i wish i remembered myself at age ten more sharply. snippets, of course: i was sad. that's a prevailing memory, though the cause of it eludes me now as much as it probably did then. i remembering crying at night. my english teacher, the fabulous mrs. z., encouraged us to write our thoughts in journals in class; she allowed us, if we wanted, to mark certain pages private. it surprises me in retrospect how much i trusted that she wouldn't unfold and discover my scribbled unhappiness. although, come to think of it, my parents did take me to see a psychologist at the behest of one of my teachers. after a month, the psychologist decided i didn't need further counseling. i had been deathly afraid that the underlying message of those wednesday sessions was that i was crazy and so was more than relieved not to have to go. for whatever reason, i don't remember being as sad after that.

other things happened in fifth grade. school became more difficult; it began to require actual work on my part, which after years of being petted and praised was an abrupt shift. my friend d. and i sowed 1 - 800 numbers from magazines and spent afternoons soliciting information. our favorite ads were for modeling agencies, and other friends of mine swear (though i have no recollection of this) that d. and i marched around, ordering people to remove glasses if they wore them or other impediments to scrutiny, then after scrutinizing each face declared them either modeling material or hopeless. that seems unreasonably cruel; surely i was nicer than that.
fifth grade was poker at lunchtime, a first date that led to a first kiss and my first relationship (the first in my grade, too.) fifth grade was noticing "cool" kids for the first time and hanging out on the fringe of their group, occassionally accepted, occasionally sensing the vast differences between them and me. fifth grade was jamie and north carolina. i remember fifth grade better than i really remember me.