A Memorial to Grass-Stained Feet

Choose the right.

Secret, secret, I've got a secret

I'll let you in on a little secret about the things I love.
They are the best things in the whole world to love, and everyone should experience the magic of them at least a few times in their life. Everyone should love what I love.

And it wouldn't make for a boring world of Brooke-folk; everyone would apply and mold it to their own circumstance. And circumstance, I'll tell you a secret about that, too. Circumstance did not plop these passions in my lap. I have adoringly thought, experienced, worked. These have developed my loves; and everyone--I mean everyone--should adoringly think, work, and experience. Cultivate your individual interests around these loves--my loves, yes, but they are loves that run so deep and hold so much emotion that they are simply not going to work for me just to have them. I have to share them with you. Force them upon you? Maybe. But you'll be glad I did.

Butterflies

Alright, folks, I'm going to be fearless.

Here goes. A journal entry. From my actual, bound journal. The one Kendra and I got each other, accidentally, for Christmas. It's real.
(Now that you've experienced that gem I can quit stalling)


Friday, May 15, 2009

I am now not only friend, student, daughter, crazy woman extraordinare, but girlfriend too. What, GIRLFRIEND. !!?
As in like, "hey, girlfriend, how you doin'?" "wassup girlfrien?" or other such uses solely connotating soul sistas?
Girlllllfriend. The word doesn't fit right in my mouth.

Can you believe it? Me and Jared Schultz. We're attached to each other, by fingers when we can, and by title when phone is all we can wrangle up. OH, gosh--I mean, a part of me thought it maybe possibly might be coming, but I was completely caught of guard. As of May 11, 2009, I have a boyfriend. Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend. Hey Boyfriend: I like the things you do. I like the way you are.


May 12, 2009, I was surprisingly apprehensive. No idea what to do with myself. What does Girlfriend do? I don't know her. I only know reader Brooke, silly passionate Brooke, singing Brooke. Girlfriend Brooke--she's new. I told mom I was scared. What if he changes his mind? We're both new at this.

But May 13, 2009, I was just elated. That same cheek-aching, delirious feeling, like even breathing regular air I breathed on May 10th was sweetly delicious, because of this new thing we'd started--this magic we'd given full permission to.


And on May 13, 2009, I went on the best date of my teen life (well, my whole life, really) with my Boyfriend. It was legit for me to hold his hand, be alone with him in a little booth. He was still allowed to be nervous; I still wondered if I looked alright.

I threw a penny in the fountain with a particularly wonderful thought threaded to it, and I wondered if fountains had increased their effectiveness since I'd tried them last.

Turns out they have. Turns out they're sometimes very, very effective. Turns out sometimes they turn out illicit amounts of cheek-aching grinning and silly, childish giggling.
Giggling, giggling, I had to supress my stupid giggles with so much effort!
"You're just so well-formed..." I mumbled to his shining eyes.
"You're silly." He said back.


I still have reservations. Hello, it's been a grand total of three days. But I am not scared today, May 15, 2009. I asked him, while we were soaking each other in, (I'm really good at ruining those picturesque moments) "Are you scared?"
He thought. He always thinks before he answers questions I ask him, as if they always actually matter.
"No. Scared, no. Nervous, in a good way."

Nervous in a good way. I think that's called butterflies...

Let Me Tell You What the Problem Is.

Let me tell you what the problem is.

Something happens from brain to pen to pad--something stupidly dumbing, muddling--probably the something that explains where the millions of bobby pins I have bought in my life have gone to. Probably, it's the same bobby-pin sucking vortex that also saps the awesomeness out of my writing--all my fresh, chipper ideas are laying in some mysterious place, the same place populated by all those bobby guys.

I feel like I'm looking at the pretty little petals fallen from the cherry blossom trees. I see their beauty, and stop to stare. But someone, or something, is covering the tree. My thoughts float and flicker across my mind screen, and my pen is too slow to write them. Like fireflies. Plus I hate the way my handwriting looks when I get fast. I hate all things sloppy. That's why I'm not fond of this vacuum that keeps on extracting the glue for my words--see, I never finish writing about the same thing I picked up my pen for first.

Maybe it's because I want to write and to capture, but moreso I want to fill a space that I don't currently occupy. I want to have processed all that I don't quite comprehend, not be processing, in the process of processing. I'm tired of those little petals--I want to scale the tree and tell you about the new view. A pair of new eyes is what I require; eyes, I suppose, devoid of vortexes.

And you know what, sometimes I'm downright scared. Because this is the world wide web, sweetheart, and I require instant perfection. This is serious bidniss.
I don't want to hear any bull about mistakes being beautiful or character-adding, NO. That doesn't work with writing. Writing mistakes are ugly. They poison the whole thing and make it bad.
Hey, don't get yourself in a wad: I'm just telling you what the problem is.

Tacos

I've been itching to post, and everything I write seems positively unsuitable for the whole of the web. So this is from a long time ago, deal with it.

I'm sitting in my favorite place to sit when I'm sweaty, up against the east wall that faces west. I love to be sweaty when I can sit, and let it drip and soak as long as I like. I love when my muscles are hot and cold and that feeling in my lungs like I've done something worth writing about--worth sweating about.

Running on summer nights is one of the best things the telestial world has to offer.
The warmth and the breeze and the people lazing together outside, the newfound temperature heightening every smell. I wonder if that upstairs is having a cinco de mayo party, too, and if they'd be opposed to a sweaty girl in electric blue shorts eating their tacos.

And running on the street! When you hit every WALK sign and make the people in the cars you pass wonder why they aren't running through this bliss with you.
And once I pressed the button and the monitor was black; no red hand or white walking man.
I was stiff, with no one to tell me how to avoid getting creamed by a semi. And I thought about how a portion of our lives is spent in each hemisphere, with the walker and the stopper. But there's some greater portion we spend when we push the button and it is dark, tells us nothing--or, perhaps, "you choose." And we see if there are cars coming and well, we go.
I only wish for the "going" part to be simpler.

The Undeflatable Exercise Ball

Our lives, as of, um, forever ago. Sorry bout that, cats.

For the record

Just in case there was any dispute (which there wasn't) yes, I am affiliated with the most adorable child ever created. He's already got the smirk down and everything, sheeeesh.