And then it was the end of March

Figured an update was in order. The past few weeks have been a flurry of Barbados (which in and of itself was a whirlwind of rum punch, foreigners, the song Drunk in Love, and monkeys), long but good days at work, awful Hinge dates (one of which was so terrible that its about to become part of a film project that Brett is putting together….although I have become practically BFF with a different Hinger), old friends, new friends, birthday activities, scavenger hunts through DC, and my fourth half marathon. 

At the risk of writing a novel, I’m breaking things down by elaborating on some of the unforgettable moments from the past few months. Enjoy.

Tale 1

Going to Barbados requires two plane rides: one to Miami and one from Miami to Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados. Both times I sat in the middle of a three seat row, and both times I struck up conversation with the person in the window seat. Flight #1 sat me next to a middle aged Mennonite minister. The Mennonites are a cousin to the Amish. Lo and behold, I spent 2 summers going to cross country running camp at Eastern Mennonite University (literally a street away from JMU), where this very man is a member of their board of trustees, so we had plenty to chat about. What are the odds! We spent a long time discussing original sin (which the Mennonites don’t believe in) and the differences between the Amish and Mennonite. He was on his way to Jamaica for a Mennonite convention. He was kind and asked a lot of questions. 

If the Minister was a disciple of God, then my seat buddy on the ride from Miami to Bridgetown might as well have been a disciple of the devil. She was 43 (oh she told me), had long brown hair and a black spaghetti strap tank and long black skirt. I’ll just come out and say it: she looked like Gollum, with a sunken in face and huge crystal blue eyes. As soon as I sat down she started muttering to herself “oh thank god oh thank god”. I looked over at her and said “pardon?” She immediately started twitching and told me she was very thankful I was thin and not overweight. I tried to put in headphones and listen to the American Airlines radio station #12 (piano pop hits…I heard My Heart Will Go On 5 times during the other flights! It was joyous) but she somehow got me in her clutches. I heard it all. Her son has extreme OCD and shot a mailbox in their neighborhood and is in jail..although she did spare me the exact reason why he’s incarcerated. She is an ex-chiropractor, her husband and her own a practice together but he went behind her back and bought 60% of the company, leaving her utterly powerless and she is on a hiatus from medicine. However, she still signs all her documents with Dr. because she earned it! Girl power! 

She started asking me about what makes me happy, an unusual question in and of itself, but only got weirder when I threw the question back at her. Her happiness is her Thursday night lover, a different guy than her husband. Her husband has no idea that Mr. Thursday is the reason why this woman is happy AT ALL in life. She’s been having this affair for 3 years. “BUT I STILL LOVE GOD!!” she said to me over and over as if trying to justify herself. 

The subject then turned to the 5 types of love. Apparently there’s some book that states that there are 5 different kinds of love and all of us fit neatly into one category. She then went on a long tale about how her husband’s type of love is sexual. If he is ever angry or thinks that his wife doesn’t love him, all this woman has to do is have sex with him and he’ll remember that she does. Her type of love is material. He just has to buy her something and she knows that their love is true! I’m all for being open and talking about stuff with strangers on planes but things got out of control fast with this. At the risk of sounding like Buzzfeed, I think my type of love is binge watching, well, anything, but I don’t think that’s in her little book.

All the while, this woman has been buying wine from the flight attendants. The flight was only 3 hours, but she probably bought 5 of those mini bottles and drank them each very quickly. At one point, I was just trying to keep my mind from turning into complete mush, so I asked for a coffee (which I never drink!). This woman gets up to go to the bathroom, hits my coffee, and it dumps all over me. She runs through the plane, gets me paper towels and a trash bag to sit on, and tells me “What happened? Why did you drop your coffee?” 

I don’t even want to argue this so I smile and laugh and sit the rest of the flight in my coffee pants. 

What did this ride teach me? Who the hell knows. Everyone is different and everyone might be a little crazy. Or perhaps a lot crazy. But who am I to judge? I know I'll never forget her, and goodness she knows I'll never forget her. As I was walking off the plane she literally yelled this at me "YOU'LL NEVER FORGET THIS PLANE RIDE!! BYE ALEX!!!" Why I told her my real first name and not Bertha, like I tell all creepy guys in bars, I'll never know. 

I got off the plane and reconvened with Annelyse and Shannon, who immediately asked me what it was like sitting with Gollum. I had to tell her I wished it was the real Gollum. Real Gollum wouldn’t get drunk and spill coffee on me. 

Tale 2

this doesn't even capture the magic of the dance circle, but its the closest thing i have 

For my birthday weekend I somehow got a group of about 15 friends together. This doesn’t happen often, or, well, ever anymore, seeing as how everyone has different work schedules, boyfriends, girlfriends, work events, vacations, and family things to attend to. The fact that I got this many people together was in and of itself the most exciting part of the day. Maybe that’s my type of love, just people giving their time. Who knows if that’s a type from the book, but anyway! We all went to a beer event by Nats Park and tasted a bunch of different brews and took a bunch of Gossip Girl photos. The group got corralled into going to dinner after, then got whisked away by the lovely Uber to a bar on U Street called Lost Society. It was at this bar that I had, quite literally, my best DC night ever. 

The rundown:

1. No one was drunk. We all sipped a bit at the beer thing but frankly it was much more fun to run around the thing and talk to each other than to drink too much. Plus it was cold.
2. Everyone was on their game. We had no party poopers in the bunch. Really couldn’t have asked for a better group. Its not every day I can combine my most of my best college friends with most of my best high school friends. Whether it was playing telephone at the restaurant, the arm tangle ice breaker game at the Metro, or singing Frozen (“Do you wanna build a snowman?” “No? Wait, WHAT?!”) at random passerby’s, the group had a similar “no ferks given” mentality that ultimately led to #3…
3. The dance circle to end all dance circles. Our circle was so much fun that randos were trying to penetrate the group and people would walk by and literally yell at us “YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!” We sang passionately to Take Me Home, we jumped on beat to Starships, we all were in a perfectly synced swirling vortex (led by the ultimate womper, Annelyse) during Dark Horse, and even got Brett to take the middle during California Girls. The only downfall was that the DJ told us this particular club doesn’t do hip hop so we couldn’t get Talk Dirty to Me, which is truly the only thing that could’ve made the night any better.

This one guy in particular REALLY wanted to get in, and we weren’t taking it. #NONEWFRIENDS! So a few of us started taking flash photos of him just to drive him out. It worked. I think he hates us. 

After about 3 hours of this I couldn’t move anymore (I ran a half marathon that morning with no rest at all, no complaints its just a reality) but the group left on a high that I will never forget. As recently as yesterday someone texted me and told me how fun it was and how they wish it could happen again soon. In due time, in due time.

Tale 3

Barbados definitely deserves its own entry. On our last day there, we tried to figure out what our favorite day was, and I really couldn’t. We went hiking, explored caves that Rihanna’s shot music videos in, tasted magical rum, and made/drank a ton of Pina Coladas. Above all, the three of us just giggled the whole time. A week later, when we had to say bye to Annelyse, I was overcome with such sadness. She lives in Richmond! I can't just wake up and see her every day anymore (we slept in the same bed so that's why that part was so easy, haha). It was so nice just to have a chill week with two of my best friends. Now, probably the most exciting thing we did was the Jammin Cats Catamaran Cruise our second day there: 

The cruise left Bridgetown (the capital of Barbados) around 9 and was scheduled to return around 3. On board we were treated to breakfast (a fish cake), lunch (macaroni pie and fish and chicken) and an unlimited supply of rum punch. There was music playing, lots of locals to meet, and plenty of time to swim and soak up da sun mon. Our first stop we pulled up next to a group of sea turtles and got to swim/touch them. Never done anything quite like that before, so it was pretty incredible to see how big they really are. The water is so clear and beautiful that you could see right down to the bottom, where fish were cruising and living their merry little lives. We also went to a shipwreck which happened to be right outside of the vacation house of the owner of Manchester United. Its by far the biggest house, if not building, on the island and is definitely a major tourist attraction. Rihanna brought Oprah here during her interview thing last year. Finally, the whole way back we did Bajan line dances with the crew. Look up the main song: Roll it by Bunji, and you’ll know how to do the dance. We met some Bajans our age and they all started casually twerking on each other. 

In short, Barbados was incredible. Mr. O’Toole basically put his job on hold in order to give us the experience of a lifetime and I’m so lucky to have spent it with my blonde partners in crime! We also heard Drunk in Love approximately 46434 times and I can sing it backwards in my sleep. SURFBOART. 

Tale 4

Not much of a tale, but the other day I was chatting with a good friend of mine about how lucky we are. We agreed wholeheartedly that we have really good friends, who stay intact no matter how spread apart we are (and who will sing Take Me Home until our voices go out just the way I like it!), really good family, we live close to an awesome city and its nice that we have the opportunity to live at home (for at least a little while longer) and save money. It was getting all sappy and sentimental, and while I’m going through this period of time of uncertainty and moments of pure fear (the other day, I was driving home from DC with Shannon and our guy friend in the car. We started talking about how we’re 24 and how in 6 years we’ll be 30 and we all I had an honest to God panic attacks right then and there. We’re as far away from when we started college as we are to being 30. THINK ABOUT IT) it was nice to have that little bit of clarity and above all, hope. Some people will come and go, some will go crazy on you, some random Gollum lookalikes will spill coffee on you, some will let you down, but ultimately having that core group is all you need. We will all be alright!

Tale 5

A quick story to wrap this bad boy up: As stated previously, I ran my 4th half marathon, and this was the first with little to no pain in my hip. Thanks foam rollers! They really work. Anyway, this was also my first half not in Richmond. You see, Richmond is as flat as they come. I love Richmond! This half in DC (The Rock and Roll series) was a bit hillier than I anticipated. Ferk you DC. Mile 6 has a HUGE hill, one that I've never run in training and probably haven't had to since my high school cross country days. Well, because I'm basically a derp and a half, I didn't read about the course at all before starting the race, so I had no idea it was coming. I was running along, gleefully reading all the signs that the crowd makes. One of them had a big picture of Juan Pablo's face with the caption "EES OKAY YOURE ALMOST DERR" and I burst out laughing right in the middle of the street. Then I look up and there's the hill. It was painful, to say the least, but I gotta hand it to that sign maker. Well done.

In the coming weeks, Nats games will start and all will be right in the world. So maybe all you need are your bffs and baseball. 

[ALSO: my parents went to Spring Training down in Florida (and didn't take me...ugh) and met Jayson Werth, Craig Stammen, and Ross Detwiler, among others, and basically had the time of their lives. You always want what you can't have, ya know? Who's trying to go to Spring Training next year?!]