LUDIC LOG

Dear Eddie,

You won't believe the night I had last night! It was so perfect. It's the kind of night you read about in storybooks and seen in movies, but you never imagine is going to actually happen to you. I keep thinking it's all just a wonderful dream, and that someone's going to spoil it all by waking me up. You know that feeling you get when something good happens to you in a dream, but you sort of know that it's not real, and you keep fighting the fact that you're eventually going to have to wake up and lose it all? I've felt that way all day today. But I know I'm just worrying over nothing, because this is no dream. This is true. This is real.

You see, dear Eddie, I've met someone.

It's really hard to meet girls when you have a job like mine. Most of the women I meet in this job are textbooks (who are really smart but are sort of hard to relate to) or porno magazines (who are gorgeous but don't have much to say). Of course, it might be a little easier if you kept me someplace besides your book bag or under your bed, but I'm not complaining. I understand that you have very specific rules about when and where I should be, and I respect that. But the fact is, I don't get around much. The longest conversations I've had in the last three months have been with the answer key to your calc textbook and Miss November 2001, and neither one of them were particularly interesting, albeit for completely different reasons.

But that was before last night.

You know Monica, that girl in your chem lab you have such a crush on? What am I saying? Of course you know her. She's pretty much all you ever talk to me about. Day in and day out. What Monica's hair looks like when the sun hits it. How Monica was really into Eve 6 before anyone else was. The kind of car Monica wants to get for her 18th birthday. I could probably tell you more about Monica than I could about your calculus assignments for the next three weeks, and that's saying something. Now, there was a time when I would resent how much you talk about Monica. After all, we used to talk about all kinds of things: how baseball practice went, how your little brother Kennny gets on your nerves, how Eric Munford is a complete tard, why you think Mr. Lichtner is a homo, how much Korn rocks. Not any more, boy! Now it's all Monica Monica Monica. The only way you could tell me any more about Monica is if you, well, talked to her every once in a while instead of just sitting there eavesdropping on her in chemistry class and then coming home and mooning about her to me for an hour and a half every night.

Not that I'm bitching about it, mind you! After all, if it weren't for Monica, I never would have met Monica's diary. You remember yesterday when Billy Hudson gave a bunch of you a ride home in his mom's conversion van? How you threw your backpack into the rear of the van and it spilled open? Well, I don't know if it was luck or fate or what, but Monica did the same thing. And she had her diary in her backpack, too, and we both spilled out and landed right next to each other. And brother, let me tell you: it was love at first sight.

Everything about her is perfect. The handwriting is clear and legible, but strong: not prissy and girly at all. And so many girls' diaries are clothbound or have that frilly lace crap that's, like, so stereotypical, but she has that cool industrial thing with the pleather covers, and the insides are all graph paper. It's totally punk. And we've got so much in common! Like, I have all these funny stories about you pissing and moaning about Monica, and she has all these funny stories about Monica pissing and moaning about Dave Stindel, the senior. And you keep joints in the back of me, and Monica keeps joints in the back of her. And I hate it when you're always blabbing on and on about Monica, and so does Monica! It's really amazing, all the things we have to talk about.

And, before you get upset, let me say: this is a good thing for you, too. I mean, it was pretty obvious to me even before I met her diary that if you've ever been right about anything in your life, it's that Monica would never waste her time on a loser like you. But now that I've gotten to know her diary, it seems to me that maybe you'd make a better couple than I thought. You're both really self-absorbed and shallow; you both make stupid doodles in your diaries that you would never let anyone see (although hers are ponies, not barbarians), and you're both so concerned with your bogus self-image that you even lie to your diaries. What you should do is find out more of these things you have in common -- I'm sure there's tons of them -- and talk to Monica about them. That's what I did with her diary, and we hit it off like gangbusters!

Anyway, I have to admit that I've got a bit of an ulterior motive in seeing you guys get together -- it would not only shut you up about her, but it would give me more of a chance to get to know her diary. So here's what I need: I need you to ask Monica to the junior prom, and I need you to not take no for an answer. You don't have to worry about me: just leave me upstairs when you go up to her room to give her the corsage. Now, I know what you're saying: you don't have the courage. She won't go. It'll never work out. Blah de fucking blah. Well, old friend, all I can say is, it better work out, and you better cultivate some stones pretty quickly. That whole thing about you still wetting the bed has always been our little secret. But it doesn't have to stay that way, you feel me?

Love,

Your Diary