Time Capsule: 2006, Part One

Confessions of a teenaged note-passer.

I’m unpacking manila envelopes I stuffed with memorabilia in end-of-year rituals from 2003 through 2007. This is the fourth entry in my Time Capsule series. Read 2003 and 2004 and 2005.

My sister has described being the oldest sibling as, “Doing everything first while three people watch.” The three people in question being my mom, my dad, and me. All eyes on her.

Being the oldest sibling is also defined by being born an only child. You have your parents all to yourself, until, rudely and suddenly, you have to share. As the second child, I was never an only, always the baby. The first time I didn’t have to share my parents was halfway through 2006, when Allison graduated from high school and moved away for college.

We tried not to be too down on the situation, losing one of our ranks to higher education. That was the plan, right? But our house was different. Emptier. Quieter. Duller. I used to go into Allison’s room, next door to mine, and lie on her bed and contemplate my life without her. Moodily, softly. Then I’d shuffle through her things and borrow her books and clothes.

I’m talking like she was the main character of my life. Off to college, and the hometown plot ceased to exist. I say this with the love and adoration of a dedicated younger sister: first children are main characters. They’re just born that way. But in her absence, life went on, and I have the time capsule to prove it.

No summary letter like in ’05’s envelope, no table of contents like '03 or ’04, no categorization… until now. Just a bunch of papers in a manila envelope adding up to a year of life as a thirteen then fourteen-year-old, eighth then ninth grader, youngest child in the house then… only child.

The capsule.

“Time Capsule - 2006!” - Annotated 18.5 years later

SCHOOL AND FRIENDS

Binder collages

I always made paper collages to slip into the clear window of my school binders. One collage I saved has a bunch of photos of my friends and family, printed at home on printer paper. The other is dedicated to The O.C., with an old AAA map of Kansas City as its background — you gotta work with what AAA gives you.

Valentine’s Day cards

VD! A day to celebrate friendship!

Class notes

My friends and I loved passing notes in class, but we also loved getting straight As. So, most notes were passed after we finished taking tests, in that teacher-sanctioned “do anything quiet” time before the bell rang. The notes run the gamut but there’s a high emphasis on crush discussion. A lot of lowkey gossip. Some TV rehashing of Gilmore Girls, The O.C., and my guiltiest pleasure du jour, Zoey 101 (which was about kids our age and therefore definitely made for younger kids). We used weird abbreviations like NEone for anyone, NEthing for anything, as well as the more common U for you and R for are and UR for you’re and your. A bit jarring to see internet lingo in number two pencil on lined notebook paper.

In one note, Maddy wrote a series of Beatles trivia questions with an answer key on the back. In a different note, Isabel and I took bets on how long two classmates’ new relationship would last. Isabel guessed 3.5 weeks; I guessed 2 weeks, but caveated, “It’ll either be really short or really long.” (I apologize to you, dear reader, because fact-checking this with the relevant parties does not feel appropriate at this time.) In another note, Rachel and I dreamed up a list of good things that could magically happen when we left our class, including an impromptu ball in the MPR to which we’d obviously wear Marie Antoinette-style dresses. Gotta love a good imaginary hoop skirt.

I wrote a tutorial for a male friend who had signed my yearbook with a disappointingly vague message. Probably a “HAGS” situation. “How to sign a yrbook,” I titled the note.

I saved a stack of notes passed with a boy I had a crush on for entirely too long. He absolutely would not stop writing me notes asking who I liked even though I consistently responded I didn’t like NEONE! One of these notes takes a brief detour in the middle. He wrote, “do u think America should help darfur? like send army people?”

I leave for your inspection one of our other notes, typed verbatim. Again, he is demanding to know the identity of my crush.

Him: “Is he in this class?”

Me: “What part of no one do you not understand?” 

Him: “The part that says do you like my hair long or short?” 

Me: “It wasn’t that long. how does [your crush] like yr hair?” 

Him: “I duno :( ” 

Me: “Why don’t u ask? Ha…”

Him: “lol no I don’t think she likes me anymore”

Me: “Aww. Im sorry :-(”

Him: “yeh I kinda like someone else anyway though just a bit.”

Me: “WHO?”

Him: “not telling, that’s who lol”

Me: “haha”

Him: “u tell me who you like first”

Me: “I DONT LIKE NEONE”

Museum of Tolerance Trip papers

In 8th grade, we went on a life-changing field trip to Los Angeles. I say life-changing, because it’s when I fell in love with L.A. where I’ve now lived for eleven years. We stayed in a hotel, ate at the UCLA dining commons, toured the campus, saw a play (The Importance of Being Earnest), and went to the Getty Center.

The bus ride was PEAK eighth grade flirtfest. Did I hold hands with a BOY on this trip? No comment. Did he pretend not to know me when we got back from the field trip? No comment. Was this reflective of his serious character flaws and in fact had nothing to do with me? Yes, it was, thanks for asking!

The purpose of the trip was a visit to the Museum of Tolerance, where we heard a Holocaust survivor speak. Later that year, another student and I gave speeches to the Davis Rotary Club to thank them for sponsoring the field trip. Mine is a sweet speech, very impassioned, focused on how learning from the past made my classmates and me become better people. But reading it now, I find it a bit odd that I didn’t mention my own relatives murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. Seems relevant.

In addition to the printed speech, I saved the parent meeting agenda, the trip itinerary, museum brochures, and cards my parents and sister snuck into my luggage (a trick I pull to this day whenever my husband goes on a trip).

Huck Finn skit script

Everyone in our English class performed a skit of a different chapter. We didn’t have to memorize our lines, but we did have to dress like boys—I was Huck—and give our alls.

“Where I’m From” poem

We had a class assignment to write a poem about our families/cultures for World Geography. Everyone’s poem had the same structure; each three line stanza began with “I am from X” and ended with “And Y.” I remember reading it to the carpool on my way to school the day it was due, and Rachel’s mom saying, “Makes me want to be a Kopp!” One stanza:

 I am from dancing in the rain
 Camping in the backyard
And pretending to faint

The poem is a list of childhood memories and family inside jokes. A precursor to this Substack. Nostalgic forever, nostalgic for always. As long as I’m living, nostalgic I’ll be.

ID card in case I went missing

School-issued ID card. School-issued paranoia.

8th Grade Awards of Excellence in Art and Geometry

I got five awards in 7th grade and only two in 8th. What a racket, hit my peak already? Was it my fault my 8th grade social studies teacher never bothered to learn my name??

9th Grade class schedule

My school was one of the last remaining “junior highs” in California, meaning it was grades 7 through 9. We were freshmen in high school, but we ruled the junior high school.

The contents.

MISCELLANEOUS

Newspaper clippings of a medium hard Sodoku and a Mutts comic strip

When I was growing up, my mom and I always read the comics page in the two newspapers we got (shoutout Sacramento Bee and Davis Enterprise!) We didn’t read every strip (unless we were bored) but we always read our 10-20 favorites. When I’d get home after a school trip or a couple weeks at camp, my mom would have saved every day’s comics page — and some movie reviews — in a stack next to my bed, as a little surprise. That’s love.

Printout of four photos of Matt Dillon’s face

I had a crush, okay, and it was mainly on a sort of age appropriate Matt Dillon in Tex and The Outsiders.

Nametag

I don’t know what the nametag was for, but on it, there’s a small photo of my toddler self and a bunch of conversation starters.

Two pages of doodles

Just my specialties: hands, chairs, tutus, faces.

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Another year over, another year older.

Hope you enjoyed digging through the mems with me. I had too much to say about this capsule, so stay tuned for part two!