On my birthday, 20 years ago.

April 17, 1992

The fourth grade totally sucks. They make us do math, like ALL THE TIME. Every time Mrs. Polanski gets up there and starts writing questions on the board my palms get all sweaty. I feel like everyone else around me is GETTING IT and I’m not. What does that mean? I guess if I don’t know this then I won’t do well and go to a college and get a good job and I’ll live home with Mom and Dad forever which wouldn’t be so bad I guess because I like our house and my room and we have a pool.

I used to want to be a doctor but then when Mom told me you need to know a lot of math to be a good doctor I was like, uh, NO WAY JOSE!

I’ve tried a lot of things already to figure out what I’m good at. Maria already knows what she wants to do which I guess is what happens when you’re older, which she is by two years. She says she wants to be the first woman president, which I think she would be good at because she’s good at bossing me around. She’s also good at ballet and goes to lessons all the time and I have to sit through those recitals which are SO BORING I want to die. I’ve seen The Nutcraker like a thousand times. It’s the longest ballet ever.

Mom and Dad have taken me to a lot of lessons. I took guitar lessons for a while, which was fun at first but then I hated practicing and just wanted to be outside and ride my bike. I didn’t practice and I would show up to lessons and Mr. Patrizio would be all, did you practice this week Victoria? And I’d lie and then I’d feel bad because I guess I’m not supposed to lie. Mom says I play pretty well considering I don’t practice and imagine how good you’d be Victoria if you actually practiced. Whatever Mom. My fingers hurt.

Mrs. Polanski put this on the board:

Thomas buys a skateboard that is 2 feet long. What is the length, in inches, of the skateboard?

Why do I need to know inches when I already know how long it is in feet? THIS IS SO STUPID.

I took gymnastics for a while, then quit. I don’t like wearing leotards and the girls in my class were not nice girls. I tap danced for a while because I wanted to be like Fred Astaire in those old black and white movies. I was super good but then I stopped because I got bored. I’m playing the piano now which I actually like because I don’t have to be in a class with other people and can do it on my own, and I started figure skating lessons because when Kristi Yamaguchi won the Olympics a few months ago and Dad said she was born with club feet like I was I thought ohmygod I have to do that too maybe I’ll be good at it! I’m not good at it at all.

Mrs. Polanski put this on the board:

Melissa has a rope that is 84 feet long. She is cutting it into 7-foot pieces to make jump ropes. How many jump ropes can Melissa make?

Why is Melissa buying all that rope and just doesn’t have a real jump rope like I have? It seems like a lot of work just to jump rope. Maria and I jump rope a lot in the driveway with our friends from the neighborhood. I’m good at that, but I don’t take lessons and I probably couldn’t have a job jumping rope. I don’t think they pay you for that when you grow up. You have to go into an office and get dressed up for a job. I have no idea what I’m going to be when I grow up because I’m not good at anything at all and that really scares me.

Mrs. Polanski put this on the board:

Milton takes $400 on a shopping trip. He plans to spend 1/5 of his money on cassette tapes. How much money will Milton spend on the tapes?

I don’t know the answer to that so I guess that means I’ll never have a job.

Tomorrow is my birthday and sometimes I think about where I’ll be when I’m old, like really old, like 29, and I’ll be married and have kids and own a big house like Mom and Dad. But that’s SO FAR AWAY and right now I’m really just excited about math class being over because art and music are later this afternoon after lunch and I really like those. I like when we read too. We just read Island of the Blue Dolphins. I love that book so much. I also like Where the Red Fern Grows. That’s so sad but so good. I like to write stories too but I hate math and I don’t like science and I don’t know why I have to be good at all of them because most of the time the questions are stupid.

Like how did Milton know how much money he wanted to spend on tapes when he didn’t even know what music he wanted to listen to? I don’t get that! I bet it was stupid music anyway. I like it when Dad plays music from the really big record collection he has and Maria and I dance around the living room. He used to be in a band. He played the drums. I like it when he plays the Rolling Stones. Dad said he saw them in Albany just fifteen minutes from our house back in 1963. THAT IS SO LONG AGO. I wasn’t even alive.

I hate the fourth grade it’s so stupid. It will be nice to be old and be able to do what I want to do which will mean NOT math. I think I’ll quit skating and try tennis next. Maybe I’ll be a professional tennis player if I’m not a professional piano player first.

I hope I’ll be good at something some time. I worry about that a lot. What if I'm not? How am I supposed to figure all that out? Mom tells me not to worry and always says to appreciate being a kid now because when you’re older you’ll wish you could go back.

Um, I DON’T THINK SO MOM.

I can’t wait to grow up. Everything will be better I'm sure of it.

Being a kid totally sucks.