Oh, hey, yeah...I'm here...

Where have I been? In my head I post here all the time. No seriously, in my head I think, "I should put this on the blog." It's very likely that I've convinced myself that think is the same as doing. Like I think about writing letters of recommendation and then I don't actually write them but I convince myself that I've done and, well, yeah.....So, where have been? Let's see. Mostly Baltimore, but there have been trips to New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, Delaware, Delaware, Delaware.

Back in September, I went to New Orleans for a conference. It had it's ups and downs. Ups: I was in freaking New Orleans! Downs: I was on antibiotics and had a sinus infection. I basically went to my conference and then went to bed. I did some writing but give me a few paragraphs before I get to writing.

After NOLA, we took some kids to visit colleges in Boston. 'Nuff said. Though, it should be noted that we had an amazing dinner, Mexican/Cajun. Who knew?

The Philadelphia/Delaware trips are all connected. My aunt, my mother's youngest sister got married this past Friday. A few things: Please, don't get married on a Friday, or, if you do, don't ask me to be in the wedding(unless you're family/someone who I really, really, really want to be a bridesmaid for--think carefully before answering this question).

And I straightened my hair for it. 

The wedding was lovely. Not to be overly sentimental, but I can't think of anyone who deserved to get married in such a lovely ceremony more.  And on top of that, I remember being a little girl and wanting so desperately to be in my aunt's wedding (at the time she was engaged to her high school sweetheart who died in a car accident when I was in the 8th grade). I got to put her veil on the evening of the wedding--I can't even tell you how emotional it was. I was thinking of her, her sisters, my uncle who passed away back in 2002, and my grandparents who weren't there. 

I feel bad for The Airman. I'm a bit wedding crazy, now. He knows it, is very patient with me about it, indulges me even. He actually watches Bridezillas and Say Yes to the Dress, with me. He's a bit of a saint that way. When I wake up from being supremely tired from all the wedding nonsense, I'll probably get over it. In the mean time....We're approaching the six-month mark, [Applause, please...Fucking clap. I've never been good at this!]  and when I tell him I'm bored, he says, "You could be doing something like, I don't know writing your novel." When he says this I don't want to slap him, so I guess it's love. I want to slap my mother when she says things like that. Truth.

Did I mention the time he showed up at my house with flowers, champagne, and Maker's Mark? Yeah, I'm really, really, lucky.

So, you wanna hear about writing? I've done some writing. This goes back to my time in NOLA. I spent most of the time I was there sick, like nasty sick. So on the last morning when my head was a little clearer, I took myself over to Cafe du Monde shortly after the sun rose. I ordered a cafe au lait and some beignets and let my powdered sugar fingers do some writing. NOLA is a beautiful city. I can see how many people are inspired by the place. It reminded me of many cities that I'd lived in. Cobblestones like Philadelphia; a city that stays awake like New York;  a rich artistic history (music) like Iowa City (literature); and a people that love their city like Baltimore. I don't know if I could live there, but it was so easy to write there. The words flowed. Pages and pages. I wrote until I had to leave for my flight.

I had a second order of beignets.