Back from the USSR.

Well, it's been a hot second since I updated this thing. 


A lot has happened since I left for Russia almost two years ago. Like...a lot. 


ALL THE THINGS HAPPENED since I've been gone.

To welcome myself back into the world, I've decided to do a little bit of a cleans, if you will. Basically, I'm just going to write down every thought that's been in my head since returning from the motherland.

1. American chocolate, mayonnaise, McDonalds, and tea are all awful comapred to their Russian counterparts.

2. I was really looking forward to Great Gatsby. I got 20 minutes in and coudn't stomach it. I guess this is what it feels like to get too old for roller coasters. Also, Skyfall. Longest 45 minutes of a movie that I ever sat through before walking away.*
*I attempted to watch these movies withing the first 72 hours of my return home when my attention span was anywhere between 20-45 minutes.)

3. Everyone got married or had a baby while I was gone. It's like the government, for the short time I was gone, became a distopian society where everyone was forced into martial unions and procreate. Those who did not married were sent on "humanitarian aid" trips to Africa. You're not fooling anybody...

4. My mac broke while I was gone. I've been forced to use my sister's HP in its absence (which I am very grateful for). I didn't realize how much I'd grown accustomed to Macs. I still find myself in Mac mode every once in a while.

5. Student loans are the worst. They're the living worst.

6. Women started wanting the priesthood since I left. I won't touch the issue- I think there are more angles to it than most people are aware, and I think there are problems on both sides of the fence that need to be fixed, but we wont even come close to solving those problems the way we're going now. 

7. Kimye...there ya go.

8. My sweet tooth is dead. I used to bake constantly, but I've baked MAYBE three times since being home. Now I crave meat almost exclusively. Thanks, Russia.

9. My first thought getting off the plane after being in almost-strictly-white Russia was "WHEN DID WE GET ALL THESE INDIANS?!"

10. It took me a month to finally learn what Vines were. And Snapchat. And Tinder. And Flappy Bird.

11.Americans as a general rule really don't have good fashion sense. Russian women would never be caught dead in sweatpants outside of their apartment. I still feel guilty walking into Wal Mart with sweats on.

12. Bill Murray is getting older. I think it will be the saddest day when he dies.

13. I've been relating too much to Lena Dunham lately. #24yearoldproblems

14. Hashtags are the second worst.

15. THERE ARE SO MANY CARS IN AMERICA! 

17. I have no idea what kind of music I like nowadays. I don't know what happened. It's probably due to the lack fo access to my music library on the Mac,but something's up.

18. The urge to speak Russian is ridiculous, and I know it's annoying as h*** to everyone around me. I really, really miss hearing it all the time though.

19. I got an ear infection in the MTC and as a result now crack my jaw. I'm really self conscious about it.

20. OMG MILEY CYRUS.


Overall, coming home is one of the most jarring, unnerving, confusing, coolest times of my life. The mission does a really good job of stripping you of what you were before the mission and making you find a whole new self in the work. It's a great experience ON the mission, but it makes getting back into regular life a pretty big trial. I've never felt more lost in my entire life, on so many levels. The cool part, though, is that I know it's only a phase. This is prime suffering time, right?


I hope so.

16. My children will not know what the internet is until they're fifteen

The Black Keys

Last night marked my first voluntary concert in my entire life.


I've been to two Jonas Brothers concerts (thanks to my sisters) and one Britney Spears concert (thanks to my cousin).


Last night, I saw the Black Keys, featuring the Arctic Monkeys.


And last night was SO MUCH BETTER THAN ALL OF THOSE.


The show was unbelievable. Everything about it was SO PERFECT. Our seats were three rows behind the standing room, center section. We had a clear shot of EVERYTHING. So good!

Actually SEEING Dan and Pat was incredible. They've been my heroes (particularly Dan) for years, and I've always, always, always wanted to see them live. I felt like a giddy little third grader watching them come on stage.

By the time they started playing "Howlin for You," I was completely gone. The guitars, the drums, Dan's voice, the lights-all of it was AMAZING. I was in love with it.

Some of the highlights, I guess, were "Ten Cent Pistol" where they decided to add a minute long silence before the song's last chorus (which they also did for "Little Black Submarines"). Then there was "Thickfreakness," where Dan went NUTS on guitar. "Lonely Boy," "Little Black Submarines," "Nova Baby," "Gold on the Ceiling," "Girl on my Mind," and "Tighten Up" and pretty much every other song were also awesome. Both Caitie and I were going crazy singing along.

The set list was as follows:

Howlin for You
Next Girl
Run Right Back
Same Old Thing
Dead and Gone
Gold on the Ceiling
Thickfreakness
Girl Is On My Mind
I'll Be Your Man
Your Touch
Little Black Submarines
Money Maker
Strange Times
Nova Baby
Ten Cent Pistol
Tighten Up
Lonely Boy
Encore: Everlasting Light, She's Long Gone, I Got Mine

The best, best, best part of the show, though, was right after "Lonely Boy" when Dan and Pat walked offstage. I was on such a high; I was screaming at the top of my lungs for about three minutes straight. The crowd kept going wild, then proceeded to get wilder. People were jumping up and down, chanting, yelling, clapping, "woo-ing." It was great. Then we see a giant disco ball rise behind the stage, and the crowd starts going even more nuts. THEN, out of the side of the stage we see them come back on stage-I was a fool by this point. I swear I've never cheered so hard in my life...

EXCEPT FOR WHEN THE DISCO BALL STARTED SPINNING AND REFLECTING LIGHT AND THEY PLAYED "EVERLASTING LIGHT," MY FAVORITE BALCK KEYS SONG OF ALL TIME. HOly jeez, I died. I just stood there in disbelief. I don't know if I could describe what it meant to me to see The Black Keys playing that song. I've probably listened to that song 10,000 times since I bought Brothers. He sang it so perfectly, too. His falsetto was so great. He became really hushed and stretched out the song and made it so sexy. And the way that man reached out into the audience when he sang-holy cow. He then proceeded to play "Long Gone" and "I Got Mine," which, if you've never heard this song, will bring down a house in two shakes.

Anyway, it was the best possible experience I could've had for my first concert. There was nothing about it I would have changed. They're geniuses. I'll love them until the day I die.

Well done, boys.

RUSSIAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

After 3 months of waiting and delays, I FINALLY got my mission call.

I'll be serving in the Russia-Samara mission. I report to the MTC on July 17, 2012.

I'm so beyond excited; it would be impossible to explain how amazing I feel right now. This mission call is the answer to a LOT of prayers. I know you're not supposed to ask for specific missions, but I kept hoping that I would get a mission call that would mean something special to me, that I'd be able to make a connection with the people and the area itself. Russia was the perfect answer to those hopes. I've always loved learning about Russian history/culture, I studied the Russian language for a year during college, and I was also able to study Russian literature for a semester. I've always wanted to travel to Russia; now, I'll be living there for a year and a half. HOLY GEEZ!

Alright, here's the story of how this little mission call came to be.

It all started on Sunday, while Isaac was being set apart as a missionary. I got a really strong feeling that I would be serving in Eastern Europe, around Russia/The Ukraine area. When we went out to put Isaac's pin up on the Stake's missionary board, my Bishop noticed a long line of missionaries from my ward down the western coast of the Americas, all the way from Alaska to South America. There is also one elder from our ward serving in Singapore. My bishop said, "Annalee, we need someone in the middle. You're gonna have to fill that gap." I told him I'd work on it. That night, and in the days to follow, I kept getting the same strong feeling that I'd be going somewhere Slavic-speaking.

That brings us to Wednesday (yesterday).

I thought for sure the call would come yesterday. My younger brother entered the MTC yesterday afternoon, and I was really hoping to tell him where I was serving before he reported. I took off work so that I could watch for the mail, and then literally sat in front of a window for two hours, waiting for the mail to come. I skyped Caitie in a few minutes beforehand so that she could be there when I read the call to both her and Isaac. When the mail finally came around 1:00 pm, I ran out to the mailbox and was met with bills, a letter from my grandparents, and a newspaper that looked like it was printed by a five-year old. I was pretty distraught to say the least.

About 30 minutes later, I went to work and talked to one of my favorite 'coworkers,' Tony. We actually ended up talking about Russian; he took Russian in both high school and college, which is something NO ONE does. I told him about my own Russia-studies, and we traded a few choice Russian phrases before spending the rest of the afternoon emailing Hunger Games references to each other. It was exactly the afternoon I needed. None of this information is important…

THIS AFTERNOON is where it gets good.

I woke up later in the morning, hoping that I would be able to sleep until 1:00 pm and the mail would magically appear in the mailbox as I rolled out of bed. I walked upstairs, walked around aimlessly for a few minutes, learned "Be Still My Soul" on the piano, and then Lark and I camped by the front window. The mail came around 2:30 pm. Caitie called in on Skype, and only Lark, Mary Alice, and my mom were home. I ran to the mailbox, pulled out my mission call, and ran back inside in my pajama bottoms. The original plan for opening the call was to wait until later when my whole family could be there. Instead, my mom, Caitie, and my sisters all decided to yell at me until I opened it right then.

So, I did.

I read the letter silently to myself at first. When I read "Russia Samara," I could feel my eyes get really wide and my jaw drop. I was so, so, so happy. And shocked. As I read the letter out loud, all I heard was screaming and jumping up and down. Everything after that is kind of a blur. I called my brother's friend, James, so that he could tell Isaac in the MTC, then I called/emailed a bunch of different people. Each conversation made me more excited about going. Plus, it was nice to talk to people I hadn't talked to in a while about such great news.

After talking to people and wandering around my house in a daze, I went to the gym (screaming "I'm going to Russia!" in my car the entire way there), took my dog for a walk in the perfect Virginia sunset, took a shower, picked up my brother, and went back home for THE reading.

Around 9:00 pm, the rest of my family got together for the official announcement. I got a bunch of different predictions pinned down on a huge map on the dining room table (about 8 of which ended up being in Russia) and read the letter to my family and grandparents. I don't really remember anything about it but my dad yelling, "WAY TO GO, ANNALEE!" Then, I made the rest of my calls to various friends/family members to make sure my bases were covered. Afterwards, my family and I went to Chipotle (which is a mission call tradition in our family, apparently).

Now, a story that really has nothing to do with the mission call itself.

The universe has a way of blessing me with little experiences on days of importance. On my birthday, I met two elderly men in Los Angeles that made me feel like an ANGEL. They said I was wise beyond my years and that I was a very beautiful person, inside and out. It was the best. After I got my mission call, I headed to Shoppers to pick up a few things, and ran into a man at the self check out counter. He didn't speak any English, but motioned for me to help scan his groceries. I scanned, bagged, and loaded his groceries for him while he watched, and helped him pay when it was all done. As I left, he said, "You're very gentle. Thank you very much. Have a good night." It was really touching, actually.

And then I left Shoppers and shattered my phone's screen. But, since the universe is on my side, it's still functioning! Woohoo!

Now, for some fun facts about Samara, Russia.

-It's the largest mission in Russia, covering 3 different time zones.

-It includes Samara, the 6th largest city in Russia.

-There are no LDS Stakes in the Samara mission.

-Samara was once the home to Tolstoy and includes a Tolstoy museum.

-The record low temperature in Samara, Russia, is -40 degrees.

-The Samara mission borders Kazakhstan.

-My mission president, Brother Sartori, and his wife, have seven children, and both served in Russia themselves.

-The mission opened in 1990.

-If you look up "Russian food" on Wikipedia, the first section of the article details a cold soup made using sour milk, cucumbers, potatoes, and a boiled meat such as beef or fish. Neat!

-The full name of the area is Samara, Samarskaya oblast, Russia

-It's on the bank of Russia's largest river, the Volga River.

-It's got a circus AND a zoo.

I'm excited :)

Da svedania!

Dinner.

If there's one thing my family does right, it's Sunday dinners. My family's always been kind of weird in a "coloring outside of the lines" kind of way, but for some reason it all comes to a head on Sunday nights. It's one of the things I'll miss most about my family once we all run off and get our own lives, and I love every single Sunday dinner I get to spend with my family while I'm home.

Tonight's dinner started out pretty regularly until we got on the subject of Mary Alice, my youngest sister, being a cat lady in the making after she commented on how much she loved her sweatpants. This was only the beginning. From there, we proceeded to come up with a bizarro-world version of everyone in our family. Now, reading this as an outsider won't do much since none of these are particularly funny unless you know my family/were at the table while these were being made up. I'm pretty much jut recording these for my own memory.

Mary Alice: The cat lady

-Has dozens of cats

-Names them all after British actors and historical figures

-Performs marriages on them in her spare time

-Grows her hair super long and braids it in the same brain every day.

-Loves sweat suits

-Changes her name to Heather

-"Doesn't hate" the taste of cat food

Lark: White Trash

-Lives in a trailer park

-Has infinite amounts of children. None of her children age past five years old, and she is somehow always carrying two children in her arms, and one in the chest pocket of her single-strapped overalls.

-Drives a bus that used to belong to the school district

-Is interviews on the news after every natural disaster, crying about her babies.

-In a relationship with Nate, who only uses her for her bus

-Children are constantly escaping

-Has a hook for a hand

Isaac: Mr. Mom

-Marries a Latina version of Mrs. Trunchbull

-Blogs

-Loves tupperware

-Gets involved with his wife's drug-dealing family, providing food for all their events.

-Clinton from "What Not to Wear"

-Wife keeps a box of chocolates he's not allowed to eat.

Annalee: The Annoying One

-Always trying to one-up everyone

-Wears gym clothes everywhere

-Marries a 90 year old man (Regis?)

Ben: Artistic Genius

-Crazy filmmaker that no one gets.

-70 nominations, 1 Oscar

-Speaks "frail." Or brail

-Muppet for an assistant

-Wears a swan to awards shows, has his muppet handle all interviews

-Works in a shack on his property

-Speaks in metaphors

Taylor: The fake Guru

-Lives on top of a ziggurat

-Has tried for years to finish a Rubics cube, but always has one square out of place

-Has a stash of twinkies and technology in a room in his Ziggurat

-Trained Honey to be a person

-Also speaks Frail to Honey.

-Gets Ben's movies

-Gives people advice from all over the globe

Mom: The Original Hippie

-Started Woodstock and is somehow in the corner of every Woodstock photo

-"Glorn, pie charts: square, man."

-Travels around with her oils

-Perpetually high

-Gets Taylor's movies as well.

-Makes fun of Dad for selling out

Dad: The History Teacher/Failed Comedian

-Act includes pie charts, powerpoints, historical comedy, and internet joke lists.

-Gives extra credit to his students for attending his act

-Constantly references his "wife" but really means his mother.

-Has his class fill out MadLibs, which he reads during his act.

That's about it. Like I said, you really had to be there. Or be in my family.

EFF this.

As a Mormon kid growing up, I was always taught that swearing was a "no-no." Even though my dad swore, it was constantly drilled into our heads that "those words" were not nice, and that they should never, ever be said, and we believed it like it was our job. I still believe it-to a certain extent.

I can remember accidentally dropping the F-bomb while playing the name game with the cast of The Rugrats (Chuckie-co-buckie…Banana-fana-fo…) and crying for the next 10 minutes because I felt so guilty. I can remember the overwhelming guilt I felt when my brother thought he heard me say the word "damn" when, in fact, I was just speaking in a Scottish accent. I can remember watching Save the Last Dance with a friend at the movies and declaring afterward, "Well the movie with the most curse words award goes to THAT ONE." And every time I heard my dad swear, I felt a mili-second of actual, physical pain and embarrassment. Such was my do-gooder childhood mentality.

Since then, I've mellowed substantially. With high school, college, and an interest and film comes the ability to stomach just about anything. I've seen my fair share of sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, and most of it doesn't bother me in the least. Except for swearing.

It's not swearing in books, movies, or TV that gets me. In fact, I believe that a well-place curse word can be HILARIOUS. It can make or break a punchline. I've often wished that I swore on many an occasion, because it would make a good deal of my jokes and impressions a lot funnier. It's swearing in actual conversation that drives me nuts, particularly when I'm talking to a fellow Mormon/Christian. Every time someone around me swears, I still feel a twinge of embarrassment and, for lack of a better word, pain.

I've been asked several times why I have such a problem with it if I'm supposed to be this worldly English major that watch movies by Quentin Tarantino and understand that there's a world of language outside the Mormon Idaho/Utah bubble. It's something I've wondered myself. It's not fair that I choose to watch these movies and read books with foul language and then get on other people's case for swearing in front of me. What's with that, Annalee?

Well, the answer is this: it's not fair, really. I just expect a little more out of my friends who know better. I grew up in a household where swearing was off limits, but my Dad continuously swore, and I always resented it. I never thought it was fair (or responsible) that my father would teach us not to swear and then swear himself. And it wasn't just that- when my dad swore, he wasn't making funny jokes, he was angry. My dad wasn't saying curse words as part of a punchline, he was yelling them at my siblings and I. Those types of words were always coupled with slamming doors, yelling, and tears.

To this day, whenever I hear that type of language directed at me, or in my presence, I can feel all those emotions creeping back up. And it bugs the CRAP out of me.

So, my point is this: I choose to read books and watch movies that have swearing in them, but I would never ask someone to be submitted to that themselves, involuntarily. I don't see why, if you're in the company of ten people, and one of them might be made uncomfortable by the language you're using (and believe has certain spiritual ramifications yourself), you would choose to swear. It just doesn't make sense to me. It's inconsiderate and lazy (I mean, really, you can't find another word to express how much you really, really dislike homework/poorly-made chicken?). I don't think people would use "fag" in the presence of a gay person, or "nigger" in the presence of a black person-not saying crappy things in front of a Christian/Mormon person just seems like the next step. If I can hold back from dropping the B-word (my word of choice, were I the swearin' type) whenever I stub my toe or want to sound edgy, I think we all can. Amiright?

This rant isn't meant to accomplish anything more than to rant, really. Haha. Sooo there it it.

Peace out, Mother-fathers!

Learning stuff

Today marked the first day of Isaac and mine's daily mission prep. We've decided to start reading/studying together every morning before he goes off to the MTC in March. We've structured it like a companion study type of thing: we read separately, then talk about what we've read, then talk about what we'll teach. Isaac's begun practicing the discussions with one of the boys in our ward who just got called to Alaska.

Today, we went over the first discussion: The Apostacy and the Restoration, which is basically about how the power of God was taken from the Earth, then restored to it through the Prophet Joseph Smith. It lays out a lot of basic information about the church, then asks the investigator if they will commit to being baptized and hearing more about the church.

It's great hearing Isaac. He's got so much enthusiasm about going on his mission, and it shows. I'm so proud of him. He's going to make a great missionary. Honduras is going to be lucky to have him.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

That's all I got for now.

Elder Sine

Well, tonight was the night.

After over a year of waiting, Isaac was able to open up his mission call tonight. It was one of the coolest experiences my family's ever been able to share with each other, but especially for Isaac. Isaac's spent the whole of 2011 preparing for his call--getting himself temple worthy, learning the discussions, reading the Book of Mormon, teaching with the Young Men in our word. He's become twice the man he was a year ago, so it was especially rewarding to see him get what he's been working for, for so long.

Anyway, it all began yesterday morning. I was walking upstairs and heard the mailman drive by. Since we'd been waiting for the letter for so long, I was pretty on edge. I ran outside (in shorts, sans makeup and shoes), opened the mailbox, saw the letter, let out a "skreeeeeee!," ran inside, and handed the letter to my brother. We did the obligatory, "Oh my gosh, this is crazy," then I ran to call my mom. Isaac proceeded to call all of his friends, and we tried setting up a time that night when he could open up his call in front of everyone.

When we thought we'd arranged everything for that night, we hit a snag. Our oldest brother, Taylor, lives in Falls Church, about 30 minutes away, and couldn't make it on account of having to work. Isaac became pretty stressed trying to decide whether or not to open the call without him, an eventually decided to wait until the next day (today).

Which brings me to about 4 hours ago. Isaac invited a few deacons over to see the call being opened, and about 3 showed up. He also had friends sending in predictions via text message. We got everyone's predictions down on a huge map of the world on our dining room table, then proceeded to make calls to all of Isaac's friends at BYU, my friends, and grandparents. We put them all on speaker as Isaac ripped open the envelope.

Isaac looked through the letter silently before he said anything. As he read through the letter, his eyes got really wide. We all knew he wasn't going to Podunk, Idaho. Then, he started reading that all important first sentence: "Elder Sine, you have hereby been called…" and started choking up a little bit. He took a huge breath and blurted out, "HONDURAS SAN PEDRO SULA MISSION." We all let out a bunch of yips and "WOWs." Then, Isaac let out an Indian battle cry out of nowhere.

The rest of the night was full of googling Honduras EVERYTHING and going out to Chipotle, which was the closest we could get to Honduran food. Now, I'm sitting here thinking about how Isaac will be reporting to the MTC in exactly two months from now, then on to HONDURAS, and I won't see him for 2 years. It's such a strange thought.

Reading the letter has also got me thinking about my own call. I still have a ways to go with my papers, but this has given me the boost I need to really focus on them. And there's something about hearing your little brother being called as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that makes you REALLY want to be a part of spreading the gospel. I'm so, so, so excited.

EXCITED.

Alma 37:31-14. I smile so big every time I read this.

That's all I got.

Cabbie

First of all, let me just say that I've been reading through some of these old blog posts of mine, and I need to apologize for some of the grammar I've been throwing around. I'm sincerely sorry for not italicizing titles, misusing commas, and any other mistakes I might have made in the past couple posts. Anyway…

About a year and a half ago, I started writing a (short) short adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Cabbie for a creative writing class. I worked on it pretty intensely for about 4 months, eventually submitting it to a few conferences, etc. It's still got a long, long ways to go, but I felt like posting it somewhere, maybe as a reminder to get back to work on it, maybe so it exists somewhere other than my hard drive. Anyway, it's a sort of blast from the past.

So…

Cabbie

“There’s a certain comfort to be found in inertia, in the constancy of movement or lack thereof. As objects living under the influence of Newton’s 3^rd Law, we place a premium on being able to move through life uninterrupted. When our constant state of motion is disturbed, the result is not a mere interruption of progress, it is a collision of the proverbial ‘unstoppable force’ with the ‘immovable object.’ When we collide, the linear path we’d previously acted on becomes abstract; all that was before predictable becomes warped and volatile. The equation which leads us back to linear is difficult to navigate, but there is always comfort to be found in the idea that every equation has an eventual answer.”

I wrote that gem in a college paper for a Philosophy class back when I went to Brown. Looking back, I was probably trying to impress a girl with my wisdom (vagueness) and rhetoric (use of thesaurus). Today, though, I understand exactly what I was trying to say, except it probably could’ve been summed up in something my dad told me when I was eight:

“Life’ll pull your pants down, steal your wallet, and tell you to ‘man up,’ and there isn’t a thing you can do about it. Now, go get a job.”

However you phrase it, the concept is the same. Life is a crapshoot, and we’re all either coasting toward our own immovable objects or dealing with some form of aftershocks from the collision.

I became a taxi driver five months ago in late May. You could call it part of one of my ‘aftershocks.’ Before that I was a fledgling associate at a PR firm on the Upper East Side. I took the job right after Danielle and I were married and had it for about a year. Around this past March, though, my insomnia started to kick in, and my work took a dive. All night long I’d sit in bed—sitting, not lying, Indian-style, perfectly erect spine, eyes closed, swaying back and forth, hoping that gravity would eventually lull my pendulum of a body onto the sheets. It never worked though. In that month I spent more time sitting on my bed than most people spend sitting at their desks at work. People say that kind of stuff happens with bereavement. I’m one of those people, I guess.

I don’t really know how exactly I chose to be a taxi driver. I remember watching the movie, Taxi Driver. That might’ve had something to do with it. I was at one of my low points; I thought I belonged in that underworld of street urchins. I was a creature of the night, one of those shadowy figures that travel in alleyways and plan revolutions against ‘the man.’ I was DeNiro’s Travis Bickle, minus some more obvious neuroses. It all made sense at the time. I could drive around the city when I couldn’t sleep, people left me alone for the most part, I got paid, and I could feel sorry for myself, all at the same time. If I happened to save a wayward soul here and there, an “Iris” if you will, well that was fine too. Maybe it was the idea of being an object in motion once again, only this time able to see all; movable and immovable, on a system of linear lines.

Tonight was one of those nights, though, where I hated Travis Bickle. Everything ached. The first couple of months nothing ever ached, but tonight I felt every pothole in my back. I dreaded moving and opening doors. Adjusting the mirrors pissed me off to no end. I resented every person that got in the cab. There were a few moments when I debated just driving home to my apartment, with the customer in the back seat and everything. Today was mine and Danielle’s all-important two-year wedding anniversary. Some people focus on the first anniversary, but the second year is where you hit true dedication, the lap after the victory lap. The second anniversary says, “I’m in this thing, even through the stupid landmarks that only you and I will care about, like two-year anniversaries.” I debated taking the day off, but I’d taken the past three days off. Four felt like giving up. Mutinous, maybe. I wasn’t that Travis Bickle.

My first couple of the night was straight out of a bar on West Broadway. They were freshly buzzed and their breath smelled of alcohol, lighter and fruitier, with an alcohol proof high enough to break some barriers, and low enough to leave the stamina uninhibited. They melded into each other like a pile of worn-out clothes, with elbows, hands, knees, and cheeks filling in the gaps between fabric.

“Can we go to 175 Madison Avenue?”

“Sure thing.”

And with that, they were back to each other. They reminded me of Danielle and I when we were first married. We were completely absorbed in each other, in breathing the same air and wrapping our hands around each other’s hands—that crazy, incomprehensible mix of being completely content, but constantly wanting more of each other at the same time. I remembered one night in particular, walking around the city looking through different shop windows. I remember thinking how great it was that we could just walk together. We used to walk all the time. It’s how we got to know New York—how we discovered our favorite streets and shops and pieces of graffiti. As we walked I’d picture the two of us in the years to come. Just walking. Sometimes we were holding hands or her arms would be wrapped around my bicep or stomach. Sometimes she was holding a kid, our kid. Most of the time, though, we were just walking. Thinking of it made me happy—euphorically, almost smugly happy. Right there I should’ve known something was gonna happen. Once you hit smug, the universe reserves the right to put you back in your place.

Watching the couple made me feel at ease and overwhelmingly depressed at the same time. [It was like hearing a song you used to be able to play on an instrument. The familiarity of it is comforting, but then you realize that you have no claim to it, that the notes don’t belong to you anymore, and you feel emptier than you did before you heard it.] I wish I could’ve met them under different circumstances. With Danielle. They would’ve loved Danielle. Everyone did. I could picture us all sitting in a restaurant, talking about art exhibits and politics. Ray and I (he looked like a Ray) would argue about whether or not CBGB should’ve stayed open. Danielle and Melissa (the name I give to every blond woman on the street) would discuss how they both wanted to go to Europe once work opened up. Picturing the ease of it all made me want to tell them that this wasn’t my usual gig, and that I had what they had once. But how do you bring something like that up?

“You two look like you’re in love. Speaking of love, I was in love once. Then the universe decided to rip my heart out. Ha. Good times, right?”

Or
“Taking the cab? Yeah…my wife and I used to take cabs before she died.”

I’d learned to temper my desire to talk to people about Danielle. No one ever leaves those kinds of conversations whole. Someone always feels emptier afterward. Not lighter, emptier. Tonight, though, I thought I was allowed to talk about her. That’s how it works, isn’t it? You’re allowed to unload on important landmarks like two-year anniversaries. I’d earned the right to talk to who I wanted to talk to. For months after Danielle died, the only people I could talk to were people who only wanted to make sure that they did their due diligence after her death. Their sympathy was so calculated and geometric—gridded calendars with days assigned to bring me dinner, sympathy cards, and the business cards of recommended therapists. That was their due diligence—tiny, quadrilateral-shaped pieces of paper with their condolences stamped on them. I know they meant well, and I appreciated the effort, but sympathy shouldn’t be square. Emotions, as a general rule, shouldn’t be square.

Ray and Melissa wouldn’t have given me anything square. Ray would call the second he heard what happened. Melissa would cry and offer too many hugs. Later, Ray would take me out to get wasted and listen while I talked way too much. After a few months, Melissa, with the best intentions, would try to set me up with someone. I’d say no, and then she’d say something to make me realize that I was ready to ‘get back out there.

There would’ve been no grids or quadrilaterals. It would’ve hurt, and part of me would’ve hated them for forcing me to get over her, but it’s what I would’ve needed to cure the abstract lines. Grids and quadrilaterals can’t correct the abstract. Their straight edges only exacerbate it—utility conflicting with volatility. The only way to turn the abstract into linear again is to coax it back, little by little, drunken lambast by drunken lambast. Speaking of lambast…

“So is tonight a special occasion or are you guys just out on the town?”

I immediately regretted opening my mouth. It wasn’t going to help anything. I didn’t have the energy to carry on a whole conversation about how happy they were. Why did I think that this couple would fix me? If people saying, ‘Danielle always loved you,’ or watching movies about how ‘the dead are always with you’ didn’t help, why did I think that talking to people in love would make me feel in love again? It doesn’t. It won’t. The lines stay crooked. You lose the song. Re-learning it sucks.

“Nope, just out for the night. Walking around,” Ray said casually.

Damnit…

“Great night for it.”

“Yeah. We keep getting lost, though. It’s a big city. We’d been looking for that bar back there for hours.”

“Yeah, I know how that goes. It used to happen to my wife and I all the time. We’d walk around the city for hours and end up at some place we didn’t plan on. It’s funny how it happens, like you’re just moving along these streets without any control over where you’re going or where you’ll end up. It’s the way to do it, though, I think. Just keep moving and walking; it’s the best way to find out where you’re going. ”

They both smiled. Melissa’s smile was warm and sincere. Ray’s, slightly confused.

“Ha. Thanks. We’ll definitely keep that in mind.”

They got out three blocks later, across the street from an apartment complex with a red gate in front. As Ray handed me the $17.80 for the cab ride, I felt a tinge of embarrassment and regret. I thanked him. He thanked me. I wished them a good evening. They waved goodbye. I pretended that the $17.80 was from a bet Ray and I made over whether or not Joey Ramone was still alive (a tangent off of our CBGB debate). Sure it was a lot for a bet, but the man didn’t know his Ramones and deserved to pay. After they left, Danielle and I would talk about how I shouldn’t have suckered him out of the money. I’d know she was right. We’d laugh about it as we walked home.

Letters.

Dear Social Network,

I've watched you about 100 times, and I will watch you 100 more times…in the next month.

Dear Diet Coke,

I know that as an American I should love you, but Pepsi's just so much better.

Dear Jason Segel,

My friend stayed the night at your house and told me how much of a d-bag you are, but I can't help but love you. Don't screw it up.

P.S. I did NOT drive by your house on December 22, 2011. It may have looked like me, but it wasn't, okay?!

Dear Lark and Mary Alice,

You're the best sisters I could've asked for. You're both nuts, and I love you very, very much.

Dear Growing Up,

I don't know how I'm going to deal with you. The only solution I can come up with is going to Europe and moving every two years to avoid making any sort of grown-up commitments.

Dear College Degree,

Thanks for being you.

Dear Hair,

I want to keep you long, but you're making it so hard.

Dear Ryan Gosling,

You're a really, really cool guy. I swear I don't sit and drool over your pictures like everyone else, I just really respect your work. I promise. Seriously.

Dear Reading,

I'll get back to you, I promise.

Dear Face,

I get it. You're super sensitive. I feel like I'm your boyfriend and you blow up at everything I say or do. Cool it.

Dear Dan Auerbach,

Don't ever change.

Dear People Who Post "Dear ____" Letters As Your Facebook Statuses,

I don't know why, but you drive me insane.

Dear Cynics of the World,

Unless you're Woody Allen, it's really not attractive. You can trust cuteness, puppies/babies aren't evil, and not everyone is out to get you. Be coo.

Dear Future Mission Companions,

I'm excited to meet you. Please be patient with me.

Dear Future Mission Teachees,

I'm excited to meet you. Please be patient with me.

Dear How I Met Your Mother,

You may not be the best show on television, but dangit I love you.

Dear Ryan Gosling,

I feel like you didn't believe me before when I said I just respect your work, but I was being serious. You're really good at what you do, and that's it.

Dear Rings on my Fingers,

I've owned you for roughly three years now. Thanks for not getting lost.

Dear Rooney Mara,

You were pretty great in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Pretty, pretty great.

Dear 17 Year Old Journal-Writing Annalee,

No, I should not, nor should anybody else, "be pretty jealous" of anything you're writing about.

Dear GOP Candidates,

Solution: MARIOKART TOURNAMENT

Dear Summer of 2012,

There are so many great movies coming out during you, I can't begin to describe how excited I am to see them all.

Dear Nutella,

I think I might be allergic to you?

Dear World,

Be good. Do good things. And let's start wearing more sunscreen, kay?

Dear Annalee of 2012,

This year is gonna be full of mistakes, uncomfortable situations, rejection, and growing up. Man up, pray a lot, and love everyone and everything, all the time. Be perfect in the things you can be perfect in, and learn from everything else. When all else fails, remember that one day robots will take over the world, and nothing you encounter this year will be as bad as that. So, go get em, tiger!

Normal List Pt. I

One of my biggest worries about going on a mission, other than the constant rejection and the fact that I won't have a lazy moment for the next 18 months, is coming back. There's a lot of anxiety attached to coming back to regular life after living in a hyper-spiritualized environment for an extended period of time. And, while I know that I'm not going to come back a better version of myself than the one than left, I kind of like who I am now, know what um sayin?

SO, I've created a list of things I need to see/listen to within the first 72 hours of my return to get me back to normal. I've enlisted the help of a few key friends to help slap me back to normal as well.

Here it is...

What to watch:

1. The Social Network

2. One Fine Day

3. Inglourious Basterds

4. Drive (edited)

5. Tron

6. The Hunger Games

7. Five Year Engagement

8. Every episode of How I Met Your Mother

9. Every episode of Breaking Bad

10. Every episode of Mad Men

What to Listen to:

1. The Suburbs - Arcade Fire

2. Brothers - The Black Keys

3. Treats - Sleigh Bells

4. Teen Dream - Beach House

5. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot -Wilco

6. Merriweather Post Pavillion - Animal Collective

7. Burst Apart - The Antlers

8. Keep it Hid - Dan Auerbach

9. The Execution of All Things - Rillo Kiley

10. Wounded Rhymes - Lykke Li

Others: Bon Iver, Florence and the Machine, Dark was the Night, Twilight soundtracks, Ryan Adams, etc.

What to do:

1. Go to a concert

2. Go to Los Angeles

3. Eat at Chipotle

4. Chug a 2 liter of Diet Pepsi

5. Stay up for 72 hours straight

6. Go to a gym

7. Hug a man

8. Get a job.

9. Get a mohawk

10. Wear jeans.

There's more where this came from.

That Chapter in my book about Los Angeles: Done

Today is my last day at the internship. It is also the last night I will spend in my apartment. It is also my last full day in Los Angeles, California. Tomorrow I'm moving all my stuff out to Riverside, California, where my grandma lives, and from there I'll be flying to Virginia.

I cannot begin to explain how excited I am to be going home. I love Los Angeles with all my heart, but I haven't been back on the east coast in almost exactly a year. I haven't missed it all that much until the past 2 weeks or so, and now I'm literally counting down the hours until I'm back in Virginia with my family.

Last night I took a drive around Los Angeles to most of my favorite parts--a sort of "coming full circle" type of thing, if you will. I drove up La Brea, which I've walked up and down at least 100 times since I've been here (and I love it). I rode the bus down Wilshire, which is my second favorite street on account of the museums, my old internship, and the shopping. I got to go down Santa Monica Blvd, which is NUTS anytime after 8 pm. And I got to go up by Chateau Marmont (and one other place that shall remain nameless), which I've wanted to do ever since I got to Los Angeles. While I was driving I kept trying to make myself feel all those things you're supposed to feel when you know you're leaving some place, but it wasn't happening. I know I was meant to live in Los Angeles these past few months, but I also know that now is the right time for me to be leaving.

So, the Things I'll Miss About Los Angeles List:

1. OddLot Entertainment.

This place has been my home more than Los Angeles has. I started working here on August 29th of this year, and I've been here ever since. The people are great, and I love all the work I've been able to do, including being a part of the Drive hype and seeing all my coworkers names in the credits. I've also loved getting to work with my fellow interns, whom I already miss: Matt Fox, Megan Ritchie, Geoff Peel, Will Ferrer (Oh Will…), Tim Unger, Adam Peters, Sarah Rotella, Grace, and Ana Liza. I already miss them terribly. I'll miss everything about this place: the terrible scripts, the weekend read meetings, James' opinions during the weekend read meetings, the free Diet Coke, the free lunch, meeting Gigi Pritzker, meeting Gavin Hood, making directors/actors lists, taking lunch orders. The list goes on.

2. Culver City

Again, not exactly part of Los Angeles, but I've loved this place. It's the perfectest little borough of a city you ever did see. I wouldn't mind living there. Jay kay, I probably wouldn't want to live there. Actually, I dunno. Maybe. We'll see.

3. Runyon Canyon

I'm sure I've raved about Runyon on here before. I love, love, love this place. Every great piece of news I've gotten in Los Angeles, I've gotten while hiking Runyon Canyon. True story. I found out about both my internships on Runyon, met roughly 10 different celebrities on Runyon, found out about my apartment while on Runyon, etc. Plus, it's the quietest place in California, and it reminds me a lot of Idaho, which is always a good thing. And the views are incredible, wherever you choose to look.

4. La Brea Avenue

I love this street.

5. The weather

I haven't been cold once since I've been here. Not ONCE.

6. The buses

This one could go either way. The bus and I have had some good times and some not so good times together. I hated the 2 hours commute to church, but I loved the people watching. I hated that it automatically cost me money to go anywhere I didn't feel like walking to, but I loved the motivation to walk around the city. I hated the fact that I had to have exact change on me everywhere I went, but I loved the overwhelming feeling of satisfaction when I could put a dollar $1.50 together using every last coin in my room. I also loved the drivers. Little known fact- there are 4 or 5 bus drivers in Los Angeles that are quite possibly the nicest people in the world. One drives the Big Blue Bus: Route 12 in Westwood. He drove me to and from work every day I didn't choose to walk.

7. Glendora

This isn't actually part of Los Angeles, but ever since Jeff took us to his hometown, I've been in love with the place. It's the coolest town in all of Southern California. I've had a lot of good times there, driving up the GMR; going to Donutman with Mary Alice, Lars, Caleb, and Jeff; visiting the Lindstroms on many an occasion; staying at Jeff's grandma's house; seeing all of Glendora's crazy graveyards and historic trees. I'm gonna miss you, Glendora.

8. Being in places I shouldn't be

I'm probably gonna sound like an ignorant fool by saying this, but I never got why Los Angeles has such a bad rap. In my five months of living here, I only ever felt threatened once. And it's not like I didn't give people plenty of opportunities to kidnap/rape me. I was actually kind of asking for it. I went out running at 10 and 11 o clock at night and hung out in the city even later than that. Overall, my time spent walking around LA late at night will probably end up being some of my favorite while in LA.

9. Knowing I live in Los Angeles.

This is admittedly a vanity thing. I love telling people that I live in Los Angeles. I'm pretty proud of myself for getting up the guts to move out here right after graduation and then sticking it out for five months, finding my own apartment, paying my own rent, getting to and from work every day, finding my own internships, entertaining myself in Los Angeles, making friends. I did it all. By muhself. That's actually false. I had a lot of help from various people-Leanne, Lars, my family, Zoe and Stacy at OddLot, my roommates, etc. Thinking that I did it all by myself is an illusion, but it gets me through the day.

And I gotta leave the office, so that's all I got...

Sister Kinman!

So, Sister Kjirstin Kinman came home yesterday, and I got a chance to talk to her tonight. It was exactly what I needed after making my decision on Tuesday. Kjirstin was one of the girls who inspired me to go on a mission in the first place, and she's always been a sort of kindred spirit/someone I love and look up to. Talking to her made my soul feel a million times lighter. I feel like making the decision to go on a mission was the easy part; maintaining it is going to be difficult.

While I'm really, really excited to go, there are aspects of leaving for a mission that absolutely terrify me. It's going to be a lot of hard, hard work, and a lot of missing people, and a lot of emotional ups and downs, and a lot of personal changes, and a lot of big life changes in general. It sounds kind of strange, but I think my biggest fear is losing who I am right now. I know I'll come back a person that I could never be without the mission, but I'll be different. My gosh, I'm going to be so weird. But talking to Kjirstin really put my mind at ease. We talked about everything from preparing to go, to entering the MTC, to teaching people, to companions, to adjusting to life after the mission, to emotional roller coasters, all of it. Thinking about it all makes me really excited. Humbled. But excited.

I've been really blessed with the people I've been surrounded with lately. My parents couldn't be more supportive, my siblings are all for it, I have a ton of friends leaving for their missions, etc. My non-member friends have been really supportive as well, which feels awesome. It's been the perfect mix of the right people and the right timing. I actually never REALLY thought I would serve a mission, mostly because I was always really worried about leaving a few people in particular. I'm still worried about leaving those people, but it's also a really great feeling to make a decision based solely on what I think the Lord wants me to do.

Anyways, that's all I got.

A big one.

So, this is the big one. The big post. At least for me it is. Anyways, here it goes:

I've decided to serve a mission.

It's something I've thought about for a long, long, long time now. I always told myself that I wasn't going to serve one until I graduated so that I wouldn't have an excuse for not finishing school, etc., etc. Then I graduated, and I found myself thinking about a mission almost constantly. Every time someone mentioned a mission I would get this pit in my stomach, and I would start feeling anxious, which really should have tipped me off that this wasn't something I should be shrugging off. But whenever I thought of a mission, I always had a million "reasons" for not going: my career would be thrown off, I would miss my friends, I would miss out on so much music and so many movies, yada yada, and I always considered those reasons good enough.

But as I was walking to work one morning, all I could think about was the mission. I was already pretty emotionally charged from some other things that had been going on in my life, so I didn't put too much stock into what I was thinking about it all, but then I started to think about all the reasons I had for not going on a mission, and my body literally wouldn't let me consider them reasons. I thought about them, and they didn't matter at all. All the anxiety attached to them completely disappeared (and at this point I started getting really scared). So, I stopped at a crosswalk and said to myself, "I'm going on a mission," and I felt so, so, so much lighter. All this tension that I'd been carrying around with me completely vanished. And I think trying to deny that feeling would be about the worst thing I could do.

So, now I'm here, terrified. I feel very, very humble right now. And I don't meant that in a spiritually superior way, but an "Oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into, I need all the help I can get" kind of way. The only thing keeping me going right now is this gut feeling that I'm supposed to go. And for now, I think I can work with that. Holy geez.

Soooo...that's all I got.

Boys, boys, boys.

So I was looking through my stuff the other day, and I found a list from a couple years ago with all the attributes I want in a husband. Call me a girl, but I've always like doing these kinds of lists, the same way I like taking personality tests on the internet--they're just something to do. So, I have since updated the list (since the last one was written when I was 17 and I knew everything and was so in touch with my emotions, enough to write gems like "makes me smile even when I'm down" and "likes to watch chick flicks").

So, here it goes...Things I want in a Future Husband:

1. A guy that realizes the importance of the gospel in a marriage.

One of the reasons I have a testimony of the gospel is my parent’s marriage. There is no way that these two people should be married after 30 years together. If you ask them how their marriage has stayed together, they’ll tell you, without hesitation, that it’s because of their faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And while the couples that put the gospel first might not always have the edgiest or coolest lives, they’re always the happiest couples I know.

2. A man that’s smarter than me.

I need a guy that can keep me on my toes, intellectually and mentally. I don’t mean to make myself out to be this incredible person that guys simply can’t measure up to, but intelligence is just such a huge turn on. True story: I’d been ready to break up with this guy I’d been dating for something like 2 weeks. On the night I’d psyched myself up to do it, he explained to me how macroeconomics worked—I was so attracted to him in that moment that we dated for another month.

3. A man.

You know why women like Don Draper? Because he’s a man. A manly, brawny, square-jawed, manly man. He’s not a boy. He’s a man. That’s what I want. Not Don Draper-I’d kill myself. But a man. Not a guy. Not a dude. A man.

4. Someone who appreciates what it means to create and appreciates creativity.

I don’t need to marry an artist, musician, or a writer. But I do need someone who appreciates what it means to me to create, mostly in the form of writing. Creativity, writing especially, is such an odd beast because there’s no real way to quantify its success. And in the end, it’s very possibly that what you’ve spent hours and hours driving yourself crazy over won’t mean anything to anyone else but you. I need someone that can understand that I love to write, and need to write, and that I love art, and need to be around art, and that I like losing myself in my own creativity and in the creativity of others, and I need to do it every once in a while.

5. Someone who can make me laugh.

This pretty much goes without saying. One of my biggest joys in life is making people laugh. I’m not saying I’m good at it, but it’s one of life’s biggest highs, I think. So to marry a guy I couldn’t make laugh or that couldn’t make me laugh would just be stupid. Plus, growing up in the family I did, I learned that humor is a whole lot more than just making people laugh, it’s kind of a way of life. You can get by without a lot of things if you’re able to laugh about it.

6. I want an attractive man.

I don’t have a type, physically. I’ve liked some pretty odd-looking characters in my day. There are a few basics, though. He has to be taller than me. This is paramount. Taller than me and thicker than me. I can’t be the biggest one in the relationship. I need to know that my husband could beat me in an arm-wrestling competition or carry me across a river should our oxen fail. I blame this on growing up with three brothers. Other than that, I’m pretty open, actually. Facial tattoos are kind of gross. I’ll say no facial tattoos.

7. I want a guy who likes kids.

I think how a person interacts with children says a lot about them. Your knowledge of fine wines or the fact that you spend your weekend reading vintage books in a vintage bookstore doesn’t mean anything to a kid. Relating to and interacting with a kid requires a certain meekness, I think, and a disregard for how you’re being perceived. Children can’t validate you. People who like children and choose to spend their time with children, in my experience, are the generous souls, the people you want to hang on to.

8. A man that can make me feel like a girl (woman?)

I’ve never been a girly girl, per se. I grew up a tomboy and then molded into something caught between the mall, the gym, and the library. But I LOVE being a girl, or a woman, or whatever you want to call it. Makeup, clothes, hair, shoes, chick flicks, batting eyelashes, femininity, I love all of it. When a guy can make me feel like girl as well as a comedian or an intellectual or a writer or whatever other labels I might like to assign myself, it’s a great feeling.

9. A man that fits the scenarios.

There are certain scenarios, I think, that every girl runs through her head when she starts thinking about a guy. I don’t know why we do it. It’s probably irrational. In any case, there are a few choice scenarios I have, like meeting the family, being in a foreign country with that person, WILL THIS MAN BE ABLE TO HANDLE ME WHEN I’M PREGNANT? That kind of stuff.

10. A man that can deal with me.

I’m a weird person. At least I feel like I’m weird. I don’t operate in relationships the way a lot of other people do, I feel. Relationships are a strange business. And I need a man that can understand that I would never really be a normal girlfriend or wife. In fact, I would never be a girlfriend. I hate that word, and same goes for ‘boyfriend.’ I need a man that will get that I need to be able to feel independent, and I need to be able to nurture something or else I will explode, and that I’ll never be the one to make the first move, and that I will bottle everything up until I’ve rationalized it away or killed it with logic, and that I will get bored with any life I life before too long, and that I crave being alone sometimes, and that I have routines I haven’t broken since I was in high school, and that I could go for a year without seeing him and be totally fine but that I would be more than happy to drive across the country to spend a day with him, and that I’m totally and completely addicted to carbonation, and that I am just flat out weird sometimes.

Anywho, those are the basics. For the record, I can't wait to get married. I mean, I CAN. I love being single and having the world as my oyster and all that jazz, but I also know that my husband and I are gonna have a pretty friggin incredible life. Annnd that's all I got.

2. A

Only in Los Angeles

Living in Los Angeles has its moments. I say this like people don't know this, like it's some city in the middle of North Dakota. What I mean to say is there are some moments when I think about the kind of things I've seen and done in this city, and I remember why I live here...and not some city in the middle of North Dakota.

Here are some of the highlights:

-I've walked around this city at 3 am and the streets are still full of people. Granted, these people are really weird, and half of them are sleeping on the side of the road, but there are people nonetheless. This has its ups and downs, actually. Living in Rexburg, you could walk around the city and not see another person walking around all night, which I kind of miss. There are time when I really miss it being QUIET.

-I've made friends with my bus driver. I take the same bus at the same time every day (the #12 at 9:20 am and 7:35 pm), and I have the same bus driver every day. I don't know his name yet, but we have nice little chats every time I get on. He's the best bus driver in town.

-Last week I was walking down Santa Monica Blvd on Halloween night. OH MY GOODNESS. The gays, they know how to do the Halloween. I saw go-go dancers, leather, facial tattoos, fury, drag queens. Men asked me how their hair looked, commented on my shoes, complimented my hair. I loved it.

-My internships sends its interns on a tour of the Sony lots every semester. This past week, I got to take my turn. I was actually dreading it; I had a ton of work to get done back at the office, and I didn't want to waste my time walking around. But, as it turns out, it was one of the coolest tours I've ever been on. I got to see technicians striking the set for the set of the batcave for Dark Knight Rises, I got to go into a foley artist's soundstage, I got to go into the room where they score all their films, I got to see Happy Madison's offices, I got to see where Adam Sandler plays basketball, I got to see the Ghostbuster's car, I got to see the Sony Yogurtland, I got to see the set of Wheel of Fortune, I got to see the room where they paint all their backdrops (which are incredible), I got to walk around on different soundstages, I got to see where George Clooney parks his car whenever he's on the lots, I got to see THE Barry Sonnenfeld, I got to see the Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer and It Happened One Night, I got to see an actor who had just auditioned for a Tom Hanks project, I got to talk to a guard who told us that Will Smith was on the lots somewhere, I got to see a movie with a montage of a bunch of other movies. It was great.

I've gotten to see a few different celebrities: Shia LeBeouf, Dave Annabelle, Ali Larter, Kyle Howard, David Sutliffe, and Gavin Hood.

I've gotten to steal a couple of things from my internship that I probably shouldn't have. I've seen the script for the film adaptation of Ender's Game coming out next year, I've gotten to see Like Crazy and Another World, months before they came out.

I got to sit in the audience of Drive, one of the coolest movies I've ever seen, and recognize half the names that came up in the credits as people I work with every day.

I've seen hundreds of pieces of street art since I've been here from artist I love. I've seen original Shepard Fairey and Banksy pieces along with originals from the Ferus Gallery. THAT was cool.

And then there's Runyon Canyon. Runyon Canyon has become on of my favorite places in the city. I've never been anything less than happy while I've been there. Being there after night, especially, is incredible. It's the quietest place in the city, and you can see every burough of Los Angeles, all the way from Santa Monica to East LA and Los Feliz. It also reminds me a lot of Idaho, which is always nice.

It's November 5, and it's 70 degrees outside. There are trees with orange and red leaves on one side of the street and palm trees on the other side. It's the best mix.

Echo Park. Easily the coolest part of Los Angeles. I know it has a rap for being the hipster paradise of Los Angeles, and there's definitely a reason for that, but it's just so cool! There are a lot of weirdos hanging out in that place, but I love it.

There are probably more. In fact, I know there's more. BUT I've got other writing to do.

So, that's all I got.

Restless

You would think that a 22 year old girl would be content with living in Los Angeles, one of the coolest cities in the entire world, for longer than 3 months. But these past few weeks I've been feeling myself become more and more restless. January is coming up, which means that I

a) need a job

b) need an internship with a job at the end

c) need something that I'm passionate about to the point where I don't care whether or not I'm making money

d) need to leave the United States (to hide from debts/explore)

e) need to decide whether or not to go on a mission

or

e) need to marry a rich guy

I figure I have a good month or month and a half to really start thinking seriously about what I want to be doing come 2012. The thing is every opportunity is starting to feel like a burden now. I feel like it's perpetually Friday night, and there are a million different things I could do, but I'm so exhausted with all of my options that I stay home and pay bills because it's what I know I should be doing.

So, for now, here are my options:

1. Stay in Los Angeles.

I love this city, but the more I think about living here permanently, the more exhausted I become. There are only a few scenarios that involve me staying in Los Angeles, but it could still happen. There's a lot of this city I have yet to experience, and I'd hate to leave it before I'd gotten a chance to use it up and spit it back out.

2. Move to New York.

As much as I love California (and I do love it), I miss the East Coast. There are a few things keeping me from moving there, though, like the fact that physically moving to New York with be the biggest pain in the butt in the world. However, there are a lot of cool jobs I've been researching there, one in particular with Tribeca Films (the company with the perfect combination of education and film).

3. Move to San Francisco.

I don't know why San Francisco keeps popping in my head, but whenever I think about moving there, I like it.

3. Move outside the US.

I've been wanting to teach abroad for a long, long time. Finding the right time to go has always been difficult, but I think it would be a nice change of pace while I'm young, unattached, and stupid.

4. Go on a mission.

I told myself that I would finish college before considering a mission, and now that I have, there's really nothing stopping me. I wouldn't hesitate to go on a mission if I felt it's what I was meant to do, but I've never really gotten a 'yes' or a 'no' either way. And the last thing I want to do is go on one just because I have no other plans or because everyone else is going on one.

5. Teach for America.

This one was inspired by volunteering at 826LA. There's really no downside to doing it, other than I don't want to be one of those teachers that wants to teach but drives home crying every night because they can't hack it. The more I hear about it, though, and the more I think about teaching in general, the more I come around to the idea. I started the application- we'll see what happens after I submit it.

6. Nomad.

This is the plan where I change my name and run around the world for a few years until the government forgets I exist, then I return to the United States a completely changed person with their life figured out and a really cool haircut.

Things I don't want to do:

1. Move home. This isn't even a last resort. It can't happen.

2. Lose momentum. It's one of the biggest things I have going for me right now. As long as I keep moving forward, I'll be fine.

3. Make the wrong decision. This is completely fear-based. And I know that right now there really is no such thing, but it's still scary.

4. Settle. This one's self explanatory

5. Make decisions based on other people.

That's about it. I'll update with things that have happened later.

Actually, note to self: update on my trip to Rexburg.

That's all I got.