ve had with my name twin was this: about a year ago, I created a profile on the Rockethub website. The exact sequence of events is a little hazy but it goes something like this: A few weeks later, I got an email from the CEO OF ROCKETHUB congratulating me on my project in Panama. WTF? I started digging around and found out that the OTHER Lauren Ziemski also had a profile on Rockethub. Around that same time, I also got a Google Alert that said that one Lauren Ziemski was doing something involving eco-villages in Panama. Um? WHAT? First of all, Panama is one of my favorite places on earth. Secondly, eco-villages? That sounds EXACTLY like something a less-anxious, more-having-her-shit-together me would be involved in! I had to email back the CEO of Rockethub to say he had the wrong Lauren Ziemski, but it got me thinking:
What if I started living more like this other Lauren Ziemski? What if we all found another person on this earth that shared our name and we found one thing about them to admire and possibly emulate in our own lives? (Wearing a leather dress and rocking out with a band is actually on my bucket list. And apparently, this other LZ over there in California has done that…. so why not move to the top of my list?)
This other Lauren Ziemski is pretty fearless. She’s clearly a sun worshipper and knows how to have fun. She’s a risk-taker, too. At least, that’s what I’m gathering from what the Internet has provided about her. Those are some pretty imitation-worthy attributes, don’t ya think?
Now, I’m going to presume that since we share last names we are related. And that means that it’s not that much of a stretch to presume that it’s DNA that mandates we feel most at home in swimwear. Or that, if I just dig down deep, since the other Lauren Ziemski has already tapped into it, that I can find that same courage and fearlessness in myself.
Ladies and gentlemen: the other Lauren Ziemski.