The show last night (during which I performed) went very well. I’m pretty blown away by the talented talent that Thessaly the Ukulady assembles for her weekly PonyShows.

The evening’s theme was “Valentines & Heartsies”, so I reread the passages in my teenage diaries in which my own heartsie was torn asunder over the course of one thousand, one hundred and seventy nine days. Let’s call him Dane here.

Here is the first recorded entry of my soon-to-be rampant preoccupation:

May 30, Age 15
I REALLY like Dane. I have no idea why. He is obnoxious, sarcastic — but there’s something SO affecting. Maybe I see a glimmer of niceness once in a while. I dunno. All I’m sure about is that I am near to head-over-heels FLIPPED over him!

And here is the last.

May 17 Age 16
Dane called me “Drecky” today and made fun of the way I say “like”.
Goddamit. I’m back to where I started.
Goodbye, perhaps forever.

Even though he had displayed a brief and mild interest in me for a couple days earlier that year, I knew now that Dane was unobtainable. However, I continued to raise a confused, pathetically determined torch for him for two more years — up to the day that I moved away to college, and the spell was broken.

Explanation of the graphics: I created a stack of valentines to hand out at the PonyShow; traditional-looking but with somewhat subversive and/or dirty sentiments (“Stalk me!”, “I’ll be your Cougar”, “To my favorite enabler”, etc.)