It's okay.

I'm still here.
It's just that, well, it's that time of year, if you get my meaning. In case not, my meaning is that it's the end of the semester (which usually feels like the end of my life).
You see, there are just So many pages to write, with words like "thesis," "prospectus," "annotated," and "graduate" attached to them.

It's a hard life, but somebody has to live it, you know? How would the earth turn with one less scholar?
 So, while you have a week or something left in London and are barricaded in your flat eating digestives like Winston Churchill smoked cigars (or while I am), staring at a screen and literally howling like a hound dog puppy every few hours..... well, here's something to make you feel better about the past and future (the present is beyond me, frankly).

The Pleasures of Paris: A Sneak Preview

 

Jacob and me being tourists in the rain

 

 Feeling pretty awesome at The Gates of Hell

(Jacob got some "ideas" for our future children's bedroom door..)

 

 And enjoying the best French culture has to offer.



oops.
Did I mention that I have so much to be grateful for and that I love my studies and my career and everything?
It's just... well...
Well, maybe when all this is done and I scoop my scattered brains back together, I'll post about Paris and maybe even (dare I say it) my wedding?

Cheers, friends. It's all okay.
Banana

What the River Said

Île de la Cité from the Pont des Arts

[From my journal, in the end of May, in response to this]
Well, here I am, listening to the river. I'm on the Pont des Arts because, whether or not it's cliche, it's my favorite bridge in Paris. (Then again, loving Paris itself can be a cliche, can't it? So it's alright.)
It's definitely the most welcoming bridge in this old town of mine. 

I like that no matter when you come here, someone will be playing the guitar and someone else will be drinking wine in glasses with their friends, and Japanese tourists will be waving up at you from below as they spend their first day in Paris on an "informative boat ride."
I like the ugly padlocks that cover the grilles, fiercely affirming that Claire and Jerome will equal <3 4 ever, because it is clamped publicly,
just within view of the Eiffel Tower (if the Eiffel Tower stands on its tip-toes).
I like that I can see the Seine just as it decides to fork, making way for the Île de la Cité, and giving a peak of Notre Dame at Paris' heart.
I like the memories I have on this bridge, like Wednesday night drinks and smokes (them, not me) with nice but insistent french men, or the guy who knelt in front of me, politely said "vous êtes magnifique,"and then went on his merry French way without a backward glance.
But what is the river telling me, you ask? Well, that's between me and the river. But I'll tell you some of what I hear:

Stilettos, church bells, and a whistle.

Garbage bag rustling.

Oh no, now I'm distracted by how good the sun feels on my legs.

French, German. (The sun feels amazing!)

Little kids laughing, Arabic, stroller.

Americans (they're loud).

Rollerskates... a sort of late afternoon hum...

Bus.
Boat. 
French. 
Wind.    
  Vent.

So how does this translate? It's telling me that I came here with a heavy heart and some desperate hopes of escape and reinvention. But I'm not Sabrina.

No, no. I'm trying to grow my hair out and my french still isn't that good.

I haven't acquired a poodle or much of a lilting, monochrome walk, and I still look very much like me, with a few more zits and maybe a few extra pastry pounds. Maybe I'm even starting to look a little bit like a pastry. (I am what I eat...or I eat, therefore I am. Something like that)

But I feel the effects of dipping my toes in a  culture steeped in a love of beauty and a complicated past; something a little like myself, but foreign enough that I've been so confused and uncomfortable on so many occasions that I've had to get to know myself better as a means of survival.

The river is telling me that I can run away to Paris but not from myself, and when it's time to leave it will be possible (it must be) to find beauty and healing and myself elsewhere. In Adam Gopnik's delightful Paris to the Moon (I highly recommend, even if you know/ care nothing about France), his wife Martha says as it's time to go home, 

"In Paris we have a beautiful existence but not a full life, and in New York we have a full life but an unbeautiful existence."

I find comfort in this, realizing that my sun on the Pont des Arts is fast setting, and my time in Paris is waning like that moon it takes you to. But this beautiful existence has helped me begin to tentatively cross the bridge to the full life I want to have when reality picks me up at the airport.
And I'll never be able to repay the river for that. 

Other People's Ghosts

I love being up here.

Okay, so maybe I'm beating this "going-to-Europe-to-find-myself"thing over the head, but bear with me. Plus it's my blog.

 I don't know if I've mentioned that I'm kind of crazy? I won't go into detail, but I am. A little.
Not the cute, eccentric, "just-a-little-batty" (think Aunt Clara from "Bewitched") type,  nor the exciting Gothic romance broody-dark-eyebrows-and-chiseled-jaw-he-has-a-past-ooo-I-wonder-what-it-is type. I'm just a little crazy, and I'll leave it at that.

But just as I was reaching the apex of my craziness, it was time to come to France. Finally! The distant dream always somewhere in the mid-section of my brain, nagging to be realized, begging to be fulfilled!!!!! (!!!!!) It was time.
So I told my demons to hold still for a minute (these aren't the freaky type that need to be exorcised or anything. They're just metaphorical and pretty mild, but follow me everywhere.) and wriggled them into my backpack. I reminded my ghosts to be quiet, and brought them along in my faithful Target messanger bag.

And I walked right up to my new Parisian apartment in the Seizième, demons and ghosts in tow. Nervous smile on face. Dear friend Gracie at my side, blissfully unaware of any supernatural danger lurking in my luggage.

As soon as I unpacked them they convinced me that coming here to learn about other people's ghosts wouldn't get rid of mine. Those other, deeper ghosts would merely give my young, less experienced ones more material to work with: Oh! Foreign culture? Alienation. Check. Masterpieces and glamorous, happy people and ridiculous amounts of public displays of affection between unbelievably hot twenty-somethings? Inferiority complex back in black. Loneliness. Constant reminder of tragic love life. Check check check.
They took me off guard and found it much easier to plague and haunt me than I expected them to.

So sometimes I let them stay in bed with me half the day and ache, and sometimes I kicked them in the face and ran to the Musee D'Orsay to lose myself among the ghosts of others. But even when they weren't with me I thought about them and looked for them between every gargoyle, along each tree-lined boulevard. So they haunted me all the same.

I, however, have an interesting paranormal discovery to announce. With only a few official nights in Paris left, I've noticed a certain vacant space behind my shoulder that's prime lurking real estate. Maybe my ghosts liked the chilly atmosphere of the Bayeux cathedral's crypt or the stinky one of the Miromesnil metro station on Line 9 (always like rotting fish. always). Perhaps my demons have become as fond of inimitabile gelato as I have and now spend all their time at one of Paris' twenty Amarino's locations.
But whatever their sight-seeing and dining schedules as of late, I'm definitely seeing the little guys around a lot less often.
And I'm just here to say...

Hey. That's totally cool with me.

Love, baguettes, and it's almost time to take over the world with a backpack,

Banana 

An American (Holga) in Paris

What do you do when your digital camera leaves this mortal existence (whether by suicide, assassination, or natural causes I'll never know)?
Why, you take your plastic toy camera on the town, of course!

And there's no better place to soothe the grief-stricken heart of an amateur photographer than the Latin quarter. I checked.

First, I suggest the ever-looming towers of Notre Dame to play with some double-exposing and think about Victor Hugo. Did you know he had a fifty-year love affair? That's perserverance if I ever heard of it. Also, Gracie almost died in his house (slippery stairs and worn-out soles.)I had a conniption when I found out Charles Dickens had been in the same room in which I was standing. Pffff, forget Victor (gah! Just kidding! That felt awful).

This place is so photogenic. It never ceases to amaze me. 

I, on the other hand, am working on it:

Just off of Rue Mouffetard, the best, cutest street of all the streets

I make the camera go blurry.

Next, I suggest crossing the river for a magical time surrounded by ceiling-high stacks of books (In English!)at Shakespeare and Company [here].

It's too dark inside for little Miss Holga, but she was able to capture a little bit of the ambiance

Then, why not spend some more time with some of your favorite literary dead guys? You can visit them all at their final resting place in the incredible Panthéon (just a hop, skip, and a jump past the Sorbonne),which gives you a lovely panoramic view of your favorite city.

Also blurry, in case you didn't notice. I'm working on this.

 Here, Gracie was followed around by a lonely Polish man (and fellow lover of literature) who offered to buy her a drink if she guessed his country of origin. 

She guessed the Bahamas.

It's so hard to capture the beauty and charm and just feel of everything I'm experiencing. Especially with only this little plastic camera that's designed for 7 feet away max and prefers everything to be blurry (I mean it's an artistic choice...). I feel a bit like these lovers here. So smitten, but squished between gargantuan pillars that overshadow and consume me. There's no way to capture it, really. It speaks for itself.

 But I'll just say that the Latin Quarter is a haven of my favorite things: books, food, and Parisian beauty. What is was makes it what it is, and what is is is somewhere I will dearly miss.

Love, Pizza, and Voltaire,

Banana

Stone and Glass and Why We Should Look at Them (and climb so many stairs)




Daddy and me (and Nip the cat, the first of way too many Beanie Babies) atop L'Arc de Triomphe

On my last trip to Paris it was 1998 and I distinctly recall my parents trying to drag me into La Conciergerie to see Marie Antoinette's cell, and me protesting firmly that I had to finish Captain Underpants instead. This trip I arrived a ravenous Humanities major, albeit with some "personal issues" to sort through. As Brookie (an endlessly perceptive and profound best friend) wrote me as I left, "Nan, things are tough and rough and I think you feel like a tumble weed, it'll be nice to see old fashioned things that have lasted through time, maybe they'll teach you their secrets and things."

So I set out to look at some old things because I love art and history and because, perhaps, in some way they might teach me a thing or two about perserverance.
At once I met with some hard blows to my idealism. I guess I never wanted to pay attention to the fact that most of what we want to see of medieval Paris has been restored, lost, changed,  and/or destroyed and/or plundered during the revolution (aka "These are not François I's bed curtains. I want to see François I's bed curtains").
The original stuff is crumbily, dirty, and graffitied, and of course I'm broadly generalizing and simplifying to make a point.

My point is this:

The beauty of Paris' rich architectural and cultural past isn't determined by how "original" the upholstery or whether the handrail was replaced in the nineties.

It lies in the fact that century after century people have worked, reigned, prayed, fought, and lived in this city, adding their own contributions with a nod, always, to those of the past. The result is a marvelous jumble of layer upon layer of stone (and now also FNACS) that coexist with the new and give little whispers of the past while reminding you that what you (I, really) need to do is think about your (my) future.

And for the record, I did't think the Conciergerie was that great this time either, but maybe mostly because I didn't find Charles Darnay on the list of the imprisoned. But then again, I've always had a hard time separating reality and Charles Dickens (or Captain Underpants).

Ode à France {dernier projet}.

Here lies my last project for my French photography class. Enjoy (and, as always, comment if you please)!

Buildings. Space. Land.

Tension.

Rootedness and up-rootedness.

"I don't regret the numerous pictures of Brigitte Bardot, but I'd rather have a good photograph of my father."

Identity. 

Did all this conjure up a portrait of twentieth century french photographer Raymond Depardon? Well that's alright. To me, he's something of a hodge-podge of ideologies and sentimentality, all summed up by his grand commission from the state of France to capture, well, France.

Depardon scoured the country seeking for areas of "tension"; he photographed objects, particularly buildings, that cohabitated in  space and told (people-lessly) the story and history of a people that is inseparable from that people's fierce attachment to the land. 

So for my final photographic reflection on Paris and my little "Ode to Depardon," I thought I ought to pay hommage to some of the tensions, or apparent incongruencies, that give France and French culture their identities to me.

Take, for instance, the fact that one of the reasons Paris is Paris is because everyone wants to be there, so they bring their country along with them.

And snuggle the converging architectural style right in, nice and cozy.

 

Or take the tension between the universal, unrestrained joy of early childhood, and the necessity of growing into the determinedly indifferent french girls young french girls must inevitably become.

 

And then there are other, deeper stirrings. Culture and counter-culture.France's proud past of the classical Academy and the reality of post-revolution iconoclasm.

All brought together in the ever-present cultural melting pot of the Metro.

 

Depardon used "tension" to represent images that were "so French." 

Perhaps he wouldn't even have taken the following picture or seen anything culturally significant in its subject matter, but to a foreign eye the charm of an elderly jogger literally stopping to hop the fence and smell the roses is endless. And so very French.

 

It's probably inevitable that my Ode to French Identity is thus fueled and restricted by own identity. That is, because these things are "so French" to me, it probably just shows how not French I am.

But this tension creates a startingly new identity of its own. Before I came to France (as silly as it sounds), I never really thought of myself as "American". I defined myself by my gender, my hobbies, my interests, my religion. I was a Mormon, a theater nerd, a francophile. In the very American tradition, I prided myself in my freedom to be an individual and defined myself accordingly.

But how else can you explain the strange pang of comfort and irony in turning the corner to witness a sight so "very french," but also with a name so very American that it makes me smile? I feel like we know each other. I get it. 

Bearing in mind it's named after a state (and region) I've never even been to, and if I sat down at one of the smokey tables to order, I would undoubtedly make many cultural and linguistic fumbles before finally sinking back in an uneasy sigh of relief and starting to think of home.

Happy Belated Friday the Thirteenth

Love,

Nina, Gracie, and the residents of the Paris Catacombs.

"Where's Your Dog?" and other pleasures of the Paris Metropolitan

Matching buns near the entrance to the Opéra metro stop.

Some things you might see while aimlessly following Line 6 of the Metro:

• A person in a giant bunny costume chatting nonchalantly with friends
• A world-class accordianist playing "Carmen"
• An American tourist couple panicking as the husband's backpack is caught in the ruthless automatic doors
• A small boy, old African woman, and middle-aged businessman all sneaking glances at you through the reflection of the door.

My personal favorites are the "metro crazies" who inspire Alyssa to ask me "Where's your dog?" when I act particularly strange. These lovely persons mumble (or yell, accordingly) throughout your underground sojourn -- to themselves-- and are almost always accompanied by an adorable pooch.

There's so much to see inside any metro train to make you die laughing or to clutch your purse in terror.

So much, that once you finally take a breath of fresh air at the top of the stairs, you forget the outside world has anything to do with the circus of sights, sounds, and smells below. 


So when I followed line 6, dutifully getting off at every stop, I made a discovery. Had an epiphany.

There are metro crazies everywhere.
Above and below.

In fact, the city is teeming with tourists, musicians, and limitless people to watch and admire and run from. And though I was supposed to learn about metro history through this project, I think I made an equally important connection:

The metro is a beautiful, smelly place where we're all squished together and allowed to admire one another's insanity.

Chouette. Groovy.

The Sleeper {deuxième projet}

This is my second project for my photography class. Enjoy!

Sophie Calle invited strangers off the street to sleep in her bed. She was fascinated by the intimacy 8 hours of watching and documenting an unconscious fellow Parisian lent her.
  Now, say what you'd like about Sophie (she was crazy, creepy, etc.), but I've decided I like her. I like her sense of adventure and complete disregard for the words "shocking," "embarrassing," or "normal." I like her definition of "art." 
      So for my little ode to Sophie, I decided to conduct an experiment of my own.

 Now, just for the record, I hate being photographed. I usually refuse to pose for pictures because it makes me feel fake and uncomfortable, and I'd much rather point a camera at someone else than have one pointed at me.

    So this project is a stretch for me. But Sophie was often the subject of her own experiments, and in hommage to her I made myself become 
"The Sleeper." 
In my Parisian bed, I recorded the events immediately preceeding, during, and following my sleeps and had Alyssa take pictures of me whenever she came to wake me up. 

The intimate view of myself that follows is difficult for me to share and uncomfortable for me to view. The pictures are not my own and the compositional elements and lighting are weak. 
But there's a hint, a glimpse, a peek into the very nature of photography itself. If I feel fake when I pose, isn't being asleep the most sincere I can possibly be? What, then, am I forfeiting here, 

and what do I usually keep hidden?
   

5/11 6:50 pm 

I get home, say "hey" to Emmanuel as I pass his room, put on deodorant, and sink into bed like a dead girl.

 Last thing I remember thinking: I wonder if people thought Sabrina's name was funny when she came to Paris.

 

 I dream about: A bunch of people making serious critiques on my flikr account like I'm a real photographer and exhibit my photos there. But I try vainly to explain that I just load everything online because I don't have a flash drive.

 8:31 pm I wake up for dîner with "La Vie en Rose" in my head.

5/11 10:45 pm

After eating seven (very small) pancakes and drinking a smoothie under the sparkly lights at La Tour Eiffel, I take my medicine and crawl into bed with a blinding headache.

I fall asleep in my clothes.

Last thing I remember thinking: That will suck if I die of a brain aneurysm. But at least I'd be in Paris. Poor Alyssa... when she comes to take a picture, she'll have a picture of me dead. Not sleeping. Spooky.

 

I dream about: A Nintendo 64 Café where I try to beat Yoshi's story with my little brother, and a letter from the First Presidency warning that Study Abroad students aren't going to church.

7:51 am I wake up with "Girls and Boys" by Good Charlotte in my head.

5/12 5:15 pm

I accidentally fall asleep reading after the class picnic.

No dreams I can remember.

5/13 12:50 am

After a spectacular movie and a really unsatisfying meal, I go to sleep.

Last thing I remember thinking: I really should say my prayers.

I dream about: My best friend coming home from her mission and screaming at me because of the person I've become, and my roommates not being excited when I get back from Europe.
9:02 am I start to wake up while the picture is being taken, with "On the Open Road" from the Goofy Movie in my head.

5/14 12:36 am
I write for a long time and try to decide what to do with my life before bed.
Last thing I remember thinking: 21 really isn't that old... Ugh. Ryan. 

I dream about: My aunt and uncle coming to Paris and trying to watch Water for Elephants, but instead we have to navigate our car over a giant tidal wave, and it's hard (and really scary) to steer. Alyssa and I get lost, then I roller blade through a high school and lose the tests I was supposed to be grading for my Humanities 202 class.
9:45 am I wake up with "In the Dark of the Night" from Anastasia in my head.

Is any of this connected?  Does it matter?  Maybe all it proves is that I'm an erradic and heavy sleeper.

Or maybe all I am is just as crazy as Sophie Calle. 
And, in that case, am I an artist?

Bathing in the Multitude

“The street leads the flaneur into a vanished age... In the asphalt over which he passes, his footsteps awaken an astonishing echo.The gaslight, that streams down onto the pavements, throws an ambiguously suggestive
light onto this false bottom…A rapture comes over him who spends a long time marching aimlessly through the streets. With every step, the walking urge grows more powerful;  ever quicker come the seductions of shops, of bistros, of smiling women, ever more irresistible the magnetism of the next street corner, a distant mass of foliage, a street name…”

Okay.

Maybe I wanted Baudelaire to write my post on the art of flanerie for me. I can't pontificate about the beautiful art of wandering with that kind of poetry ("his footsteps awaken an astonishing echo"!? puh-lease), and though I've been successfully getting lost my whole life, I don't know if I've ever done it on purpose.

Plus, I think I started out the wrong anyway. A flaneur sets out to "walk his turtle" and "bathe in the multitude" with no other goal in mind but to let the endless charms of Paris enthrall and astound him.

And I set out to get lost, yes, but also hopefully to wander straight into the most amazing pâtisserie and to be enthralled by the poetic jubilance of my very first macaron.

That was naughty.

But it was the beginning of a truly enriching flâneuse experience.

You see, I'm experiencing Paris in stages. On the very top level there's the sheer tourist awe of delicious treats and beautiful (thin. I'll never understand) people and iconic history and glamour and excitement of a place and culture I've romanticized my whole life.

I had literally been waiting for that macaron my whole life.

But once I started wandering (aimlessly, thoughtlessly), I finally stopped filtering out everything that didn't fit with my carefully crafted image of me in Paris (this image really is quite lovely, though, if you'd like to know. It mainly involves reading, writing poems, and being worshipped by beautiful, articulate men).

But I'm learning (slowly, like my baby french) as I walk slowly, and peeling back layers, like the torn posters in the metro.

There's so much more depth to this city and this experience. And when I let myself look at it-- really look, bathe, wander-- and let the beauty wash over me right along with the filth, I feel like I'm doing something truly significant, somehow.

But as to what that is, exactly, you'll have to ask Baudelaire.

Vide. {premier projet}

Oh yeah! I'm in Paris! Ha. Bonjour. This is my first project for my photography class, in hommage to Atget. Enjoy!

p.s. I'll update later. I need a crèpe.

[all photos by me on my Kodak ZD710, the little darling]

Eugène Atget masterfully employed his lense to leave us images of a haunting and luminous early twentieth century Paris. 

In his photography, diffused light hangs 

breathlessly suspended

over quiet scenes of vacant streets and empty chairs.

His simple, honest black and white photography leaves a  

bittersweet hint of nostalgia; it is undeniably powerful and inexplicably unforgettable.

 But the most compelling motif in Atget's work for me is this curious notion of emptiness.

What is it, after all, that is so poignant about a

vacant café?

I composed my little ode to Atget primarily in black and white and with a bit of vignetting for a raw, nostalgic effect 

meant to echo his time, yet capture the reality of my Paris today.

But to explore possible explanations for the unfailing power of emptiness, we should look into the nature of the thing itself.

Without realizing it, humans, I think, form a simple equation in their minds when no one is present where someone ought to be. 

This equation is, perhaps:

emptiness = loneliness.

And especially in a city, where we come together to be constantly close to strangers, doesn't loneliness, or a lack of strangers around us, speak of a certain lack that lies inside us all? 

Something we prefer not to think about, so we squeeze in to occupy the same small bit of land and be alone, together.

Atget's work is often described as "ghostly." Maybe that's because absence is so frightening for us.

Think, for instance, of the chilling suggestion of an empty, shadow-filled playground. 

A world without children.

Yes, as Atget masterfully demonstrates, emptiness is lonely and ghostly. It grabs the eye, and stirs emotions the viewer can't quite put names to.

 

And yet, if something is empty, that isn't to say it can't be filled.
Just imagine the colorful promise of the first glimpse of an empty bedroom in the seizième arrondissement.

Wardrobe waiting to be filled,
suitcase waiting to be unpacked,
  Paris waiting outside of bright french doors; 
waiting to be discovered and adored.

Whatever the true significance of emptiness to the human eye, there's no denying that it speaks 

of something more.

Something that only needs someone in order to bring it to life. 

Between me and the river (among other things)

I am awkwardly sprinting, 

then opening the door and casually (haggard and out of breath) sauntering, 

then sheepishly tiptoeing 

back to my blog.

[something I did just an hour ago into choir, which I was late to because I was, incidentally, preoccupied with blogging].

I get it, OKAY? I'm a dastardly villain when it comes to consistency. But I want to be better! I am COMMITTED to being better. This commitment is not binding and means absolutely nothing because no one cares whether I blog or not, and in the long run it makes no difference because we're all going to die anyway.
But, anyway.
The good news is: Paris.
I'm leaving in one month from today.
(Bonjour, City of Lights! Comment allez-vous, City of Love? Hello there, City of my Freaking Dreams!)
And... (drum roll, please) I have a certain requirement of doing a certain activity that requires words, pictures, the internet, and my unfailing wit and odd duck-ish sort of charm-like quality. This activity is often referred to as blogging.
oh yeaaaaah.

First assignment (these classes are really quite rigorous, you see) involves a post on something you want to do in Paris, which you will later (in Paris) follow up on after you've done it. A "before" and "after" if you will.
And here's mine: 

[photo here]

As a token of my lifelong struggle with Francophilia, I've always adored the movie Sabrina.
[Disclaimer: I probably adore the 1954 version just a smidgen more, because timeless Audrey is so very radiant and I like the "Yes, We Have No Bananas" song. But the following tidbit references the 1995 version, featuring the tolerably radiant Julia Ormond. Okay. Fine. She's gorgeous. Whatever.]

But the point is, a young, ordinary chauffure's daughter with a bad case of unrequited love and a big ponytail takes off to Paris to crop her  locks, fall in love with "La Vie en Rose," grow up a bit, and learn to properly crack an "oeuf" at Le Cordon Bleu.
She goes to find herself. (And get over David [which she doesn't. Not until later, anyway, after Linus takes her to his cottage in Martha's Vineyard].)
 
So, the point really is: Do you remember this scene between Sabrina and Linus?

Sabrina: I used to walk everywhere in Paris. I used to walk from Montmartre down into the center of the town. Along the Seine there is a 4-mile wall that goes from Isle Saint Germain to the Pont de Bercy. Takes you past all the bridges of Paris, 23 of them. Then you find one you love and you go there every day with your coffee and your journal, and you listen to the river.

Linus : What does it tell you?

Sabrina : That's between me and the river.

And so, as this ordinary, soon to be super-senior co-ed with a bad case of wanderlust and a big pony tail takes of to Paris to find herself, she plans to put this same practice into practice. That is, to find a bridge and go there often with her [insert delicious treat besides coffee here] and her journal and listen to the river.

And perhaps, later, I'll even tell you what it tells her.

[photo here]

In case you don't believe me, the blog is here.

Remember how it's Spring?


Banana