I hadn’t kept a journal for a couple of years, when the urge once again struck me to at least begin recording my day-to-day routine in some regard - no matter how small. And it certainly was small. My Kroger co-worker Marilyn McKinley always gave a calendar to the fellow employees for Christmas and I decided to utilize it to enter a microscopic synopsis of each day’s events in 1996 and most of 1997. Mostly, it showed what movies I bought, watched, or recorded - and the same goes for CDs. It also chronicled everything else - from what nights Ashleigh spent the night at our apartment, to the shifts I worked, to what I got in the mail, to which restaurants we ate at. In short, its not very exciting reading.
However for the purposes of this website, it is an invaluable resource for helping recall a few of the more interesting things. Also noteworthy is that at the beginning of each month, I simply stated what I was ‘into’ at the moment - my flavor of the month, or as Lisa put it my ‘current obesession.’ January’s obsessions were John Wayne, the Beatles, and Seinfeld.
So right off the bat, it tells me that we spent our New Years Eve at a party at the Bard’s house - that is Bridgit and Rebecca Bard, cute twin co-workers of ours from the Beavercreek Kroger. They lived in Beavercreek and Lisa and I both enjoyed hanging out with these fun girls whose parents were from England. In fact, I’d love to find out where they are these days. Throughout the month, we continued to hang out with the twins as well as their friend Erika Bierley. My New Years resolutions for 1996 were to quit smoking, lose weight, save money, and be more timely in getting our tent newsletter Dante’s Info out to our members. Naturally, I would not really stick to any of them, despite my best efforts.
The cutest girls in the world
Ashleigh’s ballerina pose and Briana’s typical cute mug
Briana’s cup of slop
The early part of the first week of the year saw bad snow and school cancellations, enabling Lisa and I to spend more time with Ashleigh, playing with her new Christmas toys, making candy, playing Go Fish, and taking her out to Pizza Hut. Briana came over and spent the night on Friday, January 5, and I have a sneaking suspicion that that is when the accompanying photos were taken. Amidst the falling snow I continued to amass my video tape and CD collection by recording movies off of AMC and re-joining the Columbia House CD club. I was also feverishly working on the next issue of Dante’s Info #15.
Our A-Haunting We Will Go Tent meeting was held on Sunday, January 14 at our apartment. I had a special cake created by Pat Jones in our Kroger bakery based on an image I provided from a Fernando Llera drawing. She did an excellent job as you can see. We screened The Fighting Kentuckian along with some shorts that evening.
Lisa and I were eating out a lot during the month - going with Brigid and Erika to T.G.I. Fridays on the 12th, dining alone with our Christmas gift certificate from Dad at Park Row on the 18th, and going out to Chi-Chi’s on the 27th - but mostly we were just repeatedly hitting the fast food joint like the Pizza Hut lunch buffet, McDonalds, and Burger King. As you can see, the dieting effort was squashed from the word go.
Amidst all of this aimless wandering, I found time to complete my college studies at Wright State in my Literature class 20th Century American Texts on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2-3:15. I would go on to get a C in this 4-credit-hour class. I also helped Ashleigh with her schoolwork, giving her magic lessons on the 24th so she could put on a magic show for her kindergarten class.
Among all of these great nuggets of information, I dropped some cryptic clues regarding some bizarre incidents which took place during January of which I have little recall. The three that stand out are: The Park Row pants fiasco on the 18th, the Lisa drunk fiasco on the 20th, and Pick up Lisa’s bookbag from my car - GOOD GOD! From what little I remember, I think that my pants became ripped or something and wouldn’t stay up so I had to carefully sneak out of the restaurant holding up my pants. I think that the drunk fiasco was when Lisa went out partying with Christi and became so inebriated that Christi had to help her shower and put her to bed. And finally, although I don’t remember the details, the bookbag incident triggered a huge fight between Lisa and Christi that never recovered from that point on. All I know is that I had to endure listening them scream at each other in my car while Lisa drove us up to Wright State to get her bookbag out of my car. Don’t ask for details as that’s all that sticks in my head.
1996 will continue…
That’s interesting. I used to keep a calendar diary too. Mine was usually filled with books that I needed to read for class, and books that I had read for research as well as class and work schedules (I was taking 7 classes, doing an internship at a school, and working 2 jobs!) That was back in 1997 and 98. I wish I could find it now…
Amber
January 29th, 2008