dianaschnuth

I had thought maybe I would do a “Five Years Ago Today” entry, or ten years, or fifteen. (I’ve kept a journal of some sort ever since 1984, mainly at the suggestion of my mother at first, then kept it up to keep myself grounded and sane.) When I looked through my journals, though, nothing exciting really happened on or around September 26 in 2001, or 1996, or 1991.

As a snapshot: Around this time in 1986, I was ten years old. I was getting over a nasty bout of headlice, during which Mom had to cut off five inches of my hair, to make the fine-toothed-combing easier. I was distraught; when I pulled my hair around over my shoulder, “it barely came to my elbow!” Cry me a river.

Also in September 1986, I joined Girl Scouts. I also read the Star Trek novel Uhura’s Song for the second time. I’ve read that same battered copy literally dozens of times since, and can quote several passages as well as I can quote Monty Python.

Fifteen years ago, in 1991, I was quite the church-going lass. For example: I was reflecting on a lesson on gratitude, and decided to write my high school choir director a letter of appreciation for all she was doing for the choir. She ended up receiving the letter on a day when she really needed the pick-me-up, which did my little Freshman 15-year-old heart good.

I was also interested in composing, and had high aspirations for my music. I’d given a copy of one of my choral scores to the aforementioned choir director, and she said she was going to have the choir sing it… but she never did.

Ten years ago, in 1996, I was hanging out with Aaron and with the Mary/Mark duo. I had also started my personal homepage, giving out my “Di’s Unegotistical Homepage” weekly award to none other than Jeffrey Zeldman Presents. I was also missing my late stepdad, Tom, who had passed away almost one year before. Aaron was always supportive and understanding, and helped me be OK with being all weepy about it sometimes.

Five years ago, in 2001, I had one semester left of my undergrad. I had just moved off-campus, and wasn’t journaling much — on paper, anyway. I may have done some “Talking To Myself” on my trusty Mac, although I’m not inclined to hook that bad boy up right now to see what’s on it. (Yes, I still have it — or at least, a later incarnation of it. I believe I upgraded to my PowerPC 6500 after the year 2001.)

Edit: I actually do have my Word file of random ramblings on my PC, transferred with all my half-finished short stories. The entry for September 26, 2001 begins:

I should learn not to talk wedding with Aaron over the phone. It’s never a good thing. He always gets "realistic" on me, saying such confidence-boosters as "I’m going to have to get a second job," and "maybe we should just go down to City Hall," or my personal favorite: "We’ll get married… eventually."

I’d forgotten that I was thinking about wedding planning at that point, too. Another good quotable from that entry:

I’m so upset, in fact, that I’ve just spent the past two hours researching cost-cutting tips on the internet instead of writing my four-to-five-page script for Video class. And Aaron always says, "graduation comes first, then getting a job, then getting married." I know, I know. Life won’t stop while I try to find a job, though, and it certainly won’t wait for us to plan our little wedding. Or decide when it will actually be held.

What struck me as I was browsing these entries was how I’ve changed throughout the years. It’s obvious through my writing when I became the person I am today, for the most part. I matured through high school, as does everyone — I was painfully dorky in my Freshman year of high school, in retrospect. By 1996, my writing flowed a lot like it does today, and my brain seemed to think much like it does now. I know I was less responsible, more self-centered, less realistic… but I think that, by age 20, I was “me.” Maybe even before that.

That makes me wonder: when I get even older, will I still agree that I was “me” by age 20? Or will I have reached some sort of personal epiphany between now and older that makes age 20 seem even more childish?

• 23 years old, enrolled in Summer semester at BGSU, including my first photography class
• Living in an efficiency apartment with a porch and accompanying porch swing
• Hardcoding my websites and eschewing all WYSIWYG editors
• Wishing I had my own webserver to play with, so I could learn more about PHP and dynamic websites, instead of hosting my shit on Geocities and Angelfire
• Beginning my first (still unfinished) novel on a second-hand Classic Mac (SE 30, I believe)
• Dating Aaron (my current husband) for three years running

Where were you seven years ago?

[inspired by Cameron Moll]

I’ve been going through some boxes of crap I’ve moved from dorm to apartment to house, trying to clear out the small bedroom in preparation for painting sometime soon. It’s slow going, as it always has been for me. I’m such a packrat.

However… digital photography has made it just a little easier for me to let a few things go. There were some items that I just liked having around for those times when I would go through the box of crap keepsakes and remember when. I photographed the small clock I got as a present from my high school band director, then threw the broken thing into the thrift pile. I almost did the same with my old marching shoes, until I tried them on and remembered how comfy Drillmasters are. *swoon*

Some things I photographed, but I have no intention of getting rid of. This is one of them:

This card breaks my heart every time I read it. In case you’re not adept at Granny handwriting analysis, the card says:

With lots of love
your Granny + Charles
Sure would like to
hear from you
when you have the time

We love you
Kiss Diana for me I love her

I was in 8th grade, living with Mom and her first husband, Tom. Granny lived with my Uncle Charlie in Florida, and I hadn’t seen her in a few years. (My family lived close to her from the time I was in 3rd grade through the end of 5th grade, and we’d visited once or twice since.)

I had better things to do than sit down and write a letter to my Granny. I was 13 years old, with a best friend and schoolwork and spelling bees.

I had no idea it would be the last Christmas card I’d ever get from Granny.

Granny died just after Thanksgiving of my Freshman year in high school. My choir had just gotten back from a performance at the Public Square lighting ceremony in Cleveland, and my family told me about Granny when they picked me up at the high school. I couldn’t say I truly missed her, or felt a giant loss at the time… but later, not writing Granny would become one of the biggest real regrets of my life.

I hope that Granny understood. She had to have realized that I was a budding teenager, and not into writing letters to my great-grandmother. She’d seen a lot in her life, and having a great-grandbaby who wouldn’t write was probably understandable, if disappointing.

Now that I’m old enough to appreciate what she might have had to say… I miss her.

I found out pretty early on in our relationship that Aaron was a big music fan. We went to Ann Arbor for our third date, a triple-date with Mary/Drew and Heather/Garza. Aaron definitely tended to gravitate toward the record stores while we were there, and was bummed that he didn’t have more money to spend on records (especially since I was jobless and had made him pay for my lunch at Amer’s). So, naturally, I was curious about the music he was listening to, as I had never heard of ANY of it.

Before Spring Break, he made me a mixtape. The spine of the insert read: “For Diana’s Listening Pleasure: selections from Aaron’s CD collection.” On the tape were the following songs:

Side A:

1. Wally Pleasant – Stupid Day Job
2. Sugar – Your Favorite Thing
3. Frank Black – Fazer Eyes
4. Catherine Wheel – I Want To Touch You
5. Pure – Lemonade
6. Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Someday I Suppose
7. Ash – Jack Names The Planets
8. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Blue X Man
9. Pixies – All Over The World
10. Man or Astro-Man? – Sferic Waves
11. Sebadoh – Magnet’s Coil

Side B:

1. Dirty Three – Better Go Home Now
2. Folk Implosion – Lo-Fi Suicide
3. Pavement – Give It A Day
4. Clutch – Big News I
5. Henry Rollins – Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
6. Rollins Band – Right Here Too Much
7. The Amps – Tipp City
8. Afghan Whigs – Debonair
9. Sentridoh – Perfect Excuse
10. 24 Gone – Girl Of Colours
11. Sugar – Explode And Make Up

I listened to this tape nonstop during my week of Spring Break in Parma, so much so that my step-Gary would often get up without saying a word and just hit the stop button on my boom box, then quietly sit back down again.

Over the years, I continued to listen to this tape. This tape was so much a staple of my listening repertoire that I frantically performed cassette tape surgery with scotch tape when it got caught in my aging boom box. After that, I hesitated to play it very often, just in case the Afghan Whigs would get caught in the heads of my tape player again. I eventually stored the tape away with my other tapes, listening instead to the follow-up tapes of Rollins spoken word and Sugar and 24 Gone and Afghan Whigs and Catherine Wheel.

A few weeks ago, I unearthed the tape from a box in the bottom of a closet, and spent a couple of days hunting down digital versions of the mixtape songs. And now, I’m sharing all 100MB of 90’s goodness with you:

[music_sampler.zip – 103MB]

I didn’t include the Rollins spoken word, but everything else is there, in the exact version I have on tape. (Note: Three files are in iTunes .m4a format; the rest are mp3s.)

I now have this set up as a playlist on my iPod. Funny how things change. Funny how all things old are new again.