Before I start, there's probably two things you're wondering about. First of all, I used to write the names of all the guys I liked in the back of my diary... so that's what I meant when I said I didn't like Richard "enough to write his name in the back". Secondly, I guess I went through a phase when I called myself "Batman". Yes, I had moved on from Supergirl to Batman. I don't understand or remember why.
Okay, now that that's out of the way...
I'll leave Craig something in my will??? Where did that come from? What does that even mean? I like him, I want him back... so I'll leave him something in my will. That will SURELY win him over... once I'm dead. WTF?
And then Mike and Kara started dating and I gave up on Mike just like that. I guess I must not have liked him that much after all. Well, clearly, considering my only basis for liking him was that he was nice to me at the dance.
I first met Richard in 4th grade when my math teacher introduced him to the class. As the new kid, he was a big deal because he had just moved from Australia which meant two things:
Since Australia's seasons are opposite ours, he was on summer break from school back in Australia but when he moved here, had to start up classes right away, cutting his vacation short. Bummer.
He had a cool accent. Which was super rare in our town. That is, unless you count the kid in 7th grade that my friend Jaime said had a cute accent, but I didn't have the heart to tell her that really, he just had a speech impediment and couldn't say his r's.
Anyhow, when Richard was introduced to us in 4th grade, show-and-tell-style, my friend Stephanie whispered to me, "Ohmygosh, his accent is soooo sexy." I was like, "Um, yeah. It sure is!" Yeah right, I was 10 years old, I didn't know what the hell "sexy" was. Nothing was "sexy" to me. I couldn't have described "sexy" at that age if you would have asked me to. But I just played along because I figured if she used that word, she must have known what she was talking about.
Three years later, even though Richard's Australian accent was long gone, I was starting to see the attraction. I still wouldn't have used the word "sexy", but instead "slightly cute and funny". --- “11-27-96 Dear Yraid, The day after I wrote this entry I couldn’t ask Mike out. Why? Because he asked Kara out. They’ve been going out since then. I don’t like Mike anymore. I still love Craig. I want him back. I need him back. I’ll leave him something in my will. Okay? Anyhow, I want to ask him out again but I don’t want to beg. We’ve been pretty good friends since the breakup. I HEART CRAIG! I kinda like Richard. He’s slightly cute & he’s funny. I don’t like him enough to write his name in the back. He might be too weird for me though. I noticed today that his first and last initials are the same as Riders! Maybe we’re destined for each other! -Batman”
Ten points if you saw that one coming. Just kidding- because I think we could all tell that Craig wasn't my soul mate. So actually, negative ten points if you didn't see that one coming. But thank you for being such an optimist.
How crappy is that? My only goal was to date Craig longer than Jessica... for 2 weeks 1 day. Instead Craig dumped me after exactly two weeks. Yup, I'd say he planned it. Seems like Craig had a two week limit. I'm sure his technique was to date a girl just long enough to shut her (and their annoying friends) up.
Would people really criticize me if I said, "I LOVE RIDER" while dating Craig for a couple days? Would Craig really be threatened by the (remote) possibility of me running off with a TGIF sitcom star? In my adult life, I have never been shy about swooning over celebrity crushes (Josh Hartnett, Jude Law, Gavin DeGraw, etc.) in front of boyfriends. And ya know what, I don't think anyone ever had a problem with it. If they did, it would have just revealed some intense insecurities that I wouldn't have wanted to deal with anyhow.
Hopefully my next middle school relationship will last longer and be more interesting!
--- “11-14-96. Dear Yraid, Craig dumped me! When we were walking back from lunch he said to me, “Can we just be friends?” That’s all I remember, the rest was a blur. The last thing I remember him saying was, “you’re not going to go off somewhere crying now are you?” I told him probably not, which was a lie cause my eyes got all watery & I couldn’t concentrate in Social Studies. When I got home, I ran up to my room & burst into tears. How could he do this, how could he lie? It was like he planned it. Today was our 2 week anniversary. Why did he have to dump me on such a happy day? We went out for exactly 2 weeks, 1 hour, and 21 minutes. Whoa! Weird, look 2121! That is now my official favorite number 2121. Backwards it is 1212 so my favorite time now is 12:12. Call me weird, but I still like Craig. I’m also kind of (not really) happy he dumped me. Why? Because I noticed that we are way different & in this case – opposites don’t attract! Well, see ya! Boyfriendless, Krista P.S. Boyfriendless is a good feeling. I feel free now! I can say I HEART RIDER! And no one will care. P.P.S. I’m having a birthday party on the 22nd. 2121!”
So, the other day I received an email request from my friend Shea.
She recently came across an old literary journal from college that I had contributed to and noticed the biographical statement that I had written for myself:
"Krista is a senior computer science major from Erie, PA. The first poem she wrote was an ode to Shawn Hunter from Boy Meets World in fifth grade. Also, her favorite food is cheese."
Shea requested that I post that very first poem here, on my blog.
Lucky for Shea (and for the rest of you), I still have the original copy of that poem. Enjoy...
My biggest problem with this poem is... aside from being a word that rhymes with "Rider", what the hell is a "guider"? And how is it different from a "guide"? And how did Rider Strong personally guide... err... guider me? Did he send me secret messages in my sleep? Did I watch episodes of Boy Meets World looking for signs... maybe in the way he ran his hand through his hair? At night, did I kneel next to my bed and pray to Rider Strong? I don't get it.
I do also love that it was qualified with "all-time". As if there was a Hall of Fame for "guiders". Awesome.
As a final note: I'm pretty sure I snail mailed this poem to Rider Strong as fan mail back in the day. I wonder what he thought of this masterpiece. He never did write back. :(
--- Rider Strong by: Krista
I love you Rider, My all time guider.
I’m the one you never knew, Rider I’ll always love you.
You’re the only one I love, You’re the one I’m writing of.
You are so cute There’s nothing more, I’m loving you in ’94
Hell yeah my middle school had skylights. It was built just a year or two before I started sixth grade there. Everything was still new. New computers, new lab equipment, new shop class machines, dry-erase white boards instead of chalk boards. I think there were trees built into the ground in the hallways... unless I'm making that up (it's hard to remember back 13 years). There was even an iguana habitat with a waterfall near the principal's office. And I swear, I know I'm not making that one up. Our lunches were just as terrible as every other school's, but regardless, we were definitely the spoiled middle school in the district.
So, did anyone see that coming? Me liking Doug again? After promising for the 600th time that I would never like him again? Ugh. My love life was like a broken record.
It's funny how turned off I was by facial hair thirteen years ago. Nowadays, I think I prefer a little scruff on a man. Hairless guys are creepy. Doubly creepy if they also have attached earlobes. Just an observation.
I can't even relate to people with naturally perfect teeth. Or people with perfect eyes either. Or perfect skin! If natural selection applied to humans, I probably wouldn't be alive today. My weak crooked-toothed farsighted dry-skinned ancestors would have been killed off long ago.
Every time I look at pictures of myself pre-braces, I am reminded of how much orthodontia has changed my life. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration but I am pretty sure I would be a completely different person today if I still had that mangled mess of misplaced teeth in my head. My first kiss probably would have been delayed at least 10-15 years and I may not even have friends. And I wouldn't laugh as often or own mirrors. I hated having braces for six freaking years, but it was definitely worth it. The worst part though was when they took my braces off sometime in sixth grade for a few months... just to give me a break or tease me or have an excuse to bill my parents more or something... and then - SURPRISE - put the braces back on for another two years. Which in middle school felt like a lifetime. But in the end, like I said, it was worth it. So... thanks Mom and Dad for investing in my smile! Laaaaaaaame, I know. But for real, thank you. :)
Okay, I admit, I only posted this entry because it has a funny picture. And because of that, I don't really have anything on which to comment. Sorry! Hope you like the drawing!
Ahhhhahahahha I don't know what is funnier. My sister naming her pet fish after our neighbor Jim (the one who was both cute and ugly at the same time) or me naming my fish after my favorite radio station. Or maybe the funniest part of all of it is the fact that neither of these names struck me as weird at the time.
It was just like... Duh, of course Kasey would name her pet after our teenage neighbor who we never actually talked to, just admired when he was outside mowing the lawn or whatever else teenage boys do. Can you imagine if he knew he had a fish named after him? Would he have found that endearing or creepy?
And wow, I was so obsessed with listening to the radio that I named a pet after my favorite radio station. Now do you see why I was all about making my own radio shows? I thought DJs were the shit. It's so sad that today, just thirteen years later, radio is dying... so much so that they now play commercials on the radio promoting listening to the radio. Talk about preaching to the choir. Anyhow, my point is, it's sad that now kids probably don't have half the appreciation I had for radio. And it's crazy how quickly technology changes and the impact it has. Damn you Internet. I hate it, but I love it.
Don't believe me about those radio-promoting radio commercials? You can listen to them here.
"There's a boy in my house. YES!!!" is a reference to the mid-90's movie Casper. Remember? It starred Christina Ricci and an animated ghost who in the end temporarily became real and danced with Christina. As I remember it, Casper and Christina were just friends when Casper was still a ghost, but when he turned into the dreamy Devon Sawa, just like any other pre-teen girl at the time, she fell in love with him. How depressing though: you fall in love with a dead guy, he comes back to life just long enough for you make out a little, and then he becomes a freaking ghost again. Ugh. Glad I've never run into that problem.
So anyhow, at some point near the beginning of the movie, Christina Ricci and her dad move into a haunted house and Christina chooses Casper's old bedroom as her own. I guess all the old furniture was still there (weird) because when Casper saw Christina in his bedroom, he said, "There's a girl... on my bed... YES!" Kinda naughty for a kids movie, but whatev. So that's what my quote was in reference too.
Also, I gotta point out my usage of "as shole". I wonder how long it will be until the swear words just start flowing freely instead of being cleverly misspelled...
Oh Waldameer. Good ol' Waldameer. For those of you who don't know, Waldameer is an amusement park in Erie, PA. I use the term "amusement park" loosely because Waldameer consists mostly of what most people would consider permanent fair rides. Think of all the shitty rides you see at any county fair... just built slightly sturdier and cemented into the ground. And at Waldameer, you don't have to worry about the rides being disassembled and taken away at the end of the weekend... you can count on them always being there. When I was growing up, the best rides at Waldameer were the Scrambler, Tilt-A-Whirl, Paratrooper, Sea Dragon, and Whacky Shack. The sole roller coaster was older than my parents... so I think you can imagine how thrilling that was.
Even though my description of the park sounds disappointing, I used to love going to Waldameer. I'm pretty sure it's a huge part of every young Erieite's childhood. Every school held a picnic at Waldameer at the beginning of summer. People had birthday parties and family reunions at the park. I'd say in an average summer, I'd go to Waldameer at least twice a month. And although I think most of the rides are lame now, I couldn't get enough of them back then.
There have been a lot of changes to the park since I was a kid and Thunder River, I think, was the first big step in the right direction. Waldameer had always built a new ride every year, but they were usually just new fair-type rides. Borrring. But Thunder River was a big jump. It was by far the biggest and most modern ride in the park. It replaced the previous 1920s-built log flume whose highlight was a pathetic four foot drop... which actually was slightly exciting because by the time you got to it, you had been floating along for what seemed like 30 minutes travelling at a slower pace than the average walking speed of someone who was also born in the 1920s.
So now you understand my EXTREME excitement over the addition of Thunder River.
Since Thunder River, Waldameer has continued to add more exciting rides which I'm always surprised to see in the "lame" park I grew up with... including three new roller coasters (one which is legitimately kickass).
I could go on and on with memories of Waldameer (throwing up after riding the Paratrooper in 5th grade; my best friend Meghan, fully aware of my motion sickness, leaning all her weight into the side of our Tilt-A-Whirl car while innocently claiming she had no idea why we were spinning so fast; winning a stuffed animal lion from a midway game and naming it after Rider Strong; my sister getting kicked out of the park for spitting from the Sky Ride; frantically running around the carousel to claim the awesomest "horse" which was actually a dragon; the delicious french fries from the Potato Patch)... but I think this entry is long enough!
P.S. "I LIKE Pauly Shore!" Hahaha. Where the hell did that come from? I was probably watching too much Encino Man again...
I haven't made a list recently and at an impressive 6 pages, this entry definitely needs one.
1. For some reason, that night at Grandma's, we had to sleep on the hardwood dining room floor. I can't remember why we couldn't sleep in the upstairs bedroom. It might have had something to do with the fact that one time when we stayed there previously, Kasey and I pulled a bunch of the "bumps" off the egg crate mattress pad and blamed it on each other. Anyhow, we were sleeping on the floor and that's how the big black carpenter ant so easily crawled in my sleeping bag. I don't know what I was so scared of. I probably imagined waking up completely covered in ants or suffocating from ant inhalation. Yuck.
2. I love how I always wrote that Doug and I were "| | this close". I remember wondering while writing these entries if that was an accurate representation of how far apart we were. I mean, that distance looks pretty small on paper, but when you think about it in real life, Doug and I would be REALLY close. We might as well have been touching. So I'd wonder if we were actually whole inches apart. But then I'd think... even though it might be more accurate when translated to real life, writing "we were | | this close" comes across on paper as a bigger distance than it actually is when translated to real life... and it wastes a lot of paper. So I decided to stick with "| |" because accurate or inaccurate, it gets the point across.
3. I asked Suzy to break up with Doug? Doesn't that violate some kind of girl code? You're not supposed to like or date a friend's ex, let alone a friend's current boyfriend! In my defense though, I did like him first. Ha. So there. No but really, can you imagine crushing on your friend's b/f now and being like, "Hey, do you think you could dump your man? I'd like to date him. Thanks." Yeah, that'd go over well...
4. "He said he didn't like me a while ago, like Wednesday." In sixth grade, apparently a "while" was 3 days.
5. Dammit. I started liking Doug again. Honestly, had I ever really stopped?
Last I mentioned it, I didn't like Doug anymore. So why was I now trying so hard to convince myself that he liked me?
A friend of mine made the observation today... how could I think Doug was such a good friend when he was always reminding me how much he hated me? Well, you have to remember, this was at a time where nothing really made much sense. A lot of times, kids would pretend they hated their crush-- especially if they were embarrassed to admit it. And in sixth grade, "flirting" usually meant being mean to the person you liked. So when Doug was mean to me, even if he really did mean it maliciously, I instead assumed he was flirting... and it only encouraged me more.
Don't worry folks... we definitely will read my next diary... starting tomorrow.
Of all my diaries, Diary #3 (aka "AB" for reasons you will soon find out) is by far the most... interesting. Perhaps not necessarily in content, but definitely in writing style. Let's just say it lacks no creativity. You'll see what I mean.
Anyhow, in more modern news, I'd like to take a minute to bitch about the two and a half hours I just spent in the kitchen cooking Pierogi Lasagna. It's currently cooling on the stove... so I have yet to taste how it turned out. But I ate so much Easter candy in the meantime, that I'm not even all that hungry anymore.
I was intrigued by the half-Polish half-Italian description (as well as the 2 pounds of cheese and 3/4 cups butter) and undaunted by the warning that it's time consuming. Ha. She wasn't kidding.
It probably wouldn't have taken me quite so long if I hadn't had issues with my stockpot. First of all, I only have one stockpot-- which means I had to cook the lasagna noodles first... then the potatoes. Not a big deal... except for the fact that my stockpot is from the discount grocery store and leaks from its handle's screw holes.
Side story of why I'm stuck with that crappy stockpot anyhow... One night during dinner with my old roomie Julie... ME: Julie, did you put pepper in these mashed potatoes? JULIE: No... ME: What's all this black stuff? JULIE: Um... ME: Did you use the hand mixer in the non-stick stockpot? JULIE: Yep.
In fear of getting cancer from the peeling non-stick coating, we threw out that ruined stockpot (after taking our chances just once and hungrily finishing our Teflon-laced mashed potatoes first). And, well, I haven't gotten around to buying a new pot yet because I'm lazy, cheap, and this one typically works well enough.
Well tonight it was streaming water from the handle. So I could either let the water drip out slowly and sizzle on the burner or stand there and plug the hole with a dishtowel. Fun.
And to make the situation worse, somehow I managed to burn (and I mean burn) lasagna noodles to the bottom of it too. Before I could cook the potatoes, I had to scrub the crap out of that f-er. So yeah, I'm not too happy right now. This better be the most delicious thing I have ever consumed in my life. I guess we'll see...
---
I must say, the Pierogi Lasagna was pretty darn good. Not the tastiest thing ever but pretty yummy. I still haven't decided if it was worth the time though. I think if I were to make it again, I'd probably add a sprinkling of bacon. Mmmm. Not that it wasn't unhealthy enough already... haha.
The entry when Rachel accused me of not taking things seriously is here. So stupid.
I don't understand the crush on Joe. I was 12 years old, Joe lived in Wisconsin and we didn't have email, or Facebook, or cell phones (did you notice Doug wrote to Joe? That was snail mail folks). Joe was pretty much lost and gone forever. My crush on him was about as realistic as my crush on Rider Strong.
At least I wasn't the only one who naively liked Joe. I'm surprised Meghan and I didn't get in a fight over who had the bigger crush on a guy neither of us would ever see again.
Ouch. 2.7! After that crushing blow, I momentarily gave up on Doug to pursue the first guy who came along who may have actually liked me. Who said anything about standards? And never mind the fact that Joe lived in Wisconsin. He considered me a 7.5! Hells yeah, relatively speaking.
In 12YOMe's defense, I did think Joe was cute before I found out he rated me 7.5.
Ugh, who knows what that fight was with Rachel. That doesn't even make sense. I'm sure it started out as a little argument and then escalated when we realized that yelling would get other people's (boys) attention. Drama queens. But I guess it worked. Oh and sorry for the confusion, that was a different Joe who cheered me up after the fight.
Finally, if you didn't catch the altered version of an already obscure reference at the beginning of the entry... "Hellooooo Doctor!" was my take on the phrase "Hellooooo Nurse!" from Animaniacs... which was a pretty awesome cartoon from 1993-1995 if you don't recall.
What I wrote at the end there gets a little small... so if you can't read it, it says: "I think Rider is the best person on Earth. I heart Rider King Strong! We are going to Disney in 13 days! I didn't mention this yet, but my party was great!"
Uh oh, Kristin's mom walked around the mall with us. You know what that means... no Spencer's!
I looked up the episode of Boy Meets World that I would have been talking about... the one where Rider Strong was "looking so hot" and "acting so cool"... and I've gotta tell ya, I don't see the attraction. A matter of fact, Shawn and Cory are wearing cheerleader outfits in the beginning of it. I'm so confused. I will admit though, Rider did have some pretty awesome hair. Even my hair today doesn't look as good as his did then.
It should come as no surprise...When a guy asks you about another girl, don't you think it's pretty safe to assume he likes that girl-- not you? To me now, that seems completely logical... but I guess it was a new lesson I'd have to learn the hard way in sixth grade.
It's no surprise that I named a fish after Rider Strong. And Christina Ricci was my favorite actress at the time (because of Casper and Now and Then). I used to be fascinated with Ancient Egypt, so that explains the fish King Tut. I'm guessing Charlie is from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I'm not sure. However, I have no idea why I had a fish named Pillsbury Doughboy.
At first, I was completely puzzled by the fish named "Mockolate" too. But after some googling, I found it's from an episode of Friends that first aired on November 16, 1995 (the day before I named the fish!). On the show, Monica had to create recipes with a disgusting synthetic chocolate substitute called "Mockolate". I only vaguely remember the episode now but I must have thought it was hysterical at the time.
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