Uglier and uglier...

6/20/99
"I made a dermatologist appointment and the doctor was impatient and craggy, and he smelled like cigarettes.  Mom wanted to come with me to make sure I didn't say anything that would make her look bad.  It's her fault that my complexion is as bad as it it. 
I finally convinced her to let me go to the dermatologist by saying that my braces would be coming off soon and I would wanted to have professional pictures done [Glamor Shots].  She gave me bullshit but I stuck to what I really wanted.  The crotchedy doctor gave me a perscription which seems to have only made things worse.  Now I feel like I can't look people in the face anymore because I think they're only comtemplating how ugly I am.  I even made arrangements to not get together with my friends because I don't want them to see me so ugly."

A bulleted list.

8/10/99

• "I'm thinking back to when I missed everyone I now loathe.  What about them was I missing?  Everything about them in  some way annoys me and everything about me ends up annoying them.
• I'm thinking of the fleeting thoughts that always weakened my knees.  Why does that still come back to haunt me?
• H.!  H.!  A dagger in my back!
• Bando: why this jealousy?  Jealousy is such a cruel emotion.  I heard smiles were free.  Why do I count each one greedily?
• I allow myself to be disappointed by someone's disappointment in me.  I am disgusted in myself and it seems like I can't stop it from reoccurring."

More thoughts on people I didn't know...

This partial-entry is mean...seriously, it's pretty bad.

12/14/98
"People:
Colin is the nicest boy out of the 'cool' group on the bus.  He honestly is sweet.  He's very attactive and when he gets on the bus, all the fat girls stare.  He's also very superficial and shallow (and he hates all the fat girls).  Sometimes I just hate all of them, the 'cool' group, and all the annoying fat girls and ignorant redneck boys.  I just want to put them on a bus full of dynmaite and watch them sweat."

May I introduce Amber, the storywriter.

It's not a secret: since I was a kid I wanted to be a writer.  I know that a lot of people say that and think that and it's probably true for many.  It's just getting there that's the problem.  I'm still working on that part....Anywho.  I knew that I couldn't make it as a full-time writer, even at a young age, so I had several plans.  One was to be an explorer.  An archaelogist.  An anthropologist.  A field reporter for National Geographic.  A music writer for Alternative Press.  A soap opera writer (which I still wouldn't mind).  And so on and so forth.  Because I always had that burning passion to be a writer, a lot of my journals are filled with stories.  Ridiculous, horrible, indulgent stories where I am the heroine and everyone thinks I'm cool or I get my way, and by that I mean that I mean the boy I want to pays attention to me finally does.
I won't include the story that I read today that made me laugh because it was particularly dumb and long, but I will write about it. 
To set it up: I was working at a nursery in Pensacola called Floral Tree Gardens.  I knew nothing about plants and I pronounced many of their names horribly, so I worked the cash register.  I had braces.  I had a terrible hair cut.  I mean, it was really bad.  A won't-go-back-again bad hair cut.
Since I worked the register I often answered the phone.  It was mostly the other stores calling us to see if we had something a customer was looking for or it was a landscaper calling about a big order or something.  I don't really remember.  This was a long time ago so I'm kinda making things up.  Anyway, there was one guy in particular that seemed to call my store a lot.  His name was John and he was from the Gulf Breeze store.  That was his title, to me, John from Gulf Breeze.  I don't remember this dude at all, but apparently I had a mad crush on him, even though we only talked on the phone a couple of times a week, and it was only him asking if we had any Hybrid-T roses, etc. I think he was an "adult" - maybe in his mid-twenties - and I was sixteen.  I don't remember what he looks like. 
If you haven't realized it yet, I was pretty lonely.  I really wanted a boyfriend but the dude that I was into was into me.  (Yes, that dude was none other than Greg.)
So I invented.  That's what today's story was about.  In this particular "gem" my friend Amber was going to throw a weekend-long party at the beach.  I was planning on going but I knew that Greg would be there with his new girlfriend, so I had my backup loverboy come with me.  (Remember, this is all pretend, I didn't have a backup loverboy, even though that would have been pretty sweet.)  But before I go to the party a big group of my friends and I go to Fast Eddie's Fun Center, a go-cart track, where I apparently run into John from Gulf Breeze and his friends.  I'm stunned he's there and I guess I'm shocked with how handsome he is in real life (or maybe that he was real at all) so as I'm stammering my friend Carrie (everyone, apparently, went by their real names in this story) invites John from Gulf Breeze to Amber's big weekend-long party.
I go to Amber's rented beach house, apparently forgetting about John from Gulf Breeze, and my plan of making Greg jealous by hanging out with my backup loverboy isn't working because he's hanging out and enjoying his girlfriend's company, which made me 100% miserable.  So, what did I do?  What the present day, real-life Amber would do.  I got fucking drunk.
Then John from Gulf Breeze shows up.  Great timing.  I'm drunker than hell and trying to climb some stairs unsuccessfully so John from Gulf Breeze comes to my rescue.  He takes me to a bedroom and puts my drunk ass to bed.  As he's practically carrying me up the stairs, I kiss him.  Because every guy wants to take care of some drunk girl, right? I mean, what's more romantic?
Well apparently John from Gulf Breeze thought it was a Hallmark moment.  I kiss him and he falls in love with me.  He has a girlfriend, but after the night of taking care of drunko me, he decides to dump her so that we can be boyfriend and girlfriend.
The end.

Great story, right?  I know, I know.  I have a million of 'em.

My thoughts on people I didn't know.

Man, I was kind of a jerk.  Just a little bit.
I won't mention the names of the victims I wrote about.  Because 1) I still know them and 2) I'm embarrassed to admit how mean I was about them, even if it was just to myself.  Jealousy will do that to you!

12/7/98
"I guess if you wear enough make-up, the right clothes, and are bubbly, it doesn't matter if you're cross-eyed."

"I saw you today, in the same stance you're always in, same clothes you always wear, and the same facial expression plastered on your face.  I noticed your braces are off, your perfect white teeth catching the sunlight through the tiny gaping expression your mouth is always in.  I've never heard you speak; you always seem buried in your own quiet world.  In a sense I feel sorry for you, that you couldn't have at least attempted to worm your way out of your shyness.  But that's your own damn fault."

"Hidden beneath her layers of makeup and her hauty, better-than-everyone attitude, there has to be a little girl drowning in there somewhere.  Somewhere inside there is a real person."

*"She's a stupid girl, ugly with her wannabe sex kitten personality, doomed by the fact that she's just a dork.  She used to tell me of how she would have sex with her boyfriends of only a few days, in the woods, in her kitchen, anywhere.  She brags about thse ugly guys as if there was something to be jealous of. Whatever.  She needs to get over it."

 This is us in '98.  I don't know whose shirt that is that I'm wearing.  I knew I wasn't cool - but I had accepted that long ago.  I thought everyone should know their place, and if they didn't, I was deathly judemental and jealous of them.  Oh, age fifteen!

Also in this picture are: Brandi on the far left, Stephanie, and Sarah.  Amanda in the background - Sarah, whatever happened to her?

The shield....

People - 12/14/98
"We used to be so close, me and that girl sitting across from me.  Now it seems I hardly know her, it seems either of us hardly care.  Even though it hasn't been that long since we were real tight, she looks so different.  Her face seems rounder, her eyes seems to have faded, not being as blue as there once were.  She has a look of thinking too many thoughts all at once.  Either that or she's just always really tired.  She doesn't like me as much as she use to....I heard that she thinks that she's not "free" enough (spiritually) for me anymore.  I guess that's okay; it's the truth.  She never seems to have an opinion of her own, and she appreciates being stereotyped.  Also, she has a 'boyfriend' now, so her and I aren't on the same level anymore.  I don't care.  It's not like we were on the same 'level' anyway."

It happened often.

March 18, 2000
"He was telling me about how he was adopted and I thought he was joking, so naturally I laughed.  I felt bad when I realized he wasn't joking."

High expectations.

Dude.  I had NO idea what I was doing - in any regard.  LBR?!!

April 22, 1999
"Just the other day I was like, 'I saw him four times today.  And once, he turned around and looked at me.' Or, 'He waved at me today.'  And this meaningless bullshit would make my entire day.  I'm such a dumbass.  So he apparently has Marie now, which is good beause she was always nice to me last year.
[Some more bitching about another guy I liked.]
I'm not pretty enough or have enough personality to be invited to prom.  I just want to talk to Bruce but I don't think I can.  This life is a rolling snowball going downhill and I coudln't intercept it if I wanted to.  Greg has changed.  And Ken, God, he makes me want to just die right along with him.  Above everything, I can't seem to write at all.  No poems will come and all my stories are shit.  I just was rejected from the London Review of Books.  I must've read that slip they returned to me a hundred times."

I wrote a lot of notes and letters to people.

But I have so many of my own letters and notes that I'm wondering if I ever gave anything to anyone.

I have no idea to whom this letter is addressed...maybe Gary?

Undated
"Hello...
I just got back...We went to Gran's and they were watching racing (surprise surprise) so I read.  After that Mom and I went to B&N and I read from the Philosophy book that I was looking at last night.  I had a nice cup of tea and contemplated my life, the pros and cons, and what the greater meaning really is.  I wonder if I have a meaning and if I do how do I go about succeeding?  What if success is like a path that forks in the road and I have to choose?  One path leads to the answer, the meaning of why I am here; the other is just a life, not necessarily trite but yet not fulfilled.  Hmm.  I just want to be awake.  With open eyes I want to see the world in its truest form..."

Somewhere in between.

It's funny to me how I can read something I wrote when I was fifteen and think, well, you know, sometimes I still struggle with that.  Being comfortable with myself will probably be something that I always struggle with.
Sunday, May 17, 1998
"I'm looking back now
at how far I have come
from being that shallow,
identity-seeking, confused
girl
Those words barely cover it.
But they give an idea.
now I can't even imagine
myself as I was
even a year ago.
I never thought I had
changed
but I'm definitely not
the same.
Somehow I'm neither here (the person I should be)
or there, that little child I was
Now I'm just a soul
waiting to be inspired.

At this point in time, I try to see things as clearly as I can.  I've found I suffer from fearlovehatefrustration, especially from frustration.  I have seen I am not like most people.  As for my identity, I've decided I will not create a search party for it, for it will come to me.  Right now I'm absorbing, unlike the girl who was desperately observing."

This was from Halloween or some sort of hippie dress up day at school or something...but...yeah, you get the idea.

Alone and lonely.

Ok, I had a crush on my cousin.  So what?  I was fourteen and the crush lasted about a week.
I discovered some pretty heavy stuff in this entry.  It doesn't end on the light haha note as some of the others do.  But I've been feeling melancholy lately, so I think this is appropriate.

December 28, 1998
"I finally finished Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter at about one this morning.  I found it coincendental that he married Aunt Julia then after eight years they divorce and he marries his cousin.  His cousin of all people.  I found that ringing a bell or two (of the future?).
Today we left Indiana.  I cried almost all day.  When I hugged my grandma she whispered that she loved me in my ear and I kissed my dear old grandpa goodbye.  I was able to put flowers on my daddy's grave and I couldn't stop crying then.  I wanted so badly for my mom to put her arm around me, but she didn't.  I cried myself to sleep in the van until Edinborough, where a shopping mall that mom likes is at, then we ate and I took some really strong headache medicine.  I slept some more, woke up again when we stopped to go to the bathroom and eat at a Bob Evans.  I asked my mom why we leave Indiana and never stay very long.  We had a good conversation in which both of us tried to force ourselves not to cry.  Mom said she feels like an outsider at her parents' home, how I wouldn't understand, how her life isn't fair because no one understands."

Jealousy, jealousy.

Septemeber 4, 1999
"Bonnie had a friend that died last weekend.  She told me the story and I watched her quiver and I thought, God, would anyone do that for me?  Then I imagined myself saving Jennifer's life; I pictured her falling into a volcano and me pulling her to safety.  Would that changes things?  I thought about this on my way to class.  Then I saw Eric, and I thought he would've been in jail, so I forgot about Jennifer."

A backwards glance.

Every time I got a new journal I felt I had to explain myself, as if the reader would be dealing with a total stranger.  Here is a high school recollection of when I started middle school.
July 9, 2000
"I used to be the second smartest [in elementary school].  I used to have this competition in my head with a girl named Shawndra.  The fourth grade teachers loved her.  I hated her.  She may have been a better reader than I, but I had the best penmanship.
In 6th grade, back in my dork days, I was the "weirdest" girl.  I had a plastic backpack, big glasses and parted my hair on the side.  The tranformation from a private Christain school to public school was hard.  I couldn't belive the way people talked, everyone dressed so differently (I always wore this white cotton shirt with airbrushed fish wearing sun glasses, it was my favorite, I wore it every week.  My parents bought it for me on their honeymoon to Panama City Beach and I was so proud of that shirt).  I couldn't believe my eyes the first time I saw a boy and a girl kissing. In the hallway!  At school!  Around that time I learned what a 'hoe' was and I thought those girls, those 'kissing' girls surely were 'hoes'."

 

Here's just a little glimpse at the transformation from 6th grade (left), when I had one friend, to 7th grade (right), when I became "cool".