Ghost ghost

Day 05 – Your definition of love, in great detail

Love is forgiving someone, not just for his or her sake, but because you couldn’t possibly live if you didn’t.

Day 04 – What you ate today, in great detail

At breakfast, I scrounged and scraped the bottom of the big metal serving dish to retrieve what was left of the cheese-less scrambled eggs. Disappointed and near tears, I had no choice but to take some of the cheesy eggs. I included some honeydew on my plate in hopes that it would ease the pain. The eggs were dry and tasteless. The cheese folded over on my tongue like melting plastic, its scent bitter and caustic as I gingerly ground the chunks between my teeth. In desperation to feel some sort of fulfillment before I had to face the horrors of the day, I quickly devoured my under-ripe melon bits. It left me cold and wanting. I walked to theory with a heavy heart.

For lunch, I had egg salad for the fifth time in the past three days. I gingerly placed it into a whole wheat pita with two slices of tomato and some pale, watery beans, all the while cursing my need for protein. A smattering of pineapple chunks littered the other half of my plate. With every bite of my egg salad, despair rose and expanded from its dank dwelling in the pit of my stomach until I could feel it pushing at the roof of my mouth, like a beast lying in wait. In hindsight, this may have been indigestion. In my dissatisfaction, I wandered into the serving area once more and sought out something to put on my sandwich that would make it less lifeless and depressing. What I found was yellow mustard. It ran, watery and useless, over the ridges of the egg whites like jaundiced tears. I am dead inside.

At dinner, there was display of cheeses of the world. I took a bit of everything along with a slice of whole wheat bread. Surely, the dining commons could not ruin foreign cheeses!
I sorely underestimated their deviant prowess.
After nibbling at the various slices on my plate, I cast it away into the rubbish bin in overwhelming anger and fetched a bowl of granola with almond milk and a small plate of mashed potatoes. These, too, were quickly abandoned. I could no longer bear to look at the culinary monstrosities before me, and I pushed them away. Nearly crippled with anguish, I gathered bits of pale and frightened pineapple on a small dish, but these, too, caused me nothing but pain. As I left the dining commons, my footsteps fell a little heavier, a little more hopeless, as they do after every meal.

I’m going to die here.

Day 03 – Your parents, in great detail

My mom is just a bit shorter than I am. She is ten pounds heavier than I am, but looks ten pounds lighter (which baffles and angers me). When she was my age, she weighed 97 lbs. I compare myself to her when it comes to weight. She likes dogs, compliments, her mother, and having a good reputation. In arguments, she is passive aggressive. She is good at cooking, sewing, and taking care of the elderly. She does not know why I am angry all the time.

My dad is, probably, an inch or two under six feet. He seemed a lot taller when I was little, so in my head, he’s still really seven or eight feet tall. He is a Tae Kwon Do grandmaster. In high school, he was a drum major in the marching band. He played the trumpet. He likes soccer, sugarless foods, having a good reputation, and feeding my little dog. In arguments, he is aggressive. He is good at sports, carrying heavy things, and having a mustache. He does not know how to work the coffee machine.

Day 02 – Your first love, in great detail

I guess that would be this boy I met in third grade? We dated from fifth grade through sixth grade. Well, now that I’ve typed that, I realize that that’s really stupid and I know we weren’t really in love, and he was too tall anyway (I was just under five feet in those days, and he was quickly closing in on six feet, which is a height difference I wouldn’t mind so much now, but holding hands is always awkward when it feels like you’re holding hands with your dad and you’re young enough to remember what that actually feels like).

Anyway, I called him my first love. I was a total tomboy in third grade, and I’d hang out with him and two other boys during recess and lunch. Our interactions mostly consisted of playing tag and putting mustard on our pizza to gross everyone else out (though it does taste pretty good). We had different teachers in fourth grade, but in fifth grade, we MET YET AGAIN. There was a dance for the fifth graders scheduled for the end of the year, and he asked me to go with him. In November. I rolled my eyes and told him to ask me again in May. Then I felt bad and somehow we wound up talking on the phone for three hours every day, which was really cute, because at the beginning of the phone calls, he would be all, “I have something to say, but I’m not gonna say it until before we hang up,” and I’d be all, “Should I just hang up now? I can call back?” and he’d go, “NO!’ and then right as we had to hang up, he’d mutter really fast, “Iloveyou.”
Right, and we went to the dance together, except he refused to dance.

He was my first kiss. We were playing truth or dare in the cafeteria in sixth grade and I was dared to kiss him, but I chickened out and held it off until the last day of the year, when I just put my mouth on his and it was awkwardly tongue-filled, which I really didn’t mind at the time, but I do now.
We broke up that summer. I liked someone else (though that’s definitely not the excuse I told him). Yeah, I’ve always been a tramp, having crushes on boys right and left. Oh boy, will I ever be tamed?

Fun fact: In fifth grade, we made plans to go to junior prom together in high school. Six years later, after junior prom, we wound up on the phone again after not talking for years, and he told me that he’d remembered the promise and would have asked me to go, but his girlfriend would probably have thrown a fit. And then there might have been some sexting. I don’t know. It was a long time ago. And as I said, tramp.

I’m just going to stop, now.

Day 01 – Introduce yourself

MY NAME IS LAUREN. You can call me Elcho, El Cho, El, or Mental.
I’m not great at anything, but I’m good at a whole bunch (I spread my potential too thinly while growing up and have failed to master just one thing). I’m good at being inappropriate and pretending I’m not anxious. I’m also good at singing things wrong and belting when it is completely unnecessary and potentially damaging. I’m good at drawing shoulders and waking up early.
I am not good at paying attention. I am not good at smiling without looking like an idiot. I don’t know how to flirt or walk prettily or dance, unless I am taught choreography. I also fail at eating (I always mess up my portions).
I like salty foods too much and usually forget to look both ways before crossing the street (I look one way, though).

I am very open about my problems. Some people think I’m trying to flaunt them or something, I’m sure, but I just don’t like having to act one way then having to explain what’s going on, on my bad days. I’m a lot better these days, though.

I don’t know what else to say. There’s not much to me. Um um um. Bye.

Anonymous asked: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[opens legs] Proceed!