Addie's Literary Entry: The Purple Notebook intro, high school details, 9-21 Hot Dog Fear and 9-23

A Literary Entry: The Purple Notebook B3 and some High School details, as well as 9/21 and 9/23

As this is the first post from the “Purple Notebook” I will explain a bit about this notebook. It’s labeled with my name on it (first and last, which I kept when I got married so it’s still accurate) and it’s got “B3” on it (or 8, but I think it’s 3), and in addition to the sort of marbled black and purple cardboard (sewn, not spiral bound) cover, it’s got some scribbley doodles on the front (I’m prone to doodles, especially when taking lecture notes if I don’t do them on a laptop, laptops usually get near verbatim notes, notebooks get pretty close unless the teacher digresses and then I like to embellish the empty space with horses and dogs and birds and whatevers).

Anyway, the book is something between a journal and a daily compulsory creative writing book. It was assigned by one of my favorite teachers (okay, I have a bunch of favorites, but Mrs. Wainwright deserves to be in this list), who graciously allowed me to take “creative writing” during her break time. I say gracious because it was one of her valued and useful free periods, which she should have used grading papers, planning lessons, working on other school related things (such as any of the school drama productions, she was the well respected and much loved director). However, because I was participating in something called ... uhmmm....

Ok I forget right now what it was called (Youth Options?), but essentially, high school students in good standing etc. who had maxed out a particular area of study in available in high school were allowed to take courses at the local (ok it was a 45-60 minute commute) technical college. (And the school district covered tuition—sweet!). So, since I had maxed out the science courses, as well as already enrolled in some of the AP courses (ones that if you test out well enough, you can get college credit for), and had already made a pretty good start at exhausting all the reading/writing/English courses available, I was taking college courses in the morning, and high school courses in the afternoon (and doing cross country or track after school, and Girl Scouts too...). That worked out to one or two courses in the morning, and depending on the day, one or two ‘blocks’ at high school in the afternoon. Our school was trying the block scheduling, so instead of a class lasting about 45 minutes and usually being held daily, classes were 90 minutes long, held every other day. I wanted to take creative writing, but it was only offered in the morning, but since Mrs. Wainwright was the awesome person she was, she allowed me to take it essentially ‘directed study.’ So she shared a bit of her free period with me to brief me on what was going on with the class and explain the current assignments, and then I’d quietly get on with my business in class and she’d get on with her tasks while being available to field questions.

While the Purple Notebook doesn’t have a date on the front, I’ve skimmed through a bit and noticed the first entry is dated 9/6, and by skimming a ways through it, I’ve found “X-mas memories 12/19/01”, followed by an undated entry “Reflections 2001” and next “Thursday 3 of January 2002”. So, I’m going to assume that it was a class that lasted all year, some courses were ½ year (one semester) and others were all year, and since this one seems to have spanned winter break, I’m guessing it was a year long course.

The notebook is 100 sheets (200 pages) but only about ½ full, as most entries are barely a page long, hand written. I’m pretty sure they were usually a quick 5 minute class opening activity, and then there were other tasks and projects for the rest of my time.

And so, without further ado, here are the first entries from the book I’ll be sharing.

I’ll try to copy the text as it’s written in the book, not correct spelling or grammatical errors, so remember, these entries were intended as quick, slap it in the book entries, and done without a lot of revision and editing. However, I’m not going to include short things crossed out as errors, if I ever run across long segments of interesting stuff which has subsequently been crossed out, I might put it in, I might not, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

9/21
I am afraid of the day that I will have to eat hotdogs. One day (I hope it will never come) there will be nothing else but hot dogs and I’ll be starving. I’ll hold it off as long as I can but then I’ll have to eat one. It will taste so gross. It probably will be all natural 100% by products. I am afraid that I will have to bite off a piece chew it and swallow it. I’ll bet I’ll have to eat peanut butter, too. I just hope I’ll never be faced with my worst fear, maybe the day will never come.

<current note: Ok, I eat hot dogs now, and enjoy most of them. I went through a period, caused by a pink, nearly maraschino cherry red-pink, hot dog at I think it was at that time, Hardee's when I was younger... for a while I wouldn’t eat hamburgers, and then after that pink dog experience, I wouldn’t eat hot dogs... and now after college, there are few things I won’t eat... although I’m still pretty repulsed by many things peanut butter and will never enjoy breathing in the same room as most hot sauces or hot peppers, let alone eating them.>

9/25
“It’s on the path you do not fear that the wild beast catches you” –African proverb

It took me several read-throughs of that quote to actually understand what they are saying. To be even more succint: Don’t be complacent or complacency breeds dead people. They want you to remember that it is easier to sneak up on somebody who is absolutely sure nobody is there than it is on somebody who is paranoid. Don’t let your guard down or ll get mauled.

<current note: Ok, I couldn’t spell succinct, or I was writing so quickly I’d mentally jumped ahead to the next word and sort of wasn’t tracking what I was writing properly. Anyway, I can spell it now.>