Nom de Plume

Well, I go. On Saturday. My mother embarked on rebuilding the ranch house about two years ago, and it’s finally finished. Which means she can start unloading the container that’s been sitting there ever since she retired and got stuff out of storage.

Yes, that’s right. My mother is the only person I know who actually owns a container.

I’m looking forward to it. Not only are all my books there — every single one that I made her save from my childhood — but I’m hoping to find my journals.

I’ve been keeping a journal in one form or another ever since I was twelve. Thee journals from about 18 on are in a box in the garage, but those teen years have gone missing. And I hope they’re in storage.

My early journals were more like scrapbooks, in which I cut and pasted articles from riveting publications like Young Miss and Seventeen in between magic marker entries of which boys I liked. Later, I graduated to antique fountain pens; this was from the same obnoxious phase in which I looked up obsolete words in the OED to put in my English essays. I’m sure these journals, if I find them, will embarrass me to death. All I can hope is that my mother doesn’t find them first.