Hawkes for the Holidays

So, tonight I went to a play called Holmes for the Holidays. In short, our group of friends is looking for more activities on weeknights and somehow ended up at the equivalent of teen night for young adults at the theater. It was a story about the actor that played Sherlock Holmes and a murder mystery that took place at his home over the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately it wasn't interactive and none of us ended up being the murderer or murderee in the show.


That's really neither here nor there, because after seeing them wipe the "blood" off of the murder weapon, I had a flashback.


When we were kids, my sister, brother and I used to set up little murder scenes in the kitchen, living room, etc. in anticipation of when my mom would get home from a walk. We'd put ketchup on a knife and my brother's shirt, have him lay down on the floor in the family room (in clear view from the door) and I'd act like I was crying over him. 


Convincing, right?


Well, at intermission I excitedly brought up this memory to my sister to reminisce about how crazy we were. 


She didn't remember.


So I texted my brother: "Remember when we used to set up murder scenes in the house for when Mom got home? Like we'd cover knives with ketchup and be laying on the floor?"


His response: "WHAT???"


He didn't remember either.


I assumed my oldest sister wouldn't remember, since she was already dating boys* at the time and likely wouldn't have gotten on board with trying to convince my mom that her kids were dead.


*Note: I know this because I remember we pulled the murder setup once after a particular visit from the police at our house. We had gotten home one night to an open door and the TV on - nobody home. So, naturally, we called the po-po. When they arrived, they determined that the house had been broken into and that the only room that was ransacked was hers. The truth? She was hurriedly getting ready for a date, trying on clothes and throwing them around her room and then ran out the door, leaving the house in such a state of disarray. 


Back to the point. 


So I called my mom. She laughed and said she "vaguely" remembered it. I'm glad to see that the traumatization hasn't been burned in her mind forever.


But still, in hindsight... what were we thinking? Sorry Mom. 

Mott's Apple Sauce

When a man loves a woman, he can do no wrong. But, when a girl loves a boy - things get a little creepy. 


First you come up with a code name for the boy in question. In this case, we can call Thomas the "apple of my eye", because his super secret code name was Mott's. 


(Hint: Take the first three letters of your name, reverse them, and come up with something clever. Are you a Mike? You're now Kim. Are you a Conor? You're now Knock. Are you an Anthony? You're now TiNA.)


The brand-naminess was hard to resist and my friends started bringing a lot of applesauce to school and slipping the lids into my locker, leading to a lot of "Ohmigod! You guyssssss!" moments.

Once a good code name is established, you can start writing notes freely. Mainly about how your friends are trying to convince the boy you like that they, in fact like you back.

They will also help you with important issues, like finding his phone number, providing topics to discuss during the first phone call, and voting on whether or not you should hook up.

The back of the pink sheet actually says, "Topics: - Navid, - Thursday Night"

Finally you're at the point where you can start sneakily (or not-so-sneakily, in my case) try to convince them that they have feelings for you.

The list... (I don't know where the last 13 reasons went.)

When that doesn't work out as planned, you can start writing notes that you'll never pass along or plan speeches that you'll never give.

And my personal favorite, you can doodle endlessly about your obsession and whether or not it is going to work out.

Some of the good stuff that I just have to call out:

- "I never should have signed off and I knew it."

- "Call him? Yeah, enough of this online shit. What time? Ninish?"

- "Hi, is Thomas home? there?"

- "If we have nothing to say just get off the phone. STOP STRESSING"

And... my repeated use of the lyrics to "Everything U R," which is actually a darn good song if you ask me.

The Staying Power... of Ham.

So I started writing a book. And now, more than ever, has "The Hindsight Project" seemed so applicable. The truth is that my diary was the real account of how things went down (and then up! and then down. and then further down. and then a little up! and then down down down) with Thomas. 


In hind-hindsight, I was clearly so wrapped up in our relationship that I could only think of it in poetic, beautiful ways, which is why the story I tell in the "book" is slightly skewed from how it came out day-by-day in my blue canvas diary, then my pink striped diary, then the inspirational quote diary, and so on. 


This one is going to take a while to unfold, so please get comfortable for the story of my first real love, and heartbreak. (Sorry, Navid!)


Here's how it goes in my unfiltered words:

Ah, technology. I was so obsessed with this kid, planning out our kids names (Skyler & Shamus) and we had literally still never spoken a word to one another. I would stand in the hallway outside of the locker room after school with Rachel, just waiting for him to walk by on his way out to baseball. 

We'd act like we were meant to be there (which we clearly weren't since we got cut from the softball team after I ran out of tryouts crying because I got hit in the face with a softball.. and she followed me) until he walked by, head down. I'd whisper, "hi" and then run off, red faced and giggling. I'd immediately go home and sign Sparkl05 online so that I was READY when he signed on to have another amazing conversation.

3 1/2 hours = CONNECTION! (In case you didn't get that.)


And so began my dilemma of how to convince him to tell me he liked me, without me telling him first... I'll keep you posted.


Anyway, here's how the beginning of this relationship looks when romanticized:










Okay, I guess the ham part wasn't that romantic. It was more me being awkward and expecting a question about the expiration of ham to convince Conor that he wanted to be my friend again. 


Fortunately, Thomas (who was just as weird as I was) intercepted that comment and thought I was hilarious. I guess I really lucked out that someone thought so, as I was just informed at my birthday breakfast this year that I'm "much funnier at 24."

The Yellow Umbrella

Conor came into my life in gym class. I can still remember his maroon and gold uniform with his socks pulled halfway up his calf. Can you picture it?


Good. Then you know why it took me until we were out of gym class to develop my casual crush on him.


November 3, 2001:
"I like Conor. Okay, so I never really liked him until last week because he's in my gym class - but we had a study hall in gym the whole week so we actually talked and I realized that he had a really great personality. He kind as that whole scrubby look going on, which I like on him."


Unfortunately, I had to put those feelings aside because when I went back to gym, he stayed in study hall due to an injury. (He "broke his ass" according to him, I don't actually know what was wrong.) That study hall just happened to be during the lunch period of my friend Victoria, and their love blossomed as his ass slowly healed. They dated, they broke up, and time went by.


I tried to deny my feelings because I was supposed to be:
(a) a good friend to Victoria and not break the girl code in which every boy you have ever liked, looked at, or thought of in passing, is strictly OFF LIMITS.
(b) the cool, casual, public school friend of cool, casual, public school Conor who liked to listen to Sublime on the mix CDs he would make me - as a friend of course.


Apparently I couldn't stand it any longer and proclaimed my feelings to... my diary.

Then Victoria.

(yes, I had actually written out the speech I had prepared, I still have the word-for-word draft)

(all that worrying for nothing!)

Then (very mysteriously) to Conor.

He stopped talking to me, so I did what any girl would do. I wrote him a note I would never send and doodled angry words about myself at the bottom.

Just to clarify, "getting on" in the 9th grade meant that we had made plans to make out during a movie over spring break. Clearly, his silence following my bold confession ensured that our spring break rendezvous would not take place. 


Luckily (or unluckily) this whole ordeal paved the way for me to meet the boy who I actually started writing a memoir about because I thought it was - without a doubt - the greatest love story of all time. 


Now I'm going to go all How I Met Your Mother and leave you with that yellow umbrella cliffhanger.

Stealing Kisses

The tale of Jay and I can be summed up in one post, since for some reason I have been a slave to the LDR (that's long distance relationship, for those lucky bastards of you who have never been in one) over the years. While Akron to Solon may not seem long distance, for 14 year olds with no cars and different schools, we might as well have been on different planets.


Our romantic meeting:

This is weird. Did I steal this kid's first kiss? It doesn't seem like he was all that eager to "work out" with me. 


Turns out he likes me:

(Did you hear that? I'm perfect!)


Turns out I like him: 


"So after the movie, he calls his dad, and we sat on the bench waiting to be picked up, just talking and I loved every minute of it. He is just so fun to be around because we can be weird together. Navid always hated it when I was weird."


So after all of that preaching about how I could only be myself around Navid, it comes out now that I couldn't be weird around him? If I'm not being weird (especially then) I'm not quite sure who I was being.


My Valentine's Day punk mix (which I still have on my running playlist):

(Was #11 trying to tell me something?)


The doubts begin:

(Was anyone else confused about what Marital Status was back when we had AOL profiles? I always read it as Martial. Black belt, green belt? What does single mean anyway, you only have one?)


The break up:

We both seem pretty beat up over this. Do you like me? No. Cool, I don't like you either! See ya.. never (since we didn't anyway). Have a nice life!


And as far as I know, he is. JaYDoG, if you're reading this... thanks for the CD.

No Commentary Required

My thoughts at 14 on 9/11/01:

Sweet Like Honey

After a long summer of fighting, Navid and I decided to call it quits due to the fact that I was off to a new school in the Fall.


It didn't take me long to latch onto the first upperclassman I saw (queue Taylor Swifts "Fifteen" here) in the lunch room. Or rather, perhaps he latched onto me. My new Walsh friends Rachel and Bean would need to confirm this today, but it seemed as though almost out of nowhere, Jon started inexplicably bringing me small honey packets. 


Because I was so sweet.


Gag me. 


I also learned that he stole the honey packets, but I overlooked his klepto tendencies and kindly purchased a few sugar packs to give right back to that little gumdrop!

After that romantic viewing of Pearl Harbor, we started going out. Then, as in all doomed relationships, the honey stopped flowing and instead I got notes like this:

Which leads to diary entries like this:

I know what you're thinking. "Man, Kelsey, that's harsh," and also, "Why did you think he was depressed? He seems like a perfectly good note writer and kisser according to everything I've heard." 


Here's why I thought that:

(Oh good. There's more.)

Now, I know I have no room to talk, since I have some poetry and songs of my own that could really rival what he had going on here. But it was really dragging on the excitement of the whole dating-an-older-man thing. 

Don't worry, he made it through the break up okay. Here we are all gussied up at Homecoming:

In hindsight: wrong hair, wrong dress, wrong date.

Sheets to the Streets

Well, despite the extensive sex ed we had during my 8th grade year, I still wasn't prepared for when one of my male friends took the plunge and gave up his V-card to a morally flexible 16-year-old. 


I'm going to skip the details that I was kind enough to include in my journal, since I'm trying to avoid being sued over this thing. However, I will share what I thought my friend's inevitable future was since he had intercourse at a young age. 

Wow. This would make for an awesome "Just Say No" campaign - for both drugs and sex. I mean, you do it once and the next thing you know you're addicted to coke and selling off your hundreds of babies for drugs.


Bleak.


For those who are wondering, the last I checked - my early blooming buddy is successfully working as a mechanical engineer and in a relationship that does not include domestic violence or weed addiction. 

Life in Modern Times (or 2001)

Whenever I started a new diary, I would always act like I was growing up somehow - which meant that I had to pretend I actually cared about things other than b-o-y-z. Sadly for my life, I never stuck to it. Happily for you, I never stuck to it.


If you've missed out on the joys of my 5th-8th grade years, or are just super confused by all of the name drops, here's a lovely little recap for you of where I was at the end of the 8th grade:

A few comments, if I may..

• Yes, you are awkward, and you'll likely never change. Better get the awkward turtle move down early.
• Um.. all you do is talk about yourself. And, I don't know if you noticed, but you still didn't talk about your "spirituality."
• Apparently I thought my parents were kids in the 1860's. I mean, how could they relate when my issues were so much bigger than theirs. Come on, slavery? I've got a bus to catch! Presidential assassination? Matt dumped Rachel! 
• I'm convinced that the overwhelming (or so I thought) pressure to exercise, exercise, exercise is the reason I never made it big in sports. Not to worry though, the bowling team suited me just fine.
• 13 year old me would probably be bummed to know that her future self would consider having 11 people in my "close circle" quite the treat. At least I knew that I wasn't a loser and recognized that people can just be ridiculous in their adolescent years. (Not me, of course, though.. I clearly thought I was perfect.)
• Yes, I know now that it's vice versa.
• I couldn't count!! It was only 5 pages. Silly Kelsey, maybe you should write about your capacity for mathematics in your next entry. I'm sure it's going to be packed with riveting information that has nothing to do with boys.

My next entry? "Well, today was six months for me and Navid..."

Oh well, old habits die hard I guess.

Perfectly Random #2

At the end of another box of notes, I'm finding that I can't pass up sharing some of the random things I have saved (now for 11 years) with no rhyme or reason. 

In the year 2000, I re-became best friends with Dori after 6 years apart. Somewhere between 2nd grade with Mrs. Armentrout and ending up in the same team for 8th grade, we drifted apart. Not to worry, however, because we picked right back up where we left off. The only issue? I had forgotten my way around her home. Luckily, she was kind enough to draw me a map in anticipation of my first visit. 

It was probably also around this time that I wished I had burned the following note, since I didn't have the required passion to cheer on the SMS sports teams due to my (apparently intense but ignored) depressive attitudes.

Code language. Every girls best friend.

Scratch that. Apparently Lip Smackers are every girls best friend. So much so that a list of all of the flavors that Dori owned was required. She carried a different one every day, no way she was going to have the same smell on her lips two days in a row! That's dedication, if you ask me.

Another map. This one is funny because it was the very first time I had my idea to open a cards, coffee, books and ice cream store - which is still my retirement dream today. The only thing that has changed (so far) is that I don't think I'll require my store to have a moat.

And finally, a whole slew of random stuff.

Yes. Those are giant underwear. Yes. They were a gift. (Thanks Dori!) And yes. I did have them hanging on my bedroom wall until I went to college. 

Other things include.. 

A fake rose from when Navid told me that "like this plastic rose, our love would never die."

A bubble blowing, light up, cheerleader stamp pen. Goooooooooo Comets!!

A "perfect man" keychain, because apparently I thought I could afford to be picky back then. ("I don't ask for much in a man. He just has to be tall, rich, sexy, single, funny, romantic, sweet, sensitive and of course he has to be willing to feed me ice cream in bed every night for the rest of my life." - Really? What kind of man with those qualities wants to pump you full of food while you sit around without even expending the energy to lift a spoon to your face?)

The cover of KT Fantasy's first album.

A plastic eyepatch (not sure on that one.)

A glowstick from the 98* concert.

My face in a surfer girl keychain (God, why did I love keychains?)

A fake Alaskan Moose Nugget chapstick. "It won't heal your lips, but it sure keeps you from lickin' em!" (I wonder who that could have been from...)

Still wondering about the underwear? Check this out and enjoy... Pinch Me - Barenaked Ladies

A Friendship's End: A Poem From the Edge

After a far too long break between posts, I've decided to throw in the next installment of "Poems From the Edge." 


I'm assuming that, as my avid followers (right?), you've picked up on a bit of lady love between my friend Kristen and I. Our obsession with one another was unhealthy to the point where, our "break-up" haunted me for a long time to come. About a month into my Freshman year at a new high school, I was sitting at lunch with my two new best friends. I decided this was the perfect time to tell them that, no matter what, they would inevitably screw me over. Why they didn't just up and leave right then, I don't know. Thankfully, they stuck around and my Kristen-induced depression didn't last for much more than a couple years. 


The good news is, that it brought me this poem. Again, turned in for a grade. I got an A (despite my spelling error, knifes, much?) and nobody even checked my wrists. 





After some time had gone by, I decided to reach out to Kristen to let her know how miserable I was without her. I sent her an email wishing her and her boyfriend (the source of all our troubles) a happy anniversary. This began the following email chain, which I can tell you was completely exhausting and totally pointless. 

Girls are awful. Especially when they use all of the dramatics they learned from Dawson's Creek to craft an email. And when they're acting like they were getting divorced rather than cutting out a couple IMs and sleepovers. And when they say things like "I feel like a possession." Gag. 


Hey, 8th grade me, you're not that cool and neither was she. Get over it.


At least I finally learned how to become a whole person!

Sexual Education.

Let's talk about sex (baby). Lucky for 8th graders, who have already been talking about it, the topic is finally brought up in health class to answer all of our questions that we haven't asked anyone outside of an AOL chat room. 


a/s/l?


The unfortunate thing is that my friends and I were getting more education from Dawson's Creek than we were actually getting in class, which is why the following note puts DC above the real facts.

Just a few questions on this...
1. How did it take the sex lady the whole first day to cover how great sex is... could that really have taken a full 40 minute class period and remained appropriate?
2. What exactly is this "stuff" that is going to pass through the 1/7 of the doctor's glove?
3. Was the gym scene in Mean Girls based off of this note?


Luckily, I got my hands on the handy pamphlet "A Boy Today, A Man Tomorrow," because obviously all the girls were more interested in what was going on across the hall in the boys room. While the entire thing is both entertaining and educational, I have decided to share the myths and Q&A section with you.. just incase you need a refresher on whether or not masturbation will make you go crazy.

What they don't mention here is that those sexual feelings have a remedy, I've heard it's called sexual healing and it can be taken in small doses if you feel hot like an oven, have a sea stormin' inside you or feel emotional stability leaving. 


Umm.. typical 8th grader in-the-midst-of-puberty responses?
Check, check, check.


My other personal favorites in the question section of this book include:
- Q: What can you do if you are too fat?
- Q: Do more hair and deeper voice make a person more of a man? A: No. This is a false idea.
- Q: Does having larger sex organs make a person more of a man? A: This is absolutely not true. (A little defensive, are we?)
- Q: Can a boy be a father?
- Q: Where can I get additional material to read? A: Paperback copies of helpful books about sex may be purchased. (All boy's first thought: so Playboy does count!)


Now for all my male readers, I'd like to leave you with this little tidbit:


Remember being a man means more than just growing up physically. It means growing up in knowledge and wisdom, in respect for your self and for others, and in love and knowledge of God. (Wuh-oh, public school slip up!)


May you grow to full manhood, and make the best possible use of your life in the world. And may you find new joy and real pride in every new step along the way!

miss ya 4 eva

So, it turns out that in addition to my Brokedown Palace girly-love, I also had an admirer. I'm not sure how I could have been so depressed when I was getting notes like this:

A little demanding, are we? I must be your friend?

It's okay, she (yes, that's female handwriting) made up for it when she called me pretty and told me she got rid of all her other friends to make room for me. That's not creepy at all!

I wasn't good at sports either though, so I guess there's a commonality.

Oh, shoot. The end of the year and I was off to Walsh. It's too bad our 3-note friendship couldn't stand the test of a 30 minute drive, but, ya know, that happens.

After all, things get in the way. 

College, work or wat eva.