
So, in 1990 I was twelve. I was in 8th grade. My mother gave me a fill-in-the-blanks diary that year. It was a Ziggy diary. I'll let you guess which Ziggy. Last summer, my mom gave me the diary again, inside a boxful of my stuff she had been keeping in her storage unit. Most of it is blank, and so I'm totally throwing it out. But, for your entertainment and mine, here are some of the things I did fill in (with my comments in brackets, but I'm keeping all the 8th-grade spelling, grammar, and punctuation the same. You know, for posterity):
- what i value most ... My life, and my flute!! and my books, family, and my friendships.
- what i hope for myself ... To become the very best I can be. Even if it's not the best someone else can be.
- what i would like to be good at ... The flute, dancing, and school.
- i want to continue my studies at ... The University of Washington
- i would like to become ... A florist. [Oh. My.]
A Few of My Favorite ...
- Jokes ... What do you call a dog with no legs? It doesn't matter what you call him. He won't come anyway! (HA, HA!)
- Memorable movies ... Beaches; Rainman; Gleaming the Cube [This list cracks me up.]
- Memorable books ... Island of the Blue Dolphins; Bridge to Terrebithia; Summer of the Swans; The Rose beyond the Wall; Jacob have I
- my favorite movie stars ... Alyssa Milano; Dustin Hoffman; Tom Cruise [This list? Also cracks me up. Alyssa Milano?!]
- TV shows ... Alf!; Cosby Show; Just the 10 of us; Full House; Perfect Strangers; Quantum Leap** [The two stars means I really liked that show.]
- Musical Groups ... B52's; The Cure; Rush [is crossed out]; INXS [is also crossed out]; Yes [has a circle around it with an arrow pointing to the word "sorta"].
- Songs ... Love Shack (B52's); Roam (B52's); Channel Z (B52's); Love Song (The Cure); Pure (The Lightning Seeds) [Please note that every single other 12-year-old on the planet at the time loved (an understatement) New Kids on the Block - I still don't even know all their names.]
- munchies ... Dorita Ranch. Potato Chips. Crackers marshmallos Apples DORITOS JUMPIN' JACK CHEESE TORTILLA CHIPS, DOUBLE-STUFF OREO'S.
- the most important current events were ... The IRAQ + Middle east crisis. The going down of the Berlin wall. The re-unification of Germany.
Both of my "secret crushes" were named Tim, and it seems that one of them was already my good friend's not-at-all-secret crush (ooh, scandal! :) I thought that being one of the youngest in my family was my favorite thing about my family; my parents, it seems, didn't treat me like an individual and were always telling me I had to do stuff. I appear to have written a very sad poem "about a homeless little boy who lives on the street, and he sees a man, and the man walks away. and a poem about two very broken hearts" (neither of which is actually in the diary, so don't even bother asking - I know, I'm morbidly curious too :)
It was so entertaining to cast back 20 years and see this glimpse of myself then. I remember some of it, and some is news to my 32-year-old self. And wow, as totally fun as it was to look through this thing, there's no way on earth I'd ever go back!
