Hey Elise // by Elise Hu

I’ll let pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman say it, because I share the sentiment. But this doesn’t mean I’m melancholy about this milestone. I feel pretty friggin’ great after the love, laughter and funfest that was Costa Rica.

“A huge chunk of my life is completely over, even though I will probably live 60 more years. There are so many things that will never happen to me again, and I never noticed when those things stopped occurring. And this does not mean I wish I had my old life back, because I like my new life better; I was just shocked to discover how much of what used to be central to my existence doesn’t even matter to me anymore.” (excerpted from Killing Yourself to Live)

TAMARINDO, COSTA RICA — I should have done this yesterday but didn’t have the half hour to sit down and get the video organized. So here’s a quick intro to the awesomest pals around, who can be rallied to go to Costa Rica with a simple email solicitation.

LIBERIA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT — The new airport facility was just completed about two weeks ago, we are told. It’s real shiny in there, and to maintain that gleam, a woman haphazardly sweeps nonstop for what could be all day. We were at the airport for more than an hour awaiting the arrival of a Dallas flight that carried friends Chris, Melissa, Brett and Monica. Enter this first clip we shot:

Our vacation home for 10, at night.

We’re staying at a gorgeous home atop a bluff, complete with an infinity pool and gorgeous views of the mountain and beach vistas. My blood pressure has lowered considerably since arriving. And because our group happens to include a little HD video camera, a photographer, five reporters, a blog platform creator and an internet connection, HeyElise will be hosting our vacation vlogposts all week. WOOT!

I returned from Oklahoma to find this on my desk. Who sent me this mysterious smiley-faced postcard from the Elizabeth Cady Stanton house?

Things I’ve considered:

1. Whoever addressed the card switched from normal casing to ALL CAPS for the NPR address. What gives?

2. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a 19th century women’s rights leader. Could this have been sent by a third-wave feminist friend of mine, or just by someone who happened to visit this place and decided to send me a postcard?

3. Stanton’s house is in Seneca Falls, New York. My friend Reeve, whose handwriting could be on this postcard, was recently visiting New York. But it seems the Elizabeth Cady Stanton house wouldn’t be one of his top destinations. I think Reeve prefers Susan B. Anthony.

4. I have ruled out both friends who consistently send me postcards: Sudeep “Man of Honor” Reddy, and Dave “I Love The North Pole” Levinthal. It’s not from Dave based on handwriting and because he only vacations in places with subzero temperatures, and I ruled out Sudeep because he never addresses postcards to me, he sends them to my beagle, Saidee Hu.

Help me solve this mystery.

UPDATE: Reeve has texted to say “That postcard did not come from me.” He adds that this mystery is “creepy.”

I’m not going to come up with crazy stuff like run a marathon cause I’ve done THAT before and it was the opposite of fun. Instead, some somewhat lofty but likely attainable goals:

1. Send More Handwritten Cards and Letters
What happened in 2011? I am so into stationery, pens and paper* but I couldn’t even pull it together to send our customary batch of Christmas cards this year. Get ready, cause I am going to overcompensate for my dereliction by sending you a note for whatever reason I can think of in the coming year.

2. Organize Photos Immediately After A Set Is Taken
Who knows how many photos have been lost to the cyberwilderness due to the too-many-photos, too-little-time problem? It’s time I try to be more like the wizard/best damn photographer I know, Channing Johnson, and download, sort and edit photos as soon as an event is over.

3. Become Conversant in Spanish
In recent months I have traded in my usual happy hours for twice a week, 90-minute sessions with my private Spanish tutor, Hilda. After being away from Espanol for more than a decade, I decided to get serious again, and Hilda is helping me. Here’s hoping I can be conversant by the end of 2012.

4. Visit Seven New Countries and/or Territories
I’m feeling wanderlusty again. Seven is a good prime number, so that’s how I landed on it. Sudeep wants to hit Iceland, Mom’s basically already signed me up for Morocco, and Beam is planning some Southeast Asian adventure. This resolution will cost me money I don’t have since we’re about to buy a DC house, but like my parents always told me, exploration is invaluable.

*Karl Rove is, too. We go to the same paper place in Austin. He’s really into Moleskin notebooks, Crane paper and Pilot “Varsity” pens, the ladies tell me.

Having finished my obligatory Year in Review, I thought I’d do a more visual look back at 2011. I use the Instagram app to take photos, add fun filters, and share them with pals in the Instagram community. I took thousands of “Instagrams” with my iPhone this year, but journalism is about selection. So I picked 47 of my favorite to help look back on the year that was.

And have yourself a good cry.

In transit at the Warsaw Airport. (October 2011)

My friend Patrick Terpstra wrote this of his year: “‎2011 was like riding a tilt-a-hurl after eating seven corn dogs. But it sure beats watching from the ground.”

I can’t disagree. I did plenty of plane riding, which is the most consistent memory of this year, besides saying goodbye and hello to a lot of people I really love. To rewind:

The Year I Flew Around the World, Twice: After saying goodbye to Texas and The Texas Tribune, I spent 99 days this year away from home, logging 78,931 miles in the air to 29 locations including places like Warsaw, Poland (for fun) and Boise, Idaho (for work). Not proud of the carbon footprint but I can now glide through security like Ryan Bingham.

Don’t Look Back in Anger (I Heard You Say): It felt like a pretty angry and destructive year, didn’t it? My second favorite emotion*, outrage, seemed to abound. I write this as tens of thousands of Russians protest in the streets, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya take their shaky steps toward self-rule, and socioeconomic dissatisfaction continues at home. We said goodbye to Osama bin Laden, Amy Winehouse and Steve Jobs (none of whom were picks in my clearly talentless celebrity death pool), an earthquake-tsunami combo led to radiation disaster in Japan, and we experienced a rare earthquake in my new hometown of Washington, D.C.

Favorite Video of The Year Is Also My Favorite Song: “Ching Chong (It Means I Love You)”
After a UCLA student went on a crazy rant about Asian people in the library, she faced a backlash so large she had to quit college. But Jimmy Wong turned his rant response into art — one of the catchiest songs of the year, and an instant viral video. It will get stuck in your head, so if you haven’t seen this, you’ve been warned.

Speaking of Asians, My Most Memorable Welcome to Washington: The Crazy Guy in Starbucks
There was one morning after the devastating Japanese earthquake when I went into Starbucks in Chinatown, natch, when a random guy off the street wandered in, started yelling at people in line, stopped at me, and said this, to me: “Fuck you, go home. You deserved the earthquake.” Then he told the rest of the line we were all going to die. Yep.

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With Justin in May 2010.

You may remember Justin from such adventures as “Confrustion: Trying to Figure Out How to Use Expensive Podcasting Mics“, or our weekly early morning breakfast summits, which we documented in a video. Or that time we were videotaping the inside of every Marriott hotel in Austin for a side job involving some Romanian employers who needed video of hotels. Or maybe you don’t know about that.

Justin is one of my besties. The Bert to my Ernie. My work-husband, even though I worked (and work) with my actual husband. We toiled together as a reporter-photog team at KVUE-TV, from 2006 to 2009. Then he joined us at The Texas Tribune, where he remains a multimedia producer today. But mostly we’ve involved ourselves with shenanigans, buffets and long nights that journeyed into daylight. There was one summer when we were obsessed with going to Cool River Cafe, a.k.a. “Cougar River” or “Cougar Town”, to dance to one-syllabled cover bands like MAXX or SUEDE with women who were old enough to be our moms, or Liza Minnelli.

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