mermaid, reborn

Picture from high school graduation trip to Aruba. I never wanted to come out of the water.

I have always described myself as a mermaid. I love being in the water. It feels like home to me. I grew up on the Massachusetts coast and spend most days on the beach in some way. I have no problem swimming in what other people consider really cold water (we were on the upper side of Mass, so we didn't get the tail end of the gulf current). As long as the water didn't cause me pain, I could happily swim and play in the waves sometimes for over an hour at a time. I used to only come out when I was little when my lips were purple and I was shivering and my mother insisted. And even today, when I go to the beach, no matter what the weather, I have to put my feet in the water. I just don't feel fully part of the beach and the ocean until I am splashing in the water.

Since moving to Portland a few years ago, I've had to get used to not living near water, and having to plan to go to the beach.

Now that we're in NC, we are no closer to the ocean than we were in Portland, but at least we are near lakes.

We went to a lake in North Raleigh today, and just being in water made me feel so happy and free, and like yes...ok, now it is summer.

I am still, and will always be, an ocean mermaid. Lakes just aren't the same, no waves, no tides, and the water was brown from the silt. But it was still nice to play in the water again. My mermaid self hadn't been out to play since my birthday weekend at the beginning of July. Far too long to be on landlegs.

From creative writing prompts -- they provided the first line

She touched the little box in her pocket and smiled. She couldn’t wait to see his face when he opened the box. After days and days of searching, combing through every store, wandering in and out of thrift stores, she finally found the perfect gift.

It was a small fairy pin, a little boy fairy sitting on a leaf, dangling his feet and grinning. It reminded her so much of him, the way that a grin could light his face at any moment. She often thought of him as a life size peter pan, impish grin, ready to take off on a new adventure at a moment’s notice.

He wasn’t afraid of life, of just trying something new, and not caring whether or not he failed. He just had to try it.

She so wanted to be like that. She wanted to feel brave and creative. She wanted to open the door inside that she kept tightly locked at all times because she was afraid that if she opened herself up, she would never be the same.

Put on your dancing shoes

I was reading Giggling in the Rain and her post about Get up and Dance made me want to make a Get up and Dance playlist of my own.

I am always dancing, I just love having fun to music. But I didn't have a playlist of the songs that make me have to get up and jump around.

Songs that have me shaking my boo-tay (warning, extreme cheese to follow):

Dig Down AdriAnne Lenker
Candy girl (sugar, sugar) Archies
It 's My Life Bon Jovi
Jump Jive And Wail Brian Setzer Orchestra
The Bible and the Belt Bucky Covington
Zoot Suit Riot Cherry Poppin' Daddies
Ain't No Other Man Christina Aguilera
Candyman Christina Aguilera
Girls Just Want to Have Fun Cyndi Lauper
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Come On Eileen Dexie's Midnight Runners
The Bitch Is Back Elton John
Devil's Dance Floor Flogging Molly
Lucky Star Madonna
Cherry, Cherry Neil Diamond

What makes you feel like dancing?

some fun, old (and embarrassing photos)

These are photos from my birthday scrapbook, which is very possibly my favorite gift ever.




A friend I made while I was in Ireland. This was one of the Irish isles, Innishmoore, I believe. My dad loves this photos, because he is not sure who looks more uncertain.





I have always been a mermaid (with land legs, unfortunately), so it makes sense that I would want to learn how to scuba dive and snorkel so I could spend lots of time under water. This is from a christmas morning, when I was in early high school. Photographed with me is Baby, from the short-lived show, Dinosaurs. He had a string on his back, and if you pulled it, he would say things like "Not the Mama!" and "I'm the baby, gotta love me." For some reason, he cracked me up.






Oh the pants. The humiliation of seeing this pants. And the horror of the knotted shirt. And yet I am blogging about them. What is the internet for, if not to show off embarrassing moments? This was on a nighttime party cruise in Aruba. I went there with my parents after my high school graduation. I remember thinking how great I looked in that outfit. Ah, the wisdom that comes with hindsight....

Eight, eight is great!

Me and Mik, one of my closest and bestest friends.
















A lot of bloggly ladies have been playing tag, and posting eight facts about themselves.

I haven't been tagged, but I wanted to play too, so I am :)

1. I have onion-phobia. I HATE onions. Smell, taste, raw, cooked. If there are onions in something, I have to pick them out before I can eat it, if there are too many onions, and it tastes oniony, I can't eat it at all. But I love garlic.

2. Since 2003, I have lived in eight different houses, in three different states (Mass, Oregon, NC). We've only been in our current house for two months, but I really like it, and feel at home for the first time in a long time.

3. I love journals and pens and stickers and stamps, but I dont' always journal as often as I should. I tend to go in spurts, sometimes journaling four times per day, sometimes nothing for weeks. I once wrote a journal entry, with my journal asking why I didn't play with it more often.

4. I had to start eating chicken after being strict vegetarian for nine years, because I found out I can't eat wheat or gluten, and my food options felt very limited. I actually like it much more than I thought I would, but I have to deliberately not think about what I'm eating. While I will never eat meat again, I do admit that burgers on the grill smell really good.

5. I was a certified scuba diver by the age of 13. I would live in the water if I could.

6. I don't like watching sports, but I love sports movies, like Invincible and Glory Road. I love rooting for the underdog.

7. I am an only child. When I was little, I planned to run away if my parents had another kid. Now I wish I had a brother or sister. I also have a very vivid, and weird, imagination. I used to pretend on road trips, that we were being followed, that my parents were actually kidnapping me, and planning how I would escape and get away.

8. I will often walk around a store, carrying something I like, then put it back when we leave. I like carrying it around, and admiring it, but I don't always want to spend the money to buy it.

This was fun!

Picture pages, picture pages

Some photos from the birthday cookout/gathering/party








Me and Mikki












Mikki and T











RM, me and Mik










RM, me, Tracy, Mik






















Me, as a silly dancing queen











The homeboys

30, Flirty and Thriving

Me, at my beach after my 30th birthday party

I had so much fun turning 30, it was really perfect in just about every way. The flight home was easy-peasy (an hour and a half, how cool is that?!). It was so short we didn't feel like we had been traveling at all.

Friday night, my parents gave me the best present they have ever given me -- they made me a scrapbook with pictures from the time I was a baby on up. This is huge. My mother is not someone who does creative projects. And she is not someone who makes homemade gifts, or generally appreciates them. She made a scrapbook for my aunt that came out excellent, and I just raved about how thoughtful it was, so she listened and made me one.

I can't describe how much I love it, how much I love that they put in all this time and effort, choosing the right pictures, the right layouts, the right accent decorations. I will treasure it always.

Saturday was the party, or cookout, or gathering, as I started calling it. I hate things where I am the center of attention, and I haven't had anything for my birthday, other than just my parents, since I was 16. But this was a lot of fun. Some of my closest friends were there. My parents and some longtime family friends, family on my mom's side.

While I obviously didn't get to spend as much time with everyone as I would have liked, it was great to see everyone all in one place. Seeing my friends again only served to remind me how much I miss them, but now I can get back to see most of them on a more regular basis.

Sunday was my actual birthday, and I spent it in such a perfectly me way. We went to my beach, I got to play in the water for a long time since it was really nice and comfortable. Tim even came in with me for a while. After the beach, I went up to the scuba shop to see my second family, the family I babysat for growing up, and then stopped in at another store to say hi to Bailey, their daughter.

It was fun and special and I will now always have great memories of turning 30. Can't wait to see what this new decade will bring!

Traveling!

We will be back in Mass tomorrow night, for the first time since Christmas, and we are both more than ready. One of the many cool parts: we only have a two hour flight to get there!!

Other cool parts: My parents are flying us up

We're having a cookout at my parents on Saturday, and I will get to see almost everyone I really care about all in one place.

I get to go to my beach, one of my favorite places in the world.

And oh yeah, I turn 30 on Sunday. That's not too bad either.

Hooray peer pressure!

Ok, that might seem like an odd post title, but today it was definitely a good thing.

I went out for my first trail run in NC today, meeting a group of runners from MeetUp.com for a run at Lake Johnson. The lake was really pretty, all green, with morning light making the trees glow and the lake sparkle. Lots of geese and ducks everywhere (watch where you step!), who were happy sunbathing and looking for food. One big goose hissed at me, but I told him to be nice, and he seemed to agree to.

The other runners were nice and easy to talk to. I ended up running with this girl Jenn, who runs at my pace and we talked about being people-without-kids in an area where being asked if you have kids is probably the second, maybe third question you get asked.

We ran just over three miles on a nice paved trail through the forest. We got back to the boathouse, waited for the other runners to get there and decided to do an extra loop, this time a dirt trail that was just over a mile. This was an actual trail, with some good hills, walking on a log to cross a small stream, dodging roots and such. Now just the first part of the loops was already the longest I'd run down here, but I'm glad I kept going. I felt good, and really enjoyed myself. I only had to stop once near the top of a particularly steep hill.

And where does the peer pressure come in? Well, it's harder to just stop or quit when you are with other people, and I certainly wouldn't have done the second loop if I had been on my own (plus the added bonus that I didn't know where I was going...)

It was the longest I've run down here, and I feel like I'm home now.

The joys of wheels

The other day, Lisa and I went rollerskating for 18+ night at Oaks Park. It was so much fun, and being on wheels makes me happy. It reminds me of how I was almost always on skates when I was younger. And it was fun to skate to music, not recorded organ music.

One of the things that made the night even more fun was watching other people and their joy in skating. There was an older guy who was zipping along on his roller blades. Girls who were dancing backwards. A rink worker who was having all kinds of fun zooming around backwards (I really want to learn how to skate backwards!). There was this black guy with a Rastafarian-type hat who was doing all these great dance skate moves who was just having so much fun.

It was neat to see how wheels make people happy.

Biblical Plagues

As depicted by Peeps (found via Dooce)

Awesome. Peep terror is funny :)

Peep biblical plagues

Black and chocolate

We need a chocolate lab, I think...

wanna see how fast I can run?

Yesterday, I had a great wellness exercise class, we ran to the track and did a lot of sprints. We would sprint the straight away, then do an easy walk or jog on the corners. We would run a few laps at normal pace, then go back to the sprinting.

I felt like I was flying, and like I was back in school, trying to see how fast I can run. (Sidenote, in elementary school, I was the fastest kid in the school for a very little while. I beat out the fastest boy once. It was cool!) I have absolutely gotten faster and stronger, and it was so much fun to just really push it and see how hard I could run.

"Yeah, I run like a girl. Try to keep up!" From one of the best t-shirts I've seen in a long time, and I need to find it and buy it.