Dept. of Fridays
Friday, 6 March 2026 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rDiaries
I'm writing this with a cat on my lap. I have to periodically remind Carter that he can't grab for balance at shirt. There are breasts under there, my dude, and your claws are unwelcome. Really. But I can't bring myself to knock him off my lap. That's partly because I love him, and partly because I know it won't do much good; in a minute or two, he'll be back on my lap. I have found myself repeatedly surprised by finding him back on my lap after dumping him - I don't even notice him coming up to my lap until after he's made himself comfortable and me uncomfortable. Cats. Go figure.
Now that he's decided our bed is a better resting place (or at least one that doesn't actively pitch him to the carpet) it's easier to type. And of course, I now can't think of what I want to say.
I realized as I typed that last paragraph that I've fallen into the mistake of thinking that any journal entry I make needs to somehow be deep, full of wisdom, or at the very least witty in the extreme. So I thought perhaps I could just use it as a diary entry, to tell you all about our trip to Costco, and how I was disappointed that thunderstorms that had been predicted but didn't come (the rest of the mid-south and mid-west have had to suffer extreme weather, including tornadoes, so perhaps I shouldn't feel too deprived.)
Then I started thinking about my experience with diaries.
I remember several years in my mid-to-late teens and early 20s when I tried to write every day in a diary. I felt guilty about missing days, so I would try to remember the previous day and write a diary entry as if I'd done it on the proper day. Sometimes I'd go several days without writing an entry. I suspect that some of my fiction-writing ability may have been polished a bit by the exercise. I never thought I was ridiculous for doing it, which says more about me at that age than many other things might. I haven't thrown out any of those diaries, but I'm equally unwilling to read any of them. I'll probably pitch them before too long. If I recall anything about them, they are full of yearning after boys and young men who never paid attention to me, so heartbreak was the inevitable result.
I'm sure there were days where I had interesting thought that didn't have to do with unrequited love. There were probably bits of commentary about my family, perhaps some commentary about the world, although I'm less sure about that. I was still writing diaries when I discovered science fiction fandom via the 1977 World Science Fiction Convention, Suncon, down in Miami in the then-gloriously decrepit Hotel Fontainbleu - an old roller rink with a partially collapsed roof near the ocean beach will always be part of my memories - and I made a number of friends who might or might not still be alive. I met Ed Sunden there, the one friend who truly changed my life for the better. But the diaries have things in them that I have no interest in anyone else reading. Especially my family.
Thinking of that first convention, I suddenly wonder why I didn't try to get in touch with my dad, who was then living in Miami (on a houseboat, if I remember correctly) I can't even remember if the thought of contacting him even occurred to me. Perhaps I could look into the diary for that year - but no. Just thinking of looking through those diaries make me twitch.
Writing here is a different animal, so I'll have to strike a balance between a never-ending search for excellent writing and daily record-keeping,
Tonight, however, I'm done with writing.
I'm writing this with a cat on my lap. I have to periodically remind Carter that he can't grab for balance at shirt. There are breasts under there, my dude, and your claws are unwelcome. Really. But I can't bring myself to knock him off my lap. That's partly because I love him, and partly because I know it won't do much good; in a minute or two, he'll be back on my lap. I have found myself repeatedly surprised by finding him back on my lap after dumping him - I don't even notice him coming up to my lap until after he's made himself comfortable and me uncomfortable. Cats. Go figure.
Now that he's decided our bed is a better resting place (or at least one that doesn't actively pitch him to the carpet) it's easier to type. And of course, I now can't think of what I want to say.
I realized as I typed that last paragraph that I've fallen into the mistake of thinking that any journal entry I make needs to somehow be deep, full of wisdom, or at the very least witty in the extreme. So I thought perhaps I could just use it as a diary entry, to tell you all about our trip to Costco, and how I was disappointed that thunderstorms that had been predicted but didn't come (the rest of the mid-south and mid-west have had to suffer extreme weather, including tornadoes, so perhaps I shouldn't feel too deprived.)
Then I started thinking about my experience with diaries.
I remember several years in my mid-to-late teens and early 20s when I tried to write every day in a diary. I felt guilty about missing days, so I would try to remember the previous day and write a diary entry as if I'd done it on the proper day. Sometimes I'd go several days without writing an entry. I suspect that some of my fiction-writing ability may have been polished a bit by the exercise. I never thought I was ridiculous for doing it, which says more about me at that age than many other things might. I haven't thrown out any of those diaries, but I'm equally unwilling to read any of them. I'll probably pitch them before too long. If I recall anything about them, they are full of yearning after boys and young men who never paid attention to me, so heartbreak was the inevitable result.
I'm sure there were days where I had interesting thought that didn't have to do with unrequited love. There were probably bits of commentary about my family, perhaps some commentary about the world, although I'm less sure about that. I was still writing diaries when I discovered science fiction fandom via the 1977 World Science Fiction Convention, Suncon, down in Miami in the then-gloriously decrepit Hotel Fontainbleu - an old roller rink with a partially collapsed roof near the ocean beach will always be part of my memories - and I made a number of friends who might or might not still be alive. I met Ed Sunden there, the one friend who truly changed my life for the better. But the diaries have things in them that I have no interest in anyone else reading. Especially my family.
Thinking of that first convention, I suddenly wonder why I didn't try to get in touch with my dad, who was then living in Miami (on a houseboat, if I remember correctly) I can't even remember if the thought of contacting him even occurred to me. Perhaps I could look into the diary for that year - but no. Just thinking of looking through those diaries make me twitch.
Writing here is a different animal, so I'll have to strike a balance between a never-ending search for excellent writing and daily record-keeping,
Tonight, however, I'm done with writing.
no subject
Date: Saturday, 7 March 2026 04:18 am (UTC)I did keep a 'record' of my life through photography. That was much better and made me happier than writing down what I did.
no subject
Date: Saturday, 7 March 2026 04:38 am (UTC)I remember how many photographs from the 30s through the 70s were in drawers all over our house, and I also have several photographic books from back in the days when I'd carefully put photos in them - after getting the pictures back from where you'd send the film to be developed. Those were the days. And I still intend to go through a lot of photos from both sides of our family in some effort to provide a record for our son, daughter-in-law and our two grandsons. You're right that photographs can be a happier route to the past than diaries.