placemat

new post.

click.

taffy jar, open book, open browser window.
you have voicemail.

mason jar of water.
pink post-it, hello, nathan yeoung, fix the wsr website.
baskets, pencils, bamboo plants with dying tips.
kimi's getting married, you know.
bookmarks, magnets, some girl lapped up the pamphlets of her own accord.
parisian kiss--black light for a mormon dance party, creepers with beer pong
when brycen buried kaylie's car in snow and the boys stayed up all night for fear of what we would do.

cheapskates, styrofoam cups with change in them for copies
copies.
haven't made them in months
and it feels so good to my insides, not churning or steeped in ink
or rather, toner
of seventy million colors
still have the pens
the pad of paper corner-rounded and lined in red
like a kiss of Pantone 187, red lipstick
kiss
real, this time
so real i feel, and my face flushes

yikes!
i can't post that.
click, click, tap
what is that noise

a placemat

i wish i could have a placemat for my life, to know where to set my plates

my Self

efy counselors
will i be one?
hope i'm not married
there's so much life to live before that time
but the salmon pink color reminds me of the flushing face,
my impatience
for no explicable reason
explainable?
is that a word?
i haven't written this way for so long
the obsession with perfection, coherence, and time
no tengo tiempo, amigos
only for taffy and boyfriends and sushi two days close by
taffy and boyfriend every day
clicking, tired eyes
sighs for music education and everything else on my plate
longing for a placemat

to enlighten you,

1. sushi is most wonderful when enjoyed with a sushi expert, who also happens to be ambidextrous and really, really dreamy.
thanks, Boyfriend. sorry my chopstick abilities are severely...severe. dismal. in the most terrible way.
i will practice, then i will be irresistable to you?

2. brothers are most wonderful when they are home from their missions. they are funny when they are still a lil awk around girls. they are excellent at doing disneyworld things. they are suddenly really great at calling you and caring about your life and advice.

3. other brothers are most wonderful when they are confessing your likage of your boyfriend to said boyfriend...and telling Boyfriend that you guys can never break up, coupled with a marriage threat.
bonus: denying all recollection of having made such threats.

4. mothers are most wonderful when they...well, all the time, who am i kidding. they make you feel like a million bajillion bucks for doing the most barely noteworthy tasks. they are excellent at all things womanly, and make you feel like you can semi-do the impossible task of filling their shoes one day. which is awesome.

5. friends are most wonderful when they...be with you.
close runner ups include but are not limited to when they make beautiful music with you, and get terribly, terribly sore with you (for non-legit reasons, so they will remain nameless) and take your pasta salad into the house for you, and go visiting teaching with you.

never breaking up

Sitting in a restaurant, sipping water and listening to live music; wearing a skirt, feeling grown up but not knowing where my statements are, unable to pay bills because I've lost my checkbook.

Dimly lit restaurant, thinking about pressures and my major and how I'd really rather not worry about things. I needed the strength of the temple today, but it was closed. Why! Claire and I laid on the grass instead, in the dribbling rain drops, giggled and giggled and thought about how tied our hearts are--how we're never breaking up. We looked up and could see nothing, nothing but sponge-painted gray clouds, and the top pricks of evergreen trees.

"I wonder why God made us so small," I muse, enveloped by sheets and sheets of mosaic gray.

They are curved in a way that makes me think I have been swallowed by the whole world, digested and plopped at the core. Turns out it's not hot; turns out it's raining there, in actuality.

"Yeah," she agrees. " I feel big and small, at different times. But I feel big right now."

We know Washington, us two; we know gray skies and clouds and rain; and somehow had neither one laid in the drops ever before.

Drip, drop

Claire's green shirt dampens

my freshly shaven legs feel prickly

I looked into her wide brown eyes and found things there I've somehow never looked at, like I was seeing her for the first time, enjoying her easy laugh and expressive hands. If I could describe our relationship in that silence, in that effortlessly falling rain, I would maybe cite giggles and holdings and how we just appreciate and understand each other; maybe I'd talk of how we love the same things and how she excites and inspires me; how we're soul mates of sorts, perhaps I'd say. But I didn't want to crackle the silence that was so full.

Maybe I'll mention, then, how we're both sitting close, in the same silence--writing in our journals. This silence is now filled to tipping point with really beautiful music.

I can't break away to study theory when there's all of what I actually want out of music sitting here, in a dimly lit restaurant, without pretense of a skirt

or shoes that make sound

or flat hair matted by the greatest rainfall I can think of.

so young.

magic

sunburn. walt disney world. magic. fireworks. chandlers. mexican food, delicious. closest family bonding to date. lost in the car. sweaty, hot, breathing more water than air. running, dripping for a ridiculous amount of time. sharing a bed with b., rolling him over so as not to be crushed. hosekeeping. confusing cameron for garrett. pass along cards. shake&bake chicken. copious amounts of hamburgers, pizza, and ice cream. white sand. missing out on the girls' adventures. driving in the city. highway. fans. airplane. funny brennon: "i'm clever!" , "garrett, you smell like socks." family vacation.

..........................

Traveling is one of my all-time favorite things to do. Take that back, the ultimate favorite. I adore airports. Seeing busy people from busy places all over buy expensive coffee and fiddle on their laptops. I love to smell that coffee, gosh. I think about what life is like for them, what the Wednesday I go to Disneyworld looks like through the prism of their life. I love to press my nose against the plexiglass of the plane window (which is most likely not plexiglass at all, I have no idea, in truth) and I look out and down at the world in green and brown squared and perfectly orchestrated trails of bluish-brown water. So mechanically wonderful and magnificently un-flawed. Magic.

Dear Michael Jackson

WHAT THE HECK MICHAEL JACKSON, WHY ARE YOU DEAD?!
Don't die, please! I know you are a rotten person but I love you and your music is music to my ears, and it is so great, and you are still an icon to me, and although you probably should have keeled over years ago to preserve some sort of dignity I want you back!

There was still some flicker of hope inside my heart that he would decide to change his life and make more wonderful, wonderful music. That was all I wanted. Is this so unreasonable?

Sorry Michael, about the whole dying gag. Sorry that you had to kick the can in such a sorry state. Good luck in the hereafter--you're going to really, really need it. You'll always be the King of Pop to me, and I will force my children to listen to you and adore you as I. Your legacy will live on. I am glad your fashion sense has not. Love, Brooke

p.s. FARRAH died today too? What kind of day is this??

back on the map

Back in the habit; making sisters blissfully happy since 1988.

He's here.

He's worth the wait.

SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK...which i may have at any moment.

No apologies. I'm too excited for that. if you don't read this, i understand.

MAYBE YOU DON'T REALIZE, BUT I GET TO SEE MY BROTHER'S FACE IN NINE HOURS. NINE. NINE. ASDOFJAOIFJDAOIFJDAL;SFJDAL;SKJFAL;SKFJLFJKDFJKDKAL;SDFKJASD;FLKJDLFKJSDFLAKSJFD;AKLSFJA;SLFJKAS;DFLKJASD;LFKAJSDF;LKAJSDFL;. PERIOD.
!!..!!??!!
I CAN'T CALM DOWN I'M FREAKING OUT I WAS DANCING AROUND ALL HAPPY THIS MORNING AND NOW I AM TERRIBLY LATE TO WORK AND HOW CAN I EVEN WORK UNDER THESE CONDITIONS? ALL I CAN DO IS WRITE IN ALL CAPITALS ABOUT MY BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER AND REPEAT WORDS LIKE "NINE" AND "BROTHER" OVER, AND OVER, AND OVER AGAIN.

i ate monkey bars for breakfast because i was so excited. (the sugar probably isn't helping))
this is serious and real and actual. question mark? that's the part i cannot for the life of me wrap my brain around.

"I can't take this no more!" Quoting The Sandlot to Eric in desperation, on my way (again, terribly late) to work.

[laugh] "MOVE!" Of course Eric knows the next line. Garrett does too. Maybe. If he even remembers English. Engrish.

"10 hours," he says. How is he so calm and collected?

"10 hours?!!!" I yelp. "That's soooo looooongggg!! I'm not going to maaaaake it!" Whine, whine, whine.

"Better than 10 days!" Who is the adult here, I mean really.

"What's the first thing you're going to do when you see him?!" I squeal.

"I dunno, probably compare height. See how much he's got on me."


Mom just gets on the phone and screams.
"Are you so excited?"

"Mom, I'm DYING. I might perish before I get to see this boy."

She giggles like I do when Jared is in the vicinity. "I'm going to wake up three times in the night to check on him and make sure he's actually still there, home, sleeping in his bed, like a real person who lives and breathes. I practiced last night."


I am unfit for any task other than yelling very loudly and giggling. And going to the bathroom seventeen times an hour.
and typing things like this asdjfoaisjdf;aklsjdf;aklsjdfa;lskfjd
and SEEING MY BROTHER.
today's the day.
serious as a heart attack. i might have one out of sheer joy. does that even happen? whatever. anyway, i better get back to yelling loudly/giggling/having a heart attack.

BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER
!!