Dear Sig: The Saga Continues

When last we left the saga, Cleveland's lake effect snow had failed to providentially strand my fourth grade crush, Sig, at my house mid-blizzard. (Thanks for nothing, Lake Erie.) I was 99% sure that Sig was into me, because sometimes he would, like, look at me in class. The problem: He also tended to gaze at my friend Jessica. Another problem: Jessica liked him too. And also: Jessica was, oh, only the most lusted-after girl in school.

So we did what any girls in our situation would do: We wrote Sig a letter telling him we liked him. Both of us. Me and my infinitely more alluring romantic rival. Together. Because I was a genius. And then we were like, "Which one of us you do like—that is, like like—more? OUT WITH IT, MAN!"

But Sig was not playing our game. He wrote back saying that we were both pretty (wooooooo!), and that he liked BOTH of us and couldn't decide. Which was a) totally baffling (really? he didn't like Jessica more? JESSICA??) and b) totally frustrating.

It also meant that the letters continued. Because Jessica may have been a gajillion times more popular with the boyfolk, but I could surely win him over with my... erm... heart-shaped stationery? The following letter was typed (how casual!) on paper that looked like this:

Raise your hand if you're embarrassed already.

Pre-letter disclaimer: Obviously I never sent this to him, because I still have it in my possession. What I don't know is whether or not I mailed off a later draft. Please, God, I pray that I did not.

July 15, 1988

Dear Sig,

Tomorrow I'm going on vacation. We're going to (in order) Brockport (to see my friends Brendan and Caitlin), Canada (to camp), Gasport (to see my cousins, Bonnie and Jimmy), and Lockport (to see my cousins, Stephanie and the twins, Steven and Michael).*

*The "ports" are in New York.

Yes, my letter included a footnote. Did I know how to woo a 10-year-old boy or WHAT? Oh, and a previous letter must have suggested a picture exchange, because after the really thrilling description of my upcoming trip, I launch into this:

Oh, I don't have any decent pictures to send you right now. I'm going to try and get my mom to take some acceptable ones while we're away.

Er, like this one?

There is absolutely nothing acceptable about those bangs.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I forget to mention that this was the Worst Cut Era? Yeah. You know how people sometimes refer to giant '80s bangs as "The Claw"? Mine were more along the lines of "Satan's Gimpy, Gnarled Hand." So I had that going for me. But wait! There's more!

My boyfriend thinks I looked like one of the Ramones.
Every young girl's dream!

Oh yeah, these pictures were going to make him forget allllll about Jessica. Also, notice how I'm close-lipped in all of the shots? That's because I'd recently acquired a mouthful of metal. Hot, right? Jessica WHO??

Are you going to send yours? The three of us, you know, you, me, Jessica, should all get together soon and talk.

I'm sure Sig was just counting down the days until he could be hounded about this in person instead of via the USPS.

Have you told anyone about this? Well, Jess and I told Katie, the three of us are best friends. I doubt there's anything left to say.

Good instinct, Sada! Keep it short and sweet. The less you say, the less likely you are to utterly humiliate yourself. Just sign your name and we'll—oh CRAP—

Well, I just wish you'd like me more than Jessica. Everyone likes Jessica. The boys, I mean. When they look at me they say, "Ew, gross, contact" or something similar.

"Contact" was something that you would say to protect yourself against the germs of unpopularity. Like, say someone's hand accidentally brushed against [Insert name of unpopular child] while waiting in line for the slide; that person would then have the [Name of unpopular kid] Touch, and would have to rid him or herself of said Touch by thrusting it upon an unsuspecting victim. The ONLY WAY to avoid getting The Touch was to yell, "Contact!" or, if you were feeling charitable, "Contact! Detours! Force field!" If I remember correctly, this was a more powerful form of Contact that would also protect any friends in your immediate vicinity.

So, to sum up: Everyone with a wang lurves Jessica, and they find me so repellent that they must verbally arm themselves against my cooties. Just, like, in case you forgot, Sig! (You guys, I don't even know. Was I going for the PITY LIKE? Oh, the shame.)

It's nice to know that someone, besides my family and friends thinks I'm pretty.

Because—news flash!—boys think I am The Ug.

I think you're cute. Us girls call boys "cute" if they look good.

Good thing I let him in on that big secret! Jessica recently reminded me of a later incident in which we were walking to her house and Sig had joined us (hi, he obvs liked us!), and we started telling him how comely he was.

comely adj. Vocabulary word courtesy of Judy Blume. According to Rachel Robinson, it means "attractive . . . good looking . . . cute . . ."

Shockingly, Sig managed to glean the meaning from context. The context being along the lines of "Oh, Sig, you are soooooooOOOOOOOoooooooo COMELY!"

And then I ended the letter with:

L*O*V*E,
S*A*D*A

L*O*V*E? I'll tell you what I loved: asterisks. Sweet Jesus.

P.S. WRITE BACK SOON

P.P.S. If you get a letter from Rachel, don't write her back.

Because no letter is complete without a dig at Rachel! I think that ultimately only a couple of letters were exchanged (I don't see why Sig wouldn't have written back ASAP!), but I do remember that he gave both Jessica and I pink-and-purple friendship bracelets that he made for us. (ZOMG, a boy made me something! This was almost as cool as being in a skateboard gang!!)

I didn't keep a diary in fifth grade, but there's a mention in my school journal about Sig and his puppy stopping by Jessica's house while I was over (me: apparently unfazed that he was randomly stopping by Jessica's? or did we invite him?). That year Sig played the lead in our school play, The Emperor's New Clothes. Of course, he wasn't actually NAKED, but we had to pretend that he was. You can imagine the maniacal giggling that occurred.

And I would insist on going to Family Skate at the ice rink every freaking week because Sig went too and sometimes he would skate with me for a bit (woooooooo! again). The most dramatic Family Skate event involved my friend Casey, who broke her leg while skating with me and had to be carried off the ice by Sig's dad—oh, the mortification! Afterward Sig skated up to me and said, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall, huh?" I still don't know what he meant by that. In hindsight, I think he was just trying to make conversation, but in the moment, I was infuriated that he dare cast aspersions on my injured friend, and I came back with this incredibly witty rejoinder: "Well, I guess Casey must have a really big LEG then!!!" Um... ? What does that even MEAN?? (I don't know, but I was definitely mad at him for, like, at least two days.)

I do have some dishy materials from a sleepover with Katie. First of all, we rated ten of the boys in our class (as preteen girls are wont to do) on a scale of 1–10. I rated Sig the highest with a 9½; the baby-faced new boy Aaron, who lived a few doors down from Sig, a 7; and the remaining boys in the 2 to 6 range. Harsh! Katie, meanwhile, gave Sig a 10, when she supposedly liked Nathan—whom she only rated a 9! WTF, Katie?!

Also, to answer your question: YES, for some reason I have kept a copy of fifth grade boy ratings for TWENTY YEARS. There's obviously something wrong with me. But! Below the Boy Ratings, there's a list of the following:

People (or things) that go together in our grade:

1. Rebecca and Nathan
2. Sig and Jessica
3. Katie and Chuck [Chuck was the "hot stable boy" where Katie rode horses. Except for the part where he didn't actually exist. We started to get suspicious when we realized his letters were all written in Katie's handwriting.]
4. Rachel and Yoav
5. Michael and Laura [crossed out, I suppose, after they "broke up"]

But yes, did you see #2? It's true. The inevitable happened: Sig asked Jessica to "go with him." I was crushed. (Actually, I was home sick that day, and I don't really remember what happened. But I'm sure I was crushed.) And my family had just moved onto his very street! But, oh, what did it matter now?

I tried briefly to focus my attentions on Aaron, the new boy, despite the fact that he was only a 7. And by "focus my attentions" I mean "fantasize that I might lure him to my house to play a few rounds on our awesome new mini-pinball machine." But then all the other girls decided they liked Aaron too (one friend even puffy-painted "I ♥ Aaron" on her socks, so you know she meant business), so I was like, screw this. Plus, living on Sig's street meant that sometimes he would bike past my house. Like, while Bon Jovi was poignantly singing "I'll Be There for You" in the background. I swear to you.

So, he may have picked Jessica, but whatever—this shit was clearly meant to be. I knew it; Jon Bon Jovi knew it; and in his heart, I believed Sig knew it too. On the other side of the "Boy Ratings" paper is a list entitled "Who Boys Like," and you know who's listed under Sig? That's right: Jessica and Sada. I was keeping the dream alive, you guys. KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE.

The saga? To Be Continued...

Also, in my dedication to embarrassing myself as much as humanly possible (and because, hey, I wondered what he was up to), I did it: I TRACKED SIG DOWN. And I sent him a link to The Sig Saga. Oh yeah I did. However, because he has the memory of a normal person instead of, like, a freaky computer elephant (ahem), he didn't recall too many of the specifics. He did say: "Offhand what I remember is having to deal with the barrage of notes and letters and phone calls from you girls when all I really wanted to do was jump my bike off the curb or play street hockey." Which... yep. That sounds about right.

One of the best parts, though, is how I finally found him: through my third grade crush, Andrew. That's right, people. I've been e-mailing all the boys I had the hots for in elementary school. I even confessed my crush-of-old to Andrew (he was not, I'm pleased to report, the recipient of any third grade letters) and he wrote back that he had a crush on—I am not even making this up!—JESSICA. Of course he did.

NEXT TIME: A rare look into the mind of the fifth grade boy! My brother proves that snarkiness runs in the family.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I haven't had time to snark all of Lauren Lowsky, 100% babysitter, so I'm sneaking in a quickie first. This short story was an entry in my fifth grade school journal, and I thought it was totally eeeeeeerie and could definitely get me a gig writing for The Preteen Twilight Zone. (And yes, by that I mean Are You Afraid of the Dark? Or was that more like Tales from the Preteen Crypt? Discuss.)

3/14/89

Two Friends: The Story of Friendship

Once upon a summer day, two friends, Janet and Heather, were sitting in the grass.

"I don't want to move." Heather said stubbornly, crying

"I don't want you to either." said Janet, crying, too. "But you have to promise me we'll always be best friends, no matter what. If the end of the world comes, I'll still be there for you."

These five... er, six... words I swear to you. But awww, how sweet. If the end of the world comes, I'll totally be there for all of YOU GUYS! We'll hang out in my underground (or inner-tree) bunker and play MASH until we can play MASH no more. And maybe kiss some Chad Allen posters and choreograph a new routine to "I've Had the Time of My Life." We'll go out in a blaze of 1989 glory. If anyone can find nonperishable Cool Ranch Doritos, it is ON.

"I promise." said Heather.

"Here," said Janet, taking off her necklace. "I want you to have this." She handed it to Heather.

"Your shell necklace!" gasped Heather. "The one your mother gave you before she died. OH, I can't!"

It's nice how the girls are so helpful with the exposition! Also, if my mother were on her deathbed and bequeathed to me a SHELL NECKLACE, I might get rid of it too.

My mom died and all I got was this stupid shell necklace.

"Take it." said Janet.

"Here," said Heather, digging into her pocket. "I want you to have this."

"Your lucky stone! The one you found on the beach! Thank you!"

They both have special beach objects! You have goosebumps already, just admit it.

"Thank you!" cried Heather. And then she was gone.

In a puff of smoke? What happened? Did she just apparate? Is she moving to HOGWARTS?

7 years later, when the girls were 17, there was a plane crash. Only one girl was killed. Her name was Janet McCall. Heather cried for days after she heard. Janet had been coming to visit Heather. Heather had never worn the shell necklace, but now she took it out of it's case and put it on.

Like, just how ugly is that necklace? Seriously.

Two days after Janet was killed, there was a second plane crash. Only one person died. Her name was Heather Dobbins. She was going to her friend Janet McCall's funeral. So, then they were together again.

Woooo-oooooo-ooooooh! Wasn't it EERIE, with the exchange of oceanic items and the really implausible only-one-person-on-the-entire-plane-dying thing happening TWICE? You'll be up all night trying to make sense of it, I know.

So, what was the story of friendship? A few theories:

• Visiting your be-fri means risking your life. Even if she's already dead and you haven't seen her in seven years and you're just going to pay your respects to her family or whatever, you're pretty much taking your life into your hands.
  
• Wearing a fugly shell necklace might just cause your plane to crash. (That necklace is so cursed. I want a sequel.)
  
• If your friend moves away, forget her. You can give her your lucky stone, but you'll never see her alive again. But don't worry! You two can totally hang in the afterlife!
  

NEXT TIME: We'll finally be babysat by Lauren Lowsky.

Until then, since I know how much you like reading other peoples' diaries, you might want to check out this post on Jezebel. I'm not the only one who likes to embarrass myself on the Internets!

Who Needs Another Mother?

This one was inspired by two great tastes that probably DON'T taste great together: the no-nonsense prose style of Paula Danziger... aaaaand kidnapping. For those of you who don't remember, kidnapping was HUGE in the '80s! It was like the Snuggie of 20 years ago. (Speaking of Snuggies, you could probably use one to lure unsuspecting children into your windowless van. "Want to try on my blanky? It has SLEEVES! Sleeves filled with candy!!!" Just brainstorming here...)

Nothing conspicuous about this, no siree.

[My mom gave us very strict instructions not to take any candy or other gifts from strangers. "And if someone tells you they'll take you to the toy store and buy you any toy you want," she prompted, "what do you say?" My sister quickly answered, "Thank you!"]

The late '80s and early '90s gave us a veritable smorgasbord of child stealing. For instance:

• In The Face on the Milk Carton, a teen girl sees her face on—you guessed it!—one of those Missing Child ads that were all the rage on dairy containers of the '80s. [Sidenote: What was up with that? The ones with the creepy age-progression photos were the worst/best. I was always hoping I'd recognize someone, because solving a crime at age 10 would have completely ruled.] Anyway, this book was awesome because the girl might have been kidnapped by Hare Krishnas (the hell?!), plus it was made into a TV movie starring Kellie Martin! Double the awesome! EDIT: I don't know HOW, but I forgot that the movie also had a CHARACTER NAMED SADA in it, making it awesome to the infinite power. Is it out on DVD yet?!
  
• How about the Diff'rent Strokes episode where Sam gets kidnapped? The kidnapper uses the old "Can you help me find my lost puppy?" line. Of course, the villains are just some sad couple who want to replace their dead son—not murderous child molesters like the kidnappers in real life.
• And of course there was I Know My First Name Is Steven, the TV miniseries in which Luke Edwards/Corky Nemec DOES get kidnapped by a child molester, because it's based on a true story. This miniseries scared the piss out of me. Almost as much as the one where Farrah Fawcett shoots her kids while "Hungry Like the Wolf" is playing. ALMOST.
  

Who Needs Another Mother? took more of the "lighthearted" Diff'rent Strokes–style approach to kidnapping, by which I mean the 'nappees didn't get touched in bad places or end up in a dumpster outside Burger King with their fingertips chopped off. (Fact: I've watched waaay too many true crime shows.) Nay, they were kidnapped out of LOVE!

But actually, we won't get to most of that. What we WILL get to is gratuitous descriptions of masticated potato chips and fat men in mismatched Hawaiian print. The kidnapping thing? Myeah, not so much.

Who Needs Another Mother?

School was out.

I graduated from fifth grade.

I'm scared about going to middle school.

So the key to writing like Paula Danziger is to use the first person, present tense. Obviously. But I was unaware that you also have to keep all of your paragraphs annoyingly short.

Today is the last day of school. Now I'm walking home. Well, what's going to be my home when Alicia hears about her uncle's will.

Alicia is my mom.

I don't remember calling her mom. I don't remember calling her anything but Alicia.

That's our first—and, actually, in these three chapters, ONLY—clue that Alicia is in fact NOT her mom. I seem to have called upon a reserve of subtlety previously absent in my writing—a subtlety wholly unhelpful for the purposes of the Kidnapping Foreshadowing.

I have a sister.

Her name is Justine.

Alicia calls her Tina.

I call her Brat.

Brat is a boy-crazy little snot. She wants to be a cheerleader. It's sexist to be a cheerleader. Besides, she's only 10.

A cheerleading Brat? I can't stop picturing this:

Sexist!!!

Also, is she wearing HIGH-TOP CHUCK TAYLORS? I don't want to think about this for too long.

I open the door.

"It's about time." Brat yells from the kitchen. She walks in, stuffing her face with potato chips. The pig. How does she stay so skinny?

Ummm... she's 10?

I ignore her.

"The house?" I ask Alicia.

"I'm glad you asked that question." says Alicia. She isn't smiling. "My uncle didn't leave me the house."

Brat pretends to faint in a chair.

A potato chip piece flies out of her mouth and onto my chin. How disgusting. [I second that...] I wipe it off.

"Did he leave you anything?" I ask.

Alicia sticks her tongue in her cheek. That's her annoying habit. "Well, this is so embarrassing." begins Alicia. "No. My uncle didn't leave me anything."

I'd like to know how they weaseled their way into the house in the first place. That Alicia must be one sweet-talkin' kidnapper.

"WHAT." I screech.

"Erin, calm down." Alicia says. She's blushing.

"Sorry, Alicia." I tell her.

"I'm sorry, Alicia." mimmicks Brat, pretending to cry. Brat also wants to be an actress, which will never happen because she can't act.

"I'm sorry, too." says Alicia, looking around. "Think of all the space."

I do.

Alicia is what some people would call a struggling artist. So we usually don't have a lot of money. I mean we buy food and clothes and shoes and art supplies and stuff. It's not like we're poor.

Homeless, yes.

Poor, no.

They are SO poor.

"So where are we going to live?" asks Brat. The snot. I was just about to say that.

"I'm glad you asked that question, Tina." says Alicia. She is sticking her tongue in her cheek.

Not a good sign.

"After I found out about Uncle Frank's will, it was about 1:00 so I decided to do some house-hunting." Alicia starts smiling. "And I found the perfect place. You guys are gonna love it."

WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT, I think.

Uh, you'd think whole "homeless" thing would make Erin a little less picky. Who's the friggin' brat now?

Chapter Two

The place Alicia found wasn't just any place. Alicia lived in a boarding house before I was born. So this was kind of like a boarding house. Except it was like an apartment building too. It was a mansion.

The people who owned the house rented out the rooms, except they decided to put a sink and stove in each "apartment". So then it wasn't a boarding house or apartment building.

So, it's a mansion that's been converted into apartments. In other words, EXACTLY LIKE AN APARTMENT BUILDING. I lived in a house, so I didn't understand such distinctions.

Alicia wanted to rent half of the attic. There were four rooms in the attic, two big, two small, and one bathroom. Some people named the Walker's had rented the other half. Half was one big room and one small room. They had to share the bathroom.

A Quick Lesson in Being Poor: Poor people can't afford their own bathrooms.

Alicia decided to rent it that night. She asked them to get her a pole to hang a curtain on.

...And starving artists can't afford their own curtain rods.

When we get home, to Uncle Frank's home, we pack right away. I'm finished at 10:52.

Brat went to sleep at 9:47, but she's not done packing. Alicia calls for my help.

"I'm having a nervous breakdown." says Alicia. She is packing the dishes. "I'm having my mid-life crisis."

I believe Alicia is in her mid-30s.

"Really, Alicia." I say. "You're more responsible than that." I'm smiling.

"Erin." Alicia says. "Don't you lecture me about responsibility. Even if it is in humor." She isn't smiling.

That really hurt me.

It's like she can lecture us about anything and then we make a joke and she jumps on our backs and says don't lecture her, but she can lecture us, even if we were only joking.

It's like Erin keeps repeating herself and talking in circles and saying the same thing over and over.

What am I saying we for?

I meant me.

As you can see, I wasn't big on editing.

So I left Alicia to finish packing by herself. I always leave when I'm mad at her. Because when she does things like that it bugs me.

This is how mature kidnapper/kidnappee relationships work. Take note.

Now it's 9:14.

Brat finished packing 18 minutes ago.

Alicia stayed up last night and finished.

We eat doughnuts for breakfast. I eat the maple one. Maple is my favorite kind of doughnut.

Brat likes chocolate with chocolate sprinkles.

All that chocolate is going to catch up with her.

She'll have a million zits because she ate chocolate doughnuts for breakfast all this week. I can't wait to see her face next week.

Dude. She's 10. Plus, chocolate doesn't cause acne. That's an urban myth perpetrated by YA literature of the '80s.

* * * * *

Now we moved. We don't have any furniture, so we didn't need a truck or van or anything.

A Quick Lesson in Being Poor: Furniture? Nope. Can't afford it. But at least there's money for shoes and art supplies. And maple doughnuts!

We brought boxes over in Alicia's neon pink bug.

A pink Volkswagen?!?! Alicia is shattering all KINDS of kidnapper stereotypes!

But I bet she'll still give you free candy.

We get over to the house. The number on our door is 16. That's Brat's lucky number. YUCK.

Alicia wants us to seperate the big room in half. Half will be the bedroom and the other half will be Alicia's studio.

That's why she asked for the curtain pole thing.

She has me and Brat working away on sewing a loop in some old sheets.

The things we do for that woman.

There is a Knock at the door.

"Keep sewing." says Alicia. She runs to the door.

"Slavedriver." Brat whispers.

Aha! So maybe Alicia is part of some CHILD SLAVERY RING???

It's Mr Walker.

He looks really weird. He's really fat with tiny glasses. He's [wearing?] bulging Hawaiin print shirt and shorts that don't match. And he's wearing sandals. Can you believe it? SANDALS?

Oy, the mandals.

Although Mr. Walker was probably wearing Birkenstock knockoffs. Am I right or am I right?

I don't think I want to live next door to them.

Chapter Three

Mr. Walker's creepy family is walking in. Mrs. Walker is wearing a gray skirt and a white blouse. The skirt comes down to her ankles. She has straight gray and blond hair that comes down to her chin.

Mrs. Walker is hold a fat, almost bald baby in diapers. "I'm Carolyn and this is Clyde." Mrs. Walker says. She's pointing at the baby. The baby, Clyde, looks like Mr. Walker, with a frizzy puff of red hair on top of his head and gray eyes.

Be careful, little Clyde! Your new neighbor likes to STEAL KIDS!

Mrs. Walker pushes a girl in. "I'm Veronica." says the girl. She hands Alicia Something covered in foil. "Happy house-warming." she mutters, staring at her feet.

How ominous is it that the Something is capitalized? I fear it might be a Severed Head. Or a Tupperware's Worth of Pig Blood. Happy housewarming!

"You'll have to excuse Veronica." says Mrs. Walker, glaring at her. She's not in a very good mood."

I don't know what to make of Veronica. She's still staring at her feet. She has gray eyes and snarled red hair that comes down to her shoulders. She probably hasn't brushed it in weeks. She's very skinny and wearing a dirty green shirt with green and white striped shorts. And her shins are all black and blue. She's carrying yellow plastic sunglasses.

A Quick Lesson in Being Poor: Poor people are dirty and don't brush their hair. But they have rad sunglasses!

"And this is my son, Joel." says Mrs. Walker. "He's thirteen." She winks. What a major geek. I feel sorry for her kids.

Joel has red hair that's straight and brown eyes. He looks thirteen, with a lot of zits.

And that's where it ends. But I swear to you, this WAS going to be about kidnapping. Eventually. At some point. For sure. The preadolescent promo material gives us a glimpse of the drama that was to come:

WHO NEEDS ANOTHER MOTHER?

Erin and her sister, Justine, have lived all their lives with their mother, Alicia. Alicia is an artist and she never has very much money. So when they settle down in an apartment, Erin feels at home for the first time. She has even met her first friend since second grade. Then they find out Alicia isn't their real mother. Their mother disappeared and their baby-sitter, Alicia took them and kept them after their mother returned. The court gives them back to their real mother. Living with their new family is anything but easy. Erin is ready to give up. Who needs another mother? Not Erin. She just wants Alicia.

[I axed the "She just wants Alicia" line because I thought it made Erin sound like a big lesbian. I wish I was joking.]

So, hmmm. Their mother "disappeared" and their babysitter—instead of calling the police like ANY SANE INDIVIDUAL—was all, "What happened to my employer? Don't know. Oh well, guess I better keep these kids and move out of state and change our identities and relocate every few months." (Where was their mother anyway? Did SHE get kidnapped too?! Because a kidnapping within a kidnapping would be pretty stellar.)

I have no idea how the kidnapping was going to be revealed. I probably—you're going to be shocked!—hadn't thought that far ahead. The Face on the Milk Carton wasn't published until 1990, so that idea wasn't yet mine to steal.

I do remember that Erin and Justine were going to be returned to their real mother, who lived in Friendship, NY (but of course!) with her new hubby and his two kids. (What was up with Erin and Justine's dad? Bah! Who cares?)

I love how the promo material implies that the meat of the conflict is about whether Erin wants to stay with her real mom or return to Alicia. Like Alicia wouldn't be LOCKED UP IN FRIGGIN' PRISON.

NEXT TIME: Guest author Michelle treats us to an array of awesomeness, including a tale about Shorlock Homes the Cowgirl. That's right. Shorlock Homes. The COWGIRL. Get psyched!

Ivy Twists

I'M BACK! I didn't mean to be gone so long, but extracurricular activities topped with an arm pain flare-up kind of effed me up for a while. You don't even want to KNOW how many unread items I have in Google Reader. But enough of the excuses! Let's hit the proverbial road and learn more about the 5th grade residents of Friendship, NY.

If Friendship were a TV show, this one might qualify as a Very Special Episode. Unintentionally. Now I'm not really up on the latest version of the DSM, but it doesn't take a psychiatrist to figure out that young Ivy Swanson is maaaaaaybe teetering on the edge of dissociative identity disorder (or, in 1989 parlance, MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER) here. Seriously, guys. There are imaginary friends and then there's.... THIS.

IVY TWISTS

dear jo,

i wish you didn't have to move. you're my best friend i mean life isn't fair. i wish your parents would go to you know where. [Whoa! I think she might mean H-E-double hockey sticks!] no offense, jo. i mean well it's not their fault i'm just mad about the whole thing really. this isn't the right thing to do. promise you'll never get another best friend, ok. well see you soon. i will. i will see you. bye for now.

Your Very Best Friend,
I!V!Y R!E!N!E!E S!W!A!N!S!O!N

God, I was really a huge fan of unnecessary punctuation, wasn't I?

I put the letter to Jo in my basket. I keep all my special stuff in my basket.

I also had a "special place" where I kept top-secret items—except instead of a basket it was a purple tin featuring a jazzy saxophone [please pause for a moment and try to imagine that in all of its 1989 glory], and it was EXTRA special because it had once been filled with chocolate-covered pretzels instead of secrets! Yum!

I don't really have a best friend named Jo but I wish I did.

Here's where The Crazy starts.

I don't even have a best friend. But I keep on dreaming. Jo is an old dream. When I was little she was my imaginary friend.

Now, I'd like to state for the record that there's nothing inherently wrong with imaginary friends. In fact, they're generally very healthy. I even had one myself when I was in preschool. His name was Jonka, and he lived in my basement with his wife and their 500 children. (300 were girls, and 200 were boys. Because girls are better.) Oh, and also, he looked like Ziggy.

Jonka! My old (imaginary) friend!

The problem is that Ivy takes it to a Whole New Level—a level that involves keeping a diary about your fake friend's many adventures. Actually, I wonder what Jonka's diary would have been like...

Hung out next to the washing machine with my 500 kids. AGAIN. Really need to talk to the wife about birth control. The 4-year-old came down and talked to me for two minutes. No one else seems to realize I'm here. CHRIST, what I wouldn't do to get out of this fucking basement.

Jo helped me through kindergarten, but in first grade Jo stopped coming to school. I started writing stories about my best friend, Jo Ann. Jo was so real to me. She still is. I know just what she looks like. She has red hair that's usually up in a ponytail and she has brown eyes that look like melted chocolate.

Uh, why am I comparing organs to foodstuffs? I point the finger of blame squarely at Ann M. Martin. Damn Claudia Kishi and her damn almond-shaped eyes...

Jo's birthday is on July 5th 1977 and right now she's almost 10 and she's in fourth grade just like me except she started early. The summer after first grade, Jo began to keep a diary. The diary was all about Jo's life and her friends. She went to my school and she was very popular.

So Ivy has an imaginary friend who lives a parallel—but much cooler—life? Jo is rapidly becoming this story's younger, less bloody Tyler Durden.

Jo has a mother and a father and a big sister named Lindsay. I stopped calling Jo a dream. To me she wasn't a dream. She was real in my eyes.

What do you think those eyes look like? A pair of green M&Ms maybe?

I began calling everything about Jo "twists". It was something new and Jo was so lively and so much fun that the word seemed to fit her.

Lively AND fun!

But now I am starting to think Jo is a little babyish. So I made her move away. Jo moved away to Florida yesterday. Her dad is a photographer and he moved the whole family down there because that's where he's working down in Florida on another assignment. I wish I could make Jo move back, but twists are something I can't change no matter what.

The first rule of twists is that you can't talk about twists. The second rule of twists is that you can't talk about twists. The third rule is that twists can't be changed. The fourth rule is that if things are getting a touch babyish, you can ship your alter ego off to Florida on a photo assignment. A PERMANENT assignment.

Learn at your own risk! Apparently there's no going back.

So this is what the letter at the beginning referred to, when Ivy wished to damn Jo's (made-up!) parents to the depths of hell and then made her promise she'd never get another best friend. Even though she's, y'know, NOT REAL. Because that's not babyish at all.

And you wouldn't believe what Jo wrote in her diary today!

You know what else isn't babyish? Continuing to write in your pretend friend's diary!

Here's what it said:

Dear Diary.

I can't believe we moved. Mom and Dad never tell me and Lindsay anything! And already I miss Ivy. New York is so far away! But today I met this girl named Alora and she is very nice. Alora is such a pretty name. I think Alora and I are going to be good friends. VERY good friends. [AHEM.] And my kitten, Mouse loves the new house. So do I! My new room is the best. The kids at school are real nice and already I'm a hit! Maybe things aren't as bad as I thought!

L♥ve,
The 1 & The Only,
Jo Ann Maureen Memphis

And then there's a drawing of her prettily named (but equally fictitious) ladyfriend:

Nice barrettes. Too bad they're not real.

This one definitely ended prematurely. I really wanted to see Ivy get jealous about the relationship between two entirely fabricated persons. You KNOW she was about to lose her shit. I imagine it would have been like an elementary school version of that made-for-TV movie where Nancy McKeon all of a sudden becomes schizophrenic. Because that? Was awesome.

NEXT TIME: While we're on a roll with the Very Special, how about a kidnapping book? Or, more accurately, a book that's SUPPOSED to be about kidnapping, but never really gets there?

Gilford Girls

The contents of the Gilford Girls folder (which is actually labeled Don't Be Yourself, though it contains not a word of that story) proves once and for all that I spent far more time drawing my characters—and coming up with their favorite colors!—than I ever did coming up with a plot. Any sort of plot. At all.

The story that's actually in the folder, Living in a Princess's Land....When You're Not a Princess, is a Book That Never Was™ several times over. I rewrote this sucker THREE TIMES, and yet I never got past page two. That's a profound dedication to lack of plot. For your reading enjoyment, I'm going to include all three versions, for each contains a variation in hilariousness that cannot be excluded.

But before we get to all that, let's go back to where it all began, with some pencil sketches of the Gilford Girls themselves—plus a listing of their vital statistics. [Note: If you need a closer look at, say, Anita's boombox, clicking on the drawings will enlarge them.]

The eldest of the sisters is Melanie, whose windswept hair and vacant, glassy-eyed stare seem indicative of a drug problem. She IS a tortured poet, after all.


She SO locks herself in her room and blares the Smiths because NO ONE UNDERSTANDS. Then she scribbles some poems about it—with her MELANIE pencil. She's so deep!

Name: Melanie Gilford
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Color: Black
Age: 14
When grows up: Poet

Then we are treated to a bit of her verse:

Sweet Spring Morning
Dew drop mist
hung sweet on trees.
Robins sing
the Early Song.
Breathe Deep!
Bring in the
fragrance of roses.
Wake Up!
It's a sweet spring morning.

Um, 'scuse? Shouldn't that be about 7,000 times more angsty? Apparently I did not yet realize that you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders at 14.

Next we have Anita, who has a passion for dancing in spite of her raging case of hydrocephalus (and at least one bizarrely malformed ear).


Good God, that HEAD! This may have been my first and last attempt at drawing in profile.

Name: Anita Gilford
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Color: Rose
Age: 12½
When grows up: Dancer

Then we have Doreen, the Claudia Kishi sister. She looks utterly shocked, and I can't tell if it's because her hair has inexplicably turned to beads or because she's unfortunate enough to have acquired Michael Jackson's current nose.


Name: Doreen Gilford
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Color: Rainbow (all)
Age: 11
When Grow Up: Artist

Then, to demonstrate Doreen's artistic prowess, I included this:


Because nothing says "precociously talented artist" like a blind mouselady with a side ponytail and pointy elf ears!

After Doreen is Gloria, the actress. I don't know how to break it to her, but there is no WAY she's going to make it in Hollywood with that weak chin and set of lopsided eyes.



Name: Gloria Gilford
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Color: Blue
Age: 10
When Grow Up: Actress

And because I KNOW you couldn't get enough of Doreen's artistry:
Gloria was going to be the narrator of Don't Be Yourself. (Don't be yourself! Because she's an actress! Get it???) To that end, the folder contains... uh... inscriptions from Gloria's yearbook? Um, WTF? We didn't even have yearbooks when I was in fifth grade! Please tell me someone else did this!

The yearbook is basically a thinly veiled excuse for various Friendship characters to plug their own books. And for me to practice my mad handwriting skillz. Check it out:



Regina Grubble's book: One of the Best Friends You Ever Had.


Anne Montgomery's book: If the Shoe Fits, Wear It. (p.s. What self-respecting 10-year-old willingly refers to herself as Fanny?)


Sara Doone's books: Me, Super-Girl and its heavily foreshadowed sequel, Super-Girl Flies Again.



Melanie Tibbets' book? You'll never believe it!: Life After Death. Which makes for a totally creepy yearbook inscription, no?


What, I couldn't think of a way to work in Take-Out Order? How about "You were great! I'll see you this summer when you pick up your take-out orders! Love, Lisa"? BOOM.


Justine didn't have her own book, but her older sister did, and the "tough times" she's referring to? That would be finding out that the woman she thought was her mom? Yeah, not really her mom at all, but someone who SECRETLY KIDNAPPED HER AS A CHILD. Tough times indeed.

No book title here, but I dare say there should be.



Her handwriting looks so popular!


Last up is tomboy Patsy, who looks frighteningly like a young Paula Poundstone. She seems to be wearing a batting helmet for fun, and is definitely giving some unfortunate soul the crazy eye.

Name: Patsy Gilford
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Color: Purple
Age: 9
When grow up: First ever woman baseball player!

This was circa 1989, so A League of Their Own hadn't come out yet.

Young Patsy is the narrator of our oft-rewrit tale. Now that you have some (disturbing?) mental images to accompany the prose, let's hop to it!

VERSION #1:

LIVING IN A PRINCESS'S LAND....WHEN YOU'RE NOT A PRINCESS

Do you have any idea what it's like to be the baby of the family? To have 4 accomplished big sisters? Well I do. My name is Patsy Gilford. I guess I'm sort of a tomboy. The reason is this: The thing I love most in the world is baseball. Every other one of my sisters has some special talent. But not me. Not Patsy. NO WAY.

I like how, in my mind, athleticism was not a talent. Have I mentioned that I used to get picked last in gym class?

MELANIE GILFORD. The oldest in the family. Sophisticated Melanie is 14. Her poems never rhyme; And I quote, "Rhyming is babyish." If I need to write a poem for English, I come to her for help and she says, "Patsy, dear, that would be like cheating, having an experienced poet like myself, helping you." So my poems always rhyme. Melanie's favorite color is black because, and I quote, "Black, to myself and most other poets, seems to have more life than hot pink."

Settle down there, Johnny Cash. By the way, my idea of a "poet" was based entirely on Myron Krupnik's students in Anastasia Krupnik. Key point: Poets wear black. Lots of black.

ANITA GILFORD. She is the most serious dancer you will ever meet. [Booyah, Baryshnikov!] Ballet/Dance class after school Monday-Friday. Every morning she wakes up at 5:30 and exercises. I quote, "A dancer has to stay in shape. Exercise and plenty of sleep. Relax your muscles." She goes to bed at 7:30. She's always asleep by 8:00. Well, her ballet class is doing "The Nutcracker", Anita's favorite movie, for their show. It's between Anita and her best friend, Amie South, of who will get the lead female role of Clara.

What the hell Nutcracker movie am I talking about? Does anyone recall a popular Nutcracker film?

DOREEN GILFORD. This 11-year-old was a born artist. And she still is. [Good thing I clarified that!] Doreen does not have a favorite color because, and I quote, "All colors are equal. It's not really the color itself that's important; it's the color's meaning that counts." Doreen, for some queer reason, likes sleeping in until noon on the weekend. [Probably so she can avoid Anita and her gartantuan head.] Living with her bedroom like an art museum, this stylish girl loves sunlight and nature.

Why does this all of a sudden feel like an ad for mail-order brides?

GLORIA GILFORD. We didn't realize what Gloria's talent was until last year when she snatched the leading female role of Cinderella out of the 5th graders hands and elegantly strolled past their faces with a peculiar grin on her face. [Creepy!] At that time she was only a 4th grader. Everyone was amazed with Gloria's new-found talent. Before that, Gloria and I had searched for talents so we could be like our big sisters. After Gloria found hers it left me on my own.

I gave up. I admit it. I'm a quitter. But the others didn't find theirs when they were looking. So why should I bother to look anyway? Give me one good reason why and I will. Can you think of any thing. NO. Well, I didn't think you could anyway. Now don't give me any flimsy

You can see I was rapidly running out of steam. The plot of the book was supposed to be Patsy searching for—and ultimately discovering—her own talent. Whatever that was. I decided to give it another shot, this time without quite so much quoting.

VERSION #2:

Living in a Princess's Land

You have no idea what it's like to be the baby of the family. To have 4 older, accomplished sisters who do everything right. They're perfect. They have good manners, style. They're perfect young women!

My name's Patsy Gilford. I'm 9. I just started 4th grade yesterday. My sisters are Melanie (14), Anita (12½), Doreen (11), and Gloria (10).

I'm sort of a tomboy, I guess. I L-O-V-E love baseball. Last year I was the best. That was at my old school. We moved because we needed more space. I mean, I was sharing a room with Gloria and Doreen.

The horror!

Let me tell you about Melanie. She's a poet. Some of her poems were even printed in magazines!

Yeah, magazines published by the International Library of Poetry, maybe.

Her long brown hair falls down to her armpits. [Always classy to mention armpits in a character description.] Every morning she wakes up early and sweeps it quickly over to the side - I think. She has pretty awesome taste in clothes, though she's a bit on the "cukoo" side. Talk about sensitive!

But is she...

Please, please, please, let me get what I want

Then there's Anita, the very becoming dancer. She transformed our basement into a dance studio in 1 week. Anita is quite serious about her dancing. She goes to classes everyday after school. All her radios and tapes! I mean, her favorite movie is the "Nutcracker"! Anita dresses baggy and exercises every morning, waking up at 5:30!

How many radios does one ballerina need? Also, note how I nixed the "going to bed at 7:30" lunacy. But seriously, what's up with the Nutcracker movie! Is there any way I could be referring to Six Weeks, the Dudley Moore drama in which there's a 12-year-old leukemia-riddled aspiring ballerina? The poor girl finally realizes her dream of dancing in the Nutcracker—only to pass out very dramatically on the subway afterward, and her mom (aka Mary Tyler Moore) totally freaks out because her daughter is DYING ON A CROWDED SUBWAY TRAIN, OH MY GOD. Yeah, I loved that movie.

We knew Doreen's talent was drawing - especially when she won the "Easter Bunny" drawing contest. She was 4 years old!

Ah yes, the famous Easter Bunny drawing contest. Later, she probably got into art school by drawing a turtle and pirate.

"Sweet pirate! You're in!"

She's got a studio for all her work. Doreen's got radical taste - even better than Melanie's! She's always doing something different with her hair. Doreen's so cool!

Gloria's got natural acting talent. We didn't find out until last year when her class did a play. Gloria was cast as the lead female. We were all wowed! She dresses pretty casual, like me. I'm the closest to Gloria than my other 3 sisters. We understand each other - most of the time!

* * *

"What are you doing?!?!?" shrieks Anita, as I walk into the basement.

"Looking for my old mitt." I say casually.

"It's not here." she says stubbornly. I keep looking. "I'm positively certain." I keep on. "Well, fine, look if you want. But don't make any noise."

There are those impeccable manners Patsy mentioned!

Anita gets back to her routine. She hums with the music as she performs perfect pliés. She prances across the room and does several leaps on the way back. WONDERFUL!

This is just weird.

"What're lookin' at?" asks Anita of me.

(Please remember that Anita suffers from a serious birth defect that may have damaged her brain.)

"I guess it's not here." I say absent-mindedly.

And... yeah. Once more, I drew a blank. So in sixth grade I thought I'd try it ONE MORE TIME.

VERSION #3:

The Baby Of The Family (designated as a Friendship book)

Chapter One: The Baby

Do you have any idea what it's like to be the baby of the family?

I do.

I have four older, accomplished sisters who do everything right. They have it all: good looks, manners, style. Everyone who meets them says they're perfect.

I have to agree.

My name's Patsy Gilford, and I'm nine years old. My "perfect" sisters are Melanie, who is fourteen, Anita, the thirteen-year-old, Doreen, eleven and a half, and Gloria, who just turned ten and a half.

I guess you could call me a tomboy. I LOVE sports, especially baseball. Last year I was the best player on my team at school. No one expected me, the "new girl" to be any good, but I guess I showed them.

We had moved in the middle of the school-year. It was because of dad's business. For some reason, which is unknown to me, they had to relocate here in Friendship, New York.

Oh my God, you guys, FINALLY! We're not in freaking Brockport anymore! (No offense to any Brockportians.)

I have never been quite sure of what dad's business actually does. All I know is that he works in town, away from our home in the country. Dad is always rushing off to business meetings. Sometimes he even holds fancy parties at our house. I try to focus on myself, because it all confuses me.

My dad owned a diner, so I had NO CLUE what business types did. Other than throw fancy parties at their homes in the country. That much was obvious.

Speaking of their home in the country, would you care to see the floor plans?


This time I tried to appease my mother by adding in a staircase opening. And someone sleeping in what appears to be a giant papoose! But I wasn't done yet...


That weird basket-y thing protruding from Gloria's room is a balcony. So she can practice scenes from Romeo and Juliet, no doubt. I'm not sure where Melanie's room is. Maybe she lives in the attic à la Greg Brady.

Then I got bored with the aerial view and whipped up this:


Yes, the 11-year-old has her own art studio. And the Gilford are big fans of the overstuffed couch. Okay, back to the story...

Now I suppose I should tell you about Melanie, the poet. Some of her poems were even printed in a magazine. She wears her long brown hair swept over to the side. I think she has pretty awesome taste in clothes, though my parents beg to differ. They dislike her all-black wardrobe, but I think Melanie just wants to be her own person. Besides, black is her favorite color.

Then comes Anita, the ballet dancer

Blah blah waking up at 5:30 blah blah the Nutcracker blah. I guess I couldn't take another second of the Gilford Girls and their many, many talents. And probably neither can you.

NEXT TIME: More about Friendship's happening country scene in My Life as a Pre-Teen.

My Diary, part four

LAST TIME: Ashley the Diary had listen to Jenny (or Jen) go on and on about her really exciting fifth grade life. Jenny's parents' divorce at long last became final, and Jenny's dad was all, "YESSSSSS! Now I can ditch these bratty kids and gorge myself on McDonald's... in Maine!" Gretchen and Todd kissed, and I threw up in my mouth a little. Jen scribbled some passive-aggressive poetry on Gretchen's cast, and that dirty britch responded with crutch violence. Jen, Sarah, and Abby formed the "US" club to plot their revenge, because they have nothing better to do, with a capital N. Jenny's mom said she had a surprise, and Jen was POSITIVE it had to do with her 6-year-old sister being a mass murderer—and not the fact that they've been spending every weekend in Brockport visiting their ailing grandfather and other relatives. Surely not!

And now, I'm sorry to say, we have the final installment:

2/10/89

Dear Ashley,

I am really mad at my mom. Guess what her surprise is? We are moving too! We're moving down to where Ellen lives, a street away! It's so we can take care of Grampa. So he can recover.

I know it sounds like Jenny's confusing a heart attack with a stroke or something, but my own grandma had heart disease and she definitely had some periods where she was pretty effed up.

And my mom feels safer down here in New York where she grew up. She likes being down here with her two sisters. My other aunt is Aunt Mary. How can she do this to me!?! She already bought the house, so there is no backing out. We are going to see the house tomorrow and then we're going to Aunt Mary's so I can see my other cousins, Lisa, Eleanor, and Eddie. Eleanor is my age, too. My new school is called Friendship. Ellen told me. She says there are a lot of cute boys in the neighborhood! Ellen doesn't understand how I feel about leaving Sarah and Abby. I don't want to leave. I don't want to lose Sarah and Abby.

♥
-J

2/11/89

Dear Ashley,

I have a kitten! I have a pet. That probably makes no sense. Well, we went to my Aunt Mary's yesterday. They are rich! Eleanor is like super-nice and they gave me a birthday present, a kitten. A calico kitten and guess what I named her? I almost named her Ashley, but that would be confusing for you.

Yes, PLEASE don't confuse the diary.

So I named her C.C. because I like the way it sounds. It stands for calico cat, I guess, if nothing else. And Ellen gave me the present from her. Guess what it is, a fancy writing notebook, 2 4-color pens, and some earrings. The earrings are pencils.


How Claudia Kishi! Well, if one were a pencil and the other were a notebook, maybe?

Eleanor is so, so lucky. She has an electric typewriter! [Man! Those rich kids get all the good stuff!] I tried it out. I wrote my name, "Jennifer Ann Scott". Eleanor said, "I thought your last name was Fields." I said no that it was my mom's last name. Eleanor looked embarrassed. Oh, well. Guess what, we couldn't see the house because the owners were moving out, but we'll see it tomorrow.

♥
-J

2/12/89

Dear Ashley,

I saw the house today. There are 3 bedrooms. Grampa has one, mom has one, and Tony has one. Then there's the attic. I have to share a room with Lucy, Snob Force member. If she tries to brainwash me, she dies. Our street is called Evergreen Ave. Our address is 925 Evergreen Ave. I don't want to move. Ellen is so excited that I can't tell her and I want to, but she would never, never understand. She thinks it's great that I'm moving. My room is big and my mom is an interior decorator. She has a studio in the basement. Mom is going to help us fix up the attic. Guess what, there's a bathroom, too. Lucy is so, so excited about having her own bathroom where she can leave her underwear on the floor. I said not as long as I was here too.

Lucy is rapidly becoming my favorite character in this book.

We are going to pack tomorrow. We're leaving today. C.C. is staying with Eleanor. How will I break up the "US" club?

♥
-J


2/13/89

I'll tell you one thing, it wasn't fun to break up the "US" club. Abby is so upset that I can't tell if she's mad at me or not. She spent almost the whole day in the school bathroom. Sarah isn't mad at me, she's just mad... and sad. Me too. All three of us were crying our eyes out. Mom said they can come visit me not this weekend, not next, the weekend after next.

Egad, who's the chauffeur? Assuming we really were in Cleveland to start with, that's at least a 4-hour drive... each way!

By then our room will be done. Our room will be painted sky blue. Lucy wanted it pink, but I absolutely refused to have my room PINK. Really. Her bed spread is pink. We divided the room in half. I have the half by the 2 windows. I picked frilly off-white curtains. My bedspread is off-white, too with small sky blue and pink hearts on it. We are going to get an off-white curtain to go across the room so it can be private. I miss C.C.

♥
-J

2/14/89

Dear Ashley,

I'm writing in pink because today is Valentine's Day. And guess what happened. Todd dumped Gretchen! It was in her valentine from him. Now he goes with this girl in our class named Brittany.

He's a class act, that Todd.

Gretchen was crying her head off and she threw up in the bathroom. Mrs. Enite asked me to walk her down to the nurse's office. Can you believe that? So I was trapped. I walked her down and I had to wait with her until the nurse came, about 15 minutes later. You'll never believe what happened! Gretchen apologized! She said she was sorry about calling Abby fat, about me walking Lucy home, about Todd, and about kissing and trying to hit me with her crutch. So I said I was sorry about what I wrote on her cast. So now we are friends again. I wonder what the "US" club will think about another member. How will I tell Gretchen I'm moving?

They're FRIENDS again?! Did I really write this? Are we in Bizarro World?

2/15/89

Dear Ashley,

I wonder what C.C. is doing.

My money's on napping.

We are officially moving on Saturday. I'm going to Abby's for the "US" club meeting so I won't be in the way. Guss what, Gretchen is in the "US" club! And on Friday, the "US" club is going to the school at 5:00 to go in the boy's bathroom, even Abby. I have to because it was one of my resolutions.

She is so, so sticking to all of those resolutions. I swear she is!

We are packing, packing, packing! I wrote dad a letter, telling him about the house. Our rooms are done being painted and the downstairs is getting done. Aunt Sue called mom to tell her what was going on. And guess what, dad knew we were moving before we knew! How unfair. And mom knew dad was moving before we did. The world is so unfair. I swear it is. I told Gretchen I was moving. She was crying and said that I couldn't since we just got to be friends again. She's coming to visit.

♥
-J

2/16/89

Dear Ashley,

Tomorrow I'll see my little C.C. We went in the boy's bathroom. It's like the girl's bathroom except they have no mirrors (we have two) and they have those things called urinals or something. How sick. We were hysterical.

This is based entirely on fact! Apparently 10-year-old boys don't need to know what they look like.

All my stuff is packed except for tomorrow's clothes, you, a pair of shoes, my pens, and my notebook. I'm all set for the "US" club meeting. It's hard to believe I'm leaving... and not coming back. On Monday I start school. My new school, Friendship. Friendship is a cool name for a school. Ellen said they built it over the summer because the old school burnt down. Guess what else, there was a flood the first day of school! It rains a lot where we're moving to.

If I remember correctly, it's more that they have problems with sewage backup where she's moving to.

I'm almost done writing on your pink pages, Ashley.

The first third of the diary's pages are pink, the next are yellow, and the final third are blue. We ALMOST make it out of the pink.

I can't wait for tomorrow's "US" club meeting. Abby bought another friendship bracelet for Gretchen.

♥
-J

2/17/89

Dear Ashley,

So we moved. We packed, we moved, and now we have to unpack. I am a teensy bit nervous about sleeping in this strange house. I didn't see C.C. She is coming over tomorrow so she won't be in the way while we unpack. We spent most of the "US" club meeting crying. I can't wait until Abby, Sarah, and Gretchen come to visit me. Wait until they see my room. We are putting up the curtain tomorrow. I can't wait. Our room looks great. The bathroom is lavendar. Can you imagine? A lavendar bathroom? Well, it could happen to anyone.

Sager words were never spoken.

No, that's not my bathroom. But according to Jen, IT COULD BE.

There are two storage spaces in our room, one on each side of the room. Each one has a big picture on the outside wall. How weird! But if Lucy lives here, it has to be real weird. Grampa is moving in next weekend. I'm kinda nervous about meeting him. I mean I'll live with him, but I won't know him!
***

♥
-J

2/18/89

Dear Ashley,

WOW! You will never guess what I found today! We were cleaning and Tony pushed me into the broom closet in the kitchen. What a jerk! Well, I got slammed into the back of the broom closet and guess what happened! The wall fell out. Well part of the wall in the middle of the wall. There was an open square space left. I stuck my hand in. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't see anything. It was so, so dark! Well, I put the wall piece back in. You couldn't even tell it could come out! There are two wood pieces that go around the length of the broom closet, 2 feet from the top and 2 feet from the bottom. It must be a secret passage. It can't be a storage space. Who's ever heard of a hidden storage space... in a closet. I mean, get real! I'll get a flashlight and check it out after school tomorrow. C.C. is here. I love C.C.

♥
-Jen

Dude. Who the hell can fit inside a broom closet? And we know Jen isn't skinny. I mean, she's not fat, but she's not skinny either.

2/20/89

Dear Ashley,

I'm not in Eleanor or Ellen's class! There are 4 5th grade classes. This girl named Rebecca showed me around.

That's Rebecca Smith, who lives with her single mother and 12 siblings. Clearly she doesn't have enough to do.

My homeroom and math teacher is Mr. Matthews. My Reading teacher is Ms. Dunn. Mr. Matthews teaches me Health, Science, and Social Studies. Eleanor is in my Math and Ellen's in my Reading class! But they already have their own friends and I felt left out. Guess what, it is a secret passage!

Well, of course it is! If my stories continue for long enough, a secret passage will inevitably be discovered.

I went in afterschool when everyone was gone. Tony went to Janie's, Lucy went to Aunt Sue's to see Beth, and mom went grocery shopping. I stuck my leg in and felt ground, so I got in. Inside, there was a latch to close the wall piece! I shone the flashlight around and behind me, I saw a ladder! So I climbed until I came to like a landing. It was a tiny room, about twice as big as a nice sized closet! I saw a small hole so, I looked in. I was looking into Tony's closet!

Tony's closet? Who knows what kind of awesomeness that could hold!

This secret passage RULES!

I got out of the room and kept climbing until the ladder stopped. I saw another latched wall piece. I unlatched it and climbed out. I was in my storage space! I looked at the wall piece on the floor. It was that big picture. I wondered why it was there.

The house we moved into in fifth grade also featured an attic storage space with random paintings hanging inside. (Yes, paintings INSIDE the crawl space. Really.) Unfortunately, the explanation was that one of the former tenants was a bad artist, not that we had a secret passage. Though you better believe I thoroughly tested the broom closet for hollow walls.

How cool! A secret passage in my house! I wasn't going to tell anybody. Not even Ellen. I would show Sarah, Abby, and Gretchen when they came to visit. The room could be our clubhouse. I'm so, so glad I found the secret passage. I fit the picture back in. You couldn't tell at all!

Love,
Jen

The entry inexplicably ends with a cat illustration:

Um, okaaaaay.

2/21/89

Dear Ashley,

It's hopeless. I think I'll never have any friends. Ellen and Eleanor have their own seperate groups. Eleanor is really, really popular. Can you believe it? Well, it's true.

If you haven't realized yet, Eleanor is Eleanor Jefferson, the Queen Bee of Friendship Elementary in spite of her old lady name and old lady cardigans. Or, hey, maybe she's just a trendsetter. By the mid-'90s dressing like a grandma would be HUGE!

I totally love granny sweaters, by the way. Still.

The curtain is up. Lucy is littering the bathroom with bath toys. She has about 9 different bubble baths. The curtains are up and they look great. My bed is in between the window and the curtain. The bedspread looks great! My desk is across from my bed on the other side of the room. My typewriter and pens and pencils and paper and stuff is over there. My dresser is against the wall, between the windows. My kitten poster is above my desk. Nothing is blocking the storage space. I found a phone jack on my side of the room! Now all I need is a phone.

Yeah, that might be helpful.

Grampa is coming on Saturday. I can't wait for the "US" club to get here. It'll be the best sleepover ever!

♥
-J

2/22/89

Dear Ashley,

Guess what!?!? Today these three girls, Gloria, Sara, and Regina ate lunch with me? Can you believe it? They are VERY nice. I'm SO, SO excited. I'm making new friends. WOW! The girls, you know, Gloria, Sara, and Regina, were really nice.

They would be Gloria Gilford, Sara Doone, and Regina Grubble, stars of the unwritten Don't Be Yourself; Me, Super-Girl (and its equally unwritten sequel, Super-Girl Flies Again); and One of the Best Friends You Ever Had, respectively.

I still feel kind of stupid listening to everyone talk about the boys and other stuff that has happened at school. I know it's not my fault I wasn't here, but I still feel like it is. Oh well, one thing's for sure, I won't feel left out when the "US" club comes to visit.

Are the extraneous quotation marks and needless capitalization really "IRRITATING" anyone else?

They are coming on the weekend after the weekend Grampa gets here. I'm nervous about having Grampa come. What if he doesn't like me? What if he's really old-fashioned? The possibilities are practically endless!

Sorry, but I couldn't think of any evil grandpas.

You guys, Jenny's already living in the attic! And she seems to take an unhealthy enjoyment in watching her brother get it on with the ladies! DANGER! DANGER!!!

Oh well, life goes on, I guess. I hope!

♥
-Jen

2/24/89

Today I got a letter in the mail from dad. He said he's all settled in his new house. I have to write and tell him we are all settled in ours. Those girls, Gloria, Sara, and Regina didn't sit with me today. They sat with their other two friends. Everyone here has their own tight little groups. Ellen said I have to give it time. I don't see her and her friends being nice to me. It's because snotty Michelle doesn't like me, I just know it!

Her second-best friend won't even sit with her at lunch? You're about to get demoted, Ellen.

My only friends are the "US" club. I can't wait 'til they get here next weekend! It don't fit in at school. I can't believe it's called "Friendship". There doesn't seem to be any left for me!

HA!

Grampa will be here tomorrow. Thank goodness it's Friday!

Love,
♥ Jen ♥

And that's all we've got. Sorry to end this one on a downer! But don't worry—the Friendship Elementary Master Clique List (okay, it's really just titled Groups) reveals that Jenny-or-Jen eventually befriends August Brokenhoff, Stephanie Pepper, and Elaine Foster. You can rest assured they had many fun times together creating more "CLUBS" and hanging out in all of Jenny's various closets.

NEXT TIME: Especially for Valentine's Day, a real-life tale of love as my family celebrates my grandparents' 40th wedding anniversary by tricking them into renewing their vows.

Yeah, that's right, I'm going to get two posts up this week if it kills me!