So two months have passed here in Wilmington and Dicky & I seem to be changing a bit. Its like the Southern Charm mixed with this weird, historic schtuff here and I come home to this:

Meatballs in a mini muffin tin. Bork Bork Bork

Anyway. Tim Blackman Senior & Timothy Blackman Junior & Tar Bag (the dog) came to Wilmington last week to the detriment of our waistlines. As my dad explains it: Tar gets these intense cravings for sugar, puts a gun to my dad’s head, and then forces him to buy treats for the whole family. Misery loves company.

Dad, Timothy, & I visited the USS North Carolina Battleship Museum, the Bellamy Mansion, ate local oysters, went to the beach, and did some other awesome things. We had a really great time. I’ve learned that the longer I live somewhere, the less I notice the beauty and charm of the city. It was nice to see Wilmington through my Dad’s eyes. I felt a lot of gratitude for moving to somewhere so cool. : )

Commanders of a great ship

We went to Thalian Hall which is a beautifully restored theater in the historic section. We live right downtown so we walked there to watch a comedy put on by the local Community College called ‘All In The Timing” by David Ives. Parts were funny, parts were hard to understand, but it was really fun to be there with my two handsome men, Dad & Rich. And, because it was so cold, I got to wear my Owl beanie, and that is awesome.

Hand me my owl hat so I can walk out of here with some dignity.

We’re driving home for Thanksgiving and it is going to be a party. I’m picturing something like Madea’s Big Fat Black(man) Tanksgiving. The guest list includes:

My whole family (dad, mom, 5 kids, plus 3 boyfriends)
Nana & Mike (Mom’s mother & step father)
Phil & Francis (Mom’s father & step mother)
Rich’s mom & step father
Rich’s 4 year old nieces
4 dogs

It will be wild and I will keep you posted.

Love, B

But it’s football season and since Dicky is paying the bills till I find a job, there it is…a big huge TV with a million channels in our living room, which is the only place I can get Internet (for now, until we get a new router).

I think all this change has my emotional stability completely screwed, if not non-existent. Yesterday there was several episodes of Extreme Makeover, Home Edition and the text messages between my sister Brock and I went like this:

Me: I’m crying over the opening 10 minutes of extreme makeover home edition. I’m bored and not used to the emotional manipulation of television yet.

Brock: I was wondering how you were adjusting.

Me: OMG I’m crying again. What the hell is wrong with me?!?

Brock: I can’t watch that show either. Who’s the star?

Me: Ashley Tisdale who is totally lame but a family with 4 kids in an 800 sf house took on their 4 nieces and nephews so there is 10 living in a tiny tiny house.

Me: OMG!! All the kids got scholarships to college!

Me: And now their mortgage is paid too! I’M IN PIECES!!

An hour later.

Brock: I just caught the end of an episode and cried watching the reveal. It should be a crime to have such touching stuff on TV. Like a rating of “CLAB” (Cry Like A Baby) to steer us away.

Me: I’ve already changed my shirt because of the snot and tears on my sleeve.

Brock: OMG. Must. Stop. Watching. People with better hears than me.

GD you, Ty Pennington.

Why?!?

My brother and excellent driving companion

Our trip up to Boone was quick, only lasted the weekend. And besides not doing much, we basically did nothing. Although by now,  I’ve read through almost the entire trilogy of the Hunger Games (ahhmazing) and eaten more ice cream and Frozen Yogurt since my departure than this entire summer.

We’ve made it all the way to Wilmington and though it felt lonely arriving in the small suburb outside of the city, our hosts have been super wonderful and made this transition easier. They’ve got a great place in Leland but we’ve all decided the better place to stay is across the river in Wilmington.

*Ohh and we hit a bat on the way in, right around Fort Bragg. Timothy found it this morning and pulled it’s tiny body out of the grill of our truck.

Poor widdle tiny batsky watsky

So we’ve found a really great place about 2 blocks from the river. omg, I just realized I don’t even know what it’s called…*googling…Cape Fear River. Probably named after the Cape Fear Community college situated right on the banks.

Although we were hoping for a nice house in the Historic district, we haven’t found one in our price range so we’re going to lease a beautiful condo on the top floor of an old building on 4th street. It’s already painted nice inside and has new appliances. We’re going to love it.

New Diggs!

It’s really small but we’re going to make room for our new roommate, Zach the Kodiak Bear (real bear, stuffed and mounted) that Dicky owns. It’s time to be reunited because they’ve been apart since he moved to Tulsa, OK. And although Timothy tried to spatula it to death in Orlando before we left, Zach prevailed and will be arriving soon.

On a side note, my aunt suggested that Zach the Kodiak Bear be the Best Man at our wedding. He immediately agreed and put on a tie.

Possible outfit for a future wedding.

And that’s it for now, folks. I’m off to the beach today and to sign lease papers.

Packing the apartment suuuccckkked. I actually used boxes this time instead of laundry baskets and reusable grocery bags from publix because we’re not moving apartment to apartment. We’re moving to Wilmington, NC.

In less than 3 weeks, Dicky got offered a job, the Savage Race team pulled off an amazing inaugural event, we’ve moved our entire lives into a garage (and it looks like an episode of Hoarders – omg, it’s awful!), and now we’re just waiting to pick up the u-haul.

So this is my announcement and bittersweet goodbye to all my friends, co-workers, and buddies that I’ve grown up with here in orlando. And by grown-up I mean spent long work nights and hangover mornings, conference hosting, coffee drinking, trivia and soccer and volleyball and ultimate frisbee playing, watching intramurals and football games at UCF, road trips to NC and across this beautiful state. It has been a fantastic 8 years here.

I’m leaving for NC on Friday, Sept. 9, and Dicky will leave next Friday and bring our stuff. It happened so fast and I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I won’t be able to call myself part of the 1% of citizens here that actually love Orlando. We’ll only be gone for less than 2 years and then move back here to Central Florida and life will hopefully pick up right where we left off.

If you’ve made it this far – consider yourself invited to our going away party on Thursday, September 8, at the Chilly Spoons on South Orange Avenue. BYOFroYo (Buy Your Own Fro-Yo) and we’ll be there from around 8pm to 9:30pm. Everyone is invited!

BYOFro-Yo Suckas. See you there!

I hate throwing away books as much as anyone but here are a few that are definitely leaving this apartment.

Book 1: Halo Two: The Official Guide. True Story: Bought because I’m too impatient to learn a game by actually playing it. Better Story: One day during final exams, I forgot I had to bring in an object that signified feminism for one of my women’s lit classes. This book was in my backpack and the presentation went something like this:

“Hi, my name is Brittany I want to thank the women who paved the way by being CEO’s and ProDom‘s and made it possible for young women like myself to play in a man’s world.” *Applause. Then another presenter got up and sang a super creepy and demented version of Jewel’s “You were meant for me” with her object, an acoustic guitar. Scary.

Book 2: 6 Pixels of Separation by Joel Mitchell. From Jan 1, 2008 to November 2009, I didn’t have a personal computer. So I bought a macbook out of the trunk of a BMW with too-dark tint. (I’m typing on it right now). The book is about social media and if you want it, go to the Goodwill on Michigan, I’m sure its not obsolete by now.

Book 3: Not Even A Hint: Guarding your Heart Against Lust by Josh Harris. This book was given to me by my loving mom to protect me against all of the douche-canoes I would encounter during my freshman year of college.

Dear Mom, it worked! It really did. I only got suckered by one douch-canoe in all of 2003. His name is Dicky.

Here was the conversation this morning:
Dicky: Look at this coupon we got again for Natural Bliss Creamer.
Me: Oh hell yeah! That is my jam. *finger dance and high five
Dicky: I think they have an actual soul scanner at Target and that’s how they know this coupon is the best way for us to come back.
Me: We’ve got to stop waking up so early….

PS: The suggested tags for this post include the entire cast of Twilight but no mention of cream or coffee. wth, wordpress??

PPS: This should have been posted on a Saturday, I know. Haters gonna hate.

OMG I’m 3 days away from having an intervention! *meh!

Me, if I lived in a brown house with gross vinyl siding. And was a hoarder.

Which is so not the truth. When I moved from my cheap, huge apartment in the working class ghetto Metrowest area to my downtown 400 s/f hobbit cottage, I had to downsize A LOT.

My dad’s first words in my lil’baby house were “You can’t fart and get away from it here.” Then he and my brother walked around the house, testing his theory. (It was true)

Walking around my current apartment, trying to find things I could part with was frustrating. Between switching apartments in 2004, 2005, 2006 (twice), 2007 (twice), 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 a lot since moving here to O-Tizzle, I’ve had to cut down my stuff and honestly I don’t have much to give away.

True story: I absolutely love every piece of clothing I own, including all of the pieces from my favorite stores, “My Mom’s Closet” and “My Sisters’ Closets”. And the only piece of kitchen equipment that I don’t regularly use is my KitchenAid Mixer. BUT my roomie/sister did use it earlier this year to make some disgusting salmon muffins.

That was a cruel joke.

Now I’m walking around my big, half empty apartment wondering what I can pitch to take me DEFINITIVELY out of the realm of Hoarder and unfortunately, Dicky’s schtuff might just have to make that sacrifice. For the both of us.

Or I might start eating my couch cushions like that one chick on the weird addictions show. People only seem to be one or the other. Hoarder or weird addict. I think I’d rather be the addict, at least there are 12 step programs for that, right?

Artist Rendition of my Hobbit Cottage moving from The Shire to Orlando

um…that sounds a lot like…me?

*Insert Red flag here.

So, during an attempt of trying to control my drinking because schmoopie didn’t like it, I found out that one of my younger sisters had been sneaking out. Oh.My.God. If I’m not allowed to drink too much or have sex, NO ONE else should be having ANY fun. Especially those in my family. And especially those who were below me in the pecking order.

By the time I found out, my sisters had already hashed things out and Miss “I’m sooo almost 18″ had stopped. Being such a good girl, though, I still told our mom and my sis was grounded.

I’ve never experienced such intense stink eyes before.

A few weeks later, we had all planned a trip home to stay with our parents and I started to hear the snickers from my siblings about revenge. I assumed that it would come in some sort of mortifying admission to my parents about how rotten I was as a young adult.

Confession: I can’t remember much of my high school or college years, partly because I just can’t but mostly because of the partying.

Realization: there is nothing that jogs the memory better than an immanent threat of secret divulging from a knowing family member to the parents who at that time were completely supporting me. I was like Jason Bourne who could remember everything except his own freakin’ name.

Solution: remember all of the awful things I did that my sisters could have known about and create excuses, reasons, and denials about each one to prepare my defense.

Cut to the morning when we were all standing in the kitchen and I hear the snarky giggling from upstairs. Oh.my.gawd…shit is about to get real. I start mentally running through my flash cards of possible situations that could be brought up.

It turned out to be just these ridiculous shirts that that they had printed! Not one physical piece of evidence was entered in the verdict of Siblings vs. Brittany. The front was a large circle containing the names of my four siblings and the label “Circle of Trust” a la Fockers. On the back was another large circle with a line through it and “Brittany” printed in large block letters. My entire extended family found it hysterically funny, especially my dad.

For all of my good behavior, this anxiety is what I get?? I don’t even get to go down in flames or on some other torture device?? Lame. Can I please have a drink now that I survived my own personal Fukushima?

Thankfully schmoopie soon realized that he was, in fact, dating the exact same girl that he was currently divorcing from. And I eventually became a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.* And I quit dating divorcees.

The end.
Revision 1: *I’m totally not against religion or anyone’s beliefs. Nor have I completely given up on going to church. I simply believe in the Universe and whoever created it and don’t want to discuss it any further.

*ahhh….It’s the little things, amiright?

So yesterday in the grocery store, boyfriend was leaning over the chicken refrigerator shelves, conversing with an employee and I noticed that his pants and shirt were separated juuuuuuussttt enough for about 1 small inch of his butt crack to show. As we were about 40 feet apart, I thought about yelling over the crowd, mentioning something about plumbing or some other lame jab, but then I had a much better idea.

As quietly as possibly, leaping on my toes like Fred Flintstone preparing to bowl, I licked the tip of my finger and making a full windmill swing, jammed it right in to the top of his cute little ass, scaring the absolute shit out of him and making him bend and writhe like Neo from his most famous Matrix scene.

As I skipped away in my inappropriately short shorts I wore at dance class, creating an even larger scene, I threw my head back and let out a satisfied cackle. Pointing my finger in the air, humming ‘another one bites the dust, ha!’.

It was so glorious. The end.

Boyfriend & me

Our first studio experience was basically a B movie zombie flick waiting to happen. At the first class, we were supposed to learn a few introductory steps but it was more like Zombie Conversion 101.

• Side step: Let’s hold hands and sing a song
• Back step: dancing is fun so come along
• Front walk: Drink the water and champagne
• Rock step: We will definitely not eat your brains

..my efforts at resisting didn’t go over so well as I felt my feet walking to my car, returning with my wallet, and telling the only-girl-who-enjoys-watching-herself-dance-in-the-mirror-more-than-i-do that yes, we could show up next Tuesday and yes, we’d like the intro class package, please, thank you, boyfriend please stop giving me the look.

We returned the next week, slightly more aware. One of the teachers was obviously the head zombie as he already wore a look of hunger and brain eating with his big wonky eyes and jerry curl. Gawd…he might have been the muse of the movie, I don’t know.

Our instructor was the leader of the clan that suckered in the fresh meat. Our lessons usually went like this:

Ok, yes here are a few basic moves to get you interested. And yes, Brittany you dance with me so I can stare at your rack and I’ll spin you around…Slow, slow, quick, together spin, Yes, yes, can’t you just see yourself with us forever, spinning and twirling and one, two, threefour… we are always laughing and dancing (we even call it danghing when we are laughing and dancing at the same time!) and don’t you want to  bring others to be here forever too? We loooooove dancing, dance dance dance, ballroom is for everyone.Look, I’m sliding around the floor like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, we have so much fun here, Fun! Dancing is so. much. FUN!

Finally, our 4 classes ended and we politely declined the invitation to join the ranks. I’m sure our instructor was flogged for not securing our $1000 and fresh flesh for the rest of the tribe to devour. It was either him or us. And we decided he was simply worth the sacrifice. Bless his heart.