[November, 1994] The Crush Report

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11/9/94

“I’m drunk and right now I’m so in love with you.” – NIN

NIN COUNTDOWN: 28 DAYS

Yes, the countdown has moved up 2 days because I’m going to the Wednesday show (after Claudia the Wonderful gets us tickets). It was an up day. Don’t care about randomness too much. T.W. Wrote back, just what I need. Wonders indeed (I use that word too much. Even though I don’t use it all that often). Chorus sub looks like a Depeche Mode reject. Bad thing? Naw.

“Love comes in colors I can’t deny” – S.P. [Smashing Pumpkins]

More of my teenage code in this entry, but I’m actually able to decipher most of it.

Collecting crushes became something of an inadvertent hobby for me when I was 16. It was rare for me to go more than a couple of months (or even weeks) without having at least one target for my boy craziness, but sometimes I accumulated a few. I remember a lot of them today, but still can’t recall who “Wonderfully Random” was. If it wasn’t Neil, the younger punk kid, it was some classmate I decided was cute and crush-worthy.

However, none of that mattered because I was smitten with Tim Wunderlich from his first letter (and because of his last name, I was fond of making bad puns using the word “wonders.” Sorry.). He was frustrated and jaded and had the furious male scrawl of a teenage malcontent. Tim lived in a small town full of ignorant people, where he was called a “faggot” because he wore his hair a little long and listened to bands like The Cure and Cocteau Twins. He felt imprisoned and misunderstood, which was something I could identify with (as could just about any other adolescent, I imagine). Even though I lived in one of the most dynamic cities in the world, Hunter was a small school which felt like a microcosm unto itself, a brick prison full of kids who were smart, but not wildly eclectic or unusual–at least not on the surface. And while I had momentary escapes from the school, it dominated my social existence for a long time, and I felt more pressure to fit in than stand out. Tim did as well, but fought back against that pressure and did not pretend to be something he wasn’t. That quality in both Tim and Neil were big reasons I had crushes on them (on top of finding them generally attractive, of course).

You could do a lot worse than having your sub look like this.

Then there was, of course, the “Depeche Mode reject,” which was in reference to a substitute teacher who bore a striking resemblance to Dave Gahan, the band’s lead singer. Even though I was not a fan of the group as a kid, I did gradually like them more and more as my music tastes evolved. And while Dave Gahan was no Trent Reznor, he did have a certain physical appeal at times. And having a temporary chorus teacher who had a similar slender, dark-haired, broody, pale British look to him made me… rather uncomfortable. It was the first–and possibly only– time, I felt attracted to a teacher (not counting my girl crush on Ms. Donaldson, which had no sexual component to it). I was embarrassed by this crush, because it felt taboo to have lustful feelings for a so-called authority figure. Much like the crush on Neil felt wrong because he was so much younger than me, this felt wrong because Mr. Pseudo-Gahan was considerably older than me…  and because I kept picturing him starring in music videos wearing leather pants. I could barely even look at him in the classroom for fear of blushing. Luckily, he only subbed for a few chorus sessions.

[December, 1989] The End of the 80′s As We Know It

 

May the new decade bring better fashion and music choices.

12/31/89

Dear Journal,

New Years Eve!!

I can’t wait until later tonight! I am going to my cousins house for a party. (Anna’s)

Yesterday Mitchell didn’t call me so I went shopping and got these amazing “New Kids on the Block” jeans! They are so cool! I absolutely love them! Later!

This is quite possibly the only time the words “New Kids on the Block” and “so cool” were used in the same sentence together.

As a new decade was about to dawn on us, did I take those last moments to reflect on the last ten colorful years? Did I ponder what the dawn of the 1990′s might bring? No and no. Instead I enthused over a pair of acid washed pants with airbrushed graffiti on them spelling out “New Kids on the Block” in bubble letters down one of the legs and the band members down the other. (I have scoured the Internet looking for a comparable photo, but there isn’t one, which can only mean they were one of a kind. Thank heavens for that.)

I could try to defend myself by saying that not hearing from Mitchell caused some sort of fashion temporary insanity. Because there’s retail therapy and then there’s retail suicide. The truth is, I was briefly a fan of this boy band (Joey was my favorite, in case you’re wondering, which you probably aren’t). My taste in music and clothing would take another few years to improve, but at least I ended the decade on a sufficiently tacky and colorful note.

As for the end of the 80′s, I always thought I was born ten years too late. While I was blessed with some fantastic cartoons and sit-coms (Thundercats, Jem & The Holograms, The Facts of Life, Perfect Strangers, Diff’rent Strokes… my definition of “fantastic” is probably not the same as yours), I missed out on a lot of the pop culture being so young. Sure, I had the enormous hair and wore enough shoulderpads to stand in for a quarterback, but I never got to get tarted up like Lucky-Star-era Madonna back then. Wearing fingerless lace gloves a decade later just wasn’t the same. And sure, in recent years I ended up seeing a lot of the new wave and post-punk bands I was too young to appreciate back then (Pet Shop Boys, Sisters of Mercy, Duran Duran, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Human League, etc.) but it would have been really special to see them in their heyday.

I think a lot of people feel out of time in their era. I was a reluctant participant of the 90′s and will always feel like I was stuck with a bum decade to come of age in. And as a another new decade is about to roll in I can’t imagine what kids growing up today will contend with. All I can wonder is whether we’ll ever get those damn flying cars.

In the meantime, I hope somebody out there is tinkering with and putting the finishing touches on a time machine that will one day let me return to the 1980′s and experience it in person again, this time as an adult. I’m sure I’ve glamorized that time period far too much in my mind, and maybe it’s best left in those nostalgic corners. Still, a girl can hold out hope.

[November, 1988] Two of Hearts

11-13-88

Dear Journal,

I have a lot to tell you about my weekend.

Well first of all I forgot to tell you a dream I had a few weeks ago. It was about this book that I found.

to this day I love that hair

You see, you write a question on it, and the answer magically appears…

So in my dream I wrote asking when I would see Jonas again. (Jonas is this boy I like that graduated from my school.)

Well, anyway, in my dream the book answered: “Nov. 11, 88.” And that was the day of Jessica’s birthday party. By the way, Jessica’s brother knows him. So I thought that I would see Jonas again, but I was wrong, because Jessica told me her birthday party was going to be postponed.

So I thought I would never see him again.

But since Friday I did not go to school I spent the day with my parents. Then we went to the movies and my parents were outside waiting for someone (I was inside) and who should I see by Jonas. So my dream came true.

Plus I got two tapes, Stacy Q and Kylie Minogue so I had a really good weekend.

Of all the things I could ask an all-knowing book, I didn’t for the meaning of life or how to cure global hunger or for upcoming lottery numbers or even for Corey Haim’s phone number (not for me now; for me then). Oh no, instead I aimed much lower than that. I asked when I would randomly run into the red-haired hall monitor I had I crush onback when I could barely spell. And I was thrilled when my dream became prophetic. Never mind the fact that I saw Jonas from fifteen feet away and did not even make eye contact. It was important to me to be psychic and this was burgeoning proof that I very well might be.

I should be so lucky…

As for my music selections, what can I say, I was ten. It would be years until  I discovered the “cool” 80′s music like The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, Duran Duran, Bauhaus, New Order, Alphaville, and of course, Depeche Mode. Before I was into male-fronted new wave and post-punk, I was into colorful female-fronted unapologetic pop. Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Cyndi Lauper, The Bangles, and the two women added to my burgeoning music collection that day: Stacey Q and Kylie Minogue.

Stacey had style I coveted and a guest appearance on my favorite t.v. show back then (okay, and maybe of all time), The Facts of Life. She also had what I thought was one of the coolest names in the world, second only to Vanna White.

Kylie had an infectious smile and perky spirit I could not resist. When her hit cover of “Locomotion” came on the radio, I was filled with delight and an urge to dance (badly; rhythm and coordination were not my friends–the way my parents tell it, my childhood dance recitals were “hilarious”).

Truth be told, the use of Stacey Q’s song “Two of Hearts” in Party Monster was my favorite thing about the movie and I still get a kick out of the tune to this day. As for Kylie, I was happy to see her have a major U.S. comeback in the early 00′s and still maintain a strong presence in the pop world.

I still wonder where Stacey is today, but I don’t want to Google her out of concern that it might make me sad.  I want to remember her as the crimp-haired, wide-eyed, helium-voiced pixie that wowed me back in 1988.

[April, 1986] Everything Counts in Large Amounts

April 28^th 1986

Dear Diary

a girl named Fay is coming for the second to the last days of Passover. I am so happy because She is my best frend.

Teusday April 24 1986

Dear Diary

Today is my frends Fay birthday. I went to her and today is still passover. I am so excited to go there. I got her a present and she loved it.

Just can't get...?

Fay was the granddaughter of our downstairs neighbors, an elderly Jewish couple who took us in as family when my parents and I immigrated in 1982. Fay lived in Ohio, so I only saw her once or twice a year, but those visits were easily some of the happiest moments of my childhood.  

She had an older sister, Jade, who also came to visit that Passover. Jade was 16 and talked mostly about make-up and music. She wanted to be a model and I found her sophisticated and intimidating. She was obsessed with Depeche Mode and made me listen to one of their songs on her Walkman. The electronic sounds and Dave Gahan’s deep voice was a dark and strange sonic experience for me, one that I found jarring and did not want to repeat.

It would be over a decade until I rediscovered Depeche Mode and grew to love their music, especially their work from the ’80s, which I was too young to appreciate back then. 

But I still remember hearing their music for the first time and I still remember Jade teaching me the correct way to apply eyeliner. I wish I could send my teenage self back in time to be friends with her.