Hello all my patient readers, yes, all four of you probably remaining after I’ve been away for about a month. What the hell ass has been going on over here, you may be wondering? Jes?

Well. Let me tell you.

For those not in the know, last October someone who’s blog I read commented on one of my posts. He was thusly blogrolled, as is often the case. His name is Josh, going by Rotgut McCoy at the time, over on blogspot until someone told him how much better wordpress is. Anyway, we had fun reading each others posts, and then graduated to facebook and instant messenger, talking every day, sometimes for hours after work. It got to the point where we got along so well, we started wondering what kind of ridiculous cosmic joke was being played on us. You’d think we would be dating in the 3D world if it wasn’t for the pesky 800 mile difference. And then one day we realized that we’re madly in love, and 800 miles doesn’t seem that far any more. Well shit, that’s awesome, but what now?

For a number of reasons, a lack of vacation time being only one of them, Josh is rather stuck where he is. And so, when the timing was just right, I went down to see him. That’s right, I finally got my ass down to North Carolina to test the sweet sweet waters of internet love out there in the real world. The parental units were rather uncertain, what with me going all by my lonesome down to dixie land to meet up with a strange man in a foreign world. The friends, who know Josh as well and know that he’s not some internet stalker, were more cautious along the lines of “Don’t get drunk and run your ass to a drive thru wedding chapel.” But off I went.

How did it go?

I. Am. Smitten.

That’s right folks. As usual, my gut feeling was completely correct, and hauling myself down to the states via a 24 hour bus ride full of fried-chicken-brandishing toddlers, heinous levels of air conditioning and the wonderful border patrol officers just waiting for the chance to snap that rubber glove all led up to the most wonderful moment in my life so far:

First Kiss

There was no first meeting awkwardness, no “Oh…yeah, you’re not the same in real life.” No weirdness of any sort other than the fact that we’re both just kind of weird as it is. The only thing that sucked was the sickening dread of my departure date, and FYI I will be investing in plenty of anti-anxiety meds for the next trip because feeling like you’re going to die while you’re trying to enjoy your last few hours together is not very productive. But as for the trip itself, a better time could not be had. I love Josh, I love his family, I love his friends. I very nearly didn’t get on the bus home. I probably shouldn’t have considering the trip home, but that’s for the next post

 

So stay tuned for the regularly scheduled ranting you’ve come to know and love, particularly in regards to Greyhound and their raging ineffectiveness (go on, ask me how I broke some toes), anyone classified as a LaFawnda, and my incredibly biased anger towards the politics of moving across the border. In the meantime, however, some awesome photos.

Equally Weird

 

Shots in Dixieland

 

Yes, there we are in the first of many crazy adventures, licking blue icing off a scary one-eyed snaggletoothed pineapple man. Quite possibly the product of the tequila shots you see there, even though that clearly took place on another occasion. There were many tequila shots. Also, there you can see Josh’s brother Nate and his wife Sami. We stayed with them for the week, and they are unbelievably super cool rad. I heart them very much. They wanted me to buy a house there. I nearly did. 

Caught in the Rain

 So we’ve got this thing about wanting to kiss in the rain, so when the downpour hit we were all over it. In that “Let’s not actually get drenched and instead kiss on the front porch about an inch from the rain” kind of way. It was super romantic and awesome.

Ready, Aim...Fail

So I evidently forgot how to kiss, but at least I’m headed in the right direction. At dinner that night, Josh suddenly leaned over, kissed his own shoulder, and very quickly became puzzled. “I’m…not sure why I did that. I think maybe I thought of kissing you and my shoulder was just closer.” Best. Boyfriend. Ever. Also, I’m wearing his shirt. Best. Girlfriend. Ever.

Awwwww yeah

So we made nacho dip one day after a barfingly cute trip to the grocery store where we stocked up on fun time American food (Sami, my oh-so-future-sister-in-law, is a fan of the Mac’n'Velveeta. She’s wonderful, though, don’t judge her by the cheeze.) FYI, please note that we kept the snaggletoothed pineapple for a few days before eating him.

YES PLEASE

That nacho dip? OHHHHHHH SO GOOOOOOOD. It was like a meal for the next three days, I even warmed some up for Josh when he came home from work for lunch. Apparently being domestic tastes good.

Le Maison LP

Josh’s little brother LP lives in an awesome old farmhouse out in what seems like the middle of nowhere to city slicker me. But it was rad getting there, cause we pretty much got around everywhere on Josh’s scooter. I love it cause it’s like being on a motorcycle, except not big and loud and scary to a girl who can count the number of times she’s been in a car this year on one hand. Sadly, we forgot to get a picture of us on the scooter. I think we forgot to get a picture of LP too, but he may have planned it that way. Either way, here’s us chilling in LP’s room.

Token Emo Shot

Since Josh bought a fancy new digital camera for the occasion of my visit, we very obviously had to take an emo shot or two. I think we do a pretty good job. This was at Josh’s friends Kenny and Rachel (married and awesome, they met over MySpace because America has never heard of Facebook apparently), but they’re in a later picture. For now, cue the My Chemical Romance and a tragic haircut.

Cute, I know

Our Picnic

Mah Behbeh

Squeee!

Josh worked his ass off to win a contest at work so he could get an extra day off. We celebrated with a picnic by the lake. I’ll give you a moment to get over the girly squeals…..okay, so guess how else we celebrated? No, besides that. To celebrate my entire trip and our general awesomeness, we also got….matching tattoos!

Super Bad Ass Love Tats

So everybody knows that even if you’ve been married for three thousand years you should never get each others names tattooed on you lest you spontaneously divorce in a brief time space continuum shift. So we went with matching tattoos instead. My stars are red, white and blue, a vaguely americana tribute to my awesome time in dixie land. His are green, natch.

Potato, potato, potato

Josh is very proud of the BBQ heritage of his state, so we obviously took a lunch date to Carolina BBQ, an adorable little restaurant filled with early morning churchgoers and small town news. The food was really good, although it took me a second to realize that everything on my plate was potato based. However, I really like potatos.

Sans Makeup

Josh felt the need to document my makeup application process. I don’t know why. But this was just before heading to a very delicious cookout. You may notice we do a lot of stuff surrounding food. That’s because food is awesome, and wherever Josh and I are, deliciousness abounds. You can see the deviled eggs in my eyes. And the “Chick’n” burgers…

Kenny and Rachel

Cookout Awesomeness

There’s Kenny and Rachel Kenny is awesome. Rachel is also awesome, and also fun sized. Please also notice Angry Johnny Boulder Fists over the BBQ, he was our excellent host for the occasion. He’s actually quite mild mannered and I think was the only one who actually said “What are those?” when I mentioned the Canadian military’s latest secret weapon, the B-Double-A’s (“Bow And Arrow.” Thanks Rick Mercer.)

The cookout was on the day before I left. Since the day I left was somewhat tainted by, you know, being miserable at having to leave and a bit handicapped with anxiety, I think it’s perfect to leave you with a few more glimpses of an awesome day in what now feels like the other half of my life. Enjoy, you lucky people.