Rock Anna

Anna's kickass guitar playing and inimitable song-writing must be chronicled. But, like lots of things, I'm just not at the chronicling stage b/c I just get too sad. Jody wrote recently that she thinks now of healthy Anna and not sick Anna as often. I do too. But I usually think of Anna in the past 5 or 10 years, when we were grown-ups, out of college. But the foundation of our friendship was built during our second coming-of-age: Reed College and the Portland era. Last night Josh and I were just randomly watching crap on YouTube and started looking at clips of Portland bands from the 90's and stuff about the X-Ray cafe, etc. It was making me really nostalgic. Anna and I used to wax nostalgic together about it, from time to time, as all of us who were there then did. It was so fun to think back about it and laugh - as Alicia would say, "Remember that time . . . " So last night we found our way to some old Hazel videos and at least two of them include Anna, but Dayglo has this great clip of her and Alicia and Anna just looks so adorable and so Anna and so young and so Anna and so vibrant and so Anna and I remember that shirt and that necklace and all of the hullabaloo about the shooting of that video featuring the nudie Emile. Anyway, there was just something about seeing her in that video that has just really set me off. I've just been so heartbroken and weepy since seeing it. Which annoys me at myself so much b/c I want to move forward and tell the fucking stories behind these things, like Anna asked us too. I want to write about Lovebutt and DEA and the crazy rock girls party at the house of rock. And as all of you as my witnesses, I will! I promise. And Emile owes us stories! Anyway, you can click here to go to the video (note the awesome young Jody, whose frontal lobe not being fully developed made her tempestuous and impulsive much of the time, but she sure could/can sing and play drums). I miss those days. Especially those days with Anna in PDX. We had so much fun.

October

This photo is from Halloween when Anna was 7. (Ruby is almost 7!) It was taken at Meadow Pond Elementary School (where Maggie and Annie now go to school!)

She was a tree. (...and oh yes, that is Nini in the back as a construction worker!)

Our mother had wrapped her in brown grocery bags covered in glue, had her roll in leaves and taped some pine branches on her head. (...even taped some leaves to her sleeves!)

As her oldest sister (I was 12), I thought this was the dumbest costume ever, and definitely, with out a doubt, told her so.

Needless to say, she won Most Original!