MATH

"Now heres a scary thought. I might Like like Brandon. It's really farfeched. I don't know if I like him or not. I don't think I do, and it would be really scary if I actually did. I don't think he likes me."

What you have just witnessed, my friends, is the budding of a flower of genius. The above quote is an excerpt from the personal journal of one Caitlin Jane Sellnow: age ten.

My mother found it recently when she was cleaning out some closet space. Really, it's remarkable that she didn't throw it away, since I had so cleverly disguised it as not a diary by etching MATH on the front in pencil and underlining it twice. I was so concerned with secrecy the names have been changed in the first entry. My best friends Samantha and Leslie became "Michelle" and "Luella." The code was so brilliant, even I didn't know who the hell I was talking about when I read it two days ago until I looked a little closer and saw the remnants of"Samantha Georss" erased behind her new alias, "Michelle." I must have been worried that the names of the boys we had a crushes on in the fifth grade would be damaging to our legacies "100 years from now" when I meant for the journal to be discoved and read by the world. Because I state clearly in the praface (what, doesn't your journal have a preface?) that "right now when I'm alive this journal is PRIVAT!"

Even though it hasn't quite been a hundred years, I'm going to share a few of my favorite passages with you now. They demonstrate just how swiftly time can pass. In all of it's misspelled glory, this journal comes from a time before my soul had shrivled into oblivion. A carefree time before I knew the meaning of heartache...or "far fetched." Before I had given up on my dream to become the most famous singing, writing, baton twirling star on Broadway. Before I had been introduced to adjectives more expressive than "soooo" (as in "soooo jealous"). Before I had cried all my tears. Back when words poured freely from my unfettered soul with wreckless, passionate abandon. Observe the emotion:

8-14-98
Today I have to preform my share the fun skit at the county fair becaus we won first pace in the contest. I don't want to be in that stuped play! Nothing is going right today. I have to wear a ridiculis costum that I can't find, I don't know my lines, my eyes are red and puffy because I've been crying and I have alergys. I have to go in an hour but I haven't gotten out of my pajamas, let alone brushed my hair. I'm a wrek! Well, may I break a leg! (With my luck, I probubly will, lituraly.)

***

Oh man, that's totally my favorite one. A "wrek"? "let alone"? apparently, the ten-year-old me studied at the Dynasty school of temper tantrums. I was such a little drama queen. Looking back, it's hard to remember why I had any friends. Sadly though, whatever friend making method I was practicing then appears to have been more effective than any method I've practiced since. Try as I might, I have yet to be able to match my elementary school success at founding secret clubs:

5-22-98
I just came back from my little sister's historical picknick. All day her class pretended it was the olden days at the historical society. I was soooo jealous. The girls had to wear dresses and the boys had to wear suspenders or bibs. I tell everyone I hate dresses but I really like them [I was brimming over with painful secrets]...When I was there I made a secret club with some friends. (All girlls) At the meetings we trade secrets. Mostly about boys. The members of my club are:

Tatum Blume
Shawna Stich
Emie Seechan
and of course, me, Caitlin Sellnow.

Right now, Jackie is being tested. She doesn't know it though. Tatum told her that Shawna french kissed a boy. (It's not true) We're waiting to see if she can keep the secret. If she can, she's in the club.

***

Being ten was no excuse for not knowing that plan was lame.

Behold, the product of a charter school. Somewhere along the way, I picked up the proper way to spell words like "tradition" "Historical" "Suspenders" and "society," but the correct spellings of "even,""stupid" and "because" never found their way into my lexicon. I guess there wasn't room in Lincoln at Mann's "creative" curriculum. We were too busy learning about the seven multiple intelligences. Thanks to my elementary school, I can't tell you what seven times eight equals without a calculator, but I can tell you that I am a visual-spacial learner who enjoys kenisthetic activities.

You know, the more I look at these journal entries, the more convinced I become that I peaked in the fifth grade. Sure, I had a few things to learn...like how crying isn't an acceptable way to get what you want...but creatively, I was at the top of my game. I wrote some wicked awesome stories about magical creatures made out of chocolate and lemons, and I was a regular caligraphy pen prodigy. Also, I posessed leadership skills I have given up all hope of ever gaining back. I directed and starred in some very innovative plays (at least, that's my story until Encyclopedia Brown sues for copyright enfringement) and founded the most exclusive secret clubs in town. In every area besides multiplication and spelling, it appears I have taken a step backwards. I would be depressed about that if I hadn't already formulated a plan. I'm going to use the information contained in this journal to make myself popular and shocklingly brilliant once again. I'll remake my entire image from the clothes I wear (I know those green crushed velvet stirrup leggings are around here somewhere...) to the friends I have.

So get ready and be nice, or I'll tell every one about that boy you french kissed.

P.S. I am the new proud owner of a fifteen dollar button maker. (Not buttons that fasten things; buttons that say things like, "Girl Power," and "you looked better on myspace.") Now I need suggestions for things to put on said buttons. If you want, you can submit a request and I'll be happy to make you a button of your very own...If I like you.

The Documentation of my Gradual Departure From Sanity

Right now, the Augie Choir is on tour in Tanzania and I am not. Because I'm just not good enough, damnit. Instead, I am sitting behind a desk on a Saturday morning waiting for the phone to ring. I think I might be going a little crazy, but it's hard to tell because many of the people who call the newsroom are a little crazy as well. They're not straight up nuts or anything obvious in a Beautiful Mind, hearing voices and "working for the FBI" kind of way...More of a vaguely unbalanced, "just ignore it, she's old " sort of way. I'm worried because I know I've always been teetering on the brink of sanity. Now, surrounded by the kind of company I've been keeping recently, it will to be hard to tell if I actually do slip over the edge. Read these few conversations I've had over the past couple weeks and see for yourselves what I'm dealing with.

Me: Newsroom, this is Caitlin.
Old Man: Hello, I have a comment or a complaint or I don't know what.
Me: OK...
Old Man: Well, there was a country music award program on a couple of nights ago and I didn't see anything about it in the paper yesterday...

-pause while I slowly realize he has already stated his entire complaint-

Me: Well, I don't know what to tell you...other than maybe there just wasn't room for it today...um...
Old Man: Well I don't know about today, I'm saying there wasn't anything about it yesterday and I just wanted to put my two cents in.
Me: All right. I'll make a note of that. Thank you for your feedback.
Old Man: You're welcome.

(The best part of that conversation was the fact that, when I said, "I'll make a note of that," I actually lifted a pen to my little notepad as though I was about to start pantomiming the writing of a pretend note. Like he could see me. See? Crazy.)

As you read this next conversation, keep in mind that the "man on drugs" sort of shouts everything he says, and most of the "words" described here as being "spoken" by me aren't so much words as indiscriminate mumbling that could be mistaken for frightened throat clearing:

I was walking down fourth street on my second day of work when a middle aged guy with bloodshot eyes turned onto the sidewalk at the same time as I did. Shoot, this will be a little awkward, I thought, but whatever. I'll pass him in a couple of seconds. Then, to my horror, he spoke:

Man on Drugs: I'm not following you or anything. Hopefully I'll pass you in a couple of minutes.
Me: (smile and nod)
MOD: I mean, it's nothing personal or anything. That's just the way it is. It would be kind of awkward if we just kept walking next to each other without anything to say.
Me. Um...that's true.
MOD: I'm going to have to cross the street here now. I mean, it's nothing personal...you're a very good looking woman...but it would just be awkward. Hey, at least I'm being honest.
Me: That's true.
MOD: (Heading into oncoming traffic on Broadway) I mean, have you figured it out? How to talk to somebody...?

And that was the last I heard from him. He might have gotten hit by a car. It was hard to tell because I was running away pretty fast. Does that make me a bad person?

More recently, a woman called to give me a piece of her mind about repeated errors in the pollen count the paper publishes.

Yeah, you heard me. The pollen count.

"Somebody needs to check that because the count on the Mayo Clinic Website and the one in the paper...well they never match up."

Frankly, I find the remarkable part of her complaint not to be that she cared enough about the pollen count to give me a call, but that she cared enough to check at least two different sources. More than once. I wonder why she waited as long as she did to complain. I can just picture her reading the paper, eating breakfast or something...maybe some oatmeal...and saying to herself, "OK, this has to end. I've kept my silence for too long. Today is the day I fix this. Today, I stand up for what's right. Today, I call in about the pollen count."

Whatever. She probably got a higher ACT score than I did. Which makes her a better person.

Somebody e-mail me and save me from myself.