Explanations and Edits

I'm glad I was one of the first to have a workshop because now I have time to edit, and because I was able to spend some time not looking at the story so that now that I come back to it, I can see it with somewhat fresh eyes.

First, a few explanations.

Apologies for what seemed to be mistakes-- the accent on Cordoba was actually intentionally there at the beginning of the story and then taken away later as a part of her becoming more American, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that Spanish place names are pronounced differently in English, but the intent was that she actually started thinking of them in an American light. Didn't work, though, so I'll change that. More apologies for tense shifts. They were gramatically correct because it bugs me to death when people use tenses incorrectly, but I understand it is confusing to discuss a flashback in the present tense (I can still remember...) so I am changing that. And sorry I forget to put periods on the ends of my paragraphs.

I was actually surprised that you guys saw Monica as disliking the USA-- I didn't mean for her to adore it the way she did when she first moved here, but I meant for her to accept it as a country with its eccentricities and faults, not some dream land that would solve all of her problems in Spain. You guys caught on to that, but I think I overdid it because I didn't really mean for her to dislike it and her comments about foods like ramen and twinkies were more of a play on college life than on the US in general. Something else that wasn't quite my intention was the flashbacks-- I didn't mean for them to be things the remembered in the moment when the story was taking place, or to symbolize an idea that Monica was constantly thinking back on Spain. She came to the US with no intention of turning back, and while she does come to grips with her past, she never decides to return and she doesn't think about it all too often. That was significant in the story in showing the reader where she was coming from, but it was not meant to be a memory in itself. I ought to put more emphasis on the present.

Also, not all the Americans are the same. They are all women because if I added a man then the reader might anticipate romance and I meant no such thing, and because Monica is more comfortable with women. However, Annette (her coworker, the one at the work party) is more educated than Deanna, the interior decorator friend, and Lisa, the neighbor. I have merged those two into Lisa and have deleted the entire scene with grocery shopping, which also means that Maggie, her college roomate, is gone. We'll see how I replace it. I'm also considering cutting the scene with Lourdes (in which we learn about Monica's father), but my initial intention with the story was to have some kind of back story with her dad (which I decreased significantly just in writing the first draft), so the scene needs to be replaced by something similar, but still probably rewritten. Also I like Lourdes, and I'm just the writer that Annie Dillard talks about in that I really don't like cutting things. And I need a scene that explains her dad (granted, I need a much better explanation than what I had), so I will find a new way to discuss Lourdes and tell some of her back story.

The deal with Mama--I did research dementia, and what I decided was that her mother developed Huntington's disease when Monica was fifteen and it turned into senile dementia by the time she was seventeen. This is where Deanna's comment about senile old ladies comes into play, because Mama is senile in the literal definition of the word. I realize I didn't clarify very well that Huntington's and dementia are different and set in at different points. What is also out of place is that we know Mama was twenty when Monica was born, making her only 35 when she became sick.

I'm having trouble editing, though, because commenters conflict.

• Julia loves that it has my voice, Shanyi and Alisia said my narrator should be more original.
• Caitlin said the gazpacho metaphor worked perfectly, Kevin said it didn't actually fit her life the way I meant it to.
• Ben says I need more Spanish, Julia and Richard say I have too much of it.
• Yanjin filled my page of description about gazpacho with comments on how she adored the description, Rick told me it was too long and tedious to read.
• Alisia and Kayla like my exclamations in describing vegetables for gazpacho, Erica and Andrea say they are unnecessary
• Peter likes how I introduce American characters, Alisia says they need to be introduced better
• Victor and Alex love my ending, David and Julia say it's too long and direct, Rick says it's too short

Crossroads

Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Charles is home for spring break and he begs me to take him to Gamestop. We walk down to the mall and find a group of guys I know at the food court.
"Who's that?" Derek asks.
"Derek, this is my brother Charles," I say. "Charles, this is Derek."
"You have a brother?" he asks. I've known Derek for what, six years? Good heavens.
"Oh, he exists!" Alex says, "I believe you now!"
Charles looks around awkwardly.
"He's not as cute as you said he was," Calvin says. I wonder if they realize he's actually standing there, that he can hear what they say.
Eugene turns around. "So this is Charles?"
"Yeah."
He addresses Charles. "I hear you're pretty smart."
Charles smiles awkwardly. "Yeah, I hear that too."
"Oh so you know you're smart? Don't get a big head about it like this guy," he motions toward Akash. "This guy thinks he's the shit, but he--"
"Eugene!" I do not like interrupting people, but he should watch his language around Charles.
"Sorry-- this guy thinks he's better than everyone and it's hell- hecka annoying."
Charles laughs.
"Why are you guys here?" Alex asks. Eugene keeps talking to Charles and I try to moniter him bt I do not split my attention very well.
"I'm taking him to Gamestop," I explain.
"Ohhhh. Can he play video games at his school?"
I wonder about this. He can't, and we don't have a game consul at home... I think Charles just likes watching other people play. Or looking at games. Or mybe gameboy games, we do have a gameboy. I tell Alex I don't think so, but I'm not sure. I am bad at explaining things.
Now Alex turns to Charles. "Is she a good sister?"
Charles looks at me like he should say something very mean, but instead he pauses for a second as if this is a truly difficult question and says "yeah, most of the time."
Eugene and Alex laugh. I wonder if they believe him.
Eugene looks at his phone. "We should go soon."
Alex agrees. "Derek, you need a ride?"
Derek looks up. "What? Where?"
"To school... sports..."
Derek also checks his phone. "Oh shoot, it's late!"
Alex asks if Charles wants to run. "I run at my school," Charles says.
"You should come run with us!" Alex tells him.
Charles looks uncomfortable. "Maybe tomorrow..."
Half of the boys leave and the other half continue to sit and do homework, so Charles and I go to Gamestop.

I wonder what it is to be Charles in this situation, what my 12-year-old self would do if my hypothetical big brother were to introduce me to his friends. I would probably be much more awkward than Charles, and resent my brother for bringing me there. Hmmmm

Our House in the Middle of Our Street

Our house it has a crowd
There's always something happening
And it's usually quite loud
Our mum she's so house-proud
Nothing ever slows her down
And a mess is not allowed

Mrs. Taylor loves our house. She walks in and tells us how she adores the carpet in the foyer and the dark red walls in our dining room and the skylights in the kitchen. Mom loves it too, because it's exactly the way she wanted it. Daddy says he loves it, but it's hard to believe him when he's so insistent on moving 3000 miles away to a house that's falling apart.

I remember the remodel. I even remember the house before the remodel. Allison doesn't. I remember the architects coming over when I was four and talking with my parents about different kinds of windows and walls and how to expand the kitchen and if it was safe to build a room above the garage. I remember the sticky blue wallpaper with white flowers that used to be in the kitchen, and the dirty white carpets that used to cover our entire house. I remember mom prying up the carpets, telling us not to step because we'd hurt our bare feet on the splinters and staples on the floor. I remember sharing a room with Allison, and having comforters that were yellow on one side and blue on the other, and beds that stacked on top of each other if we wanted them to be bunk beds, but mom wouldn't let us because we were too little and whoever was on top would surely fall off. And I remember going into that room for a time out, together with Allison because we'd both done something wrong, and Allison was so mad about being in time out that she started peeling the Sesame Street wallpaper off of the walls, and I remember telling her not to, not because I wanted to be a good kid but because I loved that wallpaper, and I remember mom coming in to tell us we were done with  time out and seeing all the wallpaper on the ground and becoming furious, and of course not believing that I had nothing to do with it, and saying we would never have wallpaper again. Boy was I angry. I also remember the playroom, just a bit. I remember that yellow ball we used to have with neon pink and orange and green spikes that stuck out, that made noises as Allison and I threw it to each other. I remember playing with it in the carpeted playroom, with the TV on top of some tall piece of furniture, some nights watching Bill Nye the Science Guy with dad and mom and Allison. I remember being really excited about the show, but Allison didn't like Bill Nye and she was sooooo boredddddd and Erin will you please come play with me? Erin you're such a mean sister. Erin this is a grown up show. Erin you're so boring. Erin Erin Erin and taking my favorite favorite blankey so I had to get off of daddy's lap and chase after her.

Anyway, I remember the remodel. I remember moving into that little house on the same street, and the builders saying it would only take six months and then mom becoming frustrated as they increased it to eight... ten... twelve... and finally finished the house fifteen months later. I remember the tall chairs in that house, how the whole thing was dark and brown and the kitchen was tiny and the backyard didn't fit a swingset. I remember how we put those beds together into a bunk bed in that house because they barely fit in our room when we put them side by side. I remember how we found out that Allison was allergic to dust mites so she got to get her own room with special pillows and blankets and I had to share with Charles, and he was still in diapers. I remember how then I was always on the top bunk because of course Charles would fall off, and that once Allison and I got Charles up there when Lizzie was babysitting and she told us that if we got him up there, we'd have to get him down, and how my parents never asked her to babysit after that. I remember watching the remodel, watching as our nice front lawn turned into a huge pile of dirt, and walking through the house a year into it, seeing the framework for the second floor and wondering how it could ever be turned back into a house again.
But now it is a house, and that was twelve years ago and it is hard to imagine it looking any different. It's not that our house is that big, but it's big enough to fit us and we love it because it's so us, so ours. It's this nice piece of art work-- the mural in the dining room that was supposed to be a painting of the farm in maryland? You know it because it's where we always take pictures before dances, but that mural took our family friend a whole summer to paint. It has rolling hills and bright blue sky and a pretty tire swing and other aspects with little resemblance the the hot, flat, buggy Maryland that I know. It shows a successful Christmas tree farm, one that in real life has never sold very many trees, and the tiny beginnings of a vineyard that has grown tremendously in the seven or so years since the mural was painted. There's a piece of art in the living room too, a more unique piece that can't quite be classified under any one medium, squares of texture stick out from it and I look at it differently every time I see it. It matches the big, light brown sofa with the green and red pillows and the white blanket. Our baby grand piano is also in that room and it doesn't match anything, but I never notice that because it's a piano and that's where it works best, and to whine about such an istrument would be a sin. And the backyard, I love the backyard. We have those two identical houses, the playhouse and the shed, and I remember that summer when dad painted them yellow and orange and green and used the extra paint to draw on the fence; circles and squares and triangles, the word BIG in big block letters and below it little in smaller lettering. The fence facing it has names of aunts and uncles and cousins, still in extra paint from the playhouses. But that was a decade ago and dad repainted the playhouse and the shed five years ago so the fences don't match anything, and Allison and her friends have spent the last two summers painting random names and inside jokes in pink and purple over the yellow and green on the fences so it's hard to tell what anything says anymore. People always ask about it, why our fence says "Kitaly" and "This is not my shirt" and under them "Big" and "Aunt Karen." They looked alright when we had a swingset in our yard, but we gave that away when Charles came home for break and now we have a nice yard and colorful fences. And to me, there is nothing wrong with that.
The rooms, they took a little more getting used to. Mine is the littlest, which offended me when we moved back because I'm the oldest, but daddy said they made the room especially for me. Of course I didn't like it, it was too small to fit the desk and the bed so Allison got my desk, and it had a random area in the corner that was supposed to be for a second closet but why would I need two closets? So there were no doors put on that area and it stuck out uncomfortably, irritably, as we tried to find wallpaper and bedding that might work. I used by grandmother's old dresser for a couple years and then one day daddy came out of the garage with a big grid of wood, all put together and painted, and asked if I could help him take it upstairs. MY DRESSER! Drawers taken out of course, but daddy had built me a dresser! And later a bookshelf, and repainted the bed...
We have a guest living with us for the next two weeks, a family friend from Australia. She's Allison's age and she'll be in my room, and I have trouble permitting that. I don't mind sleeping on the couch, but that's my dresser and my book shelf and I picked the wall paper. Really we're sharing it and she just happens to be the one sleeping in it, but will she be okay with it, will she like the little jewelry box from San Francisco and the 12x18 inch painting of a dragon flying through the sky, a gift from Charles last Christmas? How can she appreciate the drawing of my grandmother or the plastic horse that my parents call clutter? Then again, how could she appreciate the clutter in the play room either? Or all the games in the living room, and the advent calendar in the dining room? I do not think it is clutter, I think it is a home. I think it is a house that has been lived in and loved in, and it would not make sense to take out the piano or my book shelf or the patriotic carpet in the playroom. Even wth the remodel of my parents' dreams, it has funny places that stick out and clutter everywhere and it is never clean enough for guests--no house is ever clean enough for guests--but it is big enough for us and clean enough for us and colorful enough for us and that's the way I love it.

A clean house is a sign of a wasted life.

Lightening

Julia has been telling me to post for a couple weeks now and I keep starting posts and not finishing them. Well here's a finished one. It's funny how easy it is to think of things to write about when you have a stats project due the next day...

Fifteen-year-old girl struck by lightening, the NBC news banner says, killed instantly. The announcer discusses the story with an expected amount of distance--a girl she has never met hit by lightening, probably being ignorant, doing something she shouldn't have, just like every other death she discusses on local news. Within 90 seconds she's moved on to a local car robbery, but I stare at the screen, as if by gazing at it long enough I can pull back the lightening story, maybe even bring back the girl in it. Jenna always wanted to be on TV, I think, how tragically ironic that her time should come in this way. Chance of being struck by lightening? One in 280,000. That's 0.000357%. My statistics teacher, Mr. Moncada, calls numbers like this insignificant-- so small that we don't even bother to mention they exist. Round to zero, because it's basically the same thing. I know better. This is not zero. Chance of getting my sister back? That's zero. Getting struck my lightening cannot be insignificant, statistically or otherwise. It happened, I don't care how unlikely that is to have occurred, and Jenna was anything but insignificant.

How fitting, I think, that she should go like this. A burst of electricity. A shock. Too much energy even for her. It doesn't seem right to wonder, to want to know just how she died, but I do. I wonder if she did a split jump like she always does at home when something really excites her. Always did. Past tense. Did she somehow realize it was coming? Was she even worried about the storm overhead as she walked home from the bus stop in the rain? I doubt it, not Jenna. I'll bet she was dancing in the rain, practicing spins and turns and... maybe not. Maybe I'm already romanticizing the past. Maybe her hips hurt and her feet were blistered the way they always were and she was all too aware of the rain and the cold and she just kept thinking to herself how much it sucked, how much she just wanted to get home, sit by the fire with us... with me...

God, what kind of a self-centered sister am I? Why would she be thinking of me? Maybe she was thinking of the next episode of House, or whether or not to apply to Duke, or that cute guy in chem class... Was Jenna even taking chemistry? Did she have any guys in her life? Any almosts? How much I don't know about the girl I lived with for almost all of my life within memory... And now I'll never know. I'll hear what her friends tell me, maybe I'll know a bit more about her love life or her babysitting jobs, or maybe people will think it's disrespectful to talk about her and won't tell me anything. Maybe everyone else will romanticize the past just like me and all I'll hear are those generic clichés like "she could make the best out of any situation" or "she really put her best effort into all aspects of her life." These are lies. I must remind myself now of the actual truth because five years from now I won't be able to tell right from wrong. Jenna may or may not have been able to make the best of every situation, but she certainly didn't put much effort into doing so. Countless times I've left the house long past dark to go on a late night walk because I'd rather be outside on streets that my mother calls unsafe than inside hearing my mother and sister screaming, hearing them detest each other, watching my family fall apart. Or that one time when I made mom a birthday cake and before we ate it mom and Jenna had such a big argument that she threw my masterpiece at our mother in big, messy chunks of over sweet yellow cake and bright green frosting.

What if I only remember her like that, remember all the times she switched schools because she was intolerant of one or the other, remember her begging for expensive presents and then discarding them within a month, remember her whining and screaming and ignoring and lying and stealing and all those times she told our parents it was me who did it when really it was her? What if in my attempt at honesty, I forget the girl who brought home flowers just to remind us that spring had come? Will I forget her love for design, for art and architecture, how she used to spend hours drawing ideas for dresses and patterns on her binders even when she knew it would come to nothing? Will I forget all the people she was, the gymnast, the excellent student, the dancer, the artist, the model, the photographer, the flirt, the baker, the unforgettable sister? God, I hope she'll live up to that. Unforgettable, I mean. Will I forget how she used to make animal noises when she was stressed, or when she was excited, or just when the house was too quiet? Won't I remember all those school nights when she'd put a romantic comedy into the dvd player and insist that I watch it with her even if we both had tests the next day? Will I remember how some days she'd tell me everything about her life, put off everything else to talk to me, and then half an hour later act like she didn't know me, like I was just in the way? Do I want to remember that? Is it wrong of me to remember only what I want to remember?

And what if I see this five years from now, this random selection of goods and bads and in betweens, and I wonder to myself if she was actually bipolar, if somehow we'd never diagnosed her being actually insane? What if in my memory I exaggerate the past, only remember the extremes, the defining moments, the semi-random photo albums that are supposed to constitute an entire life, and the test scores and accomplishments that can be written down? What if I lose my memories of her, one by one, until some day, sixty years down the road, my granddaughter asks me about my sister and I ask her "what sister?"

Professor Cross was talking about truth in fiction early on... my sister has not been struck by lightening and I don't think she's ever brought home flowers, but you have no idea how much truth is in this story.

Spanish Foods

Professor Cross was talking today about how we need to do research for our stories, and I definitely spent a good week looking up different Spanish foods. I did eat gazpacho, paella, and tortilla in Spain (and not to ruin the story for you, but I actually don't care for rice and raw tomatoes hurt my stomach, so I avoided gazpacho and paella most of the time), but I never had alfajor (the Moroccan Christmas cookie), jamon serrano, rice pudding, or of course Sangria. Hence, a large part of the story was based on research. I intentionally picked foods that are common in Andalucia, the autonomous community (Spain's version of states or provinces) that takes up all of Spain's southern coast and goes pretty far inland as well. Part of this was because it's the region I'm familiar with, but another part was because there is a lot of food that is specific to Andalucia, and there are Moroccan influences and unique aspects of the culture that you don't find in Madrid or Barcelona. So here are the dishes from a more American standpoint:
Gazpacho: a tomato-based sort of soup served cold. Claire interpreted it as a guacamole, which concerned me because I did say that it was peach colored, but it's also a different texture. I've only seen it served in cups or mugs, and in that light it's more of a vegetable juice than a soup, though I think of a juice as something refreshing and thirst quenching, and gazpacho is much more significant for its flavor than for any sort of relief from the heat. It's served cold because it would be silly to heat it up in Spain, but not because it is a refreshment. Gazpacho varies a ton in different regions and the one I described was a more Andalucian variety, though some aspects were more typical of Valencia or other parts of Spain. It did, however, surprise me that gazpacho was made of so many different ingredients, and that something made entirely of fresh vegetables (or less-than-fresh tomatoes and bread) would be that texture.

Alfajor: I did not have alfajor in Spain (partially because I was not around for Christmas), but my host family was good friends with quite a few Moroccan families and I got plenty of other Moroccan breads and cookies. There is a tremendous Moroccan influence on Andalucia and I felt I would be doing an injustice to the culture if I failed to mention any Moroccan food in my story.

Arroz con leche (rice pudding): This is the one I have the least explanation for; it is also a Christmas dish and a food common in Andalucia, and I thought I'd be overdoing it with metaphors if every food I included had some symbolism to it. I initially had the pudding splatter on mama's painting, but that created unnecessary conflict (conflict? Or just messynessss) so I cut it and then... there wasn't any reason to change rice pudding to another food and I thought it was mundane enough that the reader would not be overwhelmed with foodyness, but it was still Spanish.

Jamon serrano: Braised ham? Is that the English word? Braised? Spain has delicious meats and they are especially good with pork, which is surprising because Morocco has such a strong influence on their cuisine and Muslims don't eat pork. My host family actually went to a Moroccan butcher so I never had jamon, but I felt I ought to include some kind of a meat. Now that I look at it, though, it seems silly to have included it because it is in a scene that already has tortilla and it doesn't add anything to the scene. *Cuts from story*

Tortilla: It is simple. Lourdes doesn't like to cook, and this is meant to show Mama as someone who really enjoyed cooking, not just that all Spanish people cook delicious meals all the time. [Nearly] anyone can make an omlette, and this is a food that is different enough to make it distinctly Spanish and something she remembers, but it's also a basic egg and potato dish that tastes good without being a ton of work.

Sangria: Because of my vast knowledge of wines (yeah, you think I'm kidding) and the significance of various alcoholic drinks in Spanish culture, I thought I ought to include something alcoholic. However, Monica went to Boston for college and by the time she was old enough to have been drinking alcohol on any sort of a regular basis (around thirteen, I was surprised by how young this was but maybe I'm a naive prism child and there are people in the US who do the same thing), her mom had Parkinson's. In any case, it wouldn't have made sense to write a flashback about drinking wine with her mother, but Sangria is very Spanish and alcohol is a pretty significant part of Spanish culture, so the fact that Monica is unwilling to touch it after talking to Lourdes (a point that I don't think I emphasized as much as I would have liked to) is both a part of her avoiding Spanish culture and on a more personal level an attempt to avoid her parents' mistakes.

Paella: Pie-eh-yuh. Double L is a y sound, like in tortilla. I definitely have a lot more memories of paella than I do of gazpacho. As in the story, Sunday is paella day for quite a bit of Southern Spain. It does tend to have seafood-- ours had mostly shrimp and snail but it varies-- and it does take all day to cook. I was surprised to find that I initially liked paella despite not liking rice, and it was because of the mixture of flavors and because it didn't really taste like rice. I did eventually get annoyed with the peppers and the fact that shrimp retained their eyes when cooked, but it is a dish for which I can find no equivalent and it's a huge part of Andalucian cuisine.

"Swimmer" Flashback

Wow, I'm having a hard time remembering the story because we've read so many stories in between then and now [Guys, this is interference and decay. Yes, I am learning something in psych =P]. Well I'm posting it anyway. As a refresher, Ned is the protagonist and Lucinda is his wife. Other characters are daughters whose names I made up

Page 403: "Japanese lanterns that Mrs. Levy had bought in Kyoto the year before last, or the year before that?"

It was going to be a long storm. Ned sat in the gazebo and entertained himself with his dreams. Once he swam the Lucinda River, he could show it to his daughter, Marie. Ne let his mind wander to the summers when he used to take her out to the beach. Marie loved the water-- she'd swim far, far out until Lucinda worried she'd never make it back. Ned thought of Lucinda calling out to Marie as Hayley and Emma built sand castles. Even at five months pregnant and shouting to Marie, Lucinda was so beautiul. "You get back here, Marie!" she'd called. "It's not safe out there!" In his mind's ear, Ned could hear Marie's childish giggle. Who was her mother to say what was safe and what wasn't? He recalled her swimming back, little head bobbing up and down. He recalled Hayley and Emma carving out a moat for their masterpiece. He recalled Lucinda worrying each time Mare's head went under water and then... the memory stopped there. He didn't remember her making it back to the shore. He didn't remember the drive home. He couldn't conjure up any more memoris of taking her to the beach. Certainly everything had turned out fine... right?

"He stayed in the Levy's gazebo until the storm passed"

Sharon Creech

Our exchange student recently asked me what my favorite book was. I told her To Kill a Mockingbird, which is accurate, but she was looking for a book to read and I realized that it requires way too much understanding of American history and of context for her to be ale to read it without asking a lot of questions. Not that she shouldn't ask questions, just that she'd probably be very confused. So I went to my second favorite book, Walk Two Moons. If you haven't read it, put down your Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo (yeah, I'm getting through Les Miserables. I started it three years ago...) and read just a little Sharon Creech. The conversation inspired me to reread Heartbeat, which is a book in poem form. Like Dante, except not about hell (or purgatory. Or heaven.), and not with a specific rhyme and rhythm, and not using grotesque imagery, and not written to spite anyone, and not in Italian. So basically not like Dante at all. I enjoy reading Heartbeat, but I'm becoming suspicious that part of why I like Sharon Creech so much is because she writes about things I enjoy, like cooking, and running, and poetry, and travelling to Europe. Then I realize her books are also about dealing with death and spending summers on farms and that these are things I have a particular aversion to, so maybe I just really like Sharon Creech. ~Researches~ There is a sequel to Love That Dog called Hate That Cat. Wow I am so impressed. Except she's probably kidding about hating cats.

This is why I enjoy it:

one l-e-a-p over to the bank

up the hill

past the old barn faded red

one side curved inward

like a big dimple

around the pasture

newly mown

smell of growing grass

slim green blades sticking

to our feet bare and brown

until we reach the red bench

beside the sycamore tree

with its mottled trunk

and wide yellow leaves

while Max checks his time

on his grandpa's pocket watch

and he looks displeased

and says we will have to

pick up the pace on the way back

and I tell him

he can pick up his own pace

but my pace is fine

thank you very much

and he says I will never get anywhere

if I don't pick up my pace

and I tell him

I don't need to go anywhere

She has good detail. And good voice. And good everything. And it makes me smile. And I realize this blog is not about book recommendations, but it is about creative writing and I felt this was something you (plural-vosotros form :P) could benefit from.

But you don't know me

Whenever people ask about my brother, they seem worried that it's a touchy subject. I guess I can appreciate this, that people are sensitive and they don't want to seem intrusive, but my brother is a human being and a pretty fantastic one at that, and it doesn't bother me to talk about him at all. It bothers me more to talk about Maryland, or my relationship with my mom, or my dad's entire side of the family, or our finances, or... it's funny. My family on the surface is so different from what we are on a deeper level, but it's not that I think I have a particularly odd family, or that I would label myself as someone who's been put in any sort of difficult situation. I haven't, and my family is completely normal... in an entirely abnormal sort of way.

My dad is smart. Not just bright, but smart. Very intelligent. You guys are prism kids, you know the difference. My dad got a 14 something on the SAT when it was out of 1600, which is not all that impressive unless you consider the fact that he fell asleep in the middle due to a hangover. Yeah. That kind of smart. It's okay, I've never seen him drunk, a fact that is probably as impressive as his SAT score when you consider that our family owns a vineyard, but we'll get to that. My parents are from the East coast, by all those fantastic monuments that look way cooler on postcards than they do in person. I guess some people get a thrill out of the National Mall, out of walking around the nation's capital and thinking how spectacularly lucky they are to be able to go there. For me, it is a place of heat and humidity, a place where in August when I was seven (and my sister and brother were six and three, respectively), my parents took us out to telll us all they knew about Washington DC and all three of us thought we were going to die of heat stroke. It is a place of yucky water and humidity and mosquitoes. It is a place of myriad arguments within my immediate and extended family. It is uncomfortable conversations with grandparents and unwanted work on an unwanted farm.

Daddy loves the DC area and actually, I can appreciate it when I'm just with him. I can enjoy taking the subway from the Vienna station to the one right by the Mall and walking around on July 4th and talking about how he used to do this every year on July 4th and watching as everyone else runs away when a little rain hits but daddy says "We're from Seattle, we're not afraid of rain," and so we stay and the rain goes away and we get a great spot for fireworks. I can enjoy sitting on the porch at the farm, eating lunch with daddy and grandpa and Great Uncle Pete and the two mennonite boys who help out, and talking about business in Southern Maryland and whether the Sangiovese will be ripe in two weeks or three, and how to mend that hole in the netting in lot four, and who said they could put a Charles Lollar campaign poster on our property? Don't you know we don't support Republicans? I'll appreciate driving down to Virginia in grandpa's truck, hearing Sam tell grandpa he's a redneck even though she has no right because he practically raised her and she turned out alright, laughing as she complains every time he forgets to turn on his turn signal, asking if the two of us can sit in the bed of the truck instead of crammed in the back, just this once grandpa, just for ten minutes on the freeway. There aren't any police in Southern Maryland, nobody would even notice. "No, Sam, your mother would kill me," and the argument ends at that. And even though I despise the fact that dad's gonna move back out there as soon as my sister graduates and take mom with him and that he'd rather spend September and October harvesting grapes than being a good father to his daughters, not to mention his son, I have too much respect for him to let that get in the way of anything. Funny how I'm so quick to forgive him...

I won't discuss my mom or my sister. Not here, not now. Maybe because I'm not as quick to forgive them, or because I know that there's still plenty that will happen in those relationships for which I'll need to be forgiven, or because talking about them feels like gossip, or because many of you actually know my sister, or because I really am trying to avoid making too many mistakes in my relationship with my mom, but maybe I'll still be writing on this blog in a few years and we'll talk about it then.

And then I have a brother. The other day I was at church choir rehearsal and Katie, who believes that her sister and my brother are destined to fall in love and live happily ever after, asked me when Charles comes home. "Who's Charles?" Ryan asked. "Her little brotherrrrr!" Katie answered. "He's gonna marry Becky and they're going to fall in lovvvvvve and we're gonna call them Beckles because they'll be celebrities and you know how celebrity couples always have those names... we considered Checky but Beckles sounded better—" Ryan cut her off, "you have a brother?" I get that a lot. Everyone knows I have a sister. She's pretty good at making her presence known, and since I was about two years old people have been pointing out that she's the extrovert, and isn't that funny, that the younger sister would be more outgoing, that she would be the bossy one, the one to tell the older sister what to do, the one who gets all the attention—it's like their roles are switched! How odd! Yeah, I guess it is, but I don't need attention to be secure in who I am so I don't really mind anymore. In any case, everyone knows I have a sister, even people like Ryan who probably haven't met her before, but a brother? Really? Yeah, he's off at school. Most people assume this is college, but Ryan has just heard Katie talk about Beckles and Becky is Katie's little sister so he knows better. "Off at school? Where?" "The worst place in the worlddddd," Katie interjects, "because he's not here with Becky!" Needless to say, Charles and Becky have never actually spoken and probably never will. "It's a boarding school a few hours away," I explain. Here's the sensitivity that I was talking about. Ryan pauses before asking, rather awkwardly, why my brother goes to a boarding school. In my head there are a thousand reasons, most of them untrue. Because my parents would rather pay for his middle school than my college. Because he can manage to stay just disobedient enough that they think the school's doing him some good and would rather not have him at home. Because my parents used to have way too much money on their hands and now they can't bring themselves to take him out. Because they want to keep me from singing at every Thanksgiving service so that we can visit him and eat a boarding school feast instead. Because he thinks he's Harry Potter and just deserves to go to a school like this. Because Allison wanted to get rid of him... "My brother's a smart kid," I try to explain. This isn't a touchy subject or some kind of scarred past, but it's still hard for me to put into words. There's a certain kind of judgment that passes subconsciously when you hear that someone goes to a "special" school. Often there's an assumption that there's a mental or physical handicap that explains why. "There's nothing wrong with him, medically or psychologically or anything else. He just... doesn't listen. Ever." I don't know how far to go. Ryan is a good person and he asked an innocent question, but what kind of a judgment will he make if I tell him, for example, that my brother left his WASL blank? Not because he was incompetent, of course, but because he saw no reason to do it. If he'd been thirty years older they would have called it a dignified protest, but in fourth grade it was disobedience to authority and cause for him to be sent to the principal's office, where he went at least biweekly for a majority of his elementary school years. Can I tell Ryan this? That my brother has spent countless afternoons in the principal's office refusing to do simple assignments? Will he think of my brother as that kid? I don't. Charles has friends, he gets along with people well, he's a good leader, he's the fastest middle school mathematician his school has ever seen, and you could spend a week with him and still not understand why my parents would send him hours away at such a young age. Or you could spend an hour with him as a teacher or instructor and understand completely.


Look at us on the surface. Grace has been asking to see my house for months so at the informal practice today we stopped by my house on our run and she just kept saying how nice it was, how it was just the right size, how the house matches our cars, how my family is flawless, how the walls are painted just right and the kitchen is big enough to get lots of use and it just seems so homey and... Grace should know better too. That part in my story where Deanna-or-whatever-I'll-call-her makes a comment about senile mothers wanting to hear from their daughters, not realizing that Monica's mother has dementia? I don't pretend that my family deals with anything as serious as dementia, but it always interests me to see how choatic life is for even the most seemingly put together people. I think short stories (well, and long stories too) are about digging deeper, finding an aspect of a character that you wouldn't learn about them in the first week or month of your acquaintance and then seizing that deeper, more valuable part of them and figuring out how it defines a character.

Spikes

Okay so this one isn't fiction. Sorry. It is creative writing though?

Just so you know, spikes are racing shoes with spikes on the front. They make you run on your toes and sometimes not slip in the mud. Like these but mine are prettier. And the actual spikes are detachable so you can put in quarter inch or 3/8ths inch or whatever size spikes are appropriate for the occasion. I think this is all the background info you need.

Sitting on my bed, cleaning out my spikes. I've been avoiding this for a few weeks, avoiding even taking them out of their bag. It's a nice drawstring bag, with blue and white curls all over it. They set it apart from everyone else's black Nike or Adidas bags, and the bag looks much better than the spikes. I take them out, turning the bag inside out to air. It needs it. I consider opening a window to let the air in, but it's raining so I'll deal with the smell. I hit the shoes against each other and dirt falls all over my—crap. No no no no no, I wipe it off as quickly as possible. The sheet is gold, and far too valuable to touch my old spike dust. "Congratulations Erin! You are admitted to Whitworth University for Fall 2011." Of course the sheet only has sentimental value, but it's pretty significant in that. Oh and it's so pretty! I open the card that came with it for what is at least the tenth time. It's so professional, so well done, just so exciting...

Spikes, Erin. Focus. I put the card on my shelf to avoid getting more dirt on it. I find a broken pen and try to clean the dirt out with that. The mud is caked in and there are pieces of grass knotted around each spike. I clean the area around each spike with the pen and shake my shoes over the trash, hitting them together as before. They smell so bad. They used to smell so nice, I remember showing one to Dominique the day after I bought them, insisting that she smell it, smell it, don't you love the smell of new shoe? No, she didn't, and she thought it was pretty weird that I would smell a shoe, even if it hadn't been worn. I remember putting them on for last year's first race, glad to be rid of my old, smelly spikes. Now these are the old, smelly spikes and I am considering getting new ones. No, I won't spend that kind of money for just one season. Keep cleaning grass out. There is dirt caked over grass caked over dirt, and some of it has tiny rocks too. I don't like the rocks- you can't get them out with a pen or with a safety pin, which is what I end up using. Why are there rocks? There weren't rocks at the last race, my last race ever. How weird- ever? Will I never race again? Will I even do track? And what a disappointment that in my last race of high school, I was one place off going to state. Not running there, mind you, but still going. If only I had... No. It's in the past. I can't learn from it and say that this summer I will go to practice every day, that would be a lie. I don't know if I'll run and I can't make that kind of a rule for myself. I don't know if I'll run in college, if only I could... Spikes. I try to take just the individual spikes out using the spike wrench, but they won't budge. They've been stuck in there for too long, caked in with too much mud. Like me last year. Stuck in commitment to the sport, to the team, to the label, caked in with the threat of losing fitness, losing respect, losing that season on a college application. I look up at the gold paper on the shelf- apparently it didn't matter that much. Maybe I should soak the spikes- would that loosen the mud? I think I did that before, but I forget. Professor Wales says we don't forget things, that they just go to a part of the mind that's harder to access. Then again, she says, it's hard to test long term memory. I think she's wrong. I think modern psychology is wrong. I forget things all the time. I forget things I should remember, experiences that I do remember for a few days, that just disappear from my mind after that. But I think I soaked the shoes before and it must have worked. Did I soak them in the sink? How rude of me, people use that to brush their teeth and faces and hands. Well then where did I soak them, if I soaked them? Where should I soak them, if I soak them now? Maybe I shouldn't. They smell terrible... can I put them in the laundry machine? With the spikes still in? What kind of trouble will I get in if I scratch the inside of the laundry machine? My mother and I do not get along, probably a lot of trouble. I do everything I can to clean the shoes, to go through the lines with the safety pin, to shake and hit the tiny rocks out, to apply just the right amount of pressure so the spike wrench doesn't slip, but it's no use. Maybe these shoes are past their time anyway. Maybe I won't do track after all. The shoes shouldn't be the deciding factor though- I don't have to clean them do they? I'll just never change the spikes, leave them caked in forever...

I am Not a Stranger to the Rain

I think you should look up the lyrics to that song.

So I realized today that I've missed the rain. Granted, I realized it while in a car. I certainly did not appreciate it when I was walking around looking for busses earlier in the day, and I'm glad it started raining just as the cross country season ended because usually we have a lot of rainy workouts and those are no fun. In any case, I was coming home and it was raining very hard and there were leaves all over the ground and it was windy and there were umbrellas and something on the radio resembled Love Songs with Delilah and life was good. If you asked me in May what my favorite time of year was, I'd tell you that I love May, that it's getting back to being sunny and the school year is wrapping up and friends go out and play frisbee all the time and we spend time in the sun together and it's just fantastic. In July I'd tell you it was July, in September I'd tell you the beginning of fall, and now I'll say that November and December are my favorite. I'm always cold, but one of the best feelings in the world is being inside when it's cold outside, like running in the rain and the coming in and getting dry and sitting by a warm fire eating... any of the various random foods my family attempts to cook on a fire... and hearing/seeing the rain and the wind and the cold outside and knowing you're safe from it. Also, this time of year has a very distinct smell- a sort of cinnamon-nutmeg-allspice mixture with pumpkin that spreads to include clove and apple as the season progresses. It's the idea of walking outside and smelling pine and smoke from fireplaces, of those nice days when it's windy and cold but not yet and the last leaves from autumn are still on the ground but most of the trees are bare, an idea that doesn't include snow because we are in Seattle, but that does include the increasing excitement that there's that tiny chance of snow, that just maybe sometime this season we'll wake up and look out the window before we even get out of bed and the pink sunrise will be reflected off of a thin layer of white on the ground. For me, this is seeing my neighbor's skylights coated in snow and then walking down to the kitchen only to realize our own skylights are also coated. It's seeing my younger brother and sister run outside to make snowmen and snow angels out of the one or two inches we have, and my own insistence that they at least try to leave a little patch untouched somewhere- on the swingset, by the bare maple tree, in front of the shed... not that it really makes a difference but just so that I can be content in my few square feet of heaven. Of course this doesn't happen every year and it's a memory that won't come again because my little brother lives in Oregon now, but the excitement of it is something that I associate with December much more than with January through March, and the tiny hope for snow contributes to the holiday feeling.

When I get really excited about things, I write long ranty sentences. This is also true when I get angry. They make sense (I think), but they're not gramatically correct/poetic/anything else that you would actually publish. I need to figure out how to transfer that kind of excitement into writing.

Just the Way You Are

If the first song that came to mind was not by Billy Joel, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

This is Erin seeing if she can write a monologue or something. It says things that relate to growing up. If you are uncomfortable with that... yeah I don't think any of you are actually uncomfortable with that. You just pretend to be because society tends to frown upon these sorts of things. Growing up and such.The character is a 17-year-old girl (I know we're working on point of view and I should try someone totally different, but in this particular case the rest don't work) and she is athletic. I'm tempted to make her a runner but then it would be me, and it's not. It's just a girl. Who, like just about all other teenage girls, is sometimes self conscious about the way she looks. And immediately before this scenario, someone (we'll say a rude guy. Boys are the root of many problems in this world) said her shorts were too short. Sorry I am not creative with this scenario...

Are they? It's almost as if I hadn't noticed. It's almost as if in living with myself for seventeen years, I didn't know what looked good on me and what didn't. Like I still need someone to decide for me or something. I agree, even when it's ninety degrees out only the thinnest girls should be allowed to show their legs. That means nobody over the age of fifteen because we wouldn't want girls with hips or legs or, God forbid, chests. That would promote obesity, or even puberty! And that's disgusting.

I used to be that girl, you know. And what I wouldn't give to be five, ten, fifteen pounds lighter. It would be nice to go back to the girl I was in eighth grade, to wear a cute shirt and have people comment on how spectacular it was that I didn't have anything of a stomach, that my legs were so thin, that even though I was pretty modest I knew I could get away with less. You know how they give you all those ridiculous tests at the doctor's office to tell you what percent of the population is superior to you? At thirteen I was in the tenth percentile for weight as compared to height. Tenth! By the time you finish high school, the thinnest ten percent are either ridiculously lucky soccer players or have eating disorders, most of them being the latter. By the time I was fifteen, I'd reached the thirtieth percentile and I tried to lose weight! I was still in the thinnest third of the population! But I'd gained something in two years and people had become thinner than me-yeah. Imagine it. Finding out that other girls can pull that outfit off better than you can. No, you can't imagine it. You're a boy. God, you're never gonna get this are you?

You know Angela? She always manages to run it off. I don't know how she does it because she's not even on any teams, but she can eat whatever she wants and she knows that she excercizes so she'll just stay thin. Heck, I don't even think she has to excercise- it's all her metabolism. Me? I dance six days a week. Do you know how much work that is? No, you're a boy, dancing is for sissies. God, I swear... You wouldn't last thirty minutes in my dance class. And I do this twelve hours a week! And I still have hips! And I still don't lose weight! And I come here and it's ninety degrees out so I wear shorts and jerks like you have the nerve to criticize my legs. Hell, do you think I didn't notice?

Assigned Blog Post #6: Well aren't you fabulous, darling

I use names. I believe anonymity is for the weak. But mostly I use names because if I figured out who you are based on your blog, it can't be that hard.

• So Kayla hasn't posted in a month but I LOVE this post- her National Merit essay.
• Also, Diane talks about how nobody can really know us in this awesome post, which is something that has been in my head a lot lately. This is because we have a telepathic connection, obviously. Just kidding. I think it's especially relevant with parents because we have lived with them for 17 years and if I were a parent, I'd be pretty offended if my daughter or son claimed that I didn't know him/her. On the same token, it bugs the crap out of me when my mom acts like she knows everything about me [and I often disagree just to spite her... I need to stop that] and I think people like feeling somewhat mysterious and of course we all want to be unique. I hope. But I'd say there are people who know certain aspects of me better than I know myself. I guess there is no measure of a person. But we already knew that.
• I like Mira's whole blog. It makes me smile. A lot. So does Erica's.
• Austin's blog keeps my attention. Not that the other ones lose it, but he doesn't post just for the sake of posting (I think) and this makes it interesting. And there is strong voice, which I always respect
• Also this post on Alex's blog. And not because it's about running, I like the detail muchissimo. Muchississimo. I don't think it counts as Spanish when you put that many s's in it :P
• Sorry I'm appreciating things so much. I wasn't going to mention Julia's blog because I feel like I am always telling people how awesome she is but... isn't she awesome? Yeah, she is. So I like this post. YEAH.

I was going to apologize for a lot of these being close friends and then I realized we're in prism and any random blog sample I take is going to have a lot of close friends. Well if this is extraordinarilly Erinny, know that it wasn't intentional. I've tried not to be myself- turns out I'm not very good at it, and it's a silly thing to do anyway

My baddd

So I realized I haven't posted in two weeks. If you think this is bad, consider that I haven't posted on my poetry blog in six weeks. Last november I tried to post every single day. That is not going to happen.

On the other hand, my free time just increased by 14 hours a week. Why I chose to do my workshop on the last week of cross country instead of any of the following weeks, I do not know. Sometimes I don't think things through. That's a pretty significant problem in my life. That and inability to focus...

Yeah. My brain is in a thousand different places at once. This season I learned to run alone (this may not be a good thing...) which meant I was not always talking to someone or listening to someone else talk. Which meant I was thinking about a thousand different things. It's actually pretty convenient- if I had better memory and focus, I could have done my homework in my head on those runs and then just written it down when I got back. WOW it's really weird to talk about the season in past tense. IN ANY CASE I come back from a run and realize what a random assortments of thoughts I've had, and how very few of them will have any impact on my life whatsoever. Like this blog post.

Spanish? Sorry about that. Some things actually come to my head in Spanish (granted, in the story it was intentional) so then I say them and people tell me to SPEAK IN ENGLISH DARNIT and I realize that some people actually don't know what I'm saying unless I speak English. Funny how that happens. But like when people thank me for things? I can never think of what to tell them in response, so I just kind of... smile and walk away?

A lot of people said that Monica, my protagonist, seemed a lot like me. This was odd because I didn't think she and I had too much in common, but then they'd point it out- she'd make an awkward response and someone would comment "Awkward! Like you!" or there'd be thoughts in italics and people would say "this is something Erin would say" and...I guess everyone meant it as a compliment, that I had strong voice or algo, but I was surprised.

YEAH. My brain is a gazpacho of thoughts and this makes me a not very effective blogger. It also sucks on AP tests. But I guess it makes me an okay person, when I am not an awkward person who keeps things to myself. Oops.

Ice Cream Castles in the Air

Wouldn't that be fabulous? Ah this whole song makes me smile :)

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air, and feather canyons everywhere- I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone. So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow it's cloud illusions I recall. I really don't know clouds at all

It's odd how we can spend so much time around something and still be entirely confounded by it. The other day a friend asked me to describe my sister to him and I didn't even know what to say. My sister and I are very close (though it's taken us plenty of arguing to get there) but she's also nothing like me. Is she nice? Sometimes. Is she a jerk? She absolutely can be. She's the loudest person I know, but her teachers and new friends say she keeps to herself. It's funny how I can spend so much of my life with a person and still find her completely indescribable.

Isn't that odd? I like getting into characters (though not the ones I've described so far) but in any story you can't describe every asset of a character. Even in a movie, where you can see their mannerisms and hear the way they talk aned see them completely, you certainly don't know all of a character. I guess I have to get used to the idea that it's not about portraying the entirety of a person, it's about portraying a couple aspects of them. Don't mention that comment he made that day in the diner unless it actually affects the story. Don't discuss her hobbies or relationships unless they actually move the story forward or shows a significant aspect of her personality. Must learn this. Characters shouldn't be boring or one-dimensional, but it's also impossible to describe the entirety of a person's character. Nobody is only made up of their favorite quotes or two minute introduction or college essay. Nobody's senior photo or list of hobbies actually describes who they are. And with dialogue or imagery or whatever devices we may employ in our stories, the best we can do is try to get one or two aspects of a person really down, because trying to fit a person into a short story is hard enough, but trying to cram multiple people and create plot and setting and everything with complete detail is impossible. A veces, less is more.

Please Come to Boston for the Springtime

By Boston I mean Carrillon Point. Obviously. This is my "Put me in, coach!" assignment. Also my character is the opposite of me and woud probably bug the crap out of me in real life. Fortunately, this class is about fiction.

Macy Jones was, and always had been, a Houston girl. Not from one of its myriad suburbs, but a girl straight out of the big city itself. The gulf was the only water she'd ever known and she saw no reason to leave. Some people go out searching for adventure, she'd say, but she knew her place and she'd found contentment right in her hometown. Macy only let the boundaries of the city for the occasional convention for work or a visit with an old acquaintance--and even then she only went a couple miles out.

However, Macy could find no legitimate reasonto avoid her sister Laura's wedding in Carrillon Point, Massachusetts, and even a big Texas family knows better than to skip a wedding. Never having been a fan of tight quarters, Macy made the 2000 mile trip in her '06 civic instead of a plane, stopping only for gas and the occasional hot dog stand. Three days and 500 dollars later, Macy found herself in the smallest, most uptight town she'd ever seen. Nobody walked around Carrillon Point in sweatpants, the bride-to-be pointed out when Macy got out of the car. Yes, Macy had noticed. For Laura's information, she did not drive in skirts or even designer jeans. Laura rolled her eyes and asked if her lip gloss was a tad too dark for the occasion. There was a reason Macy had not visited her little sister once in the nine years they'd been apart, and that about summed it up.

The next few days passed in a blur of stale congratulations and hair spray complications, and by the end of the week Macy was entirely ready to leave. She checked out of the Rosebush Inn on Thursday around noon only to find her car totaled in the parking lot...

Assigned Blog Post #5: Athlete

I don't like labels, really I don't. And while this could factually refer to me, make no assumptions that the persona is mine.

Stop doing your homework and go to practice, don't forget your water bottle the way you always do, don't be self conscious in the locker room-it's not like they're looking at you anyways, get to practice early, socialize with the underclassmen so that someone will remember you when you're gone, do your laps, no don't think about the workout later today, don't stress yourself out, just stretch, look at the flagpole to keep from falling over, Nadia's more flexible- don't mind her, count accurately during abs, pray it will be a full set becaus short abs mean long workout, elbows to your knees, drills, straight back, on your toes, ignore Grace when she asks if you have a six pack (you don't), two mile warm up, run the whole thing- you may not be the fastest but you have integrity, right? Don't you? Don't think about the workout that's in twenty minutes, remember to breathe, should have taken ibuprofen, do build ups back on the track, don't start out too fast, this isn't a competition, though if it were, you might do pretty well, run the tempo workout, remember to eat lunch earlier next time, don't worry about it too much because the good runners aren't watching you anyway, keep it up, this is still not a competition, remember to breathe, you're a singer- you should know how to breathe, push with your arms, head up, only a minute rest, did you forget to start your watch again, don't be the pretentious senior who pushes ahead of underclassmen, don't the the slow senior who's behind all the underclassmen, keep your pace up, two years ago you would have been lapping this time, don't worry about that, don't worry about anything, get out of lane one, get back in lane one, run on your toes, do not think about your calves, do not think about your sides, push ahead of this girl, you haven't really lost count have you? Remember to get to sleep earlier, straight back, eyes up, don't tell them you had cramps before practice even began- gender is never an excuse for weakness, run the cooldown, don't talk about workouts once they're over, don't do hills on a cooldown- nobody likes hills, be on time for the pasta feed, sit with the younger runners so that maybe someone will remember you, try to get to bed early tonight so you'll be well rested when you show up at the track at six in the morning tomorrow...

~sigh~

I should probably comment on readings. Like a lot of them. But I am not focused enough to do that without context so you'll just have to read

There was a short period during my trip to Spain this summer during which my host sister and I didn't talk much. It wasn't that we actually disliked each other, but when you spend too much time in close quarters with someone, there's an inevitable period of needing to breathe, and because I was ten thousand miles from home and on the 8th floor of a locked apartment building, I sat on the balcony and looked out on the Mediterranean sea and journaled all day. This is good- everyone needs time to be alone and to journal, and I think a lot of us get so caught up in doing things for others or working on things we think necessary like summer classes or sports or lo que sea that we don't leave time for ourselves. In any case, I'd finished Joy Luck Club and decided to read it again in a different order (those who have read it may understand why I did this- it's in vignettes about 4 different mother-daughter pairs and the first time I read it straight through, the second was pair by pair) and this time, I took notes. This is fortunate, as I have now returned the book to Julia but my journal has quotes that I like. One of the quotes I put in my journal refers to an unsatisfactory piano recital I believe, but it may refer to a chess match or a divorce. I forget.

The quote is "to each person I told a different story. Yet each version was true... at least at the moment I told it" (210). I had a race yesterday and it went about as well as most of my races have been going this year, which is to say I was over two minutes slower than most of my meets last year. Only Alex and Derek will understand the significance of that and both of them are busy enough that they better not be sitting around reading other people's blogs, but suffice it to say that nobody likes spending 14 hours a week on something and getting progressively worse at it. So the Joy Luck Club quote applied yesterday because I found that each time I talked to someone new, I came to a different conclusion about my race. To Cory I said I started too fast, to Grace I said I should have trained in the summer, to Derek and Alex I said I train better than I race. I think I do that a lot- any time I feel like I need to make excuses for myself.

It's odd how much the way you say something affects its meaning. I had a conversation with a host mom in Spain during which she told me I ought to be more outgoing, that people who don't stick up for themselves have a hard time getting around in the world and that it's important to be an extrovert and put yourself out there. I'm sure she meant no harm in what she was saying- the woman is a radio announcer who lives in a city of about 10,000 people and she literally knew more than half of the people in the town. Not just knew them- we'd walk down the beach or to the carnería or an ice cream shop and she'd stop and have a good conversation with every other person, waving to the rest of them as they passed by and called "¿Qué tal, Carmeli? ¡Buenos días, Carmeli!" On the one hand, it was nice to be in such a friendly environment. On the other hand, I don't think I could stand to be that extroverted. Sin embargo, when I got back to the US I found myself describing the conversation as her scolding me for being an introvert, or telling me I would not be successful if I did not change to become outgoing. That's not what she meant, and I'm sure if I'd described it in a different way in English that people would have taken it differently. We are very quick to judge, all of us.

NYAH. About the readings. I am silly- I generally don't like stories if they don't end happily or don't teach a deep and cliche message of perseverence and appreciation. In other words, I oughn't to have liked a single story we've read this year. I do like musicals, though, and quite a bit. And I do not like hearing about relationships that don't work out, so A Temporary Matter depressed me a bit. There were two particular quotes in it that struck me as wow-I-hope-this-is-never-me; "looking, at thirty-three, like the type of woman she'd once claimed she would never resemble" (321), and "the cosmetics that had seemed superfluous were necessary now" (329). I was slightly impressed at the writer for saying things like that because they give the reader a pretty good image of what has become of both the relationship itself and the people in it, but mostly it depressed me. I don't like reading things that depress me. Half Skinned Steer was something of the opposite- I didn't enjoy A Temporary Matter because if that ever became of my life I would... I don't know what I'd do. It would not be a good day. But I did understand the story and it used explanations that are easy to relate to even if we'd rather not have them come true. I had a much harder time understanding Half Skinned Steer and it's not something I can imagine relating to. The narrator's voice comes out a lot in that one, which is cool, but none of the characters were very likeable. I guess that's not really a bad thing- a story with one likeable character who comes into conflict with only characters who deserve to be beaten up is neither realistic nor interesting, but the characters seemed so far distanced from people I would ever encounter that the story just seemed random to me. And I didn't like the idea of the actual half skinned steer. How terribly creepy and grotesque. I read We Didn't as well because I forgot which one we were supposed to read, and I was quite impressed by the descriptions; "in the backseat of my father's rusted Rambler, which smelled of the smoked chubs and kielbasa he delivered on weekends from my uncle Vincent's meat market" (181). That story was also interesting in just how much it's set in the past (or, really, imperfect) tense; not just the events are in the past, but the narrator and the girl to whom the story is directed seem to have changed from the time the story is supposed to have taken place, and the narrator describes both of their personalities as how they were rather than how they are. Girl was interesting to me, and like a lot of these stories it definitely broadened my idea of what a story can be. For as much as it seems to lack in plot, it gives a pretty clear idea of both the girl and her mother and the relationship between them. I don't think I would have been able to do half as good of a job if given a page and a half to explain two people in so much detail. But I do like both Girl and We Didn't. How to Become a Writer was not what I'd expected and was also a little depressing, especially since we're about to enter college and I don't know that any of us are very secure in what we want to do with our lives. I'm still not sure what to think of You're Ugly, Too but that I'm glad I spend so much time around people who are outrageously blunt and all too honest. I don't like superficiality. Ever. Sigh.

~This post wasn't actually about writing that much... Sorry about thattt~

Assigned Blog Post #3: Character Sketches

Ben wanted this to be a love story, but it's not. That pretty much describes our entire friendship. JUST KIDDING... Maybe.

Macy Jones (though Ben calls her Trina Roca because he was too lazy to ask me my character's name...) is a school bus driver in her 30's. She has curly blonde hair and is slightly overweight, but just at that point where women can still say they are concerned about their weights and get away with it. She has always lived in the suburbs of Houston, Texas and has no intentions of moving. Even if she did, she tells herself, it wouldn't matter. It's not that she has the financial power to go anywhere, and what've they got that could be better than where she is? It's not that she's completely content where she is, just that she is, to quote The Sound of Music, "suffering from a deplorable lack of curiosity." She's never been the best at anything and of course she's had friends in different stages of her life but they got up and left and she never had the motivation to leave. She doesn't like her job and is searching halfheartedly for where to go next, but she also appreciates its dependability and general ease so it could be a while...

Macy Jones walked into Dress Barn Women's around noon and waited to be attended to, as if it were a restaurant she'd just entered rather than a dress shop. "No pink," she said to the younger woman who came to help her. "And none of that orangey yellow either. Nobody really likes that color."

The attendant was at least ten years younger and never seemed to stop smiling. "Alright then," she said, "let's look at some darker colors. There's a plum dress over here and a nice navy blouse-"

"Good god no," Macy cut her off. "This is my sister's wedding! Why on earth would I wear dark to a wedding?"

The attendent apologized, directing Macy to a sleeveless lavender dress.

"It must have some sort of sleeves," Macy instructed. She'd never admit it to this stick of a girl, but Macy was quite self conscious about her shoulders. She recalled the last man in her life saying "must be a woman thing," but by the time they broke up a year later he'd become certain it was just a Macy thing, that most women were completely comfortable with their bodies. No matter, that was years ago. Macy had concluded that men were a hassle and had therefore given up on them entirely.

Macy rejected dress after dress for being too thick, too busty, too short, to expensive, too informal... The attendent gave up trying to understand it all. "Red is for prostitutes," Macy would say, or "do I look fifteen to you?" She finally picked a green floral print from the back of the store, with sleeves just long enough to cover all that she wanted concealed but short enough to be cool for an outdoor wedding in Houston.

Macy left the store thirty dollars later and checked the time. 2:00 pm. She needed to be at the school by 2:20 and bus drivers are always early. Hurrying through the parking lot, she brushed by a pack of guys a bit too briskly- within seconds her hard- sought out dress was covered in a red energy drink. "Do you people pay any attention?" she asked. Her tone was plenty beyond irritable as a man in a Sumo in the City 2008 sweatshirt attempted to clean up the mess.

"Sorry ma'am," he said, his voice reflecting no more intelligence than she could expect with a man of his size. Not that she held any stereotypes, but if she were to be a judgmental type of person, he'd have fit her expectations pretty well. "I'm sure I've got napkins in my car or something..." he trailed off.

Macy was not always the brightest woman around, but she was well aware that napkins would not solve the mess, and she didn't have time to figure out what would. "Napkins?" She asked, clearly aggravated. "What, do you have kleenex too?" Not waiting for him to answer, Macy dragged the stranger with her back to the store. If she was going to have to exchange this dress she'd spent so much time finding, The man who caused her problem was going to suffer as well.

Assigned Blog Post #2: Soanywayyy

I get off track a lot. In my head, in my speech, in my... life. It's not that I waste time, I just... have a lot of thoughts. Katie Giseburt described ADD pretty well last year when she said "they say it's deficit of attention, but really I have so much asking for my attention that I can't fit it all into my head." I don't actually have ADD (not that I know of anyway...) but I don't focus very well at all. This means my conversations, emails, and writings tend to be long and tangenty. And I have lots of poems that I don't put up because the poem I started out writing is very different from what I ended up saying, and what came of it was rather ridiculous.

I think my writing reflects my personality quite a bit, although I hope to experiment with voice enough that I am able to create pieces that don't sound like me at all. I'm a distractable person- my writing changes direction frequently. I'm a pretty honest person even when people would really rather I weren't- my writing is pretty blunt and to the point. I don't use many metaphors to describe things because I don't think in metaphors, I think in adjectives. It's not a mountain of papers, filling up my desk space and brain space and threatening to egulf my physical and psychoogical world, it's... just a big stack of papers. I don't think there's much I do in my writing to make it different and interesting, but when I see other people's writing I always wonder why they have so much fluff. Like claire's (sorry I don't include anonymity, nothing I say is actually bad)- Clarie describes things so much without actually saying what she's talking about. I won't pretend to be succinct, but I do like to be clear in what I'm saying. I guess that makes sense in person too; Claire likes to pretend things are happening when they're not (yes, you all already knew that) and I like to get to the point. The thing is that a plot doesn't usually have a specific point so... I dunnooo

I guess I'm supposed to adress the first half of the assignment, huh? I like Junot Diaz's writing, but I think this is heavily influenced by his use of Spanglish. It's not a way I aspire to write and the themes aren't generally themes I like to write about (though they are themes I'm interested reading about), but it is cool that he has such a strong voice in his writing and that it's so distinctive. I guess it's interesting to me to see how other authors use voice and how they really portray the character of the narrator through the way he/she describes the world instead of through what he or she is actually describing, and it's a skill I'll try to acquire, with lots and lots of trabajo :P

Details. Randomly.

So I had some kind of fabulous story idea on friday in school and then I went straight to a retreat and I never wrote it down and... I'm sure you know how that goes.
I guess I'm supposed to write that story about how my overweight bus driver meets Ben's sumo wrestler but I am not awake enough for such nonsense. You'll see tomorrow I suppose.


So I think I should keep an ongoing detail list because once I start something like a blog or a list, it comes up more and more in my thoughts and I need to write down examples of details (real or made up in my head) that come up or they will POOF disappear completely. Some of them aren't sensory details, they're the way people act. or random descriptions. And I wish I could flag posts or something because this list will keep expanding for a long time.

• Someone who says goodbye with "ciao!" and it sounds totally natural because she used to live in Italy and she doesn't think she's being foreign when she does it. I can't even say goodbye in English without it sounding awkward (I try to make it two syllables: bye-ee) and in other languages it just sounds ridiculous
• Guilt about your unhappiness/selfishness... like when that sophomore gets the solo you really wanted and you could just kill her because you honestly think you're better at it and deserve it, but at the same time she's really sweet and you feel horrible just being annoyed at her because it's not like she's a bad person or even like it's her fault she got picked ahead of you. And it doesn't have to be a solo, it could be a scholarship, a homecoming date, a varsity spot, an internship... what have you.
• Have you noticed that when you set your mind against something, you have no chance of liking it? Like a good friend at church doesn't like choir but her family's really involved and her two older sisters did it and so her mom requires it but because she's set her mind against liking it, everything the director does bugs her and every time we get a new song she dislikes it and everyone else in the choir loves it but all of us choose to be there. I've noticed that a lot lately, that people's disliking of things is very self-feeding and when you ask someone why they don't like _____, their reasons are the dumb things that shouldn't matter, and wouldn't matter if they didn't have that attitude to begin with.
• Flavored mini marshmallows. Why? The entire point of a marshmallow is to be a puff of sugar, nothing more. But my mom bought them because they looked fun. No actually, they look (and taste) gross. And because of this, they've been sitting in the cabinet for quite a while now. Soon they'll start to take on a new flavor...
• Hair that is too long to be bangs and too short for a ponytail. I have a bunch of hairs like that... not like anything that used to be bangs or that I cut that way, just some of my hair never seems to grow past that point and then I run and I have random hair sticking out in messy curls on the top of my head and it looks a tad ridiculous.
• Doing things out of habit instead of because you actually want to. Like being on a team because it's your life/social group/something you've done since you were 3, and not giving a second thought to if you actually enjoy it. Or, when you do, pushing the thought out of your head as soon as it comes because somewhere you think you couldn't bear to leave. You could be wrong, though, if you actually thought about it. Some friendships are that way too. And plenty of marriges. It's all rather unfortunate.
• "It seemed Maurine's greatest fear was an empty funeral. Death was no concern, but she was constantly trying to make herself valued, pushing her love and shoving her friendship onto the confused masses, who could never quite understand why she chose them to join her eclectic social group. In reality, neither did she, but she felt that she was doing them an honor by seeking their friendship and giving each one a sense of value when it was clear that was her own goal. Sometimes, though, there are cases in which it is better to leave a child at home than let its mother drag it to an event- wedding, funeral, what have you- kicking and screaming, and with little understanding of why they are there. In Maurine's case, none of them quite understood why they came to visit the grave." BLEH THAT ONE NEEDS A LOT OF WORK but I put quotes around it because... it is not a note from me, it's a note from a narrator. And I can figure out how to phrase myself better some other day.
• Our cats used to be fit. We kept the cat food on the laundry machine and they'd jump up on it whenever they wanted to eat. If they ate too much and stopped being able to jump, that was alright because they just wouldn't get any food and they'd lose the weight soon enough. It was a cycle and it worked out well. We were proud of ourselves for keeping such good cats. Nowadays, neither of our cats can jump that high. We keep their diet cat food on top of the laundry machine as always, but we also keep a stool there just so they can get up. It gets in the way in our crowded laundry room, but we've learned to put up with it. Five years and three cats ago we would never have accepted such nonsense

Character

Have you seen A Chorus Line? If you haven't, stop reading this post and look it up on youtube or something. Not the movie, the show. It's entirely based on characterization and man, does it do a good job. Here's the beginning of the song At the Ballet:

Daddy always thought that he married beneath him-
That's what he said, that's what he said.
When he proposed, he informed my mother
He was probably her very last chance.
And though she was twenty-two,
Though she was twenty-two,
Though she was twenty-two
She married him.

Life with my dad wasn't ever a picnic
More like a 'come as you are.'
When I was five, I remember my mother
Dug earrings out of the car.
I knew they weren't hers, but it wasn't
Something you'd want to discuss.
He wasn't warm.
Well, not to her.
Well, not to us…

That part of the song is only about 30 seconds long, but it tells you a ton about a character, both from her voice and from the examples she uses. Show, don't tell. This I have let to learn.

My life? Meh. In elementary school they'd have us do projects on our ethnic identity and kids would bring in food from Morocco or tell stories about their parents' escape from Vietnam and I would have to go back ten generations to find anyone out of the US. In youth group, we try to get students involved and willing to share their stories and be open about their lives- people give testimonies about nasty divorces or going to juvi or unhealthy relationships and in light of all that my life is pretty mundane. It's not that I find myself boring or think my life is actually lacking, but I'm not the kind of person I would write a story about. I can identify what characters yearn for and what a lot of people yearn for but I'm a pretty easily contented person. I suppose I yearn for excitement, for what sets me apart from the crowd, but it's not that I want other people to see me as unique and different as that I want to prove it to myself. I suppose the cliche answer would be a yearning for inner peace, but I'm pretty confident an I think I've experienced such little chaos that what I'd like is quite the opposite- this super intense life of travelling around the world and changing people and backpacking through rainforests in Chile and building houses in Rwanda and never ever "settling down" or finding contentment because the idea of that is so ridiculously boring.

Soanyway (sorry, I tangent. A lot. Have I mentioned that yet?), as I was running today I thought about characters I'd be really interested to write about- mostly characters with whom I have very little in common. I'll probably use one for Thursday's assignment and maybe one for the final story, I guess we'll see. You'll notice none of these are animals. Part of this is because we read the story about jealous parrot-husbands and I like being original, and part is just a general averion to animals of any sort. Sorry about that.

• A young child. Like 2 or 3 years old.
• Someone in a wheelchair, probably who also has difficulty communicating and is therefore very much trapped
• A homeless person
• Someone with alzheimers or dementia. Actually that could turn into a super intense storyy
• A man who cheats on his wife. I find there are a lot of stories from the wife's point of view, and a few from the mistress, but not many from the man himself.
• A former prodigy or expert who has not done whatever activity it is for a number of years... that's pretty cliche though :(
• A CEO of a major corporation. This could be interesting if done by... someone who is not me. Because I would probably just turn it into a fable about how money doesn't buy happiness or something. But because characters yearn, I haven't read too many stories with narrators or main characters who seem to have it all
• A paper boy or barista or person at a street stand or one of those "little" people who we notice for a moment while they're relevant to us and then promptly forget about

Assigned Blog Post #1: Comfort Zone

I'll be honest, because apparently that's what this post is about. After I read the prompt I had a very difficult time trying to think of concepts I am uncomfortable talking about. People I've just met tend to find me awkward or shy (I realize most of you will strongly disagree...) but that's more an issue of not knowing what to say than not being willing to say it. I don't have an abusive father or an alcoholic sister or a dreadful family secret—actually, my family is about as stereotypical-white-family as they get—but as I kept the prompt in my head for a few days, I realized there are a few things I'm not a huge fan of discussing. Like that guy who asked me to homecoming sophomore year... That was pretty uncomfortable. Except he still exists so it's still uncomfortable. Or people who ask me about my relationship with my mom. That's probably the one thing I would least like to talk about so I should probably write about it at some point or another, probably through fiction. And a friendship in which a good friend and I were both in it for the wrong reasons. And that time in eighth grade when I wrote a card to a girl I really admired telling her how much she means to me (inspirational books always tell you to do that and I actually did, of my own free will) and she just gave me a bunch of awkward looks after that and I've barely talked to her since. And that calc test last year when I literally got 3 points on the entire second half of the test... actually, just talking about calculus at all makes my life just that much worse. For as much good as Tania has done me and continues to do for me, she's pretty darn good at bringing up topics I don't want to talk about- I guess I'm pretty uncomfortable with guilt. The thing is, though, that a reader will empathize so much better with a flawed character than a perfect one, and the most convincing flaws would be aspects of myself. Well I'll try.

In the prompt post, Ms. Cross says she has to "pretend my mother will never read a word of it" and that resonates with me a lot. Because probably my mom will read it, and probably she will share it with a bunch of people with whom I am only vaguely acquainted and they will also read it, and they will come up to me at some point and say "oh I was reading your poetry and-" and I'll already be very annoyed. And then I will have an agitated confrontation with my mother. And then...

That's why I don't like talking to or about my mother.

How much truth surfaces in my writing? I don't know. There goes this entire blog assignment, huh. I haven't written much fiction before, or when I have it's been based on characters to portray an idea- very specific characters that I thought up after thinking up the idea, and they may not have been convincing at all because I had such a specific way I wanted them to be. I guess we'll see then how much honesty I am able to incorporate into my fiction, and how much I am willing or able to push myself out of my comfort zone in order to make convincing characters or interactions between them. Hmm