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.