March 30, 2015

;)

i've been going around grinning this week.  wet dogs and chinese takeout.  picking out the onions.  rum and cokes and pinball machines.  wheat toast, family pictures, airplane forks.  bare feet and petechiae.  a cupcake at two a.m.  the good stuff, you know?  little secrets tucked into my pockets for later.

and also babysitting.

March 25, 2015

here's what's been happening lately.

i've been real bad at taking pictures these past few days, so for your viewing pleasure, here's a typical hunting boot/tennis shoe picture i sent to sarah (tennis shoe won) (also my new pants won, because LOOK AT THEM) (don't look at my dresser though, it's been a bit of a catchall lately, and by lately i mean as usual).

so i have now completed the first two runs of my plan with paces around 10:30.  i've been dragging bixby along (sometimes literally), and he is not a huge fan, especially since i make him wear the gentle leader, but hey, whatever tires him out.

speaking of bix, he's been the biggest grump lately.  i know i just posted recently about the terrible threes, but good grief, kid.  calm yourself and snuggle with me already.  he likes to bark at me in the mornings when i tell him to get on the bed.  so then i tell him to go in his crate and all of his body language says "fine, bitch."  i need to get him a brain toy, i think he gets really bored when i leave for work.

sunday i took him out to a new friend's friend's property - three hundred acres of yard and woods and pond and creek.  there were two giant malamute lab something mixes that were eight months old and kept punching bixby, a chesapeake labrador who was in love with water, and my friend's dog bella, who's a delicate little mutt.  bix had a blaaaast.  he came home stinky and exhausted with four new friends under his belt.  i let him off leash the whole time, which is such a treat for him, and he did take off a couple of times after deer and who knows what else, but he always came back.  it was good.

evidently bix has taken part in every one of my notable activities lately, because another thing i did was go on a seven-mile hike around umstead in raleigh.  it was good!  it was hard.  the day started off colder than i'd anticipated, but i made a friend, and i worked myself hard enough that i was sore the next couple of days, which is always satisfying.

hair update: i need to stop being so vain for a couple weeks and not straighten it right after i shower to see what it's actually doing, because i think the straightening makes it need a shampoo again sooner.  i've been very deliberately only washing it every 3-4 days, but that ain't gonna do shit when i'm showerless for weeks at a time on the trail.  the insane static has calmed down though, so phew.

oh, and i saw cinderella and once you let go and accepted that the movie was basically exactly the same as the animated movie, it got fun.  also, once cinderella actually grew a pair and reacted to her stepmother's abuse.  also, once helena bonham carter showed up.  and then because i was in the mall i accidentally went shopping but i wound up with a really cute shirt from this new christian clothing store (??? okay!) and bonding with the manager at apricot lane over having the same exact birthday, year and all.

other things:

this song.  mandatory dancing around the living room with bixby.

white boys in salmon shorts, because duh.  i was trying to make a point about nantucket red and i think i did it.

related to drunk j crew, i bring you pattern behavior.  brilliant.

and now for something a little more serious: consent.

finally, this tickles my funny bone just right.

March 20, 2015

run, anna, run

there are some people who look like they were made to run.  long legged giraffy types with minimum body fat (but maximum motivation).  those people are not me.  however!  i have run before.  last april i did an entire 5k color run with aileen without stopping once.  going really really slow?  yes.  stopping?  heck nope.  and i want to be able to do that again.  partly as preparation for the trail (gotta get those legs in hiking shape) and partly just because it's something i want to do, and sometimes even like to do.  who'd have thought?

anyway.  because of accountability and documentation, i'm putting my running schedule here.  each row represents a week, and the space below each run is so i can write down the date i complete that run.  before i leave, i want to be able to knock out five miles in one go.
kimmy schmidt is going to be my muse for this: you can do anything for ten seconds, and when that ten seconds is over, you start over with a new ten seconds.

leggo.

the view from here

remember the other day when the sunset was like HI IT'S WARM OUT IMMA BE AMAAAZING and everybody and their brother took photos and put them on snapchat and facebook and instagram and every other social media platform possible?

that day just so happened to be the day after i'd decided it might be nice to have my bedroom blinds open.  so - lucky, lucky - i got to experience the sunset firsthand too, without ever leaving my bed.
BAM.  straight periwinkle.

March 18, 2015

the terrible threes

this guy has been such a teenager lately. he's moody and loud and disrespectful. he only likes cuddling with his mama on HIS TERMS, which are not the ones shown in this picture. he's smart but he doesn't always want to listen. we're working on being off leash a little bit though, and i can tell he appreciates the freedom. his interactions with other dogs at the park are so painfully eighth grade ("do YOU want to be my friend? whatever i was kidding you're dumb"). and he's aaalways trying to get into the driver's seat. so i call him butthead and make him cuddle with me and try not to harsh his mellow too much at the dog park. and i love him. and his silly little three year old self loves me. and one day soon he will outgrow this crazy stuff and get back to being a full time love bug.

the time we hiked elk knob

once upon a time in college, waaaaay back at the beginning of freshman year when we were brand new friends, sarah, lauren, ben, phil, and i went for a hike at this place called elk knob, which, unlike most of the places we went hiking in boone, we never returned to.  and that's because most of the places we went hiking didn't require us to hike directly up the side of a mountain.

we made it - trying to make friends will convince you to do things you never thought you wanted to do - and all i remember about that hike besides the incline is that we made up lyrics to sing to the circle of life, found out lauren once worked in a horse barn, and laughed our heads off once we got to the top.  full on hysterical giggles.  the best.

if you look closely though, you can see the disbelief and horror on our faces, and that's why i love this picture.  we look so completely unenthusiastic.  what a way to begin a friendship, right?  panting our way up elk knob.  and now look - these girls are two of my absolute best friends, and i'm getting ready to go off and hike up lots of inclines and make lots of new friends (but not better.  never better.).  and after my trail legs kick in, my face will hopefully look just a tiny bit happier than it does here.

March 16, 2015

sicko

jay z the plant.  referenced below.
my sore throat turned into a nasty face cold turned into another sore throat turned into almost not being sick turned into hardcore nausea for twenty-four hours until kaitlin was like "why don't you take some anti nausea medicine?" and i was like "oh."  so bix and i went to walgreens for some drug store magic and i pumped myself full of cherry flavored stuff that somehow makes it possible for food to look good again.  and by food i mean lettuce sandwiches.  but hey - progress.

so it's been a quiet weekend.  i mostly moped around the house/dog park and then managed to drag myself to r&r to watch the carolina game (bummer and a half) with aileen and nick and their crew, which was fun (???), or it would have been if i hadn't felt like death.  or it was fun.  or it was almost fun.  i didn't completely suck at darts, so that was fun.

sunday was so so so so pretty i couldn't handle it so bix and i did our walgreens excursion and then to the dog park and by the time i got home the medicine had started kicking in a little and i decided to clean the house because thanks to a) springtime shedding and b) two baths in three days, bixby's hair was EVERYWHERE.  i am not kidding when i say i had to sweep everything twice.  but now things feel better and i dragged my poor poor plant onto the porch and cut off all the death leaves (ahem, 99% of the plant) and sort of made a fire circle and walked around barefoot and felt like maybe the world is finally going to be alive again.

and then i watched game of thrones with my lettuce sandwich and a glass of ginger ale and i would just like to say that yes theon greyjoy is a terrible person but no that doesn't mean what is happening to him is something that i want to see.

el fin.

March 13, 2015

all my love to miami

i could see myself living in miami.  florida, people sneer, envisioning faded plastic flamingos and gritty retirement homes.  tacky, they think, boring, humid.  i promise it's humid, it's so humid your hair and skin and clothes fill with the dampness the second you step outside.  the conditioned air pumped through your house is a lie.  but tacky?  boring?  i promise you, i promise, it's just as magic as anywhere else, maybe more so.  looking up and thinking 60 degrees is cold.  one season, maybe two, all year.  you are suspended in a forever summer with fruit growing on the sidewalks.  color springs eternal, every sidewalk bordered by a pastel rainbow of shopfronts and restaurants.  the margaritas!  the gelato!  girls holding hands, rollerblading down sidewalks, sweaty men jogging along the marina accompanied by their ipods.  the boats are right there.  the ocean laps up on the shore, against the cement walls, over the shiny bronzed people wearing bathing suits in november.
this time we went to fairchild to see the glass exhibit by chihuly.  it was gorgeous, but i kept thinking how it would be so perfect to see at night, illuminated from the inside out.
except the roxaboxen sculptures, those were perfectly laid out in the desert section of the botanical gardens, spiking up between the cacti and aloe.
 and if there's a butterfly exhibit, you can bet i'm going through it.
greg took me around on his motorcycle and the air smelled sulfury and it looked like it was about to rain the whole time, but it never did.  i got antsy thinking about my hands, about how instinct would kick in if we crashed and the soft fleshy skin of my palms would be the first thing to hit the pavement.  we didn't crash, we just listened to miami's classic rock station and the wind whipped my braid across my back, and when we went home anna carol and i walked the dogs and we ate hungry howie's while we watched whiplash because jazz musicians and miles teller and what else do you do on your last night in miami.  after everyone went to bed i slipped through the sliding glass door and sat on the balcony with my legs dangling over the edge and thought about how i wasn't ready to leave yet.

i'm still not ready to leave yet.

March 9, 2015

coming off the high of miami to a gloomy, colder north carolina that's missing an hour with one ear still unpopped from the plane ride and a sore throat to beat the band.

i don't even want to think about the dishes in my sink.

happy your-vacation-is-over day!  this is the pits.

xx

ps there IS (always) a bright side: bixby.

pps north carolina does not have the unpopped ear or sore throat, that's me.

March 5, 2015


guess where I am. 
just guess. 

March 3, 2015

that time bix realized my butt makes a reeeeeally good pillow.  love ya, dog.