Handwriting Analysis

Informative, hilarious, awesome.

Check it out, here.

Aquaribum

This is an actual thing! I want it!

oh fam

Oh How I Love Thee, Ronald Woods

Me: Hey creative writing teacher. Can you hook me up with a job in the English department?
Him: Yeah call this number. Tell them I said you are a good writer.
Me: I shall! Thank you good sir!
Him: I'm just trying to keep you occupied. I think Brooke with free time would be a bad thing. Provo isn't ready for that.
Me: I think there are some broken hearts and vandalized buildings in this town that would testify to that already.
Him: Broken hearts for sure. A trail of them.



^NOT KIDDING. MY ACTUAL CONVERSATION WITH A BYU ADMINISTRATOR. hahahahahahahaha

OH man

Please look up "List of unusual deaths" on wikipedia.
207 BC: Chrysippus, a Greek stoic philosopher, is believed to have died of laughter after watching his drunk donkey attempt to eat figs.[5]

SAN DIEGO AGENDAAAA

SAN MARCOS- Drive through San Elijo, Santana's Breakfast Burritos, In-n-Out
ENCINITAS- Lou's Records, Flashbacks, Home, Ocean
SEAPORT VILLAGE- Carousel. Ruth's Chris
VISTA- House party on Friday
BLACK'S BEACH- Drum Circle Anyone?
ESCONDIDO- Grand Avenue, Thrift Stores, Family Time!
OCEANSIDE- The Harbor, The Pier

We can shove all this in 4 days, right? CALEE- YOU BETTER COME WITH US TO ALL OF THIS

Homeless

Hey guys. Yesterday was my check out date for my apartment in Carriage Cove, but I can't move in to my NEW apartment over by Brick Oven until the 28th.

Props to Kristina for being a sweetie and giving me somewhere to sleep.

Oh, and since I've been picturelogging you guys on here lately, I'll post one up now, just to help ease you out of the habit.

bbq

The first of summer!

Photooosss

I love my boyfriends friends

I may or may not have had the best day EVER yesterday

A DAY IN THE PAAARRRKKK

OH OH THIS BOY

Mourning

My creative writing class is done- what do I do now? How do I stay inspired? Where will I get the discipline? The deadlines? The glorious crunch time that leads to a finished product?

I am feeling sad.

San Diego Soooon

Hey lovers.

Finals time at BYU, which is extra fun for me because I don't know whats going on. I don't think I realized how all over the place I am until I started dating someone. He'll ask me about things and I'll have no idea what he is talking about, or he'll remember something I said and I'll say "I said that? When?"

It makes me super aware of how nuts/burned out I seem sometimes.

Speaking of that guy in my life, we are driving down to San Diego after finals! Parents- hope thats cool. Can he sleep in the office or something? Hey thanks.

He has already met everyone but my dad (since all the ladies were up here a couple of weekends ago) and since he is awesome I want him to meet all my friends, too.

Get ready San Diego.
These two kids are coming soon.

I just turned this in as a Poetry Assignment

Don’t drink and drive, please.
It is gross and scary.
Ok, thanks a lot.
While I’m here, stay off drugs.
You’re welcome. Love, Baby Angels.

Tanka, 5 lines. This advertisement brought to you by Baby Angels.

Dear Baby Angels,
Please stop being so bossy
Have you ever smoked?
It is really not that bad
You’d like it. Love, Sinners

Tanka, response to Baby Angels Tanka. 5 Lines.

Photographer Friend

See the friend who took my photos on his blog, here.

Jason Widdison, or DJ kidd widd. depends on the day you catch him.

(his girlfriend is the cutie with dark hair who has been in the past couple of pictures I've posted.)

Final Memoir

This is the memoir I'm turning in as part of my final exam in my Creative Writing class. It might be one of my favorite things I've written. Some of the imagery was used in a short little thing I wrote a while ago, and I'm glad I found a home for it in a larger memoir. Enjoy

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If I had thought it through, I probably wouldn’t have taken this class. I already have a history of almost-admirably-honest writing, why would I make that any worse?
It started out innocent and entertaining. I turned in assignments with silly words I made up and charming anecdotes involving nosebleeds and wet pants. My witty banter knew no bounds, and soon my classmates were adding me on Facebook and commenting on my refreshing humor.
“All fodder for the tell-all,” I joked with the boy who always sat across from me in the long, cedar room where our Creative Writing class is. He read my work before I turned it in, always shocked and enthralled.
“This really happened? Really?”
“Fodder, I say!” I laughed with a regal British accent, envisioning the huge success of my shocking insights into the lives of suburban America’s underground drug ring. This was before I started writing what really happened, before I was including all of it; before I started wondering how much you can confess while still holding the charm of one-who-confesses.
Cut to now, end of the semester, sitting on the floor of my apartment. I’m surrounded by writing samples, short stories, memoirs, poems, my first kiss, going insane, never sleeping, being a liar and a felon and thief and glutton and they are pieces of me that I have spent a solid two years trying to put in a shoebox and bury somewhere, with all the dignity of a deceased family pet.
“Why did this class ignite in me such a passion for confession? For sunlight on the face of this dead beast, of this life that I don’t even recognize as mine?” I ask myself as I stare at the writing around me. The pages are crinkled and ripped, typed and handwritten with highlighter scribbles on them all. Which memories can be used?
My legs can’t dance in a blank sleep, I once wrote. Holding the piece of paper now, I can’t make myself reread it. This page has the Absence Of Dreams In Exchange For Sanity, a memory that I don’t want. I give it to you, Page. You can keep it on your white flat face. I don’t want that one anymore. It will remain a story on paper, but is no longer in my mind. The page is grateful for such a well written, heartfelt piece, and I let it float back to the ground.
I pick up an identical sheet, turned in as a short story. I don’t have to read it, the words are so vividly crawling through the grass in my brain. This one is I Didn’t Really Throw A Brick, But I End The Story By Throwing A Brick In An Effort To Justify My Illegal Dealings, a night I could let sink into oblivion and not miss at all.
“Here you go, Page.”
He smiles and swallows the words and gently sighs to the ground. The story will live in the paper, not in me. I watch him settling next to one of his brothers; another keeper of my secrets. But this one catches the light differently; has less of a glitter and more of a gloss. This one is not for blogs or for friends to read; this one was barely turned in. It almost burned my fingers to write it.
“Read me!” she crows into my palm, wildly laughing at my scorched fingers. A she!
“You are not a brother, you are not one of these keepers!” I say incredulously, “You can’t possibly be printed and bring me glory and recognition for the horrors I’ve seen. You are too real. I feel sick when I see you! No one can stomach those memories if I can’t.”
“You wrote me, now see me!” This Page is not kind. This Page should not have been made. This Page holds Finding My Sister Crying In The Kitchen and Being Man Handled By A Drug Dealer. This Page will not take the words from me. She will not descend softly to her friends and be still on top of a pile. She starts folding herself into a delicate, feminine hand. In disbelief, I see her wielding a Pentel Metal Tip pen, and plunging its 0.7 mm ball tip into my bare chest. Liquid gel ink mixes with blood in an assortment of viscera.
She will not take my words and float away, belonging to her and giving me peace. This one is telling itself. She has gained strength from telling of each story, the lines becoming thin, the clarity almost choking. This origami hand is more than paper, it is the ragged burning of having a finger broken by someone you owe money to. It is the fear that makes you hide in a bush for two hours when you think you see a car you recognize as trouble. It’s the two little girls you care for during the day that have a broken family. It’s the surprisingly hot tears your best friend cries into your shoulder when you find her on the floor.
The folded limb begins shaping an introduction to my memoir out of intestines. Oh, cursive. That’s lovely.

Story Beginning

I knew what I was doing wasn’t right, but I was flinging the lotion all over the stairs by then, and there is really no going back at that point. The phones were already ruined with baking soda, and most of door handles were dripping with honey. It was Christmas Eve, I was 5 years old, and just a tad on the passive aggressive side.

Headshots

My new weird thing: trying to get hired as a model. I have alot of friends who are photographers so it is actually really fun trying to do it. Posing is alot harder than it looks; and, it makes me feel really uncomfortable. Surprising outside of my comfort zone. I felt uneasy the rest of the day- it was just strange. Check it ouuttt yaaa'lll.

Goth Prom

Eyeballs

I've been told my eyes are creepy before. Actually, a few times it was actually the word "scary," and now I think I see why.

How often do I make this face? Googly eyes and all?

Top Ten

Top Ten Favorite things I learned from my Creative Writing Textbook:

1)Resolutions do not necessarily offer solutions
2)Writing is rewriting what you have written
3)Truth vs. Fact: You can have one without the other
4)If you think there is more happening in memory than in action, you might want to rethink where the story really lies
5)"Your story actually begins on page 3"
6)Fiction has to make sense. Nonfiction doesn't. Historically, there are very few answers.
7)Freewrite, and let the strangeness in you surface
8)"Poetry is memorable speech"-W.H. Auden
9)grok: to understand in the gut as well as the head
10)"Even if you are confessing terrible sins, it is as one-who-is-confessing, which is admirable"

weekend

Hey lovers

Sorry if that last post really upset any of you- I've been having really morbid stories that involve dogs just flowing out of me recently.

The interesting thing about that last story is the way I wrote it. I started it with a sentence pulled from a hat- the very first sentence about the mom being a good cook. I wrote for five minutes or so. Then I received a second sentence, I can't remember which is it but it is somewhere in the middle. I had to tweak and shift the story to make the sentence fit but I couldn't go back and change anything. Then I was given the very last sentence ten minutes after that, about falling towards the fender, and had to end the story around that.

It is a REALLY fun way to write. Granted, the version I posted is the final draft, so it is a bit more impressive than what I initially wrote, but still. I made up that plot on the first try. I want to high five myself.

TO CHANGE TOPICS COMPLETELY
I am going to be staying Utah over the spring. I want to get more school under my belt, I feel like I just moved, I feel really inspired here, and I may or may not have a boyfriend.

All valid reasons to stay, agreed?

Short Story

Here is my latest. Enjoy:
(warning- this is mildly disturbing. it will not make you happy inside)

--------------

My mother is the world’s worst cook. That’s an exaggeration, obviously- I haven’t met every mediocre cook in the world and judged them all on a scale of one to ten; I feel like that would be unnecessary.
How many of those cooks gave an entire Kiwanis Club luncheon food poisoning? How many of those cooks used eggnog instead of milk in the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes, and still made her daughter eat up? (Her son faked a stomach cramp and got out of it. Brilliant little brat)
That’s what really puts her above and beyond, I think: she doesn’t admit defeat. You could count on her to make cilantro cupcakes and serve them to the President, even if she knew they were awful.
And that’s what I was counting on.
The day of my sister’s-in-law birthday barbeque, I offered to go grocery shopping for the event.
Chips, salsa, some sort of refried bean dip, watermelon, a cheese platter, etc. All American party food. I left the store with everything but the stuff we would be barbequing. This was not a mistake.
The meat was already back at the house, pissing on my carpet and licking something I don’t even want to describe. The meat was also known as Scooter, Anita’s Shetland Sheepdog and a beast I feel so much disgust for I might actually vomit while telling you this.
I’m planning on “accidentally” running over Scooter tonight, right after writing the words “Happy Birthday, Sis” into a Devil’s Foodcake three-layer masterpiece which my mother has baked carrots into somehow. I will then barbeque Scooter and serve him to the loud, obnoxious, rude, and disgusting woman my beautiful brother married.
After getting home from the grocery store and flinging everything into the fridge, I found my mother and kissed her on the cheek.
“I got everything,” I said, straightening a picture of Anita with my brother Daniel on the fridge. I’d pluck it off and burn it later.
“Thank you for getting involved, sweetie. I know how hard it’s been for you to accept her since Daniel died, but I think the two of you could really bond tonight. He loved you both, afterall.”
I smiled bravely into the soft wrinkled palm that was affectionately cupping my cheek.
“Family is family, right? Plus, soon we’ll have a little Daniel running around here!” I replied happily. “Hopefully he isn’t a crack baby,” I thought.
The fact that my brother moved away, married a stranger, got her pregnant, and then died of what they called an “accidental overdose,” all within the period of two months, had taken me a long time to talk about.
She was an awful and unwelcome intrusion in our lives. She was an enabler and a drug addict. She was ruining our black bubble of grief because we had to love her, because she was pregnant.
This is my day. This is my plan. You are now up to date.
I can see her now through the round kitchen window, in a pink tank top and black ruffled mini-skirt. Her belly is giant and borderline terrifying, making her shirt work way too hard. What kind of a pregnant woman dresses like that? Does she have no respect for the fact that she is growing a human in there? Does she even know how much I want to scratch her eyes out when I see her cry? She is not in as much pain as I am. I loved Daniel my whole life. I loved him enough to cut him out when he wouldn’t stop snorting anything that could be crushed. I loved him enough to show up at his doorstep with a plan to get him clean. Then I loved him enough to accept his trashy, burned out wife. She loved him two seconds, and was too stupid to be on birth control. She doesn’t deserve to be here.
The dog has to die. This is how I choose to grieve. Canine slaughter.
It’s getting dark outside and Anita’s family is out on the patio, watching Scooter yelp and squeal and sneeze on things. I know that just like the past billion nights, Anita will throw a ball across the driveway and watch the tiny beast go and retrieve it. She calls it her “exercise.” Standing on the grass and throwing a ball, usually while eating a quesadilla (her favorite food) and letting the grease slide down her arm so Scooter can lick it off as a reward when he trots back over, his deep red ball looking like a blood clot in his mouth. What a peach. I’m so excited my brother chose to procreate with her. I’d probably snort myself to death if I realized a dumb whore was having my baby, too.
Slinking silently to my tiny foreign car Daniel loved so much, I sit and close the door like a phantom. As I start it the radio suddenly blares out a thumping dance song and I scramble to turn it down before anyone notices.
The noise of the radio echoes in my ears, pulsing, and Ican hear my own heartbeat. I can hear Daniel’s beautiful tenor voice. I can hear him playfully switching to a basso profundo and calling to me as if a god. I can hear the pop of his nine-year-old knuckles before he tickles me. I can hear my own nasally voice giggling wildly in anticipation. I can hear my voice crying. The sound startles me, and I cross my arms across my chest, each hand on it’s opposite’s shoulder. Clutching myself in this way for five minutes, I try to calm down. I realize my window of opportunity is growing smaller.
I watch the bright red ball fly past my rearview mirror, and can hear the scamper of tiny paws back and forth across the loose gravel of my mother’s house.
I watch it fly past six times and memorize the rhythm of her throws and his retrievals.
Right before I put the car in reverse and slam on the gas, I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection: covered in tears, my face is wide and smiling.
Screams of every pitch fly at me from the corners of the front yard, and suddenly I hear a distinct, ragged sob coming from directly behind me.
With limbs made of clouds I put the car in park and float out of the driver’s seat.
By now people are running toward us, mouths in perfect “O” shapes, holding out their hands as if they could still stop it.
On the other side of the lawn, Scooter is prancing: happy, alive.
I see the pink tank top, resting at the crevasse between breast and belly, now covered in gravel. I sag toward the fender, the rest of my body obeying gravity, and the radio softly sighing behind me.

Author Commentary: A sad story. I liked summarizing the beginning in the past tense then transitioning to present- hopefully readers are not confused by this. I’d like to think it’s like someone telling you about it, while everything else is happening, and then you are experiencing it with them. I wanted you to dislike the pregnant wife as much as the narrator did, but experience the same guilt as if you had done it. The segue from telling about it, to living it, to a dreamy, vague ending will hopefully suck you in and make you live it. That’s what I was shooting for, at least. Oh, and I know it is super raw and kind of offensive in some places. That’s the character I wanted. Also, vague references to him being suicidal should come across as unbelievable; the wife is obviously so awful he killed himself and the main character seriously blames her for it.

Agency

No, I didn't go to the 2nd agency for an audition (I'm talking about a modeling/acting agency, p.s.)

I'm seeing a man and I had the opportunity to meet his sister, so I rescheduled.

Oh, and I got an 82% on a Hepe test. YES!