ABOUT THE ANGST
This is the diary I kept as a teenager. It was written in pencil in a cheap spiral-bound notebook, using a cipher I’d made up specially so that if my siblings or parents found it I’d have a chance to retrieve it before they worked out the code and started reading it. I am editing it lightly to alter names and so on.
22 MAY 1992
Lizzie has returned my mixtape. She gave it to me by the lockers. She had bare feet and white clothes. Funny how the sun brings out the best in people. In physics, all were hot and sweaty, they had been playing football. Jane said “Oh, my bum’s wet” so the teacher offered to dry it dry for her! Head of Sixth Form is getting irate. All else OK. &STB.
21 MAY 1992
Hi. I have decided to start keeping a diary. Whether I can keep it up or not remains to be seen. Still some £ from Sunday’s walk. Jane wants to be a carnival princess. Lizzie has borrowed my mixtape to copy American Pie. Head of Special Needs gave us a talk on “Are you normal?”. All else OK (apart from school, of course.) &STB.
#readerquestion: "Who is Jane?"
Jane was a girl in my class, and so far she has complained about her bottom and tried to become a carnival queen.
She was probably not really named Jane: I have changed (most of) the names in this blog to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent.
I always appreciate questions, or feedback of any kind.
25th May 1992
Bank holiday. Very sunny. I wrote a letter to William Baker about the VDU (no sign of it as yet). Bond film was “Octopussy”. I forgot my Latin lesson-- whoops. Going tomorrow instead. &STB.
24 MAY 1992
Went to church. Big sis is suddenly very touchy. Hmmm. Nearly trouble with an orange ice lolly… Anyway, big brother is very tense due to his exams. With God’s hep we shall all overcome our troubles… &STB.
23 MAY 1992
We went shopping today. We bought apricots and bran from Lizzie (she works at the healthfood shop). My kid brother told her he'd gone to the same nursery school as her. I carried him home and invented “the bran song”, and he learned the words. Bob Marley is on TV. I am trying to organise my physics folder. Anyway, &STB.
THE FAQ
What is d.g.?
Code for masturbation– yes, it was doubly encrypted. I spent much of my teenage life consumed with guilt over masturbating but unable to stop, which led to a good deal of self-hatred. “d.g.” stands for “death going”, would you believe! I don’t know what made me think of that, and no, I had never heard of the expression la petite mort. I think it was just my horror of my own sexuality. I was a pretty messed-up kid in many ways :(
THE FAQ
> What is &STB?
“And so to bed”. I ended pretty much every entry with this abbreviation. It’s a reference to the diary of Samuel Pepys, where the entries ended the same way.