Dear Diary,    Dear Journal,     04/30/09

My name is Carly Boone. I am 13 years, 8 months, and 6 days old. This is my journal. It is private. If you are reading this right now, please stop (that means you, Mom). I mean it. I don’t want anyone reading my thoughts and feelings without permission. Some day, when I become famous for something…who knows what…I might use it for part of my autobiography. But for now, I’m only writing it because my new therapist, Ms. Headcase (JK – not really! I just thought I would use a fake name…makes her more mysterious), told me it would be a good way to sort out my “feelings”. Ick. And I’m only going to a therapist because my parents are making me. I’m not crazy, okay? I don’t have to take any anti-psychotics or anti-anything else, like some kids I know. I just have a lot of stuff going on right now that I have trouble dealing with sometimes. Okay, not just right now, all my life, but middle school is hard and supposedly high school (looming a few months away, gasp) will be even harder. They want me to have a safe place to go and talk about my “feelings”. Whatevs.

Headcase said that I don’t have to show this to anyone, not even her, but that I can share it if I want. I don’t want. I don’t even know her. I don’t trust her. I know there’s this doctor/patient code or something, where she can’t talk about me to anybody, not even my parents, without my permission, but it still makes me nervous to think about her knowing all my secrets. The truth is, I do need someplace I can go to talk about stuff, because I just don’t want to lay it all on my parents…they have enough to deal with already. And some stuff I can’t even tell my best friend, Sophie. Try to talk to my stupid older brother? Not likely. Talking to the cat is a complete waste of time…she thinks she’s too good to listen to my pathetic problems. Tripp just wants me to “throw the ball! throw the ball!” [drool, pant, chase the tail-less butt] So where does that leave me? Talking to a complete stranger about stuff she might not even believe, even though my parents have already told her all about me.

So I’m going to try to cooperate. I guess, what have I got to lose, right? Who knows, maybe it will help me to keep stuff sorted. At this point, I have to try something…it really is too hard to keep it all bottled up inside me all the time. I feel like I will bust open like that fat watermelon I accidentally dropped on the driveway last week…splaaaaaaat! ewwwww, guts and seeds and juice and rind going every which way, splattering the car and my legs. Actually, it did make a really cool pattern on the cement…I just stood there staring at it, thinking that I felt just like that sometimes. Of course, then Mom spoiled the moment by making her tut-tut noise and what a waste of 5 bucks. She wasn’t really mad, but she did make me pick up the pieces and hose off the driveway. Fair enough.

I don’t know how to do this, though. Headcase just said to write about whatever comes into my head, it doesn’t have to be interesting or even make sense, just do it every day. Of course, she wanted me to hand write it, but like, NO WAY! Not when I have a perfectly good PC sitting in my room. And just so we’re clear, it never leaves this room. Not like “Princess Diaries,” where Mia is sitting in the bathroom writing in her journal at the BIG DANCE…yeah, right. Or that other story, where the girl writes in her journal on menus and napkins and stupid stuff like that. Yeah, and I learned a valuable lesson watching “Starter Wife” (which Mom doesn’t know I watch…another reason to keep this private), where she takes her journal to a party to show a publisher or something, and it gets stolen and all the dirt on everyone in Hollywood is published on the internet, then everybody in town hates her!!!! Okay, so I have nothing worth publishing on the internet….well, not much anyway…but still, the lesson is there. DON’T take your journal out places where it could get read by snoopy people! And I put a password lock on this and named it “English assignment #5″, just so nobody gets too curious.

I guess that’s all the thoughts I have for today. Oh, I have plenty to say, but since I’m going to be writing CONSTANTLY in this thing, I’ll save the juicy stuff for another day…you know, all the stuff about my over-protective parents, boys, my paranoid brother, boys, trying to make it through the end of middle school with my best friend Sophie (and boys)…oh, and being a psychic freak…junk like that.