It’s 6:01 am, Wednesday, February the 12 1997. I have all of my thoughts running through my head and I figured it was about time I got off my lazy ass to write them down. For I am only 18 once and I’m only (fuck, typing right now is not easy, my fingers are all clumsy and uncertain and I’m finding it hard to hit the right keys and spell the right things and wanting to document one’s own life is not all that simple. Why don’t you stay up the whole fucking night then try to type in an orderly fashion…all this for what? For those last twelve words I just wrote on this screen. That’s what) ever given one opportunity to write things down, so I figure now is as good a time as any. I ask myself why I even bother, why do I drag myself out of boredom and ritual to actually type what I’m thinking down, and I remember what Michael once said to me, this one time when I was dropping him off at home. We weren’t high, we weren’t drunk we were just kids wandering aimlessly amongst this sea of non-stop rules and non-stop regulations that our parents made for us, without bothering to include us in the discussion. Michael said, “You know Karen, it’s cool, cause of your zine you’re the only one of us who has their whole teenage years documented” (or something to that effect) and it’s true. Because of Girlie Prig, of all the time I spent just writing whatever happened to come to mind, because of the time I spent exploring my thoughts and my ideas, I actually keep track of my life, as it speeds past me in this blur of light and sound and people and faces, all running past, but with my zine, I can make them stop, if only for a minute, and let them all collect and let me learn. I don’t know. I’m listening to Tori Amos and I’m in my pajamas typing, and I’ve been out all night with Desiree and Eric and Kyla and Jenn and that fucking guy Jason who I’ve run into over and over through the years. Yeah, so I just got home from hanging out with them. And I’m on acid. That’s the clincher. I’m on a drug. And I’m writing down my story, and this isn’t fiction, it’s fact, and I can’t decide which one is more real than the other.
***
I was at this cheesy bar named Venum tonight, and for some reason, the image of this girl keeps running through my mind. It’s this girl, I don’t know her fucking name and I’ve been seeing her over and over since I started going to shows and she was in the scene, I think, but now she’s friends with Justine and Samantha and Tanya, all these girls Michael knows, and I saw her dancing at Venum last night, and the last time I was there, and I made eye contact with her tonight and I started to laugh, because here I was this 18 year old kid, dressed in clothes that felt weird on me, cause I’m used to being dressed in simply a t-shirt and jeans, but I was wearing this fucked white collar shirt, and it was just funny, cause here I was, dancing, on acid, in this bar with all these people that I didn’t know, and there’s like 5 people that I sorta went to school with, or knew through the scene, and there was that fucking girl who I guess is like any where from 18 to 21 and I know her because I’ve been seeing her all these years, but I don’t think we’ve ever talked. And I was dancing and there were all these fucking twenty-somethings dancing around in fucking tight black clothing and this guy had his face painted and chains and shit, and I started to wonder why he went through all the trouble to get himself all dolled up to go to Venum, this lame-O bar and dance with lame-Os in fucking Calgary. And I made eye contact with this girl, while this guy and his friends played games of flirtation with each other on the dance floor. They would do the whole “come here” beckoning thing with their fingers and it was like a movie, and they were acting, I swear to you, they were acting, and I started to wonder for whom, and I made eye contact with this girl and I laughed because here I was, audience for these people’s play, only it wasn’t announced that they were on stage, and I hadn’t known I would attend the presentation.
***
I’m wearing my new glasses my mom bought me cuz the eye doctor told me not to wear my contacts so much cuz I’m gonna go blind. Great. Can’t wait to pass on these genes to my children. Survival of the fittest. I can’t really see all that well in glasses. I don’t know why. But I find it a lot easier to see with contacts. Good thing I drove here. Today, during my and Mari’s never ending “party” we went to Bishop Carroll High School to visit Shannon and Andy and Jeremy. Here I am gripping that I’m stressed, Shannon is in her 4th year of high school and isn’t getting any closer to graduation. She can’t work. She gets up, goes to school, pulls out her books. Opens them up and stares at them. She cannot work. She tries. But she can’t do it. She wastes her days. I did that for a while last year at school. I snapped out of it after a few months. She’s been in this phase for almost two years. She’s at home, in bed right now sleeping, because tomorrow she has to get up and do it all over again. Lucky her. Tomorrow when I get up, I’ll go for coffee. Lucky me. We’re all so fortunate to be alive.