Vestibular Occupation
Posted: 25 May 2004 at 00:26:02
This weekend while Thom and I were in Wyoming, I made a comment to him about listening to him talk incessantly about a particular girl when we were teens and he shot right back at me about how it was worse for him because he had to listen to me talk about “Wendy”.
Wendy was a girl I was completely twitterpated about during eighth and ninth grade. She was in my same grade and was also in the “Gifted and Talented” program at our school with me and Thom (he was just “Tom” then, but that’s not important right now).
Last night, before I went to sleep, I was watching AMC’s presentation of Sixteen Candles—the 80s John Hughes film starring Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, and others.
So, I’m watching this show and Anthony Michael Hall’s character (The Geek) tries to “bag” Samantha (Ringwald) and fails spectacularly. He does all the wrong things, but it’s obvious he’s trying to do things he’s been told will “work” and is a bit confused why he’s not getting laid. And then there’s Samantha obsessively rehearsing what she’s going to say to Jake—the senior she has a crush on—and then she can’t say anything to him when they run into each other.
Let’s just say the film touched some nerves.
Anyway, Thom mentioning Wendy probably caused some information vestibule in my brain to explode and begin leaking Wendy everywhere. This, paired with a fresh viewing of a film featuring uncomfortably familiar scenes of adolescent relationships, and then followed by deep sleep... Well, it caused some very strange and vivid dreams all night long.
Of course, I occasionally wonder what Wendy is up to today. I never go much further than wondering because of how embarrassed I still am about my behavior in the mid 1980s.
How much has changed?
I was also discussing with Thom over the weekend how uncomfortable I am with even the thought of running into people I grew up with. I guess I am ashamed of who I was then— my behavior—my utter lack of rational, coherent relationship skills, my low self-esteem, etc.
I recently discovered there is a woman living in my neighborhood with whom I went to high school. We weren’t “close“ (but then again, I wasn’t close to any girls then), but I remembered who she was and she spoke with my wife about what she remembered about me. She said she remembered I was friends with Thom and that I was on stage crew and did the lighting for the plays and musicals.
Fast forward fourteen years. Somewhere along the way, I learned to talk to females and now I’m married to a woman and we have three children. I work out of my home doing computer programming and consulting. Okay? So, I’m not the stupid-ass dork I was then!
Ahh, but Thom and I are still pursuing our age-old dreams of the rock band. More and more I’m doing lights, video, and visualizations for the concerts. It’s almost like... nothing’s changed.
I know that’s not true. I’m not remotely the same as I was 16 years ago (and neither is Thom, for that matter!), but it would be easy for someone to look at that facet of my life and say, “Oh gawl, this guy is the same now as he was then.”
Maybe I should just chill and get some more work done.