Author Archives: Julia

If I could be anywhere

Posted in 717, Green Cove, North Carolina by

I’d like to think I’d want to be here. There is absolutely no reason why here wouldn’t be the first place I’d choose right now. I’m disgustingly happy most of the time. My friends are silly, great drinking buddies, fabulous listeners and excellent email writers. My job is fun, challenging and exciting. My apartment is covered in tiny black hairs thanks to my puppy. I’m riding again, which makes me indescribably happy. My boyfriend, when he puts his arms around me I feel completely safe and content.

OK fine, so stop rubbing it in my face, you say. Here’s the thing – if you came up to me right now and asked me that question, If you could be anywhere, where would it be – my answer would not be right here. First instinct, easy. Camp. I want to be there every single day. I want to be in the middle of summertime in the mountains with my Green Cove girls, not having showered in three days and feeling clean. Next I might say Bloomington. I miss our porch, I miss Sam and Marnie always being a room away, I miss our smelly neighbors, I miss classes and campus, I miss IUET, silly crushes, not so silly crushes, beer at 2pm, and yes even Jimmy John’s. I’d say Raleigh lastly because that’s where I found myself and I might have left a little bit of the old me there when I moved home. I want to be roommate’s with Bette again and work at the coffeeshop. I want to go to Chapel Hill for Shabbat dinner. I want to ride Clyde with Hilary. I want southern accents, Harris Teeter and sweet tea.
So what if we are never happy where we are? What if, despite everything, a little part of us longs to be somewhere else? I always thought I was lucky to have two homes, here and camp, and that’s still true. I just wonder if it’s possible to be content where you are and miss everywhere you’ve been at the same time.

let’s keep it there

Posted in friends, high school, Mira, relationships by

i should really be working. page schedule and copy for the july/august issue of the magazine are due to art director phyllis tomorrow. i’m about halfway there. i love getting to pick out what goes into an issue and imagining kids excitedly going through it.

last friday adam and i went to indy winefest, a fabulous and large wine tasting at the indiana roof ballroom. everyone was dressed up, whole foods passed out little yummy truffles in tiny plastic cups, we drank lots and lots of wine. as we wandered around, half people watching half wine table watching, adam asked me if i’d seen anyone i knew yet. i laughed and responded with “seriously, if we’d seen someone i knew we would be running in the other direction. do you not know that about me by now?” this is not always entirely true. just generally so. the majority of the population in indianapolis that i “know” i would run from. the select few who i wouldn’t i see on a regular basis. i’m not a bitch, i just don’t fuck around with people i don’t like. plain and simple.
i notice that more and more people end up being with someone they went to high school with. i’m mostly talking about my graduating class and their recent (and not recent) engagements, relationships and marriages. i can understand wanting to be with someone who you’ve known for so many years. you have a common history, common friends, common jokes. that’s why my closest friends are those i’ve known forever. i just wonder sometimes if it isn’t better to start with a clean slate and create new history and jokes and a life with the person you’re going to be doing forever with. now don’t get me wrong, i have nothing against my past. i don’t want to ignore it, push it under a rock or anything like that. i’m just saying, isn’t it refreshing to know that your significant other never saw your awkward middle school days (or in my case, awkward middle and high school days), only gets to hear you reminisce about unrequited crushes, and has no idea about any past drama you had with anyone and therefore doesn’t care and has no desire to rehash it? plus i thoroughly enjoy divulging my past in the way i saw it happen. i get to describe camp through my eyes instead of you seeing it. i get to talk about the blisters that covered my hands in the days of crew instead of you having watched me pick at them. i get to slowly and methodically tell you about ava without you having seen my puffy red eyes, hearing my guilt filled what ifs and watching everyone in my family act like they were holding each other together when we were all really floating out there alone in confusion.
oh wow, this has been a more ponderous blog entry than i meant for it to be. i’ll end with this: i’m riding tonight for the first time in 5 months, first lesson in a year and a half. my boyfriend doesn’t care what we do on valentine’s day, he just wants to spend time with me. he’s lovely. my dog ate sugar cookies, press n seal and foil this morning. she’s a crazy piece of work.

mira the wonderful comet

Posted in friends, Mira by


let me introduce you to the new love of my life: mira. una foto to the left. she likes cuddling and demanding attention and sticking her wriggly butt in the air while attempting to eat my shoes. i love walking in the door to see her standing up eagerly in her crate, ears up, tail wagging. take me out and love me juuulia! she loves peanut butter, my couch cushions and rawhide bones. she barks like a hoooound dog and is very smart. maybe too smart for her own good. i foresee many happy years together.

i have an office at work. a real live office with a door that locks and a plastic street lamp and a bookcase. it’s so sweeeet! i think my job is officially a real job.

i’m completely and utterly happy. content. at peace [mostly]. i came to terms with an old friend this week. it feels good to close what was a friendship and has been a running joke for the last two years. i’m done and over with whatever we had and have discovered that i may have grown up since college but that does not mean everyone has done the same. they may have all the right pieces there but when you put them together the same person they were before is still formed. i feel sorry for that girl who works so hard to create a life that impresses others and herself only to end up where she started. maybe she doesn’t see that though.

and now i’m going to go to bed and hope that i’ll wake up to the winter wonderland that the weathermen promised.

fairy princess with an edge

Posted in books, high school, North Carolina, relationships by

i don’t think we ever grow out of our insecurities. For awhile I thought that the older we got the less we worried about what other people think of us we would be. She’ll always worry about seeing her old high school crush at a friend’s wedding, even though she’s happily married, has a house and a great job. She’ll always avoid people she knows because small talk makes her uncomfortable and she’s sure they’re laughing at her back as she walks away. It comforts me to know that I’m not the only one who is still like this.
Work might be frustrating me. I might feel invisible sometimes.
I miss North Carolina a lot these days. I am not unhappy here nor do I regret moving back. The exact opposite in fact. I’m just lucky enough to have two homes and when I am in one my heart is in the other. I also miss Bette and am not sure why she had to go so far away that I cannot reach her by cell phone. Upsetting that I cannot share random goodness with her. Email is not the same.
I recently finished the most amazing book I have ever read, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen. This book literally changed my life and I beg you to read it. In fact I will buy it for you. It honestly deserves some sort of review but I’ve lent it to Sam so that will have to wait. Please at least check out the website – www.threecupsoftea.com. It is truly amazing the impact that one man can have on so many people.
I like receiving lamps, talking about taking trips and talking on the phone for at least half an hour every night I don’t see you. I could get used to this but probably shouldn’t let myself do that. Just in case. A girl’s gotta be on the defensive because you never know.
And now you must explain to me why I am up at 1:15AM on a week day. I blame the cookies.

do it with the bathroom door open

Posted in apartments, work by

As of tomorrow I am officially moving out of my parents’ house for good. I’m sure I thought that very thing as I got onto I465 last November, my car packed full of my things, and headed down South to the land of the pines. This time I do mean it though. I’ve got a nice little apartment downtown in a cute historic neighborhood called Woodruff Place. There are trees and fountains down the center of the streets and a town hall where neighbors still hold meetings and plan events. I have grand plans for this apartment. Life will be good. No, scratch that, life is good. Mmmm I like being able to say that, though now I’ve certainly jinxed myself.
The job is good. I’m learning a lot about the inner workings of a magazine while randomly floating around. A small sample of how we spend our days:


Those are my boss’s dogs, who accompany her to work every day, eating whipped cream from Starbucks. Other things that have been discussed include killer midget’s with boxcutters jumping out of the trees downtown to kill innocent bystanders, penis ties and pictures (this was in an art contest meeting for the children’s magazines), the fact that I got a doggy penis stuck in my face (the smallest one in the middle above) and facebook.
I leave you many (and by many I mean few) readers with an excerpt from a Jamie Cullum song that I feel is fitting to my mood these days.

It’s just another story caught up
In another photograph I found.
And it seems like another person lived that life a great many years ago from now,
When I look back on my ordinary, ordinary life,
I see so much magic, though I missed it at the time.

glad to have a friend like you

Posted in 717, friends, Green Cove by

the sign of a true friend

  • she offers to let you borrow her underwear when you’ve forgotten yours
  • she says if she gets her own place first you can totally…you know…bring guys over
  • she comes to get you at 6AM the morning after a late night to take you to your car so you can drive home to your family emergency
  • she’s there for you after she tried to warn you about him and never says “i told you so”
  • she’s there for you when you get it right the second time
  • she reassures you that you’re not trashy when you’re certain that you are
  • she has late night hot pocket eating/kitchen floor posing sessions with you
  • you im each other from down the hall. or even better when in the same room
  • she laughs at you when you do stupid things like pee in your pants but she never tells anyone
  • you can tell her even your most embarrassing thoughts without your face turning red
  • sometimes you hate her, but most of the time you love her
  • you can call her for no reason at all and end up talking for an hour
  • you’ve read your diaries out loud to each other and died laughing at what they say
  • she’s been your pee buddy, whether it’s in the woods or because the bathroom door is open
  • she knows without asking that when you got home from the bars you ordered the big 10 from pizza express
  • she’s warded off unwanted romantic attention your manager showered on you. countless times.

i will be corny and happy that i have the most lovely girls ever.

deja what?

Posted in North Carolina, relationships by

I’ve had some very odd dreams lately. They usually include some reference to camp. Other than that, they’re pretty random. Last night, in the middle of the part of my dream where a little girl gets kidnapped by a very frightening man in a red shirt, I had dream deja vu. I literally thought, in my dream, I’ve had this very dream before. I’m not entirely sure if that’s true but it was very weird nonetheless. I woke up feeling unsettled.

This weekend has been fairly enlightening. I discovered that it’s much easier to trash talk someone to their face when they are drunk. OK, trash talk is a bit strong. Let’s go with telling someone that you really think they’re a dirtbag because of certain things they’ve done to certain friends. I also discovered that it’s easier than I thought to be friends with someone I didn’t really want to see again a short three months ago. And taking a step back as I have now makes me see clearly the reasons that we didn’t have a whole lot of contact for awhile. Funny how those things become blurry when you’re up too close to someone. I also discovered that as a girl I should apparently be defining myself as “so and so’s girlfriend”. Well, I have a few problems with this. One, and mostly, I am no one’s girlfriend. Two, and really just as mostly, if I was, I would not introduce myself as such. I happen to be my own independent person. This came about because I was at a party with people I didn’t know. I sat at a table with three other girls and we did the whole introductions thing. One looked at the girl named Erin and said “Oh, you’re Phil’s girlfriend.” Erin said yes, and oh you’re so and so’s girlfriend, right? The first girl then looked at me and asked, “Are you anyone’s girlfriend?” I replied no and thought to myself when did we start simply being someone’s girlfriend?

A continuation of the things I’ll miss about the South list
~ma’am and sir
~country songs playing at bars
~prah-leens
~men holding doors for women
~cowboy boots and dresses/skirts
~girls tailgating in cute sundresses

indiana bound

Posted in Green Cove, Indianapolis, North Carolina by

i’m tan and proud as a result of hanging out at the pool for approximately 4 hours yesterday. it’ll probably fade soon. i’ve been missing taco day at camp so i made my own for dinner tonight, complete with yummy homemade guacamole. i would like to say that i’m a decent cook. next on the list: pie. without the help of renee, the pie guru, which could prove to be very difficult.
in other news i’m moving. i’m taking my sweet black and white fuzzy couch and moving back to indianapolis. i feel like a bit of a hypocrite since i spent so much time this past year talking shit about people who graduated and moved back to our home town. this is not the same though. i mean, i went out and experienced the world man. i have good reason. i got a job at a children’s magazine in marketing. i’m pretty freaking excited. except that leaving north carolina will be very sad. i love it here and am quite sure that someday i will end up in this lovely state again, preferably in the mountains. i am going to keep a running list of things i will miss about the south and nc. here’s a start.

*the mountains and the beach in one state
*perfect strangers saying smiling and saying hello in the street and me not having to worry too much about them being pervy because people are just more friendly down here
*sweet tea, which i’ve started drinking recently
*southern accents
*people freaking out about 2 inches of snow

i have a feeling that the next few weeks are going to be very hectic. or i will put off preparing for the move until the week before i leave, which will be the week after our trip to ithaca so even better, and then i’ll be losing my mind right before i go. yipeeee!!!!!

it’s only life after all. yeah.

Posted in apartments, Green Cove, Indianapolis by

i feel a bit weird posting bits of my life on the internet. this is an awfully public place to be writing about my life, isn’t it? oh well, the personal element often gets left out. seriously just look at my facebook profile if you want personal. you’ll see that my religion is worshiping the brits, my music taste is “goodbye earl” by the dixie chicks and that i look hott playing kickball in pink pantaloons.

tonight i was talking to my mom about something that had happened last spring in bloomington and i realized how long ago that seems. in reality bloomington was only a year and a half ago but so much has happened since then. i feel like i’ve lived a whole other life in that year and a half.

i’m back in raleigh at the moment. well not literally since i’m home in indianapolis right now. i moved into a cute apartment and am the proud owner of a black and white fuzzy couch. i’m going through camp withdrawal, as i do at the end of every summer. i think i can safely say that this ties for my most wonderful summer ever (with my second summer on staff). i ended up having junior line instead of hillside, which meant 8-11 year olds. honestly i cannot imagine having any other girls. i loved giving hugs and holding hands and being all out silly with my sweet junior mints. i have also never been so endlessly proud of a group of girls. every single day one of them did something that made me smile a mile wide. how can girls so little stretch themselves so much? i see so much potential in them. i watched them grow so much over just five and a half weeks. and my staff. i cannot compliment them enough. i would’ve been lost without such an amazing group of counselors. and we all had so much fun. good summer camp fun. lots of lake jumping in our clothes (especially after hot days at the barn during june camp), nights in town, even getting pulled over by a cop, lots of late nights up in the office, random and ridiculous adventures on days off.

now i’m writing a lot more. i’m looking for a big girl job. i’m wishing i could run back to the mountains where people look up to me and i’m a somebody.

where the rhododendron grow

Posted in Green Cove, riding by

i’ve been at camp for a little over a month now. time has absolutely flown by. june camp is over and i’m sitting at bette’s house in charlotte waiting to finish my ridiculous amounts of laundry. tomorrow we head back to tuxedo to get ready for the 5 1/2 week session.
during june camp bette and i tackled the job of heads of riding. we got the fun task of making the schedule each week, which entailed putting 140 girls in lessons for the whole week. good thing half of them were group ones and we only have something like 3 group one horses. despite the many schedule glitches i think things went fairly smoothly. we have a wonderful riding staff who are all knowledgeable and eager to learn about the green cove way of life.
i’m living in the villa, which is a counselors only cabin, so no little kiddies of my own to take care of 24/7. i wake up right before breakfast and go out in the evenings if i want to after alls done at camp. most of the time though i found myself staying up late in the head counselor’s office doing paperwork type things or just passing out at the early hour of 11pm. i am being more social this summer, which is suprisingly fun. mingling with other people, fun? craziness i know. bette’s house in tryon has become something of a hot spot you could say. both our days off during june camp ended there with large gatherings. one night included british drink concoctions and a hot tub. the other involved PIE and cookies. basically magical. of course summer isn’t summer without bette’s tryon house. it’s in the middle of a horse-y town with a 3 stall barn next to the house, which is small and adorable and filled with horse-y decorations. the front porch, complete with rocking chairs, overlooks the pasture where their horses get turned out and in the horizon is the misty outline of the mountains.
i’m honestly very much looking forward to main camp. no more ponies, which is sad, but i’m moving up to a linehead. i’ll get to be in charge of a group of cabins – counselors and campers of the age 13-14. great age, i know. new challenges await i’m sure. meanwhile the job search continues and i’m trying not to think about the hassle of moving that awaits me in raleigh at the end of the summer.