LaDell Allen

     On a windy day, have you ever seen what happens to the bottle that is empty? The wind can just take it anywhere. It's funny how people are the same way. When we're empty, we'll go with anything, adapt to anyone, go anywhere. It's kind of sad, really. So when LaDell Allen blew away with the wind, go figure she blew all the way to Hell.
     Have you heard that story? If not, a great book to read would be A Haunted Love Story by Mark Spencer. He lives in the same house haunted by LaDell Allen's ghost. Even though it sounds creepy, her story is actually the most touching I've ever read. Maybe because it combines paranormal activity and forbidden love - two of my most favorite things. Or maybe my Mom is right and I am screwed up in the head.
     One day when Mr. Spencer was exploring his castle of a house, he reached the attic. Everyone knows the attics of old houses are where all the coolest things are found. Mark found the written love letters between LaDell and her secret lover, Prentiss Hemingway. These two love birds lived way back in the 1920s (also the same era of The Notebook) which is when the biggest business was oil. I guess you could say Prentiss was the Bill Gates of that time, only younger and way better looking because women practically fainted when he walked past them, or so that's how LaDell made him out to sound. She absolutely loved the man from her hair follicles to her toenails... which is why it sucked that he wasn't married to her.
     The Allen House, as it has become famous as, is located in Monticello, AK. Google up some pictures, you know you want to. It looks absolutely huge and my boyfriend said it looks haunted. It's my dream place to live. That's where all of the forbidden love took place, ya see?
     Prentiss grew up in Monticello but moved away with his mother to the bigger cities when she got into fashion (This also the same time period as Coco Chanel!). Though LaDell and Prentiss hadn't officially met before he moved away, they met when he returned to Monticello to cure a bad case of nostalgia. I think it was on a train where they first exchanged glances and then ended up exchanging saliva. He was in town for the better part of the summer and they began to court. Real old-fashioned, romantic stuff. He took her out on the town, sat on the front porch talking with her until the late hours of the night, and he kissed her with tender lips every time he had to leave. The problems arose when he had to head back to the big city and leave LaDell behind. They lost touch, like majorly. She married a Bonner and he married some floozy who was only in touch with the numbers in his bank account. The real tragedy begins when Prentiss heads back to Monticello for some business and runs into LaDell again - whose husband had recently passed and son had moved away. She was alone and empty and I guess she saw Prentiss and was reminded of the almost teenaged relationship they'd had before. Of course he was able to sweep her away again. She knew he was married, don't try to think she didn't. And, back then, carrying on with a married man was Social Suicide. She did her best to keep it a secret - even from her own mother. Prentiss and LaDell exchanged love letters through the snail mail and visited secretly sometimes. She would go to the big cities on shopping sprees and he would come to Monticello for 'business' aka pleasure.
     On Christmas Eve, after two years of her being the mashed potatoes on the side, LaDell had finally had enough. She wrote her final letter to Prentiss and sent it through the mail. At her mother's Christmas party, she stole an entire tray of cheese and a glass of wine. She washed her last meal down with cyanide. She didn't leave a note to her mother. They just found her rotted body the next morning and time moved on. Who knows how the letters got hidden under floor boards in the attic?
     Ladies, take this as a lesson. If you're the mashed potatoes, don't think he's gonna leave the chicken for you. Get out before he kicks you out because, to him, you are only temporary.

My Kind of Crazy

Tonight, the eve of my boyfriend and I's second month of courting, was probably the best night I've ever spent with any single person. You always see those super romantic things that those couples do in all the chick flick-y movies but outside the TV screen, you don't really hear of them. Tonight, Wesley and I took a walk through a beautiful summer meadow... in the pouring rain. The path was covered in puddles, the trees were dripping raindrops, and our hands were slipping apart  in the downpour. We took refuge under this porch roof of an on-property smokehouse. He sat on this firewood box and I sat on the ground between his legs and I remember looking around and seeing no one else. The rain, the crickets chirping, the sun setting, the puddles, the mud - it was all just for us, our own private scene of perfection. And as the acidic rain softened our skin and curled our hair, I knew with each glance at his soft blue eyes that this evening was ours and no one could take it from us. When our lips finally met, I knew he was The One.

Now that the Yuck Fest is over, you'll be glad to know that Wes and I  aren't always like this... so don't expect Taylor Swift entries too often. But, when it happens,  I'll be sure to let you know,  that way you lady readers know what you deserve and you gentleman readers know what you should be doing.

Mr. Right

Whenever I was in eighth grade, I met the coolest cat ever. Of course I had a crush on him. Every morning in homeroom, I'd stare at him until he  blushed. Apparently that wasn't enough evidence for him to figure out that I was diggin him. Oh well. I daydreamed about being his girlfriend each day in middle school and now I get to live it each day and instead daydream about marrying him. I get that we're still just two teenagers in puppy love but damn I wanna marry this kid!

For those of you out there struggling, thinking Mr. Right isn't out there or maybe your thinking he's too far out of your reach... don't lose hope. Hes in the last place you'll ever look.

Word Count: 507

     Word to the wise: Never ask a girl why she likes her boyfriend. She’ll probably get a childish grin across her face and won’t shutup for the next few hours. Most girls can go on for hours and name more reasons than they have hair follicles about why their boyfriend is so much better than anyone else’s. Most girls... But I’m not one of those.

                When someone asks you ‘Why?’, your answer begins with ‘Because…’. What did English class teach you about this word? It’s a conjuction whose meaning is ‘for the reason of; due to the fact that…’. In Layman’s terms: When you hear the word ‘Because’, you’re about to get an excuse or a reason. You’re about to get an explanation to justify someone’s actions, thoughts, or feelings. And that’s not how my heart works. I can’t give you a million excuses why I like my boyfriend. I can’t give you a hundred reasons why I like my boyfriend. My heart doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. It likes who it likes and there isn’t a damn reason why.

                So if you ask me if my boyfriend is cute, I’m going to say yes – because he is. If you ask me if he makes me smile, I’m going to say yes – because he does that, too. He also has one of the best playlists I’ve ever heard, he’s smooth without even trying, he gives the best hugs, and I adore his curls. These aren’t reasons why I like him. These are additives, extras, bonuses, things that make liking him even better. I don’t like him because he has blonde curls that I can run my fingers through. If that would be true, I wouldn’t feel the same way if he cut his hair.

                If you have to base your feelings for someone on physical characteristics, material possessions, or even on anything at all, you probably don’t have any real feelings at all. If you have to back your love up with excuses or reasons, maybe you need to rethink it. People always say that there’s no such thing as falling out of love because you either still do or you never did. But there’s something everyone’s missing.  The wife that doesn’t love her high school sweetheart anymore after 12 years is probably telling the truth. Don’t call her a liar. She fell in love with the seventeen year old boy who walked her down the hallway and carried her books.  One day, she woke up and that boy was gone. He grew older, into a man who is starting to wrinkle and whither.

                So, back to the original question: Why do I like my boyfriend? Why do I want to be with him? What about him makes me want to stay? If the past four hundred seventy one words didn’t answer any of those questions, maybe I can answer with just three more. Why do I Iike my boyfriend? I just do. Plain and simple, short and sweet. I didn’t need five hundred words.

To Procreate or Not To Procreate...

     I work retail. This is a fact I have been too ashamed to admit for the longest time in my life and I think it's finally time I embrace it. Honestly, there are so many reasons why I hate it and sometimes I really wonder why I don't just quit. I've wanted to. "It's a steady job" mom says. "You need to save money" mom says. Well, I never thought a job would have as much impact on my life as this one has. In the almost ten months I've spent on those rubbery mats in front of a touchscreen cash register, I've had so many compromised ideas about life and what I thought I'd wanted. One of the main ones is having children.
     When you go out anywhere you always hear screaming kids. Always. When you're at a church, there's a kid who always cries when everyone else is silent for prayer. When you go to a basketball game or a football game, there's always one kid screaming before the end of the national anthem, ruining the whole thing. Walking through the aisles at your local walmart, there's always some brat screaming about what he or she wants mommy to buy that she just won't. They. Are. Everywhere.
     Don't get me wrong, I want kids. Or I really did at one point, at least. Garrett and I have dreamt of reproducing, screwing them up, and then growing old alone together when our children grow away from us. We even have names picked out :D But maybe we should just stick with dogs...
     A girl I went to elementary school with is graduating from our class separately because she had to drop out of school for having a baby. For the longest time, I thought I wanted that, too. I had baby fever so badly and wished that Garrett and I would accidentally have a baby but the other week, I had the best realization the planet. I really felt amazing inside after I thought this, too. The babymama was posting on Facebook about how she had just been hired for the first time and couldn't wait for her first paycheck. What is she doing with the money?

a) Buying her baby some clothes

b) saving for the baby's college    

c) getting tattoos and piercings     

     Hint: It's the last one. For real, I turn 18 in two days and I'm soooo excited to get my nose pierced and get some kind of little tattoo and just celebrate that I'm 18 finally and am old enough to do these things. I can understand why she wants these things. But if I had a baby, I would spend all my money on him/her...not putting things on my body that are COMPLETELY non-essential. For a few days after I decided I was going to do this, I felt somewhat guilty about spending money on these things but then the amazing thoughts hit me, the ones I was telling you about! I don't have a baby! So many customers have told me that having kids ties you down and that they wouldn't recommend it. They always say that. "I don't recommend it but I don't regret it". I have really started to not want kids. I'm not whatever about it anymore. I don't want them. Some of me even hopes that I'm infertile so I don't have to worry about protection in the future and won't have consequences. (Sorry to those of you out there who are infertile and are offended by my wishes).

     Honestly I'm very motherly to the friends around me and that's enough for me. I don't want to be responsible for registering a child for kindergarten and taking them to the doctor for every little thing.  I don't want to share Garrett with a baby who has half of him living inside. I don't want that. I'm reading a Nicholas Sparks book right now called The Best of Me and one of the main characters and his wife were unable to have children and these characters were so in love and romantic. I know I shouldn't hold Garrett to the standards of a Nicholas Sparks book because that just isn't fair but I can't help it. I can't help feeling that Garrett and I's future marriage will be stronger without kids.

     So, readers, if you disagree and would like to convince me to be Pro-Procreating, let me know. Until then, I'll let you know if something else changes my mind.