emojis and the other six wonders of the world

Reality tv is one of the seven wonders of my mom’s world, along with hashtags, gchatting, foursquare, mobile browsers, emojis, and one I won't say but it starts with sex and rhymes with texting. These are things she doesn't understand but calls me about every few weeks and says "Today is the day, Brooke. Explain this to me."



And they remain the seven wonders because I guess I never do a good enough job of explaining them, or they’re really nuanced subjects, or it’s hard to get a good grasp on them when they’re not as deeply rooted in your life as hashtags are in mine. It #scares me that one day I will have a child and one day the world will change so much that I will ask that child for an explanation of #conceptsbeyondmyunderstanding. I can't explain reality tv.

But after a few solid marathons of non-reality tv shows, it's hard to tell them all apart. How many quirky attractive characters in their 20s can there be? Why are you all wearing such colorful outfits? Why do all the male love interests have sweating problems? Why does bonding always have to happen near water?

Why does every episode of every scripted show have that joke where someone says "Is it good?" and the other person says "No." and everyone panics until the person continues "...it’s great!" When did humanity decide this was the best joke ever?



Reality tv is refreshing because it doesn’t have any of these things. The plot doesn’t bother me because, there’s no plot. Usually I just decide whose hairstyle I like the best and fast-forward to the parts with that person in them. You can ignore large chunks of dialogue while working on something else and I promise you won't miss anything at all. And they make me feel like America is doomed, which is the hallmark of any good reality tv show.

There is something really invigorating about feeling bad about America that I wish my mom could understand.



Coolest hair ever!

If the world is ever taken over by robots

And luckily someone invents a giant robot killing machine and all we need is a five-word sentence to attract every single robot and bring it to its death, and the world turns to me and says "Brooke, WHAT FIVE-WORD SENTENCE DO ROBOTS LIKE BEST, everyone is counting on you" don't worry, I already know what sentence we could use. 

And with that taken care of the rest of you can just be in charge of bringing snacks that we can eat while we watch all the robots come swarming in.

I can run a mile faster than you can make pasta

After my half marathon this weekend I was so hungry I ate grapes without removing the grape-branch they came on, I just ate the entire bunch, grape-branch and all.

I'm telling you the end of the story first because I knew at the beginning of the race that I would finish. I sprained my ankle a few weeks and stopped running, and the most I ever ran was 7 miles but that was in May. So I told everyone I would just try it, and stop if it hurt, but I told myself "I will finish, I will die before I stop running and they will bury me at the finish line" and I meant it but I didn't say it out loud because no one likes hearing things like that. 



At every mile on the race there was a station with a team of people throwing us paper cups of the most delicious water on earth. And at every station there was always someone yelling "We've got GU! GU here!" Always answering questions no one was asking like "Do you have GU? Is there GU here?" and never answering the question "What is GU?"

Every mile we would run right past the the them but after 10 miles I started thinking, well maybe. I mean, they have the GU. When am I ever going to see GU again?

I went on their website just now to find out what I ingested. It's some sort of sport gel that tastes like frosting. The recommended usage is 15 minutes before and 45 minutes after exercise and my first thought was "Who would be running for more than 45 minutes?" Me! I would! I ran three times that. I did such a crazy thing.

I have sat through movies that felt years long, and that was the amount of time I was running. I can make pasta 10 times in the amount of time I was running. I can take the bus to work 7 times. I can recite the Brazilian national anthem 64 times and I don't know the Brazilian national anthem or even speak Portuguese. I can do anything now.

I feel like when people look at me, they can immediately tell that I ran 13 miles the other day because I look so incredibly refreshed and powerful and superhuman. But I tell them anyway, just in case.

here comes an airplane

Apartments in Portland don't have screens because supposedly they don't have bugs but they do. I've killed spiders, millipedes, decided to let spiders live so they could kill the millipedes, and found spiders dying slow and painful deaths after millipedes ate their legs off. 

Come visit?

Anyway none of this prepared me for finding a moth the size of a small bird flying around the apartment, blocking all light as it swooped past the ceiling lamp, landing on curtains and almost pulling them off the wall with its weight, humming as loudly as a quiet plane or fighter jet.

I knew I either needed to get brave enough to fight him, get brave enough to co-habitate with him, or get brave enough to change my name, burn everything I owned, and move to another country. I chose co-habitate.

Just a few days later my heart was only skipping about five beats when I saw him in corners, and I was already choosing what actress would play me in the movie about our friendship that overcame all odds. Tina Fey? Zooey Deschanel? Should I just play myself? The mothbird was not faring so well. He stopped flying and started slithering and jerking around the floor, creaking and wrapping his wings around himself like some sort of tiny elderly Dracula looking for tea.

Seeing him in pain should have brought me immense pleasure, and it did, but it's also a new sort of scary. The best news is that now that he's flightless its only a matter of time before the millipedes get to him and this is all just another horrible, horrible memory.