Stop Trying to Be Deep, Penny!

May 5, 1996

To Bethany:

Ned and Nina are going out. It's okay though. I like Joe now. He is SO what I'm looking for. He's great! I hope we get together. Tess is working on it. Tess and I were just in a big fight that we resolved--what's new-- and I am beginning to get sooooo annoyed with Penny! She is trying to be something she's not. It's hard to explain but she's losing a lot of friends by doing it. But in some ways, that's her point. She tries to be deep-- as in like deep speeches. Ultra-feminist total individual. And by doing this she says stupid things that no one-- I repeat NO ONE in their right mind would ever agree with. I want to tell her but I know it won't help. It would just prove her point that she doesn't care what people think of her. Well, if that's what she wants I won't give her support, but I'll give her some amount of respect. 

--Corey 

What's great about 13 year old Corey is that she rebounds FAST. It's cool. Ned's now taken? Cool. I will move on to Joe! And also: Tess will make it HAPPEN. Who knew how much power she had??

I think it's so interesting how angry I get at Penny's "feminist" and "individual" views and opinions. I mean, I feel like even at 13, if anyone's feminist and individual its me. I wonder if I'm uncomfortable with Penny expressing some things I feel? Breaking the rules of middle school?

Or maybe she's just really annoying and trying to hard.

Tiny Corey.

October 27, 1993, We have a Postural Screening Exam at school. This involves getting undressed behind a curtain, having your heigh and weight measured, and having your spine felt by the school nurse. The curtain is thin enough so that all the ten year old girls in my 60 person grade can stay very still and hear through the curtain what everyone's weight is.  Charming. Also really fabulous? I spend two pages of my diary recounting these weights and heights. They seem to help me get a grasp on the natural order of things. 

At four feet tall and 53 pounds, I had very little competition for tiniest person ever. And though everyone else towered above me at normal ten-year-old heights, I held fast onto my 53 pound achievement. 

I'd like to make some feminist comments about the obsession with weight, but the entry is more matter of fact than angst-ridden. I don't reflect on much of anything. It just IS. I was 53 pounds of uncomplicated truths. 

And when you KNOW your good friend is a way prettier ten-year old  than you are, at least she weighs 67 pounds. Ha, take that! 

I'd rather not address the fact that sixteen years later I still could easily ball park most of my friend's weights.