Pssssst, Eve? Remembrance of Things Past, Bk. 1 (Swann’s Way) just bounced off my bedroom wall. I’d so rather read about the whole Mary Raff tragedy.
In a box somewhere in the house* is a collection of notebooks containing story outlines, commentaries, and a daily journal I had started keeping sometime in my late twenties (for those of you keeping score at home, this would have been around 1980). If memory serves I had started keeping the journal on May 1, and started out with a philosophical analysis on the significance of “May Day” as a cry for help and how apt it was that I was starting the journal on that day. I shudder to think what else I committed to paper at that point in my life.
*My entire life is “in a box somewhere in the house.” One of these days I’m actually going to get around to unpacking those boxes.
I had a get-together with my very first friend, Sally. We met when I was four years old (back when TV was still black ‘n’ white!). We were rummaging around in my dad’s garage, looking for old memories. We found the old table I was scooting under when I broke my finger on her foot, and we found:
Karen B. loves Micky P.
(scribbled on the wall in chalk)
and the date, which I think was 1970.
Luckily, Karen B. still lives down the street from my dad. We dragged her out of the house and forced her to relive history. It was great!
Now, if I could just find my old Barbie Dolls…
In April of 1994, when I was 14, I started keeping a diary with the hopes that someday I’d become famous and I could publish it. I kept it almost daily through December 1997.
I still own them and am not going to throw them away because they’re the only parts of my past I have left - all my childhood drawings and stories got thrown out by accident years ago - but if I do become famous someday there’s no way in hell I’m publishing them. They’re pretty much like yours, Eve, my endless ramblings on Kurt Cobain’s death, friends of mine’s lives, what was on tv, and my idiot guitar teacher’s antics. If I ever have a daughter, I will wait till she’s a teenager and then give them to her to read to show her that I was like her once.
I’m too tired and busy weeknights, but I think this weekend will be a Major Shredding. I’ll let you all know if I actually do find anything remotely interesting.
If any of you were born between 1971–77, I can tell you what I was doing that day, anyway . . . Knowing teenage me, probably watching TV, ignoring my homework and whining.
Heh… now I’m curious. Anything interesting happen on October 23rd, 1976?
I’ll check when I get home tonight, but don’t expect anything more interesting than “Omigod, I didn’t study for tomorrow’s history test!”
Eve, the great thing about destroying your diary is that once it’s gone, everybody will assume it must have been fascinating. You can say all you want about how mundane it was, but we’ll all continue to believe it was full of insightful prose and lurid anecdotes.
The downside of shredding your diaries is that if you ever become a suspect in a major homicide investigation and the detective asks you where you were on the night of January 29, 1971, you’ll no longer be able to tell him got home from school, studied for the math test you had the next day, had meatloaf for supper, and then watched The Monkees before going to bed.
I lost my yearbook due to a flood where it was stored. Yes, I miss it. But you might not. Still, if there are worse things to end up in the shredder than your yearbook…
Well, I seem to remember that by the time I reach my late teens, there are some pretty lurid anecdotes. All the more reason to shred, and if you think I am repeating any of those here, you’re nertz!
One day, in a universe far beyond here (say 2025…?) Empress Mary Raff of Japan and President Jack Treatman of the USA - if not Autumn Beige - will publish their memoirs and chapter 4 of each will pose the question of who the heck it was (her name’s on the tip of the tongue) who caught her when she fainted, or who changed his life at summer school without even realising it.
And your ticket to fame will be missing.
BAH!
If Jack Treatman ever becomes President of the USA, my shredded diaries would be the least of my troubles . . . He’d make Bush look like Thomas Jefferson!
Mary Raff, however, would make a swell Empress of Japan, despite not being Japanese . . .
November 3, 1971. What was on tv that night? It was my first night alive; I’d like to know what was showing at my debut.
I’ll check tonight. You’re just in time—I was nearly through shredding '71!
Not unless you had tests at Sunday School. 10/23/76 was a Saturday 
Sorry for the hijack, Eve - YES, something interesting happened! I turned 25 years old that day and threw myself a great party. If I’d known Eve in those days, I would have invited her! Then she could read all about it and tell y’all.
Sorry - back to 1971
Well, I’d like to know - what happened on Wednesday, March 13, 1974?
It will be of great help to the plan I like to call Contingency: Anastasia. This plan becomes active at the time of your death. I do my best to convince everyone that we were lovers. If you’ve shredded all the journals, letters, and personal papers that could prove we weren’t lovers, so much the better.
Still, I’d much rather succeed with Operation Dulcinaya. This involves a train ticket, and serenades beneath your window with the objective of actually becoming your lover.
I realize that particular star may be unreachable. But, when a dream is that beautiful, does it matter if it’s impossible?
November 3, 1971
“Today was awful! I was exhausted! It rained all day, my stomach hurt, and I was home sick. I’m so worried about my work and tests and report cards!”
March 13, 1974
“I had my first driving lesson today at 8:00, with Mr. Jackson and Joanne Barry. It was terrifying, out on a real road, actually going into the lower parking lot and parking! With real cars! Oh, so much work: U.S. History, Biology, that motion pictures project, English and a Spanish test (unstudied for) tomorrow! We listened to some hysterical old radio records in U.S. History today. I talked to Vickie and some of the people supposed to be in my movie on the phone. I hope they can all make it Sunday so we can film it! Rehearsal tomorrow; probably till very late. So much work to do! I’m so lazy! So naughty!”
October 23, 1976
“The showdown with Larry will have to be postponed till I can get him alone! Debbi is visiting next weekend. I am really looking forward to it, and I hope she sees a rehearsal. I wonder if she will bring any Serious Subjects up? Betty called; I think she is getting a little fed up with listening to my problems. I’m not too thrilled by them either. I have to do some more work tomorrow. I’m so bored. I hope no one says anything to Debbi about me–God! Those theater people have mouths like the Holland Tunnel! There’s so much work to do and so many things to worry about–I’ve got to start taking things less seriously.”
Oooh! Oooh!
August 27, 1972!! Please?
What a hoot!