Teenage Diaries Revisited Listen to Josh's diary 16 years later »

Tourette’s

Josh has Tourette’s Syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable tics and involuntary verbal outbursts.

“It feels like there’s a big balloon inside my stomach. And the balloon keeps growing bigger and bigger, like every second extra the tic stays inside it feels like somebody blows up the balloon another notch, until I let it out.” This story originally aired on NPR’s All Things Considered in 1996.

First Kiss

In Josh’s second diary, he packs his tape recorder for his first summer away from home.

“What I have here is an envelope on which this girl Nicole wrote down instructions on how to kiss. It says: ‘pucker lips, slowly open mouth, slowly slide tongue in, repeat steps 1, 2, and 3.’ She made that list for me because I made out with her and she said I was doing it wrong. So I guess that’s the main thing I learned this summer.” This story originally aired on NPR’s All Things Considered in 1996.