Dear Diary: My Higher Education: Part 1

Please enjoy the first in this series -- I will leave you to decide whether or not all of this actually happened... :-)

Tuesday 28th October

Interesting development occurred during my lecture this afternoon. Don’t ask me what it was about, I spent most of it staring at the back of **Michael’s head. Amongst my lecture notes, I wrote the following:

Two seats up and one seat over and all I want to do is sniff the bit of your neck where it meets your shoulder because I know that the smell of you will make me aware of all of my skin, all at the same time.

So apparently, I’ve got a crush on my teacher. Who knew? How delightfully unexpected!

**names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

(Part 2 coming soon.)

Dear Diary - When I was 21...

When I was 21, I was such a moody cow.  All I did was stomp around and complain about being single.  With the benefit of 10+ years of hindsight, with entries like this I ask you:  is it any bloody wonder?  :-)

Friday 4th April 1997.

I picked Panic up from the vet today – he got neutered and declawed. He’s a little groggy and stumbly-aroundy... it’s really funny! He smells a bit funny, too, but other than that he’s fine.

Went to the Trash last night, went looking for cute boys. I saw two (count ‘em, 2!!!) “potential life partners.” Hahaha. One was absolutely beautiful: short, black hair, tattoos, sexy boots, black pants. Sat in the corner watching everyone dance all night, all broody and adorable-smouldery. And then the other was a big, tall, sweaty-from-dancing huggable-lookin’ sort of fella. Yum. But he seemed a bit up his own ass. Whatever – it was a lot of fun; they played some really good tunes last night and I danced like a crazysonofabitch.

I did nothing all day today, except make a mix tape. Actually, I made two – I’m on the second one right now. I’m starting to make a bunch of them for my trip to England so that I won’t have to take five million tapes with me. Just a handful. TEN, tops.

Oh my god, guess what just happened? Someone just called from a flower shop and asked if I’d be home to accept a delivery. Obviously, hungover slob that I am, I had nowhere to be or no-one important to be with... so 15 minutes later, some guy comes to the door with this absolutely gorgeous flower arrangement – champagne roses, carnations... it smells and looks FABULOUS. I nearly piss my pants with excitement as I practically destroy the thing looking for the card to see who they are from. The first time I’d ever, in my entire life, received flowers for no reason from someone, and who are they from? I’m not even going to write his name, you know who I mean. I mean, he’s really sweet and kind but, just... he never says anything interesting.  Like, ever.  And besides, I could never love a Bon Jovi fan.  And now (fuck's sake!) I have to call him all gushing to say thank you. My first big elaborate bouquet isn’t supposed to be from HIM. (whiiiine)

And now? The punky-happy-dancey-holiday mix tape I was making has taken a depressing turn -- because of the Flowers From the Wrong Hottie episode, the last three songs are:

“Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” by the Smiths

“Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star

“Mistress” by Red House Painters

Bloody men!

Dear Diary - Valentine's Day, WHA-HOOOOO!!!

Thursday 13th February 1997.

It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow. I’m not going out of the house. Just as well... the awesome delivery of cards, flowers, chocolates and other tokens of endearment and hopeless devotion would only have prevented me from getting out the door. Not to mention the queue of eligible bachelors snaking its way down the corridor of the apartment. So depressed. I have lived through twenty-one (count ‘em, 21!) Valentine’s Days without a single molecule of affection from a member of the opposite sex on the 14th of February. Why, why, why do I never have boyfriends in February? All that flowerey-chocolatey-romancey-pukey shit?! I NEED ALL OF THAT! I am going to wear all black tomorrow. And I’m going to mope around all day feeling very, very sorry for myself. I am going to scowl and grimace at regular intervals, and sigh heavily and dramatically. That’s my fucking celebration – bring on the boys.

Dear Diary - Introduction

I have always been a voracious diary-writer. I’ve got books and journals filled with entries covering my formative years, and on the weekend I made Jason climb up into the loft to get them down, as I periodically do, to read over them and laugh at myself as I re-live (usually with a very healthy dose of mortification) the various entanglements I got myself into. They are really beautiful to look at – I used to cut things out and glue them in... sometimes the entries are handwritten, sometimes they are typed out... I’ve got movie theatre ticket stubs, photos and other mementos stuck inside; they’re a real trip down memory lane. Not surprisingly, most of the really enjoyable rantings are about boys; I seemed to have at least 5 or 6 crushes on a wide ranging cast of characters at any given time (an investment with a very pitiful rate of return, I hasten to add) and oscillated my eternal devotion wildly between them as frequently as I applied lipstick. Like most people who think they know everything during their earlier years, there are volumes and volumes in which I play the totally hard done by, universe-revolves-around-me, everyone-is-wrong misunderstood victim, interspersed with moments of beautiful clarity and admirable coolness. All in all, the whole lot is HILARIOUS. I am currently working on a series of excerpts from these diaries which spans over about a year or so (does anyone remember my hot professor email drama?) which I will post here once I’ve done it, but in the interim I wanted to share with you a little taster of the 1990’s version of me for your amusement. This was when I was at University in Canada:

20th November 1997

Well, my computer is FINALLY fixed. Henry** came over tonight and made it work, but I can’t get on the Internet as it says there is insufficient memory and I only have one font in Microsoft Word. Do you know what this is doing to my creative processes?! IT’S TOTALLY SUFFOCATING! I can’t work with only one font. It’s beneath me! It’s unheard of! It’s dire! And besides, I’m totally hormonal as I type this because I’m on my period and I’m really fucking moody.

I have been able to do nothing at all today. It was horrible. I was so bloody bored. I have so much reading to do for school and I haven’t even touched it. Instead, I cried my eyes out watching “Coronation Street” and “A Wedding Story”. I was completely hormonally wacko. About 5pm I was completely overcome by an unusually strong craving for a veggie and cheese sub from Subway. So I kidnapped Becka** and we went and got subs, came back here and had a great talk (about drugs and masturbation!) for a few hours. It was very cleansing – my nerves were much better after eating that sub.

I don’t think I will be able to handle this Times New Roman shit for much longer. I may have to go to Zellers and buy one of those CDs with loads of fonts on. Yeah! Yeah, then I’ll have like a MILLION different kinds of fonts and I’ll never do any bloody work! AAaaah.

I didn’t go to school today. I should have. I had the gorgeous Michael’s** tutorial this afternoon. But I had really wicked cramps and I needed to stay home and do more important things. Like eat. And watch trashy talk shows. And not have a shower until 6 o’clock. I’m so emotional. I think the best thing for me would be to just go to bed. Or have some sex? Or get a bag of chips. Maybe I’ll go for a drive.

There’s a postal strike on right now. THAT’S why I really didn’t go to school; I wanted to see if it was true. I watched the flap in our door every once in a while and nothing got pushed through it at all. Not even an Avon catalogue! Not even a Bi-Way flyer. Nothing.

I can’t wait for Sunday; then my hormones will be back to normal. I hate menstruation. WHERE ARE THOSE CHIPS?!

**Names have been changed to protect the identity of the innocent.