When I was a tween (which I think was technically before the word “tween” was used), I loved the Anastasia Krupnik books by Lois Lowry. In retrospect, I think that might have been part of my inspiration for keeping a notebook of some kind or other ever since, as Anastasia has her secret green notebook where she writes down her favorite words and lots of lists. In that first book of the series, every chapter ends with Anastasia’s ever-changing side-by-side lists of Things I Love and Things I Hate.

It’s really no surprise, then, that there’s a set of lists just like that in the first of my Warner Bros. composition book journals.

(Okay, Thirteen, we’ll list the whole thing, and I’ll keep my comments to the footnotes. But I’m putting this behind a cut, and it’s your fault if people’s eyes glaze over and they stop following and nobody reads this blog ever again. Just so you know.)

Things I Love

cartoons
Bugs Bunny (and all the Looney Tunes)
Tiny Toons
The Simpsons
books
CDs
Indiana Jones movies
Nintendo games
shorthair cats
golden retrievers
warm cake
giraffes
rabbits
squirrels
cobras
tigers
mail-order things
markers
Dean R. Koontz books (especially Strangers)
Japanese newspapers
shells
the Gremlins movies (1 and 2)
Madonna
Wilson Phillips
Pepsi
Burger King
pizza
toasted marshmallows
old Japanese monster movies (especially Godzilla)
Stephen King books (Misery and It especially)
bubble gum
drawing
Crayola crayons (the 64-pack)
Mr. Pesti (because he is hilarious!)¹
nature specials
big-screen TVs
Bigfoot (the creature, not the truck)
UFOs
A Current Affair
warm summer days
snowstorms
Christmas
holly
candy canes
presents
marshmallow bunnies
The Bermuda Triangle
fireflies
cool electronic things
limos
fabric-covered blank books
really fake commercials
the Energizer Bunny
Saturday Night Live
Christmas specials (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer esp.)²
holidays where we get time off from school
mini-jawbreakers that change colors
coloring books
the aroma of a baking cake
warm chocolate chip cookies
chocolate³
coffee ice cream
Hershey’s chocolate ice cream
baby animals
ice cubes*
balloon animals
mechanical pencils
fudge
swivel chairs
snowflakes
air plants
pen pals
parrots that can talk
birthday cards (preferably with money in them)
chocolate syrup over vanilla ice cream
pens that write in weird colors
vacations

Things I Hate

Grape-Nuts
sweet potatoes
pumpkin pie
hidden cameras
sports
bugs
spiders
country music
snakes
Tic Tacs
sunburns
Mentos
people who smoke in no-smoking areas
dead batteries
sweater lint
inflation
really hot weather
holidays where you don’t get time off from school
tape players that eat tapes
walking over gravel barefoot
coconut
cabbage
beets
spinach
broccoli
sour cream
lima beans
dentists
making beds
washing dishes
boring TV shows
when glasses stick to coasters
algebra
Ms. Coffey’s home video library**
sumo wrestlers***
wrestling in general
strong perfume
school food
stuffed turkey

 

¹An awesome substitute teacher. Gotta admit, though, we also liked him because he let us eat candy and chew gum in class.

²For the record, still my favorite Christmas special.

³Only at age thirteen would I have listed Bigfoot ahead of chocolate. (This is probably a good place to mention that these lists were done in no particular order.)

*I… *spreads hands* I got nothin’.

**Ms. Coffey was our English teacher, but I have absolutely no memory of what her home videos were or why I didn’t like them. (You’d think I would have liked any videos we watched during class instead of having to do actual work.)

***I still got nothin’. (Jeez, Thirteen, what’ve you got against sumo wrestlers? )