Dear Diary

The other night I made a New Year’s resolution to start journaling again.

Okay, so I might be a little late on the New Year’s thing by a month or ten. And as a general rule I don’t really believe in making New Year’s resolutions. Let’s just call this an “October objective”.

Anyway, I realized I really, really need to start keeping a diary.

Although if you want to be literal about it, I’ve technically been keeping lots of diaries. I just haven’t been writing in them. I have an entire shelf of empty hardcover notebooks I apparently bought for the sole purpose of sitting around and looking pretty. I might definitely have a slight major notebook hoarding problem.

It’s not that I don’t want to write in them. I just never seem to find the energy to pick up a pen. Dealing with a massive database clusterfuck and a giant upcoming overhaul of my entire accounting system at work have made me so burnt out and exhausted that even composing a simple tweet feels like trying to write a goddamn novel these days.

But the ideas, man. They just won’t stop coming. A couple of months ago I was strapped for ideas. Now I’m inundated. They hurl themselves at my brain in the silence of my late night strolls around the neighborhood with my old pal Insomnia. They scream “Shotgun!” and pile into the passenger seat of my car as I leave work, and then talk over each other the whole drive home. They make me hopeful. They make me wistful. They make me laugh out loud at their silliness.

99% of them have absolutely no place on this blog, but I need to stop using that as an excuse not to take the time to at least jot them down for their own sake. I used to find that so easy before academia and blogging made me overly analytical of my own writing, and I want that ease back. I need to let go of my perfectionist tendencies and just fucking write, with no pressure to be clever or funny or wise. So I’ve designated October as my official “quit your bitching and just fucking record this shit in a journal already so you’ll stop punishing yourself for letting perfectly good ideas go to waste” month.

That’s a working title, obviously; I’ll see if I can come up with something catchier.

I know this is a long and unnecessary post just to say, “Hey guys, guess what, I’m writing a daily diary that you won’t ever read,” but I have a history of not following through on plans like this (see NaNoWriMo) and experience has taught me that announcing shit publicly is the best way to keep myself accountable. Sorry for using you.

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I mentally composed this post on a park bench in the 2:30am darkness after thinking about how diary entries from me now would differ from the diary I kept in my early teens. I found it hilarious and depressing at the same time.

Nutty, age 13:

Dear Diary, do I like Stuart? I think I might like Stuart. Everyone says he’s fat, but he’s not really, he’s just stocky. And he’s nice and he smells good. I think I like him.

Nutty, age 32:

Dear Diary, tonight I finally killed that giant fucking fruit fly that’s been pissing me off for the last two weeks. Got a mosquito while I was at it too. DOUBLE KILL, FUCK YEAH. I am awesome. I am a master assassin. Bring it, vermin.

Nutty, age 13:

Dear Diary, today I finally did a perfect front flip off Katie’s patio railing onto the trampoline, but then Stuart double bounced me when I landed even though I asked him not to and he promised he wouldn’t. Don’t know if I like Stuart that much after all. Boys are kinda jerks.

Nutty, age 32:

Dear Diary, I can’t believe my calf muscle is complaining about basic walking when I used to do things like fucking flips off patio railings onto trampolines.
Me: *walking*
Calf Muscle: Stop it. That hurts.
Me: What hurts?
Calf Muscle: Walking.
Me: What? Why? What’d I ever do to you?
Calf Muscle: You know what you did.
Me: Ohhh no, don’t you pull that stereotypical female “if you don’t know then I’m not telling you” bullshit. Tell me what the fuck is wrong right fucking now.
Calf Muscle: No.
Me: You can’t, can you? Because I didn’t do anything. Admit it, you’re just being a bitch for no reason.
Body: Welcome to your thirties, princess. Go Peter Pan yourself to Neverland if you’re that much of a pussy who can’t deal.
Me: Yeah well according to every person ever my biological clock is supposed to be screaming at me by now too, but that ain’t happening, is it?
Body: Oh come on, do you really want to get knocked up?
Me: Hell no, I’m just sayin-
Body: Do you want to want to get knocked up?
Me: Fuck no, but-
Body: I rest my case. Now leave me be, I have involuntary eye twitches and a random inexplicable pain in your ring finger to schedule.

Nutty, age 13:

Dear Diary, holy crap, I just realized I can do like twenty one-handed push-ups in a row. Katie is majorly impressed. Maybe I should join the army. I feel like an Amazon warrior. I totally rock.

Nutty, age 32:

Dear Diary, I think I slept on my neck funny again. I bet I pinched a nerve or something, because my jaw and ear hurt too. Did I fuck up my vagus nerve? Is that the right nerve? Damn, I’ve forgotten most of that anatomy I learned in intro to neurolinguistics.

Nutty, age 13:

Dear Diary, I desperately need to grow out these hideous bangs.

Nutty, age 32:

Dear Diary, “I hurt myself sleeping” is slowly creeping its way up my list of most-used phrases. I thought my neck was getting better but I must have slept on it wrong AGAIN because now the pain is back even worse than before. Maybe it’s not a nerve. Maybe I have flesh-eating disease like that woman in that program I saw on TLC back when it was actually a channel about learning things. Great. Now they’re gonna fucking have to surgically remove half my face and neck and probably my entire jaw. Wait, could they 3D print me a new jaw? Note to self: check company insurance plan to see if 3D printing of replacement body parts is covered.

Nutty, age 13:

Dear Diary, I wish I was a grown-up already because life would be so much easier.

Nutty, age 32:

Dear Diary, 13-year-olds are fucking idiots.