"What is Jiminy Cricket anyway, a frog?"

I was in a nostalgic mood today, so I decided to go through some boxes of old stuff that I hadn't looked at in a while. In doing so, I stumbled across a treasure trove of notes that Donna, my younger sister, had left for me when we were both still living at our parents' house. I have no idea why I decided to keep these, much less take them with me when I moved to California, but I'm really glad I did, because every last one of these scribbles is absolutely priceless.

Some interesting facts about my sister that I discovered:

1. She apparently hated her wardrobe, as a majority of the notes were a request to borrow something out of my closet. The item in particular that Donna went after most was a balled-up gray fleece from the Gap (the appeal of which I still don't understand). It's ironic when you consider the fact that nowadays, my wardrobe consists almost entirely of clothes that she doesn't want anymore.

2. Even as a kid, she was able to sniff out a bad character. I had a friend that Donna really did not care for and one of the notes she had written said, "T <= ew! called."

A few years later, T invited me to come visit her while she was living abroad, then told me to stay somewhere else after I'd booked the ticket, then was completely rude to me when we did get around to hanging out. Needless to say, we are no longer friends, and my sister enjoyed a good round of "I told you so" upon hearing my story.

3. Donna's handwriting has not changed since she was in middle school.

4. She was a master at stick-figure drawings.

5. She gave me the nickname Reeny.

Here's a sample of 14-year-old Donna:

Hey doreen, reeny, doritos...

I know this is dumb, and you're going to be like... uhh! Butttt... could I borrow your gray-gap-fleece-pull-over again? =) ? Pleeease! Do it for my teeth! The 4 precious teeth I am going to loose tomorrow. They will thank you for making them warm! =) Oh and hey, I was just thinking... if you don't wear it that much maybe I could trade you my ck (pink shirt) and the a&f blue v-neck 4 it. talk to you more about it later.

-Donna =) tanks!

I know it seems like I'm making fun of her, but I'm not. I find these notes hilarious and adorable. It's nice to be reminded once in a while of the time when I still had my whole life ahead of me.

In case you're wondering, I did eventually make that trade with my sister, and it was then that the saga of notes ended. Donna was ecstatic at having finally acquired the gray fleece and wore it almost every day. The sad part about this story is that a few months later, another fleece-obsessed young lady saw the sweatshirt in the girls' locker room and swiped it. Donna was crestfallen and I felt bad for her... but at least she stopped asking me to let her borrow it.

"I feel like I just got raped by a roller coaster."

I'm pretty annoyed right now, and it is because I've just figured out something about myself which utterly upsets me: I am the biggest fraud in the world. I pride myself on being a writer and a musician, yet I possess no creativity whatsoever. What many people - myself included - mistook for talent all these years was in reality just technical skill.

I've been applying mathematical precision to my artistic endeavors without ever once considering that I should have just been a mathematician.

For any of my 12 readers who might be confused, let me explain what I'm talking about. When it comes to the piano, I am classically trained. What this means is that I have the sight to read music, the hearing to learn a song by ear, and the dexterity to play what I've learned. People are usually impressed when they listen to me play, never taking pause long enough to realize that all my songs are borrowed. It's been a good 20 years since I last composed anything I could call my own, and to be perfectly honest, that piece sucked. Hey, I was a kid.

The same is true for writing. As a writer, I would say that my vocabulary, sentence structure, and grammar are well thought-out, and maybe even pleasant to read, but I can only write about things that I already know. I can write articles after conducting an interview. I can write literary essays after reading a book. I can write blog posts after something funny or interesting happens to me. I might even be able to write a novel based on personal experiences. But I've never been able to pull an original story out thin air.

Actually, that's not true. The last time I wrote creatively, I was a kid.

What I'm getting out of this is that somewhere along the path to adulthood, I lost my imagination.

So where does adult inspiration come from? I know that a lot of famous writers used their own lives as the backdrop for their work (if I ever finish that novel, it will be semi-autobiographical), but there were still many others who came up with ideas that were unheard of at the time, and absolutely not based on personal experiences. Science fiction is the first example that comes to mind. Fantasy fiction, though I've never been a fan, is another. Even a politically-charged social commentary like 1984, written in response to totalitarianism, is full of ideas that are original and terrifying.

I wish I could do what these guys did. I wish I could write something that is completely new and different and out of this world. I wish I'd never given up my imagination.

I don't know why I'm saying all this right now. Actually, I do know. (Frustration is apparently turning me into a compulsive liar.) The reason I'm complaining about my lack of creativity is because earlier I sat in front of my computer to write, and came up with nothing. Then I sat down at my keyboard to play, and still came up with nothing. So now I'm pissed at myself because I know that I'll spend hours combing the recesses of my brain for inspiration and will come up empty, and the whole day will be wasted.

Okay, pity party over. I'll probably end up deleting this tomorrow out of embarrassment. Luckily, it will only have been read by 12 people, so only 12 people will know that I'm a fraud. You guys can keep a secret, right?