Nonsense, mostly.

Oliver has developed a bit of separation anxiety.
He had his first trip to the kennel while we were in Colorado over the weekend, and while he was there, I had them go ahead and rid the world of any potential Baby Olivers.  Listen, I'm all for procreation, but I don't need that dog running around humping all my fine things.

I don't own any fine things.  I just think watching animals hump things is really gross.
Anyway, Bob Barker said it's the right thing to do.

This looks really amazing and I would like to go, please.  Plus and also, my birthday is on the solstice, so it would be very easy for me to pretend that the entire celebration was being held in my honor.  And I cannot tell you how much I love to pretend to be celebrated.

Speaking of beards and banjos, I am growing increasingly nervous about this impending move to the city.  I am just really afraid that there is going to be a complete lack of bluegrass (and bluegrass musicians, reowr) in Brooklyn.  Do you yankees even know how to get down on a mandolin?  Is it even possible for you to both clap your hands and stomp your foot at the same time?  In flannel?

...am I playing up the country mouse role enough here?

I have been noticing lately that roughly half of what comes out of my mouth does so in question form. 
You know when kids first start to form their own thoughts and consequently become way less adorable?  I feel like I am in perpetual toddler mode.  Between ending every statement with a question mark and the constant red koolaid stain on my upper lip, I have a little trouble being taken seriously.

I am really terrible at concluding things.  Especially things in which I did not actually say anything.  So I'm going to leave you with this picture of some jellyfish I took a long time ago.  Because why not, really?

Rocky Mountain High

The road to Colorado, for me anyway, is full of Kansas.
And who even needs Kansas anymore?  What a wasteland.
In any case, we made it here. 
It's been a great trip. 

I got to spend lots of time with The Brothers Longley.
They are the best brothers that have ever existed.

Nicholas taps into our non existant Native American roots.

Zachary is king of the awkward faces.

I'll see you back in arkansas, Blogpals.

God's Country?

If there is in fact a God, and he still has anything to do with the goings on of this silly planet, I'm pretty sure he lives in Arkansas.  At the very least, he vacations here often. 

And why wouldn't he?  It's amazing.

Mondays are stupid.  This is a widely accepted truth.  I discovered last night that the best way to combat the exhaustion, whining and overall grumpiness of this day is to remove onesself entirely.  I decided to go somewhere where days of the week are completely useless.  When you're standing on the edge of a cliff, staring down at treetops, there's no room for bad attitudes.  Just bliss.  And weightlessness.  And maybe a twinge of nausea if you're a total pansy, like me.

I talk a lot of trash about the Natural State.  But there's really no competition when it comes to scenery.

So anyway, today I'm feeling good.

Sexpot?

I'm a little late on this post, but everyone else shared their celebrity crushes, and well, I just can't not follow a trend.  Blame it on the 16 year old in me.

So, here it is.  My very own list of dudes I would immediately get naked for.  Anywhere, any time (if you appear on this list and are reading this.. no really, I'm serious.  Call me.)

Kevin Spacey.  I hear that lots of people think he is creepy looking.. I don't get that.  I think that smirk is sexy in that "he might have a body in his freezer" kind of way.

Listen.  I don't want to hear it.  I know he faked some of that show, and believe me, it was heartbreaking for this girl.  But dude, he couldn't have faked it all.  Plus, what is it about an accent that amplifies a man's sex appeal by like, a thousand times?  I would sleep in a scary hammock made of elephant ear leaves with Bear Grylls any day.  Even if there was a Holiday Inn located just offscreen.

I don't even feel like I need to explain this.  John Krasinski.

I love hairy men.  So Ray Lamontagne is already way up on the list of Men I Would Do Shameful Things To.  Have you ever heard him sing, though?  Hold on to your panties, girls.  It's intense.

If you don't already know who these gorgeous men are, I have no doubts that you soon will.

They're Truth and Salvage Co, and if you can believe this, their music is even sexier.

Do yourself a favor and check them out.

I know!  Go take a shower.  Pull yourselves together.

A Place for Everything.

I don't believe in fate.
Believing in fate, to me anyway, implies a belief in something bigger than you.  And I'm not sure I buy into that.  Well, I believe in something.  But the who/what/how many is still under debate.

I think that at any given time in your life, there are a million different ways you could be going.  Every decision you make pulls you in another direction... a unique reality.  It's not special, it's not "where you're supposed to be,"  it's just where you are. 

Wherever you go, there you are.
(I had a history teacher who said that and I dig it.  So there you are.)
(Now that I think about it, that's probably some super famous quote by someone that I should know.  Whatever.)

My question now is, how in the hell am I supposed to ever be content doing anything?  Maybe this is just my birth order coming to play.  Being the youngest means always trying to get in on everything everyone else is doing - always worrying about what we're missing out on.  How can I be content here, if there might be something better over there?  How can I make a relationship work with one person, if I'm constantly thinking of how I might be happier with someone else?  How am I supposed to eat mushroom pizza when that grilled cheese sandwhich might change my life?  These are the things that plague me.

Losing my sense of "purpose" was probably the hardest part of realizing how bogus organized religion is.  When you're raised in the Assemblies of God (or really any denomination, I just happened to have been brought up Diet Pentacostal), everything that happens to you is (cue Oz voice) The Will of the Lord.  That really makes things easy, you know?  It's basically a free ride through life - no responsibility for your actions necessary.  (I'm really not trying to knock Christians, it just always comes out that way now.  Too many parentheses.)

What do you do when lose that?  How do you know when something is right?  Are things right, or do they just work for the moment?

I've never been content with anything in my whole life.  I have an anxious personality.  I've always attributed my fidgeting to this town. "If I could just get out of this town, I could really start living."

Well,  my whining has finally turned into action, and in a few short months I'll be packing up with an old friend and heading to one of the busiest "towns" in the world.  But how do I know that this is the right move?  What if I'm more of a Seattle girl?  But I really like the idea of moving to the mountains?  School is so much cheaper here, shouldn't I wait until graduation (25 years from now)? 

And I mean, just what am I supposed to do if I meet the man of my dreams before January?  Hm?  Should I settle in Arkansas and have forty babies and maybe a double-wide of my very own?

...Of course I'm joking.  I've pretty much accepted the fact that I am incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship.  Fairytale Shmairytale.

I'm just tired of worrying.  This is a beautiful life, friends, and I'm going to stop waiting on it to start.


So, January.  New York City.
Sink or swim, right?




But don't worry, Arkansas, no matter where I end up, I'll always be callin' those Hogs.

Oliver is not amused. 

Unicorns, etc.

I am just full of sunshine and rainbows this weekend, y'all.
Oliver and I roadtripped the two hours to Petit Jean yesterday and did some hiking.  As it turns out, hiking alone is refreshing for the first twenty minutes or so.  Then, it's painfully, mind numbingly boring.  Also, a little scary.  All I'm saying is, if I was a serial killer, I would hide in the woods waiting for some dumb broad to come trotting down the trails by herself.  This thought did not occur to me until I was a good hour into the trail.  Cue mild panic attack.  On the way back, Oliver peed in my lap.  It was a dark moment in the Corolla.  I may or may not have cried a little going 85 down the highway.  Pee is gross.

I didn't take a single picture worth sharing on this hike.  But I'm sharing this one anyway.  You're welcome.

Last night, I drank too much and spent most of today paying for it.  It's a routine I'm growing tired of.  But Drunk Annie just doesn't care about Sober Annie's well being.  At all.

Okay, so, I need help.  Really, I just need someone to decorate my apartment.  Here's your canvas, creative types. I need answers pronto.  If I have to stare at these blank, weird off-white walls much longer, I'm going to lose my mind.

Disregard our dirty cofee table.

Who even puts a brick wall in an apartment?  When we were looking at the place, we said stupid things like, "Oh, that's unique!" and now we say things like, "HOW DO YOU HANG THINGS ON A BRICK WALL!?"  This is stressing me out.  Help.

Apocolypse!

Our server/phone lines/internet have been down at work for the past three hours.
We just got the internet back.  The internet that I should not be on!  Because I have this report here, on my desk, staring at me.  I'm ignoring it though.  The way you ignore the gaze of that person you see at Target that you know but don't like?  That's me and this report.  I'm not proud of it, but I'm sure not looking at it.  Not now.  There was cake today, and the sun is out, and with those combined forces of greatness, I have reached a whole new level of uselessness.  I am dancing around this office to bad radio music like this Thursday is something to celebrate.  But it sort of is, because the phones are still down, and I have not had to take an angry/stupid employee phone call in over three freaking hours!  Best Thursday of my life, I think.

...The phones came back on literally right as I finished typing that last sentence.  There's a deity out there who really, really hates my guts.

I love banjos.

This week feels weird.
This band will change your life.  Or it won't.  The thing is, they're really good.  We discovered them in Memphis and already have tickets to see them in Little Rock at the end of the month.  What is it about beardy men with guitars that makes me just want to get naked immediately?  Reowr.

I am conflicted, you guys.
I hate the South, right?  I always have.  I hate the small minded bigotry and the lack of culture and color and night life.  I hate double negatives and the ever dwindling educational system.  I hate that I have spent 21 whole years here.  The problem is, I have discovered in the last year or so that I maybe, kindofalittlebit, love the South?  I know.  That's stupid.  But really.  I love that I was raised to always be polite.  I love smiling at complete strangers and not being thought creepy.  I like boys who are chivalrous.  I love camping and bluegrass.  I say "Y'all," a lot.

So I am needing some life advice.  And by advice, I mean someone to make all of my important life decisions for me.

I have an opportunity to move to Brooklyn in January with a friend who's going to grad school there.  I've never even been there.  But, you know, I hear good things.  And that's what this ridiculous life is about, right?  Going and seeing and doing and becoming? 
I think it would be stupid not to go.  But Jesus Murphy, that's a lot of people.. and pollution, and crime, and traffic.  I just really see nothing wrong with staying here, playing in my garden, hanging with my dog and the people I grew up with.  Is that just fear talking?  I'm afraid so.  But maybe it isn't.  Maybe I wouldn't be able to breathe in a town bigger than 80,000 measely people.

I'm terrified of making decisions.  They're so final, and I am just so flakey.

So, I mean, just let me know what I've decided, blogpals.  I am washing my hands of it.

Are you ready to take a trip? A trip to... Rock City?

Memphis was tornado-y, and that was annoying. 
Apparently I saw Puddle of Mudd's entire set.  I don't know who is responsible for that, but they're lucky I was completely blacked out by that point.  Sick.

Saw Jerry Lee Lewis on purpose, though.  That was incredible.
Memphis is dirty, and I saw way too much old woman boob for my liking, but overall, it was a good trip.
Glad to be back in my bed with my smelly dog.