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.