History Lessons...for your amusement...

Another year has come and gone (doi), and with it I engage in an annual rite of passage that ranks up there with Spring Cleaning, Professional Sportsball Home Opener(s), and the International Cat Video Festival:  The replacement planner...

As you can see, I have a few of them.  And ICYC, I already bloody well know that there are various apps and diabolical futuristic machinations in place to act as a planner.  (i.e. Google Calendar, MS Outlook and it's lesser twin "LotusNotes".)

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Call me old fashioned, but I like it.  (And call me forgetful, but I have a large calendar collection.  I have this guy I carry with me, my desk AND wall calendar at work.  The calendar above my computer desk at home, and the one on the fridge that serves as a recycling/garbage reminder.)

 

 

 

 

 

 I received my first "At-A-Glance" planner in 1997 from the Target Corp.  (Every year, a planner and desk calendar.  Score, for corporate swag!)  I didn't really think about using it as a journal for a while.  In fact, shocker, I used it for it's intended purpose- schedule/planning/college assignments due, etc.  No, originally?  I actually did keep a journal.  An angsty, angsty journal.  A true "Grail Diary".  And as it just so happens, I was at THE perfect age to have one.

You can feel the power of both the velvet AND silver inlaid unicorn.  MOTHERFUCKING UNICORN!!!

See, I vaguely remember wanting a journal when I got into the 9th grade.  I enjoyed the hell out of writing short stories, and my 9th (previously also my 8th grade) teachers encouraged journals as a way of brain-dumping/generating ideas.  When I first got this...this manly piece of work, I immediately pitched a hormonal fit at my mom- assuming she MUST have picked this girlie thing up at the Dollar store.   After cracking the cover (A cover sans LOCK, btw.) I saw she actually grabbed it from B Daltons at Brookdale as a clearance purchase. 

So while it wasn't a grand leather-bound/padlocked book of mystery from my fantasy?  I made due.

Yeah...I was taking beginner German in the 9th grade so there's smattering every so often.  Note how I point out mom and big brother, as if my dad would've stayed out.  Still, by way of "1st page warnings" it's not bad.  I mean, it isn't "You shall PASS!" or "Only a penitent man will enter!"...but it's okay.

I reference that this is my 2nd attempt at journaling, even though that 1st edition has been lost to the elements.  I'm guessing that one is about how frustrated I was at the crossover technique Marvel was using to get me to buy more comics- and how turning the TV to channel "2" when it was on a certain cable channel meant you got squiggly p0rno movies on the Spice channel. 

In short, pretty boring.  No, 15-year-old me is much more interesting.

And so, in early 1990 I began chronicalling what life was like for me in the 9th grade.  In between frassin' about hockey tournaments, auditioning for plays, and the various love pangs I felt for my classmates, I (on occasion) would comment on current events.  (Gorbachev visiting Minneapolis, the Berlin Wall coming down, etc.  But let's face it, it's the spastic descriptions of open-mouth kissing at the Sadie Hawkins dance you fiends reallllly want to hear about.)

That's right.  You get it all:  Dirty stories about the 1st time I (fooled around, lost my virginity etc.), the animosity I felt toward class mates who were being (in my mind) abusive toward girls *I* liked, family frustrations, the time I tried getting my DL- failed- and re-took the test.  Lot's and lot's of ego-centric hubris abounds.  And I kept it up for (at the time) a whopping 2 years...until I turned 18.  And then it appeared my scribbling days were at an end.


"We cannot get out...drums in the deep...we cannot get out...- 12/25/1992"  No, seriously.  I talk about how awesome adulthood is gonna be.  And...it's been awesome? 

 

A few years ago, I learned that reading these out loud to company is pure comedy.  (If you and your spouse/partner/lover are comfortable, it's pretty funny pillow-talk, IMO.)  I might even try my hand at turning this into a spoken word/storytelling type of stage show with some of the greatest hits.  It's that dirty and ridiculous- two things that sell tickets.

 

 

Now, in the stack of planners, I can see that I did attempt at one point to keep a planner- again, for it's intended purpose since I was still writing in fluffy horny up there in the early 90's.  As a companion piece, you can clearly see below that there were the foundations of remembering HUMONGOUS and MONUMENTOUS events from my childhood...such as:

Ironic this was provided to me from the same hospital where I was birfed.

Mono...the kissing disease...that a guy who hadn't really kissed anyone procured from drinking out of the community water jug at Football games.  Reynolds gave it to half the team, AND it made it so I couldn't play hockey that year.  So?  I auditioned for the musical.  Bad idea ,that.

"This fourth of July?  Get ready to DIE HARDER!!!"  Seriously, seeing the Die Hard sequel was important enough to note in my planner.

And if this whole thing has a point, it's this:  As a memory stimulator, I find that the planner's and the gernal have proven pretty instrumental with going back and being able to specifically remember what was going on at those moments of my life.  This is important, because it also helps me diminish the possibility of my own revisionist history.  Like I said, when I was first given the planner for 1997-

 

It was fantastic.  I had to keep track of karate, the 24 hours a week I worked at the Bullseye, my class load, rehearsal schedules.

 

Booooooorrrrring.  Where's the SMUT?!?!?!

And it was around the time I went through a tough Fall break-up at the start of my 2nd year at the "U" where I began adding more specific details, events, feels, and yeah- what I might've done the night before.  Warts and all.

A classic example was when I met a girl for drinks at Mayslacks in NE Mpls.  When she went to go schmooze with her girlies, I got the worst case of the hiccups and nothing could hold them off.  I even tried locking myself in a toilet stall and holding my breath, all while making farting noises so people thought I was doing my business.  I ended up walking out on my date and vomiting next to my big-ass Crown Victoria.  Which subsequently was the only thing that stopped the hiccups.

 

Occasionally, I found notes to myself that I scribbled while on the phone. 

Yeah.  This was the year I was called to understudy the 5 primary male leads at a big frassy Twin Cities theater about a week before they opened- all while being involved in another production.  I was terrified.

Even as recently as 2014, I made a point to record not only important events, but general feelings on topics such as- say- the weather...

Writing this on one of our 1st 40+ degree days we've had since Fall 2013 feels so goooooood.   FYI- I noted that it was "impossibly" cold out.  Yeah?

 

I think I'll keep doing this until I retire.  I like being able to cross-reference life-events with the matter-of-fact things that pop up on the day-to-day.  In fact, there might be a pretty good chance that YOU were mentioned in these here tomes. 

 

Maybe.