This is when Mom could have taken me aside and said, "hey buddy! How about we step into the bathroom and do something about those eyebrows!"

This was taken at my Grandpa's 80th birthday party. They made me play the flute. T-h-e f-l-u-t-e. I am sure this will come up in a future therapy session.

This is our graduating class photo. Yes, Les did look quite swank in his suit, so much so that I had to take a moment to myself to close my eyes and fully absorb his radiating classiness.

I am not sure if Les remembers this, but you may notice the awkward slogan on our graduation banner: Leaving. . . with memories. Our teachers held a brainstorming session prior to our grad and we, the students, collectively voted on the oh-so-inspiring slogan of "Leaving". Our teachers refused it due to the aura of negativity it spoke, so they shined the turd by adding ". . . with memories".

The following photo is of our after grad celebration, which was held at a nearby lake where we swam and had a barbecue. Les is on the left, and there I am in the center, once again, full of angst. I refused to swim at this party as that would have meant peeling the dyke-liscious, men's dress shirt off of my awkward, thirteen year old body.

This is a photo of me that was taken at my graduation ceremony:

Note the gray, metal chairs I spoke of in my journal entry. Also note my butch-tastic hair cut and farmer's tan. And yes, my best friend of the time had made her own dress. How did you guess?!

It wasn't until my early twenties when I realized that the majority of the songs on Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction are about heroin.

The first time I listened to Appetite for Destruction was when I was eight years old and my Mom bought my brother the cassette tape.

Mom was not a fan of the album art.

But she wasn't big on sheltering us from depictions of... sexual assault by monsters(?). When confronted with such moral degradations, Mom would express her disgust and then let us form our own opinions. This is probably why I grew up to be a non-conformist pain in the ass.

When I was fifteen I re-discovered Appetite for Destruction. Rocket Queen was my favorite song. And My Michelle, of course.

In my last year of high school I drew a Kozik style poster of a woman on a snake with a gun in her hand. Wearing a g-string. In faux blood I lettered the words "ROCKET QUEEN".  My art teacher thought it was anti-feminist.

But she was the teacher who told a classroom full of seventeen year olds that she slept naked with her nine year old son, so I had already shoved her in the category of soul sucking public school teachers who slipped through the cracks of their mother's self induced abortions. The type to dismiss, ya know?

That's probably one of the meanest things I've written since realizing that there are people who actually read the stuff I publish on the internet. But due to her also docking me marks off my final grade for my choice of content when I painted a cartoon-style picture of my cats, I am not retracting the comment or editing it out. Did I mention that she chewed me out for painting a picture of my cats infront of the whole class? THE WHOLE CLASS. But be assured that she was impressed with the perfect lines I had painted.

If I could go back in time, I would tell her to go relive her past and snort a line, and then I would refer to her as a "pseudo feminist hippie". IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CLASS. I think Axl Rose would approve.

If you could return to public school with the wisdom and confidence you have now, who would you lip off?

Written at age thirteen:

My poor mother.

And it wasn't just a phase, either. IT - WASN'T - JUST - A - PHASE.

This was the study schedule I wrote in my journal prior to my grade twelve final exams.

I am no scholar. Sure, sometimes I use fancy words that make my boyfriend sigh, request a dictionary definition, and then remind me that I am the brains and he is the brawn, so, like, be a little easier on him, OKAY?! I may be creative, somewhat deep thinking, too. And of course there is that useless university degree I earned while still living under the suburban illusion of Mom and Dad's house. But am I a natural academic? Fuck no.

I am one of those students who actually had to try. Now I work a job that has absolutely nothing to do with the almost two decades I spent attending school, which is why I often find myself thinking, why? Why did I not invest in breast implants post high school and become a stripper. WHY?! I could have stayed off the crack and invested my money. I COULD HAVE MADE SOMETHING OF MYSELF.

As demonstrated in the above sketch, I became increasingly dramatic in my junior year of high school, which was between the years 1999 and 2000. I was sixteen or seventeen years old and I was slowly starting to regain the confidence that shitty, adolescent experiences had robbed of me. I should also mention that at this age I became annoyingly opinionated. Pretentious, too. Emo? Obviously.

I am not sure what I love more, the pork chop floating behind the word "rape", or my apparent indecision about . . .  . Satanism?!?

In case you find it difficult to read, it says:

Sometimes I feel like life is a rollercoaster and I am just along for the ride. Sometimes I wonder how much I really am in control, or whether fate just throws me curve balls at the right time. Considering how completely negative my mind frame is, I see every single negative experience as a------- hmmm, nevermind, fuck it.

That's right, I actually started to annoy myself before I could finish.