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.