Young-ish

As I've mentioned before, I'm slowly hacking away at writing a book.  The main character is a 15-year old girl.  So, lately I've been trying to get in touch with my teenaged self by doing the following:

Wearing my retainer at night
Listening to high school throwback tunes like Relient K and Blink 182
Eating three Cadbury creme eggs for lunch in lieu of vegetables
and
Re-reading my journals from that era

It's been a painful process.  Apparently my teeth have moved during my "wear once-a year" retainer routine and practically stage a coup each night when I force it on.  The journal entries are deliciously (make that painfully) awkward.

Though I hate to admit it, I just can't seem to turn my back on Blink 182.  As hard as I try, those were my angst-y high school jams.  I'll never let go of those nasally, whiny, percussion-filled diatribes against the man.  Too many good memories.  Driving around in my 1980, mustard-yellow Volvo station wagon (appropriately named Colonel Mustard), manually rolling down the windows, and blasting punk music over the protests of my friends of the boy-band musical persuasion.

The journal entries have simultaneously been the most informative and most hilarious aspect of my retrospective. The writing reads the way nails on a chalkboard sound.  I'd always thought myself above the normal teenage drivel.  Guess I've been looking at the past through rose-colored glasses.

Here's a gem from a road trip with my family:

It was so funny. Meg and I sat in the front, but she thought my mom was also sitting up with us, so she scooted close to me, so I said "well, meg, if you really want to sit that close to me you can, but it really isn't necessary." We both started laughing, it was so funny."

Such beautiful descriptions! Such cascading prose! I was a regular Charles Dickens back then. Beginning and ending the story with "it was so funny." My younger self astounds my current self with the depth of her literary prowess.

Then later from the same road trip:

I got really car sick today. I had to throw up in a plastic bag. It was gross, and I felt bad cos I had to barf in front of everyone. Hopefully I didn't gross Meg out too much. Quite the embarrassment, huh?

Spoiler alert. Meg and I are still friends all these years later. Never let a little backseat barfing come between true friends.

And do you remember when photography wasn't digital?  Getting your prints in triple so you could give them to your friends?  It's probably for that reason that I can't find many pictures of my 15-year-old self on my current computer.  So this one is minus Meg, but plus Lindsey, Ashton and Rachel Cam.

These were the days when we thought we were cool for wearing our brothers' little league shirts to school and then playing baseball in the park after class.  Epitome of cool right there.