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#my folks are in town to celebrate and apparently my mom is super down for me collecting teapots
raygender · 3 years
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meowloudly15 · 5 years
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Stranded: Day 8 - RELATIVE CHAOS
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Gwen, Mrs. Parker, and the rest of the spiders sat around the kitchen table, finishing off their pulled pork sandwiches. (Strangely, Ham didn’t have a problem with eating them.)
“Do you guys have any good stories from your time in the field?” asked Mrs. Parker.
“Oh, I got some!” Gwen brightened up. “You wanna hear a funny one or a cool one?”
“Either or,” said Ham.
“All right, so this happened like a year and a half ago. I was fighting this one guy who was basically an animal trafficker, and he’s super fast and strong and stuff. I won, but it was a tough fight, and he cut me across the face right here.” Gwen drew an invisible line across her forehead. “So, I went back home, and I’m back in my room, and I’ve gotten ready for bed and stuff, and I figured, I’ve gotta clean up this cut. So I headed to the bathroom and ran into my dad. He looked at me funny and asked, ‘What did you do to yourself?’ I panicked and said, ‘It’s ketchup!’”
Peni laughed. Peter B. and Mrs. Parker both cracked a smile. Noir remained as impassive as ever. Ham had vanished for no apparent reason.
Gwen chuckled to herself. “Yeah, I suck at cover stories.”
Peter B. commented, “You sure do. May, did your Peter do anything stupid? Or was he just too perfect for mistakes?”
Mrs. Parker chuckled. “Oh, not at all! Everybody makes mistakes! I’ll tell you how I found out about his secret identity. He was a senior in high school, and I was out of town on business for Alchemax.”
“Wait, you work for Alchemax? The place where they built the collider?” asked Noir.
“Used to. I quit because first of all, I found out that they were battling my nephew, and also because this upstart, Liv, decided she’d try and take over my position. She could have it, for all I cared.” Mrs. Parker rolled her eyes.
“Back to the point. I ended up coming home a day early, and I called Peter to tell him that the business trip had been terminated early. He didn’t pick up. I walked back into the house and saw Peter, sitting on the ceiling of the kitchen in his underwear, halfway through a bowl of mac and cheese. We both screamed.”
Everybody at the table cracked up, even Noir.
ATOMIC DISJUNCTION
Gwen spazzed out and fell through her chair. Noir yanked the chair out of her before her atoms rejoined.
“Thanks, Noir.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Ham poked his head out of the head of the faucet and said, “You have some wonderful storm drains, May, I gotta say. I just had to take a second look.” He pulled the rest of his body out and sat on the counter next to the cookie jar.
Everybody else exchanged concerned glances.
“So, what do you all do for work?” asked Ham.
Noir raised his hand. “I’m a dick.”
Mrs. Parker grimaced, trying to disguise a laugh. Peter B. instinctively covered Peni’s ears. She reached up and removed his hands, saying, “I’ve heard worse.”
Noir cocked his head to the side. “What’s the problem? I’m a dick! You know, a gumshoe? Is something wrong with that?”
Peni and Gwen exchanged confused yet amused looks.
“Oh, for Chrissake, I mean I’m a private eye! Why, what’s-”
“Don’t ask,” said Peter B., cutting him off.
Ham peered over the edge of the ceiling-mounted lamp. “You can cuss in this dimension?”
“No, Peni’s-” Peter B. started to say.
Peni cut him off with an eager grin. “Yes.”
“You guys are so lucky! I can’t cuss! I can only say symbols!”
“You wh-” began Noir.
“#%€@&%¢*§¿&%!” yelled Ham.
The table went silent. Peter B. instinctively covered Peni’s ears. Gwen tried to figure out how he had managed to say those symbols out loud.
Ham continued, “¢*§¿! ¶@~€! +¶¶@+€!”
Mrs. Parker said, “Okay, enough of that.”
“But I’m not actually cussing!”
“Yes, but you’re using a cipher. And you have the intent to swear.”
Under his breath, Ham muttered, “>%ππ+##~€.” He vanished back into the light fixture.
Peter B. glitched out for a couple of seconds.
Gwen tried not to laugh. She had no idea what he’d said, but it was still funny, maybe more so because she didn’t understand it. She did want to know what Mrs. Parker had meant by saying that Ham was using a cipher.
“So, uh, Mrs. Parker…” began Gwen.
Mrs. Parker chuckled. “Oh, please. Call me May. Or Aunt May, if you prefer.”
Gwen furrowed her brow. “But… we’re not related. That’d be weird.”
“You don’t have to share blood with someone to consider them your family.”
Gwen blinked. That was an unexpectedly philosophical answer.
She loved her dad and missed her mother. They were her family, first and foremost. Could somebody have other families besides just those to whom they’re related? Did that count as a family? Technically, it wouldn’t, at least not by the literal definition of one. But was it possible to become close enough with somebody that you might consider him a brother, even if he wasn’t? Or an aunt, even if she wasn’t?
Maybe it was, but it wasn’t anything that Gwen had seriously considered until now. She was lucky to have a caring father who supported her heroic endeavours and to have had a wonderful mother who had raised her pretty well. But other people might have had to think about this more so than she would ever need to.
“Gwen? You all right?” Peni waved a hand in front of her face.
Gwen blinked and returned to earth. “Oh, uh, yeah, sorry, I’m fine. Just spaced out, that’s all.”
“Like I asked,” said Noir, “you play the drums, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Splendid. See, I play tenor sax part-time in a jazz ensemble, and our drummer was… well, he’s now an ex-drummer. We need a replacement.”
“As much as I’d love to help, I can’t visit your dimension without putting my life on the line. Also, I’ve got school.”
“Ah, school.” Noir balanced his chair on two legs and folded his arms behind his head. “When I was your age, I walked five miles to school. Uphill.”
“Both ways?”
“Yes, I walked back from school, too.”
“Uh, I mean, did you walk uphill both ways?”
“No, that wouldn’t make sense.”
Peter B. chuckled. “I take it you didn’t have buses back in your day?”
Noir replied, “They existed, but they weren’t for carting kids around. They’re starting to make them for schools, but they’re pretty rare, at least as far as I know.”
Gwen recalled that Noir was from 1933. He had an air of seniority about him, too, which confused her.
“Uh, how old are you?” she asked him.
“Older than you are.”
Ham glitched out briefly.
May stood up. “Who wants dessert? I have fudge.”
Everybody raised their hands eagerly. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want fudge?
May walked into the kitchen.
RELATIVE CHAOS
“Oh man, fudge is the best!” exclaimed Ham. “I normally only get it at Christmastime!”
“You have Christmas in your dimension?” asked Gwen.
“Yeah, who wouldn’t celebrate it?”
Peter B. raised his hand. “There’s Christmas in my dimension, but I celebrate Hanukkah.”
“I promise to punch thirty extra Nazis for you,” said Noir. “And yeah, my dimension has Christmas, too.”
“Thanks for that.”
“There’s still Christmas in my dimension, despite the Creeds!” said Peni. “Is Santa real in your dimensions, too?”
“I don’t think he’s real in any dimension,” replied Noir.
Peni’s eyes widened. “He’s not?”
How old was this kid? Ten? Definitely no older than thirteen. Somewhere in the preteen range. Somewhere in the “you-should-have-figured-out-about-Santa-Claus-already” range, which doubles as the “you-probably-haven’t-learned-about-Santa-Claus-yet-and-that’s-a-problem-for-all-us-folks-in-the-know” range.
There was no way in which this conversation would end well.
“Uh, he is! Definitely! For sure! I know it! Yeah, he is!” stammered out Peter B.
Now Gwen was annoyed. “Come on, don’t lie to her!”
“Well, we can’t just stamp on Peni’s innocence like that!”
“But she deserves to know the truth!”
“Maybe the truth is something different in her dimension! How would we know?”
Peni looked thoroughly heartbroken. “You mean he’s… not real?”
Noir appeared stunned. “Uhhh…”
Ham butted in. “Uh, yeah, Noir was just kidding around! He wouldn’t know! Go ask your parents!”
“But my dad’s dead!”
“Then, uh, go ask your mom!”
Peter B. interjected. “Please, Peni, don’t worry about it too much. It’s okay to believe.”
Everyone started talking at once, trying to make themselves heard.
“In something obviously false?”
“I mean, the tech is different in her world. Maybe it’s possible?”
“But who would wanna do that?”
“Can we just… stop talking about this?”
“I wanna know the truth! Is Santa real or isn’t he? You’re confusing me!”
May cleared her throat and silenced the hubbub. “Stop arguing. I have fudge.”
Everybody quieted down and took some fudge. It was the perfect distraction.
“So, uh, what was that about making an online dating profile?” asked Peter B. after a couple of awkwardly silent minutes.
May chuckled. “I’ve been single for long enough, I think.”
“Do you need, like, technical help or something?”
May shook her head. “No, I know my way around a computer.”
“You sure?” butted in Gwen.
“Yes, I’m sure. I programmed a neural net two years ago that identifies phishing scams, tracks the IP address of the original sender, installs upside-down-ternet on the device to screw with the UI, and whitelists any phone numbers connected with the email account on seventy-two different telemarketer call lists.”
Gwen’s mouth hung agape.
“Huh?”
“You lost me after neural net,” said Peter B.
May folded her arms over her chest and smirked. “I lose most people after neural net.”
Noir said, “You lost me at program.”
“I understood that. It’s child’s play,” said Peni. “But I can imagine that for you, in as archaic of a society as you are, that’s quite an achievement.”
“Archaic society?” muttered Peter B.
“Then why on earth would you need our help?” asked Ham.
“Because I don’t know what sixty-something-year-old males are looking for in a woman. I mean, what do I put on the profile? What do I leave off? How do I embellish it? How do I get more clicks? Should I tell them I was widowed ten years ago? Should I mention that Spiderman was my nephew?”
Peter’s uncle was dead in this universe? Huh. Gwen was starting to get accustomed to the weird differences between worlds. Of course, she’d thought she’d seen everything until Peni and Ham showed up.
JAMMED FINGERS
Oh, right! Good idea, spider-sense! Thanks for actually being useful for once!
Gwen asked May, “Uh, if you’re so good with tech, could you fix up my webshooters? They keep jamming.”
May grinned. “Of course! Give them to me, and I’ll take a look at them tonight. Now, why don’t you all head off to bed? It’s getting late.”
“And not go on patrol?” asked Noir.
“May’s right,” said Gwen, handing over her gloves. “Not sleeping actually makes our atomic disjunctions worse.”
Everybody at the table gave her a blank look.
“Atomic… what?” asked Peter B.
“The glitching thing.”
“Oh. Gotcha.”
“Where will we sleep?” asked Peni.
That was a good question.
May slipped Gwen’s gloves into her back pocket and thought for a minute. “Uh, there are three rooms and six of us. Hmm… Peter and Peter can take Peter’s old room, and I have a sleeping bag for one of you… Gwen and Peni can take the guest room, since there’s a pull-out cot… I’ll be in my own room… what about Peter?”
“Which one?” asked Peter B., Ham, and Noir simultaneously.
“Uh, I mean the Peter in sweatpants and the Peter in a fedora will share a room. How about you?” May directed the last question to Ham.
He replied, “I can sleep on the couch.”
“Okay, that works. Is everybody okay with that?”
Gwen had no qualms about the setup. Neither did anyone else.
Thirty minutes later, she found herself lying in the cot in the guest room. It was comfortable, as far as pull-out cots go. Peni was half-asleep on the bed, and her spider was on the dresser.
Suddenly, Ham burst through the door. Well, not completely literally, nor did he open the door, but he did appear through the keyhole in a rather sudden fashion. Gwen and Peni both yelled.
“Why do you keep doing that!” exclaimed Gwen.
Ham shrugged. “I’m used to getting places this way. Just wanted to say goodnight to you guys before we all turn in.”
“But, how do you do that? How can you get through tiny gaps like that?” asked Peni.
“I’m, uh, I’m 2.5-dimensional. I think that’s how you’d put it in your worlds. I look and for all purposes am two-dimensional, but I can still move in 3D space and interact with 3D things. Like this picture, for instance.” Ham leaped up and spun around a sepia-tinted photo from the wall, settling it back into place.
“But that doesn’t explain how you can defy gravity,” said Peni.
“That’s toon physics for you.” Ham pulled a pair of spectacles and a graduation cap out of thin air and donned them. He flipped through a comically thick textbook, laid his finger on a paragraph, and began to read. “‘Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its condition.’ -Paco, 1994.”
“And… you operate by the laws of... toon physics? Even though you’re not in a world with toon physics?” asked Peni.
“Yeah, sure. We operate by the principles of the world that we’re from. I mean, look at Peni. She can summon anime backdrops out of thin air and jump forty feet in the air to land in the cockpit of her robot. And Noir’s still in black-and-white. And Gwen still follows the laws of physics from her universe, which happen to be exactly the same as those here. If there was a spider here from a universe with two extra quarks, he’d use the rules of physics of a universe with two extra quarks.”
Gwen blinked. Ham knew a surprising amount.
“How do you know all of this? I mean, you’re a-”
“A cartoon character, I know,” finished Ham. “I get that a lot. But I’ve been Spider-Ham for 35 years. I know my stuff.”
Gwen made a mental note not to underestimate Ham in the future.
“You, uh, don’t look a day over 35,” she said.
“Yeah that’s another thing. I don’t age. Pretty convenient, if you ask me. Well, good night, folks!” Ham gave a wave, then vanished under the door.
Gwen tried to comprehend everything that had just happened. Ham was really weird. At the same time, he was kind of cool.
“How old are you?” Peni asked after a few moments of silence.
“Uh, take a guess.”
“Fourteen?”
Why did everybody think Gwen was so young?
“Nah, sixteen. How about you?”
“Guess!”
“Uh, you’re like ten?”
“I’m eleven and three quarters.”
Okay, so she was close.
“How many people have you killed?” asked Peni, sounding as chipper as ever.
Gwen blinked. “Uh, one. No, two. Both were accidents.”
“In... two years?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s lame.”
“Why, how about you? And, uh, how long have you been doing this for?”
“Twenty-three people. Over the past five and a half months. And none of them were accidents.”
Peni sounded both completely serious and entirely proud of herself. Best not to dwell on that.
All of a sudden, Gwen burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” asked Peni.
“It’s, well, I was early in getting to this dimension, and Miles made a joke about him being on time and everyone else being late because of relativity, and… never mind. You wouldn’t get it.”
Peni asked, “Could you explain it to me? Maybe then I’d get it.”
“Never mind. It’s a moot point. Go to bed.”
“Aww, come on!”
“Good night!”
Gwen rolled over and faced the wall, ignoring Peni’s pleas. After a couple minutes, she drifted off to sleep.
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steamishot · 5 years
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Awake
It’s a little slower at work today, so I have time to mess around aka blog. This past week has been really busy and socially filled. My family from texas (3 families) came to stay at my house for a few days to attend my brother’s wedding. There were like 14 people staying at my house which was way too many. I got to meet one of my cousins Maylee who is from a small city in Texas. She’s more outspoken and not shy. The other three girls were very introverted, and barely spoke. They were here to visit a few years ago, and they were much more engaging then. So because our personalities are pretty similar, there wasn’t a lot of interaction. But anyway, it was just so busy at home and preparing for the wedding that we barely had time to just hang out, and since we’re all introverted too, we were drained by the obligatory social interactions.
The wedding day- woke up at 5am to get our hair and makeup done. The makeup artists were this khmer lady who is supposedly pretty popular as a singer/entertainer and her daughter. The daughter brought her son (~10 years old) and a baby. She was all tatted up lol and I was like oh no I hope she doesn’t make me look ratchet. She asked me if I had a picture of the makeup I wanted and I said no. Then she asked me “natural?” and I said yes. I was the first one to do my makeup and I didn’t necessarily like the way it turned out because everything was overly exaggerated, but everyone else said I looked nice and I just listened to them. I was like wtf, this is natural? Once I saw the other girls makeup, I realized that it didn’t look that great, but I wasn’t the only one lookin like Mulan’s matchmaker so that was okay lmao. One girl told the makeup artist “something’s wrong with my face. I don’t know what’s wrong, but something’s wrong” after she finished her makeup. The makeup artist assured her that the makeup has to be heavy to look good in professional photos. Shrugs. We were just like whatevers but at least the bride’s makeup turned out well.  The morning ceremony  had about 100 or so people. At first, I didn’t know how I would feel about having to see family I don’t really talk to, but after this event… I’m more open to it and not as shy around them anymore. We don’t have to be fake with each other and everyone’s just as busy and preoccupied with their own life to overthink things the way I do. It was actually really beautiful to have everyone in one place celebrating my brother’s wedding.
After the morning ceremony was the photoshoot in Echo Park and then we went to the Airbnb that my brother rented out for out of town guests to hang for a bit before the night reception. All the bridesmaids stripped down their makeup and touched it up. I tried as best I could but by the end of the night I think my makeup/face looked a little towed up because I was so tired haha. The wedding was actually a blast. It wasn’t very formal, like normally the bridesmaids and groomsmen are supposed to line up at the entrance to greet people, but we were just all over the place instead and I wasn’t doing my job. My partner for the entrance was Alfred, and we were the last couple to be introduced before the bride and groom. Our entrance was super awkward LOL and I was seriously nervous and uncomfortable. When they opened up the dancefloor (which was just after the first dish came out) people started dancing. The dancefloor was super packed and I was glad that people were enjoying themselves. Cambodian music started the night and then they played Drake… my friend commented how funny it was seeing old people dancing to drake lol. The bride was like pressuring everyone to drink and she even spilled some brandy on me and others LOL. Apparently everyone was running away from her when they saw her coming over to their table. She was legit pouring alcohol into rice bowls for people to drink and being very aggressive about it. Everyone was fine except my friend/bridesmaid Bena who got wasted and threw up twice. I brought her to the restroom to throw up and was avoiding eye contact with anyone the whole time lol. Although most of my family saw and knew what happened. When she gets a little drunk, she can be overly friendly… one of the groomsmen ended up asking her out a few days later. I also later found out that my introverted 11 year cousin cried by the end of the night because the music was so loud. My dad was hella crazy but had fun being around all his friends. After the wedding I realized we didn’t even take one immediate family photo because we were all spread out trying to run the show/host. Oh wellz. The wedding party was a profit so that was great. My brother and his wife are still tending to people/visitors so they haven’t had a chance to really slow down and return to their normal lives yet. And my family is barely returning to that now. I was super tired up until today. I feel maybe 90% now.
I spent Sunday night/Monday with Matt for my birthday. We had great sex twice and I think we are much more in sync now. Our kissing is way better and now I look forward to kissing him when before I used to avoid it. I went to pick him up from his place in Temple City and he drove my car to Temecula, where we spent the night, because his car was having issues. During our one hour drive, he couldn’t stop talking. I was so exhausted I felt like I was drunk because I can’t really remember wtf he was rambling on about. He said he missed me and didn’t know what to when I was busy during the weekend. However, I think he was really happy that he was comfortable enough to vent to me (again, I don’t even remember what he was talking about for that long). He said he doesn’t normally do this etc. His mom had just gone to the ER the day of, so his mind was kinda elsewhere at times and he was spacier than usual during our time together. The lunch spot I chose wasn’t that great and it was kinda pricey (~70) for what it was. One of the dishes I chose was super salty and we sucked it up/didn’t complain about it but were a little salty about that lol. The hotel was nice though and I think I’m starting to appreciate hotels more. I used to be into getting AirBnBs all the time but sometimes hotels are just easier and you don’t have to think too much. Plus he’s willing to spend over a hundred or so so that’s nice lol. The wine tour we had was bomb/educational and funny because it was a mix of young and old folks, and the old folks had a lot of cool things to say. We went to do a second wine tasting after that at a nearby winery. He notes how I rarely talk about myself and gave me a template “I, Connie, am…” and at first I answered “female”.  Then I remember talking about other things/other people. I don’t really know how to talk about myself but rather I just share what’s going on in my life at the moment and my perspective on it. Because I feel like you can make your own judgement of me from spending time with me, or if you want to know something specific then ask a more specific question. At the end of that, we were both kinda buzzed and I think we have the same alcohol tolerance which works out. He drove back and I kept on wanting to kiss him during the drive. We laughed about how he’s a better/more careful driver when buzzed than when sober because he becomes extra cautious. What we talked about was kinda a blur but I remember telling him how much I think G makes, and that my ex didn’t have parents. I also remember letting out a silent stinky fart and thinking to myself, I hope he doesn’t smell this lol. We had dinner at golden deli. One recurring question he asks is do your guy friends like you? Or something like that. And I always tell him no and that no one likes me. And he finally asked me how I got into my past relationships, because that was one question I asked him. I just said that the guys were persistent and that I didn’t have anything better to do LOL. That I wasn’t very intentional about my last relationships and therefore didn’t take them as seriously. And I said I’m looking for something more stable now. The night before, when we were Netflix and chilling, we brought up the topic of Aziz/Master of None and I asked him which girl/relationship he preferred. He said he preferred the Italian one because their relationship development was very natural. And he told me that his past relationships happened because they were just placed together/saw each other all the time because of school and things just gradually happened. He said he would get to know someone really well before starting a physical relationship with them, to which I started cracking up at, a lot. I laughed so much because he seemed so pure/innocent and I feel like not a lot of attractive guys think that way anymore. He’s still pretty idealist and a romantic for sure, and I think we balance each other out because I’m more practical/cynical. Dropped him off at home and that was the end to a wonderful weekend. Whenever I thank him for something, he likes to thank me for something in return, and one thing he likes to say is “thank you for being you”. Which I think is pretty sweet.
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lordhave · 7 years
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Lord Have...2016
On a macro level, 2016 was a shitty year, for reasons both petty and paramount.
On a micro level, 2016 was so great for me that I almost feel like a jerk even writing about it. And I haven’t been writing much this year, in general. However, I would like to give this year its fair shout outs, as it contained several firsts, some sloppy seconds, and achieving all three parts of the happiness triad (more on that later).  
And now, I will consult my Instagram to compile my recollections, because if it wasn’t on Insta, it basically didn’t happen. Or I didn’t want everyone to know about it or to ever be reminded of it again, anyhow.  
I started 2016 in my first home (a newly renovated condo that I bought in December) with a very dear friend, Ali, who was moving to Wisconsin from her home state of SC for a 2nd time. We wanted to do something relaxed and just spend time together, so we had a New Year’s Eve slumber party with our dogs in my new living room, watching movies and drinking Brut Rose by the fire. It was lovely.
My mom’s dad passed away in December of ‘15, and we had postponed his service until after the holidays. I went upstate to Greenville to attend my grandfather’s funeral, which was an intense way to begin the year. But it was amazing how, now that he had passed after a slow, natural decline, images of him in his prime grandfatherhood came rushing back: summers at Lake Murray, Christmases in Atlanta, and him reading The Giving Tree to me in the sun room/smoking porch (it was the 80s). I owe so much to him, and I have made sure to memorialize him around my new house, most notably with a large glass bowl on a wooden stand full of his matchbook collection. He was a prominent business man in Atlanta who traveled all over the world, and that collection connects me to his life in a way that few other relics do. It’s a good reminder to work hard and to travel often. I’ve started adding a few of mine to the bowl.
And with the funerals, thankfully, come the weddings. Later in January, I traveled to Denver for the wedding of one of my best friends from college and his awesome partner. She suits him, and our wacky college friend group, very well. I knew I would see my friend Sara, who also lives in Denver, and Rachel who would come from San Diego to her previous city of residence for the occasion, and some other guy pals from college, one whom I hadn’t seen since then and one that I had just happened to see in Baltimore the previous September. However, I was surprised, at the airport, by another “friend of the bride” who Sara was supposed to pick up when she came to get me, which ended up being Tabby, another of our best friend group. I cried in the airport. Overall, it was a bit cold for my taste, but we were all warmed by our very apparent love for one another that weekend.
In February, Rachel, Tabby, Sara, and I were reunited once again to celebrate dirty 30s for Tabby and Sara...in Mexico (a first for me!). Nine of us rented a big house in a bouji gated community on the beach that was two streets from the cliffs/beach and had a 180 degree ocean view from the porch (which was my selling point). We all flew into San Diego, where Rachel and her partner Jeff live, and then we road tripped down to Rosarito, near Tijuana, right over the border. We had a great time, and Rachel, Sara, Tabby, and I may or may not have gotten matching Warren Wilson tattoos at our rental house (from a professional among us who brought the proper, sterile equipment). Another first. 
In April, Rachel came all the way from San Diego for my 29th Birthday, and my parents came down, as well. We did lots of fun stuff--drinking daiquiris on the oceanfront, eating at a restaurant I’ve never gone back to, and partying at a dive bar that is now out of business. It was nice to have one of my best friends in town to see my first home and do the things that I also don’t usually get to do like kayak Shem Creek or have a Chinese feast in the middle of the day (hey...that place is closed now too…). Rachel has been there for me since my 20th birthday, so I hope that continues into the next decade, but I’ll never have a 20-something birthday again, and I’ll probably never eat or party at any of the places we went that weekend again, either. Fitting. 
In May, I traveled to Nashville for a wedding of one of the couples who came to Mexico. I had known them through Sara since college, and they invited me to the wedding after being reminded of our strong kinship while in Mexico. Sara was a bridesmaid, and we stayed together at her parents’ house along with two of our other best friends, Chris and Elizabeth, whom were introduced by Sara during college. It was on this trip that we (semi-accidentally) found out that Chris and Elizabeth were expecting...and they were going to name the baby...wait for it...Sara! As if the wedding didn’t have my lovey dovies ramped up enough as it was...Lord have mercy!
In June, I went to visit one of our best college friends who wasn’t able to join us in Mexico, Heather. My 18 and 20-year-old cousins were going on a New England road trip together that summer, and they planned to be in Chatham, Cape Cod, our late grandfather’s hometown, so I planned a trip to see Heather that would combine joining my cousins in paying homage as well as hanging out with Heather and her new puppy at her dad’s house on the Cape. My uncle, aunt, and other cousin ended up coming up to Chatham as well, so one day, Heather and I took the three girls and the puppy up to Provincetown. On the way, we stopped to meet one of my grandfather’s sisters, and she knew who I was as soon as she saw me, though I can’t recall meeting her before then. Even her husband, who suffers from dementia of some sort, knew I was Tommye’s daughter by looking at my face. That was a special moment to be so familiar to someone so strange to me, though they were family. After that short visit, we headed up to fabulous P-Town, where we spent all day exploring and ended the night with a beautiful sunset on the beach then pizza and Ben and Jerry’s. It was, quite literally, one of the best days of my life. Being with my cousins, one of my best friends, AND a puppy in a funky beach town in June? Can’t beat it.
The rest of the summer was booked solid with visitors, and I loved every minute of it. I think I had visitors almost every weekend that I wasn’t away from March through July, with very few weekends off, which were taken up with all the great friends I have HERE, old and new.
In September, I made my first trip (ever!) to Wisconsin to visit Ali, with whom I had started the year and seen only a couple of short times since. It was such a treat to see HER first home after we had spent the new year in mine, and her pets and her neighborhood, and meet her awesome boyfriend. Wisconsin is a very idyllic place, and I can see why she is so happy there. Who wouldn’t be happy in a state with that level of cheese production? We also visited a Mustard Museum, which is another proud first for me in 2016.
In October, my parents and I had rented an old oceanfront house on Edisto Beach. It has 4 bedrooms and we had it for a week, so luckily, my friends Michael and Celena were able to come for the good part of the week before we had to casually evacuate for a hurricane a few days later (my first evacuation!). Hurricane Matthew was relatively merciful on the Charleston area, but when my parents took a trip back to Edisto to check out the damage, the house we had rented was missing its back porch and stairs down to the beach. The water reached under the house at high tide as it was, before the storm. The house was marked unfit for entry.
I already had the whole week off from work to be at Edisto, and I would have evacuated from Charleston anyway, so I went upstate to my parents’ house with them to wait out the storm. I was able to go to Asheville for some food and bev one afternoon, and it was never more obvious to me how privileged I am that a natural disaster results in me having to go to the mountains on a sort of forced vacation. I am sorry to those who did not experience it that way…
October consisted of several birthday and Halloween parties, and I came up with a pretty good, off-the-cuff, clever get-up, as I usually do. I was the Snapchat dog filter. A friend from work moved away, so there were some fond farewells. And there was a lot of anticipation to what I consider my high point of the year.
When I found out that Chris and Elizabeth were pregnant in May (first friends from the group to have a baby!), the wheels immediately started turning on how we were going to commemorate this monumental event in all of our lives. Over that time, amid doing all of this shit you’ve been reading about, I was planning a surprise baby shower in Chattanooga at an Air BnB for Elizabeth. It was for Chris too, but he knew the whole time. We rented a cute little cottage where we could all stay AND host the shower, as the parents-to-be were renovating their house and living with his folks at the time. We had friends fly in from Denver (Sara), San Diego (Rachel), Virginia (Tabby), and drive from Nashville (Meghan, whose wedding we were at in May),  Louisville (Caitlin), Asheville and Winston Salem (best friends of Elizabeth’s from childhood), and Charleston/Columbia (me and another of her best childhood friends, whom I picked up along the way). Caitlin even found out when she checked in that the couple who owned the Air BnB had a son who went to...wait for it...Warren Wilson...and he had designed the super cool backyard we hung out in all weekend.
Elizabeth thought that only Sara and I were coming to visit and that we had rented a small Air BnB, so when she and Chris came to the house on Friday night, we ran out to greet them while the rest of the crew waited inside. When she walked inside, I cued “You Are the Best Thing” by Ray Lamontagne, and everyone popped out of the dining room. We hosted a space-themed baby shower the next day at the Air BnB (our college suite was called The Space Pod...don’t worry about it), with a focus on owls (our college mascot) and other woodland creatures (their actual nursery theme). I even had our friends from The Space Pod who couldn’t make the journey mail me their gifts, both of which were handmade and wonderful, and I made a video of her opening them at the shower so the senders could see how happy they had made her. After the wonderful baby shower, we all spent the day enjoying Chattanooga and each other, including a tour of their neighborhood and their almost-finished house (they were adding a second story due to their other new addition). It was a blissful time, and we even got those huge Mylar letter balloons that spelled out SARA, the acquisition and financing of which caused me no small amount of concern. However, fitting them all in the car with the other large balloons after they were all inflated was probably the greatest logistical challenge of the weekend, and we almost lost Caitlin to latex suffocation in the backseat, but the pictures with them turned out great! I am so thankful that I have friends that can come together not only to have the most fun ever! but also to coordinate and plan a lovely event for someone we love. This was, without a doubt, my favorite weekend of the year.  SHOUTOUT TO MY FINKLETS; YALL THE BEST!
Then there was the election. No fucking comment on that.
I pretty much just rolled my disgrace at America into being a cheer-producing, food and retail consuming fembot, writing Christmas cards, buying gifts, and eating everything in sight from Thanksgiving until January 1st. But the holidays were fun.
OH. Oh. And I forgot to mention...I got a new job. At a place I’ve had my eye on for quite some time. So basically, I really wanted to break up with my boyfriend (AKA my last job), but I waited until the guy I really wanted and have been eyeing FINALLY got my number and asked me out before I took the plunge cause #security lol. But my new job doesn’t actually start until January 10th, so I’m in that fake mourning period for my last relationship before I get ALL UP IN this new-new. I’m excited. No, I don’t have an actual boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or anything mentioned in this story...besides the new job. *Insert picture of me in the Snapchat filter where the pixelated sunglasses come down and then something explodes behind me.*
A guy I used to do theatre with in Asheville back in 2009/2010 imparted lots of wisdom upon me as I was following him around like a love-struck puppy all the time (I was 21 or 22 and he was probably 30 and had a girlfriend). He was a kind person, a high school drama teacher, and he told me, in one of my melancholy moments, about the happiness triad. Actually, he never referred to it by that name or any other, but what he basically did say was this: “There are three factors that determine your day to day happiness: where you live, what you do or your job, and who you hang out with, and if you are happy with at least 2 of those 3, you’re doing ok. If not, it’s time for a change.” I would say that I have achieved the happiness triad going into this year. And that feels good. I wonder if that guy is single now…
Lots of people got engaged over Christmas and New Years, as per usual, but I couldn’t be happier to be going into 2017 with a new job and a home that I own and LOVE, a great dog, awesome friends (literally, awesome, not like, how people usually use it), strong family bonds, a paid-off car, no STDs, a savings account that has a high enough cycle average to even exist, and a good sense of who I am. And anytime that 2017 tries to fuck that up for me, I’ll be zoning out, back to me smoking weed legally in Denver at a wedding reception, screaming with glee at blue waves crashing over the side of a cliff I’m standing on in Mexico, dancing under a full moon in Sagittarius in a field in Tennessee, watching a sunset on Cape Cod with my cousins and best friend (and a puppy!), being a tourist in my own town with so many dear friends, being at a college football tailgate with Ali wearing Badger Red instead of Tiger Orange, playing FARKLE at an Edisto beach house, staying in a house with all of my best friends celebrating the start of the next generation, and sitting in a church pew from the 1820s on Christmas Eve with my family, singing Hark the Herald with all the gusto that I usually muster for favorites such as Landslide or No Diggity, because my mom is next to me, and I know she loves to hear me sing.
I am not the sum of my blog posts or Instagrams or Tweets. None of us are. It’s the moments that are never quite capturable, never quite as magical in a photo as they were through your eyes or ears. The moments when you feel the secrets about life that no one can articulate. When you understand what love really is. That’s what makes us.
When I look back on this year, my greatest memory, my greatest strength, my greatest talent...is love. Love is what I have to give, and I hope the world is ready to accept it...from me or from whoever is going to make them want to share it back.
Thank you for indulging me. I wish you all the best in this next trip around the sun. Be brave, be kind, be loving, be loved, be you. That’s all we’ve really got.
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