Why we all wanted to be Molly

I am watching Pretty in Pink for the twenty-something (understatement) time.  Pretty in Pink from 1986 is the seminal outcast movie.  In the movie, Molly plays Andie, a punkish girl from the wrong side of the tracks who spends most of the movie making eyes at a rich button down wearing boy named Blaine while being followed around by a suspender and creeper wearing Duckie (Jon Cryer).  Andie and Duckie epitomize the style of post punk culture.  I remember seeing the movie at the theater.  I still have the unrequited wish of owning a lavender Karmann Ghia.  But, it was more than just her style.  In the movie, Andie takes care of her depressed dad (Harry Dean Stanton) and gets picked on by rich bitches and hangs in the quad with the punks.  She works in a record store with Iona (played by Annie Potts), a Siouxsie Sioux look-a-like.  Plus, Andie was smart, wicked smart.  To me, she was the ultimate smart but still cool chick.

Before Pretty in Pink was Molly's role in Breakfast Club where she played Claire Standish, aka the princess, a girl from the right side of the tracks who falls for a boy named John Bender, aka the criminal (played by Judd Nelson), from the wrong side of the tracks.  In the movie, the character of Claire opens up and evolves from a superficial popular girl to an empathetic teen girl who just wants to be loved.  This role was a risk for Molly who was originally cast to play Allison, aka the basket case (played by Ally Sheedy) but Molly brings a warmth and humanity to the princess role that is undeniable.  

And of course, before both of those movies was Sixteen Candles, the ultimate 80's movie and Molly's breakout role. In the film, Molly plays Samantha Baker (aka Sam or "Sammy Davis Baker Junior") whose entire family forgets her birthday.  I wanted to be Molly from the moment I saw this movie.  The scene on the bus with Anthony Michael Hall as Farmer Ted is classic.  The part where her grandmother feels her up ("I can't believe my grandmother actually felt me up") is hysterical and the climax is Sam getting the love from Jake Ryan.  It all starts with a note from her best friend asking Sam, aka Molly, who she would sleep with.  She names Jake Ryan, the ultimate hot and popular guy (and a Matt Dillon lookalike to boot)  Jake gets her response by using his foot to slide the note toward him when the best friend falls asleep on her desk.  Later, they meet eyes at a school dance but Farmer Ted intercedes and sabotoges them by approaching Sam with crazy dance moves.  After some comic twists and turns, Jake shows up at the wedding where Sam is a bridesmaid (her sister is marrying a guy who is referred to as an oily beau hunk). In the end, it is clear that Jake loved her all along.

We all still love Molly.  Molly is who we all wanted to be.  A girl with an edge.  A girl who bucked the expectations others put upon her.  In Sixteen Candles, no one (not even her best friend) thinks she is good enough for Jake to date.  In Breakfast Club, Claire decides to love the so called stoner loser despite what will surely be the dismay of the cool crowd.  In Pretty in Pink, Andie is the ultimate outcast and chooses love with Blaine even though he is a rich kid (although I pine for the original ending where she chooses Duckie).

And, in the end, that is why we love Molly because, at least for me, she is every girl.

When

When I was young, I never thought I would have kids.  I have written before that I felt I was too damaged, irresponsible and/or crazy to be a parent.  But, something about the memoir writing process of writing through my memories has made me reconsider and dare hope.  To reproduce is defined as "to make a copy or a close replica of".  That's not what I want.  I want a chance at redemption.

On Thursday, I went to the fertility specialist and we are starting in vitro next month.  I have started trying to visualize myself pregnant and have found myself saying annoying sentences starting with, "when I am pregnant..."  My poor husband has to listen to these queries which range from the cliche to the ridiculous.  "When I am pregnant will you go get me pickles and ice cream at midnight?" (cliche) "When I am pregnant will you rub my feet?"  (cliche) "When I am pregnant will you make sure the dogs don't get jealous?"  (how would he avoid that?) And finally, "when I am pregnant can you make sure I drink only Stevia flavored diet soda from Clark's?" (absurd)

There is something about saying those four words "when I am pregnant".  I never let myself say those words before.  Perhaps it was too disheartening to even try and visualize it. What if it didn't happen?  I did not want to be broken by the process of wanting.  I clearly am making progress because by saying those words I am opening up my heart to the possibility of a child.  It is similar to the way I kept calling myself a writer and writing and now a mere seven years later, I feel like a writer most days.  I still don't think I am a great writer or even a very good writer, but I write.  I try.  I put pen to page almost every day.  I have even been called a disciplined writer which can be way more important than a talented writer.

That is what I hope happens with motherhood.  That my persistence means something,  I want the opportunity to be a mother  and while I may not end up the most talented mother, I will give it one heck of a try.  I will give it my all.  Because in my life what I have found to be most true is that the things you work for and want and ask for, and sometimes even beg for, are the most valuable.

Mad World

"And I find it kind of funny.  I find it kind of sad.  The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've  ever had."  Mad World (version by Tears for Fears).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This world of ours is crazy.  It is a mad world.  Not mad in a Mad Max kind of way, but mad in a 1984 Orwellian kind of way or maybe Animal Farm.

We live in a caste ridden society.  There are so many hierarchies in this world we call America.  There is a peasant class.  We just don't want to admit it.

This world is not fair.  You can work your ass off and go nowhere.  You can commit a fraud crime and end up in prison for ten years or if you're white collar you can end up a billionaire.

Many things make no sense to me.  How I got lucky and others did not.

I see my clients in the jails and it amazes me how we can take a person's freedom away before trial because they do not have the money to post bail.

The fact that we let bail bondsmen determine who goes free pre-trial is outrageous.  In the end, money or the lack thereof is the determining factor.  And those who are incarcerated pre-trial plead guilty to defensible crimes at an alarming rate.  We know this.  Yet, we do nothing.

Why aren't people screaming in the streets?  I suppose it is because we are used to seeing this as a society and think it can't happen to us.  We think that we are above the long or short arm (depending where you are in society) of the law.

But no one is.  We are just the lucky ones.  Or maybe we are in a Mad Max world where only the strong (in this version the rich) survive.

Hollywood (aka Hollyweird)

I am sitting in the Starbucks on Hollywood Boulevard and thinking back to the days long ago when I would come here in high school.  To Hollywood I mean, not to Starbucks.  There was no Starbucks back in the 1980's.  People consoled themselves with a thermos of coffee from home or weak coffee in a styrofoam cup from a donut shop.

My best friends and I would come to Hollywood when we were supposed to be in class.  By the time this tradition started, I had dyed my hair blue black, pierced my right nostril with a stud earring and wore black eyeliner Cleopatra style like Siouxsie Sioux.  My uniform (and looking back it was a type of uniform for the misunderstood and depressed) consisted of a concert t-shirt paired with a man's vest from a thrift store and red thermals over my legs covered by men's (striped preferably) boxers.  The cheery on top was a pair of scuffed red monkey boots purchased from Nana's on Melrose.

I would come to Hollywood with one or both of my two best friends, Melinda and Tracy.  I didn't have a car so Melinda or Tracy would drive to Hollywood.  Melinda had a 1964 white Covair and Tracy drove a small red Honda Civic, the back window of which was covered with stickers of our favorite punk bands.

I can't remember much details from the Hollywood trips, but I can recall excitement of those days.  The feeling of freedom while in the car driving on the I-10 freeway west from Ontario those sixty miles to the Hollywood 101 freeway.  We blasted the radio and leaned out the windows screaming like the teenagers we were.

It was as if the world was all ours.  We owned the universe and we knew anything could happen.  Miracles could occur.  They already had for us.  During our Hollywood trips, we met rock stars and had adventures and most importantly, bought cool clothes.

Driving here this morning (after dropping hubby off at a dental conference in Burbank), I felt none of that excitement.  On the contrary, being in my old teenage playground has made me more meloncholy than merry.  It reminds of of the Nirvana lyric, "Teenage angst has paid off well.  Now I'm bored and old."

I am here in Hollywood (or Hollyweird as Melinda and Tracy and I used to call it) to buy some pseudo 1950's rockabilly style clothing at a store called Betty Page.  The store sells reproductions of sexy dresses from the 1950's and the store has a punk feel.  It is better than buying some monkey boots which my husband convinced me I am too old to wear.

Some say rockabilly is where the goth and punk girls go to die.  I suppose this is my purgatory.

For now.

Rockin the Casbah

Just admit it.  Life is hard.  Being an adult sucks ass.

There are days I want to listen to my punk music (the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks to name a few) and post punk music (seminal bands like the Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Cure) and dance until my head hurts to escape the messiness and mundaneness of life.

If someone was brave enough to tell kids how hard life was, teens would never want to grow up so quick.  When I was a teenager, I couldn't wait to be eighteen.  My dreams of being in college and doing whatever I wanted fizzled out like diet coke left open in the sun when I dropped out of high school at seventeen.

By nineteen, I was waiting tables and struggling to make rent on a low income apartment in Upland.

Life seems better on paper now.  I went to UCR for my English degree and graduated magna cum laude and then USC Law,  I have the pedigree I always craved as a young child.  Yet, there is something wrong.  What is wrong with me?  I know it is cliche to say life is getting me down, but it is.  This thing we call life is so boring most days.  Wake up, eat, walk dogs, drive to work, work, drive home, eat, go to sleep.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah.

I have a bad case of the blahs.

The only things that help are music, writing, and television.   Granted, television is more of a numbing agent which I admit I use frequently.  Watching thirteen one hour episodes of a new series on Netflix in three days ("Orange is the New Black") is not healthy I know.  I don't drink anymore so this is all I got.

It seems as if the universe is giving me sign after sign that I need to follow my passion for writing.  Every TV show, every radio show, even commercials, keep reminding me that life is too short to waste.

Here is my goal, I am writing it down to visualize it.  I will have an agent and my book will be published.   People will read it.  My memoir will rocket into the literary airspace and take the world by storm.

That is my dream.  That will be my life.

Fuck the blahs.  This IE girl wants to rock the casbah.

The hardest button

"I had opinions that didn't matter/I had a brain that felt like pancake batter/I got a backyard with nothing in it/Except a stick, a dog and a box with something in it./The hardest button to button/The hardest button to button/The hardest button to button/The hardest button to button, Ah oh" (The White Stripes with lyrics by Jack White)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hit the button" were the words said to me.  In other words, make a decision.  What do you want?  And do you really want what you think you want?  Yes, I do.

I want to be a trial lawyer.  I want to try felony cases.  I know I can.  It's a knowing that will never go away.

I agonized over the process.  I didn't sleep for two weeks.  I have never been able to divorce my body from my mind.  My stress shows up in insomnia, stomach aches, and intestinal distress.  I wish I had the ability to not give a shit what other people think.  But, I am forty and at this point, I think I should just accept that I am a people pleaser and that I care what people think.  

The punk rock girl in me wants to shrug and say who cares if you don't like me and if you don't know me.  That kind of rebellious attitude would not work well for a professional adult at a public agency.

Instead, I did the opposite and opened myself up.  I was open, honest, truthful and raw.  I probably gave too much information about who I am.  If this was a poker game, I went all in.

The funny part is, it worked.  They like me, I think they really, really like me.

And I like me.  In the end, that is what is most important.  Really.

The Seekers, the Fixers and the Thinkers

Whenever I think I have it all figured out, life kicks me in the ass to say, no you don't.

I am confident and sometimes, just sometimes, that confidence can make me forget that everyone has an agenda and that people's agendas don't always match.  And, if agendas do not match, what happens is that people are at cross purposes and it doesn't matter what you do, you will never meet each other's expectations.

Now, I am not going to get too specific, so whoever (or whatever) people think this conversation is aimed at, so be it.  What I am trying to say here is that my goal for the next week is to try and figure out people's agendas.  

In short, what the fuck do people want?

I know what I want.  I want to be appreciated and told as often as possible how fabulous I am.  Let's call this type (my type) the seekers of validation.  When I don't get that validation, I can turn surly and off kilter.  I think I give people this in return (hmmm, some may disagree).  I have the tendency to be over complimentary if I appreciate someone.  People are wonderful and good for the most part.  What I have learned is that this need in me and others may be difficult for some to handle or understand.  Don't you already know how much I adore you they may ask.... Yes, I know down deep inside, but I need to hear it again and again and again.  People may also misinterpret this seeking as weakness or neediness and weak we are not.  Because, in the end, all seekers, including myself, know how brilliant we are.

Others show their love through criticism. You know who you are.  Let's call these types the fixers of the universe.  These people love to tell others what they are doing wrong and think they are being helpful.  Yet, what the fixers don't realize is that this helpfulness can be taken to heart as criticism as opposed to friendly advice.  For whatever reason, I gravitate to these fixer type personalities probably because I am a hot stinking mess most days.  If not for my husband, I would wear my clothes inside out.  I guess what I am saying is that these types need to temper their criticism with some compliments and tell me how great I am (or whoever they are talking to, but shit, we all know this is all really about me).

And then, there are the silent types.  Those who just listen.  I will call these types the thinkers of the world.  I like these people because I like to talk.  The problem with these "thinkers" is that they may have an agenda and they will never voice it.  This kind of person is dangerous for me and other seekers of validation because they may use our information against us and us seekers just blab on and on never knowing we are harming ourselves in the process.  

That's all I got.  Sometimes this blog is my way of thinking out loud and trying to make sense of the universe.

Till tomorrow. Or the day after.