Startin' It Up, No Prince Included...

Just created the ol' blog today, and I thought I'd clarify the name of the blog with a little bit of back story...

In my senior English class, waaaaaay back in 1999, we were required to buy a standard 70 page, college ruled notebook, and simply fill it. No requirements. The words written on the pages didn't even have to be our own--a lot of lazies simply filled in song lyrics they copied from CD liners or copied pages out of books. The idea was to just get kids writing (because, as we all know, high school English classes are often pathetic in terms of the knowledge of writing and grammar transferred to students).

Anyway, for my project, I decided I would fill the notebook with pet peeves. I entered 681 things that annoyed me. No duplicates, and no spaces between lines. 70 solid pages of annoyances, some self-explanatory, others requiring explanation. Above all else, it was theraputic. This notebook came with me everywhere: my soccer games, dates with Jacob, family vacations, work as a Subway Sandwich Artist... There are great pics of Mother's Day 1999 spent out at Carlyle Lake, with everyone else cooking out and playing, and me fervishly venting in this notebook. Ninety-seven cents has never been so rewarding or so well spent.

There is a sad and somewhat ironic twist to this story. The last day of school, after having finished said English class with a 104% (no bragging here, just fact), I stopped to use the bathroom before driving myself home from high school for the last time. I sat my peeves notebook, backpack, and gym bag on the lid of a large flat-top trash can outside the restroom. I went in, did my business, and was back out in 2 minutes, tops. My backpack and gym bag were on the ground, and my notebook was nowhere to be found. Apparently, in that two minutes, a janitor desperately needed that particular trash can and hauled away both the can and my pet peeves list. Totally deflated and not knowing where to even begin to find the trash can (and still riding the high of having just finished high school), I didn't pursue the notebook and went home. I wish I would have searched every can for that notebook--if for no other reason than to add peeve #682 to my notebook: overzealous janitors who throw away items that are clearly not trash.

And my sad story ends there. I like to think that I was blogging before blogging was cool. (Or, well, existed.) Somewhere between the "dear diarys" of my parent's generation and the megablogging of trendy 13 year olds falls my pet peeve notebook. From this experience from 10 years ago, I got the urge to create this blog. In the interest of not being a downer or boring, I will definitely stray from writing about annoyances. But for now... On to blogging like it's 1999, in 2009... :) Enjoy!