Mar. 17: More from my Wonder Years

Oh yes, it’s time once again for me to share choice, censored bits and pieces of my Wonder Years. You can watch TV if you get bored.

Remember, when we left off in 1985:

• I was using the word “sexy” way too much for a 17-year-old.
• Margaret was evil.
• Mike D was dating his half-sister (er… somethin’ unholy).
• I was in my senior year at a fine Adventist high school and, by all appearances, still the churchiest girl there ever was. In fact, I journaled often about being worried I’d have to transfer to public school—my dad cared NOT ONE BIT for Adventist education, and I had to work my butt off to pay my tuition each month—though I know it wasn’t public school I feared, but leaving my friends.
• I was singing almost every week at church or school assemblies or prayer meetings. (Side note: sometime between high school and college my ability to carry a tune disappeared, though I didn’t discover that until I had performed (terribly) at several embarrassing college functions. Nowadays I rock it in the car—who doesn’t?—but nowhere else. Sad.)
• I went to church when I wasn’t performing too. It would seem like sitting in church every Sabbath would translate to being a good, worship-ful teen, but in truth I went just to see boys boys boys.
• Not found in my journaling was anything about one of the stupidest things I ever did: I brought wine coolers in my travel mug and sipped from it at my locker between classes. I brought alcohol to school because it was risky and exciting, not because I had a drinking problem—I wasn’t in denial; truly, I couldn’t stand the taste. (My easy access to booze was courtesy of my over-21 brother-in-law.) I was sure I wouldn’t get caught because no teacher would’ve suspected such behavior from a good girl like me. If any of my friends had told on me—and OF COURSE, all of them knew about it because I thought I was that safe from suspicion—I would’ve been immediately kicked out of school. I don’t remember how long I did this, but I’m guessing the guilt and fear kept it going for a very short time.
  
  I wanted to be a bad girl. It just wasn’t in me. I mean, I sewed my own prairie dresses, for goodness’ sake.

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My first journal entry for 1986 contained very important information:

Jan. 7: My newest cassettes are by Eddie Murphy, Jack Wagner, Amy Grant, Depeche Mode, Charlie Sexton, Mr. Mister, Van Halen, Sting, Phil Collins, Whitney Houston.

I was still as boy-crazy as ever:

Jan. 12: Last night we watched Footloose and it made me sort of depressed—it is so romantic in some parts. It made me think of AH, I think because it brings back so many memories from last year at [my other school].

Laura, Tracey, and I went to tea.

Tea? I do not remember this tea. We were such wanna-bes, though, that I’m not surprised we thought it would be fancy and fun, thereby making US fancy and fun. Laura? Tracey? Do you remember?

Jan. 24: I found the stereo I want. It’s got a dual cassette and everything else.

Wow. That is some high tech right there.

Jan. 26: The Bears won the Super Bowl. I ♥ the Refrigerator!

I cannot believe for a second that I really cared.

Jan. 27: I got my stereo! It is so totally cool.

Rissa and I have been writing really naughty stories.

Feb. 11: I was supposed to study for Cit Ed but Moonlighting was on tonight.

TV was always more important than studying. Thank goodness I was applying to a college that didn’t care about grades. (Can you write a check? Congrats, you’re in!)

Since I started keeping a journal in 1985, every time I mentioned my niece, Erin (4-5 years old), I wrote how cute she was, how sweet, adorable, all that. And then this:

Feb. 17: Friday night I babysat for Erin and she was a brat.

Not to worry, Erin; that’s the only time I said anything bad about you. On paper. ;)

Feb. 18: Today started out shitty but it got better. We had a health check at school and I was measured at 5’8”. I can’t believe I’m that tall. I was in there when Mike D got measured, and he was embarrassed that he was an inch shorter than me.

April’s nasty story is the best one yet.

Is Mike being shorter than me really all I needed to know to make my shitty day better? I was so easy to please! Also, I can’t believe I used the word “shitty” back then. I was such a rebel.

Feb. 19: I hope it snows tonight because I really need to get my hair cut. Life is so horrible.

The drama!

Mar. 3: GD is scared to death of me. He asked Debi why I always stare at him and she said because I want him really bad. He wouldn’t believe her, but now he probably won’t talk to me.

Mar. 5: I had a really boring day, but after I got off the bus that all changed. I heard someone running behind me, and when I turned around, this guy was walking right next to me. I said “hi” and then he started talking to me. He asked me where I went to school and where I lived and how long I’ve lived there. Then I said, “Well, maybe I’ll see you again sometime.” and then I had to turn off onto [my street]. He was cute! I don’t know his name or where he lives. I think he probably goes to [nearby public high school]. I hope I see him tomorrow or I won’t see him ‘til Monday probably. It would be exciting if I saw him again.

Wow. Just… wow. I wasn’t just boy-crazy; I was a dolt. Telling a stranger all that stuff? Did I learn nothing from all those ABC Afterschool Specials???

Mar. 12: GD is so cute and sweet to me, but sometimes he acts so immature.

Pot v. Kettle, 1986.

Mar. 13: Laura and I wrote notes all day.

Today’s kids will never know the daring fun of writing and passing notes, will they? I mean, it was THE thing back in the day. Sixteen Candles would have been a much shorter movie if not for the passing of the notes. Really, though, texts and emails are less likely to fall in the wrong sexy hands; it’s just so strange that this HUUUUGE thing of my growing up years is a lost art. “Art”? Maybe “medium” is more the correct term. Although the stories we wrote in our notes were definitely artistic, considering they were borne solely from our vivid imaginations. Yikes.

Mar. 31: GD and I wrote notes back and forth all during Sabbath School.

Yesterday I went over to Deani’s and she cut my hair. My senior pictures are next week.

I let my friend cut my hair right before pictures? No offense, Deanna, but that was possibly not my best decision ever. Although I’m not wearing a hat in my senior pictures, so maybe you didn’t do too bad a job.

Apr. 11: Some kids were rehearsing a play in the chapel today and when GD saw me watching he turned all red. He kept smiling at me. He is so cute and flirty. I’ll miss him so much next year.

…which is funny, because after I left for college there isn’t a single mention of him in my journal. Out of direct line of teenage sight, out of teenage mind.

Apr. 22: GD sat with me at lunch. He and CW made fun of me and it made me sort of mad. I told GD I hate when he acts like a sophomore.

In all fairness, he was a sophomore.

May 1: I was in a really bad mood today. Deani kept trying to cheer me up and that made it worse.

How horrible of my friend to do that. Just awful.

May 14: Today we got our caps and gowns. They’re red, and the cords are white and silver, the tassel is all three colors. It made me depressed.

This shows the melancholy mood so typical of my teenage years. It was exciting to get our caps and gowns, but I couldn’t just be excited because I knew it meant graduation and the end of high school. While a lot of people hated high school and couldn’t wait for it to end, I loved so much about it that I wished it could last forever.

May 15: GD hasn’t looked at me, except once, and I think it was an accident.

May 16: Tonight Dad and I went over to [April’s house] for dinner. We had a good time.

April is laughing at this memory right now, I just know it. The “we” that had a good time was me and April, not me and my dad. It’s a long story, and not interesting to anyone else, but my dad would want me to say this: it was one of the most awkward evenings ever, and April and I were all ♫ LA ♫ LA ♪♬ LA ♩♪♫♬ THISISSOFUN!! because we had no clue.

May 22: Tuesday we had a special Girls’ Club meeting—it was like a goodbye for the senior girls. Laura gave me a rose and said the most special things about me. I cried so much.

Wait! I have a picture!

May 26: [MG had a graduation party with DANCING (gasp!)] Last night was so much fun!!!

I was trying to get SS to dance with me but he kept saying that he didn’t know how. Finally, after a whole bunch of people told him to get out there, we went out. We danced to “Faithfully” and it was really romantic even though it was only SS.

Later “Hold Me Now” came on and BW said he loved that song so we got up and danced to it. He was singing to me. [I’m pretty sure he was drunk.] He is so tall!!

MB asked me to dance, but I didn’t want to dance a fast dance with him. Finally we danced to “Hold Me” by Whitney Houston and Teddy Pendergrass. That was by far the best dance. He held me so close and Deanna said he was smiling and had his eyes closed!! So did I. Rissa said we were picture-perfect, just the right height for each other.

Mike D brought his kinky cousin/girlfriend.

I looooove how creeped out I was by Mike’s girlfriend.

May 29: Today GD gave me a great big hug and said he’d miss me after I graduate. I told him I promised to write every day.

Later I was in the library and MB came in and was sort of flirting.

...which meant he was talking to me.

Jun. 1: Today I graduated from high school.

Jun. 2: I packed up all my stuff and moved to my mom’s house in Walla Walla. Tomorrow is my first day of work in the VP’s office.

Jun. 7: After Sabbath School I was in the foyer of the College Church and saw MB!!! I couldn’t believe it. He said he’s here for his sister’s graduation. I wasn’t going to go to the ceremony tomorrow but now I am for sure.

Mom invited people over after church and there was this guy [MH] that is WONDERFUL. He looks like BL but cuter. We went out for pizza and he held doors for me and pulled out my chair. Later we watched TV in my room and talked until really late. He is really really nice and so good looking.

Jun. 11: I was in a bad mood all day because I was so tired and my hair looked gross.

Jun. 22: MH was here again yesterday. I think I really like him. He’ll be back in August.

Jun. 28: This weekend was really fun. I stayed in the dorm. I met a girl, Sher, from [the same school as MH]. I asked her about him and she said he’s dumb.

Not that Sherilee’s opinion meant anything (ha!) but I never saw or mentioned MH again.

July 6: I moved into the dorm last Monday. I LOVE IT!! On Friday Sher, Sherri, and I went to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

To this day, going to that movie is still one of my favorite and most vivid college memories.

July 7: Laurie and I went to [the guys’ dorm] tonight and the guy at the desk let us go to SG’s room. When he answered the door he wasn’t wearing anything! We were so embarrassed!

There’s a story there that picks up about six years later, but if you ask me for details I’m pleading the fifth.

Aug. 2: I found out this guy DB likes me. He is kinda cute but not really my type.

The other night a big group of us made a few prank calls over to the guys’ dorm. Most of them were pretty boring but one really gross guy really got into it! It was disgusting.

This might be the first recorded evidence of our epic prank phone call sessions. I wrote about my life-changing one here.

—please take a Brief interlude—

Between August and December there are an embarrassing number of pages about different guys I went out with (mostly the two that I didn’t like all that much and another that I really liked but kept me at arm’s length until I started dating other guys and then he wouldn’t leave me alone), high school friends that had finally arrived for college, moving into the other dorm and getting a roommate, the zit that nearly killed me, Mike D and me becoming actual friends, and surprisingly little about classes I was taking.

Why is it that I’m more embarrassed by my immaturity in college than in high school, just months earlier? Whatever… I’m Facebook friends with too many of the people involved to go into any level of detail.

—end interlude—

Dec. 7: Tonight is Open House and all the guys are coming through the dorm. We have mistletoe! Shevaun’s and my room is so cool! We have posters of The Breakfast Club, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Thief of Hearts, and Levi’s. We also decorated for Christmas—lights, spray snow, wrapping paper on our door, and tiny paper trees hanging from our ceiling.

Wait! I have a picture!

This next part really freaked me out. This journal is written on both sides of notebook paper, and as I was transcribing for this blog post, I missed a side of one sheet, which made an entry look like this:

Mike D and I went to the caf tonight and had a long talk about [the guys I liked]. He thinks I should come up with an excuse to call B again. [***] We came back to the dorm and he kissed me!

***Mike D has never kissed me, let’s just make that clear right now. He only kisses girls related to him. But between our talk in the caf and a page worth of journaling, B, the guy I HOPED would kiss me, did. That was the part I missed.

Whew. And now that we have that straight…

We’re done. The journal closes with a bunch of boo-hooing about how much I missed B over Christmas break… the recurrence of the killer zit… more whining about B’s absence… fights with my roommate… and the end of 1986, one of the most remarkable years in The History of Jen (now with more drama!).

Shall I continue on to share bits from 1987? I’m thinking NO. Unless Meanie Margaret shows up again. That could be entertaining.

Sep. 27: One silly phone call

Day #27 of our blog challenge. We’re almost done! Today’s prompt:

Describe a distinct moment when your life took a turn.

It would be easy/quick to respond to this one with “the day I found out I had cancer,” but that’s obvious and not very fun. Instead, I’m going to grab a moment from a long, long time ago. I’ve probably told this story here already, but YOU dig around in 13 years of archives and figger it out. Here goes:

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Freshman year at Walla Walla College, if you were in the student photo directory, you got a prank call from me and April. It was our thing; we were dorks who thought we were super fun to talk to. And pre-caller ID days, we could be anonymous. Wait, read that word again, but in a sing-song voice: AAAA-NOOOON-Y-MOOOOUS!! Much better. Prank phone calls were the best, Jerry; the best! Not a single WWC student was off-limits when it came to our favorite evening activity.

I knew a senior named Victor Manullang; I had met him four years earlier when he was a college freshman and on a date with my sister. I was a high school freshman (read: complete moron). I remember teasing him a lot, asking WHAT ON EARTH was he a history major for because THAT’S SO STUPID and THAT’S SO BORING and WHAT CAN YOU EVEN DO WITH THAT MAJOR and I wouldn’t stop because, in case you missed it, I was 14 and stupid. So, when I got to WWC as a freshman and saw that Victor was a fellow student, I wasn’t exactly excited about revealing my identity as that bratty girl—not that he’d remember anyway. (Right?) I avoided him. I was afraid he would try to talk to me, and that would mean he remembered me from four years earlier and that would not be a good thing. If you were 18 once, you get how completely humiliating that would have felt—now, though, it seems insanely silly.

One night I came to April’s dorm room and found she and her roommate passing the phone back and forth, laughing hysterically. April whispered that they had called our friend Kevin’s room and were talking to his roommate. I wanted in on that action, of course, and grabbed the phone. I started talking and flirting and doing all the stuff we usually did on our prank calls, and I don’t know how it hit me, but suddenly I realized who Kevin’s roommate was: I was talking to Victor Manullang. I stifled a scream and tossed the phone to April, and I don’t remember what happened next, but April said my name so I slammed the phone down.

(Kids, that was a thing back then, slamming a phone down. It’s sad you can’t do that anymore, it really is.)

I screamed at April WHY DID YOU SAY MY NAME, HE’S GONNA KNOW IT WAS US! and she screamed back WHY DID YOU THROW THE PHONE AT ME? and who knows what else but a lot of things I’m sure and then I remembered that Kevin’s (and Victor’s) room was directly across the courtyard from April’s and he could probably totally see us so I screamed again and ran for the light switch and we sat there in the silent dark and I don’t know what we were waiting for, but we were definitely hoping that that was the end of our prank phone call (to that number) for the night and then…

THE.

PHONE.

RANG.

He knew it was us. There was a lot of chaotic screaming and blaming and cursing and I turned the lights back on and I don’t remember what happened after that. Maybe we answered the phone and pretended we were asleep, that we’d been asleep for hours and knew nothing about any random anonymous callers. Maybe I forced April to answer and pretend she had acted alone. I don’t remember the details, but I know that we were caught and it felt like it might just be the worst thing that had ever happened in the history of ever.

Oh, but then. THEN! At lunch in the cafeteria the next day, Kevin and Victor set their trays down and sat directly across from me and April. They were both grinning ear-to-ear. There was a lot of embarrassed chuckling and non-meeting of the eyes. They wouldn’t stop smiling; they *might* have been proud to get attention from freshman girls. We eventually felt less uncomfortable and actually had a conversation. And then the next time they saw us in the cafeteria they sat with us again. And the next time, and the next time…

And, slowly, Victor and I became friends. Yes, he remembered me being that teasing know-it-all from long ago, but it was okay. The two of us hung out when neither was dating someone else. He moved to Ohio for a few years, and we wrote letters and talked on the phone. He got a job in Portland around the same time I graduated and moved back home, and we were each other’s dates for stuff when everyone else said ‘no.’ We watched TV together over the phone. We went to movies and concerts and ball games and plays and new restaurants. We vacationed with friends in Las Vegas and L.A.

But we weren’t dating. That would come later, when both of us gave up on someone better coming along and he cut off that awful mullet. It took 14 years from when we first met, ten from when we first became friends, and just.like.that, we lived happily ever after.

I didn’t realize at the time that the ridiculous prank phone call had changed the direction of my life, but whenever I look back on that night, I feel genuinely glad for my freshman immaturity.

 

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If you’re a blogger and want to do our blog challenge with us, let me know and I’ll send you our list! Otherwise, tune in here (and on Sherilee’s happy little blog) every day in September.

Sep. 19: OK, who put the tack on my chair?

It’s Day #19 of the September Blog Challenge. Today’s topic:

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Are you anything close to your previous ambitions?

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a teacher. I like to think it’s because I wanted to help people learn and grow, but looking back, I may have followed that dream because I liked the idea of bossing people around. Playing “school” as a kid was my favorite activity, and this is probably as good a time as any to offer a public apology to my playmates for insisting on always being the teacher.

Although I had envisioned teaching kids, after a year of teaching preschool in college, I changed course and worked toward a degree in business education to prepare me to be a corporate trainer instead—there are far fewer students who wet their pants in the corporate world. A couple months after completing my degree, I got a job as a software trainer. I loved that job, and did it for four years until the company closed. After that, I worked as an independent contractor for several businesses and local school districts, still training adults. I liked the part-time training; I found the burnout—very common in the training field—came much less slowly that way.

I’m still an independent contractor and my business card still says I do training and development, but I haven’t taught a computer class in quite a while. This is because most people who work in offices know how to use word processors and spreadsheets by now, and software upgrades do not typically necessitate re-training. I still teach the occasional theory (soft skills) class, but I’m asked more often nowadays to do one-on-one training sessions. I love those, but sometimes I miss the classroom setting.

I was surprised to discover just how rewarding it is to train adults. There are days when a student will come to me after class with tears in their eyes, saying “Thank you—this is going to completely change the way I do my job.” In my project management courses, students almost always start discussions about balancing work and home; it can get intense and very “Dr. Phil” sometimes. I love the feeling of leaving work knowing that I made a difference today.

So… YES, I followed my childhood ambition, with some slight modifications. What about your childhood ambitions? Are you doing now what you always dreamed of doing?

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If you’re a blogger and want to do our blog challenge with us, let me know and I’ll send you our list! Otherwise, tune in here (and on Sherilee’s happy little blog) every day in September.

Sep. 7: How we met

Day #7 of September Blog Challenge. I’m getting tired of starting every post with that sentence. Today’s topic:

Write about when you first met one of your dearest friends.

Since Sherilee and I started this blog challenge together, I’ll tell you about how she and I became friends.

Allow me to set the scene: It was the summer of 1986, and Billy Ocean, Falco, and Mr. Mister were topping the charts. On TV, we were catching reruns of Airwolf and Perfect Strangers. We crowded into theaters to see Top Gun, Cobra, and Short Circuit, because Howard the Duck, Big Trouble in Little China, and Meatballs III: Summer Job were months away. Ronald Reagan was president, and we paid little attention to world news because we were 17 years old and thought it didn’t matter. It was a time of innocence, of carefree spirits, of Smart Start at Walla Walla College.

The summer session at WWC (now WWU) was like WWC Lite—very few students, a pared-down class catalog, limited hours of offices and eateries, etc. This meant that everyone who lived on campus was pretty much in the same place at the same time. Meals in the cafeteria were for socializing more than eating, and I remember spending a lot of time in there. There really wasn’t much to do on campus in the summer.

My first class at WWC started the week after I graduated from high school. I first remember seeing Sherilee when we were both in line in the admissions office. I think it was later that same day that we ran into each other in the dorm and introduced ourselves. We lived on the same hall and her room was next door to a friend’s of mine. Between lounging around the dorm and wasting time in the cafeteria, Sher and I became fast friends. If I opt for a selective memory of that summer—and I do!—I can say that my first few months at WWC would have been one big yawn without her.

I remember the boredom being extreme on the Fourth of July; it was pouring rain, and the campus was completely quiet. We went into Walla Walla for a matinee of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which had just come to town. We probably saw it again and again (I honestly don’t remember, but since that was kinda my thing back then—seeing movies repeatedly until I could quote them word-for-word because THAT’S a great use of time and $$—we undoubtedly did). Here’s what I love about this little bit of our story: I always always always associate Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with Sher. Always. And I adore that movie so, so much, and that gives me smiley face.

Is it okay if I stop there? Because if I continue, then we get into the strange tale of this guy that liked her and then changed his mind and liked me but neither of us really liked him at all, and then this other guy that I liked and she hated, and then later how I would visit her room and whine about my boyfriend and her roommate thought I was a friggin’ idiot, and then Sher went to Australia, and then she came back and we were still friends, and then we weren’t, and then a lot of years passed and we reconnected on Facebook and then the rest of the story is good again? Yep, Ferris Bueller is a good place to stop.

Because now? Now I just love the friendship that Sherilee and I have. Thanks to texts, emails, Facebook, and our blogs, we “talk” almost every day; we occasionally see each other face to face, and we exchange delightful gifts. I absolutely treasure her.

1986:	Shevaun, Jen, Sherilee
2010:	Sherilee, Jen, Kim F’n-W

Life takes us so many directions; it’s good to have a friend along the journey. You should be so lucky to have one like Sherilee.

If you’re a blogger and want to do our blog challenge with us, let me know and I’ll send you our list! Otherwise, tune in here (and on Sherilee’s happy little blog and Lisa’s and Jenn’s and Sunshine’s too!) every day in September.

Jun. 20: How ya like my time machine?

Along with my 1994 journal I found the other day, I also ran across a very interesting (read: totally raunchy) letter I’d saved. While it appears to be from a partner in a law firm in Tillamook, it was actually written by an employee of that firm. I’m quite sure the attorneys had no idea that three pages of their letterhead and a pre-stamped envelope were used for such depravity. They’d probably fire her right now if they knew. Good thing she hasn’t worked there in nearly 20 years.

The author? That dear girl I commonly refer to nowadays as Kim F’n-W. Circa 1989, she was a delightful person with, apparently, an untreated mental illness. Circa today, she is still a delightful person. I’m not sure about the other part.

The envelope was addressed to Jennifer “Bunny” Saltmarsh at the dorm at Walla Walla College. I do not remember why she called me “Bunny,” nor do I have any recollection of earning the nickname “Puff,” which she used in the body of the letter. This is the unfortunate part of growing old, because I’m sure the story behind those nicknames is side-splittingly funny.

When I opened the letter, a picture cut out of Playgirl magazine fell out. (Remember? Untreated mental illness.)

October 3, 1989

Bunny Saltmarsh
Foreman Hall
College Place, WA 99324

My Dearest “Puff”:

First of all, I want to express my sincere gratitude for your last letter, which kindly included that list of helpful guidelines to follow before I jump, rather, get thrown, into bed by all of the beautiful men out to pursue a body only like mine. You can’t be too careful in my line of work. “Sales” have jumped, as have the men who are buying, due to my including the aforementioned list in my brochures (only available through the Tillamook Chamber of Commerce, as I prefer to work locally and adore the feeling of rolling around in the fragrant smell of wet hay and cow manure). I hope you don’t feel that I have over-stepped my boundaries by using your marketing techniques. I feel confident in the fact that we are not overlapping our working “districts” and therefore there should be no direct competition, except for the obvious two or three “regulars” that we share, “just because we are friends.” Although, the other day while sitting at the rodeo (ro-day-o), one of the bull riders accidentally dropped one of your brochures in the dust, and of course I found it. I was hurt, to tell you the least, but after a while, this same cowboy (lets call him “John”) and I went to the Greenacres Motel (aka Rat Hole) where he reassured me that there was nothing between the two of you—I’m sorry Jen, but he was just using you. I am planning on going on some “business” trips in the near future and I intend to visit your area. We can talk about business strategies then.

Here are some points I must make:

1. I do not remember writing or sharing the “helpful guidelines” to which Kim F’n-W refers. They were obviously spectacular, and I hope they are still in existence somewhere.
2. We were not actually prostitutes, then or ever. Well, I wasn’t. I guess I shouldn’t speak for Kim. She sounds awfully knowledgeable…
3. I love that, even way back then, she was making fun of Tillamook. Tillamook is highly make-fun-of-able. (For those unfamiliar, Tillamook is an Oregon coastal town best known for its dairy and Pig-N-Ford races, and the only reason it ever makes the news is because it floods EVERY TIME a drop of rain falls from the sky.)

Continuing on… (By the way, my transcription is identical in wording and punctuation to Kim’s letter but-cept for the two spaces between sentences. I tried to keep them, but my typing fingers just wouldn’t allow it. I also tried to keep the two misspelled words but my auto-correct fixed them and I thought it would be rude to go back and re-correct them because Kim is usually an excellent speller.)

Honestly though, (I know you thought I was being serious, which I was to some degree, but…) I made the mistake of giving a copy of that list to [her paramedic boyfriend]. Needless to say, it had circulated around the hospital by 5:00 (NO JOKE) and people only know that it came from that “sweet little angel that dates [the paramedic]!” It was kind of funny because everyone loved it. It didn’t stop there, though. They took it down to central dispatch (911) and shared it with everyone there, including all the officers and such. I didn’t know this was happening until the recipients confronted me with their disgust, but they were laughing. I’ll never hear the end of it, but that’s my own fault.

Again, I really wish I knew what that list was.

[a bunch of stuff about her sister getting married]… They know each other because they dated in 6th grade. You know how close and intimate you can get with a person at that age. It was my sexual peak, anyway.

Ah, my Kimmeh. You can’t NOT love her sense of humor.

Did I tell you that I am taking an EMT 1 class so I can work part-time with the ambulance, too? I’m really enjoying it so far, and learning a lot, even if I never do pass the test. At least I know what’s happening when I ride on the ambulance now. I love it! (No more fishing lately)

Kim did pass the EMT 1 test, and went on to pass a lot more tests and now she’s a paramedic extraordinaire. Really. I think that’s even what her nametag says. Oh, and the fishing thing? Not long before this she had handed me a package of photos of “a fishing trip” at the Tillamook River. The photos were mostly boring until I realized the catch was a friggin’ dead body, and after that they were mostly horrifying. The images are still burned in my brain. Thanks bunches, Kim.

[a paragraph about the paramedic she was dating]

Yawn. (You would agree with me on that, Kim.)

YOU’LL NEVER GUESS!!! i got my haircut. shhhh. I really liked it at first, then I wasn’t sure, then I decided I couldn’t do anything about it except give it time to grow out again, so now I like it again. It’s not real drastically short, but definitely different. Some people say “I really like your hair – it makes you look older” while other people say “Oh – you got your haircut”. Thank you. I HATE that. Tell me you don’t like it, I don’t care. Just don’t sit there with that constipated look on your face and remind me that I got a butch.

A whole paragraph about a haircut. I love that haircuts were that important to us back then.

[weird work stuff, too incriminating to share]

(Kim, I’ll email you that part.)

Well so now I’m sitting here trying to look busy, and I think I’m succeeding. I can’t believe I’m sitting here writing letters when I have so much to get done. Oh well – you’re worth it. Nice, huh?

Gotta love the work ethic of the youth.

Jen, I haven’t been out of Tillamook since my birthday, therefore I haven’t had a chance to get your birthday present! I feel terrible, but I also know that you probably don’t want a bronzed cow pie. Or do you? And I thought I knew you! Either that or a shirt with a picture of a cow’s butt saying “It’s a moooooving experience!” What do you think? I plan on going to the “valley” (a true Tillamooker line) soon, so I am going to get your present then. By the way, for you Walla Walla people, the “valley” is Portland or the like. Well actually, I guess it’s more like Eugene or Salem. Oh well, I call everything the valley. You valley you. So tell me what you need for your room or what you want – I need Christmas ideas, too.

Ah, the days when celebrating birthdays were such a big deal. I almost miss ‘em.

[questions about some mutual friends, also too incriminating to share] Oh, tell [some guy with a common name] hi, too. Tell him I won’t write again until he writes me. He probably doesn’t care. WELL NEITHER DO I. Just kidding. I would like to hear from him. Even if he just wrote “hi” on a piece of paper and sent it, I would be happy and probably get regular again. Fiber Con just isn’t working.

Time to dig up an old MASK and figure out which [guy with a common name] she was talking about that had the potential to make her poop.

Well, Jenni Bunny, I really should be going. Lunch is approaching, and I have some eating to do. By the way, I am going to lose 20 lbs. before Christmas. I need something to do – I’m bored.

I wish the paragraph ended there. Unfortunately, it goes on to say things that are typical of our priorities at the time—looking perfect enough that someone would consider dating us, or in her case, continue to date. Pffft.

No, I just have been feeling so rotten about myself lately, so I decided to do something about it, for [the paramedic boyfriend]’s sake too. I promised him I would try. Especially since I have to actually be seen in a swimsuit by next Spring for when he gets his boat. I don’t think the boat will fit in my bedroom.

I love this girl.

Here’s her closing:

Gotta run, Puff. I miss you oodles and hope to see you soon for a weekend of EATING!!!

I love you!
Hugs and Kisses,

[signature]

Kimberly A. Felkley
(Pretty official, huh?)

This whole thing is probably more amusing to me and Kim F’n-W than anyone else, I know; it’s amusing to look back at our 1989 selves. It’s funny to see things like the 25¢ postage on the envelope, the typewritten letter, and yes, the very odd inclusion of the Playgirl photo.

Well, maybe not THAT odd. We were 21-year-olds, after all.

What I most want to say about this, though, is that I hope all of you have a Kim F’n-W in your life—someone who has been there for such a long time, in such an important way, and who shares so much of your past—the silly/embarrassing memories, as well as the serious and maturing moments. These kinds of friends are the mirrors into our souls, and we are better because of them.

May 30: Awesome thing #234

Sometimes I have to post the day’s awesome thing from 1000 Awesome Things to my blog. Today’s:

#234 3:00am conversations with your best friend

I love where I am in life right now, but there are moments in my past I look back on so fondly that I almost wish I could experience them again. Most of the 3:00am conversations I’ve had happened in college. This was one of the best things about living in the dorm. Not all things about attending WWU were great, but parts were. The campus is small and felt very safe in those days, so walking outside after dark or even in the middle of the night was no big deal; leaving the computer lab at midnight, I rarely felt the need for an escort.

But when I had one—male or female—it certainly made the walk back to the dorm more fun.

Of course, the male escorts were usually more fun, especially if the walk to the dorm took us near the library or that one classroom in the Ad building. (Note that when I say “male escorts” I in no way imply that there was a male escort service on campus, nor did I run one—a quite popular one, I might deny—from my dorm room. No. Those were just well-substantiated rumors for which I could never provide Jen’s Big Black Book of Escorts or financial statement proof for the years 1986-90.)

I’m not gonna lie (about this next part)—with the male escorts, there was a chance of gettin’ some goodnight action outside the dorm. There were all sorts of in-the-shadows private spots, which many of us much preferred to the brightly-lit dorm lobby known as Makeout Central. If the moral code police had been smart, they would have installed sweeping floodlights on the roofs of every building on campus. Dorothy Foreman would die all over again if she knew what happened outside the building named for her.

(Don’t read this next sentence, Mother Mary...)

Because how many of us girls got lucky after a walk back to the dorm way past curfew?

I remember one night in particular in my junior year, my boyfriend and I stood outside the dorm saying goodnight. It was super-late and we were delaying our goodbyes, talking, laughing, kissin’ a little, and generally just being silly. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see two heads up in my hallway window, but every time I looked up they would quickly disappear. My BF was being uncharacteristically sweet until I pointed out that we were being watched, and then it was pretty much shake-hands-thanks-for-a-nice-evening-Miss-Jen and he left. I gave the standard excuse at the late curfew check (Computer lab! I was in the computer lab! Big paper due tomorrow! Totally not outside getting kissed!). When I went up to my hall, Sonya (she of future sister-in-law fame) and Jenn P were giggling, “Oh, he was so cute with you, you guys were adorable together, blah blah blah…”

Pretty sure he never acted sweet to me in front of the dorm again, or anywhere. If I forget what a jackass he was the rest of the time, that night is a lovely memory. I only have two with that guy, so I almost cherish it.

On April’s first date with Jim, they parked in front of the dorm and talked for hours into the night. April said Jim’s car was a total shitbox, so she cleaned it out for him. We were all YOU CLEANED OUT HIS CAR ON YOUR DATE? Romantic. Also, I’m not sure “cleaning his car” was all that much of an accomplishment because she left a huge pile of trash in the gutter next to the car. That litter pile got smaller over the next week or two, and we laughed every time we saw it because it was still so big even after it started blowing away. Yeah, this happened in those days long before Jim started taking care of his vehicles and we all adopted proper trash disposal habits.

It was during winter quarter my sophomore year that it started snowing late one night and my roommate, Marilee, and I just had to get out in it. I don’t know why the dean let us out that late; maybe we snuck out. We called Victor (he of future husband fame, though that thought woulda made me laugh LOUDLY at the time) and he met us outside. The three of us walked down the middle of College Avenue, huge snowflakes falling all around us. Our world was peaceful but-cept for our glee, which was joyfully noisy. This is another of my happier memories of college, of dorm life, of living with friends, of not getting enough sleep, of that small college town.

There were oh-so-many 3am talks inside the dorm, too, and they took place in our rooms, hallways or parlors. The WWU site’s dorm tour currently describes our hall parlors like this:

Each floor of the dorm has at least one lobby that any woman can use. Women can be found studying, relaxing and worshipping together in the dorm lobbies.

HA! Oh sure, we studied in the parlors. We also had cartwheel contests, marathon prank call jams, parties for no reason, and many, many bitch sessions. The only “worshipping together” was under slight duress, when the RA would call us together for a hall meeting. The way WWU tells it, we read our Bibles together as often as all that other stuff. Good one!

The 3am talks were something I missed tremendously after graduation, and they are very rare occurrences in my life now. There are occasionally late chats in my neighborhood; we might gather with our neighbors outside on weekend nights, or I sometimes deliver PTO things to Heather or Sunshine (after we’ve texted to make sure we’re all still awake)—those kinds of meetings have a slight resemblance to the long-ago college days. Less kissing, maybe. Maybe.

Life like it was in college is happily in my past. But, oh, those long dorm nights with friends were very fun times for this girl. Awesome, in fact.