Nana, the unwitting philosopher

... and then I realized who I want to be when I grow up.

I am brimming with machismo.

I just wrote a blog self-proclaiming my extreme awesomeness over a feat that
ANYONE and EVERYONE
has done at least once in the last fiscal year.


. . .

Have I really sunk this low? Am I really REALLY this bored?
Do I think I will last the entire long desert of non-dance this winter break?

Hmmm.

The answer is . . . maybe.


Looks like it's time for me to get new hobbies.
Kissing B is probably going to remain at the top of my list.

Now, if you will excuse me please. . .

Sleep Dust and Hair Everywhere

I just had a SIX HOUR NAP.


I pretty much think that my life is more awesome than yours.


Eat that.

"How do I look at dance" or Get it? Got it. Good.

Ah, clarity.

All I want for Christmas this year is to never again have the scoffs and snide commentary directed towards modern dance, my major, or how being "so artistic" might/maybe/probably scares legitimate dating experiences away (you know you said it, you know who you are, you should probably be ashamed of yourself.)

So, when I read the forward inside my program for Ririe-Woodbury's performance of Interiors, I breathed a sigh of relief, clapped my claps twice, and planned on copying it down HERE so that you, my friends & family members (basically, any nay-sayer around these here parts), can finally understand how to look at modern dance without feeling the need to interpret, and maybe, just maybe, learn to give yourself permission to love what you experience in a modern dance concert.


This piece was written by Rachel Howard,
for an April 2005 San Franciso Chronical article.
(For more of her articles and reviews,
check out this link: Rachel Howard)

“Dance can be mysterious, mystifying, intimidating. Dance is nonverbal. You can't reduce what you've seen to a plot; you can't recite the lines. It's ephemeral. It vanishes before you're quite sure what you've seen. And at its best, dance says things no other art form can, and you feel it in your muscles and your breath, and you walk out wondering if you can communicate what you've just experienced to another person.
Or wondering if you got it.
The fact is, each of us is a dance person. We've each swayed to music at a rock concert, or appreciated the curvature of a finely trained physique, or felt the rush of another person's rhythms vicariously in our own limbs. Dance is elemental, like music..."
"At a lecture I gave on ballet last year, one of the first questions was, "What should I be watching?" There are no shoulds. You can watch the dancers' athleticism, the patterns they make onstage, the rhythms of their steps. A good choreographer will focus your eye. But just as important as what you're seeing is what you're feeling. Dance is not two-dimensional. It's not visual art. When a butoh master crawls in tense, time-suspending steps, you can imagine that tension and control in your own body. When a ballet dancer swooshes past in an enormous grand jete, you can feel the wind in your own hair. Open yourself to these sensations and you will "see" dance anew."
“Don't be afraid to say you're bored -- or thrilled. If you went to a bad movie, you'd complain about why you didn't like it. You wouldn't decide that you don't like movies. But often with dance, viewers stop trusting their guts. They've been told this is art. Something must be wrong with them, not with the dance itself. It's healthy to realize no one has the final say on whether a work is good, but it's folly to deny how you really felt about the dance in the moment. Be honest with yourself about your emotional response to the dancing, and you'll be all the more moved when you find that performance that makes you say, this is for me.”

I miss August.

I want to sketch out three mores hours. I want to use permanent ink.


What happened to make me realize that I am carrying my home in a little blue bag? I'm not complaining, I just wish I had more throw pillows there.

Sometimes I can't remember which way was up or why you left or how many nails I've bitten off and spit into the sun over you and you and you.

I can't remember what number I'm on. Time for another list.

I miss August.

The Official Alsoran Cupcake Girl List

I just got my Alsomas gift this evening, being the newest cupcake girl, and all.

Lemon Poppyseed Cupcake mix.

I'm in cupcake girl heaven.

• Claire Bagley
• Rachel Lewis-Clark
• Chanel Ryan
• Becca
• Jessica
• Erin Dixon
• Jennifer Dare (prounounced Duraaaaa)
• Kiana Alarid
• Erica Marie
• Kelly Ramona
• Megan
• Megan's friend Cassie
• Brittany
• Regina Spektor
• Jana Lindblom (Three layer wedding cake/Alsoran Dancer)
• Emma A.
• AmandaRan (also President of the Pirate Crew)
• Eva Mah
• Chelsea Smelsea

Brought to you by Quarter Horse, the equine music zine.

All Songs Considered (and a little wish list)

I just saw NPR's list of the nominees for the best CD of 2008.
So I'm printing it here so you know what to get me for Christmas:

AHEM.

Nominees For The Best CDs of 2008

Adele: ‘19’
Alenajdro Escovedo: ‘Real Animal’
Amanda Palmer: ‘Who Killed Amanda Palmer?’
Beach House: ‘Devotion’
Beck: ‘Modern Guilt’
Black Kids: ‘Partie Traumatic’
Blitzen Trapper: ‘Furr’
Bob Dylan: ‘Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs’
Bon Iver: ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’
Bonnie Prince Billy: ‘Lie Down in the Light’
Calexico: ‘Carried to Dust’
Cat Power: ‘Jukebox’
Cloud Cult: ‘Feel Good Ghosts’
Cold War Kids: ‘Loyalty to Loyalty’
Coldplay: ‘Viva La Vida’
Conor Oberst: ‘Conor Oberst’
Crystal Castles: ‘Crystal Castles’
Cut Copy: ‘In Ghost Colours’
David Byrne/Brian Eno: ‘Everything That Happens Will Happen Today’
Death Cab For Cutie: ‘Narrow Stairs’
Deerhoof: ‘Offend Maggie’
Deerhunter: ‘Microcastle’
Delta Spirit: ‘Ode to Sunshine’
Dengue Fever: ‘Venus on Earth’
Department of Eagles: ‘In EAr Park’
Devotchka: ‘A Mad And Faithful Telling’
Dr. Dog: ‘Fate’
Drive-by Truckers: ‘Brighter Than Creations Dark’
Duffy: ‘Rockferry’
Elbow: ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’
Erykah Badu: ‘New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War’
Fleet Foxes: ‘Fleet Foxes’
Flight of the Conchords: ‘Flight of the Conchords’
Flobots: ‘Fight With Tools’
Foals: ‘Antidotes’
Frightened Rabbit: ‘Midnight Organ Fight’
Girl Talk: ‘Feed the Animals’
Gnarls Barkley: ‘Odd Couple’
Hercules and Love Affair: ‘Hercules and Love Affair’
I’m From Barcelona: ‘Who Killed Harry Houdini?’
Islands: ‘Arm’s Way’
Jenny Lewis: ‘Acid Tongue’
Jolie Holland: ‘The Living And The Dead’
Juana Molina: ‘Un Dia’
Juno: Soundtrack
Kings of Leon: ‘Only By The Night’
Laura Marling: ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’
Lightspeed Champion: ‘Falling Off The Lavender Bridge’
Lil Wayne: ‘Tha Carter III’
Los Campesinos: ‘Hold On Now, Youngster’
Lucinda Williams: ‘Little Honey’
Lykke Li: ‘Youth Novels’
M83: ‘Saturdays=Youth’
Magnetic Fields: ‘Distortion’
Man Man: ‘Rabbit Hats’
Mates of State: ‘Re-Arrange Us’
Metallica: ‘Death Magnetic’
MGMT: ‘Oracular Spectacular’
My Morning Jacket: ‘Evil Urges’
Nada Surf: ‘Lucky’
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: ‘Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!’
Nine Inch Nails: ‘Ghosts I-IV’
No Age: ‘Nouns’
Oasis: ‘Dig Out Your Soul’
Of Montreal: ‘Skeletal Lamping’
Okkervil River: ‘The Stand Ins’
Parts & Labor: ‘Receivers’
Plants and Animals: ‘Parc Avenue’
Portishead: ‘Third’
Punch Brothers: ‘Punch’
R.E.M. ‘Accelerate’
Ra Ra Riot: ‘Rhumb Line’
Railroad Earth: ‘Amen Corner’
Randy Newman: ‘Harps and Angels’
Ray LaMontagne: ‘Gossip in the Grain’
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals: ‘Cardinology’
Santogold: ‘Lights Out’
She and Him: ‘Volume One’
Shearwater: ‘Rook’
Sigur Ros’: ‘Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust’
Silver Jews: ‘Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea’
Spiritualized: ‘Songs in A & E’
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks: ‘Real Emotional Trash’
Sun Kil Moon: ‘April’
Thao Nguyen: ‘We Brave Bee Stings and All’
The Black Keys: ‘Attack and Release’
The Dodos: ‘Visiter’
The Fireman: ‘Electric Arguments’
The Helio Sequence: ‘Keep Your Eyes Ahead’
The Mars Volta: ‘The Bedlam in Goliath’
The Mountain Goats: ‘Heretic Pride’
The raconteurs: ‘Consolers of the Lonely’
The Raveonettes: ‘Lust Lust Lust’
The Walkmen: ‘You & Me’
TV on the Radio: ‘Dear Science’
Vampire Weekend: ‘Vampire Weekend’
Weezer: ‘Weezer (Red Album)’
Why? ‘Alopecia’
Wolf Parade: ‘At Mount Zoomer’

You should probably go online and vote for your faves now.
Let your voice be HEARD!

All Songs Considered

I want to wear hairbows.

My true calling in life was to be French.
. . . and to decorate for Christmas.
Thus, this video has changed my life.
So watch . . . and remember how this is supposed to change your life.

Comme des enfants

Global Warming puts the pink back in your cheeks

I love not wearing gloves in November.
I know global warming probably has a hand in this . . .
but it made taking photos of my beautiful family quite enjoyable.

Ryan & Whitney & Madison & Lily

Grace & Jocelyn & Daniel & Cooper (the wonder animal - even if he doesn't go on adventures with the cat like I want him to)

Seamless Threadless Wristless Fistless

Puppy Web Cam
This is my only real hobby.

I want to punch holes in my ceiling and record the music my room makes when the wind blows through. I'm thinking that it'll be similar to the noise blowing over the hole in a small brown jug.

I like to feel freedom when I write. Thus . . . I'm not sure punctuation makes a very good boyfriend. I'm not sure grammar can become a faithful mistress.



I need a place to keep my old "about me" labels.
This looks about as good a place then any.
*I'm a celebrity beauty secret. I figured out why people love love-notes. I count down the days using paper chains. My favorite words today are: macabre, touche, and fondue. I need a fez. I dance circles around you and you and you. I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were dangerous for me. I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were dangerous for her. I smelled your spareribs and sauerkraut and had to come in. I keep a decoy journal. Leaving the real thing in plain sight. I don't care about being the first (girl) stowaway in space. I pretend to Nancy Drew. You can be George or Bess. Or Ned. I have anime hair. I want to start a pillow-fight club...*

Once a boy told Kelli that he refused to be labeled with a genre (to be exact, the typical genre of the frail and well-dressed Provo normality . . . you know what I'm talking about).
The next words out of his mouth were to ask her to play old school nintendo.
Liar, Liar Pants On Fire.



Once I wanted to tattoo your kisses to my hipbones, and then I realized I would have to stare at it every day and remember that you were made up all along.



I want to live in the library. I want to live in your closet.

I want to live on a steady diet of lemon bars and ice water.

Jackie: No, i genuinely mean that and I'm not being facetious.
Claire; 'Facetious'! That's a great word.
Jackie: It totally is. And it can go on that list of "f" words. It just fits right in.
Claire: Can this be our Halloween quote?
Jackie: You mean this brief discussion of the word facetious?
Claire: Yeah, this is it right now. How do you say it? Fascist . . . ?
Jackie: I think I said Facetious.
Claire: Hey, ANOTHER f word for the list!


"Stand up! Keep your backs straight! Remember that is where the wings grow."

-Martha Graham


"She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short."

-Brian Andreas.


I only really love Sammy. Star crossed. Restraining orders. Something big.

Oh it is. Love, that is.

Bonnie,
my little sister,
my pride and joy,
my inspiration to look like an anime character,
my favorite Bonnie in the whole wide world . . .

well . . . she got married.

And a happy day it was and will continue to be forever and ever and ever and ever.
And it's contagious
And it's contagious
And it's contagious
And it's contagious

September 4th, 2008

Pretty Mandee

I love this girl.
I took these photos forever and a day ago.
So tonight, I finally FINALLY have gotten the time to proclaim that she's one of the prettiest people I know.
Love lub luv wuv.

It could happen. It did . . . in a few Disney movies.

More than anything, I want pets that love each other (platonically) and go on long exciting motion-picture-esq adventures with one another.

I knew that there was one.

Today I actually started a paper like this:

Ahem.

"I love Shakespeare. I love West Side Story (enough to have been in my high school production as the whitest Puerto Rican ever). I love Leonardo Dicaprio. Thus, going to the ballet version of Romeo and Juliet, was quite the delight for me, feeding both little romantic heart and my deeply disturbed perchance for tragedy."

Etc. Etc.

I hope my professor doesn't get upset at my flippant behavior towards her assignments.

Mad-lib-ed

Sooooooooo . . .
I wrote it with the simple intention of getting something in return.

This is a basic mad libs type story.

Fill in the blanks and what have you. Except you can put whatever you want in the blanks and no one will berate your vocabulary or for using pig-latin.

(Remember our agreement, Jonathan Myles Norberg. You owe me. A deals a deal. A promise made via text messaging is a promise. Stand! I said, STAND UP BOY, and uphold your hardworked eagle scout honor and procla . . . I'll stop that now . . . but know that I'm not joking in any sense of the word.)

. . . and in that instant, Jon became a legend.

Rewind.

With his parents 2,000 miles away (and rising . . . a cruise to Antartica isn't some ______ in the _____), Jon decided to be ________ and call all the _______ honeys as well as all the dope _______ in the tri-city area, 'cause HE was going to throw a ______ _______ ______ party . . . and when I say party, of course I mean the most ______ _______ party in the history of Ridgemont High School. This was going to be THE party of his young _______ life, as well as secure him the title of ________ ________ __________________, as well as the girl of his _______, the most _______ and _______ girl in school, ________ _________. Quite honestly, due to a _________ chemical imbalance and a serious of unfortunate and embarrassing mishaps and what have you, Miss ________ never actually met Mr. Jon. Jon had, in the past, tried many different ________ to get _______'s attention, time and time again and again. And just how do you expect to _______ the girl of your dreams if you've never even met her? Hmmm?

The day of the party finally arrived, and Jon practically ________ his _______ due to the excitement of the frivolities to come. This was his night. This was his first step into popularity and jello shots. He put on his favorite ______, _______, and _____, then spent _____ in front of a mirror for about ______ and examining every inch of his ______. The music was the standard issue of "bumpin", the fridge was stocked with _______ and imported ________, and every single family picture was _________ beneath ________ (mostly to preserve Jon's secret of the 8 years in a neck brace and protective goggles . . . plus he was pretty sure his mom was too ________ and_______, and he didn't want to tempt his friends with such a cougar . . . rarr).

The doorbell ______ , and the Jon's little boy heart ______ with excitement. People came _______ in from every opening into the house: doors, windows, chimneys, etc. The music was _______, the lights were _______, and the ________ throng of _______ ________ bodies was _______ with ________. From across the _____ Jon saw that ______ goddess of 4th period algebra, that ______ with a heart of gold, that little ______ who put the ______ back in the ________. He started to ______ his way across the room, which started to ______ run in slow motion and become _________ and ________ (not unlike that scene from West Side Story when at the dance at the gym, Natalie Wood, quite fakely playing a Puerto Rican, falls for that dashing young white fellow. Scandal.)

He started across the _____ dance floor, people magically making space for him to _____ through, as if he was a modern day Moses leading the _____ to _______ . . . and he walked straight up to that _____ girl, _____ her hand, then consoled her as she wept tears of gratitude to finally meet Jon, the host of such a ____ ____ party, the new king of the lunchroom (come Monday), and the future ________ of her _______.

This is what Jon thought SHOULD have happened.

Rewind.

Jon never saw who _____ed him in the eye. He also never guessed that a ____ to the solar plexus would hurt as bad as it did. He also decided that high-heels to the _____ were a fate worse than _____. After about ____ minutes of continuous injury, Jon should have probably ____ ___. But, no he pressed on. In his love-_____ daze, whilest trying to ________ a wave of nausea, and haste to introduce himself FINALLY to the ______ in question who was just _____ feet away, almost within ______ distance, Jon never noticed the silver-plated punch bowl _____ through the air, splattering punch down over the _____ of the crowd like it was pig's blood and they were Carrie (and obviously this was that ill-fated prom of the 1980's), only stopping after ____ Jon right in the _______, _____ throwing his _____ feet into the ____ and into a small _____ (strangely enough, while crashing into said _____, Jon vaguely remembered telling his mother was a eyesore, as all nick-knacks and unnecessary funiture are. He _____ himself off the ____, only to immediately be swallowed up again by the rampaging, and now angry and punch-sticky crowd, and was _____ and trampled like a one-legged man at the running of the bulls. But Jon, was in this for the long haul, he was going to talk to that ______ _____ girl if it was the last ____ he ever ___, concussion or no.

Jon never made it across the dance floor. Someone, noticing the amount of swelling, the rapid rate of rising bruises, and perhaps this certain someone was easily disturbed by protruding bones and had the tendancy for being a bit blood-a-phobic (Jon's ____ never was the fastest clogging bodily fluid and a double broken _____ never really encouraged swift healing) called an 911, who sent out _____ ambulances, _____ police cars, _______ LDS missionaries, ______ fire trucks, and a helicoptor for life-flight.

It was while being ________ to a gurny, having air tubes ______ up his _____ and cotton stuffed in every other orifice of his face that Jon raised one mangled fist to say that he could not be conquered . . . and in that instant, Jon became a legend . . . but mostly for having the party be broken up due to personal injury. Plus, I think some kids found those family portraits . . .

I never ____ that this was going to be a happy story. Suckers.

Queens for a Day

Things that I love October 13, 2008:

There will always be a reason for me to dance. This was just today's.

The Blog about Ed

This is my blog about Ed.

Beecause I told him I'd write one.

The End.

Today, I used your umbrella.

I often accidently talk about other boys I've dated in front of the boys I actually like or am dating or want to kiss on the mouth repeatedly and tell secrets to.

(A special "thank you" goes out to Jessica P . . . I probably should have been told that about 7 years ago. Ugh. Where is my guardian angel that keeps my tongue from wagging?)

It's a good thing I'm a math whiz.




Sigur Ros was beautiful concert.
I saw the girl in front of me lean her head on the shoulder of the boy next to her.
I looked left and a young man in a beanie kept his hands to his face, catching tears.
I touched my cheeks with my fingertips trying to remember the exact color of your eyes.
I turned my head to find where you were, and got lost in a sea of faces and half faces and eyebrows and foreheads all glowing golden.
I looked up and caught confetti on my tongue like it was a snowflake.



I found this in my old notebook in one of my old purses during my recent move to Provo . . . I think I wrote it when I was in a sling for a few weeks last fall:
"Here I go writing down the same poem again. It's like, it's as if, it's just . . . eating my insides, making it a more mallable gum. My liver lost shape. I lost my kidneys to personality cancer and my stomach to the longest winter ever."

I finally found all my lost limbs limbs and gave a strict talking to my misbehaving joints under my covers after my nap last Friday. I'm feeling altogether whole. Good, better, best. Maybe it's the cold air and scarf weather sewing up my stitches and filling in my cracks with wax like a Grecian sculpture. I am every bit alive.

This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Goodnight dear

She once told me I looked like Fiona Apple . . . and I loved her immediately.

I will miss her laugh most of all.

Glory glory glory

It's completely my fault that they met, fell in love and are getting married . . .
beautiful babies to come.

So, isn't it fitting that I shot Denise and Houston's wedding engagements?

I kinda want them to make me their flower girl.

Ahhh . . . a girl can dream, can't she?