I Had a Journal When It Was Still Cool to Have One
I had a journal when I was eight years old. 1981. The first entry talks about my parents buying a color TV. Not the first people in the building but thankfully not the last. The second entry talks about a phone call in the middle of the night and my father telling us his uncle was dead. I cried myself to sleep.
Then comes this little fun story. A few of us were playing soccer for a while. Then, a young couple sat on a bench overlooking the field, and started making out. One by one, we left the game and moved to the bench next to the couple. I don’t remember that but I’m sure it happened because I made a drawing of two stick figures on a bench, and the man’s thin stick-figure hand reaches out for the two circles in the middle of the woman-stick-figure’s body.
Then I have a movie review. My mom took my sister and me to see Les Miserables (the Anthony Perkins version), and for about ten pages I retold the story of Jean Valjean. The color TV was a page and a half, my first encounter with death was about a page, and so was my first encounter with the glory of boobies. And a retelling of Les Miserables was ten pages. I needed an editor.
I probably still do.
The diary lasted a month, and then, like in so many other instances, I moved on. Maybe my parents bought me the Commodore 64, or maybe I ran out of pages and didn’t think of asking for another notebook, but there end my written childhood memories.
23 comments:
I'm a connoisseur of blank journals. I have some filled... but most of them are blank.
Typing in no way cramps the hand the way writing does... but still... there is something about the actual written word that is... sexy.
So you're saying you still have this journal? Cause if you do, you simply MUST publish your entry about the glory of boobies - as told by an 8 year old. I'm not even sure I noticed boobies at 8, and here you are saying the are glorious?!!! Please don't deny us this.
Yeah, I'm with Jeff - we need an excerpt or two! Especially a scan of the stick figures. :-) My mom and dad have my childhood & high school journals. I think they were pretty boring though, with the highlight being when our cat had kittens.
Oh yeah and that dog is CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Between the dog & the baby how can you stand being around all that cuteness all'a the time?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
It's a shame it ends there... I know I could have read more (especially about the couple on the bench!)
That's funny. I kept journals from about age 10 onward. Well, until about maybe 7 years ago. Obviously, I've moved my journaling to blogging.
I like the cute kid style thoughts and that you had stick figures.
NYCWD, I still have a few blank journals. I wish I didn't, because it just makes me regret not writing all the genius thoughts I end up forgetting. Still, at least it makes me imagine I have genius thoughts I forgot. And I think the sexiness probably depends on the handwriting.
Jeff, I have it, but it's far away. I think. I left a lot of my things in my parents' house in Israel. I actually don't have any picture of myself as a child here. The only one I can look at is the one on the banner my sister made (I'm sitting on my mom's lap). Kind of sad, actually. At least it gives me the opportunity to be nostalgic every time I'm there. I'm going next month. Why were boobies glorious...? I don't know, but I knew there was something about them. It's probably because we grow up seeing people hide these things, and we learn there must be something about all these hidden parts.
Jill, maybe I'll bring it with me from Israel... Unless it's already here... I'll look tomorrow. The kittens thing must have been exciting for a child. Probably still is.
It is cute-central over here, I have to admit. But... you know... you can't see in the picture that Buddy dug through the couch all the way down, and that cushion is pretty much defying gravity right now.
Rol, I know... it is a shame. And I really don't remember if it was the computer or the lack of paper that put an end to my writing, but it also makes this weird short diary kind of special. It's like writing two incredible posts on a blog and then quitting. It's like John Kennedy Toole writing Confederacy of Dunces. Only with boobies, TVs, death, and French Realism.
Jennifer, blogging is a bit like wiring a journal, and it's less douche-y. I saw a guy in a restaurant--this was a couple of years ago, but still--sitting next to me on a bar stool, and he had his freakin' barrett and his pipe ready, and then he takes out this journal out of his tote bag and starts writing. In a perfect world I'd have been allowed to smack him. For his own good.
I want to hear more about the matchstick soft porn.
Nice.
Xbox, it looked a bit like that:
_______________/Ö\
____________\--0|0--/
________________|
_______________/_\
_____________\/___\/
And I haven't improved much since then.
I had a journal, or a diary as us girls like to call them. I think I even had an electronic one later on!
What's an electronic one? Like a small computer? That must be pretty cool.
And you're right about the gender thing. Men don't write diaries! They write in their journals! -- I guess the different names imply that diaries are personal and meant to be destroyed (ceremoniously) while journals have potential readers, the idea that two hundred years from now someone will find a journal and enjoy the genius insights of the pipe-smoking douche in the bar. Men are like that, though. We think we're special.
Thanks for the visit and the witty comment.
I kept a diary briefly, when I was in college. It's still around, somewhere.
Commodore 64! I remember taking computer class in Jr. High and learning flow charts for "programing" a 64. Awesome.
I had a journal too. I was always an off and on writer but I have snippets from 4th grade to high school. I too needed an editor and still do! I think I filled a whole notebook about a boy named Chris my freshman year.
I went to this reading in LA where people read from their early journals, and it was interesting how ALL of the readers were female. It seemed like a rite of passage for a girl to keep a secret diary. I also kept a journal... for about a month, then I moved on to writing stories about robots. I don't think the young male mind is that interested in "dull" reality.
David, no, thank you. Were you secretly hoping people will read it in the future? I wonder about that. As a kid I didn't want anyone to read it, but I can't imagine adults writing stuff and then not secretly hoping their inner thoughts will be of interest to people they will never know.
Whit, I was getting kinda good at Basic, enough to program some cool stuff. But I don't remember any of what I did. I'm sure it was genius, though. Anyway, who had time to program--the Ghosts and the Goblins weren't going to kill themselves. Again.
Aimee, that's cute. Chris sounds like a name a girl would fill a diary with. Kind of like Jake Ryan.
Neil, maybe young guys are conditioned to hide their feelings, so instead they use robots to express their emotions.
I used robots to crush my emotions and the emotions of all those around me. At least last week that's what I was doing.
Sorry, that's Mr. Pelkyi Dorje to you.
Oh, thank God for that second comment. I was wrecking my brains, thinking, I don't know any Pelyi Dorje!
I used to keep a journal too. Must have got lost along the way.
Some interesting articles!!!!!
Came over from David's!
I never had a journal but I did have several diaries and they were all filled with boy crazy or clothes crazy nonsense .. I dont have them any more but I do recall I never ever wrote anything of interest to anyone but me...
Great post! David sent me.
:-Daryl
I Just seen your profile in my "Blog catalog: recent readers" widget in my site. Then after a few click I stumbled in "People in the sun" Page of yours... I didn't noticed that I stayed more than usual. Unlike what I did with other visited pages. It's maybe I find it amusing to see a lot of baby pictures and a blog post with sense of humor. Me myself had that we called "Diary cum writing notebook" with a lot of free flowed ideas through writing, in my case most of the jotted words are about poetry and the angst that I felt during my childhood years... I still keep that notebook.. in the bottom area of my dresser inside a small box with a padlock..am afraid to open it up again...
Maybe I'll be back to read more when i have spare time... Keep em coming!!
Aispinay
Maggie, hey, thanks. I hope you come back. And I hope you find your journal one day.
Daryl, that David is quite a sender, isn't he? I haven't so many new people in a while. I do hope you David People come back. I might have deep, thoughtful posts in the future. It's worth it, I swear. And you know, who's to say what would be of interest to others. I think the most popular post here is the one I wrote about my dentist's wallpaper.
Aispinay, thanks for coming over. Every time I go to Blog Catalog I find new stuff. I've moved so many times in my life, and every time I move I throw away a lot of my stuff, thinking life is for living rather than remembering. Still, I'm happy I left that notebook at my parents' house. I'm happy it still exists.
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