The Guilt-Tripped Re-Cap, Part 2

In a continued attempt to redeem myself after a long, long absence from writing about the things going on in my life, which I know you've been sorely missing, I'm continuing my re-cap for you. You are SO WELCOME!

Here's some more things which have kept me busy and therefore away from the blog:

A few months ago I started guest co-hosting Get Lit! at Corkscrew Wine Bar in Petaluma. This is a really fun literary night featuring authors from all over (I've been honored to be one of these featured readers twice!), and there's an always-great Open Mic afterward. It's the fourth Wednesday of every month; you should come check it out! There's almost always something funny, something sad, something sexy, and something unexpected to hear.

More time-consuming than that, however, has been finally getting started on curating pieces for the next Mortified Sonoma County show! (Yes, it used to be called Mortified North Bay, but people in San Francisco and Oakland thought that meant Marin, so we changed it because, you know, we're not Marin. But I digress....)

The first show sold way the heck out!

Paulie and I have begun meeting with incredibly brave local people willing to share the embarassing artifacts from their angst-ridden youth. We've heard woe-is-me diary entries, super angry song lyrics, sexually-exaggerated notes to friends, and so much more. In short, it has been ah-maaaaa-zing.

And we're looking for more! If you happened to keep a diary, old letters, archaic video footage of your jazzy Star Search audition tapes...basically anything that seems too humiliatingly awkward to share in front of hundreds of strangers, you might want to hook up with us.

This is a real-life diary, you guys.

You can do this a couple of ways - go to our Facebook page and 'like' it, then find a call for submissions and click whatever link you find there...or (and I say this hoping you'll still go like us on Facebook), go to the Mortified website, find Sonoma County in the drop-down menu and fill out the info requested of you there. Soon we'll be knocking on your door and digging through your Shoebox of Shame!!

Okay it doesn't work like that exactly. We're not going to come to your house, man. But the rest is all pretty spot-on. This process has been soooooo much fun and taken soooooo much more time than we thought it would, but we're getting a lot closer to having our next show ready, and we're super excited!

Okay, that's the end of this latest re-cap. Hopefully I'm one step closer to being forgiven for my six-week hiatus. I haven't even told you about the fair or the winemaking or the...other...stuff......but I will.

Eventually.

Flasher

Throughout my middle and high school years, and for a little bit into college, I kept a diary. Now I just collect cool-looking journals and write in them for about a week or two, at which point they are abandoned. For some reason, whenever I decide to start up again, it never occurs to me to just pick up an old one and continue in that. No. I have to buy a new one. And so it goes.

Journaling is a very private practice - the place where you record your innermost thoughts, such as "I HATE and am going to KILL my parents!!!! They wouldn't let me go to the High School football game so I can see my boyfriend! Just because I'm 14 and he's in the Military! They're so overprotective! I HATE THEM!!! I HOPE THEY DIE IN A FIERY CAR AND TRAIN ACCIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!"  or perhaps just "oh my GOD!! I am SO in LOVE with Jordan from New Kids on the Block! I think if I can just get my mom to let me go to their concert at the hockey stadium, he'll see ME in the crowd and just KNOW that I am PERFECT for him!! Maybe he'll even call me up on stage! Oh my god!!!!! Then I can leave this house, I HATE IT HERE!!!!!"

Locks on diaries and box springs under mattresses were invented because kids don't generally want their parents to know that they'd like to kill them, or at least see them killed in a violent way. Those are private wishes. And we usually get over it by the time we realize that our parents are key factors in getting things like...Money. Cars. College. Apartments. Suddenly the advantage of having parents becomes clear, and we decide to put up with them. Eventually we might even like them, a lot.

Likewise, we don't want our best friend to know we're pissed at her, because at that age we haven't developed our communication skills, so we use journals to vent about how stupid she is for wearing the same shirt as us, in a prettier way. Then we get over it. By Monday morning all is normal and BFFy in the hallways.

Here's the flip side (you knew one was coming). In a way, keeping a diary can be a very exhibitionist practice, too. For me it was, anyway. I would write - in code that would never make sense to anyone else - a very clear game plan for how my misery could be diminished and the reader could therefore save me. Oh, and whisk me off into the sunset. "I shall be down by the pond's edge, picking dew-covered grass in the waning sunlight...." It's possible that I had a pretty well developed Knight in Shining Armor fantasy going for me. I sort of still do. But a girl can only sit on the wet grass for so many hours before she realizes that no strapping 8th grade boys have snuck into her second-story bedroom, found her hidden journal, decoded it, found a white horse, and are on their way to the pond's edge.

While I entertained fantasies like the above, I still kept my diaries hidden and didn't make them public. That would be dumb. No one writes in their diary thinking "I can't wait to show this to my friends!" What those friends would find there can usually be categorized as 'incriminating', or perhaps 'humiliating'. But sometimes, word gets out.

A while ago, I found my old middle school diaries and had so much fun reading them I scanned them into Facebook and tagged all of the people I'd mentioned there. I went to school with the same people from Kindergarten through Senior year, so I still know most of them. They were just as amused as I was, and I became obsessed with hearing people's stories, as told through their younger journaling selves.

Apparently, I'm not the only one with this curiosity. I've mentioned Mortified once or twice before - you know, the show where people get up on stage and read from their old diaries. During each performance, a few different people get to climb up in front of a sold-out crowd of strangers and flash them with their private thoughts. It's amazing - what was so incredibly important and Earth-Shakingly Serious to us 20+ years ago is a source for hilarity now. In a way, I wish I could explain this to kids when they're sobbing into their pillows about some asshole dumping them - that one day the story of how it happened will be plain-old freaking funny. But then future generations would miss out on hearing these stories, told in this way. And those telling them will miss out on the redemptive quality of having people laugh at their angst-filled memories.

And yes, I'll be performing in this weekend's Mortified shows, if you want to witness me flashing my privates.

Dear Diary...

So, this is cool - recently I met with the producers of Mortified. I read to them from my old diaries, they liked what they heard, so I'm going to be in the show. While this in and of itself is kind of a 'dream come true' experience for me, with it came a shocking and terribly depressing discovery:

My love life hasn't changed much since I was in Middle School.

"Oh Amanda," you're thinking, "stop being so self-deprecating all the time, silly! You're greeaaaaat!"  Or maybe you're thinking "she's exaggerating for the sake of the blog. Middle School? Ha! She's funny..."

Allow me to show you some excerpts from my Middle School and then Current diaries. Then you'll get it:

*****

Sept 17th, 1989

     I need someone who will love me! I want to wear a jacket or a class ring and have it mean something! I want a boyfriend so bad!!!! Cute, sweet, mature, kind-hearted, athletic, I want a boyfriend!!!! I have to get a boyfriend so bad.

Sept 29th, 1989
        Well, Matt gave me his ring. I realize now I don’t like him. I have to give it back, but I just can’t. I know I should, I just don’t wanna hurt him. I don’t think it would though, its prolly all just a game to him.
    I love to roller skate. I love to roller skate fast!!
    I think I like Brian.
    

November 15th 1990
    I heard Tony liked me. WOW! 

I wonder if Tony really likes me. I guess I’ll find out, ay?
(later) I’M GOING WITH TONY!!!!!!

November 22nd, 1990 - Thanksgiving
    Tony broke up with me yesterday. We lasted 6 days. 

*****

So, as you can see, I really wanted a boyfriend. I also thought it would be cool to have a boyfriend for more than a few days, or weeks if I was lucky. Yeah, I eventually had a boyfriend for 2 years. I also had a husband for 10 years. But now, things have kind of come...full circle. 

After taking about 6 months off from the whole "men" thing, I decided I was ready to dip my toe into the dating pool. And woo! Boy did I get some swimmin' done! I enjoyed dating, but it got tiresome very quickly. When I finally decided to go the boyfriend route, well...here, read for yourself: 

*****

Sept 8th, 2011
      I find myself only dating (guy who has specifically asked to not be mentioned in my blog), and actually really liking it. He's very chill and easy to be around, very respectful, funny, makes me laugh, etc. I like him very much.

October 1st, 2011
     (Guy who has specifically asked to not be mentioned in my blog) broke up with me, via email - (basically this generation's version of a note handed to you while passing each other in the hallway)

*****

I got over that, I think. And then, the day after I told Mike that I was "off men" for a while, this HOT guy asked me out. How could I say no to someone who looks like a freaking Ken doll and seems legitimately attracted to me, especially when I hadn't washed my hair that day and had six holes in my t-shirt? We went out a few times, had some cuh-razy awesome time together, and one night after some drinks he - much to my surprise - asked me to be his girlfriend. It was adorable. I was pretty drunk, so I said yes. A couple of days later, after some thought, I tried to give him an out and brought it up in an adult, 'let's check-in' conversation. He said that No, he wasn't completely wasted at the time; Yes, he did in fact mean it; and then he assured me that this was happening. 

He dumped me the next day. He was my boyfriend for three days.

Seriously, I didn't even have time to write about him in my Dating Diary!

So mark my words, fans: I am OFF MEN, at least until after the Holidays. Who wants to date during the Holidays? Not this girl! Don't even try, please, I'm begging you. I realize that as soon as I said I'd been dumped - again - my male fans and their friends started a texting brigade and were about to start lining up at my door. But really, just don't bother. 

I have plenty of space in my journal for after the Holidays.