hbd, dad!

happy birthday to my dad!  he taught me how to sail and make really stupid jokes and is the reason i love dancing, labrador retrievers, and the tar heels.  last night we got chinese food and talked about my upcoming trip and his lady friends ;) ;) and he played tug-o-war with his granddog (his word, not mine), who adores him.  we've had rough patches for sure, but i've always been a daddy's girl, and i'm glad we're on each other's side again.

5

 my sweet boy.  (i say that, and yet last night he snapped at me because i rested my hand on his head in the dark and ignored him when he gurgle-growled about it.  i said "get the fuck off the bed" and he sulked into his crate all embarrassed and ashamed until i let him out right before i fell asleep and we snuggled the rest of the night.)

anyway.

sweet(ish) bix,

you have no idea what's coming.  you aren't expecting any of the adventures we're going to have, but one day we're going to get in the car and instead of the dog park we'll be at the airport.

i've decided to forgo the english-teaching bit of the plan for now, and spend time in chile or argentina picking strawberries on a dog-friendly farm instead.  and maybe skip the au pairing too, because bix might just make that too complicated.  so it'll be hiking in north carolina, olives in greece, strawberries in south america, and sailing in maine.  whoa, dudes.  brace yourselves.

it's five months, bixbo.  five quick months, and we're off.

yesterday was hard.  it was hard for no reason in particular, but added all up it was just straight crummy.

my work to-do list was running over into a second column, mostly with meetings to schedule, which is probably my least favorite thing that i do.  i screwed up my personal calendar twice, and there just isn't time for everything, and now i can't do all that i want to do (#fomoqueen).  bixby wasn't cooperating on our run.  an old lady yelled at me at the dog park.  my left tonsil hurt (bless you, little right tonsil).  and then my landlord texted me to say that he was showing my house tomorrow which meant i would have to clean it and then one of my favorite bachelorettes got voted off and then i had to go home and be all by myself and it was just too much and i sat on the floor and ugly cried for a little bit.  bix got confused and put his stocking in my lap and then changed his mind and took it back because he wanted to play with it and we both just sat on the floor for a good few minutes until i decided that i had to get up at some point because i couldn't very well sleep there.  so i put all my shoes away and vacuumed and worked on my puzzle and did the dishes (ahem- some of them) and practiced some hulu yoga.

and then i felt better.

i believe there is something in muscling through.  i believe that you can make yourself feel better by clenching your teeth and cleaning the house, but i also believe that it is 100% worthwhile to plonk down with your back against the front door and cry it out.  so i did.  and i do. 

that release is nice, you know?

♥♥♥

wicked

i still can't get over the fact that this happened.  i don't win things.  my name is never the one drawn.  but last night, when it mattered more than usual, it did, i won, it was.

kickass seats and all.

i showed up two hours and forty-five minutes before the show started (thank you, no traffic, thank you, speedy little car), waited the fifteen i had cushioned in, and talked to other people about the lottery and about wicked and about how nervous we were.  this was her fourth time.  i don't handle suspense well.  i was heart-pounding, butterfly-stomached, fully expected to go home dejected.

i didn't.

i put my name in that drum and they wouldn't say how many tickets they were giving away but they called out eight of them and then the woman yelled out "ANNA MARTIN" and i couldn't believe it but i busted through the crowd up there, actually shaking as i counted out the fifty dollars for two incredible seats.

and then i had to call sarah and squeal about it.  and squeal about it more when she got there.  and repeat over and over, through dinner and drinks and wandering around tobacco campus, "i can't believe we won."

the show was AMAZING.  i spent a good part of it grinning up at the stage.  i'd never seen it before, but it always seemed like one i should see.  and that was true.  i don't know what to say about it - the lights, the voices, the dancing flying monkeys, the green and the dancing and the emerald city, fiyero who looked like someone we couldn't quite place, the singing, the songs, the voices, the voices, the VOICES.  elphaba.  and glinda.  the dresses.  the set.  the sister.  dr. dillamon.  the hidden jokes.  the lights.  the voices.  the lights.  the voices.

it was one of those nights where i was so struck by how my life is MINE.  and it is fantastic.  it is wholly fantastic, and when you don't get your way it makes it that much better when you do.  i'm so lucky, in so many ways, and i'm so lucky to win when it really counts.

all my love to camelot

in college i had a crew.  the kind of crew they make movies about.  think sisterhood of the traveling pants (or better yet, think golden girls).  freshman and sophomore years the four of us lived in the same nerd dorm, me and erika in room 205, sarah and lauren three doors down from that, and later we all lived together in our weird old apartment we lovingly called camelot - making us the camelot girls. 

we spent a lot of time stressing over homework, eating chocolate, and binge-watching tv shows (including but not limited to: law & order svu, gilmore girls, friends, boy meets world, gossip girl, etc etc ad nauseum).  we always knew - and know now more than ever - how lucky we were to have a group of friends that felt like family, that felt like home.

sarah and i obvs live close enough to hang out at least weekly now, but erika is near dc and lauren is even farther, up in pennsylvania, so we can't just run down the hall or up the stairs anymore, we have to plan our reunions months in advance.  and thankfully thankfully thankfully we were able to have one this past weekend.

...these are our stories.  *DUN DUN*

the weekend included but was not limited to:

• sammiches in occoquan (world's cutest town)
• "are you high clarice?" and other gems from the wine & pie store dude
• takeout asian food
• cards against humanity x2, and also anomia (i suck)
• the hundred-foot journey, silver linings playbook
• sunday school crafts with kindergarteners
• spanish tapas
• CHOCOLATE TOUR OF GEORGETOWN (best best best yum)
• lots of time with millie and floyd and obviously daniel

it was everything i needed and not long enough, and now i'm stuck counting down the days until april or may, whenever it happens again.  all all all of my love to camelot.

nobody's baby, everybody's girl

you know when you find a song and it feels like it was written just for you?  

this is my song.

i keep running around

trying to find the ground

but my head is in the stars

and my feet are in the sky

well i'm nobody's baby

i'm everybody's girl

i'm the queen of nothing

i'm the king of the world

last friday, this friday

the mallet brothers

i swear he's not a tiny person, it's just the angle.  also - this is what my bangs are doing now (?!)

campfires & constellations

oh goodfellows.  ohhhhhhhhhhh goodfellows.

mike blair and the stonewalls (doppelganger: muppet band)

bands and bands and bands!  jp!  kaitlin!  bands!

first it's gonna be like this

then it's gonna be like this

and this

 and this

 but honestly it's mostly gonna be like this

and then a little more of this

my other best joke

what did the janitor say when he jumped out of the closet?

SUPPLIES

namaste y'all

last night was the inaugural meeting of the yoga-videos-in-my-living-room club.  i was the only attendee, which was okay because i got to pick which yoga video we did and also because i hadn't told anyone else about it.  bix got locked in his crate with a peanut butter-filled kong and i don't think he was one bit mad about it.

the video i chose was for anxiety, which translates to inversions, which translates to putting your head on the floor.  and actually, it was really nice.  my brain still goes a million miles a minute, and when we were supposed to be thinking about our heart centers, i was thinking about couscous and contra dancing and the dog we'd seen at the dog park and and and but that's what yoga's for, right?  that and about a million other healing things.  but the time passed surprisingly quickly, and it was a simple yoga video so i could do everything but not for beginner beginners, and it didn't include any dang sun salutations (i don't know why i dislike sun salutations so much but UGH).  

all in all, i'd say the first meeting of the yoga-videos-in-my-living-room club (which i'm calling namaste popcorn until a better name comes along) was a success.  ohm, indeed.

tiny boring update

last night i was going to be productive and go for a run and clean the house (although i do give myself points for washing the dishes) and pick up super late christmas presents and then it was super cold and my poor little terrifying furnace thing just isn't up to snuff so my house was pretty chilly and instead i just snuggled up with a bowl of rice and beans and sweet potatoes and watched game of thrones and then i went to bed early.

then when i woke up this morning i checked the temperature and when my phone said 10 degrees i said NOPE and rolled over and went back to sleep and what i learned from that is how to be late to work.

all i have to say is thank goodness for the fleece lined leggings i found on the discount shelves at harris teeter.

also i've decided to start doing yoga.  ohmmmmm.

birfday

guess how old i am!

(hint: it's twenty-five)

it happened yesterday at 1:43 a.m. in barcade.  i took the day off work, and although it was mostly a chill kind of day, i'm happy to report that this happened:

other highlights include

• getting to see emma (best dog ever, right up there with bixby and hendrix and jack and all the other dogs i've ever met, but me and emma have a special bond.  she loooooves me and i love her right back.)
• elmosa! and other delicious things at elmo's with sarah.  and then hart of dixie because duh.
• lunch at tru, which is the most delightful cozy sandwich place i've ever known.  lotsa avocados.  pesto!  blackberry pear cider.  honor systems.  couches.
• nappin.  cause that's all i do these days, any time i get the chance.  bixby and i are champion nappers.
• ballet class!  how else do you round out the first day of being twenty-five?  it's ballet class.

i made a whole list of things i'm going to do daily and weekly and honestly most of it is about cleaning my house because yikes dishes but some are like "write in your journal every day!" and "stretch!" and "go for two runs a week!" and i like to think of them as resolutions for being twenty-five.  twenty-five is an adult kind of year.  not nearly as much as twenty-six, and don't even get me started on twenty-seven (enter panic laughter) but twenty-five is a good time to get your life in order.  and also go on adventures, because that will be the second half of the year.

twenty-five is gonna be so much better than twenty-four.  i can feel it in my (old, so old) bones.