Dear Diary

Spring 1992

Dear Diary,

Tomorrow I am going to South Woods. I hope I hope I hope I hope Mr. Greenspan doesn't recognize me from last year. If I get in trouble I'll be soooo dead. Please let him not recognize me, please! Me and Ally played manhunt at Lee's house with Jimmy and Mike Didonna. It was soooo fun. I think I still like Mike but Jimmy was flirting with me a little because he attacked me and I fell in a ditch. It was totally pitch-black and a crazy night. I also ran into a thorn bush and my knee hurts and I think there's a thorn in it but who really cares. I am really excited to go to South Woods. Everyone there likes me and they are so much cooler than Thompson kids. I really feel like writing a poem. Oh well. TTFN.

PS. This is a list of people I HATE.

1. Billy

2. Sheryl

3. Todd

4. All people from Hebrew school (1/2)

5. Amanda

Love,

Lesley

November 2003

Here is the follow-up to that night of manhunt, which also happens to be my number-one favorite scar story (and the only scar story I have). The pain in my knee got increasingly worse, so my mom took me to the doctor. The doctor was all, "Hmmm, looks like you have a thorn in your knee, all right," and so he used this numbing cream and tried to get it out, but got all Dr. Hibbard on me and was like, "Ha ha, it won't seem to come out, ha ha ha." Fast forward three weeks, when I'm picking at my knee as usual because I just know there is something wonderful waiting to be discovered under my skin. It doesn't hurt anymore, but I don't want it to be in there forever, like those people who have little pieces of pencil stuck in them (gross) from when they were young. So anyway, me and my sister are watching Melrose Place on the couch, and I'm picking away when suddenly a huge sharp thorn emerges from my knee. Imagine the best zit you ever popped and times it by a thousand. This was the most satisfaction I had ever felt (let me remind you that I was 12 at the time). I start freaking out and then my sister sees this thorn sticking out of my knee, and she starts freaking out, and we both just stare at in all its glory. Then my mom came down and looked at my knee in horror and pulled the thorn out. Then the blood came (I didn't cry), and now I have a small scar on my knee.

PS: The list of the people I hate still stands (except Billy).

LESLEY ARFIN