My Life in 1991 (Part 2)

I can't really say these posts are excerpts from my teenage diary anymore.

Now they're more like excerpts from my young adult diaries.

And....

It was time for a new diary.




I am in a claustrophobic, muggy, lacking SpectraVision motel room with my smoking parents. Exciting. (7/17/91).  Where were we? And where were my sisters?

I went to Freshman orientation today. (So that's where we were). It was pretty fun. I met a lot of nice people. I'll list them in case I see them again.  1st was a guy named John. He was from North or South Carolina. Then I also met a guy, Don B. who lives near me in Nashville. He's really nice. I met a Jewish Atlanta girl who went to Crestwood with Carol G.  I met a sophomore singer named Scott (ate dinner with him) and I briefly met this gorgeous guy named Nelson.

I think the Jewish Atlanta girl was the only one that ended up playing a part in my college life. There were probably less than ten Jewish students at my college, and Judaism became one of my obsessions, so each of those Jews became important to me.

A strange thing today...I put new soap in my bottle (in bathroom) and it was clear. I've never had water colored soap before and I thought it was a bit peculiar. Then we had to take mom to the hospital and there soap there was clear too. Quite trivial, but weird.

My mom went to the hospital for stomach problems.  Luckily the doctor says it's probably just bowel (can't read word here) or something. I didn't worry quite so much this time. Of course than I worried something bad was going to happen because I wasn't worrying. (7/20/91).

I am SO still like this. I get very worried about medical things...usually. Then when I don't worry, I worry I'm jinxing myself by not worrying.

As for soap...the stuff we use at our house is clear. I'm quite used to it now.  I guess back in the 1990's, it was less common?

I'm on an airplane today, right now. I have urges to laugh because we were rushing to the airport, reminding me of HOME ALONE. (7/21/91)

I just found out Days of our Lives is on at 11:00 here so we can witness (maybe) Marlena's rise from the dead! (7/22/91)  Thank God for that!

I'm exhausted and my toenails hurt. The family all wants to do tourist shit but I want to visit relatives but I won't directly say anything. (7/22/91).

That surprises me. I guess I was different back then. Now I'm probably the one in the family who has the least interest in seeing relatives.  Oddly, I think it was Facebook that ruined things for me. I just hate that thing. I think it makes relationships feel so impersonal. I don't know. I have a strong aversion to it.

The other day, I went to delete my account. For the past several years, I've just had the deactivated account. I decided to go the further distance. To do the deleting, I had to reactivate the account. While I was there, I read a few updates from my "friends". I quickly started feeling really awful. It's like Facebook makes me feel more distant from people rather than closer.

I'm glad it's gone from my life.

Right now I am frustrated, disgusted, angry, pissed, etc. with my dear siblings. I suppose I may be jealous. It's just that they have this bond and it seems like the only time they speak with me is to criticize me or make a change. Melissa is so insulting. She constantly tells me I can't come home from college. What's it her choice? She is such a bitch! I think the only people I'll miss when I go to college is mom and the dogs. Dad has been fairly nice on this trip, though. (7/25/91)

I vaguely remember feeling left out. It feels alien to me now, because I rarely feel left out with my sisters. We each kind of have something in common that forms a bond. Dawn and I both have teenagers. Melissa and I both have sons. Then Dawn and Melissa both send their kids to school.  And there are other things, of course, besides that.  I guess what I'm trying to say is I have a special bond with each of my sisters, and hopefully they have a special bond between the two of them.

My father is an asshole but that's not big news. He is not even sorry about missing my graduation. In fact, today he played a guilt trip about us missing his damn award ceremony. "Everyone was there except you girls were there." (7/26/91)

I was tempted to correct my repetitive mistake there, but I'm trying to be as authentic as possible.  For the most part, I'm fixing only basic punctuation and leaving out surnames.

My dad missed my high school graduation because he was honored, at an event, by the Jewish community. The date for the ceremony was chosen before he knew of my graduation date. I remember being understanding about why he was missing it. Things like that happen, and I understood it would be a pain to reschedule the Jewish event. What got me mad, though, was A) trying to minimize my graduation by saying I had only been at that school one year, anyway. B) The guilt trip about us missing his ceremony.

It wasn't MY fault that I had to switch schools my senior year. Fortunately I ended up liking the school, so to try to minimize the meaningfulness of my time there was unfair.

Today-this moment to be exact-is one of those times when I wish I wasn't me. I read an old diary and was disgusted with what I read. I was so obsessed with 2 Heathers. It sounded like I was gay, but I'm not. I'd have felt much better if I had stressed that in the diary.  (7/29/91)

So damn homophobic!!! Yuck. And I've also seen horrible slurs in my diary. In a way, it doesn't make me upset seeing it. It makes me happy, because I've changed so much.  I'm proud of myself for having some NECESSARY personal growth. 

I went on my 1st blind date with a guy named Ken. He was good-looking, funny, and nice. I like him so much better than Carson. But I'm not in love. How can I love something that is not a thousand miles away, not attached, or will actually talk to me.

I just realized something. Forever I've been trying to find something to compare my ouija board episode too. It seemed as if no one had been deceived like I had. But now I realize millions of people have. There are tons of religions. Not all of them can be right. So that means many people are living with faith in a lie, just like I did. So, I'll leave you with that.  (7/29/91).

Amen to that!

Well, my interests lately are Saturday Night Live, English actors, My Welantin's Mascot manuscript, and Marlena and Roman's ressurection on Days of our Lives.  

I've been reading a technical physics book about memory and retaining about .01% of the information.  (8/13/91).

 The same thing still happens when I try to read about physics.

Right now I am obsessed with English actors. Or did I say that already. I like Anthony Hopkins, Julian Sands, and Richard E. Grant. (8/20/91).

Yeah. I'm still quite fond of English actors.

I am planning to write a screenplay next summer with British people so than maybe I can meet English actors and marry one. And if by next summer, I don't like the British, the characters can be American, Australian, black, etc. Maybe even oriental.

Some obvious racism there, and then some more...subtle racism.

When did I learn that it was wrong to say "oriental"?  I know it happened at some point in the mid to late 1990's. Because Tim had an Asian friend that visited him in NYC. She referred to her ethnic group as "oriental", and I remember thinking that was so strange and politically incorrect.

As for the more subtle racism. It's like I was saying black was another nationality, when in fact, the English, American, and Australian actors should have/would have included black people as well.  AND Asians.

In a way, the subtle racism is worse than the obvious here. The obvious is simply being ignorant of the correct terminology. And terminology changes. It can be hard to keep up. The other racism reveals what was going on in my head—unconscious beliefs about what is a "true" American, Australian, British person, etc.




Click HERE for the index to my diary/journal posts.


How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   


The Dead are Online  a novel by Dina Roberts