The final topic for the June Journal SMACKdown is “What would you be doing if you didn’t have your current career?” Most likely I would be doing my former career, accounting, provided I hadn’t burned out yet, which is definitely where I was headed when I left the field. Though it wasn’t the accounting itself […]

Today’s June Journal SMACKdown question is “Who was your first love, and did he/she know?” (I wonder if I’m the only one who thinks it’s backwards that this question follows, rather than precedes, the one about losing one’s virginity). In the case of love, I’m having trouble deciding who was first. Was it my dad, […]

I’m still a virgin. Sure, I’ve seen people doing it in documentaries, and heard people talking about it, but I’ve never participated. The crowd I hung out with at the age most people lose it wasn’t into that kind of thing, and it didn’t seem like something I’d want to venture out and try to […]

Today’s June Journal SMACKdown topic is “What you thought 30 would be like when you were 12”. I think it was around the time I was twelve when I first calculated how old I’d be when the year 2000 dawned—37. That seemed very old to me then. I don’t remember thinking specifically about being thirty, […]

I don’t remember having a single, momentous, uncomfortable for everyone “this is where babies come from” talk like I’ve heard other people had. I don’t remember how I learned about sex and the differences between boys and girls, men and women. I’m guessing my mom simply worked it into our everyday discussions. It had to […]

I’m entirely too practical to run away from home. When I was a kid, I thought about it from time to time—any house where alcohol-fueled rages are a regular occurrence is a good place to consider leaving— and I remember joking with my mom about leaving for Australia on many occasions. But even as a […]

Today’s June Journal SMACKdown challenge is: “Write a review of your own online journal from a critic’s point of view (as if you were writing for one of those critique mailing lists or Web sites”. Being a new kid on the scene, I’m not very familiar with journal critique lists and sites, but I do […]

A lot of things make me cry, especially if I’m in the right mood. I don’t think most of them are stupid, though the casual observer might disagree, especially if the casual observer were sitting next to me at a stoplight and saw me dabbing at my eyes because a particularly touching Disney song was […]

No Journal SMACKdown topic today, but there is a bonus bit: you can check out my newly posted bio page. When writing it yesterday, I realized that I inadvertently lied about my age in my first entry. I actually made myself older, too, which certainly isn’t the culturally approved direction for a woman my age. […]

Today’s June Journal SMACKdown question: “Which part of your house is always dirty?” Always? Even when we’ve spruced up the place because company’s coming? I think we’ve cleaned every part of the house at least once since we moved in, so no one place is always dirty. However, it’s rare when all the parts are […]

I have never been diagnosed with any condition or injury related to all the typing and mousing I do, though I do get mild symptoms from time to time: numbness or tingling in the fingers of my right hand, twinges in my wrist and forearm and elbow on that side. For a while, I used […]

My only sibling was born when I was three and a half, which I’d think would be memorable given how much my world changed as a result of my brother’s arrival, but my brain stores no images of that time. I don’t remember my mom being pregnant; I don’t remember where I stayed when she […]

Body hair is a timely topic, as the weather has started to be warm enough consistently enough that I want to venture out in shorts and skirts and sleeveless shirts again. For me, that means a seasonal return to regular shaving, lest I violate the cultural norm that says women should have smooth, hairless legs […]

When someone says “bad habits”, I think first of things I don’t do– bite my nails or smoke or get drunk every weekend—but of course I do other things that qualify as bad habits. There’s hopping on the scale every morning for no good reason, for example. Another of my bad habits is drinking two […]

Though it seems a little forward or presumptuous or something of me to participate in an online journaling event at this early stage in my experience, that’s just what I’m going to do. I am powerless to resist Kismet and Jette’s June Journal SMACKdown!, which starts today. The first SMACKdown topic: “How do you think […]