Sunday, December 30, 2007

Just pretend I didn't tear your world apart

rainboots dusty
but not
forgotten

"I Can't Wait Until I Go to a Place Where It Rains Again!"


sharp intakes of breath
walking out in the cold -
fifty degrees

"They're Not Used to This Kind of Weather"



Christmas ham
reduced
to sandwich duty



The last one gets no title. So take that. Tucson's almost done, and Greenville's almost here! What mixed feelings.

Friday, December 28, 2007

I know I need to write more

that "this"
made me
flutter

"Eeeee!"

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas!

I got this sweet Haiku anthology for Christmas, so I thought I'd share some of my favorites so far...

unexpected news
she stands staring into
the cutlery drawer

-- Dee Evetts


I look up
from writing
to daylight.

-- William J Higginson (Emily, this made me think of you... and WM)


sun & moon
in the same sky
the small hand of my wife

-- Gary Hotham


he removes his glove
to point out
orion

-- Raymond Roseliep

Monday, December 24, 2007

apparently
warm weather
still breeds germs

"I Get a Cold Now??"


panic -
last minute shoppers
trample through sparse aisles

"Christmas Eve Shopping Should Be an ESPN Sport"


scattered friends
reunited for short spurts
i love technology

"I Love Technology"


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE. Seriously.
boisterous voices
gossip over fast food
on china plates

"My Family Is So Weird"


paper bags with candles
and cactus wrapped in lights -
a desert christmas

"I'm Not Dreaming of a White Christmas"

Sunday, December 23, 2007

I like when musicians are friends and collaborate or mention the others in their songs. Like how Conor Oberst yelled, "M Ward for president!" on the Late Late Show, or how the Innocence Mission girl sings on Denison Witmer's album.

I'm starting to get bored... and I attribute this solely to me not having a car. I can only play Scrabulous so many times before I run out of turns, and I can knit only so many rows before I get tired of the monotony. Of course I'd start to anticipate school my LAST SEMESTER. Blah.

big white bed
time spent in dreams
whether waking or asleep

"My Room Has A Big White Bed"

Harder than it looks

winter reunion -
forgotten friends
tell far away stories

"Who Knew Rock Band Would Be So Entertaining?"


surprise chill -
when the light fades
so does laughter

"Desert Nights Are Cold!"

Two are all I can do tonight. Goodnight.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

oh life

I already need to catch up! Here are the two from yesterday.

barnes and noble
comforting, cozy, christmas -
flirting over harry potter

"I Would Marry A Librarian"


waking up sick
you'd think i would quit -
a decision is made

"Say No To Drugs"


Also, I told my mom I wanted haiku stuff for Christmas and she asked, "Like the poetry?"
"Yeah. I've decided to become obsessed with it."
"Ok." She said this as if it was the most normal thing in the world that I would randomly decide to become obsessed with something. And maybe it is. I love my family.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Cash prizes?

muddy, frozen earth...
memory of orion
when his belt alights us

"I Like to Think about That Night"

I first wrote haiku type #2 in the strict traditional Japanese 17 syllable way, but as I've been looking at more and more American haiku, I've begun to want to imitate their not so anal syllable count. Here I tried a more relaxed version, not obsessively counting the beats. I just might switch, but I haven't decided yet. This is only off by one syllable anyway, so who knows what I'll decide.

Also in haiku news, I subscribed to a daily haiku poem a day, and I stumbled across a haiku contest that I might enter. A British haiku website is hosting it, with entry fees and cash prizes! I don't have to enter any until May, though, so I might try to find one that ends a little sooner.

The other haikus are coming, don't worry.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

They Go Wild

#1

always on the go
food, friends, traffic, shopping, fam -
forget to survive

"Tucson Life Makes Me Feel Like a Grandma"

#2

nervous and anxious -
don't forget about me, or
think of someone else

"Sometimes I Get Worried"

#3

anticipation -
the mrs. enfolded us
with real life love

"She Missed Us, I Can Tell"

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Obsession

Watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network is one of my many joys. It makes me wish that I was an indie-hip pastry chef that went to art school and could make lifelike armadillo cakes and shoot clay pigeons out of the sky with skill. Anyway. One of my favorites on the show, Anna (I know!), is awesome. Along with her amazing decorating abilities, she's also obsessed with Scrabble. Mary Alice, another fave, explained, "She had to become obsessed with something for a class and she chose Scrabble. I don't know, it was art school."

So this sparked a little idea in my own head. "EMILY," I yelled. "Do you want to become obsessed with something with me??" Her true friendship which has already been made official 50 times over received another badge of honor when she said without hesitation, "Yes!!"

She chose Clark Gable - I chose haiku. Our homework assignments over break are thus:

Emily:

- Watch a different Clark Gable movie every 3 days - blog a review
- Once a week write a blog on Clark Gable the person - who was he, what was he about, etc?


Anna:

- Write 3 haiku a day on blog -
Haiku #1 - About day
Haiku #2 - "Cryptic Away Message Haiku"
Haiku #3 - Specific moment in day
- Once every two weeks blog on history of Haiku - famous writers, where it originated, etc.

So here I go.

#1

face smashed against pane
recycled air stifling lungs -
home seems far away

"Don't Think You Can Catch up on Sleep on a Plane"

#2

i waited all day
so i could play in our game -
i shall dominate

"Scrabble is for Winners"

#3

viva wasn't there
my heart collapsed within me -
laughing, it arrived

"Sometimes I Have a Bad Memory"

Annnnd I'm a nerd, but this came to me on the plane. It's not a haiku.

if earth were a patchwork
it would hang on the wall of a navaho
whose face is carved in mountains

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Part 1 of Day of Insanity

This is just a perfect example of why my life isn't real.

I ordered 200 blank white CD's and little white CD hubs a couple of weeks ago for my COR project. As of Thanksgiving, they still hadn't come. Finally, yesterday the CD hubs came in and we could start making the CD cases, which I suggested we start to do because as of yesterday we hadn't even started. So today Gary and Emily helped me paste and stick my way to success. Except Jakob didn't give me all 200 boxes, so we only have about 115 done. Anyway. The CD's.

As they still hadn't come in by today, I called the customer service phone number of the company. A woman on the other line told me that the CD's hadn't been shipped yet (!!!) because they were waiting for me to verify it.
"Verify what?!" I asked, utterly confused.
"Verify to send it across state lines." Uh. Excuse me?
"Did you send me an email or anything about this?" I was incredulously confused.
"No, but I think we called 5207957493." Oh great, they called my home number in TUCSON because it was the number on the card. But I was slightly mollified because that makes a little sense, right? But no.
"Did you leave a message with anyone?"
"Oh, I think I left a message." Right. So I call my mom, and of course they hadn't called. No call, no message, nothing. So I'm pissed about that. Then I try and get them to change my normal UPS ground shipping to an overnight rush delivery. No go.
"You can't change the status of delivery once the order has been made." I'm beginning to think this woman has a personal vendetta against me.
"But," she conceded, "you can cancel the order and then place another order and have that overnighted."
"Ok, if I did hypothetically do this, and re-ordered, would the CD's come by tomorrow?"
"No."
"Why??"
"We have to process it first. It's only overnighted from the time it's shipped."
This is getting ridiculous. So I hang up.

More later... I need to keep working.

Monday, November 26, 2007

The end is near

Oh, did I say that a couple of weeks ago was Hell Week? What I meant to say was, THIS WEEK WILL BE HELL WEEK.

COM Seminar Portfolio - due Wednesday
COR 401 Presentation - Thursday
CD Release Party - Friday

The CD's haven't come in yet. This means we haven't made them. My Lambda Pi Eta certificate is still in Tucson. I need that for my portfolio. I haven't actually bought my actual portfolio yet. I'm just a little stressed.

Pray for me?

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Replacing tears of gold with music and laughter

This past week should have been horrible. I even dubbed it Hell Week, with Wednesday appropriately titled the Hell Day within the Week of Hell. But instead of having the worst seven days of my life, I had some of the happiest times of this semester. You could even say I was giddy. Why? There's no reason. My notoriously bad memory is having trouble recalling Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday was spent dancing up in Archer, watching two Flight of the Conchords episodes, and putting out a pretty rockin' paper. And I remember thinking on Wednesday that it was odd that I'd been happy all week when there was so much stuff to be done.

Oh yeah! Monday I spent working on my 10 page COM paper, watching Heroes, and going to a COR 401 meeting. Tuesday was spent in similar fashion. Wednesday I just explained, and Thursday (yesterday) I got up fairly early, didn't feel sick from the Pap, got the paper sent, and picked it up again. It was nice. And this weekend's looking bright. Random trips to Vandalia to get McDonalds with Emily and Gary are stupid, but amazing. Love it.

Friday, November 16, 2007

The Illinois Chapter of the Dark Ferret Society has officially begun. First mission status: Tippi Thai.

Do you know how much I love Emily?

32 degrees. Batman mask, Batman cape, pea coat, snow cap with ear flaps and a bobble. White '95 Chevy lumina. 1 mission. 1 goal. 1 success. 1 life. 1 love.

Words cannot express and tongue cannot testify.

2:22 in the morning. Make a wish.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

And The World Spins Madly On

What is Writer Man doing? Where is that jasper? Is he really just leaving us alone for a few days or is there a more sinister reason we haven't noticed his ever present hand in our lives? I know he's sitting up there in his little apartment laughing because he's finally found a way that I can't figure him out. I'm too smart for his own good. But now that means nothing because he's psyching me out. Well fine. Do it - psych me out! I don't care. But know that I'm going to pretend to not care at all and do the only thing I can... which is wait.

Now that I'm done expounding on weird, imaginary stories I carry on inside my head, I can talk about what's actually going on in my life, which, of course, is nothing. Well, that's not entirely true... I have a 10 page paper for V Ross due next week, I have to order 200 blank white matte finish CD-R's, and the same number of nubbins, which are actually called dots, I have to apparently write a reflection paper on some articles for Psych, in 15 minutes I need to go fix some things on the Papyrus and then send it to the printer, then go to a radio meeting at 12:30 which I'm dreading, I have to scan these articles for my mom and email them to her because she's crazy, and I'm sure I have a lot of other random COR 401 things to accomplish. Oh life.

Sometimes rain that's needed falls, the Weepies tell me.

Tonight I'm going to the play! I forgot. Then afterwards I have a COR meeting which will kill any and all joy that the play brings me.

Sometimes my positivity hides behind my stress in a big game of hide and seek and I can't find it. Those are sad times.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Eat, Pray, Love

I keep thinking about something Mr. Monroe said sometime my junior or senior year in high school. He was talking about how connected he felt with God when reading or experiencing some things, but when he went back to them later, the connection wasn't there. He described frustration, but then the realization that the things themselves weren't the point - that God can use almost anything to commune with us.

I'm reading a beautiful book called Eat, Pray, Love. When Elizabeth describes her trip to India and her talks with a crinkly-eyed Balinese Medicine Man who reads her palm, I cried. As soon as I had finished, I went back to re-read it, and nothing. Not a drop. Not that I necessarily wanted to cry again, but it somehow wasn't as achingly beautiful and I needed to feel that again. It is frustrating.

But I love this woman. I'm something like 30 pages in and want to call her up and go to her cozy, warm colored apartment and drink tea and talk about books and life and the new shoes she just bought and my newest installment of weird boy-related follies. She is so real life that I want her to know that I'm here too. I exist! I also get too emotional, I also am sometimes happy-confident, sometimes desperately needy.

Woman. We need to talk.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

What can I compare you to?

Nashville, Nashville, Nashville, Nashville, Nashville, Nashville, Nashville!

That's where I am right now. And it's glorious. And I shall never leave.

"What can I compare you to, a window the sun shines through?
Maybe the silver moon
A smile rising
The magic of the fading day
Satellites on parade
A toast to the plans we've made to live like kings."

What a happy place.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Rehab

I have numerous half-finished posts I've neglected to acknowledge that are labeled as "drafts." I just haven't been able to express myself well in the last few weeks. There are all the lame normal reasons, of course - it's my last fall here, I'm starting to feel nostalgic and don't want to leave... but there are others unfortunately.

I told myself I would stay away from certain activities this semester because I'm starting to understand that my personality is passionately obsessive. Not creepy-obsessive (hopefully), but when I latch on to an emotion, I can't seem to pry myself away from it. It's attached. The American Heritage Dictionary (by way of Dictionary.com) defines obsessive as, "excessive in degree or nature," and I think that's just what it is. It's this excess of emotion that is difficult for me to control, and I almost always indulge.

But of course not even a week after I said I wouldn't, I did, and subsequently I've been struggling ever since. I get on these emotional highs that like its' narcotic brethren, is addictive and a horrible let down once the thrill is over. Do they have hotlines or therapy sessions for this kind of addiction - the emotional kind?

Friday, September 7, 2007

Between the motherboard of my computer dying, surprise birthday celebrations, and the glorious return of my last year of classes, there hasn't even been much room for important things in my life to occur. So don't worry, you didn't miss out on anything.

Dave's having a wake for his late beta fish, Ethan, who died late this summer. I'm making blue jello and trying to figure out how to suspend Sweedish Fish in it, while Angie's making a red velvet cake in the shape of Ethan. We're going to watch Finding Nemo and eat goldfish crackers. It sounds like a night on the town to me.

I'm skipping Music Business Survey. It's a good feeling.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Mama don't take the stairs on Friday

Sara Bareilles is playing IN TUCSON on my BIRTHDAY... what the eff. Seriously. It's like, "Happy Birthday, Anna! I'm playing a birthday show for you... wait, what? You're in Illinois for school? Oh... sorry... it's already set in stone... I guess I'll see you later?"

WAAAAAHHH!!

But otherwise, hey, I'm back at school. Illinois seems tame compared with Nashville (but let's be honest - it's tame compared to a graveyard), but I'm content with being back. I've also started SAing for Prof Ross' COR transfer class and I already love my little babies! I had to take them to placement testing today, but since most of them transferred in with their math and language requirements already taken care of, they didn't need to be there but none of the stupid people running the test would listen, and I was felt like a mother hen needing to protect her little chicks and I flared up and maaaay have snapped at a few choice people. Don't get between mama and her babies.

Monday, August 20, 2007

I'll be waiting in Northern California for you

Intern Sam has a friend named Jesse who wrote a song called Ugly Dress.

I saw you at the picture wearing that dress you never liked
You know the one I bought for you with purple flowers and green pinstripes
I know its ugly
That's why I bought it for you
It needed natural beauty
A pretty girl would only do

Where's that dress now?
Pull it out for the sunshine
Where's that smile now?
Let it out in the meantime

I'll be waiting in Northern California for you

I heard you in a story told by a girl you never liked
I know she's not the sweetest but she made me coffee in the late late night
At least she calls me back
That's nothing you'd ever do
At least she takes a chance
I know 'cause I counted all her tattoos


I think it sounds cheesy to say how much I love this song, but I seriously have listened to it on repeat ever since I downloaded it this morning. I could think of this in marketing terms, about how it's perfect because it blends the right amount of originality and accessibility, a catchy hook, and blah blah blaaaaah... but I like it because he sounds so plaintive. I want to comfort him. I want to make him coffee late at night and have him spill his guts to me. That's the reason it's a good song.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Just Survive

The littlest things are always what make my days terrible - it's never something huge. I didn't tell Elise I wasn't going to be in all next week until today... and she was kind of mad. And I had to work from 9 am to 2:30 pm at EMI, then 4 pm to 1:30 am at the parlor and it was the busiest there that it's been since FanFare. And I misunderstood my mom and thought she was coming tonight, when she's really coming tomorrow night and Jan and Richard are out of town, I can't get ahold of them, and they have someone coming in to turn on the alarm tomorrow morning because they thought I'd be gone.

But a girl with a heart on her face seemed to understand how I was feeling and whispered, "Survive," as I handed her her change. I wished that I could wear my heart on my face too, instead of on my sleeve like usual. Alsoran says the best place to put it is on the tip of your nose, but I think this girl might be on to something.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Harry Potter you're my magical hero in this muggle world I live in

Harry Potter is over, my mom is coming next week, and the night outside is perfect. My life seems to be one big lazy Sunday afternoon with all the time in the world for me to loll about and daydream about Harry Potter. I love the concept of contentment.

The release of the last Harry Potter book, if you're wondering, was amazing, brilliant, and tragic. Emily and I dressed up (for the last time, I kept reminding myself) and attended as Tonks and Luna Lovegood, complete with hot pink hair and lion head tied to a witches hat, respectively. I had so many people come up to me saying they loved my costume, and two people even asked to take their picture with me! I was Luna.

When midnight came, Em and I were about the 12th in line to get our books - we had gotten there an hour before the store opened to ensure that we were first to get our bracelet that told us which group we'd get our books in. I made friends with lots of fellow Nashville-Harry Potter lovers, including a 6-year-old black girl dressed as Hermione who not only was adorable and hilarious, but ALSO knew her Harry Potter. When a little girl dressed as a dementor came near us and I said, "Oh no, Hermione! Do the Patronus charm!" she IMMEDIATELY pulled out a wand she had just constructed out of pipe cleaners and brown tape and yelled, "Expecto Patronum!!" That girl was AWESOME.

My manager at work keeps asking if I want to see Harry Potter naked. He kind of ruins the magic.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Why I Always Ask for a Cup

Sugar cones are the devil. Seriously, I hate them.

Why, you ask, do I have this unnatural defiance related towards such a harmless and arguably delectable treat?

Oh, I'll tell you.

Ok, so it starts out with the Ice Cream parlor. Most of my stories nowadays seem to. So I've never really enjoyed the sugar cone, anyway. It was always thrust upon me when my family would take Sunday afternoon excursions to Baskin Robins, but I never really enjoyed them - but I didn't really hate them either. It was just a sort of unquestioned acceptance - this is what you eat ice cream out of. Ha!

Let me list its vices:

- The narrowness
It is extremely difficult to pile ice cream on top of a sugar cone without it all falling off. I don't know if people realize this, but every other cone offered is easier to eat from and put ice cream on. Come on people, use your sense.

- Its amazing ability to crumble under pressure
I can't count the times that I've handed a sugar cone piled high with some nonsense only to have it be crushed in the hands of an eager customer. First of all, cones are made from thin wafer - gripping it as tightly as you can might not be the smartest idea you could have. And second, the cones are too small to be holding all that ice cream and succombing to your handgrip of death. Get it in a bowl.

- People calling it "the regular cone" even though it's NOT and the name is right in front of them it costs them extra anyway:
I get angry just thinking about this one. When all you say is, "I want chocolate chip ice cream," and then look at me reproachfully like, "Well, what are you waiting for?" ... I get annoyed. And then when I ask wearily, "Cup or cone?" and when all you says is, "Cone,"... guys. There are 4 different types of cones, they are all right in front of you and then when you don't even look at them and just say "the regular one" and get MAD that I gave you a different cone than you were thinking of... Where does it say regular cone?! Nowhere! We don't sell one! You only have 4 options, none of which anywhere says regular!!

Seriously, who knew ice cream could conjure up these feelings of hatred?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

The light of the moon leads the way for the morning

So I'm at EMI right now.

Elise, who I work for, is sick. Vanessa, who Elise works for, is gone. Thiele, who is BA and works for no one is probably playing ping pong. And I am updating my blog. What a life.

O.M.G.

So Bryan (who Vanessa works for) just came up to me and said that if they'll let him, he's going to take me to help out with a video shoot for Amy-effing-Grant!!! (I added the effing - he just said Amy). But seriously. Guys. She's the freaking poster child of CCM... hold on, that girl IS CCM. Wow.

But anyway, now that I'm all giddy with anticipation, I have another piece of news to excite me - I'm seeing RYAN ADAMS tonight in Memphis!! Me and another intern here, Sam, are driving up and basically are going to have a better time tonight than anyone who reads this. Anyone who reads this is guaranteed to have a boring night anyway.

Well I'm tired of pretending to work. I'm going to go eat some foodables and pray that I have enough strength to get through the crazy days ahead... pretty much this week/weekend means no sleep for me. And then Emily comes Sunday when I'll be good and dead. Perfection.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Two hearts, one of them will break

Yesterday was the 4th of July. Of course I had to work at the ice cream place. But I had a fairly fun time -- there's a new hippie girl who I could envision being friends with (as opposed to the Loony Lovegood-esque Jessica) and Mike gave me a project. "I want you to make yourself a waffle cone and walk around outside near large groups of kids." OK! That's my kind of project. Hippie girl is a vegan so she didn't get to participate. Too bad.

After I got off at 9, Sam, Peter, and Jim met me for fireworks ovah the rivah. I took lots of pictures to preserve memories, don't worry.

Thyme and mushrooms have a natural affinity, the lady on the food network just told me. Huh.

EmmyB is coming to love me for a week! We're going to do awesome Nashville things like watch TV and knit together. Well, I don't know if she can knit, but she'll probably journal, and I'll knit, and we can both watch the Food Network. No, but seriously, this will be the best ever.

P.S. On that one new Ryan Adams song "Two Hearts" I thought he was saying "two hearts, one of them a brain" and I kept thinking of the Wizard of Oz.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Is this the part where you let go?

Alton Brown apparently works on the Food Network show trying to find the next food star... and all I have to say is, he's not the jovial man he portrays on his own show. I'd be afraid to meet him in a dark alley at night. I'd be afraid of some sarcastic remark - or a mugging. But I'd be afraid of a mugging no matter who I met.

So I've found out that in the south, bugs are not only more plentiful, but they also leave larger marks of their presence. I have a mosquito bite in my thumb that's roughly the size of a golf ball. Well, at least a nickel. A nickel that is red and blotchy and itches really bad.

Bugs are also more bold. As I was getting into my sweet ride this evening, a lightning bug came up at of nowhere and hovered at eye level, staring at me. I was kind of taken aback, I mean, when's the last time a firefly wanted to make contact with you? But I decided I didn't care, got into my car, and drove to Target.

That's all.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

It's not hard to fall when you float like a cannonball

I have become what you could call (but wouldn't if I wanted to be correct) a tea connoisseur. The southerners must be influencing me because almost literally, all I drink is tea. I even wrote the word "y'all" today. I don't really want to talk about it.

But since EMI has about 12 kitchens (this could be an exaggeration), I usually hop over to the one in A&R, right next to the new ping-pong table. Now I almost always get the same thing - one tea bag of black tea, a generous helping of French Vanilla creamer (I tried the normal kind once - it was a mistake), and half a packet of Splenda. It's glorious. I generally go through three of these a day. Today I hesitatingly tried Earl Grey instead of the plain black, but it turned out really well. Oh tea. I love it.

And when I eat dinner here (Jan and Richard's), they only have iced tea to drink. They mix orange juice and a fruit tea together with about half of the glass filled with ice, and it's amazing. I always drink mine too fast. They laugh and have started brewing more.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Guys, I have the funniest manager at the Ice Cream place. Let me tell you a bit about him.

He's a forty-something year old gay man who calls Celine Dion his girl and used to be a Certified Public Accountant somewhere in Michigan and now owns and operates a small ice cream parlor. During FanFair, this horribly huge 4 day country music festival, they shut down downtown and the streets were filled with huge display trucks. The one that happened to park itself in front of the ice cream place was the Venus Razor truck. Oh mylanta. It seemed that the only qualification for working at a Venus Razor truck was to be the most beautiful person in the world. I think EMI has a similar qualification that I somehow got out of by the use of my wit, charm, love of Degrassi, and obsession with Diet Coke. But those boys... three of them came into the parlor and he (Mike) was just drooling. I may have been too, but it was hilarious for Mike to force me, in the middle of the busiest days of the entire year, to go outside and participate in their hula hoop contest so I could fully appreciate the Venus Boy attractiveness. Oh Mike.

Why am I always friends with the gays?? I'm like Kathy Griffen. Except less funny.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Where were you while we were getting high?

It all seems so... planned. All the years of being addicted to the internet, loving new artists, wanting to go into this business... it seems like everything in my life has been preparing me for it. My internship is exactly, and I really mean exactly, what I want to do for the rest of my life. I could do it forever. And love it!

Seriously, what I do all day long is log onto bands' myspaces and update stuff, upload videos onto YouTube, and think up projects for kids on a street team to do! Guys. For real. I could do this.

And besides how great the working stuff is, everyone is so nice. And beautiful - seriously, I'm pretty sure everyone is the most beautiful person in the world there. Maybe's it a prerequiste? And the building is super, super nice. Spacious, creative, fun... why didn't anyone tell me how cool this would be?! Come on. Man.

Anyway, I'm going to go to bed and sleep in for the first time since I've been to Nashville. Wish me luck. Goodbye.

Sunday, June 3, 2007

One for sorrow, two for joy

I've been slowly trying to ween myself off of Diet Coke because apparently even though it doesn't have calories or carbohydrates, it's still BAD for you. Who knew. Right. Anyway, I O.D.'d on tea last night at Panera (not sweet tea, thank goodness - southerners are weird) and I couldn't fall asleep for hours because my body wasn't used to all the caffeine again. I can never win.

But if you didn't know, I'm in Nashville right now. I work at a crazy ice cream parlor downtown and live with a couple of older people in ritzy Forest Hills (which, I just googled and found out that it's the second richest city in all of TN - first is the town 2 streets away, Belle Meade). It's a good thing that I eventually got ahold of the Richard and Jan - if I couldn't live with them, I would have had to live with my 40-something, homosexual manager, and 20-something death-metal-lover-man who makes it a point to have as many tattoos as piercings and is also a lover of exotic pets, such as large boas and poisonous reptiles. Can you imagine my summer with those two?!! Seriously, disaster avoided. Or at least a really good plot for a movie avoided.

My internship at EMI starts tomorrow and I'm pretty excited.

Also, I've been looking up libraries online to try and find one near me.

I'm kind of lonely.

It's Elizabeth's birthday today. She's 15. That seems impossibly grown up.

I think I'm done here.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

And curses ring out instead of the psalms

Today is a day that will live in hilarity.

I got up this morning at 5 in the morning in order to leave my beloved Desert home. After going from Tucson to Las Vegas to Tulsa to St. Louis, I ended up at my mini van around 4:30 in the afternoon. I had the cutest old man drive me in the shuttle - he told me, "Now, I only have one rule, and that rule is that women are not to take their luggage. That's my job. Just so you know." Love it, as Vanessa says. Anyway, 4:30. I got in my car, called Emily to make sure I knew how to get to Litchfield (east on 70, north on 55), and was on my way. That is, I was on my way for 5 minutes - after that, my tire exploded. You may ask why a car that had all new tires would have tires that didn't work... and you may ask why I didn't freak out, but calmly, albeit in a very annoyed manner, pulled my car into the shoulder and called my dad, then Triple A. Seriously, my tire was in shreds. It had slashed the entire circumference of it, leaving me to drive 70 miles per hour on the rim. So that was scary.

While I was waiting for AA Roadrunner to come save me, a Berkley police officer drove up. It was strange - he seemed so nonchalant; not that there was anything to be... chalant... about, but I didn't even feel like he was trying to be helpful. He pulled up, and kind of waited for me to go to him. That was fine, but he made me sit in his car and wait for the triple A guy in there. Having never been in a police car before, I tried to observe cool police gadgety things, but all I saw was his laptop, and on his laptop? Solitare. "This is all we really do," he commented in a bored tone. Weird. So after the guy showed up, changed my tire, and told me a better way to Litchfield (north on 170, east on 270, then north on 55), I thought once more I was on my way.

About half an hour later, I was once again foiled in my attempts to see Emily. Illinois has this weird thing where it'll be all nice and sunny out, and then all of a sudden the heavens shoot hail and water bullets at your car and try to kill you. I had to pull over twiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. It took me an hour to go 18 miles. I kept praying, too, that I wouldn't die. Now we know that God answers prayers.





Oh life.

P.S. The Monroe babies are adorable. When Iain yells, "Let's run!" and then laughs really loud in a kind of fake way... I just want to scoop him up and take him to Greenville with me. I don't think the Monroes would mind too much.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Words are a lovely try for something more

I'm finally home for my 11 day summer vacation and I could not be more content - the content that fills you up and makes doing anything seem unattractive. Mmm. I need to call a bunch of people, and see a lot of friends, but right now sitting on my bed for 5 hours doing nothing but drink diet coke and read sounds the most appealing. I think I'll stay here.

It smells like rain. I think I almost forgot what it smelled like here when the dark thunder clouds roll in. I was lying on my bed in that half napping, half thinking state when it wafted in through my open window and took me by surprise. It smells like home in the same way that my clothes smell like home when my mom does my laundry. I think that if I smelled that love potion made by Slughorn in the Half Blood Prince the smell of Arizona rain would definitely be one of the three scents I'd smell.

Oh. Something that is worrying me right now. I took this short-term memory test online on this website that I found from StumbleUpon and I literally failed every test that required me to remember something for more than 5 seconds. When I'm old and can't remember even my own name, I hope some nice person will take pity on me and not let me kill myself accidentally.

Andrew and I made a homemade chicken pot pie yesterday. I think we started around 6:30 and didn't finish until after 9. We had to go to the store twice because when we were there the first time we forgot the main ingredient - the chicken! And we had to cut the vegetables ourselves, mince the garlic by hand, and peel a potato and some carrots without a peeler! It was the hardest I've worked on a meal. And it kind of sucked. Not worth the effort in the least. But it was pretty fun.

The end.

Monday, May 7, 2007

The pills stopped working long ago

So I had a Sales final that's due tomorrow at noon. The assignment is to basically summarize the entire book. An entire text book. By tomorrow. At noon. I didn't start until today at noon. But this morning I packed up my things and settled myself down for a long, lonely spell at the library and 6 hours and two trips to McDonalds later, I am finished. 14 pages, sucka.

6 hours sounds like a lot of hours to spend in a library working all day when there are inflatable obstacle courses and velcro walls outside on Scott Field, big circus-colored balls waving gently in the wind of a warm, but not too warm, spring day. But I like libraries, although I like older ones better and this is fairly new. But libraries just seem to breed knowledge. Like the books are so excited to know so much they whisper their words into the air and every so often my head catches one and I work a little faster. If this were an old library, I would try and find a corner to hide in and do my work - the kind of corner that you could only find if you didn't know it was there. And then I wouldn't feel like I was wasting the day by working on things I should have done last week. I would feel like I was Anne of Green Gables studying for Queens, or Matilda learning about hummingbird heartbeats. I would feel noble and pure and, most excitingly, fictional. Because fiction holds that sort of charm that realizes it has a specific purpose. An eternal specific purpose that others can read about and learn from no matter where or when. But now I'm just Anna, sipping Diet Coke from a paper cup and straw, sitting in the sterile, but not quite unpleasant Ruby E. Dare library. For now, at least, I'm content with that.

Monday, April 30, 2007

The distant moaning of a train seems to play a sad refrain through the night

Agape is over and I feel like I have my life back. Thank you, I like having a grip on it again. It went well, people were happy, junior high girls got autographs, and high schoolers got to purchase t-shirts with logos of popular brands changed ever so slightly to make them Christian - "Godiswiser" for Budweiser, "Abreadcrumb & Fish" for Abercrombie & Fitch.

I really enjoyed myself. But as I was sitting in my golf cart, waiting for a couple of straggling Steller Kart members to mosy on over, the bassist asked me why I wanted to get into the music business. And I didn't know what to tell him. Why do I? Is this some whim that I've been following for the past 4 or 5 years? What if I don't end up wanting to do it? Is it too late to change my mind? I've almost graduated, my resume is stuffed with all of these credentials as to why I'd be amazing in this business, I have an internship at EMI-CMG in Artist Development, and I'm still thinking, "What if I want to be a writer?" or "What if I end up as a mom who doesn't want a career?" What if I've wasted the entirety of my college experience working towards something I woke up one day 5 years ago and decided I wanted to do?

I start to panic myself with these thoughts.

And it's not like I don't love it - I really do, it's just that I'm worried that I'm limiting myself. My friend Conor, he's in Korea for a year teaching English. What if I wanted to? Could I fit it in between internships and masters degrees and the madness of Nashville job searching? And even if I work this hard, is there any guarentee to being something significant? I could end up like Brooke - a music business major, president of MEISA, intern at EMI, top of her class - and now living outside of Nashville in a small 4 room apartment working for the Gideons. Yeah, the Gideons who leave Bibles everywhere.

I don't know why I'm feeling cynical all of a sudden. I'm glad I know what I want to do with my life, but for some reason I feel like I'm being pressured into something I'm not sure I agree with - which is weird because it's me who's been doing the pressuring. I don't know how I feel about "Christian" music - strike that, I do know how I feel. So why am I going to be working all summer at a place that's in charge of pretty much every significant Christian band in America?

Boo. I think I just need a nap.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Nobody dances anymore

So my Junior-Senior date's lung collapsed.

ONLY ME.

Junior year of high school I went to Formal with Keith, who hated my dress, I hated his tux (all white, who wears all white?!), and he went out the day before and got gloriously sunburned so he looked like a tomato wrapped in toilet paper.

Senior year I was going to go with Andrew, but he couldn't at the last second because he had a choir concert he forgot about. I was going to go with the Monroes (what great dates!!), but I let Mr. Dalton set me up on a blind date with his cousin, who, during the course of the night, fell more and more in love with one of my best friends. Also, Lucinda kicked me off of my table so I had to end up sitting at a table where I didn't know anyone WITH a guy I didn't know at all.

Now this year.

I think I'll move to Australia.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

I thought I recognized a corner of your smile

I just spent about 20 minutes looking at AdSense, a Google based ad-thing that you can put on your site to make money. I got kind of excited until I realized that I hadn't even started this blog yet. So I got on that.

I really don't know why I'm doing this. This meaning this blog. I had a few in middle and high school - you know, xanga, livejournal... but I always got bored and forgot to write in them. I promise to try and keep up with this, but I don't make any guarantees.

But seriously, blogs are great because you can be as self-centered as you want. You can talk about your day and what you did and what attractive guy you may or may not be interested in. A blog is also like a sympathetic friend - he let's you vent without interrupting for as long as you want and doesn't even bore you back with his own problems. A match made in heaven! The only downside is that you can't take a blog to the movies with you.

I went home this last week for my Uncle Bud's funeral. I accomplished the admirable feat of seeing everyone in town that I wanted to - the Monroes, Andrew, Jenn and Jake, and Mandy. Although I will admit it was easier now that no one is left in Tucson. Dang, I just remembered that I didn't see Robert or Chelly, even though we did try. Blast. Well, 4 out of 6 is pretty good.

I've had a band-crush on Hem for about 6 or 7 months now, and I must say that my admiration is growing daily. From the time that Danny McMaken handed me a burned copy of Rabbit Songs sophomore year, second semester, after the Chris thing went kaputz, I have listened to it... well, I just checked iTunes and it says only 5 times, but my hard drive crashed this summer, so that's really not accurate. Just be confident in the fact that I know every word to every song, and I'm definitely almost there with Funnel Cloud, their newest album which came out on my birthday. Praise Allah.

Wouldn't it be fun if I wrote music reviews? But I'm not good at saying things like, "Sally's voice blends almost etherally with the unorthodox, eclectic variety of instrumentation. The musical melodies infuse with the vocals to produce themes reminicent of intensely thought provoking matter." I like the kind of straightforward analysis like, "Sally's voice is great. Her band is great. Sufjan Stevens said so." Totally kidding, totally kidding. But yeah.

Well, I wrote a lot of one of these. At this rate I could publish a novel of all my innermost feelings (like how much I love Diet Coke) in a couple months.