Momma Always Said, "No Whiners."

I have a complicated relationship with nature in that I like the theory of it, but I'm not very good at it.

My adult life has mainly been spent in seas of concrete, human pee and far too many people whose only objective is to piss me off by not abiding the unspoken urban laws. Call me a romantic but I love it. 

However, sometimes I just need to see a tree that doesn't have a hippie attached to it by a slack line or nine million dog turds in the tiny square of dirt surrounding it, so I was thrilled to spend my spring break reconnecting with our mother, Earth. 

I eased into it with a day trip to some natural hot springs located in the French Pyrenees. I think you should reread that sentence. We drove for a few hours, got lost, asked for directions in Sprenchlish and finally parked the car at the top of a baby Pyrenee. The journey down wasn't exactly harrowing but we forded a stream, got kind of sweaty, got lost again, whined a bit and interrupted a beautiful woodland couple who directed us towards Heaven. Heaven is a series of warm waterfalls pooling then spilling into the next down a steep hill. We striped to our underwear and couldn't wait to join the other nature lovers in sharing our dirty body fluids in glorified cesspuddles. It was incredible. 

A couple of days later, I threw my pack on my back and whined all the way to the bus station because we were going camping! We hopped off the bus in Tossa de Mar and consulted an iPhone before beginning our hike to the site. I think our hike was a healthy mixture of awe, whining, excitement and getting lost (get it together Apple). We were starving by the time we got there, but we decided to set up camp first. It was then that I learned two things: I'm pretty useless, and I'd forgotten just about everything.

Next, we wandered around in a hypoglycemic daze whining and hunting for food. We whined past two restaurants that looked amazing but were closed until we finally arrived at a place that had mediocre over-priced pizza; it was the best mediocre pizza I've ever had. That night, we nestle into our tents and whispered sweet good nights.

The next morning, we woke whining and feeling like shit. Well, all of us who didn't have an awesome air mattress designed, made by and purchased by wimps (I'm looking at you Riri and FraFra) felt like shit. The rest of us couldn't wait to be wimps, too, and thankfully, the campground supermarket sold them.

We spent the next four dreamlike days at the beach, clamoring through the wilderness after Fra, playing celebrity guess it games, making Fra do everything, drinking tea, watching Fra swim, drinking wine, hating the other campers, telling scary stories, drinking beer, eating the barbecued food made by Fra, talking about how great we are and showering. But I'm pretty sure we spent the majority of our time at the campground supermarket. It was a fantastic supermarket.

The last morning it was raining and cold, and we could no longer pretend that we could totally live there forever as we'd declared several times. The whining was pretty profound as we squished the air out of our mattresses, wrestled our tents into the world's tiniest bags and dreaded airing out all of our wet equipment. We took a taxi in lieu of hiking back to the bus station to catch the earlier one. As we pulled into Barcelona, we all felt very happy to be home even though none of us can claim it as our hometown. Who cares? It's ours now.

These are the exact people I'd choose to spend a zombie apocalypse with.
Fra is not pictured but he, we agreed, is the only reason why we'd survive it.

I'm Way Too Young To Be As Old As I Am

I am now older than Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix ever were, and that just proves to me that being talentless and unsuccessful wins the race.

Last Tuesday, I woke up feeling special because it was my damn birthday. I put on my special pants and my special sweater, ate special pancakes and smeared on my special face.

I was a bit hurt that the strangers on the street weren't wishing me a happy birthday. I felt like I was being very obvious about it.

Though I had to work (thanks for nothing Mom and Dad), I enjoyed my classes more than usual because I was thinking about my birthday outfit the whole time, and the theme of the day was me.

Birthday Outfit:
-puffy-outty skirt in my signature green
-deep v-neck embroidered shirt that makes me look well traveled and cultured but that I got at TJ Maxx in a   St. Joseph, Missouri strip mall
-brown boots with red shoelaces that I need to fix because theya makea me fall dahwn (I'm serious)
-black thigh highs that I immediately tore
- knew that would happen, so I put on my cheap reserves
-dried flower headband that's special because it's from Jenna, and I feel like a king when I wear it

I was told that I had only two responsibilities: clean yourself up and meet Poppie at the Barceloneta metro at a quarter to 10. Poppie is the best person to walk with because she holds you tight and says only funny and/or interesting things.

She's also a deceitful little trickster who lies out of her weasel mouth.

Here's the thing about surprises...I love them. In fact, I never ask questions about anything ever because I want everything to be a surprise all of the time. The downside to never asking questions, however, is that you become very ignorant which is exactly how I felt when I was led into the back room of an unassuming tapas place. I was expecting two or three of my girlfriends, but no...

My friends! All of my beautiful friends were there! And they'd made Emma masks, so they were even more beautiful than usual!

I felt all of the emotions at the same time, and they're lucky I didn't die. The decorations were great, the presents were thoughtful and undeserved, the masks were creepy and amazing and they'd gotten me real good. But those things were the icing. The cake was that for the first time, I was looking straight at my Barcelona experience in the faces of the people I've grown to love after having met them at different times along the journey, and they'd come together for no other reason than me.

The older I get, the more it dawns on me that I may just be the luckiest person in the world.

Untitled Birthday Song
By Adi Mahler

I think it fits you very well
a birthday on the 1st of April

That life is just a little joke
celebrate it well

I won't get over sentimental
I'll just tell you that

They say ginger flame burns hard
but I find in you tranquility

They say that gringo is fake and false
but I find in you sincerity

They say it's hard to find real friends in Barcelona but
I found a real friend in you

I was suppose to write more
but just got addicted to Game of Thrones

So I hope I'll remember all the words and sing them right

It's not embarrassing to say the truth to someone like you
and look around you
it's not only me that...

Then everyone sang!

We found a real friend in you (repeat a bunch of times)

It kind of makes you want to barf and gag but also makes you want to cry, doesn't it?