The Notebook

It's 2006 and nothing makes me more giddy than the promise of a new notebook from The Dollar Store. My friend Melissa once shared the following story with me:

"When I was in eight grade, we had Career Day and my favorite presenter was the guy from the local paper. Not because he was from the city and not because of the exciting stories he had to tell, but because when this guy finished his speach he gave away sets of pocket-sized notebooks and golf pencils. I was seated in the back of the room as he handed them out and I remember thinking, 'Please don't run out, please don't run out . . . ' It's really no surprise I grew up to be a writer."

That 5 minute story runs through my head whenever I pull a new notebook from its shelf. It never fails to make me smile because I remember it was the first time I truly identified with a fellow writing geek.

So, I spent Sunday afternoon filling up the first page of my new single-subject, wide-rule Top Flight thinking, "This time it'll be different. This time I'll fill up the entire notebook with my witty prose.

That's the plan anyway.

I could avoid writing on the back of each page, but that's cheating isn't it?

Still, it would be so easy to justify it: writing on the back will just leave an imprint on the back of the cover, or worse, on the back of the previous back.

So?

SO!

Then the back of every page will look sloppy.

Yeah, anything to try to fill up a whole damn notebook.

Only once in my life have I ever filled up an entire notebook: my junior year of high school.

It was my first proper diary - covered in flowery fabric on the exterior and in teenage angst in the interior. It's an incredibly embarrassing tome: as it should be.

It actually starts on my 16th birthday (Technically, March of my sophmore year of high school.). In print, I immortalized my birthday wish,

"Please God, let me have a boyfriend this year."

Seriously, it doesn't get more cringeworthy, 16 year-old than that.

Oh, but it gets better.

For the next three months I whine about the following (not in any particular order):

1. Why wasn't I born with blonde hair!
2. I wish I was popular!
3. I wish I had blue eyes!
4. My parents JUST DON'T GET ME!
5. Please God - let me have a boyfriend this year!
6. I wish I was THIN!
7. SERIOUSLY - MY PARENTS - OH MY GOD!!!!!

That is only the beginning.

And yes, I was incredibly fond of exclamation points and bold print.