Like everyone else on the planet, I watched “Tidying Up” on Netflix and have been Marie Kondoing my life. I did this last year after reading her book but stuck mostly to my closet and I didn’t dive into the depths of some long forgotten boxes in my garage. I guess saying that it was long forgotten would be a lie, in the back of my head, I vaguely knew what kind of junk was in the box. In general, I’m really bad about papers and mail. Typically I let it pile up and eventually go through it or if I’m under pressure (like with a move) I box it up and forget about it. This particular box I’ve dragged from Chicago to three apartments in Burbank and then to this house. I knew it was there, but I really was not sure that I wanted to revisit this part of my life. After my mother died, I kind of felt like if I could face that I could face anything and so, there it was, in a box that also had an unpaid parking ticket to the City of Highland Park (oops, I hope I paid that) and a newspaper from 9/11, I found my journal from 1999/2000. These are the things that nightmares are made of. I had two choices at this point burn it, or to make myself a martini and ask Siri to play me songs from 1999 and dive in and yes, it was as bad as you can ever imagine.

I went back and forth about sharing excerpts or quite frankly even scanning the entire thing because it was so ridiculous but in the end, even I’m too embarrassed and on the off chance my family ever discovers I have a blog, I never, ever want them reading any of it. Here is the one thing I will share, which I feel is the most 1999/2000 thing ever said. 

Seriously. 

To answer the 64,000 question, my journal did not bring me joy but I’m still keeping it because it’s a time capsule of where I came from so I guess in a way, that’s joyful to me.

I had a few random pop culture thoughts while reading it because otherwise I was just really, really annoying. 

1- At one point I mentioned buying new shoes at Bakers, whatever happened to them? – I later googled to find out that they went out of business in 2013 but still have a website that appears to sell nothing. Also random, the same parent company apparently owned 5-7-9, another random 90s store. 

2- I mentioned several times my printer not working correctly, I have no idea why this was such a big concern but I would have hated to tell my 2019 self that printers are still just as crappy as they were 20 years ago. 

3- One day I mentioned watching a rerun of 90210 on FX and it was the “Donna Martin Graduates” episode. Fun fact, the outside of the school board meeting was Burbank City hall. I thought it was kind of cool that I live there 20 years later. 

4- Getting into fights on AIM was a thing. 

Oh 1999, it’s been 20 years. I’m good with not reexamining you for another 20.