Re-Reading My Teenage Diaries | April 1990
Actual transcripts from my teenage diary. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty…
Tuesday, April 3rd, 1990
School was bad. After school dad gave me one of his Beatles LPs. It was absolutely fantastic!!!!! They are even better than BROS! I am now a Beatles fan, and I am reading their book, too. [Huh? The Beatles wrote a book?] But I still love BROS.
Saturday, April 7th, 1990
Quite a boring day today. Lezlie phoned to ask me to her birthday dinner on Thursday. Of course I accepted immediately [Edwardian lady alert!], but now dad says that as it’s mum’s birthday on Thursday too, I will have to be home, because there is a surprise planned which he absolutely REFUSES to tell me about!!! I should at this point explain that it’ll be my mum’s 40th birthday and her friends normally have a surprise bash on occasions such as this. [No, seriously, WHY am I writing like this?!] I’m dying to know what it is… dad says I’ll be amazed, so it must be something really special. Also, he says the surprise will take place at 4:30 – 5pm, when mum is supposed to be at work, and dad says that she WON’T be at work. So where will she be?!! Maybe they’re getting Cilla Black to film her for Surprise, Surprise? Or maybe Uncle Jerry’s coming over from Canada? Well, I don’t really believe it’s either of those things, but I can’t wait to find out WHAT it is!
Sunday, April 8th, 1990
Today was a mixed day. Half good, half bad. [Thanks for explaining that, Amber, we’d never have pieced it together otherwise.] After riding we went to Texas World and looked at stuff for the house. Oh, I forgot to tell U, we went to see a new house last week, and put in an offer on it. It’s a really low offer and personally I don’t think we have the slightest chance of getting it. Anyway, we came home and the disasters began. First, the parents started annoying me about how I’m always putting my clothes in to be washed when they don’t need it. Then I washed my hair and put my curlers in with loads of gel to make it curl. It didn’t work. My hair was a mess [Which is strange, because normally when you put loads of hair gel in your hair, it looks AMAZING…] so I had to put a baseball cap on to hide it. Also I had nothing to wear and I had to wear some really horrible clothes and I got a row for getting changed out of my riding stuff which was dirty!!! Parents!!! Mum’s STILL not talking to me now!
Tuesday, April 10th, 1990
There is no chance of us getting that house now. Mum says that even if the man does accept our offer, she doesn’t want the house now because it’s going to be such a big step for us, so much money etc, etc, which is RUBBISH. If the man accepts the offer it’ll be nothing short of a miracle because it’s such a low offer, the house is cheaper than every other bungalow on the market. As for it being a big step for us, WELL!!! I say that if you don’t take chances sometimes you don’t get anywhere in life. And if we don’t grab this chance, we’ll be doomed to live in a tiny, cramped, semi-detached house FOREVER. We deserve this one chance to make life better. If we don’t get this bungalow, we won’t get any.
[Strangely enough, I’d actually forgotten I was an estate agent when I was a teenager, and knew absolutely everything about the property market: weird! I did enjoy the motivational pep-talk about taking chances and changing your life, though: and who better to deliver such a message than the girl who was too scared to go out with the boy she liked, in case he figured out that she liked him? Exactly.]
[Also, gotta love the way I’m speaking here like we were trying to claw our way out of Compton or something. We lived in a very nice, respectable area of town, and were looking to buy a house in the street right next to it. Cool your jets, Amber…]
Thursday, April 12th, 1990
Mum’s birthday, and what a day it was!!! After mum had gone to work, Gloria phoned for me to go over, so I went over and blew up balloons and helped David to decorate the Peugeot with a big sign saying ‘NORMA IS 40′ and lots of balloons, ribbons, etc. Then Laurie and I went over to my house to decorate it. We put 40 pink flamingos in the garden, a big ’40’ sign on the patio window, and other ‘LOOK WHO’S 40’ signs on the tree. We also had two enormous flags in the driveway. At 5pm we got into the decorated cars and went down to mum’s work where we were met by dad. Mum’s boss let her finish early and when she came out she was greeted by ‘Happy Birthday’ blasting out of two speakers on each side of the car. She was really embarrassed!!!!!! Then we drove her all around town with the music still going, then back to our house where a feast had been prepared. We ate and then had a party with everyone singing on the Karaoke machine. (Except myself, cos my singing is getting worse and worse and worse.) A great day!!!!!
[So, yeah, all I’m going to say here is that my mum only recently started speaking to my dad and I again after this incident, and, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see why, because if anyone did this to me, I would kill them with my bare hands. GOD.]
Wednesday, April 18th, 1990
Mum and I went into Edinburgh to buy me clothes for the New Kids on the Block concert. We managed to argue ALL the way around Edinburgh, but it was worth it because I got some great clothes. A bomber jacket with a sort of floral print on it (it’s cool), a pair of baggy trousers (they’re smart), a purple shirt (it’s rad) and a pair of mirrored sunglasses like the ones John Lennon (My hero) wears on the cover of his ‘Imagine’ L.P. (they’re cosmic). I’m going to wear all that gear to the concert along with my black baseball cap, my multicoloured bum bag and my chunky trainers. I can’t wait!!!!!
Thursday, April 19th, 1990
I got my hair permed today. It’s super cool, rad, amazing!!! It took 2.5 hours to perm because I have such a lot of hair, and Colette (the hairdresser) says she’s really jealous! I got a spiral perm and it’s turned out just the way I wanted it. I look like Neneh Cherry!
Friday, April 20th, 1990
Today started off real bad. I got out of bed and looked in the mirror and nearly fainted. My hair was a mess. All sort of frizzy and disgusting. I decided the only thing I could do about it was stay in and not be seen in public until I’ve had the chance to wash it. So I decided to put my time to good use and gave my room a thorough cleaning out. I was reading Just Seventeen yesterday and it was all about New Age, which is basically being a hippy, and everything being pure and beautiful etc. The idea really appeals to me, because I’m really into love, peace, unity, saving the earth, being a vegetarian [NOTE: I was not a vegetarian…] and all that. It says in the magazine that cool names for New Agers are hippy things like River, Leaf, Sunshine, Autumn, Charity, and then it said (this was actually written in the magazine) that another cool name for new agers AMBER!!!!!!! It also says that bedrooms should be clinically clean and white with no mess anywhere, so that is what prompted me to clean my room. I’d really like to take ALL the furniture out of my room and just have a round bed in the middle of an empty room, that would be smart.
Sunday, April 22nd, 1990
Terrible day!!!!! I got ready to go riding and I felt not too bad, but then I started feeling AWFUL and I went and threw up in the bathroom. The thing is, I wasn’t really sick, just a lot of saliva. I didn’t tell my mum. I’m too ashamed of myself, I’m really letting this thing get out of hand now, I MUST control it. Anyway, I went riding and it was great. I was on Troy and the lesson was brilliant so I really don’t see why this is happening to me. It’s soooo STUPID. I’m going to stop it though, I’m determined that I’m going to stop it before it goes too far out of control for me to stop and ruins my life. And my riding career.
Wednesday, April 25th, 1990
NEW KIDS!!!! IT was absolutely brilliant!! Fantastic!! Wonderful!!! It was the best concert I have ever been to in my life and I am in love with Donnie 100%. We went into the Playhouse and already people were screaming and shouting and just going crazy in general. A DJ came onto the balcony, played some records and got everyone even madder than we already were then Mark Goodyear came on and DJ’d for a while. After that another guy came onto the stage and talked about the New Kids phone line etc, and then THE KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Talk about scream! I’ve never screamed so much in my life! Even Chloe was screaming! The music was nearly completely drowned out by the screaming. The fans practically lifted the roof off the place!!! Donnie (swoon!) and Jordan talked to the crowd a lot and when they sang Cover Girl they got a girl up on stage with them! Little Joey (awww!) sang his own song, and he was BRILL!!! All-in-all it was a fantastic night and I will never forget it.. I LOVE Donnie and Joe. LOVE THEM!!!!!
[Photo by pure julia on Unsplash ]
