When I started the daily-posting-experiment, I asked my sister for some writing prompts. She gave me an interesting one that I've kept in my back pocket: “You wake up & discover that you have turned into one of your own drawings from 1985.” I thought it could be funny, but also realized I wasn't sure exactly what my drawings were like then. Memories are rather fuzzy of early grade school, and in 1985 I was either in the 2nd or 3rd grade (Spring and Fall, respectively). Thankfully my mom saved a lot of the madness we worked on back in the day, and over the past few years has been putting together scrapbooks.

I still remember the first time going through it and remarking on how my spelling was horrible. In kindergarten. Apparently my standards and assholishness have increased over the decades since.

Aside from my spelling improving year to year, it's also funny to note how writing changes (and in this case, from block to cursive in ‘85). And for content; I wrote a lot about skiing, animals, and candy. No candy in particular, really any would do. Animals varied from the expected dogs and cats, to a multi-colored unruly goat (I was really tempted to post that story instead).

Some of the stories include artwork (as well as some gift cards I homemade back then that my mom also saved). It's safe to say that in 1985 I had not mastered the art of perspective. I'm also pretty sure my younger brother will mock my cartoon characters for looking like the ones our cartoonist older brother drew. Siblings.

Without further ado, the story:

So, some deserved red pen markups by the teacher (whose daughter, coincidentally, worked at the same company as me decades later. Small world). I think one of my favorite bits in the story is when I casually equate girls to monsters, but the teacher was sly to my game. In my defense, I did give the monster a cute kitten. I mean, the girl. I totally don't think girls are monsters anymore.