Teenager Kyle Loved Golf

I have never been one to keep a journal or diary or anything like that, at least not for an extended period of time, but for a couple months during my junior year of high school, I recorded a dozen or so entries. These are three of them.

3/1/02 9:00pm

I'm feeling a little down--not uncommon. I think it's due to the lack of writing, a result of the burden called a term paper. It's on Mark Twain. Because I've never read an entire Twain work, I'm trying to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.¹ But since I'm always reading about four books at once, I'm trying to complete Vonnegut's Galapagos, and today I purchased and began The Nick Adams Stories.

But that term paper's bringing me down. Well, I'll worry about that tomorrow.

I'll worry about school later.

So, basically, I want to write something, but I'm not quite in the mood. I think I'd rather read or watch TV.

I've been trying to drink more water.

3/3/02

Yesterday, (last night) I wrote "Another Bloody Mess,"² and its chapter 39 in Harold³. I've set a goal of 55 chapters (and to think I originally wanted 99). I feel that if I go to for the "stories" will become redundant. Maybe they already are? I don't know.

About 1am:

Well, for the last two hours I've read The Nick Adams Stories by Hemingway. It's probably to longest strech of uninterupted reading I've experiences since reading Crichton's Rising Sun. (I finished the book and looked at the clock and it was 3:30am. I hadn't looked at the clock in four hours. I was amazed.) Again I'm amazed because I hadn't looked at the clock for the last two hours. I'm always looked at the clock when there's one around. That's why I like to golf on an empty course. Just me and nature. No need to worry about time.

Anyway, there's something about Hemingway that amazed me. I'm sure I'm not the first to realize it, but I can't explain it. I really don't want to stop reading. I suppose Cat's Cradle did it to me and those Harry Potter books (I swear they have a deeper⁵ meaning). I have a feeling I'll turn into a Hemingway nut in the next two or three months, replacing Vonnegut who replaced Crichton.

3/14/02

Golf is draining me. I'm frustrated. I can't write. And then there's the whole term paper thing I've been procrastinating. Schools kills me. I want to learn, but the pressure I feel on my heart makes me want to give it all up. But I keep telling myself that since I've gone this far, I should be able to last a little longer. (That was accidental alliteration.)

I'm tired. I need sleep.

Putting ice in water makes it more bearable.

I've been getting musical urges recently, but with the whole golf thing, which I love, and the term paper pressure, I doubt I be able to live out the musical inspirations. [Friend's name] would probably be my first option. We have similar musical interests. [A different friend's name] would be second. He knows a lot about the actual ways music is played/written/performed, etc.

And one last edition: I hate this journal--I hate my voice--It's god awful.

¹ It's actually just Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There's no "the." And I didn't actually read the whole thing until college.

² I would love to find this in one of these notebooks. Stay tuned.

³ The World of Harold and His Lovely Wife. My first attempt at writing a novel. It had nothing to do with Harold nor his lovely wife, and they never appeared or were even mentioned in the novel. In fact, the only real elements linking the "novel" were the protagonist who never saves the day (The Chipmunk Warrior), the infinite gang of "bad guys" (The Refrigerator Tunics nee Jalapeno Marauders), and the various narrators who would get killed.<sup>4

4</sup> I was on a lot of drugs in high school.

⁵ Penetration.

You puss-faced, jackass, motherfucker

You puss-faced, jackass, motherfucker¹
Take your shit and fucking leave
You’ve tainted everything’s that good
You’ve ruined everything I believe
You’re fucking inibriated² every second
High as a bird³ without a clue
I see your face and I want to scream
You leave me with very little to do
I’ve had enough, this is it, all this
Motherfucking bullshit is gone
You’re intelligence reeks a putrid smell⁴
It’s poignant with a stench from hell
How can you respect your fucking self
When you don’t care about anything else
But I’ve had enough, this is it, all this
Motherfucking bullshit is gone
Gone, I wish you were gone.<sup>5

1</sup> I’m addressing Jackass?
² sXe 4 lyfe!!!!!!!!!!
³ or kite
⁴ Did I really need a footnote to point out the irony of this line?
⁵ ya jackass

Shit I Wrote as a Teenager

This morning I did two things that I never thought I’d do again: clean my room and read through my old high school notebooks. I decided to clean because I wanted to shift my bed ninety degrees, and I decided to read through my notebooks because, well, I don’t know. But it has proved more entertaining than I could have ever imagined. It is absolutely no surprise that a vast majority of it is angry as hell at everything, but what did shock me was the volume of my teenangst writing. There are notebooks filled cover to cover. I don’t even do that now. I have also found a handful of beginnings of novels that I don’t remember writing at all. One in particular takes up a yellow legal pad, and the notes on the very first page express:

• I want something with conflict
• I want something extreme
• I want something like Kafka
• I want existencialism, out of ordinary, uncommon

Yes, I am aware that it is existentialism, but as you read this blog, just assume everything is followed by [sic]. It’s just better this way.