Dear Diary

Adolescent diaries. Oh the agony and the ... hilarity. Have you ever tried reading your own teenage writings? You might have a difficult time deciding whether to die of embarrassment or bust a gut laughing. Maybe I shouldn't project too much. Some of you might have been writing prodigies. Needless to say, I was not one of those prodigies and have a difficult time facing my younger self in print. I choose to laugh rather than weep because, after all, I'm nothing like that young thing anymore. Smile.

Let me demonstrate how different I am from that young writer:

"Dear Diary" had entries about the cute boy in my [insert name of class] class, but "Dear Blog" has much more sophisticated (ahem) entries about the cute husband I live with ...

Instead of whining in print about having to stand in a stooopid line at lunch, I whine in print about sitting in stooopid traffic on the freeway ...

Gone are the descriptions of a field trip to look at "cool old stuff," to be replaced by an attempt to convey in words the emotional impact of an old bronze sculpture seen during a trip to a museum ...

And early morning band practice is no longer the topic du jour, but is appropriately replaced by commentary on the late night schedule of living with a musician.

Apparently the topics haven't changed much. Dear Diary was a receptacle for "thoughts and things" (I-kid-you-not, that was the statement of purpose noted January 1st, 197x ... "thoughts and things"). Now I blog, and I talk about the iceberg being a great metaphor for my life, and understand and utilize sarcasm to express myself ... but is that really so different than Dear Diary? Thoughts and things? I can only hope that my perceptions and presentation are more interesting.

I look forward to reading these posts in another 20 years. Wonder if I'll turn beet red with embarrassment and mumble: "What WAS I thinking when I put these things out there in public"??
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Postscript

At Bub and Pie's request, I will now completely humiliate myself by adding some excerpts from Dear Diary. Names have been deleted to protect the innocent:

Sept. 24 I was so bored today. Going to algebra sucks. Mrs. X thinks we should all be excited about math like her [apparently I thought Mrs. X was math??]. American history is cool though. Theres this really cute guy that sits across the isle [wow, we had islands in our American History classroom]. I can't tell if he likes me. [Ouch! Evidently the interest a class held for me had a direct correlate to the presence of cute guys.]

Oct. 15 The lunch line was too long today. Yesterday too. Lines are dumb. [Well, this entry is helpful. At least I knew that the proper spelling is "too" and not "to."]

Feb. 20 My art class took a field trip to the museum downtown. There was some pretty cool old stuff. [And?? Which museum was this? What was the cool old stuff? Did I have a good time? Maybe there was a cute guy on the field trip?]

November 14 I can't wait til marching season is over. I can't believe how early we half [was only half of me present?] to be there. Its always all cold and the grass is wet. Only one more month. [Apparently I forgot all about my entry on this topic from August when it was "too hot" and I couldn't wait until "like October or something when it would be cooler."]

Yes, now you know. I was officially an adolescent at one time.