grab a sandwich, get swept up in a movement.

today's post is brought to you by "weird shit that happens to emily that she seriously can't make up".

seriously. i was going to blog about x-men and how i've been binge watching it and crying over homeless charles xavier. but then THIS THING HAPPENED.

let's just jump right in.

okay. so i'm a high school swim coach. my old high school, to be exact. i swam there for four years. it was awesome. now i'm their assistant swim coach and it's seriously the best part of my day. i love every minute of it.

on saturday, we had our summit athletic conference, or SAC. it's a bunch of teams lumped together by location by IHSAA (indiana high school athletic association) and we all swim against each other and one team is the conference champion.

snider always wins. always.

i go in with relatively high hopes for our mostly newbie on the mend team. i get to the natatorium early so i can have a parking space (the parking lot is tiny for the number of people that come to these events) and i'm knitting while my kids are arriving. my head coach and coworker, ben, arrives.

ben's a really chill dude with earrings and a beard and a super cute daughter. we complement each other super well. i worry about everything. he calms me down. he worries about nothing. i point out stuff he should probably worry about. we're hoping to go to a few coaching seminars this summer and build the team up.

early in the week, i had asked the natatorium staff if there would be a hospitality room to feed the coaches during the break in the middle of the meet for diving.

nat person: yeah, catered by subway.
me: will it be vegetarian friendly?
nat person: uhhhh probs not
me: LOL THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO ME.

so ben texts me on friday and he's like "yo i'll just buy you jimmy johns" and i'm like "HELL YEAH JIMMY JOHNS" and ben's like, "i'll pay because i'm married with a good job" and i'm like "HELL YEAH JIMMY JOHNS" and ben's wife is like "WHY AREN'T YOU BUYING ME SANDWICHES?!"

so saturday rolls around. the meet starts. we're doing pretty well. we have some great swims. some other kids have some great swims. i'm hanging out with dwenger's coach because i was in his wedding. things are good.

diving comes. ben calls jimmy johns to have them deliver my sandwich. five minutes later he comes up to me like, jimmy johns won't deliver because the nat is too far away.

let me make this perfectly clear.

jimmy johns is 1.6 miles from the natatorium.

REALLY, JIMMY JOHNS? REALLY?

i've had pizza delivered to me while i was in the ER. i was literally in a trauma room with doctor's poking me and they delivered the pizza directly to me. i wasn't having that "too far to deliver" bullshit.

so ben gives me two fives and says, "hurry back" and suddenly i'm on a mission.

drive to jimmy johns, get a sandwich, and be back before the meet resumes.

i grab my bag and run out to my van, knowing full well that i'm going to lose my magnificent parking spot that i got to the meet an hour early for. set my GPS for jimmy johns because downtown fort wayne looks something like this.

i know that jimmy johns is at wayne and calhoun (the street the nat is on). at some point in time, over by wayne street, which is one way, calhoun was one way. i have vague memories of them doing construction to make it two way, but when you move to michigan for college, you kind of forget where and wheb these things happened.

my lovely british GPS is telling me to turn onto washington (one way), then onto harrison (one way) and then onto wayne (one way) to make a big square.

it's one thirty. traffic isn't too bad. but there are a lot of cop cars around and i'm a little worried about that.

i'm following an SUV that also looks like it needs a sandwich. on either side of wayne street there's metered parking. and i'm like 'ayyy i'm only gonna be in jimmy johns for probably a minute and a half so i probably don't need to pay' but then i realise that there is literally NO PARKING AVAILABLE.

does everyone need jimmy johns as much as i do? is that why both sides of the street are parked up?

the SUV and i roll around the block again and as i'm panicking about where to park, a couple cop cars pull up and turn on their lights. something weird is happening.

i continue on wayne street and haphazardly park on the left side of the street, right next to a cop car and very illegally.

me: i'm sure this will be okay
me: if this isn't okay i'm gonna get a parking ticket
me: maybe i can cry and get out of it
me: i just want my sandwich
me: this will take two minutes it's gonna be fine
me: THIS SHOULD BE FINE, RIGHT?

i get out of my van, step into ankle deep snow in my toms, and the wind blows my van door wide open. good thing i'm not parking in actual metered parking because i probably would've taken the meter out.

then i wrap my coat around me and head as fast as i can toward calhoun street and the coolest downtown jimmy johns i've ever seen. there's a dude about my age walking with me and he has some earbuds in and he looks pretty chill and like he could use a good sandwich.

right when i get to the street to cross it...

ALL THE COP CARS COME. THEY ALL HAVE THEIR LIGHTS AND SIRENS ON. THEY ARE SWARMING. and my first thought is SHIT I'M GONNA GET A PARKING TICKET.

but they blow right by me and chill earbud guy and start blocking off calhoun street. which is my direct path back to the natatorium.

and then... i see them.

marching down calhoun street. thousands of them. thousands of people.

it's an effin' right to life march.

thousands of people are walking down the street. they have pictures of the pope and pictures of nuns. they have crosses. they have catholic and lutheran school signs. they have pictures of dead babies.

i have literally walked directly into a pro-life march.

earbud guy: what the hell is going me?
me: no idea.
random marcher: I LOVE FORT WAYNE MAN
earbud guy: ME TOO, MAN, ME TOO
me:

i. cannot. make. this. up.

photo courtesy of our awesome newspaper, the journal gazette.
i'm getting intense about copyright, you guys.

i don't want to spend a lot of time on ideology, but i'm pro-choice. you will not see me at a right to life march. and at this point, i just want my goddamn sandwich.

earbud guy and i are trying to figure out how to cut through all these intensely marching people. lucky for me, they're in groups. between what looks like a military group and one of the lutheran high schools, there's a gap.

i run across as fast as i can before i get swept up by these people. i totally applaud that they're marching on this windy day and fighting for what they believe in, but this is not the type of march that i want to be swallowed by.

get into the jimmy johns. order my usual. the guy behind the counter doesn't seem to notice that the entire street in front of his shop is filled with thousands of right to life people. i'm ridiculously flustered and i wonder how much time it's taken me to get here, to find an illegal parking spot, to get partially swept up into a right to life march.

my sandwich is done. i thank the guys behind the counter, shove the sandwich in my bag, and head back outside.

now there are MORE PEOPLE OUTSIDE. chill earbud guy is gone. my van is still parked illegally next to a cop car and i don't see any breaks in the march.

i've never been to a real march. i've done crop walks at alma. every time that i wanted to do a slut walk, i had another engagement. i've seen marches in washington DC when i was there for active minds conference and i did a stomp out stigma walk around georgetown university's campus, but everyone there was pretty much an active minds college student.

i've never really seen a march like this in fort wayne. i'm intrigued. but i definitely just want to get back to the natatorium with my sandwich now that i have my hands on it.

it takes forever to find a gap in the marchers. i'm worried that as soon as i step out into the street, i'm going to get sucked in and someone is going to push a sign in my hand that says "I SUPPORT LIFE!"

like, i support life. but not in the right to life kinda way. more like the planned parenthood sex education free birth control universal healthcare raise the minimum wage kind of way.

i squeeze into a gap. nobody grabs me and hands me a sign. nobody looks at me and shouts "LOOK! A PRO-CHOICE WOMAN! GRAB HER!"

i make my way safely across the street. look back at the march as i'm getting in my van. drive away quickly.

realise that all of this has taken place in fifteen minutes.

let me tell you, that was probably the craziest fifteen minutes of my life.

when i get back to the nat, i eat the jimmy johns like my life depends on it. ben comes into the hospitality room like "was your sandwich good" and i'm like "i almost got swept up into a right to life march" and he's like "dude i'm surprised you didn't stay and march with them" and i was like "eh i'm a pro-choice" and he was like "eh rock on" and that pretty much ended that conversation.

the rest of the meet went well. i stayed a liberal queer pro-choice woman.

but i still almost got swept up in a right to life march and it was actually kinda cool.

and i got through the whole thing without a parking ticket WHAT UP.

(but i did lose my awesome parking spot and had to park on the street. didn't get a parking ticket for that either. WINNING.)

the list that wrapped up 2014.

i remember, quite clearly, writing my new year's post for 2013. and i remember, even more clearly, that i said that my new year's resolution was going to be to blog more.

HA. HAHAHA. HAHAHAHAHAHA OOPS.

sorry about that, kids. but i became an adult. and being an adult is kind of weird. and it means that you don't really have as much free time as you think. or maybe you just choose to spend your free time differently than you did in college.

2013 was a really great year. i went to three different countries in the course of a month, i went to oregon twice (once for a conference, once for a really fun wedding), and i fell out and back in love.

2013 was really really great.

comparatively, 2014 was just been kind of... average. like, killer average.

i can't stay up until midnight anymore. that whole "adult" thing, man, it just like... kills everything that you ever did in college. so last night i didn't stay up until two o'clock in the morning making this post.

i hope you can forgive me.

but now it's time for the list that wrapped up 2014 and we'll see exactly how average or extraordinary my year was.

THE LIST THAT WRAPPED UP 2014.

1. i, uh, well... i graduated from college.

that was pretty cool. english literature degree with honour's. ending the best four years of my life.

2. i became awkwardly obsessed with painting birdhouses. and i painted like... thirty in just a few weeks.

3. i wrote a five page paper in 25 minutes. I KNOW HOW TO COLLEGE.

4. for the same class of the 25 minute five page paper, i made a presentation worth 30% of my grade an hour before i had to present it. GOT AN A IN THE CLASS.

5. I FINALLY, AFTER FOUR EFFIN' YEARS, GOT A 4.0 IN MY LAST SEMESTER OF COLLEGE.

6. i finished my senior thesis. all 270 pages of it.

proud momma right there.

7. i slipped on a pool deck and split my chin open. FIVE STITCHES.

8. i had my first hangover? should i be posting that on here? is my dad reading this?

9. i finished my fourth consecutive blog every day in june go! challenge. and then never blogged again OOPS SORRY.

10. i got a little bit too close to a live alligator that was sunning itself in my grandpa's backyard.

i really like alligators. my brother kept me from getting closer than this.

11. i also met a turtle. he was pretty nice, just making his way down the boardwalk.

12. i went to florida with my brother to hang out with my grandpa. which is where i met the turtle and the alligator. i should've prefaced this.

13. also whilst in florida, i found a bunch of cool shark teeth and it was pretty neat.

14. i became the crazy bearded dragon lady that everyone knew i would become. seriously. hamlet has an instagram. @hamletthegrump. HIT IT UP.

15. i watched the olympic opening ceremonies at a bar instead of the comfort of my own home. being slightly drunk made the background music of heavy metal and rowdy middle aged men much more tolerable.

16. i went to what will probably be my last formal dance.

17. I MADE A BLUE VELVET CAKE?!

18. i finally read each harry potter book 50 times. you read that correctly. 50. TIMES. EACH. 

(no, i have not read the spanish ones 50 times each. sorry.)

19. i had some really good times in my van. trips to detroit, trips to alma, trips to wixom, and most important, trips to the MECHANIC.

20. my alternator died on the way to alma and i managed to coax my van into the parking space in front of my apartment building just seconds before it died and didn't run again for a month.

21. i then had it towed a total of two times in two months in weather under 10 degrees! woo!

22. my tire also blew out and i crashed into a guard rail at seventy miles an hour.

what a vehicle. it will turn 17 this year.

23. since this is number 23, i can say that i turned 23! and maybe people don't like me like that blink 182 song, but maybe they do. i don't know. i'm still trying to like myself.

24. my mom made me a super badass birthday cake. look at this thing.

25. MY BEST FRIEND GOT MARRIED!!!

26. and i got to be a bridesmaid!!!

27. i got my first manicure. it hurt a lot.

them nails, tho

28. i spent a beautiful evening with a beautiful couple on beautiful lake michigan.

it's kind of dark. whatever. it was awesome.

29. i sang in my last ever alma choirs concert. and not a word of it was in english.

30. when my man friend came back from scotland, i picked him up at the detroit airport and i got lost trying to find the international terminal and i ended up paying five dollars to park my van, where i accidentally knocked off a guy's side mirror.

31. when adam got through customs and i met him in the terminal i cried in front of a lot of people.

32. I WENT AND SAW VANCE JOY AND YOUNG THE GIANT.

I'M WAITING FOR THIS COUGH SYRUPPP TO COME DOWWWNNNN

33. i went garage saling and expanding my VHS tape collection to include pulp fiction, men in tights, the silence of the lambs, the fellowship of the ring, finding nemo, and aladdin. (i also got arsenic and old lace for christmas!)

34. i climbed a mountain. well, kind of. i hiked on a mountain.

35. i learned how to say no. so i quit my internship.

36. adam painted my back.

paint on your skin feels really good, by the way.

37. i presented my senior thesis at honour's day.

38. i also presented it for the kapp prize, which i did not win. but alas, it was pretty awesome.

39. i presented my poetry at the second annual see spot run writers' symposium with some of my favourite people. 

40. i got a steady job working part time at a ballet school. and i absolutely love it.

41. i went to my first REAL ballet. presented by the students at the school that i work at.

42. i'm also my old high school's swim coach. and i've loved every second of it so far.

43. i walked all night at relay for life in remembrance of my aunt and in honour of my grandmother and my church mentor.

44. i came out as bisexual publicly.

45. i had another adult christmas in which i received an electric toothbrush and flatware. SO EXCITING.

46. i learned how to knit and my life has never been the same. knit all day. sleep never.

47. i went back to alma for homecoming and realised that i'm done with college. i didn't think i was. but i am. i have moved on.

48. I SAW BEN FOLDS BACKED UP BY OUR SYMPHONY FOR THE SECOND TIME AND IT WAS GLORIOUS.

49. i built a snow fort with a frying pan when it was negative two degrees outside. it was pretty awesome.

50. i lived.

so 2014 wasn't as average as i thought. i mean, i graduated from college and i'm in that adult transition. (where hopefully i'll be moving out of my parents' house soon.)

i don't need a year like 2013 where i learn incredible life lessons, fall in love with myself, travel all over britain and the US, and discover a plethora of new bands. i don't need that every single year to have a good life.

i just need to look back at all i've accomplished, including the little things. 

2015 will hopefully bring super good things. i always foolishly hope that it will.

and i'll try to blog more, i promise. emphasis on the word try.