The Itch

Once you've decided you can never scratch again - or at least for the foreseeable future - you break out in hives.

I know this is stupid, okay? I don't even remember how I stumbled on this, but it gave me such a big itch that I spent the weekend's grocery money on it. (Don't worry. I won't exactly starve.)

Somehow, the subject of a five year diary earwigged its way into my brain. A five year diary. Don't you remember seeing those teen-intsy little things at the local five and dime? They had a tinny little lock and a tinny little key that you immediately lost. I must have had three or four different ones until I hit the big time and really started keeping a diary.

The diary habit came to me by way of my older cousin, Bella Linda, who was meticlous in her every project. She spent the summers with us along with her ne'er do well brother Ray and she regally ignored us, picking up that summer's particular project. One year it was teaching herself touch typing. One year it was keeping a diary.

I think the oldest diary I have now dates from 30 years ago when I went away to college for my last semester and met RCW and Emma. I began keeping them religiously in 1994, when I read The Artist's Way.

Three pages a day is a lot to wade through looking back. And there's a lot of the same old crap to whine about every day. I've leafed through them and thought, oh, Lord, don't tell me I'm still bitching about my weight...oh, and resolving to do this, that, and the other thing, to be good and pure and..well, ridiculous. Every now and then, I might stumble across "24 inches of snow today. Princess Roomie mightily affronted when I handed her a shovel, too." Or "Brought new cat home, looks to be barely more than a kitten under all that fur. I wonder what I'll name her? She's so beautiful, I know I would have no trouble adopting her out." Her name is Sophie and she's still here.

I think I read in the NY Times about someone chancing across his mother's five year diary. One entry read: "Got married today. Had ham sandwich for dinner." Succinct. Sticking with the important points.

It's nearly impossible to buy a five year diary anymore. I have all kinds of notebooks, of course, but the point of the five year diary is to contrast the tedium you are experiencing today with the tedium you experienced on the same day two years ago. Easily. On the same page, if you will. So of course, I went off on my quest to bring home a five year diary.

And I did. It's kind of sad that teens and tweens don't have little locked places to keep their secrets. Now, I suppose, it's the grownups who keep secrets. This is such a Yuppie diary, I'm almost embarrassed. It actually does have a lock. And gold edging. And a leather cover.

All so I can write today:

Left work early. Humid. Day lilies in full bloom. Fireflies out. So many places now are open on the 4th of July. That's just wrong.

And in two years, write:

Left work early. Humid. Day lilies in full bloom. Had ham sandwich for dinner.