Ed. note: I cleaned out my old room at my parents’ house during the holidays. Among the treasures unearthed was a stack of high school English assignments, including diaries our teacher made us write and turn in for credit. I stuck to a small number of themes: my zine, an upcoming community theater performance, and inner turmoil. Enjoy!

Thursday Jan. 26 1995 8:53 p.m.

Good news: Sleepyhead checked in with their stories! [Ed. note: As I recall, I'd asked several musicians and zine editors to send me stories about their high school days for the next issue of Kelp.] My meager celebrity factor is inching upward. Lara wrote too, she had forgotten some stuff I need to include. Get this — she went to her prom last year with Mark Robinson! Whoa. How cool is that? The man is famous. [Teacher's note, in green pen: Really?] Well, so is she, but he’s famous like Rolling Stone-Spin-lousy corporate magazines and hideously vile MTV-famous! [Ed. note: Whoopsies. Viacom, just kidding. Plus, you know I had a thing for "Making the Band."] Apparently she was encouraged to ask him to the soiree by none other than Fontaine Versus and Gail Chickfactor. Good gracious. I wish I could schmooze with the indie rock superstars. Unfortunately there seems to be a shortage of indie rock superstars in central Maine.

I don’t know, though, I think being a scenester would be fun for a while but after a while it would grate on the nerves. Isn’t it all just another popularity contest? Hmmm. It’s easy to turn up your nose at name-dropping when you’re sort of removed from the action, but it would be a different matter entirely if my name were the one being dropped. Aha. [Teacher's note: Your diary is really stream of consciousness thus far.]

I just reread everything I’ve written and I noticed that a large percentage of it is about Kelp-related stuff. Well, it’s what I happen to be thinking about. I don’t know. Chickfactor and Runt and all those zines are great, and so are their respective editors, but I always feel so unhip after reading them. Lara’s letter really reminded me of that. She’s my age and she’s hanging out with the monsters of indie. There’s the cutting edge and I’m so far behind. Kelp will never be the source for reviews or superstar interviews, no matter how much I wish it were. Then again there already is a Runt, and a Chickfactor, and so on.

Franklin Bruno was right. The zine is a great medium that is way underused. Everyone tries to be like CF or what have you but of course they can’t and it’s so obvious that they’re trying to be like that. I’ve got to squelch, what a great word, my lust for cool and carve out my own niche. It’s hard but it seems like the only reasonable option. It’s especially hard since everyone loves zines like FPAP and CF and Runt, of course! Everyone likes cool stuff. [Teacher's note: Hm.] I don’t know, I’m going to stop comparing myself to them, because I’m not as with it as they are and probably never will be. People will just have to deal with that.