Welcome to the forest, Little Prince

It's a boy! (puppy. It's a boy puppy.)

Please give a warm welcome to

(Or Huck Phin if you prefer...)

My new little darling who now shares my heart and pillow.

He brings a little diversity to the small herd of Aryan Nations lap dogs my mother keeps in the back.

(Yes, you may comment on the insanity of four little canines if you wish but I may abstain from commenting in order to uphold my family's honor)

Come play with us!! Love, romping, and middle-of-the-night nose bites,

Nina

Oh, Victor...

"Be like the bird that,
passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight,
feels them give way beneath her,
and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings."

-Victor Hugo I still have time this summer. Time to break out Les Miserables? unabridged?

I think so.

p.s. can I be like the bird? what sort of bird are you?

-Anna Banana

thanks for the photo

In praise of the prominent nose

Okay, so I was thinking.... why does Sara Bareilles always hide her nose?

Everyone nose (please pardon the puns) a healthy (if not hefty) schnoz is the
mark of a good set of pipes and a remarkable sex appeal.

I mean...just take a look at Barbra!

She's
timeless, right? (With a renewable supply of bare-chested men at her
fingertips). I think it may be a proven fact that engorged olfactory nerves make
for better music-making.
Why else would it be called a horn?

duh.

But see how it's cast in shadow
here?And over-exposed here??I must say, I'm worried about her sneezer's esteem...

Lest we forget what happened to our good friend
Mikey!

You catch my whifft? (I'm killing myself here)

... It's kind of cute, you know?

I mean, look at Napoleon! He's frickin hot! (And powerful)

(....and slightly romanticized in this portrait but I'm still a loyal fan)

Would we love Owen even half as much?And
didn't Cyrano's nez make for one of the best literary/ cinematic events
of tout temps?

Need I even mention Ron Weasley?
Albus Dumbledore?
Pinnochio!? ELMO?

And besides, how cool are Elephants!?!?

 I myself am the grateful beneficiary of something of a prominent snuffer. I think maybe I

• smell more
• taste more
• give better eskimo kisses
• have a more recognizable profile
• have a higher IQ
• shave my legs faster
• alphabetize more efficiently
• attract men with accents, muscles, and silky long eye lashes quicker and longer

Let us celebrate the snoot.

dear adenoids,

here's to you. we love you.

In the majestic words of Saturday's Warrior:

"You ain't got a nose till it touches your toes,

and it grows every time that it blows."

love, music, and the plentiful proboscis,

Banana

I Think I Figured it Out

journalism is my occupation
Writing is my passion
Acting is my outlet
and
Music is my life force.

or

I'd be a musician, but I don't have the talent or discipline.

I'd be an actress, but I don't have the perserverance.

I'd be a writer, but I don't have the patience.

So...I'm going to be a journalist.

wellll...a broadcast journalist.

Love, sighs, and lists unceasing,

Anna

Getting High

So I was walking through the forest yesterday and as I was passing a particularly lofty evergreen tree (Quite common in the "Evergreen State," dontcha know), I thought, I shall climb that tree now.

...And up I went.
The branches became a sappy, majestic ladder and I noticed my limbs were tree limbs. We entwined and folded into a wild structure of piney scent, dirty pants, and exhileration.


About 45 feet up I called my dad to,"Daddy, come look!" as I had countless times in my jungle gym days.

thanks for the photo (I'll fix my camera soon, I promise!)

I'm down now, but I keep climbing, keep aspiring, and keep looking for new breathtaking vistas. Maybe not always serene cows and lazy fields. Maybe not hazy mountain sunsets and distant thunder. But I promised myself, perched precariously up in my sister tree,
That

I'm going to make something of myself, by
George!

(The monkey, not the King)
A bajillion paint thinner baths won't remove these sappy convictions.

-Banana

Sorry, Shea

I'm sure this is some sort of betray of trust/ invasion of privacy to post a personal e-mail for the all-seeing internet universe to see, but...

will you just revel in how adorable this is with me for a teensy second?

Inbox
Subject: The glory of a dark and dreary rain
Shea S. Stott to me show details 5:52 PM (14 hours ago) Reply

It's raining and cold. That means I want to cuddle up to a movie with you. Miss you a whole lot right now for some reason.

Reply Forward

Okay, I mean....seriously?

I miss my little mountain man.

Doe, a Deer

I finally officially got a summer job and it is most likely, officially, the best one in the world.

Some would call me a nanny or some such nonsense, but

as any enlightened theatre goer knows, I am, in fact,

A Governess

I get to spend all day, every day, with two delightsome children. I get to be outside. I get to get a tan. It's not such a bad deal, really.

We spend most of our time singing, longing for our father's love, and hiding from Nazis.

Love, Hunter, and Sarah,

Nina

Get Me Outta Here

This teeny bit of earth is definitely not big enough for the both of us. (My yearnings and me)

Veradale, WA

47°39′1″N 117°12′32″W / 47.65028°N 117.20889°W

Spokane County, State of Washington

Population: 9,387

Please.

I Just Realized How Cool I Am

Milly and I had a bit of an epiphery while driving:

" (sigh) We don't have jobs and we live with our parents."
" (sigh) And we're eating mashed potatoes at 9:30 on a Tuesday."

That's how cool I am.

Happy Belated Shalom!

Monday was the magical day when this dream

became a reality.

My mother had the letter over the phone and a stoic disposition. I was waiting to sell my internal fluids for fifteen meesly dollars. I was worried about both.

"Give me a hint? A baby hint? A wee willie winky hint?"

To which she replied,

"Shalom, babay!!!!
photo here

And so it is. The Hogwarts Express departs September first as scheduled headed for the BYU Jerusalem Center where 3 of my favorite ladies (Gracie, AmandaYockey, and Kali) and I will spend a semester of spiritual, visual, cultural, educational, and historical feasting.

love, anticipation, and plasma,

Anna

"If it's about those missing pic-a-nic baskets, I had nothing to do with it!"

-Yogi Bear

Sometimes I get phrases from my early childhood stuck in my head. It's been this one as of late.

Hm...I miss Yogi.

Okay, okay. I'm going to Jellystone park now. That's just the way it's got to be.

And have a few pic-a-nics along the way too, of course.

Love, last days in Indy, and no job yet,

Anna

Three Orders of Business

1. Happy Cinco de Mayo! Let's all catch swine flu to celebrate.
2. I'm strongly considering journalism again.

Back to Provo? OH dear...'round and 'round we go. As my wise sister quoted the Good Book, "Be ye therefore decisive."

3. "All things seem possible in May"
-Edwin Way Teale

Lady in Spain

I just applied for a passport.

Just because I'm feeling adventurous.

...almost through with the Midwest I think.

I am the lady in Spain
I'll sing a haunting refrain
I am the lady from Mars
And I can unscrew the stars
I can be
Anything I see
I can be
Anything that I, anything that I seeAnd I am in love with a boy
Manufacture to destroy
I shall unravel my love
Like an old red woolen glove
I can do anything I want to
I can do anything I want anything my heart tells me to do
Tells me to do
Tells me to do
I can do
Anything I want to
I can be
Anything that I see
I can do anything I want to
I can be anything that I see
Anything that I see
-Ingrid Michaelson

Here's to sunny Sundays and reviving old pictures I once thought myself quite artistic over:

cheers!

Banana

yesss

All you need is love.
And bicycles.
All you need is love and bicycles.

thanks for the photo

Ode to margin writers (and, of course, to Billy)

I love reading. I am a shameless book worm and I perfectly embodied the wikipedia definition of gawky nerd until I grew into my nobs a little. then again, I still do a little.
Well, I have a habit of reading with a pen in hand (and usually also a pencil behind the ear, perhaps an additional pen to sit on, given up for long lost).
I am a margin writer!! And proud of it.

this little smidge of beauty by my rhetorical lover, Billy Collins, honors me in this sense.
The last line is also the namesake of this little bloggie poo.
Thought I'd share.

Thanks, Bill. You're a real pal. You're a babe.

[thanks for the photo]

Marginalia - Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."