AUGUST 2014

August! My birthday month. Me in all my Leo Glory. The year I turn twenty-six and feel kind of old for the first time. But also astonishingly young even though I am suddenly unqualified for certain boxes on certain forms that stop at 25. 

It seems like my entire summer has been building up towards August, towards The National Poetry Slam. All the practices and scrimmages and poems and workshops have brought us here, to Oakland, California. I love my team and I am proud of the poems we are bringing, the work we do. Olivia is pretty much my soul sister at this point, and it’s been years since I’ve been close with cis straight boys the way I am with Omar, Anthony, and Jared.

And apparently, all of that pays off when, out of 72 teams, we take second place.

Of course, on the last day in Oakland, when all of us are crying about how much we love each other, how much the summer has meant to us, blubbering into our beers about racism and sexism and friendship and support in the face of those things, that felt more like a win than anything I’ve ever known. 

Here’s a photo of us claiming our trophy (which we’d later pose with in our hotel room, including a shirtless one of Omar with it. Again, HERE IS MY INSTAGRAM. You’re welcome.)

Other Highlights:

-We take Cujo to the groomers for a haircut, they shave him entirely, so much so that when we go to pick him up I think they gave us the wrong dog. But he is so cute and silky underneath all that mangy fur and I actually fall in love with him on a whole new level. 
-For my birthday, Miles got me a record player. So the month was a lot of listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Cat Stevens, Lou Reed, but mostly both Lana Del Rey records, especially Ultraviolence, on Vinyl. 
-Andrea Gibson in general, who could be my dad.