- my backpack weighed less than twenty pounds
- I read spiderman routinely, not in a comic book app, but in the daily funnies
- I couldn’t draw anything that looked remotely realistic
- I couldn’t spell realistic
- I saw toy story and instantly wanted a woody doll because I thought it would save the world
- instead of watching r rated movies, I watched tv-y rated tv shows
- the stars seemed really close, and astronauts were superheroes
- boys weren’t the source of any anxiety, unless they stole your lunchbox.
- I was so small I got stuck inside a garbage can
- the best thing about tonight was story time and getting tucked in
- double entendres had single meanings
- nostalgia was just a big word that parents used
- coming up with fairy tales wasn’t as hard
- confidence didn’t just make me a pest, but it made me bold
- I was so shy I couldn’t give the guy behind the counter at McDonalds my order: a happy meal with the girly toy. Unless it was hot wheels. Then I wanted the boy toy.
- a whole book was only ten pages long.
- dr seuss was the only English teacher I needed
- I thought the cold war only took place in siberia
- calling someone meant spending half an hour on the phone talking about that stupid kid in class who stole your crayons
- any list i wrote was about my favorite colors, or presidents, or letters of the alphabet.
- no one took me seriously when I would that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.
- I used “damn” in an essay in fourth grade and got off with a warning because I didn’t know what the word meant. ( the essay was about horse slaughter…I don’t know why they didn’t call the school psychiatrist at that point.)
- “remembering when” meant when you were one week younger, not years.