If I'm not dead by tomorrow...

I'll buy the whole world cupcakes and single-handedly fix Japan and shave my head.

But I will be.
So whatever.

Love, taurine, and two more finals to go,
Banana

The closer I get to my wit's end...

The more I find myself with two-day old clothes
and serious bed head, holding a pot of macaroni and cheese under my covers,
staring blankly at videos like these:

I gave up on sanity a while ago.

Happy finals. 

-Banana

P.S. I am living on caffeine and Passion Pit.

P.P.S. In a little more than two weeks, I will be in PARIS. Maybe I won't come back.

P.P.P.S. Just for good measure: "A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner." -Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Sometimes...

I feel like

all I require to be super-human

is a good dose of sunshine

and some caffeine.

But then I am instantly reminded of my mortality, usually by running into something.

oh well, 
Banana

P.S. Look at this dreamy boy I got to like me!

[blurry photo by Brookie  on my Holgie in the front yard]

Perhaps there's another reason I feel capable of super-humanity? 
Just a thought.

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

Oh hey, Friday night

I am spending mine

in the arms of

semi-sweet chocolate chips, Mozart and the Beatles,

and a four-inch spine called 

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism 

(second edition).

cheers.

Banana.

In a fit of violent passion,

Ryan cut his hair.

But not just a hair, or even his hair, mind you.

No, he completely and singularly severed his beautiful golden bangs. His forelock, if you will.

see?

And now he bears a powerfully striking resemblance to:

[photo here]

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. He was (and is) a very impressive and influential individual.
I keep explaining to Ryan that monk bangs are a good thing. Sexy.
And yet, he keeps insisting that it's somehow my fault.
Like it's a bad thing.

Well! What was I supposed to do when he grabbed his bangs and threateningly held scissors to them while shouting, "Say I'm your boyfriend! Say it right now or I'll cut!"

Maybe I panicked.

Maybe I said "You can be my boyfriend two times a week," which he took to mean... well. "Cut," I suppose. 

Love, trauma, and the Protestant Reformation,

Banana

This Anna is not THIS Anna

Or, in other words, this is not me.

...But I kind of wish it were?

                             shoot.

Three cheers for Anna Wintour on a soup can!

Is reading fashion news a daily guilty pleasure of mine? Perhaps.

SUE ME.

[Refinery 29 article here] 

love, this anna

Today

I haven't done much

besides

stick a third of a roll of Valentines bubble tape in my mouth

and stand in the shower,

blowing giant bubbles,

while trying to come up with a creative cover of a Fleetwood Mac song.

With no water running

(I forgot to turn it on).

But on other days  I've done lots of things.

like:

You BET that's me on the accordion!

•  Last week when we formed a little band in our living room [guitar: mika violin: brookie  banjo: b-ricks keyboard/beats: kato and nan (yours truly)]  .   

•  And then we tried some fleet foxes and simon & garfunkle and sufjan on for size, and peppered them with some mournful fairy harmonies.

•  And then we called ourselves Children of the American Revolution and played a little opener on Friday:

[okay recording here]

 love, sleep deprivation, and tambourine bruises,

banana

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

We all know I like to write about silly, beautiful little things that don't really matter that much, probably.

But here's something (or someone, rather) who matters a lot:

Beatrix Rose

who is now two days old

and the most beautiful thing.

   

not to mention

Daphne Marion

who is four and a half months 

 

and

Lily Belle 

who is almost three and so excited about her new baby sister.

 

 Am I a proud auntie?

Love, pink, and uh oh! She came early I need to get KNITTING,

Banana

On James Baldwin and how he gets it (and me).

I wrote my first short story this week.

JINKIES!

 Was it good, you ask? No. Not really.

And of course that's okay.

So it's not a very big deal, really. I wrote most of it the night before/ morning it was due.

Just like I do everything, you know?

 So why does it matter so much to me? And why do I do that anyway (write everything the morning of)?

I'll tell you why. 

And James Baldwin will tell you why.

It's because I'm scared scared scared SCARED SCARED.

And this is why:

Of all the things I want and hope and yearn to be (which is a considerable list of things, you have perhaps noticed), a writer, in its most hazy and glamorous depiction, is perhaps what I want most.

 So write, you might say.

Write every day! Write everything. Write poems. Write dumb things. Write brilliant things. Write about people you don't know and people you wish you knew and yourself and weak people and brave people. And I DO. Kind of.

Actually I write all the time.

But I'm so afraid of writing something good (or trying to) because that's what I want more than anything, and if I fail... well then, I fail everything.

So purposefully procrastinated mediocrity is safe. Huh? I've been planning that story for WEEKS.

But I wouldn't let myself write it. SCARED SCARED SCARED. Waiting waiting waiting.

As the brilliant James says,

"I thus gave the world and altogether murderous power over me, but also that in such a self-destroying limbo I could never hope to write.

One writes out of one thing only-- one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give".

Oh dear

I'm paying so much money to earn a degree in thinking myself better and smarter than everyone else, and then not being able to do anything with it.

And I love it.
Oh dear.

Here it Comes...

A better version of me.

Happy Belated New Year, I guess.

The sun has been incessantly flirting with me. It's toying with my affections, giving me a beautifully bright false hope that perhaps this winter might just be a little less miserable than the last.

Well, maybe it will be.
I will be, anyhow.

And you know why? Because "The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung" [via Walt Whitman]

And I should at least be humming along.

...Don't you think?

Resolutions, renovations, and hesitant hopings,
Banana

P.S. I'm moving to Paris with Gracie in the Spring. Have you ever heard such a lovely sentence?

human hosepipe.

I will not say much beyond 

the fact that heartache

is inescapable, probably necessary to ultimate happiness,

and positively rampant in my little household. 

So let us turn to our ever-wise friend and posthumous mentor, Clive Staples,  for a bright and beautiful thought my dear dear friend, Jacob, blessed me with the beauty of:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

-C.S. Lewis

Ah, wisdom. It's delicious, is it not?

My roommate showed me this gorgeous video made by a BYU Professor that captures so perfectly the essence of relationships. And the wonderful Weepies' lyrics can never hurt:

So here's to vulnerability, still missing him every every minute, and this beautiful world that still spins madly on,

Banana

Kate wrote me a haiku

and I liked it:

spritely musician

red lips and knitting needles

pour me some tea, please.

I love you, Kate.

My wonderful roommate.

Kate-o potato,

The lady so great-o.

Kate and Brookie and the Homecoming Parade.

 Love, oreo milkshakes, and groller bears,
Banana

Farewell to Green



[Scenic Alpine Loop in Provo Canyon]



Autumn is my favorite season.

I can feel it slipping away, though, and all the pumpkins on my porch are starting to rot.

Bother.

So my tribute to fall is a little overdue, perhaps, but here it is. In the form of a poem my little brother, Ethan (who just turned 9 last week) wrote. It is surprisingly wise:

[The assignment was to write a fall-themed poem with each line starting with a letter of "FALL." But he had more to say, so he expanded it to say "FALLING"]

Farewell to green

And good-morning colors 

Let's have some fun

Let's jump in piles

It's fall alright

Now it's time to say goodbye

Goodbye fall

And here's a poem by me, slightly less wise, but brought about entirely by a walk to school on a beautiful fall day.



[magic picnic in Sundance]



Today         10/18/10

I will skip class to read Robert Frost

In a halo of yellow leaves,

slightly shivering in the early light

 of what promises to be

A golden afternoon.

It’s just that sort of day.

Today I’ll remove my soft leather 

moccasins

and my dark denim jeans, molded

precisely to the shape of my hips

and thighs.

They’ll flutter to the ground

like a piece of gently torn tissue paper-

two flapping legs.



My braided hair will untwist itself,

 pins shooting out like

porcupine quills

and

falling slowly to the earth

as waxy red leaves.

Off will fly my cable knit cardigan

(the color of forget-me-nots),

 Followed eagerly by scarf,

earrings,

blouse,

bra.

Today I’ll stand, naked and glowing,

In the pale autumn sun.

Just me and Robert.

And everyone who passes

 Will wonder-
 At the transcendent orb of metaphor

And olive skin (steadily growing pinker)

 That bounds between the branches

And bursts into the sky-

 A shower of amber beams. Rivulets

Of light.

Everyone will wonder, as the drops

cascade from their noses,

but soon they will see (they can’t help but see)

that it’s just that sort of day.

 Today they will see

and free

me.

It’s just that sort of day.

Goodbye fall,

Banana