Rob

* Actually, I double-checked and I can't find any prior mention of Rob in this diary. Odd.

Dance aftermath

So after the dance, I guess I planned to ask Doug if he liked dancing with Rachel...


If you can't read it, the really small writing on the first page says, "I didn't know they really had a relationship!"

I think the thing I like most about this entry is how fluidly I transition from explaining real-life drama to TV sitcom drama. On second thought, I also like "Ouch! That hurt (I mean my insides or feelings)." Oh and the fact that my mom taped Boy Meets World for me on VHS too. That is so 1995.

First Middle School Dance

Ohhhh middle school dances. What awkward events they were. Girls would spend most of their time begging boys to dance with them, and if the boy said no, the girl would spend the rest of the dance bawling by the bleachers. My friend's mom once commented after a night of chaperoning that she could make a fortune selling tissues to crying girls at middle school dances. I remember undefensively agreeing with her because I thought that since she was trying to profit off of it instead of put a stop to it, she was acknowledging that it was totally normal for myself and other girls to cry over boys in public. And so we continued to cry...

Meanwhile, who knows what the boys were doing. Probably trying to fend off the girls, regretting their decision to come to the dance, and waiting impatiently to get picked up by their parents. I wonder how Doug and other guys explained the holes in their shirts when their moms did laundry later.

While all this drama was going on, was anyone even paying attention to the music and realizing that some of the songs the DJ was playing would forever be among the most perverted songs we've heard in our lifetime?

"Step back you're dancing kinda close. I feel a little poke coming through on you."

"If you're horny, let's do it. Ride it, my pony."

Seriously? They let us listen to this? It's a good thing I probably didn't even know what these songs meant at the time. I'm just glad that I only remember kids slow dancing at these dances. I don't have any memories of kids grinding at middle school dances... and thank god because thinking about 12 year olds dancing like that now really freaks me out.

First Day of 6th Grade

Middle school was a big jump from elementary school for me (and for most kids, I'm sure). At first, one of the most interesting things to me was finally getting to ride a school bus. My family lived close enough to the elementary school that I had always walked to school before.

The way I saw it, kids who rode the bus were in some kind of secret society. They got picked up at the end of their street and chauffeured to school (instead of walking half a mile in the lake-effect snow). They would always tell stories about the crazy thing so-and-so did on the bus that morning. And if they were really lucky, they would get to miss homeroom because their bus was late. To me, a school bus was less along the lines of public transportation and more along the lines of a prom night limo.

It didn't take me very long to realize I hadn't been missing out on much. I had Caroline, the bus driver from hell. She would only play the country music station and would frequently pull the bus over to yell at us for being too loud or switching seats... basically for just being kids. My friend Mike would record her rants on his Talkboy and we would devise grand schemes to get her fired. But it never happened. After my experience with Caroline, bus riding lost its glamour for good.

Oh I should also explain that at my middle school, each grade was divided into two "companies" each with their own teachers. So that's what I mean when I say that someone is in the "other company".

Finally, I can't leave without commenting on the fact that I was distraught over liking an actual guy that I knew over a celebrity. I couldn't possibly like someone I interacted with on a daily basis more than a TV sitcom actor, could I?! Gosh, diary, what WAS wrong with me?

Stitches

It gets pretty illegible at the end there... it says: I had to go to the hospital and get stitches. ouch! The cut is on my thumb. It really hurts. So I don't get an infection, I need to wear a band-aid. I have to change it now so-- bye!

I suffered seven stitches in my right thumb. It wasn't all that bad compared to the time in first grade when I fell off my bike, skidded on my chin, and had to get 14 stitches (7 inside, 7 outside). Apparently the skin was hanging off my chin so severely that the bone was showing. Yuck. But at least that time I was trying to do something awesome (go super-fast down a hill without pedaling)... this time all I was trying to do was open a can of tuna fish. Lame. Sure doesn't make for a very good scar story.

Summer Camp

Sorry some of the first page got cut off and I'm too lazy to re-scan it. Where it says "hot ba for 5¢", it really says "hot balls". It must have been an important detail of summer camp since I wrote it at the time, right?
I know it had been awhile since I wrote about Lars, so the fact I was so intimidated about possibly seeing him at summer camp might seem surprising. But I guess I failed to mention in my diaries that Lars only went to my elementary school for 4th grade. So, really, at the time of this writing, I hadn't seen him in over a year. And I felt running into an old crush after all that time would be awkward.

I know I didn't make the stomata conversation very clear, but if you haven't figured it out already, Will said, "You say stomata, I say stomayta." Haha. Very witty for a 5th grader!

I *suck* at sports

I have LOTS to say about this one... First of all, sports and I have never gotten along very well. And I don't mean just ball-throwing sports or just ball-kicking sports or just sports that involve water. I mean all sports.

My 5th grade inter-elementary school basketball team (mentioned in the entry above) went on to win the championship, finish the season with a perfect record, and may have served as my first "glory days" experience of my young life... but my association with this winning team was mere coincidence and luck.

Sure I "almost scored" that one time, but that's the closest I ever came. More distinctly than that, I remember the time I dribbled myself into a corner and panicked while members of the opposing team surrounded me like vultures. Too small and scared to turn around and push through them, I was trapped and there was nothing I could do. Due to the friendly rule preventing players from hitting the ball out of another person's hand, there was nothing the other team could do either. The longer I kept control of the ball, the more humiliating it became. Eventually I closed my eyes and chucked the ball backwards over my head hoping someone on my team would recover it. And that pretty much defined my "here, you take it" attitude towards sports that I've had ever since.

My parents always offered the encouraging reward: "We'll take you to Dairy Queen if you score a goal/run/basket/fill_in_the_blank!"... but soccer, softball, basketball, golf, tennis, swimming... I tried 'em all and never got that Dairy Queen. Except for maybe at the end of a season as consolation.

I have always sucked at sports. Which brings me to my next point: the very word "suck".

On this particular day, the teacher was explaining that we were going to take a standardized test soon and one of the topics was going to be social studies. I mumbled to myself, "Ugh, I suck at social studies." The teacher heard me and asked me to repeat myself. I casually reiterated, "I said I suck at social studies."

"THAT IS NOT APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE FOR THE CLASSROOM! GO TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE RIGHT NOW."

I was thoroughly confused. I was not aware that I said anything inappropriate. As I was walking to the principal's office, I kept repeating over and over again in my head the only five swear words I knew existed at the time ("HellAssShitBitchFuck")... and "suck" was definitely not on the list. Then the principal threw me off even more with his stern speech and pitying questions like, "Does your family talk this way at home?"

Through all this, never was it explained to me why "suck" was such a bad word to begin with. All I learned was that even though lots of kids (and even some adults) used the word, saying "suck" could somehow be offensive to somebody somewhere. My new fuzzy knowledge of this supposedly vulgar word was as useless to me as the time a few years earlier when my friend Jennifer's mother told our Brownie Girl Scout troop that we shouldn't play with troll dolls because, well, "look up troll in the dictionary and you'll see why."

Since what I did wrong was never explained, the punishment wasn't very effective. I, my fellow classmates, and everyone else in the modern world continues to use the *awful* word.

So ha, I still suck at social studies. Oh, and sports too of course.

Babysitting on Good Friday

Michael is my brother and he would have been five years old at the time. While I don't remember him singing the "Krista is dumb" song, I do remember him tickling me with a truck. I was kneeling next to my bed writing in my diary and he was rolling a toy truck up and down my calves. He knew it was annoying me and the more upset I got, the more he laughed. So I had to give up writing in my diary and pay more attention to him.

Unfortunately, I didn't write again later that day. Lots of good stuff in the next entry though!

Funny Hat

Wow. I think this is my favorite entry yet. It's so random, includes reasoning that makes absolutely no sense to me as an adult, and features a couple things that are sooo awesomely 1995.

1st Day of SPRING

Love was so fickle in 5th grade...

Anyone wanna make any bets on whether I actually did keep my promise to not like Doug?

POGS!

St. Patrick's Day 1995...

Like many schools at the time, my elementary school eventually banned POGs. Chronologically, this occurred after the banning of slap bracelets and prior to the banning of Tamagotchis.

Even though POGs were prohibited by the end of the school year, the teachers thought they'd redeem themselves by dreaming up the ridiculous theme "Hawaiian POG Hop" for our 5th grade graduation party. I remember the party involving tie-dye shirts, hula hoops, and POGs... but how they were related or where the "Hop" part came in, I've long since forgotten.

If you were not a child in the 90's or just want to re-live your glory days as a POG champion... here's the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogs

P.S. Oh, well thank you Wikipedia. I never knew that POGs originated in Hawaii. I guess that explains the "Hawaiian Pog Hop" theme. Hm. I wonder if I knew that at the time.

Best. Movie. Ever.

Very few events in my life were important enough to warrant taking up two whole pages.

This was one of those life-altering moments:

OMG.

Attention Whore / Drama Queen

Really? My parents took me to Imagimaze (bravely subjecting themselves to hours of stressful boredom due to the cacophony of screaming children and dearth of adult-focused entertainment)... and I thought no one cared? My parents both took the time to tell me goodnight... and still I thought no one cared? Ha. I didn't even know what it was like to really have no one care. My poor parents were busy raising three young children and trying to keep everyone happy (a task I cannot even fathom doing myself)... can you blame them for not taking more than a minute to glance at my clearly non-sprained foot? Or my barely scraped thumb? Or my bruised eye? What exactly is a bruised eye?

If something were seriously wrong, I know my parents would have had me at the ER in no time. I was just an attention whore and drama queen. I'm amazed they even put up with me.

P.S. Imagimaze was the small-town version of Discovery Zone (DZ).

My Valentines Day gift to you

Happy Valentines Day!

Guess what I found??? As promised... I actually wrote this list in high school (1999)... either late 9th or early 10th grade judging by the diary I found it in.

Rider Strong did indeed start it all! Doug (#5) is the only guy on the list that has already been mentioned in the diary entries you've read. Rob (#4) will be coming up in 6th grade entries and Richard (#2) will be introduced in 7th grade. The other guys are from high school, celebrities, or random people I barely even knew.

Happy Valentines Day to you and your favorite hairstyle. :)

Jenny Jones...?

Encino Man

Writing at the pool

I should have mentioned last time... I'm in fifth grade in the entries now...Question #1: Who brings their diary to the public pool (and writes in it there)?

Question #2: Remember drawing those chain things? Those were the shit!

I might end up marrying Rider Strong

Yes, Shawn Hunter from Boy Meets World was one of my first BIG celebrity crushes.
See? His hair does go like... that.

Rider Strong was the cause of my weakness for guys with that kind of hair. At one point, I made a list of all the guys I liked with long hair parted down the middle. I think there were over 20 guys on it. If I can find it, I'll be sure to post it. Ahh and when Rider would run his hands through his long hair on the show, 10-year-old me would swooooon. Sigh!

Actually, Scott and Hector who I also mentioned liking were also celebrity crushes.

Scott is Scott Weigner, the actor who played DJ Tanner's boyfriend Steve on Full House.

Hector was a character on Ghostwriter, played by William Hernandez... who was later on Real World Philadelphia.

Hmm... I had more crushes on famous guys than on boys I actually knew. Maybe that was part of my problem.

What I'm looking for in a boy...

My type of guy "would never turn me down"?! What does that even mean? He doesn't have to respect me or even be attracted to me... he just has to be reluctantly compliant? He has to simply surrender to my advances? Maybe a better way to say that would have been, "I'm looking for a boy who actually likes me back."

I had never encountered that before.

10th Birthday

Rock collection, silk shirt, NES game, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson cassette tapes, Love's Baby Soft perfume... what more could someone want for their birthday in 1993?!

Hygiene and fashion are VERY important

"Dear Diary, My dad said I could take my bath second but when I went upstairs, my mom said, 'Michael is going second.' Thanks a lot Mom."

Sometimes no means yes?

After not writing at all for over a year, a new crush was important enough to get me journaling again. This was written in the beginning of third grade when I was eight years old.
I'm not sure when I decided to write "NOT" and "maybe" over that entry... but I suppose that shows how fickle "love" was in third grade.

Two days later, I wrote this:
"Dear Diary, He said no but you know sometimes no means yes. I hope so!"

I hate to ruin the suspense, but I don't think Greg is ever mentioned again in future entries. I guess "no" really meant "no"!

A Visual

My friend Dave said that when he pictured me hitting my sister with a popsicle stick, he envisioned me doing it as an adult since he didn't know what I looked like when I was younger. So I sent him this picture of me and my siblings...

That's at the Erie Zoo in the spring/summer of 1991 probably, which means I was 7 years old at the time.

I'm on the left by the way. And yes, that is a hip pack.

True Love

"Dear Diary, In Kindergarten there was a boy named Andrew and me and Megan loved him but then Andrew told me that he only loved me."

Finally! An accurate date on the entry below. July 23, 1991. This was the summer after First Grade.
"My mom sent me up to my room because my sister was whining and I didn't do anything to her. Why did my mom do that?"

When my friend Michelle was over for dinner tonight, I had her take a closer look at my oldest diary entries with me. She has experience teaching kindergartners so I figured she might be able to help decipher some of the ambiguously spelled words. In the second entry I posted, the one about my preschool crush Nathan, I was never 100% sure about the last sentence. My best guess was "My hero", but that doesn't explain the three letters after that, clearly including an A and a V. Michelle explained that when kids are first starting to write phonetically, it's hard for them to figure out "Th", "Sh", and "Ch" combinations. Which explains why I used an H in place of Th multiple times... such as when I said "there was this boy", but spelled "there" "har":
By thinking that the H in the phrase above "HRO ?AV" may not have actually been a simple H sound, we finally came to the conclusion that it doesn't say "MY HERO", it actually says... "MY TRUE LOVE."

Awwwwww.

We also cheated a bit and erased some of the pencil scratches to reveal there is indeed an L under all that mess. To a 6-year-old... "HRO LAV" = "TRUE LOVE". :)

Early Angst

Oh, to be six-years-old again! To think these were the biggest problems in my life...

"Today was the day before the Daisies night and when we were cleaning the basement and we weren't cleaning, my mom said that I could not have Daisy Girl Scouts."

"Dear Diary, My mom sent me up to my room just because I hit my sister with a popsicle stick."


"Dear Diary, Tonight my Mom didn't let me have a bedtime snack."

These entries make it sound like I got punished a lot, but I'm pretty sure they were spaced out over months. And as a six-year-old, I suppose the most drama in my life was getting disciplined... so that's all I had to write about!