You Like Me. You Really Like Me.

Oh my gosh, you guys. Four of you nominated me for this award! Which makes me feel very, very special and pretty and popular (something I did NOT feel at 13)... as well as very, very undeserving considering most of you blog like 8,000% more than I do.

Because I feel so guilty, I will try to follow the rules this time, even though it makes me feel kind of like I'm sending a warm-and-fuzzy blog version of a chain letter. These are the rules:

1) Thank the person who nominated me for this award.

2) Copy the award & place it on my blog.

3) Link to the person who nominated me for this award.

4) Tell us 7 interesting things about yourself.

5) Nominate 7 bloggers.

6) Post links to the 7 blogs I nominate.

So big thank yous to the lovely bloggers below who presented me with the butterflies-caught-in-storm-of-curlicues goodness. Are you already reading their blogs? You should be:

Are You There Youth? It's Me, Nikki: Nikki recaps the best selection of raised-in-the-'80s classics and little-known gems AND she freely call characters out on their cuntery. Dare I say it's a combination that goes together like high tops and slouch socks?

Worst of the Worst Fanfiction: What's better than making fun of yourself and/or Francine Pascal's legion of ghostwriters? Making fun of pervy creative spellers who can't be assed to come up with their own characters!

Living in the '80s and '90s: I just discovered this blog and already have a crush on its snarktastic recaps of the inanity that is Bayside High, among other awesomeness. YES!

Fear Street: I have never read an R.L. Stine book, but I freakishly love this blog and its author's obsession with Stine's mole. (Really, can you blame her?)

And here are seven things about my 30-something self that my 13-year-old self would be shocked to learn—I mean, other than the obvious fact that I am using a COMPUTER to let strangers, and people I know, and BOYS read my diary:

I am not married with a truckload of babies. Thirteen-year-old me thought I'd have at least three rugrats by now, preferably fathered by Joe McIntyre; 30-something me thinks Joey Joe is a bit of a douche. To be fair, I'd still pick him as a baby daddy over some of my other 13-year-old crushes (two words: Vanilla Ice).

I actually like vegetables! When I was 13, the closest I got to a vegetable was a Claussen's dill pickle. I am not exaggerating.

I ride a bike nearly everywhere. (Actually, this may have been predicted once in a round of MASH.) At 13, I loathed physical activity so much that I managed to talk my pediatrician into write me a note excusing me from Gym for the year. True, I was having a lot of asthma trouble at the time, but really, how much running do you do in basketball elimination? Answer: next to none. Instead, my bum-kneed friends and I got to be office aides, delivering notes and forgotten lunches to classrooms all over the building. Best! Gym class! Ever!

I don't have cable. Thirteen-year-old me was committed to a rigorous weekly schedule of television viewing, whereas 30-something me watches less TV than a Scandinavian. (Honestly, 23-year-old me would probably be astonished by this as well. Sometimes I do miss me a little television for women.) However! My brain has retained a staggering amount of trivia from its years in front of the boob tube, and I dream of someday starting a band that plays nothing but '80s sitcom theme songs. No, seriously.

I kinda sorta love karaoke. Despite my yearly plan to form a band, 13-year-old me was actually terrified of singing solo. (Think of me as the Jon Knight of Girls Will Be Girls.) In 8th grade chorus, when our teacher was sussing out the altos and sopranos, I flat-out refused to sing by myself in front of the class. Now? I karaoke only once or twice a year, but I spend countless hours analyzing what makes a killer karaoke tune. Current front-runner for World's Best Karaoke Song (as suggested by my friend Alyssa) is Heart's "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You," a ballad about a woman who bones a hitchhiker when her impotent husband can't give her a baby, then leaves said hitchhiker a mysterious letter about gardening. Needless to say, THE CROWD LOVED IT! Note: "Kiss Me Deadly" and "Hot Blooded" also go over well. You're welcome!

13-year-old me LOVED this song! It was a Pizza Hut jukebox favorite.

I moved to Oregon without dying of dysentery OR a snake bite! When I was 13, all I knew about Portland was that the Quimbys lived there. And that a lot of your oxen might die before you reached Klickitat Street.

I still haven't completed book of my own. But since starting this blog, I've had an idea for one! With, like, an actual plot! And if I can ever figure out what the frig's up with my main character, maybe I'll actually write it!

Now for some shout-outs (forwarding of curlicue-butterfly magic is optional; I think half of you have already received this award):

Not That Kind of Girl: TKOG is on a quest to do 250 uncharacteristic things before the end of August 2010. If you like self-improvement that involves blow job classes, dancing like no one's watching on the JumboTron, and overuse of the word "dude" (which, dude! I totally do!), you should be reading this.

Steam Me Up, Kid: This blog is just no-holds-barred hilarity. Posts include instructions on how to improve your wonk-eye, first-base threesomes, and being the boss of your bodily functions. I kind of want to move to L.A. so I can try to become friends with Becky. Is that weird?

Dibbly Fresh: Snappy, satirical pop culture commentary AND Ann M. Martin bashing? What more can you ask for? Plus, Sadako makes me feel smart, which is not something I often feel when reading about The Baby-sitters Club.

The Diary Project: I love knowing that I was not alone in my all-consuming boy obsession, unwavering love for Beaches, and quest for permed hair—which it turns out I didn't need, as my hair was naturally frizztastic (see photo; that mess is ALL REAL, but it often fooled my hairdressers at Ye Olde Supercuts).

The Dairi Burger: I know you all already read The Dairi Burger; that's probably how you found this blog in the first place. But really, ihatewheat deserves a whole room full of awards for fearlessly reading the dreck that the SVH ghostwriters pass off as literature. ihatewheat, I salute you!

NEXT TIME: I promise to welcome you to Tademy Academy. After that, we'll finally start middle school!

Only in My Dreams

Last night I dreamed about this blog.

I'm serious.

Specifically, I dreamed that I found extra pages in the Syra Cuse story (but only a couple of extra pages, because I'm realistic even when I'm unconscious) and a book about a bunch of gymnastics whizzes who also happened to be quintuplets. There were even illustrations. (I think it goes without saying, but YES, they were awesome.)

Should I be worried about this? Do I need an intervention? How much blogging is too much???

Club meeting now in session!

Note: As you read the following, please imagine that I am sitting in a director's chair.

Now that everyone is chowing down on contraband ring-dings pulled from hollow books and whatnot, let's get to our first order of business: The votes have been tabulated (BTW, I nominate Blogger for club treasurer), and our club name and colors have been determined! We are officially the Heartbreakers, and you can break out the embroidery floss and start weaving the club friendship bracelets in pink and purple.

I know, I know, it was a close race. I'm fully aware that if we ever have a falling out, some of you will start a rival club known as the Rocksies, and you will purchase extremely fashionable pink and green slouch socks.

Five of you naysayers even voted for the Rinkets just to spite me! But fortunately most of us wanted a club name that, you know, actually made sense of some kind.

Speaking of which, Brooksies came in dead last. It received a single vote, and whoever cast it, I applaud you. You are truly an individual, and I don't mean that in a Dawn Schafer kind of way. The club colors of yellow and green were also big losers, because, hi, we're not BOYS.

...Well, okay, some of us are boys, but until those of you with Y chromosomes start commenting with some regularity, it's extremely easy to pretend you're not here. La la la, la la la la.

Where was I? Oh yeah, my mom said that for the next meeting she can buy us puffy paint and we can make club T-shirts. All in favor? My design is going to be a broken heart surrounded by many double F "friends forever" symbols. You guys can copy if you want. I'm sure the shirts will come out looking super professional and store-bought, as that is the nature of puffy paint.

Also for next time: Please bring your proposals for a club code language. This business of passing notes in plain English is unacceptable!

Remember, the meeting is Tuesday after school at 3:45. See you then!

p.s. Part 4 of the Living With(out) Boys saga is forthcoming, I promise! But it will require some serious suspension of disbelief on your part. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Attention, potential guest authors!

Yes, I'm totally into having guest authors here on the blog! Seriously, I may have a suitcase full of stories, but once that suitcase is empty... Well, let's not dwell too much on the empty suitcase. As I said, my sister is going to be the first guest, and I know I have at least one other author lined up.

However, I'm kind of a continuity nazi, and at this point I don't want to jump around too much in the grade levels. So if anyone has anything written in third or fourth grade that they'd like to share, now is the time! But if you have something from later years, feel free to e-mail me about it whenevs: 30isthenew13@gmail.com.

It would be great, of course, if you could type it up and e-mail it to me, but you must swear on a stack of Kirk Cameron–autographed Bibles that you will leave all the spelling and grammatical errors intact. And of course let me know the (at least approximate) year the story was written, the grade you were in, and any other pertinent info.

This is up for discussion, though: Would you want to do your own, uh, "literary analysis"? I will be doing the commenting on my sister's upcoming story, but I might be willing to hand over the snarking reins to someone else for a post. Or—because, admittedly, I might not be able to help myself—maybe we could co-snark? We have options, so let me know what you think.

The backstory

Growing up, I was shy, gawky (see photo), and unathletic. When people ask, I tell them I was an "indoor child." It's not like I never went outdoors, but I preferred activities with a PLOTLINE. (Playing outside? Yeah, sure. Playing that we live in Japan outside? Totally! Playing that we are blind orphans stranded in the woods outside? Hells yes!!!) If you gave me a few books, a pen and paper, maybe some markers, I was set for DAYS.

In second grade, I read my first "chapter book" (it was The Valentine Star in the Polk Street School series—ah, Emily and Beast), and there was no going back. I was a bookworm. Actually, I was more than a bookworm: I was a BOOK COBRA. I swallowed books whole. And it was only a matter of time before I was churning out my own. I started with picture books. Early storylines included arguments between owls and skunks, families getting lost in the woods, and the sex lives of our pet rabbits (who it turned out were NOT both female). In a particularly inspired third grade work, a girl nearly meets a tragic end during a family picnic by the river—but is saved by a pair of do-gooder dolphins just seconds before her inflatable boat goes over the falls! (I soon discovered that dolphins do not actually live in rivers.)

Partway through third grade, I decided to cut the crap and start writing my own novels, with much more mature plotlines, mainly revolving around the timeless themes of friendship and boys. Not necessarily in that order. And "start" is really the operative word, because most of them aren't finished. (A couple have endings, but they are... weird. You'll see.) But beginnings? There are a METRIC TON of those. Being a pack rat, of course I still had them all in storage at my parents' house, most of them in neatly labeled manila folders (because I was freaky organized even as a kid). But putting them on the Internet hadn't really crossed my mind (uh, why would it?) until I discovered the twin inspirations of Mortified and blogs recapping young adult books from my youth. Sleep deprivation may have also been involved. A few months later, I visited Cleveland and hauled half my childhood back with me: the aforementioned manila folders (but also a few with puppies and heart-shaped balloons on them, naturally), school journals, diaries, and assorted other goodies. The thing about the suitcase-full? Not hyperbole.


One of the folders, helpfully labeled "Book Information," contains pretty much marketing material. For my unpublished books. Written when I was, like, 12. It includes a list of book titles that is three pages long. Some of them we'll get to, but there's a large portion for which I NEVER WROTE A WORD. Yeah, I just liked coming up with titles. Here's a sampling (asterisk = we'll actually get to read part of it!):

Quintuple Trouble*
We Can Live Without Boys...Can't We?*
Perfect
Syra Cuse*
Life
Another Way Of Putting It
My Diary*
Mr. Magic
Friendship*
Who Needs Another Mother?*
The Sabrina Story*
Bonnie's Zoo*
The New, Improved Tiffany
Running Away*
Being Me
Cynthia, The One Who Hates The World*
Take-Out Order*
Living With Princesses
No Way To Spend A Summer*
More Quintuple Trouble (That's right, I was planning SEQUELS to unfinished books)
I Love Boys
It Takes Guts To Be A Girl
Super-Girl Flies Again
Jealousy Is My Best Quality
Gossip Central*
Kayla Takes Over
Ghost Girl
Sometimes*
Always And Forever, Cabin 5*
Forget-Me-Not
Secrets
All Of Us*
Baby Ducks Are Ducklings (You guys, I have no idea...)
Life After Death
Silvie, Open The Door
In The History Of The World*
Miracles Do Happen
One Of The Best Friends You Ever Had
If The Shoe Fits, Wear It
Don't Be Yourself*
The Human Giraffe
Pen-Pals*
Winter In Wonderland
The Good Witch Of Boston (Please note: I had never been to Boston)
Forever & Friends
B-O-Y-S Spells Trouble
100 Ways To Get Even
That's Why There Are Friends
Ginger, Bubbles, Frieda, And The Styrofoam Witch (I truly wish this one had a folder)

Are there others not included in this list? You better believe it.

So here's my plan: I'm going to work in a semi-chronological fashion, because that's just how I operate. I don't know exact dates, but because I'm usually the same age as the protagonist, we can go by grade level, starting in third (1986–1987; initially, 30 will be the new 9) and eventually working our way up to eighth (1991–1992). I promise you, there will be bad fashion and references to Chad Allen. I'm going to publish each story in its, uh, "entirety" (complete with spelling errors and possibly offensive content)... all the while making fun of it. I'll discuss anything that I remember as being an influence: other books, TV shows, or (way less likely) actual events. There are several acts of plagiarism I can recall, and probably more that I can't, but I'll fess up to those I remember.

Also, a lot of the folders contain extra stuff: drawings of the characters, so you don't have to waste your time trying to picture them in your head; things written and/or drawn by the characters (I was a method writer, apparently); ill-conceived floor plans of their houses; etc. I'm also going to sprinkle in various other writings: school journals (fourth grade's is a comedy goldmine), personal diaries, book reports, scripts for radio (read: tape recorder) programs, and more. It's going to be fun. And embarrassing. Extremely embarrassing.

NEXT TIME: My first attempt at chapter-booking (and at naming a book after a popular song), That's What Friends Are For, featuring Liz Craw, the coolest (and least modest) girl in the third grade.