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A girl living, loving and writing in Los Angeles.
Blog Archives!
July Listening
| 1. |
Grapevine Fires
Death Cab for Cutie |
| 2. |
Mercy
Duffy |
| 3. |
I Feel It All
Feist |
| 4. |
With Arms Outstretched
Rilo Kiley |
| 5. |
Labels & Love
Fergie |
July Reading
Favorite Places
Copyright 2001 - 2008 by Ann, unless otherwise noted.
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Monday, January 30, 2006
I think the strangest feeling is when you come across somebody who meant the whole damn world to you at one point in your life -- when you loved them from the tip of their ears to the bottom of their pinky toes -- and are faced with the reality that you don't know who they are anymore.
Does that make them - or you - any less significant in one's life?
The novella I'm working on right now grapples with that idea. The hard part is that I am still grappling with that idea.
A song, as always, says it best.
A Minor Incident
by Badly Drawn Boy
There's nothing I could say
To make you try to feel ok
And nothing you could do
To stop me feeling the way I do
And if the chance should happen
That I never see you again
Just remember that I'll always love you
I'd be a better person
On the other side I'm sure
You'd find a way to help yourself
And find another door
To shrug off minor incidents
And make us both feel proud
I just wish I could be there
To see you through
You always were the one
To make us stand out in a crowd
Though every once upon a while
Your head was in the cloud
There's nothing you could ever do
To ever let me down
And remember that I'll always love you
ONE MORE THING: NO MORE SAD SONGS! I realized the thousands of songs lining my life are almost all sad songs! Tell me about happy songs, love songs, sweet songs, love for life songs -- no this won't be a sad song, there's gonna be claps and sing-alongs kind of songs; I am so ready for them!
Sunday, January 29, 2006
I think I'm receptive to change, but by nature I think I'm really resistant to it. But I always come around.
Tonight's Vagina sleepover was incredible; women are so amazing. We are so chatty! We have so much to say, and it's all so relevant and it's so important for us to connect, to understand, to realize other people learned to masturbate when they were really young and to talk about our complicated relationships where "boyfriend" is more dangerous than "guy I fuck!" We have so much to say and we need to be heard and we need a community and then we can change the whole fucking world.
Memorizing is coming along slowly. I am a very very very bad memorizer!!!
Teaching has been an incredible experience, I swear I'm learning more than they are. I have a really hard time lowering my vocabulary because I don't ever want to feel like I'm talking down to them -- I really hated that as a kid. And it's also important to me that I learn all their names, which contributes to my BEING A BAD MEMORIZER!
It's so weird to think about what life was like a year ago, with a boy whose promises we both knew he would never keep, and now with a boy whose promises we both can't wait to keep.
This life is a beautiful one.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Last Year
Happy Facts
Vagina Happy Fact (one of my favorite parts of the show):
The clitoris is pure in purpose. It is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure. The clitoris is simply a bundle of nerves: 8,000 nerve fibers, to be precise. That's a higher concentration of nerve fibers than is found anywhere else in the male or female body, including the fingertips, lips, and tongue, and it is twice, twice, twice the number in the penis. Who needs a hand gun when you've got a semi-automatic?
Ann Happy Fact
As of today, Ann is a free bird! Free bird moving in five days! Roommates signed, sealed, delivered. Tomorrow is packing and tea&sympathy day with Danielle. Or in our case, packing and fatty dessert & shopping day. Yay friends! Next up: moving, rehearsals, Vagina Monologues shows, Seattle. Haircut: yes or no? Short, choppy, sweet.
This Year
To take a moment to pause, I almost forgot it's already 2006. I can't believe this time last year my life was so different; I was preparing to move in with Alice, involved with someone I don't speak to anymore, traveling to places I'll probably never be again. This year, different things are happening. But I'm so centered in myself that I find that I don't need things quite as much as I did last year. I have a happy home, a happy group of friends, a happy self.
I kept my hair long, but I permed it.
Still memorization, rehearsals, meetings, events, and Vagina Monologues shows, but this year my experience is different. It's more subtle, subdued. But I think it gives you what you need from it every year, and this time I'm feeling the change that I can be in the world.
But different apartment, different roommate, different problems (graduation, hello!), different boy, different situation, different destination (Portland, OR). Different, and better.
I bought Spilling Open by Sabrina Ward Harrison -- for myself, and for the students I'm teaching tomorrow. It is beautiful, and I'm going to curl up in bed with it and my journal and the February issue of Bust.
Getting better, every day.
P.S. Happy Birthday to my brother, Michael!
Monday, January 23, 2006
There have been a lot of things going on, and life has felt like a constant stream of doing. I feel incredibly accomplished, but of course it's starting to take a toll on my health.
I met with my host teacher and the fourth grade class I'll be teaching starting this upcoming Wednesday (!!) last Friday. They are really excited and energetic and funny! After I introduced myself and the project we'll be working on, I opened up the floor for questions. A dozen hands immediately shot up, and the questions ranged from "What's your favorite color?" (pink), "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" (yes, one brother), to "Are those Converses that you're wearing?" (yes). These are questions that I can answer, yes!
The rest of the weekend was a blur of schedule -- At work on Saturday, I read two books: Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Good Body. I'm seeing The Good Body with Eve Ensler in two weeks, I'm so excited! Saturday night, Lacey hosted the cutest Japanese themed dinner party, complete with fish-shaped chopstick rests and vegetarian sushi. Then we went to the Alibi, where I heard Red Pony Clock play from the smoking balcony outside. Sam stayed with me for two nights, and he was kind enough to go to the darkroom with me at 2 AM on Saturday to do fiber printing.
I'm sad that the latest I'll sleep in will be 9:30 AM as far as the eye can see :(
Thursday, January 19, 2006
If I could conduct all of life's greatest challenges from where I am right now, then I would have the most amazing life.
I'm writing up lesson plans and preparing for my initial meeting with the host teacher for ArtsBridge on my iBook, in bed. I'm surrounded by binders, spiral bound supplemental material about California public school standards of arts education, a borrowed copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's (SO good, btw), and tons of pillows and blankets.
This morning I didn't know what to do with my hair, so I cut it.
Here are things I need to do this weekend:
- meet with host teacher
- observe class
- write 4 lesson plans & project description
- develop b&w film roll
- buy fiber based paper
- make three prints
- study for french quiz
- prepare for Sam visiting!
- Restaurant Week
- work
- freshman floor reunion/awkward/drinking extravaganza
- Lacey's dinner party
- exchange season 2 for season 3 of Gilmore Girls from Lacey
- cast meeting
- send Whitney a copy of Rabbit Fur Coat (which everyone should get)
- not die of exhaustion
I've been good on a couple of my New Year's Resolutions so far: I've been reading (extracurricularly) a good amount, and doing the morning pages (as suggested by the hokey but inspiring The Artist's Way. These ladies are really inspiring as well: loobylu.com, little birds, maganda.org, & wish jar journal.
Oh, and I've also been entertaining the idea of Teach for America.
There is something so charming about Holly Golightly; perhaps because her full name is Holiday.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
I think to truly take pleasure in this life is to minimize. Then you can truly sensualize the details.
There is a reunion of my freshman floor this week, and I'm not sure I'm going. It's amazing to think that we're reuniting when it really only feels like last year that my parents left a wildly hopeful, bright eyed freshman in a brand new city with a very large wardrobe. What a blur these four years have been; when I was younger I never pictured my life past freshman year of college.
And here I am, a few months shy of graduating. My professors are throwing words like artist, writer, and specialist around as if suddenly we became something in these four years. I don't feel well versed, prepared, or excited about "the real world". And I always thought I would definitely know who I was by the end of college -- as it turns out, I'm only starting to figure out the silhouette.
But as one of my friends had often said -- This life is short, but it is wide.
These past four years have sure made my life expansive.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Yay yay yay! I received Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twin's Rabbit Fur Coat in the mail today!
I also received a box of books from Amazon, and a postcard from Nicole from Russia.
Yay yay yay! Nothing like materialistic gluttony to sincerely brighten my day! I love things!
Monday, January 16, 2006
Pink Martini always puts me in the mood for French homework. Even though I'm terrified since the French class I'm taking this quarter is an upper division literature class. There are many moments where I'm sitting in class, looking down at the lecture, and wondering to myself how I could possibly be here.
Winter Quarter Classes:
LTWR 100: Short Fiction
LTWR 148: Theory for Writers
LTFR 116: Themes in French Intellectual & Literary History
VIS 165: Camera Techniques
TDGE 103A: ArtsBridge
This quarter is already plowing me down like new pavement. Bad analogy, but I'm too worn from the past week to think of another one. I wish every weekend could be a three day weekend.
I'm teaching a photography bookmaking project to a fourth grade class in the local public school system for ArtsBridge, and it would safe to say my feelings lie somewhere between anxious, excited, and terrified. Somehow I need to make contact with the teacher, find a mentor, write up four lesson plans and a project plan, by Friday. God, I hope I make a positive impact on these students.
I need to shoot a new b&w roll for fiber printing (!!!) next week; memorize my script & costume hunt (does anyone know where I can find a black 50s cocktail dress?); book club meeting; rehearsal; & read until my eyes fall out.
And I've developed a terrible addiction to Gilmore Girls, which is being fed by my lovely friend Lacey who has every season on DVD. You know how much I love TV on DVD.
Oh! & I finished Killing Yourself To Live; it was incredible. You really must read it. Then your life will be complete.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
"Lenore and I were together for five years, but we were never really together at all...For the next four and a half years, we were never in the same city. I dated a few people, but she would always call me on the telephone and inadvertently convince me to walk away from them (which was always easy for me to do). During this four-and-a-half-year stretch, Lenore dated lots of people. She even reconciled with her high school sweetheart and appeared destined for marriage; this man despised me, as he was certain I was consciously trying to sabotage their relationship. This is because I was (and because I did). But the singular aspect of our affair that defied all logic was that - somehow, against all odds - it always worked. We had an unspoken pact: When we were together, we were together; when we were apart, we were apart...We were remarkably successful at this venture. It was absolutely the must successful entanglement I've ever had with anyone, and it never failed. Until, of course, it failed. And then it failed spectacularly."
-- excerpt from Chuck Klosterman's Killing Yourself To Live
I love this book. I love Chuck Klosterman. I would like to kiss Chuck Klosterman just so he will write about me, and compare me to girls described in songs, which is quite frankly the most original and yet seemingly obvious compliment full of agendas.
Spending my (almost) entire college career studying literature, it's amazing how much classical literature I've avoided. It's like growing up with hippie parents who don't believe in Christmas or television. You suspect this whole time that you're missing out on some crucial key to understanding life, and once you move out on your own and watch your first television show or decorate your first Christmas tree, you realize it is an empty, overhyped tradition. My textbook lists have included such titles as Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District and The Next American Essay. So I don't really know what literature is supposed to be doing to people on a classical, traditional high school english level, though I suspect it has something to do with describing the human condition.
And of course there is nothing more interesting about the human condition than the ability (and often inability) to form some sort of (often dysfunctional) relationship with another human of interest. So I'm going to say that Chuck Klosterman's books are literature, because I've never read a passage that has so succinctly stated just how much a writer has understood my human condition.
This is a good time to mention how ironic it is that when you google this site, one of the links that comes up is "How to Love Someone With An Anxiety Disorder".
Obviously I am no longer short of my words. More essays/blogs/writing to come. Hail higher education. But fuck 9:30 am.
Monday, January 09, 2006
I'm very bad with portions when it comes to cooking. I'm an aesthetic maker-of-foods, and a large bright pile of carrots looks much more appealing to me than a sad little one and that is when I forget that most of the time I'm only cooking for myself. Now that school has started, and I will be on my own for an indefinite amount of time in the unforeseeable future, I had to make a grocery list again for the first time in a month. Proving how unnatural this is to me, my list so far includes: whipped cream, macaroni and cheese, strawberries (are they even in season?), pistachios, cottage cheese, hot chocolate, and sharp yellow cheddar.
On another note, today was my last first official day of school. Suffice it to say, I am mildly (read: wildly) freaking out on the inside. I didn't even have a notebook - I still don't! I'm very particular about my notebooks: texture, weave, grain, line size, print of lines, borders, folders, dividers, etc.
Now for a not-so-smooth segue...I am horribly addicted to Gilmore Girls, even though I've headed the Resistance for the past 6 years. But really now, there is no point. I love them and their smalltown Connecticut life as if they were my own dysfunctional family.
It's amazing to think how different my life is now than it was three years ago when I was just a spritely young freshman. I don't even know when the shift happened.
The break was very good, but brief it seemed. To your right are all the silly pop songs that I sang along to on many road trips with good friends. Now it's time to buckle down. One of my New Years Resolutions is a 4.0 quarter.
But since it is just the first day of school, I am headed out to meet a friend for tea.
One more thing: pandora.com will make all your musical dreams come true.
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