“I was so different back then” isn’t something you’ll hear from me. I wasn’t that different. Aside from the exclamation points, stonewash, and hearts, my personality is obviously the same. I found proof in my puffy purple diary from 1988. It’s so 80’s right down to my writing, “I love Peter Cetera!” Never mind the hearts, bubbly handwriting, and lipstick s.w.a.k. I re-read some of it last night as research for Fat Camp. Beyond the obvious, knowing I wanted to be a writer at such a young age, I just love how random the entry below ends (click the thumbnail to make it larger). “I don’t want to marry a doctor.” Oh dear. Then I went ahead and did it anyway, eleven years later.
And this list says it ALL:
I love how a day sucked if I had to run in gym class. Some other highlights include these “13 year old thoughts of my 29-year-old brain:”
The use of the words “boner” and “frenching”
Being excited about having a hickey
Describing sexual activity with bases (sloppy seconds)
I used exclamation points! And I never do that!!!
“I wuz frenching Jon goodnight, but because I was a half hour late for curfew, I was punished. The counselors made me act like a monkey and go through the patty wagon twice!!!”
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How incredibly like so many diary entries from my past.
Just affirms the notion that I wish I had met you sooner! Can't get enough of you!
wow- mr israel was right. :)
Wha???
I love it how everyone used to keep their diaries under lock and key when they were younger, and now you scan off a few pages and insert it into the largest information sharing database on the planet.
Alanis…THAT is the definition of 'ironic'.
Rock on Miss Stephanie!
~~(__)8>
i HATED running in gym class. i wanted to be sick those days, but could never lie enough to my mother to get out of it. plus it was part of all that 'presidential fitness' crap test. i was always the last person to finish and i would almost fall over on the ground when i finally made it across the finish line of one mile. plus i had a hot gym teacher which just made it all the more embarrassing. now i can run a 10 minute mile, at the gym anyway. go team!
I cheated when we ran the mile.
We had to collect a popsicle stick with each lap until we had four sticks (1 mile I think?). But I would stealthily take two at a time and then just act like I was extremely exhausted at the end.
Then I would still skip lunch to spend extra time beautifying in the locker room. I hated to sweat. I was a brat.
My favorite line is, "I don't think I love Barry anymore."
So good.
I love that you shared this with us. I didn't really keep a diary but my friends and I in high school kept a notebook. We'd pass the notebook around, and each one of us would write in it every class period then pass it along. I ended up with the notebook after graduation and whenever I need a laugh I have a look at it.
I absolutely love that you called your diary: "Dirty D." Weren't you freaky?
Well…it's now official in MY book. You have bollocks. To write: "I love Peter Cetera" and put it out here for everyone to see? Indeed.
That is awesome. I have my diaries still also but I'm way to embarrassed to even let someone else read them…it looks like we had the same handwriting back in the '80s. Didn't everyone?
This was such a cute post!
I remember my diary – it has scented pages and I'd end up half drunk on the smell of that and my scented pens that I would use to write every line in a different colour.
Dear Diary..
Today's episode of Family Ties was awesome! I loved Mallory's legwarmers… ;)
I think it perfectly captures agnst in the 80's. I too am 29 and was/am filled with agnst. I wonder though, how much was brought on by the fashion of the day. We dressed "cool" but I think our subconsiouses were trying to tell us we looked like a cross between a clown on LSD and a homeless individual. I mean, why does one put safety pins in their jeans?
What a sweet diary you kept! So full of innocence and passion, and a little bit sad… And my iTunes was just playing Bryan Adams' sappy ballad Inside Out.
Great post! I didn't grow up in the US,and still your diary doesn't seem alien. It could have been any one of us, here in India, in Those Days.
I may be taking a break, but I'll always be checking in here. Luv your writing, babe.
The diary itself, as opposed to the entries in it, reminds me of the ones for sale at old FW Woolworth's where I worked in High School way back when.
Stephanie have you taken my advice and gone to see "Gunner Palace"? I think it will be a good experience for you.
When you were writing the diary, how did you decide when to write "was" and when to write "wuz"?
You inspired me to dig out my diary, the one I kept between the ages of 15 and 21. Oh. My. God. I'm going to hang onto it, because it will be a handy reference when my daughters come to me asking for advice… "Hey mom, do you think it would be a good idea to go around to his house at 2am tonight and leave a bunch of dead roses on his doorstep?" "Oh, sure, honey! Hey, it worked for me! Heck, I'll even drive you over there."
I was onto something with the whole "dear" thing. I write much more honestly when I think I'm confiding in someone or something.
When I click through my 'sent' mailbox and re-read old emails to friends, where I share all the juicy tid-bits of my dates… well they're much more natural than anything you'll find here.
In fact, my earliest posts were originally written longhand in a journal where I had no reason to feel caution or self-conscious. I hate that I've allowed self-consciousness to slip between the spaces of my words. Fuck it, my next entry is going to be titled… sent mail.
You are a piece of work!!
I LOVE it!
You tell the truth, were other's shy away.
I am 56 years young…..had a diary TOO…can't seEm to find it now… & had a summer experience one year in the Catskills….LIKE Baby from "Dirty Dancing"…..one of the highlights of my ENTIRE life.
Cry, laugh, love & Live it OUTLOUD, WOMAN!!
I am surprised the lock isn't torn off…I would go crazy trying to unlock that bad boy. I think it was a safety pin that finally did the trick.
Are their comments from me in there?! Knowing me, I probably commented so that people who found it in the ground in the future would know that I was a cool little sister…who found and conquered this burried treasure of yours…an awesome, radical, metallic lavender, puffy, dirty diary, decorated with funky shapes and white rhinestones. And Sarah and Lauren didn't mind getting caught with their noses in it either. It was drama to tell their Mommas.
I remember racing off of the school bus to try and find it's new hiding place before you got home from school. The adrenaline would surge through me because I knew that as soon as you caught me red handed, my life would be over.
I would read through the pages like I was reading some nasty sex novel written by the Meryl Streep type in that movie She Devil. It was so juicy to my young, perverted mind. And I apparently learned very well from it, thanks you very much.
Actually, reading through your diary taught me to address my diaries as if they were people or some sort of object that gave a rat's ass. I thought that was how everyone who had a diary did it. Don't they?
Chris Longo…there's a name from the past. I don't think he ever ended up getting any from Ms. Rotten Ass Borer like we knew he wanted.
Had to put that in there, just incase he Googles his own name and stumbles on this.
Oh, and Alison O…Oh my. Wonder what she's up to these days?! Karma???
Love ya Steph…sorry I was such a nosey sister…but it's only because you're "so cool, right Steph?" Things don't change too much…except you tell me a few things now. The rest I still read about when you don't know it. Hee hee.
You looked and wrote exactly the way I did when I was in my teens!
Um, I don't think "sloppy seconds" refers to bases, just so you know…