a sign in the hall at school:

"Please don't spit your tobacco into the recycling bins. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated."

My current best friend

seems to be National Public Radio. Since I live alone and don't have much work to do yet, or a TV, or social interaction, I have a lot of empty lonely space to fill. NPR rides with me in the car, greets me when I come into my apartment, and keeps me company while I'm here. News, Car Talk, A Prairie Home Companion, a conference on the Vietnam War, Celtic music, stories from Katrina victims. I'm even hearing repeats of everything.

Feeling Old

Last night I went to a Goo Goo Dolls and Counting Crows concert. We sat on the grass in back and were surrounded by a sea of teenagers. I often go around still feeling like a teenager myself, until I actually mingle with them. Jumping up and down, screaming into cell phones, and flirting like there was no tomorrow, it was more than I could handle.

Then I go to school, which is swarmed with thousands of undergrands, and I again feel out of place. I often complain that my apartment is too far from school, but after a day on campus I'm more than happy to drive very far away.

Try to be like the camel

Several years ago my dad and I went to an art show in downtown Santa Fe of works by John Lennon. The piece I liked the best was a colored drawing of a camel walking past a pyramid in the desert. The handwritten caption below it read "The camel dances and having danced moves on." I cut out a black and white copy of it from the newspaper and it has hung on my bulletin board ever since, in several different places. Tonight I was hanging up a few pictures around my apartment and once again posted this in my room. Not only do I like the little camel, but I love the lesson that goes with it. He dances, lives life to its fullest, and then he's not afraid to move on. This is always hard for me. Each time I hang it on a wall I've just finished or left a great time in my life. When I hung it my senior year in Tacoma I had just come back from studying abroad in London, and that was an experience I didn't want to let go of. Then I hung it in Richmond when I had just moved away from my best friends in my beloved Tacoma and had no idea what joys or perils awaited me in Virginia. Now it is happening again. I had an amazing year in Richmond, where I spent a lot of time hanging out with my grandparents, made some great friends, and explored a fun new city. I danced in Richmond. But now it's time to move on, and discover a new dance in Raleigh.

some things

I'm in Raleigh. That's right, I live here now. I know I mention that a lot, but sometimes it blows my mind. How did Andi from New Mexico (via Tacoma and Richmond) end up down here? Anyway, I'm mostly settled in my apartment, except that the phone lines don't work and I have no food. I have milk though, and that's pretty much the most important thing so I can still drink my chocolate milk in the mornings.

Today was orientation for us history grad students. I don't really feel intellectual enough for this, since everyone's talking about how they want to study ancient Greece or Japanese fascism or US environmentalism. But not all of the public history students are like that, so that's reassuring. We all had lunch together, and then after the TA meeting some of us went out for drinks. They seem fun, and it's a pretty social program. This is good because I have zero social interaction outside of it so far.

I saw Little Miss Sunshine. It is really good, and you all should see it. Part of it takes place in Albuquerque, and there are lots of desert scenes. Ah, New Mexico, my homeland. That reminds me, today I saw a car with a decorative NM license plate in the front, though it had a normal NC plate in the back. I, too, have a NC plate now, which is sad because I loved my yellow NM plate and the way people would peer at it long and hard trying to figure out where the heck I'm from. It was also a good excuse for when I looked lost on the road.

Call me crazy

Seriously, does this not look like a man with a briefcase and a woman with a purse? Some pedestrians walking to work, right? Because that is what I've always thought- that it's a pedestrian crossing sign. Luckily I studied this morning before taking my North Carolina drivers license test and learned it's a school crossing sign. Apparently everyone knew this but me, but I've sure never seen kids who look like that on their way to school.

This is it folks

In the morning I'm moving to North Carolina. How weird is that? I've never moved someplace in a morning. It usually takes three days to get wherever I'm moving. This is new for me. I want to be excited about it, but so far I'm not. I'm sad to leave Richmond. I know it is close by, and I will come back to visit, but still. Anyway, wish me luck.

p.s. The title of this post doesn't mean no more posting. It just means further posting will be from a new North Carolinian, not whatever it is I've been the past year or so. Alas.

How cute is that?

My grandmother (in Santa Fe) recently had some dental surgery, and the first thing she said to the dentist when it was over was "how long before I can kiss my husband?"

Fun Times

I realize that many of my blog posts are about my dates with Justin, but can I help that we do fun cute things? Having said that, today we did fun stuff.

First we visited the Poe Museum. Turns out Edgar wasn't always as crazy and disheveled as is popularly believed. And he seemed to be engaged a lot.

Next we went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. There were lots of pictures of horses. For real. Even though this was sort of weird, I did go ahead and buy a postcard of a painting of a horse race.

Then we went to Ipanema, the vegetarian restaurant. Actually, we got there a little before they opened so we went on a walk first. Justin was very nice and let us walk down my favorite street (West Ave) even though he really wanted to be inside with air conditioning, and he kept being nice when our walk made me super hot and tired and thirsty and silent. Anyway, we ate, and it was really good.

Finally we headed to a cafe (Cafe Nostra I think?) in the fan. It only has one table, which is huge and covered in board games. We played checkers, backgammon, and then rummy.

Some pictures from my trip to Washington state

Here are the cute bride and groom, along with Melissa, Amy and me.

Justin and I are pretty cute, too.


Here we are hiking around Point Defiance, and sitting on the Troll under the Fremont Bridge.




This is what the Space Needle looks like when I'm trying to climb out the back window from the front passenger seat, and this is what Mt. Ranier looks like from an airplane.

I would post more, but I don't think they fit. Shoot.

Back from the Pacific Northwest

Justin and I got back today from our trip to Tacoma and Seattle. If we're lucky some pictures will follow, but for now here are some highlights of the trip:

Katie and Andrew got married! They were very cute. The wedding was laid back and beautiful, and instead of cutting cake they ate banana pudding!

Before the wedding we girls spent a few hours at the women's naked spa. I was pretty skeptical at first, but it was great.

I got to hang out with my friends Amy, Katie, and Melissa. I miss them.

At the Tacoma Art Museum Justin made me a stylish bracelet that I wore the rest of the week, and I painted him a cloud rock.

At Point Defiance I actually found (sort of) the "magic trail" and we hiked down to the water, where Justin taught me to skip rocks.

We visited two wineries up in the Olympic Peninsula and ate seafood right by the water with a view of what we think was Canada.

We also visited a tiny brewery in Port Townsend where lots of local old guys who probably work on boats hang out with their half gallon jugs of beer.

On the ferry ride to Seattle as we enjoyed the amazing night time view we also witnessed a guy propose to a girl, and she said yes.

In Fremont (a neighborhood in Seattle) we toured a new small organic and fair-trade chocolate factory that included lots of delicious samples.

We saw a Mariners game.

After the game we went to the Tractor Tavern for a show by Tom Brosseau, which I really liked.

Except for two cloudy days, the weather was amazing with blue skies and no rain.

It was a pretty good time I would say.

Hard at Work

This picture was in a presentation at work?!

"I'll take the stairs, thanks."

Today for lunch the Development Staff went to Red Robin. All six of us piled into one woman's mini van and headed across town. It was like a field trip, and I love field trips. As we got back to the office we all got into the elevator to come up two flights from the parking garage. Just as the doors closed my boss said "this thing is probably going to stall because the last time I was in here the guy told me no more than five people at a time." Sure enough, just as the words escaped her mouth, we stopped moving. We were stuck in that elevator for twenty minutes. It got pretty hot and stuffy, but nobody panicked. Our co-workers stood outside the elevator to both keep us company and to laugh at us. When we were finally released we were greeted by cameras flashing, and a video clip is currently circulating around the office of our hilarious escape.

I found Myrtle

We named Grandma's turtle Myrtle. Then she was missing for a long time and we thought she might be gone forever. But don't worry, I found her this morning on the other side of the yard. Whew.

Celia and Gris

Finally, the crazy pictures of Celia and me walking around Times Square wearing eye patches have arrived. But first let me give you some background on how she and I always end up doing ridiculous things when we're together.

Celia is a friend from high school, and pretty much the only friend from Santa Fe that I keep in touch with these days. I feel like it may be hard for some of you readers who know me here in Richmond to imagine me acting in silly ways with her, but it's true. We speak in a funny dialect that involves saying "yah" or "cha" a lot. She calls me Gris, which is Gray in Spanish. She makes up songs about me wearing Swedish socks or being in the ghetto. In high school we would switch one of our shoes and walk around all day like that. Or we would put chapstick on each other. Once I got a crazy hair cut (not much unlike the one I recently got) so she started calling me Hiawatha, and then she made me a headband out of pipe cleaners that I wore in English class. At an amusement park in Denver we wore Spongebob Square Pants temporary tattoos. We also snuck around the school parking lot leaving secret messages on cars while humming the James Bond theme.

Over the Memorial Day weekend I visited her in New York. On my last night there we planned to wander around the East Village. We honestly don't know when or why we started talking about it, but we thought it would be fun to look like pirates and search for sailors, since it was Fleet Week. Most people would laugh and say "yeah, that would be funny," but we actually went looking for eye patches. Celia happened to know from past experience that Walgreens carries them (KMart, we found, does not). Donning our patches we headed to Times Square where we knew we could find sailors at midnight, and sure enough...



We also happened upon this place, and got two men pushing baby carriages at 12:30 am to take our picture.



Good times.

10 things

As instructed by Valerie...

10 Things I Love:

1. orange currant scones
2. those plastic letter openers with advertisements on them
3. going on walks during my lunch break
4. crossword puzzles
5. Carnation Instant Breakfast, milk chocolate flavored
6. playing the piano for my Grandpa
7. Danny, the best dog ever
8. hippopotamuses when their mouths are open
9. Modigliani paintings
10.head massages

10 Things I'm Fascinated By:

1. Civil War reenactments
2. how people get real jobs
3. parents who give their kids stupid names
4. how people made maps back in the day, or even today
5. life in the Peace Corps
6. married life
7. how people swim in the ocean without worrying about sharks and jellyfish and stingrays and crabs and seaweed getting wrapped around their legs
8. rural towns, and the people who live in them
9. girls who are beautiful all the time
10.people who have never left the state they live in

Apple, Lettuce, and Hot Dog

Those are things my Grandma feeds her new turtle. Grandpa found a turtle in the front yard yesterday and they put him in the back yard, where Grandma set up a little water dish and puts out food. She hasn't named it yet but she thinks it's a girl because it has brown eyes. She's pretty excited.

Happy June

I'm a big fan of musicals. Old ones, new ones, and especially ones about US Presidents. In Carousel, by Rogers and Hammerstein, there's a number where they dance around and jump off of roofs while singing "June is busting out all over!" My dad used to sing that song when June came around, and I like doing it, too. Usually I just sing it with him, but you should have seen how excited I was two years ago when I was in Stockholm and the girl I was traveling with sang it with me! Anyway, this morning at work I got a call from my dad singing those familiar lyrics, and it made me smile. I'm sure I'll be humming it all day.

Arrrrgh!

I just walked around Times Square wearing an eye patch and searching for sailors. For fun. Pictures and details to come. Shiver me timbers.

Phil's

For the past two nights in a row I have found myself doing the exact same thing, and it is a thing that is totally out of the ordinary for me. On both Tuesday and Wednesday I went to Phillip's Continental Lounge at Grove and Libbie. I had never been there in my whole life. In fact, I worked less than a block away for over six months and yet I never even knew the place existed. And not only did I go to Phil's (I don't know if people really call it that, but I imagine they do) two nights in a row, but both nights I watched my only episodes of American Idol this whole season. The only episodes in my whole life, actually. How bizarre is that?

Phil's is a diner-type restaurant and bar in the near West End that has been there since the 30s. It's full of old black and white pictures of Richmond. The first night Justin and I walked in and there were some guys sitting at the bar staring at us who looked like small town regulars. Finally they stopped staring and let us know we could pick any table we liked and a waitress would get us some dinner. It was eight o'clock, so the TVs were both tuned into American Idol, and they even turned up the volume so the whole place could listen in. A small crowd of middle aged and gray-haired folks crowded around the bar to watch. I was a little astounded at the whole situation.

Tonight I ended up going there after potluck with Jennifer. Again, American Idol was turned up, though one of the workers had to keep turning the volume even louder to compete with the radio still playing in the background (when I googled the Lounge I found this: "More Reasons to Go: There is background music while you dine.") There wasn't quite as much of a crowd tonight, but I imagine it's because everyone was joining the millions of other Americans sitting in their living rooms and biting their nails over who would be their new Idol.