"Be most excellent to each other...."

"If you read someone else’s diary, you get what you deserve." - David Sedaris

     All of my life I've kept a diary or a journal as they have allowed me to document my dreams, my loves and measured emotional maturity. My journals also include the most lofty, idealistic crap poetry you will ever scoff at and ridicule. In the past, relatives and friends have given me blank journals as gifts so richly crafted and ornate it seemed a shame to waste an innocent tree on my mundane musings. Every so often, especially as we bid farewell to another passing year I dust off my diaries and enjoy a good laugh. Below is a journal entry from twenty-two years ago with my own current commentary in parenthesis. November, 2nd 1990something His name I repeat like a beautiful mantra. We spoke on the phone this afternoon to reassure ourselves we were not dreaming last night. (I just threw up in my mouth a little bit....) When we kissed it felt as if my knees would give out. I have never felt so intensely for ANYONE. (at least never in the last six months...ha..ha) Just thinking about him brings color to my cheeks and sends my heart pounding. I feel light and carefree. ( like I'm in a tampon commercial ). I'm in love!! ( the exclamation points were edited down to two for this blog ) He loved my poems. ( he was very kind and terrible judge of literature ) He wrote me, " I love you, Angel Butterfly " on a note. ( not a text my dear modern romantics ) I didn't want to let him go ( and no, we were not drunk ) He makes me so happy! I sat in the car tonight and just stared at him, memorizing his face, every line, every curve. It is so difficult to let him leave. Sweet dreams, My Love! ( big dramatic swoon ) Saying, "I love you" is not enough sometimes. He says it's like saying something is "good" when actually it feels really really "excellent". We should invent a phrase or secret code that means more than just, "I love you". ( and this is what I actually wrote) A phrase like, "I excellent you." No, I was far from being infatuated with Bill Preston or Ted Logan even though that very moment in my personal history was an "excellent adventure". Without a time machine how could I have ever anticipated the many adventures, passions and loves yet to come?