these past few days

i feel bad for the radio silence here.  the more that happens in my life, the less happens in this space.  my mind is constantly swirling with mileage and camping sites and wwoof hosts that allow dogs and mail drops and plane tickets and oh crap i need to figure out insurance, when is bixby's vet appointment, how are all these bugs getting in my house, what am i going to do with all my books, etc, etc, etc, and etc.

last weekend was amazing.  i saw holy ghost tent revival in someone's backyard, an old friend of my had organized a house party and i was one of the lucky ones invited.  it was incredibly hot and incredibly buggy and incredibly incredible.  all lights and sweat and hands reaching for the stage and the night sky.  blackberry ginger ale and whiskey in a water bottle.  letting the horse eat grass out of my palm.  a piano left in the barn, all of its keys stuck, the front of it missing so you could see all of the hammers and strings.  honey wheat beer that was mostly foam.  we woke up early and groggy the next morning and the three of us got breakfast at a place where the waitresses called you honey.

sunday was a raleigh flyers game (professional frisbee, who knew?) with some of the people i played frisbee with last summer, realized i was terrible and didn't like driving on i40 in 5:00 traffic, and decided to mostly just go to the parties instead.  it was a million degrees, and they'd set up a kiddie pool in the parking lot.  between each quarter we'd run out of the bleachers and into the pool and stand in ankle deep lukewarm water, trying to finish our beers before the next quarter started.  gosh there's something magic about summer.  despite the sweat and the sunburns.  because of the sweat and sunburns.  because of the beer in the kiddie pools in the parking lot.  because of the crazy thunderstorms we've been getting lately.  because of the sun.
and friday night with high school friends and cards against humanity on a blanket and thanks for the pizza, again, and a free pass for a movie, any movie, when the film didn't work and we didn't get to watch hunger games after all.  a crummy waitress.  tables that turned into benches and listing everyone who ever lived in our neighborhood and also went to our high school.  looking at every dog.

then monday was ballet class followed by drinking beers and talking shit because we are ballerinas, after all.  and thursday was the same, this time without the ballet class but with empanadas and margaritas and empanadas and my orange dress and holy MOLY empanadas, if i could do the heart eye emoji here i would.  oh and wednesday we ("we") made the best dang pasta OF MY LIFE, groovy little penne guys called "garganelli" with basil cream sauce and tomatoes and spinach and i am drooling thinking about the leftovers i'm going to eat today.  kimmy schmidt fist pump!  we also watched game of thrones, season 5, episodes 4-6.  i liked it better when sansa was married to tyrion but whatevs, she'll either be dead or married to someone else soon enough.  #thanksobama.  we're in the home stretch!

what else?!  bachelorette and floor time.  bixby panting at me.  getting rid of things.  getting rid of things.  getting rid of things.  bixby lagging behind on walks, and me saying you better get your shit together, dude, cause there's going to be a lot more of this.  getting ready.  party on saturday!  i haven't thrown a party since camelot, but i've got twinkle lights and a whole lot of macaroni, and i'm not sure what else you need.  can my life just be this good all the time, except maybe without the feeling that i'm possibly going to explode?

hammocking

The Great Smoky Mountains are a super popular place to backpack. They're also evidently a super popular place for bad things to happen, according to the news last weekend. So far, a mother/son duo got lost and had to be rescued by rangers, the body of an experienced hiker was found, and a kid got attacked by a bear while sleeping in his hammock.

The likelihood of anything bad happening - that bad, anyway - is so small that I practically don't need to worry about it.  Be careful, yes.  Lie awake at night with my heart racing, no.  I talked previously about how I'm scared of being scared, so I'm trying to take measures to prevent that.  Practicing sleeping in my hammock, for instance. 

The other night, I took this pretty lady out for her maiden voyage. I mean, I've used my hammock before, but this was the first time I'd slept in it. I tied Bix underneath me, hung it up nice and high, and slept the night away.  It's funny, I'd woken up with my neck killing me from sleeping funny the two mornings before, but that day (Wednesday) I woke up feeling fine. It did feel strange to be so awake at six a.m. with the sun and the birds and Bixby giving me a "Mom, what did we just DO?" look, but I felt well-rested. I woke up once or twice during the night, once to pee and once because Bixby was yelling at something, but I went right back to sleep both times. He did really well. He dug around some and made a little dirt nest to sleep in and stayed still, as far as I could tell anyway, for most of the night.

So: I like sleeping in a hammock, I think I'm going to do it, I had major hesitations after the kid was attacked in his hammock, but the reality is that it's no safer than a tent and it's a heck of a lot lighter. Bixby might not be so enthusiastic, but I think he'll get used to it, and may even feel safer where he can see things.

what we did in occoquan

last weekend sarah and i drove four and a half hours and a pit stop at wendy's and one girl talk album and the game where we take turns playing a surprise song up to occoquan, motherfuckers, to see mr. and mrs. mckellop, as well as dog and cat mckellop.  we've got this road trip thing down to an art, a science, all that, and when we pulled in hoarse and happy and toting a large inflatable ball we found on the side of the road at 10:15, erika was ready with this spread:

it was fantastic.  that plate on the bottom left?  ALL CHEESE.

erika found this wine and grabbed it immediately because not only is it pinot noir, but it shares a name with our college dorm's ghost.  the main one, anyway, the one who lived on our floor.  trust me when i say i don't believe in ghosts, but i believe in fadeaway.  there was never a question - she was the girl who hung herself in the basement bathroom and haunted the dormitory in a white dress, fading away when you saw her.  erika heard her footsteps once.  naked margaret swore she saw something.  i spent each night terrified that i would see this ghost and - what?  she would fade away?  i don't know.

anyway.  we drank the wine and said it was the blood of fadeaway and laughed and filled up on unexpected cheddar and not missing each other.

AND MILLIE DID THIS.  she was extra lovey this time around and i ate it up.

saturday was the day we did everything.  we didn't even wake up early, but when we did we got brunch at this adorable place called the secret garden and wandered occoquan's main drag (read: looked at geese, went into an art gallery, poked around the pet store).  there was a wedding about to happen at the most adorable gazebo/tiniest wedding venue on the planet.  we looped back up the street for a wine/beer tasting (one tasted like cream soda!  hot dog!) and moscato slushies.  no, you read that right.  daniel got mango and the rest of us got peach and, i'll say it, they were damn refreshing.

and then pedicures!  sarah and erika got matching grape toes and i had mine painted hot pink (which they'll stay for the rest of the summer, probably maybe whaaaat) and then we went to giant and got cokes and cash for the carnival.  we split cotton candy and fit on the ferris wheel like we were made for it and sarah held our stuff and took pictures while erika and i rode the swings.  it was held in the backyard of an ex-prison, which made for some interesting views: the solemn brick buildings with tiny windows in rows on one side, the watchtowers on the other, funnel cakes and midway games and a mechanical bull in the middle.

that night we went to madigan's for dinner and drinks and we learned two things: erika's shirt is tres french and how to accomplish the dominance effect.  and then we were hugged by several drunk old men.  opa!  when we went back to daniel and erika's, we watched brooklyn nine-nine until erika fell asleep (and then some) and the day was over too fast.  the next morning we helped out with childcare as per usual and hit the road straight away and then the whole weekend was over too fast, and we were road trip queening it back to north carolina and away from occoquan and promise to come see me on the trail guys, okay?

all the love.

#scared

if i'd had a little more foresight i might have named my trail journal "pedicures and pepper spray." my to-do list is dwindling (at least for the MST) but it still has lingering items like "buy tarp for hammock" and "make eyelash tinting appt." yes, that's a thing. yes, it's going to happen to me. sorry not sorry.

i'm not a girly girl, i've never been a girly girl, but i do enjoy my twirly dresses and pink cocktails and, yes, pedicures. i have vices, as sarah put it. i like to get muddy but worms make me nauseous. i won't wash my hair for a week and not bat an eye but my armpits have got to be clean shaven. i drive stick - decently. i snowboard - very slowly. i drink beer - if it's really fruity. i want to be a badass, but i am generally not.

so what better way to confront that and up my badass points by a million trillion than to spend three months in the wilderness?

i'm excited - i'm SO excited - for this trip. i've got butterflies 24/7. i'm also full-blown terrified. i'm not even scared about accomplishing it (cause I have no backup plan, heyo!) or running out of food or being tired (former won't happen because PLANS, latter definitely will happen on the daily) or whatever, but confession: i'm scared of bears, and mountain lions, and coyotes, and also possums and raccoons and toads and bears. and i'm scared of other people. and let's not even get into the supernatural things i only believe in when it's creepy out. BUT i know that in all likelihood, if i use common sense i'll be fine. mostly, i'm scared of being scared, and i don't know how to get past that except complete immersion. will i turn into a shaking shell of a human being, or will i be the bravest person alive? stay tuned. updates in about a month.

not 2%... not whole...

skimm'd while on hold with capital one FOR.EV.ER.  (send me my new card, dammit)  (also go bernie sanders)

so i am not the most news-savvy person out there.  my mom didn't like having the news on in the house when i was a kid - too depressing - and the only section of the newspaper our family fought over was the funnies (i mean, duh).  but now that i'm a real live adult out in the real live world, i try to stay in touch with what's going on.  for a while i was relying exclusively on the facebook news sidebar for stories, but that honestly focuses a little too much on celebrities, missing children, and attention-grabbing headlines for me to feel like i'm actually being a responsible citizen of the united states and of the world.

enter skimm.  i'm not suddenly brilliant, i still don't entirely grasp what's going on in china or with isis or whether i like what obama's been up to.  but i'm a little more informed.  i get an email every weekday that i can read through while i settle into work.  it's interesting, it's easy to read, it doesn't overwhelm, and they have handy guides about some of the more complex topics (hellooooo middle east).  not to mention i kind of want to be bff with the writers.  if this sounds like something that'd be up your alley, you can sign up right here.  10/10, do recommend.

hammocks & chacos

Yesterday I was given the incredibly generous going away trail present of a gift card to Great Outdoor Provision Company. I've been tumbling the idea of sleeping in my new Eno hammock instead of my tent around in my head, and the gift card would make this a possibility - I wouldn't be able to justify spending the money on a nice, lightweight, Eno brand tarp otherwise. I'd save 2.5 pounds, and, I mean, I'd get to sleep in a hammock. Part of me is scared of the idea, a la The Roly-Poly Pudding (right??), but most of me thinks it be cozy, and I'd get that air conditioner hammock effect that Enos have instead of the stuffy tent effect. I could string Bix's cable underneath me and hook his leash up to it so he'd have movement but still be protected from rain, and animals (raccoons and possums and the like, anyway) would probably be more inclined to stay away.

The other thing I've been considering is leaving my boots behind and hiking in Chacos. It'd save me another pound and a half, and between that and the hammock idea, I'd bring my pack weight (sans food and water) down from 20.5 pounds to 16.5 pounds. I want to bring my Chacos for when I need to cross creeks and rivers that don't have bridges or handy rocks and to wear at camp when I've spent all day in my boots - but then why bring the boots at all, if the Chacos will do? The arch support is great, I've been breaking them in nicely, and they're made to be sturdy.  I have a friend who hiked the Appalachian Trail with an 11-pound pack and Tevas, he told me about it when I was 17 and wide-eyed about all things backpacking, and it stuck with me. If you can hike the AT in Tevas, you can hike the MST in Chacos... right?

live irl

chapel hill's graffiti artists are sweet.

other gems:

fight wars not war

boobs nah dude

i solemnly swear i am up to no good

dead men don't catcall

and a clever little anti-friend-zone-concept rant about how women are not machines men can put kindness coins into until sex comes out

(sorry for the phrase "sex comes out")

AND the town of chapel hill actually does this really cute thing where they plant seeds in the shape of words like "grow" and "look up" etc and then the words come out of the earth all leafy and green.

ps i recognize the irony of this being posted online (in multiple places now, hi instagram) but i found it after bix and i had spent an hour or so in the botanical gardens on unc's campus, me in my new hammock with gone girl, him in the dirt with a stick.

URE

this weekend i took bixby backpacking, just me and him and uwharrie national forest.  i found a 20-ish-mile figure eight online, uwharrie trail to dutchman's creek trail, which seemed reasonable for two days, and saturday morning we set out, clear eyes, full packs, can't lose.

uwharrie is fine.  it's fine, it's sweet, it doesn't have any switchbacks or overlooks or waterfalls but it's a good little place to go practice backpacking.  i saw next to no wildlife, aside from the zillion monster ants that were really intent on climbing my legs whenever i sat down anywhere.  there was a tiny green snake that wriggled under some leaves, and a black frog with a brown belly that hopped directly into my boot and fell over.  we heard a godawful screaming noise, something like a very loudly dying goose, saturday night right before dark, that had bixby barking his guts out.  apart from that, there were a couple of lizards, a blue tailed skink, some birds, and a disgustingly large toad that splashed into a creek when we walked up.  i'm not one of those people who goes out hoping to see a bear, so i was alright with the distinct lack of critters.  there weren't many people either - a couple of boy scout troops, what looked like maybe a family reunion, several pairs of hikers, and just three other solo hikers.  i counted four women total, myself not included.

the trail: mostly pleasant, i guess is the best way to put it.  it was startlingly hilly, and i haven't decided if i dislike going up or down more, but i will say that i don't regret my long term choice of a trail that isn't entirely mountainous.  a lot of the area had been burned, apparently recently, since the standing trees were still blackened and the undergrowth wasn't very high.  there were blueberry bushes all along dutchman's creek trail with just a few tiny green blueberries on them.  my favorite places were the creeks, which were easy to find and cross and filter water from.  the rhododendrons loved them too, so not only were the creeks cooler, shadier, and altogether nicer than the burned areas and the rock cliffs and the up and down ridges, but they also smelled sweet and looked angelic.

i camped by a creek, not the one in the picture, one with a bridge and a campfire and two little trees i strung bix's cable between so he could run back and forth on his leash.  the routine of camping was nice.  there were certain things i needed to do - set up my tent, filter water, make dinner, wash the dishes, hang the bear bags - and when i'd done all these and it still wasn't dark, bix and i went for a walk, which seems silly but what else is there to do?  we cozied up into the tent when i got back, and bix was very well behaved and only barked at the goose noise and growled a tiny bit when two hikers walked past after dark.  i couldn't sleep, of course, because the forest noises and my pillow was weird and i think i was on an incline with my head on the lower end, but once i'd turned myself around and managed to fall back asleep for the fourth time or something, i stayed asleep until dawn.

all in all it was a comforting trip.  the MST is going to be hard as hell, i know, but it's also doable, as long as i pace myself and don't try going nearly fifteen miles in one day at the beginning - eight to ten (or maybe twelve with a good long break in between) is plenty.  i've got to make sure i have plenty of water (which i ran out of twice but was fortunately near enough creeks that it wasn't any kind of disaster).  i've got to teach bix once and for all not to pull, especially when we're going downhill.  and i've got to just put one foot in front of the other, because when you boil backpacking down to its essence, it's as simple as just that.

and with this myspace-esque picture, i bid you all adieu.  happy hiking!

no-poo update pt. 2

i gave up.

i've been washing my hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar for the past three months and one day last week my hair felt oily and gross and i just couldn't take it one more second and i finally threw in the towel (get it?) and washed my hair with some $3 suave shampoo and my hair has never felt so clean in my life.  in my life, guys.  it was fluffy and smelled good and took way longer to straighten but that's probably because it wasn't so straw-like when i started.  and i know that i'm murdering my little hair strands one at a time and stripping them of their natural oils and generally being a Very Bad hair owner but my curls are back and i feel like singing.

so: because the reason i did this to even begin with was the trail and the part after the trail and to make the transition to actually no-poo (or any kind of cleaning mechanism besides lake water) easier, but my hair is going to be full of lake water and so it's kinda gonna be gross period.  and this is the first time i have liked my hair without straightening it in three months.  so we're just going to full steam ahead this one and see what my hair decides to do.  i will say that i've been using the tiniest amount of shampoo (low-poo?), which, in theory, is a good and helpful thing and will hopefully be a better way to transition to extremely-rare-poo than what i've been doing.

♥

quietly, so i don't jinx it:
(we may have found a groove)

you know?  he has his moments, and i do too, but it just seems like bixby has been trying SO HARD lately.  he's attentive and sweet and still barks like a mad man at other dogs but for the most part really wants to be good.  yesterday morning he dug up a snake but didn't realize it, the oblivious dude.  it was just a little brown snake that got scooped up and put in the woods, but one minute he was digging and the next this snake flew through the air.

this weekend was pretty top notch, to be honest.  the picture is from friday, when sarah and i ate melty locopops and went to the carolina inn for free outdoor music.  happy summer!  happy happy summer!  saturday chris and i ran a 5k ("ran" in my case, there was some walking involved) and went to nordstrom rack and generally had a good old saturday morning-y time.  then zip zap zop back to cary for me for graduation lunch with kaitlin's family, who are just the sweetest people.  i specifically want to be her grandmother when i grow up, who made a "well he's not going STRAIGHT to grad school" joke about one of kaitlin's gay roommates and did some hardcore west coast exploring on her own, complete with tent camping and a singing gig on an alaskan cruise ship??  or something.  that night i was going to go to a party but i would have had to go BACK to dumb old cary for the third time in one day, and i said no thanks, and kaitlin and i did our usual franklin street thing followed by a wall sit competition and pupusas from a taco truck.  sunday involved a butt ton of sleeping followed by a really lovely afternoon with sandwiches at tru, a fantastic shoe find ($20 emerald-and-gold new balances, please & thank you), ex machina and popcorn, and planning this weekend's backpacking trip - shenandoah valley here we come!!  it was a great great great time and if every weekend could be that happy-busy-cozy i'd be one happy camper.