"Went to BJ's Wholesale club with Mom today..."
Yeah, this sentence existed in my 15 year old diary. There are many like it. It's kind of embarassing, really. There's not much in the way of awesomely juicy, heart-wrenching prose. I kind of wish it were embarassing in that way, but for the most part it's not. Oddly, I think that, in my diary, I was trying to convince my future self that I was super cool in my teen years. Which I wasn't. The most interesting stuff is about the shifting loyalties of my circle of friends. Lot's of "I don't think I'm going to be friends with ____ and ____ anymore, because they've become like, this uniperson, and I feel left out whenever we hang out, and they plan things that they're going to do together that do not include me- while I'm sitting right there! So rude!" and then the next day "___ and ___ are totally my best friends ever!"
I used to occasionally make pathetic stabs at the morose, purple-prose-y poetry that was so much in vogue amongst teenagers in the 90's. But like, I'd get through one stanza and start giggling. It just wasn't something that was ever in me. I actually didn't start writing seriously until I read Metropolitan Life by Fran Leibowitz. I had this awesome "Oh, shit! I can just be funny! And that's ok! I don't have to be morose!" epiphany, and it sort of just freed everything up- because I wasn't trying to be something I wasn't. When I try to take myself seriously, it comes across as disingenuous, I think. In my diaries I was trying to convince myself that I had some sort of awesome social life and went shopping all the time... or something. In my pathetic stabs at 90's poetry, I was trying to be deep. It's weird, because I read lots of books, but for whatever reason at the time, this is what I was sure good writing was about.
No comments:
Post a Comment