25 years: a retrospective (part 5)

6 September 1983

Fluffy’s Birthday was GREAT! We had streamer letters and everything! Tomorrow’s school! I’m kinda anxious and scared. I’m really gonna have butterflies! But we go at 10 I think and leave at 2. The school lunches are 90¢ this year! A lot. Soon it will be a million dollars.

31 December 1983

Well, tomorrow’s Jan. I just want to say, thank you and I love you very much. Since you helped me through problems. I really want to thank you. Even though I didn’t write in you every day I still love you. You were my best friend in my whole life. When I had a problem I could only tell it to you. Even though I got another diary it won’t be the same. I’ll really miss you. Good bye! Happy new year!

31 December, last day of 1985

Tonight Nanny and Papa come over and we have to go to church. Today Andrea called and she was crying because a friend, Michelle (Kris knew her too) died today. See, her mother fell asleep with a cigarette and the house burned down killing her and her mother. It’s sad. Well, tomorrow is 1986 and then the day after we go back to school. Yuck! I plan to take lots of pictures tonight and tomorrow. Sunday was fun and Heather went too. We went to see SPIES LIKE US. I can’t wait till tonight! I made lots of noisemakers. Well, I better go now. I’m having a spasm in my hand. Happy New Year!

31 December 1989

This officially is my last entry of the decade. It seems scary in an overwhelming sense, because what remains? I’m almost sorry I didn’t pay more attention to the eighties. Suddenly they’ve slipped by, leaving me with a cold, unfamiliar stretch of ten years to endure. Will they be great? Will they be the beginning of the end? Just think…next time I exit a decade I’ll be twenty-five years old! Maybe I’ll be married and have kids. What lies ahead? It’s hard to fuse the line between beginnings and endings. In one second the transition from the end of December in the end of the 80s goes to the beginning of January in the beginning of the 90s.

Stop my speculating! Wow, do I have gas. Sorry. I conclude my darling eighties as I conclude every other year…with my family, and lots of pensive thought on what lies ahead, though I know time will fly and soon I’ll be reading over my worries and predictions in you.

God bless you … and me, in the 1990s yet to come. I love you.

16 January 1997

I need to do something creative and fulfilling soon. I really need to get off my ass this weekend and, say, take black & white pictures or begin the mosaic project that I want to make for Terry, Heather, and Annida. When I’m at work, I get all these inspiring ideas to do everything from creative projects to just cleaning my room, organizing my things, etc. I never do any of it. The second I get home, I’m tired and apathetic and lazy. I change into comfortable clothes, eat dinner, and watch TV until it’s time to go to bed. Sometimes I do a little reading. It has been getting worse lately. And now my mind is getting as lethargic and mired in mud as my body and my personality. I can’t think. I can’t concentrate or remember anything. I keep making the stupidest, most embarrassing mistakes [at work], because everything goes in one ear and out the other, with no traces remaining. I feel like I am in a constant daze or mental fog. First my body seemed to die, and I became more listless than usual. Then my creativity began to die. I can’t write anymore, or think up cool projects, or anything else like that. In other words, my voice died. Now my mental prowess is dying. I am not myself anymore…

14 March 2000

I realize that it isn’t because I long for F.—he isn’t who I’m pining for, even though it was his body I embraced in my dream and his face I kissed so passionately. He was just a mask worn over an idea, and the mask was his because he’s the one I’ve been interested in lately. But it is the idea that I am truly in love with, the idea that I long to obtain. The idea is my old, desperate longing for The One. Whether he could be considered my soulmate or not, he is the one I am meant to spend my life with. I am such a fucking romantic…I just think that love and romance and sex and relationships are divine primal unions…the closest thing to god I will ever be able to touch. … At my core, I have the utmost respect for those aforementioned things. I don’t take them lightly at all. They are gifts to be treasured and all I really want out of this life is to have a chance to celebrate them with The One, whoever he may be. F. is just the latest face I have stapled onto the intangible man of my dreams. When I feel such intense sadness at my attempts to let F. go, it isn’t him I’m sad to lose—it’s the light that flutters in my heart whenever I begin to resurrect those old dreams of finding and obtaining The One. When I let my numb heart defrost a little bit and let a new crush in, I am swamped with such wondrous, positive emotions, and of course I hesitate to let them go when it’s time to let go of the futile crush.

Oh god, my appetite for this mysterious One is almost palpable. I breathe it, I sweat it. I want nothing more than to just hold him…not even kissing him or making love with him, but just holding him. I can’t stop thinking about how warm and secure his arms will feel around me, how perfectly we will make our bodies fit into one another when we curl up in bed together. Even though I can’t smell, I think of burying my face in his skin and breathing in his warm, moist, salt-scent. I think of him loving me and accepting me completely, and not seeing all of the flaws I see in myself. Yet he wouldn’t put me on a pedestal and think of me as being infallible, because that pressure would be too much for me to bear, and it would minimize my dark attributes which I readily accept. I think of how being him won’t just be safe and secure and comforting, but how it will carry tremendous, thunderous energy, too…When we are together, the molecules around us will jar and dance and vibrate with our electricity. What I am seeking is magic, in all its subtle and not-so-subtle forms. A love so intense that I want to cry when I am not with him; yet I will not be absorbed into him, unable to function on my own. I guess what I’m seeking is an unobtainable miracle that I just can’t absolve…

11 August 2004

It’s really the longing that bothers me most of all. I don’t want to long for anybody. I want to be the pumpkin whose inner flesh and seeds are scooped out, leaving a smooth, hallow, lovely shell. I was doing so well in my quest for asexual numbness, but then I began periodically tripping over curbs of desire, falling to my knees and scraping them open. These are no smooth, hallow, lovely scrapes—they are messy, damp, raw. They sting. They take ages to heal. And even after they heal, there are scars left behind. I don’t want to long for anybody. I want my heart to belong to me alone (well…along with my family, friends, and cats, of course!). There’s not enough room in it for a mysterious Him. There’s not enough room for both of us. One of us must be blotted out, and I don’t want it to be me.

I slide back into my pessimistic view that romantic love in its purest form is nearly scientifically impossible in the end. How are we really expected to find good matches in a world this big? Sure, you can register with match.com, but what if your best matches are only registered on other personal ad sites, or aren’t registered anywhere at all? Or what if they are placing ads in San Francisco or Toronto newspapers, which you’ll never see? What if your best matches live far away? How am I supposed to meet a Perfect Match if he lives in fucking North Dakota? And what is a Perfect Match, anyway? What are the odds I’ll find a guy who is attractive to me physically and possesses all the emotional and mental traits I seek? And what are the odds that this guy would feel the same way about me? If he exists, and I somehow find him, what if he happens to be married? Or gay? Or in prison? Or a drug addict? What if he just doesn’t see me as his perfect mate? What if he’s totally perfect except for the teensy-weensy problem of abusiveness? What if we’re sexually incompatible? Or what if he’s perfect but he’s got a terminal disease? The list is endless. And so bear little hope that I will ever find a good match for me. Plus I don’t want to risk potential heartbreak. I could meet someone and fall in love, only to have him dump me three years down the line. Most people can deal with the heartbreak and move on to someone new, but I dwell on things and obsess to the point of having my head explode. It is extremely difficult for me to let things go. And men aren’t exactly lining up around the block to date me, so if I manage to luck into a good relationship and it fails, odds are, that is my last chance—or at least my last chance when I’m young. If it takes me over 30 years to find one guy, it’s safe to assume that it’d take me another 30 years to find a second guy. Or maybe it would take longer.

17 June 1985

Ma spilled a drawer of Kris’ earrings and I helped her clean them up before Kris found out and then she goes to me “stop your complaining.” Humff! That’s not fair and then she tells Kris. Geez, I know I’m just an afterthought after Kris was born. On Saturday Kelly and Scott slept over, we saw the GOONIES. Data and Mouth were (from the movie) SO cute.

21 June 1989

If only I was prettier. I have this horrible rash on my legs, so I’m running around in pants since I’m so ashamed. My face is all out of shape, and I must radiate coldness, or something. Cold and ugly, and no one likes me. God, what do you do when life hurts so much? I couldn’t kill myself, couldn’t go mad…sometimes I just don’t know what to do.

1 April 1994

Darkness continues to sizzle over me again, like the sizzling coffee that is brewing beside me. It is interrupted by momentary flashes of light; just enough to make the black more agonizing when it strikes. I am tired. I woke up at 8:15 this morning, even though I only got to bed after 2 a.m. I’m tired of being tired. I’m tired of the sleeplessness, the stomach pains, the numb spots on my head, the crying spells, the feeling that everyone hates me so very much. I feel like: “Circles and circles and circles again, the girl’s in circles and circles—got to stop spinning…” I feel like I’m spinning around in rough, rapid circles in the middle of a field, like I did when I was little. I turn faster and faster…and I grow dizzy, nauseous, exhausted, disoriented. This is the part where I’m supposed to collapse to the ground and relax as the rest of the world continues to swirl sickly above me. But I can’t stop. I can’t stop spinning and I must stop…

10 May 1996

England. Here’s the part where I go off on a selfish tangent, as if Nanny is only worthy of a paragraph prelude to my life and problems. I love her. I will never stop loving her with the force I felt on the day she died. Perhaps that’s the only thing that matters—how fiercely and deeply I anchor her inside of me, not how many times I dutifully visit her grave. Or perhaps I’m just rationalizing my shittiness again. I seem to be quite good at doing that. Anyway, my head tells me that it’s probably not a good idea to go to England. The intense financial strain, social strains, and legal strains may make it more trouble than it’s worth. I could be walking from one friendship frying pan into another, since a lot of my London pals have been somewhat distant or absent lately. My heart, however, tells me that it is the right thing to do. It has been pulling me mercilessly along towards England since I was fourteen. It has to be more to it than the fact that London is a brilliant city that I love. There has to be some reason why moving there feels like my destiny. Nothing really happened during my year abroad to satiate the curiosity I feel towards this puzzling need to live there. In fact, I spent a good portion of my time there mildly homesick, and eagerly looking forward to returning home. Maybe a great success will befall me once I’m there, like how Tori Amos only got successful once she moved to England. Maybe it will only be a calm, simple peacefulness—I’ll get my dream job, live in my dream house, get more wonderful friends, and just generally find a happiness that may’ve eluded me if I had stayed in the States, for whatever reason.

19 May 1999

Here I am, sitting in the Gate 54 waiting area at Newark Airport, listening to my Funeral Mix and trying to ignore the icy rivulets of fear trickling inside my stomach like drippings down a slimy sewer wall. My favorite song, “Gloomy Winter,” is playing. I just caught a glimpse of some girl who looks like Annida out of the corner of my eye. The landscape beyond the window in front of me is half-dead, a listless blue gray. The runway is still wet from the showers we encountered while driving here.

Two and a half years later, I have finally, finally reached this point. Had somebody told me on that dark October day in 1996 that it would take me two years and seven months to return to England, I would have curled up in a corner and died.

I was surprisingly okay until I walked into the airport. Then a dim, all-encompassing fear filled me, although I surely appear outwardly calm. I thought by now I’d be a hysterical, diarrhea-splattered mess. I can feel that large Frosty that Dad bought me en route churning in my stomach, though.

I am so afraid. I think that even if I knew that they will definitely let me into the country, I would still be afraid. What if my money doesn’t last? What if the conference is horrible? What if Annida and I don’t get along? Oh god, my feet are numb and my hands are clammy.

20 May 1999

I’m in! I’m in! I’m in! I’m in! I’m in! I’m in!!!!!

Now all I have to do is stop SHAKING!!!!

24 November 1990

Mum says Bush now forbids anyone in the army from leaving, even if their time is up. And everyone is getting drafted right and left. She said that’s a sure sign of war, this containing of troops. The president is all set for war.

I never lived during a war. At first I thought it was an exciting, if not grotesque, prospect, but now it’s scary. They have nuclear weapons, don’t they? And they’re being controlled by a madman. I know one person over there—Todd S. I wonder how it would change here, besides having a horrific gasoline ration. Suppose we all die. Oh God.

Last year at this time the world seemed to be catapulted into perfection. The Berlin Wall was down. Ceausescu was killed. Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Poland were free. In Central America, terrible leaders were being thrown out. Even Russia is barely Communistic anymore. Now this. Thatcher is out of parliament in England, too; whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know. Damn the Middle East. I’m 16! I don’t want to get bombed.

14 January 1991

…so I lay in bed crying. We tremble over the basin of history, of anticipation, of war. I never thought it would come to this, whatever this is. Yes, the 15th is upon us, and no one knows what eachother is doing. I just heard on the radio speeches (excerpts) from Bush, Hussein, and Congress set to “From a Distance.” It was so sad. I’m so afraid. I don’t know what to think; I’m against war, of course, but there’s so much I don’t know about what’s going on, I’m kind of neutral. God save us from ourselves.

Yes, from a distance God is watching us…and shaking his head in sorrow at what he sees.

Can write no more.

15 January 1991 (10:58pm)

One hour until war.

“All we are saying is give peace a chance…”

16 January 1991

Oh God oh God oh God

There’s no way I can tell you how I feel now, how unreal this is. I am incapable of describing it.

We are at war. War.

At about 7 pm they started pulling tanks up to Iraq, and bombers. I heard it on the radio on my way to Boscovs. It was coming, and there’s no way to stop it. A few minutes later, on my way home, as I drove slowly through the thick fog, the DJ on WINK 104 said suddenly, “We are now officially at war.” I was so shaken. Missy and I talked on the phone about it for awhile, then since then I’ve been watching the news on all the TV stations. Bush’s address was on at 9. I even noticed on Channel 17, which was carrying a basketball game, that they calmly ran the words, “The United States is now at war with Iraq.” And they went on with the game. How can those crowds cheer when they know? This isn’t real, it can’t be. Where is the massive black cloud, stifling and filled with thunder, which is supposed to descend with war? Will life go one? I’ll get up at 7, go to school, dance at musical…and we’ll be at war.

I am now watching MTV. Even on MTV, the filth of our government exists. Kurt Loder is broadcasting from a huge protest in Times Square. Every video has to do with peace, especially the re-release of “Give Peace a Chance.” On MTV: The End of the Innocence, Pray, Give Peace a Chance, A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall, Something to Believe In, Let Love Rule.

This scares me … more than you would ever believe. They have nuclear bombs. They have terrorists in our country now (what happens if they get a hold of TMI?). They have a leader who is determined to bring us, and his own country, down with his fall. Those nuclear bombs scare me so much I have nightmares. And we, as a nation, are bound in this together. I think of [how] even the stars in California, who exist in perfect TV worlds, are a part of this war. The government…the rich…the poor…me.

Missy’s cousin and Jenn’s uncle are both in the aerial war going on now (but the news says Iraq gives little resistance in that war) and I’m afraid of their dying.

I feel guilty at times. I feel guilty because parts of me want the excitement and horror of war to grow, and last, but then my conscience catches up and says “You are mad. What if you are nuclear bombed? This could be the end.” So I start shaking like a cold, wet leaf, and wait in fear of this.

3 September 1988

I think that if I have to hear one more fucking lecture out of my fucking mother, I’m going to fucking die. She always does it to me. Always! This time it was because she thinks I’m wasting my money on a Lost Boys tape. What else am I supposed to do with the money? Why I want the tape I can’t explain. I have to wait till this Friday to get it, though. Once again I have this “dead” feeling around me. It’s like a heavy weight that makes me feel like I have to cry. I won’t though. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

16 September 1989

I’m not sure I can honestly say I feel at least a little better. It scares me sometimes, how nothing can ever penetrate the somber cloud above my head. Look at me, I’m fifteen years old, young, alive, semi-healthy, and I hate life! I loathe it! Now, can you tell me that’s normal? Oh, I don’t know what I’m going to do about anything. I’m so afraid of everything, so afraid of living. It’s strange…sometimes I’ll be doing something, and suddenly just want to die. Let God give me cancer, or kill me. I don’t care. Oh please! Pull me away from this.

… Why am I torturing myself so? I mean, what is really wrong with me? I want to see a psychiatrist, but I’m so goddamn protective of my feelings and emotions, I’m afraid it would never work. I wish someone would tell me why I’m on one side of the mirror, and can’t break through.

20 November 1992

I can feel that it’s back again, crawling on my soul like a cancerous shadow. I can’t explain it—it’s just a stinking blackness that’s bleeding me dry. Oh, blood. Oh good Christ. Blood. Like a drug, I need to slash my wrist very badly right now. I need to feel that power, to feel as if I have some degree of control over my twisted life, my twisted thoughts.

28 August 1993

… we had the first annual stalking awards. There were three ties, but I still majorly cleaned up. I won 7 ribbons, after barely voting for myself! I guess that you could say that I’m the Queen o’ Stalking. We all (Gatesy, Heller, Foster, Laura, Terry, Shawn, Missy, and I) went to Yummy’s Chinese Restaurant in Palmyra for a very long period of time, to eat huge amounts of food and be very loud and obnoxious. I had to take almost my entire plate of “Buddha Supreme” along in the car with me, since it was only served to me about ten minutes before we left. Then I got the idea to leave it, uncovered, on Gatesy’s neighbor’s doorstep. Someone else suggested that it be left on Ben’s instead. So, Laura, Terry, Shawn, Missy, and I went to the adult bookstore along Rt. 422, and we three chicks went in, sort of embarrassed, and shamefacedly bought a cheap plastic dildo, which we stuck up out of my gooey Chinese food, leaving it on Ben and Psycho Jackie’s doorstep. Laura and I were the ones who crept stealthily through the dark and left it in there, giggling madly. Terry invited us to go swimming quietly in his neighbors’ pool, which they let him use anytime he wants. It was a beautiful night—clear, warm, with a visible moon. The pool water was just right. We were reveling in the fact that we were finally nightswimming, and in the spirit of the moment, with modesty cast alongside the pool with our clothing and bathing suits, we went skinnydipping. [We were] swirling about naked in a pool, exhilarated and wondering what would happen if Terry’s neighbors discovered five naked teenagers (four of them total strangers) swimming about in their pool at 2 a.m. … I never felt more alive in my life then I did at that very time. Alive and free. Unchained. Wicked.

6 December 2004

We were there for around three hours and the waiters and other patrons were probably so glad to see us leave. We were loud and kept screaming with laughter and we said our usual round of inappropriate things. At one point Charlie mentioned his boyfriend, and then he got this panicked look on his face, as if he expected someone to kill him on the spot for being gay. We laughed at the idea of someone whipping out a gun and shooting him in the head three seconds after he said the word “boyfriend.” So during the rest of dinner, Missy and I would periodically yell “Bang!” at Charlie and he’d slump over in his chair. And, being the dorks that we are, we all decided to trade driver’s licenses so we could laugh at one another’s photos. Charlie was like, “Ready, set, pass to your left!” I laughed so hard at Boot’s license photo, I literally couldn’t breathe. I was in pain. Bob’s photo makes it look like he’s got hydroencephalitis and is standing in front of a funhouse mirror. Danielle’s photo has the Crazy Eyes. Charlie roared with laughter when he saw that Missy’s license claims she only weighs 200 pounds. She fired back, “Well, your license says that you’re male!” and I shrieked “BURN!!!!” at him.

Ha, and at one point, Charlie asked me how old I thought Gates's fiance was, and I said, “I dunno…30?” and everyone laughed because he’s only 23. Whoops!

Oh, and I’ve gotten Missy completely obsessed with the idea of going on The Amazing Race with Charlie. So we spent a good part of dinner discussing our future audition tapes and how we’d act on TAR. Missy and Charlie are obsessed with being called “America’s Sweethearts” and having all of America fall in love with them, based on their TAR performance. Danielle and Tony are going to be another team, and Bootsy and I are going to be a third team. Missy said the tagline beneath us will say “vegan and fister.” “Hey, I’m not a vegan!” I cried. Naturally Boot didn’t follow it up with “And I’m not a fister!”…because, well, he is.

2 February 1994

The most fucked up thing ever just happened to me. I was crossing Linden St. between J-Hall and Hyland Hall to come to this class, and I had to walk through two grimy men. One stopped me and refused to let me proceed, because he was entranced by my nose ring. He asked me why I have it and his eyes rolled in different directions. He was very hard to understand. He told me secretively that he had his balls pierced. I tried to act nice and calm by saying “Oh really?” and asking him if it hurt, etc. He said “no” but that it stung a bit. I said that mine didn’t hurt either. I thought he asked me if I screamed, but he must’ve actually asked me if I creamed. I said “no.” He goes “You didn’t cream?” and grabbed me again as I tried to walk away. He asked me how many kids I had and I exclaimed “None! I have to go!” He put his arm around me and pulled me in tight and asked me if I wanted to start having them right then and there with him. I thought “Oh my god, he’s going to rape me,” even though there were students milling around. I said “No!” and broke away to class.

14 September 1995

Anyway, in the bathroom … I sobbed my eyes out and hyperventilated for a good half hour. I tried to retch into the toilet, I pinched my arm repeatedly [to try to] wake myself up, and I rolled around fetally on the floor. It really was like some nightmare. I felt utterly alone. I literally could not stop crying, and it really frightened me.

14 January 1986

I’ve got shocking news. Ma got a job! I’ll die. She will be home when I get home, and only work 4 days a week and I might get a increase in allowance but here are bad things:

we won’t go to Hershey Park
I’ll be all alone every day
I’ll have to vacuum and dust my room
we won’t go to Park City
we won’t go to pool
works summer
there’s no way now to go on vacation

or, if Fluffy dies I’ll really be all alone forever. I’ll never speak to Ma again!!!

18 February 1987

I’m starting to get irritated at Wendy. She’s always borrowing pens and pencils and never returning them. She also says that we’re best friends in school but as soon as we’re near other friends she practically ignores me. I have to run errands for her too, sometimes. I wish I’d be pretty and popular and never have to worry about these problems.



song heard most recently before posting:
Yes—Coldplay