Inspired by lass, formerly of diaryland, I�ve been looking through my footlocker full of old diaries, journals and calendars looking for possible submissions for the Cringe book. It has been a thoroughly excruciating and humiliating project. For the truth of the matter is that there is little there that does not make me cringe. Some of it actually makes me want to pull out my fingernails. Or set them all on fire (the books, that is, not the fingernails). And yet I can�t quite bring myself to destroy them, or even throw them away.

September 24, 1978

Yesterday was the first day of ballet class since it closed for the summer holidays. This year we wear leotards instead of skirts. I got a new leotard and a new pair of shoes, and a headband to hold back my hair. We also start work on the barre and we have more interesting exercizes [sic � I was living in England when I wrote this and was thoroughly befuddled by spelling as a result.] to do.

After ballet class, I went to a friend�s house for lunch. Her name is Susan Walker and she is in my ballet class. For lunch we had grilled cheese sandwiches and a fruit salad with apples, pears, cantaloupe, strawberries, raspberries, and oranges in it. It was delicious.

My brother�s birthday is next week and we are having a �space� party. The boys are going to the planetarium and when they get home they are playing games such as pin the eye on R2-D2 and invent a space man.

My birthday party is the day after my brother�s. I�m taking four friends to see the movie �Grease.� I can hardly wait!

I particularly love the detailing of each and every piece of fruit in the salad. In fairness, this is the first page in a journal that was begun for a school project, so I was writing it knowing it would be read by my teacher. Skimming through the rest of the graded portion of the journal, I seem to include a lot of lists of things in general. Fruit in a salad, books on my shelf, presents received for my birthday. There are also a lot of poems, mostly inspired by other poems I�d read. Here�s one:

October 8, 1978

Dark is My Friend

Just before I go to sleep
Darkness on me comes to peep.
And on the furry creatures sleeping,
Darkness also comes a-peeping.

As I lie in bed at night,
I lie with friendliness, not with fright.
And before I wake next day,
All the darkness goes away.

Apparently my teacher was impressed. This poem received the following note in red ink:

Very nice! How nice to think that darkness can be friendly. See me about publication.

There are also some entries that are more interesting to me topically, entries that describe some of my travels. Many things I don�t remember. Still, I have a knack for leaving out the interesting parts:

[undated, 1979]

I received news that we are moving back to Connecticut very soon. I plan to keep writing. I can�t think of any more to say so I�m going to have to stop writing this paragraph.

My favorite part about this first graded part of the journal, though, are the comments I have scrawled in and around entries. Apparently, after the journal was returned to me, after I knew it would not be looked at by anyone anymore, I went back and wrote smartass responses to every one of my teacher�s comments. I�m not sure why I did this. I really liked that teacher. I think it is more a commentary on what was to me at the time an inconceivable idea, that of a journal that someone else reads. Little did Mrs. Whittington know that she was preparing me for years of blogging. You can see Mrs. Whittington and I at the age I wrote these things in a picture I posted in a long ago blog post.

But these entries are tame in their cringe-worthiness compared to what comes later, after the journal stopped being subject to public review. I stopped writing for a while after I moved back to the United States. I started writing again in early 1981. The first entry:

February 20, 1981, p.m.

Dear Journal [even then I felt the need of an invisible addressee for my writing, no matter how horrific! I was, however, horrified of the word �diary� and all its mooning teenage girl associations. No matter that I was a mooning teenaged girl.],

I have decided to keep a journal because I have a lot to say that I just can�t tell anybody. I have many feelings which have been pent-up because I have had no way to tell anyone. A journal won�t start rumours [still with the British spellings � I adopted them as my personal tic] or tell secrets. I can keep others from seeing this journal. Also, if no one knows I am writing in this book, then it will remain a secret.

First thing I want to say is a little about myself. I am 13-1/2 years old. I have brown hair and grey-blue eyes. I am rather thin and I weigh less than most others in my grade (which is eighth).

Enough about that. The reason I wanted to write to somebody is I have to tell someone this secret. I�m in love with a ninth grade boy. His name is [Name withheld to protect the innocent. Let�s call him Boy B.]. He is starring in the school play, in which I am in the chorus {incidentally, the play this year is �The Music Man�}[Note the fancy brackets. I was a big fan of the fancy brackets, although I disdained dotting Is with hearts. I had some pride.]. He is editor of the school paper (of which I am a sub-editor). [Actually, I was Features Editor, which for that paper was second in command. I downplayed it in my own diary. I know this, because my later self corrected the information with �Features Editor, you twit!�].

I�ve heard from a ninth grade boy in my French class (I�m in ninth grade French because I started in grade 5) that he really likes me too. He hasn�t said that to me, but he seems to like me quite a bit. This year I am much more popular than I was last year and a lot of people who didn�t like me last year like me this year including some boys. I have to go and clean my room. I�ll write as soon as I can. Bye!

Alas, I am not capable of recreating the extravagant flourishes underneath the signing of my full legal name at the end of that entry. Nor am I able to include the valentine heart sketched in blue ballpoint pen in the margin with my initials and Boy B�s initials in some kind of illogical sum.

Well, now that I�ve gotten the public humiliation off my chest, perhaps I can bring myself to send something in. Because it gets a lot worse. A few pages ahead, for instance, I am devastated at the end of our performance of �The Music Man.� No more will I get to sing Trouble in River City. Or shout �Ye Gods!� In the interest of healing � or, more likely, wallowing � I wrote out the lyrics for every musical number from memory with accompanying notes on choreography. Oh, how I wish I were joking.

Actually, it�s very therapeutic. As I am approaching my fortieth birthday with a sense of impending doom, it�s good to be reminded of what it was really like to be young. Because you couldn�t pay me enough to go back there. Oh wait - I just did.

[Second entry today. Click back to read about AJ�s time travel]

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