Carolina Pride

I'm a very sad North Carolinian this week. I'll just re-post what I wrote on Facebook shortly after Amendment 1 passed, Please remember, come November, when you start complaining that a politician wants to take away your money, religion, or guns, that you took away the right of an entire segment of our state to commit to the person they love. 

However, even though I hang my head in shame at those that voted to do this, I still am proud of where I come from.

And just as a reminder to myself, and, more importantly, to any outsiders who could stumble across this blog, there are so many wonderful things about North Carolina. Here are some great things about the state and some of my favorite things:

• Barbecue—Western and Eastern (Though Eastern is better.) 
• UNC v. Duke—The greatest basketball rivalry in the country
• Pepsi—Born in New Bern
• Krispy Kreme—Born in Winston Salem
• Bojangles—Headquartered in Charlotte
• Every UNC player who ever wore the jersey, even if they aren't from here. (And even the ones who left early.) 
• Michael Jordan , Richard Petty, Josh Hamilton, Julius Peppers, and Roy Williams
• James Taylor and Ava Gardner 
• Charles Kuralt and Edward R. Murrow 
• James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson 
• Dolly Madison 
• Thomas Wolfe
• Bill Friday—Education pioneer 
• Jim Hunt—The education governor 
• Johnny Grant—Honorary mayor of Hollywood and from my hometown!
• Erskine Bowles—Has worked for multiple presidents
• Nicholas Sparks and every one of his books, which take place here
• Sarah Dessen
• The mountains
• The beach
• Tobacco (Sorry, but if you've ever enjoyed a cigarette, it may have originated in NC.) 
• The First Flight taken by the Wright Brothers
• Dogwood trees and Bradford pear trees in bloom on a spring day 
• Duke Chapel and Duke Gardens
• When a little snow shuts down a whole town 
• A field covered in snow, as far as the eye can see 
• A sudden summer rainstorm 
• The way my neighborhood smells on a Saturday after everyone's been cutting grass 
• Hunkering down with your family during a hurricane 
• And helping a neighbor clean up afterward 
• Jordan Lake and the bald eagle preserve
• The Battleship North Carolina 
• Wilmington—Filming location of Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill (and more)
• A field full of fluffy cotton, waiting to be picked 
• Bright yellow fruit stands on the side of the road and their misspelled signs 
• Getting stuck behind a tractor driving down the road at 10 mph 
• Old tobacco barns 
• Illegal fireworks on the 4th of July 
• Lightning bugs 
• Chapel Hill on a spring day
• Chapel Hill on a summer day 
• Chapel Hill on a fall day 
• Chapel Hill on a winter day 
• Chapel Hill every day 
• Roanoke Colony—First English attempt to colonize America 
• Virginia Dare—First child born in the Americas 
• The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse 
• The Cape Lookout Lighthouse 
• All the lighthouses 
• Where Blackbeard the pirate chose to settle down. (Maybe I shouldn't brag about that one.) 
• Wildflowers on the side of the highway 
• Cherry lemon sun drop 
• Pine trees everywhere
• Riding down winding roads in the country, surrounded by trees, occasionally passing a stream or a deer
• Old family cemeteries in the middle of a field

This is not an exhaustive list. And these are only the things I could recall without having to do additional research.

Wednesday Words

I want to say a little something that’s long overdue

The disrespect to women has got to be through 

To all the mothers and sisters and wives and friends 

I want to offer my love and respect to the end. 

-MCA/Adam Yauch, Beastie Boys, Sure Shot 

 "Once you've realized that you’re living in a world that believes women are 'less than' in every imaginable way, one of the things that can be most frustrating is that very few men get it...When you speak up about any sense of unfairness or injustice, you’re told that you’re overreacting, you’re too angry, too silly—shut up already. 

 But listening to this band that you love so much say that your pain is real, that the world is fucked up and that they are not going to participate in actions that hurt you anymore because they care about you—it was the overwhelming feeling of being made visible. They were sending a clear message to their female fans: this isn’t okay, we have your back, we’re sorry. 

 Maybe the shift of a band from seemingly misogynist frat boys to thoughtful messengers of feminism isn’t the most transgressive, radical thing in the world. But for women who love hip hop—or who love pop culture—and are denigrated by it every day, it was validation. For one of the first times, the music I loved loved me back." 

-Jessica Valenti, MCA's Feminist Legacy

Being a Feminist is something that I'm extremely proud of and something that infiltrates every area of my life. Except, I'm realizing, this blog. Perhaps because it's one of the only topics I'm 100% comfortable addressing with words, in public, with just about anyone. 

One such topic I've addressed, on more than one occasion, is how I can call myself a Feminist and also listen to some rap music. I'm not going to lie, it can be incredibly difficult and is something I struggle with. For years, largely thanks to the vitriol of Eminem, I avoided rap music. However, this was an ignorant decision which led to avoiding an entire culturally significant genre. And it made me almost as bad as the misogynist lyricists and their despicable rhetoric. 

The Beastie Boys were the first rap group I could listen to without being assaulted by misogyny. (Though I should note, the first album of theirs I heard was "Hello Nasty," which came after their frat boy-esque earlier albums.) Thus Valenti's article, MCA's Feminist Legacy, is something I not only agree with -- especially the portion on the 1999 VMAs, which I distinctly remember -- but will remember and use in conversations for a long time.

I promise next week's Wednesday Words won't be quite so wordy. I can also promise more Feminism on the blog. It's a huge part of who I am and something I want to write about more. And I'm not at all sorry for that.

Things I Learned This Weekend

Updated because I forgot one.


Nothing ruins a Friday like the death of a Beastie Boy.
I'm honestly still in shock that MCA is dead. Beastie Boys don't die--they rhyme and steal, they fight for the right. They were the first rap group I ever listened to and the first CD I ever owned with a "parental advisory." He will be missed.

There's always something new to see at the National Cathedral.
For the third time I went to the National Cathedral Flower Mart. I'll write more about it later this week (and the Cape Party I mentioned I last week) but it was so nice to be on the Cathedral grounds. This year I walked through the gardens and a wooded trail, which I didn't know existed, and just smiled the whole time. I love the city but I'm still a country girl at heart.

Eli Manning + Saturday Night Live = Hilarious

As much as I love Eli, I was worried about him hosting this week since he's so quiet and shy. However, he blew me away and I laughed until my face was numb. Highlight: The portion of the Madden motion capture sketch where they ask him to fake throw a grenade. Also, everything else.

Dressing for The Kentucky Derby is fun. (And the race is ok, too.)

One of my friends has a Derby party every year and this year I went. It was a double party, a Derby Fiesta if you will, since it was also Cinco de Mayo. The occasion required a fascinator, of course, which I put together with some flowers from a cheap Forever 21 headband and another headpiece I already had.

 
What the occasion didn't require, but that I purchased anyway, was a very Donna Reed but also very Derby dress for $24 from Forever 21. I'm in love.

Mint Juleps are gross.

And very strong. I probably only had the equivalent of 4 tablespoons and could still feel it starting to take hold. This is why I don’t drink liquor.

Betting is fun when you only lose $3.

Everyone bet $1 per horse. I placed my money on Creative Cause, Rousing Sermon, and Sabercat. I didn't win.

A room full of intelligent, educated adults can't handle even the thought of the death scene in "The Lion King."
After the Derby, my friend channel surfed for something to watch. We all agreed that "The Lion King" would be good, as long as we didn't see the Mufasa death and Simba tugging on his ear scenes. She kept checking back every few minutes, and at one point it was right on the stampede scene, and every adult in the room gasped or screamed as my friend scrambled to change the channel. Crisis averted.


Even screaming can't ruin a good night's sleep. 
I slept for about 12 hours on Saturday night. I also had dream after dream after dream. None were nightmares, per se, but two resulted in me yelling and waking myself up as a result. (I know the first time I yelled "Help!" and the second time I just yelled.) Luckily, I didn't wake up the roommate or neighbors. Or if I did, they didn't say anything, so I'd rather not know. 

I can never buy another little black dress. 
I finally finished switching out my summer and winter clothes, sorting through clothes, reorganizing scarves and belts, and hanging up skirts and dresses even though they'll end up in a pile for most of the summer. I can't really buy any more clothing of any kind, but especially black dresses as I have…several. 

Having your kitchen in your living room is a real pain.
That's right, the contents of our kitchen are still in our living room. We're still seeing bugs and our complex told us if we still see them after a week, they'll come out and re-spray. So to avoid putting everything away and then taking it back out again, we're just leaving everything in the living room. You can imagine how much fun it is to try and put together a meal.

Happy Birthday, Audrey!

In honor of what would have been her 83rd birthday.

 

 

"I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person."

All photos from Rare Audrey Hepburn: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Creepy crawlies

Warning: I'm tired and cranky and my head hurts and this post is lame and has lots of commas. But I'm writing it anyway.

Our apartment complex has had an infestation of German cockroaches. Luckily, these aren't what you think of when you hear the word "roach;" they're more like small moths. But they are bugs and the complex scheduled exterminators. To prepare, we had to remove everything from our kitchen and bathrooms and wipe out all cabinets. One would think that two young women who have amassed two dozen moves between them in the 10 years since leaving for college would be minimalists. More nomads than hoarders. Well...

Exhibit A:

Everything from my bathroom, in the shower stall, covered with a sheet. Which is what they told us to do.

And which is all still in my shower stall, covered with a sheet, at 10 p.m., as I put off taking a shower because I don't want to deal with it.

Exhibit B:

Everything in our kitchen moved to the living room.

Everything in our kitchen moved to the living room and covered with sheets. 

It kind of reminds me of when my mom bakes bread each year and covers the rolls with sheets. Except our apartment smells like bug spray, not bread, and when we take the sheets off, it's just going to be all our stuff, out of place.


For reference, this is our kitchen, which holds a lot more than we realized, apparently.

To be fair to my roommate, the majority of this junk is mine, and if anyone would qualify as a hoarder, it would be me. But if anything is driving me to be more of a nomad minimalist, it's definitely the thought of having to put all this stuff away. I don't like being a grown up.

Wednesday Words

"Women are complicated. Women are multi-faceted. Not because women are crazy but because people are crazy and women just happen to be people." 

-Tavi Gevinson, TEDxTeen Talk

25 Things I Fear For Good Reason

The majority of the time I'm a very rational, level-headed person. Sure, I can be dramatic and excitable and crazy, but that's not my default. As for the rest of the time, I tend to be consumed by one dominant trait: Anxiety. Even when applying all my rationality, telling myself over and over to stop thinking about something, to stop worrying about something, it tends to just get worse. When the anxiety monster strikes, nothing will make it stop. It continues to pick and pick until I cry, scream, have a panic attack, or become immobile.

This year I've been actively working on conquering my anxiety and am getting better. But that's not what I want to talk about right now. Let's have a little fun with Anxious Bonnie first.

A recent post on the website Hello Giggles, 20 Things I Vaguely Fear With No Explanation, had me clicking and reading faster than anything. While only one of hers is also one of mine, it got me reminiscing. I have spent a lot of time worrying about things, mainly things that could never happen, but in order to ensure they don't happen, I've had to worry about them first. 

So these are some thoughts that have consumed me more than once, for more than 30 minutes, and some for many years. Some I've even lost sleep over, like the prison one. A lot of them no longer phase me. But some will still grab hold of my brain, like the prison one. (Prison really scares me.)

• Fainting in public and being robbed or rubbed.
• Being stalked by someone and how ineffective a restraining order would be.
• Marrying someone and having them lie to me about their identity or plot to kill me like in a Lifetime movie.
• Going to a foreign country and being accused of drug smuggling and going to jail like in "Brokedown Palace."
• Falling accidentally from a great height and people think it's suicide.
• Losing my shoes and having to walk home barefoot.
• Being swept away in a tsunami because I don't have enough upper-body strength to hold on to anything.
• Being accused of or framed for a crime I didn't commit.
• Going to prison.
• Drowning alone.
• Falling off a cruise ship and surviving in the ocean for several days before dying.
• Having my drink drugged in a bar.
• Dying from mass influenza and plague.
• Dying from or witnessing a mass and coordinated bird attack
• Being held captive and tortured, specifically involving fingernails and teeth.
• Being held at gunpoint and saying something stupid and getting shot.
• Being in a coma like in "Diving Bell and Butterfly" and only able to communicate by blinking, but no one realizes.
• Having everyone else think I'm insane but I think I'm totally sane.
• Being committed to a mental institution when I really am sane.
• Having all telecommunication networks down and no way to contact my family.* 
• Leaving my work laptop on the metro.
• Choking alone.
• Falling in shower alone.
• Falling and breaking my front teeth. 
• Being at the Zoo when animals break out of their enclosure and then they attack me. Or animals escaping from the National Zoo and running the 2 or so miles to my apartment and attacking me.

*This one is actually quite serious and outlined in terrifying detail at the Spy Museum as a potential terrorist attack. With no computers, Internet, power, etc., we'd have no ATMs or phones. So, parents, we need a plan: I'll come to NC. I know you're probably thinking that I have a terrible sense of direction and would end up in New York, but I'd realize it once I got to Maryland, and would turn around then.

Things I Learned This Weekend

The ratio of marshmallows to oat pieces in Lucky Charms is still way off.
Someone left a small box of the cereal in the work kitchen and I had it for breakfast for the first time in a very long time on Friday morning.

 
There's a reason I don't buy potato chips and keep them in my apartment.
Because in three days I've ate all but a few handfuls of a bag of family-sized Utz potato chips. (To be fair, they were my dinner on Friday and my lunch on Sunday, so maybe it's not that bad.)

Everything is better with a cape.
One of my friend's celebrates her birthday each year with a cape party bar crawl where everyone wears a cape out and about. It was magnificent. More on this later this week.

Beer is gross.
And I don't understand how people drink it.

Bonnie + wine + Rihanna = dancing
I don't dance. Unless, apparently, a friend insists Rihanna isn't singing "birthday cake," but "birthday cape." And, obviously, if you're wearing a cape, you have no choice but to dance to this.

Bonnie + wine + Kanye = more dancing
He wasn't singing about a birthday cape, but it's Kanye, and I hate that I love him.

I need to stop buying fresh flowers.In the past two weeks I've spent $30 on flowers. In case you weren't aware, I'm not a Rockefeller*, so this needs to stop. 

Taking a three hour nap on Sunday and then sleeping easily on Sunday night means I was really, really tired.
And I shouldn't feel guilty about not getting much done yesterday.

There's nothing wrong with eating peanut butter straight out of the jar with a spoon.
And if there is, then I don't want to be right.

*At what point do we stop referencing a Rockefeller or Vanderbilt when talking about great wealth, and start referring to a Gates, Branson, or Buffett? Or do people already do that and I just insist on staying old school?

100 Secrets: 80-71

80. The only way I know how to tie shoelaces is by making two loops.
79. I can only sleep on my stomach.
78. People dressed as mascots, animals, characters, or in any costume where you can't see their head, completely terrify me.
77. Every time I see the word "adolescence," I read it as "a dole sense."
76. I never cursed until I started drinking.
75. When I get angry, I go from zero to apoplectic in 30 seconds or less.
74. I don't/can't sleep with a top sheet.
73. Any honey I buy has to be in a bear bottle.
72. I want to retire in Chapel Hill.
71. It's only been in the last 6 months that I've been able to drink water from the bathroom faucet like it's water from any other faucet. (Which I realize it is.)

Wednesday Words

"Look what she did when things changed abruptly: chose to go her own route once the others had crept away. Correctly. Bravely."

-Toni Morrison, A Mercy