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...