eighties memories, and pondering...
There are so many things that pop into my head that I just can't figure out where they come from. The other day I had an old Monkee's song in my head and I swear that I haven't heard it for ages. What would trigger that song to rise from the depths of grey matter and make itself known in the bloody elevator at work.?
I know I'm asking for it, but I'm listening to Best of the 80's while blogging. Mr Roboto is on the air, and its just pure delight. I loved this song as a teenager, and love it even more now as an adult. Listening to this song is like opening a history book of my life. Yep. When this song came out, I was probably about 12 and hanging out with my best friends from junior high. My best friend's name was Paul, who was just getting into playing the guitar, and we would spend every night on the phone talking about went down during the day. I had a bit of a crush on him at one point, and he had one on me at another time, but we never got together. Of course we never got together, we were bloody twelve!
What was I like at twelve? I hate to admit it, but I don't really think that I was that much different than now. Well, aside for the fact that I've got a kid, a car, and bloody rent to make each month. I've still got my baby fat, hehehe, although it's a bit different now. I've got pretty much the same do as before: it's about 2 inches high, sticking straight up in the air. So my glasses aren't blue, but they're a goddamned funky black cat-style frame. But, physical aside, I'm no more mature than I was then. I have crushes even now, and still haven't got a clue about what a real relationship is like.
*roxette-she's got the look is one. mygod.* So, at 12, I was just becoming a social creature. I started hanging out with a pretty decent crowd. Nobody dated much, but we spent a lot of times at each other's houses, in each others' identical fake-wood panelled basements. We went to Wheelies to rollerskate when we wanted to flirt with 'real' guys and girls, and hung out at the mall, thinking that we were the shit. Maybe I am kinda different, now. I've taken to calling people younger than me 'punks', and at first it was funny, but know I really do mean it. I don't have patience for kids anymore, especially teenagers. god help Kole when she hits that age, because I know that I am going to be a goddamned ornery old fart. She's not going to be able to date at all. Well, not just date, but do anything.
I think Stephen King had it right though. You never do have any friends like you did when you were twelve. I miss them all a hell of a lot, but I'm not stupid enough to want to track them down. I did hear that Paul ended up finding work as a chef, but I rather preferred having the image of him as a wannabe rock-star. In fact, I dug the idea of him just staying still in time, solid as a 17 year old (the last time I saw him) than as a grown-up man with a mortgage and a mini-van. I don't want to know that he's going gray, I only want to remember him as I loved him then, a guy who made me laugh thinking up different lyrics to popular songs, personalizing them for my own entertainment. i loved him for the wild and crazy boy that he was, not as a man with issues. I loved him for allowing me to share his insecurities, something that grown men will rarely allow, instead of hiding behind a shade of coolness.
*patrick swayze's she's like the wind=bloody lovely*
I'm starting to feel it again, a little old, a little somber, and more than just a bit reflective that I'm not a kid and that everyone has to grow up at some time. I can't, for the life of me, seem to find that someone who even vaguely resembles the hero that I painted Paul to be. Someone creative, someone who feels that words, music, and images are still an important, vital part to life, and not something to be moved aside in favor for growing up into a responsible human being. I recoil from the vision that adulthood= a standstill in dreaming. I want someone to excite me with their mind, not just their BMW or their hardcopy of their degree framed on their personal office wall. I want someone to paint me a picture that shows their passion in a creative splurt, someone to get down and dirty with using charcoal or maybe a light pastel. I want to challenge this person to a duel of words, phrases, and illiteration. Someone to discuss the meaning of life over a coffee, someone to sing silly little love songs with during a long roadtrip, and someone to just sit in silence with, sharing a moment of simple living.
I want what I want, and I'll go on until I find it.