March 5, 2005

Hey, Diary. How ya been? I realize I haven’t written to you since the eighth grade, when I had that very intense crush on Andrew from my music class, remember? And I went on and on and on about he said this and I said that and he smiled at me and I wanted to throw up and does he like me or does he like like me? God. It’s amazing you didn’t corporealize yourself and kill me then.

Thank you for that, by the way.

I’d like to say not a lot has happened since then, tell you it’s been a boring and colorless life, but I think we both know that’s not true. I’m staring down the barrelhead of thirty-four as we speak. I graduated high school, went to college, got married, had kids. I’ve worked as a nanny, a television producer and a pyrotechnician. (Not in that order.) I lived in Alaska for a while. I’m a novelist now, and I teach part-time at the local university. I don’t know what happened to Andrew. I heard his brother was dating a supermodel for a while, though.

Anyway, I’m coming to you now because something has happened to me that hasn’t happened since around the last time you saw me, so I thought I’d see if you could help.

I have a crush. A bad one. On a man who doesn’t exist. And if he did exist, he would have died, oh, some 150 years ago.  …