Finding Benedick: Diary of E. B. Brown

I suppose I should start this out with “Dear Diary”, or the days date, or something like that, but the truth is diaries really aren’t that dear to me and I make a general practice of not keeping them. I’m not generally opposed to dates, there are quite a few which I will always remember, but more often than not I ignore them. I have absolutely no idea what today’s assigned number is and nearly as much reason to remember it. Why should I go around memorizing numbers without a clear reason to do so?



My name is Emily Brown, Emily Beatrice Brown, this means that the only interesting part of my name is usually reduced to an un-intriguing letter B, which is subsequently sandwiched between my other two names and forgotten entirely. I suppose I should find this to be a natural continuance of the theme of my life, after all, most people find Emily Brown, the person, as uninteresting as the name.



I am of average height, with indeterminate brown hair and undecided hazel eyes. I am a little on the heavy side and have been for 23 years, maybe I always will be, but that is another thing entirely. I am considered “nice” looking, but nice is one of those words, you know them, words like “OK”, it hardly means anything at all. The truth is, if I could just see myself for a moment, and not actually be myself, I would think I was pretty uniform too.



The thing most people want to know about me, if anything, is where the Beatrice came from. Unfortunately, this name belonged to several Browns before me and didn’t actually come from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Oh how I wish it had! I love that play! Most especially the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick, their barbed words flash poignantly in my mind, I feel Beatrice my kin. She makes war expertly with her words, fashioning swords from sentences and clashing with her worthy opponent Benedick.