9th Grade Diary
Part 2

Friday, le 11 (onze) Septembre 1987

Tonight's the MTV Video Music Awards. I'm going to sort of stick in who wins while I write. Best New Artist - Crowded House. Classes are becoming very interesting. I have a new friend, Allana C. Whitney. She's red-haired, covered in freckles, and looks like a boy. She's in my PE + science classes, and we're lab partners.

I am starting to not mind the walk home from the bus. Anyway, it's only in the afternoons (Mom drives me in the mornings). Actually, I enjoy riding the bus again. There are lots of neat people, especially since our bus serves not just the P.A.T. but the Artistically Talented Program at Gibbs (and 1 little pipsqueak who (for some reason) goes to Southside Fundamental.) Best Experimental Video - Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer. Best Male Video - Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer. For example of people, there's one boy who has hair as long as mind and carries a guitar. I heard him playing "Stairway to Heaven," nearly as well as the recorded version. I'm starting to think he's cute. His name is Justin, I think. Best Overall Video - Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer. (again!?) There's another boy, I don't know his name, he's got really short hair (like worse than an Army cut) + two earrings in one ear + none in the other, and one of the loudest mouths I've ever heard. Best Stage Performance - Bon Jovi - Livin' On A Prayer (at last! Something Peter Gabriel didn't win! What's-is-name does imitations of burglar alarms and plays interesting tapes (don't quite know what they are but they're interesting.) Those two (they're friends) are the two most noticeable examples. We have a really nice bus driver, Mr. White. He puts up with all the aforementioned, some of the worst language I've ever heard, once a boy rode a skateboard up + down the center aisle, Short Hair dropped a plastic cup out the window today, and of course the fact that every day someone different regales us with his/her favorite music (so far Whitesnake is the favorite, followed closely by Motley Crue + Europe.) And Mr. White doesn't yell, he's not ignoring us, he makes special stops on rainy days, he's nice! Best Choreography - Janet Jackson - Nasty. Best Female Video - Madonna - Papa Don't Preach. (Poison - all four - presented this last. I was glued!) Whitesnake just performed "Still of the Night." That song has an effect on me. "Well I just want to get close to you, taste your love so sweet; I just want to make love to you, feel your body heat...")

September 22, 1987 (Tuesday)

Skinhead's name is Mike. He spits out the window. He is an uncouth boor.

Justin (guitar boy) is sweet. I am starting to think he's cute.

Another boy named Jason, in my Math, Science, English, and Inq. Skills classes, is kinda cute. He claims I make him sick (because I read too much). Don't know my opinions yet.

Academically, I'm doing fine. A's as far as I know in all my classes.

For permanent lab groups in sci., it's me, Allana, and a girl named Radiah. I don't know her too well but she seems nice.

September 26, 1987 (Saturday)

I definitely have a crush on Jason. He is so sweet, we have conversations in English (he sits by me) that remind me of Mark. Now I just have to find out his last name.

October 18, 1987 (Sunday)

Jason D. Loy.

Grandmother + Granddaddy L. are visiting. They've been here 2 weeks and are leaving tommorrow. We haven't done anything special, but Grandmother + Granddaddy brought down the TV they bought me over the summer so now I've got cable. Also Granddaddy bought me an adapter for my earphones so they work now.

Allana, Radiah, + I are lab group 5-H. So Allana + I tought up the 5-H club -- Head, Hands, Heart, Health, and Hernias. Motto: "We like the way we work." Emblem: a five-leaved clover (Yes, I know there are no such things. So?) Lab group 5-H are charter members.

I was cleaning out my desk and found a scrapbook I've had + ignored for a couple of years so I fixed it up with stuff from 7th + 8th grades.

Report cards come out this week; Wednesday, I think. I konw I'm not making Dean's List, but I ought to make Honor Roll.

Oh! I forgot to mention that Grandmother L. bought me two needlework kits - a crosstitch of shells and a crewelwork of cats. I'm making the shells for Mom for Christmas.

Au revoir! A demain!

October 24, 1987 (Saturday/Samedi)

There's another cute boy in my Inquiry Skills class. His name is Tom, I don't know his last. Tom's not in any of my other classes (unfortunately) but I'll find out about him somehow.

Uncle Doc died. I don't feel anything.

October 25, 1987 (Sunday)

I talked to Brandy. Our last couple of conversations had been "the Old Fuddy Duddy and the Sophisticate" so I was thinking it was like Jod + me. But it's not!!! We talked for real for an hour and it was like old times. We are sometime going to have her + Marie spend the night here. It's going to be fun when we ever get around to it.

October 31, 1987 (Saturday) HALLOWEEN

I saw The Lost Boys again. A couple of theatres showed it again for a couple of days as a special Halloween thing. It was just as good the third time.

November 5, 1987 (Thursday)

Remember Justin, with the guitar on the bus? It's Justin Smith, actually. He is so gorgeous!

I stayed home from school today. Woke up with a sore throat + stuffed up nose. Since I used 5 handkerchiefs and covered the bottom of the trash can with kleenex, it's a good thing I did stay home. But I'm missing 2 tests - one in French + one in Inquiry Skills. Inq. Skills isn't much of a problem, since we have study halls on C-days so I'll just take it then. But Mme. Dyckman never gives study halls so hers might be a problem. Luckily I'm just missing an oral, takes maybe 5 min to make up. So hopefully I can make that up in class.

Nothing much else going on. No new data on Tom. Ma vie est tres ennuyeux. (My life is very boring.) Anyway, g'bye, 'til later.

November 7, 1987 (Saturnday)

Stayed home Friday too. Making 2 French tests to make up + the Inq. Skills. Should be interesting.

November 8, 1987 (Sunday)

I went and saw Less Than Zero at Tyrone Mall. Great movie, not exactly alltime fave but close. It's about these 3 friends (Clay, Julian and Blair (the last is a girl). Clay comes home from college for Christmas and sees Blair on cocaine ("I can quit anytime I want to, I'm still in control!") And Julian even more so. Julian is 50 grand in debt, has been thrown out of his father's house. Clay + Blair try to help Julian, especially since his dealer is after him for his 50 g. Sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll!

Sex, indeed. Clay and Brian have sex on-camera twice (once in the hall at his parents' Christmas party!) Anyway, great movie.

November 14, 1987 (Saturday)

My life is totally boring. Do I ever do anything interesting? No. Comment allez-vous aujourd'hui? Comme ci, comme ca. Qu'est-ce que tu fais? Je ne fais pas. [Translation: How are you today? So-so. What are you doing? I am not doing.]

November 22, 1987 (Sunday)

Marie + I are going to go see Hello Again at Seminole Mall. We are also gonna walk around the mall for a while. I'll write + tell how it goes.

Later - They picked me up around 1:15. Marie's Grandmother dropped me + Marie off at the Mall. We bought some cotton candy, then window-shopped for an hour or so. The movie was at 2:30, and out of the 8 movies I've seen this year it was about the 6th. Actually that's not too bad, because usually a movie goes through screening by me wanting to go see it or not. Then we bought ice cream + ate it while watching the boy Marie likes walk back + forth. (His name is Porter.) Then we went home.

November 28, 1987 (Saturday) 2 days after Thanksgiving

We ate Thanksgiving dinner at Martha's. Her food was great! (definitely better than Mom's would have been.)

I spent last night at Marie's. It was so much fun! Description:

They picked me up at 11:30 (a.m.!) + dropped me + Marie off at Seminole Mall. We walked around, looked at every even remotely interesting store in the Mall. We both bought rings, fake silver with little jingle-bob-things on them and Marie bought 4 buttons. They say, "I'm Not Easy, But I'm Willing To Discuss It," "Candy Is Dandy But Sex Won't Rot Your Teeth," "Kiss Me, And Show Me No Mercy," and out favorite, "If I Can't Have All Of You, Just Give Me What You Think Is Fair." We had Mexican food + ice cream for lunch. Then we walked to her house, stopping off at the houses of a few people, none of whom were home. We got to her house about 3:30.

Then we read, listened to music, + such. Leftover Thanksgiving dinner for dinner, with chocolate cake with a pink cat on top later.

Then we changed into my ballet costumes. The neon green tutu with the purple sequins for me + the white leotard + skirt with the blue lace for her. We stayed in those get-ups most of the night. I taped over an hour of music on one tape (got "Hazy Shade of Winter"!) and some romance novel good parts with Marie's good old sound effects . About 10:30 she called this guy she likes. His name is Robbie. Marie describes him as tall, blond + gorgeous. From a couple of minutes' conversation over the phone, he reminds me of Sean. Saucy, too. Asked me if I bite. (I said, "No comment!") They had quite an intimate conversation, which Marie claimed later was actually facilitated by my presence. (Que?) They talked until close to midnight. When they hung up we had a long discussion about sex. She said if Robbie asked her to sleep with him she would. She asked if I would have with Jeno or Matt. (Yes.) [Of course, that assumes that I were more than just some girl in class with them.] We also tried on clothes, shoes, + Marie put makeup on me. Anyway, around 2 we got to sleep.

I woke up at 7 + reread good old The Storyteller. Marie is going to have Robbie read the bit in the bathtub. Ooh, I'd love to do that to Jason! (Have him read or act out!)

I woke up Marie a little before nine because she was supposed to call Robbie. She did (for another hour). This conversation was not so intimate. Marie read him some stuff out of Neil's Book. I talked to him for a minute while Marie went to get some birthday cake for breakfast, etc. After we got off the phone we got dressed, messed around for a couple of hours. Then we walked over to Seminole Mall again. We saw Three Men and A Baby. That movie was funny! About 6th out of 9. Her grandmother picked us up + took us home.

December 6, 1987 (Sunday)

One comment: Mom is a bitch.

In other news: Mary Lou Belich (good acquaintance) was writing a story Friday. This one was like my stories that I don't bring to school. She gave it to me to read through. I gave it my seal of approval. Then she had Jason (yes, my Jason! (even though he's going out with Pam!)) read it. While he was reading it, Sang (another boy, just in my Government class) grabbed it out of his hands + ran off with it + all these boys read it + Mary Lou was getting teased (though I can't see why; I've read more explicit sutff in novels Mom said I could read (they were hers)).

le 8 Decembre 1987 (Tuesday)

Sunday I bought "No One Here Gets Out Alive," a Jim Morrison biography. Read it at school yesterday. Coincidentally, today is Jim Morrison's birthday. He would be 44. (I'm sure he'd rather be dead; look at the state of his contemporaries!) MTV showed a "Rock Block" of the Doors, all my faves. I am currently quite enamored of Jim Morrison. He is sexy (majorly sexy!) but he has a personality a fair amount like mine. [Looking back, I don't know what possessed me to say that. I shared a lot of interests, but very little in personality with him.]

le 12 Decembre 1987 (samedi (Sat.))

We are going to Grandmothers's for Christmas! (It had been in doubt.)

We're also already opening presents. Today I opened a neat necklace. It looks Egyptian or something. The next one I open will be the one I know is a photo album.

13 December 1987 (Sun's day)

Couldn't resist; opened the photo album. It's pink with little things that look like fleur-de-lis but aren't on the cover, and more pages than I'll need for a while.

le 18 Decembre 1987 (Freya's)

'Twas the day before Christmas vacation, and, as always, the happenings were interesting.

1st period we made crepes, parce qu'ils sont Francais. Nearly everyone had a turn at making crepes (like really thin pancakes) on the electric crepe-maker. Some people tried to flip them (didn't work too great.) David, Mike + Jim (who take Spanish from Mme. Dyckman) came by + attempted to make us jealous of Mme. Dyckman's eleves d'Espagnol (who only got to watch a movie). That didn't work, anyway.

2nd we played Jeopardy (although it wasn't necessary to answer in the form of a question). Our team (me, Beth, Lynn, Michelle, Pamela, + Si) did not hit the buzzer once! and yet we were fifth out of six teams. Flowers you could send to someone + pay for yourself beforehand were delivered this period. Pamela got one from Jason. (They're going out.) Qu'est-ce qu'ella a lequel je n'ai pas? [What does she have that I don't?]

3rd period - We had a totally extra-credit quiz + some other extra-credit problems which I think I got about 8/9 of. Nothing really incredibly interesting.

5th-6th - Mr. Honeycutt showed Little Shop of Horrors Still funny the 3rd time around. Everyone else in our class has the same sense of humor I do, groaning during "Suddenly Seymour," laughing themselves silly at Bill Murray's masochist, etc. The bit when all the little Audreys pop out, Mr. Honeycutt yells, "Vegetative Propagation!"

7-8th - Ms. Vera let us out of class to watch the 2nd half of Little Shop

9th - Coach Davis basically let us do what we wanted as long as we didn't get too loud.

10th - Yesterday we wrote skits on hasty conclusions + unwarranted assumptions and through happy chance I got paired with Jason! (God was obviously feeling quite generous.) So today we performed the skits (ours was about a copy machine, see handwriting sample collection.) Then we basically just messed around. We measured everybody in the class (although 4 of the boys were missing. Tom was tallest, Jason + Ms. Brooks tied for 2nd. John was shortest. I was somewhere in the middle tied with...Charlotte, I think it was. Might not be right.

Oh, since Sunday I've opened 3 more presents. A bracelet (red) + two rings (fake amethyst + stone heart) in one box, a new green leather wallet with 11 dollars in it, and Estee Lauder powder + perfume. The fragrance is called Youth Dew and it smells wonderful!

Adieu for now.

December 19, 1987 (Saturday)

We opened all the rest of out presents today. I got:

• lavender porcelain earrings with fake amethysts set in them
• a garnet necklace
• grape lip gloss
• a silver belt (sort of fake Mexican)
• a peach nightgown, sleeveless and ankle-length
• a bright-blue purse
• and from Marth two great shirts, one lavender with vertical purple stripes + rows of pink flowers and the other sort of pinky-peach and nice + warm.

Tommorow we're going to Grandmother's.

Joyeux Noel!

December 20, 1987 (SunnyDay)

Mon Dieu, this was close. It's about 8:40, Mom, Laddie + I are in the car and "Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go!"

Yesterday Mom decided not to go. Even after an evening of me begging her, she was adamant, the weather was too bad + she was sick (ha!). So I went to bed assuming that I'd wake up about 11, listen to Casey Kasem like always, but that was not to be. Mom woke me up about 5 with the news that we were going!

10:58: We made it, arriving about 6:15.

A Tout A L'Heure!

Christmas Eve (Thursday)

We've opened any presents I had left. One boxful of jewelry + another of clothes. Not incredibly interesting.

Christmas Day (Friday)

I'm now at Grandmother S's. Got:

• 1 maroon portable tape player/radio!
• 15 blank tapes
• 13 books
• 2 pairs socks
• 2 pairs barrettes
• $50 (25 from Scott, 25 from Granddaddy)
• a gold bracelet with my name on it
• 6 skeins yarn
• 2 packages pipe cleaners
• 3 sheets plastic canvas
• 1 tape case

I've probably forgotten some but if so I'll add it tomorrow.

A record has probably been set. Josh, Leah, Michael and I were in the same house for 24 hours + not 1 big fight occurred! Not even when I beat Josh at Young Players Edition Trivial Pursuit (his)! Or even when I beat him at South Carolinaopoly! (Like Monopoly except the place names are from Columbia.) (That was Bill's.)

Add:

• Kick - INXS
• Revolver - The Beatles
• Jimmy Buffett's Greatest Hits
• Through the Past Darkly - The Rolling Stones
• a package of blue pens
• a lavender sweater
• a blue necklace

December 27, 1987 (Sunday)

I've been enjoying myself making tapes avec my blank tapes + new tape player.

Joe took me to see Throw Momma From The Train today. It was pretty good. "Who the hell are you?" "I'm Owen's friend." "Owen doesn't have any friends." "That's because he's shy." "No he's not, he's fat and he's stupid!"

New Year's Eve 1987 (Thursday)

Well, here Mom + I are again, back in the land of neon, traffic, + snowbirds. We got home an hour ago (it's 7:10). I'm unpacking + listening to old tapes on my new player. More as it nears time.

9:10 - Nothing particularly interesting going on now, so I'll go ahead and write my resolutions.

Resolutions for 1988
1. Music, as always, is more important than anything!
2. Ignore all the wisecracks.
3. Do not get hair cut!
4. Jason, Justin, and others.
5. Read much too much.
6. Write (and finish some of those stories!)
7. Don't you dare gain weight!
8. Keep in touch with old friends and make new ones.
9. Try some of the love potions and other witcheries!
10. Stand up against der dumpkopfs.
11. Be interesting.
12. Do schoolwork and not the night before it's due!
13. Thou shalt dance.

11:03 - Top 5 Videos of 1987

5 - Here I Go Again - Whitesnake

4 - Big Time - Peter Gabriel

3 - Land of Confusion - Genesis

2 - Living On A Prayer - Bon Jovi

1 - With Or Without You - U2 (a good #1 for a change!)

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