Hand Dancing

I am almost done with my next post (trying to blog on the regular these days!) but for today I just want to share this:



BECAUSE IT'S SO AWESOME!

Jeremy Irons

Totally at random, I found this wonderful entry at "The Selvedge Yard" about the style of Jeremy Irons.

While I realize that he was styled for practically every shot used in this entry on him as a style icon, and I tend to be more fascinated with the style of people like - for example - Marlene Dietrich (who was fastidiously in control of every aspect of her own presentation at all times) because THEY are the person creating the style and selecting the clothing...

God, Jeremy Irons just knows how to wear clothing, doesn't he? There is something fabulous about how he wears the clothes... about how he wears HIS BODY, at all times.



I actually held onto all the ads he did for Donna Karan.
Another thing to dig out from my vaults.

Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire Revisited

As I mentioned yesterday, I've wrote my original post regarding Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire a while ago.

Then I answered it here.

But that was four years ago. A lot has happened in four years. So I've been working on doing it again. As a little exercise. Just to see how much I've changed.

As I said before, the trick is to answer honestly with yourself - not trying to impress your potential reader. I actually also keep a file of these from old issues of Vanity Fair, so I'm thinking I may pull some of them out and scan them in to share in the coming months. I love reading what Tom Waits and Edward Gorey and Shirley MacLaine had to say. It's fascinating to me.

The Questionnaire:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Freedom from material worry ...and living in an enormous house surrounded by the people I love.

What is your greatest fear?
To die without having done everything

What historical figure do you most identify with?
I'm not sure I identify with anyone

Which living person do you most admire?
Tom Waits

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
my need to be liked

What trait do you most deplore in others?
Pretension... and being quick to judge

What is your greatest extravagance?
Time. When I let myself have any.

On what occasion do you lie?
To protect someone

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My size... I'm not big, but I yearn to be tiny.

What is your favorite journey?
from knowing nothing about someone to knowing everything

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
stoicism... and chastity

Which living person do you most despise?
Glenn Beck

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"Awesome." "I'm sorry."

What is your greatest regret?
the time I didn't spend with the loved ones who are now gone

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Until now... the man who climbed Mount Desert Island with me and caught me when I fell coming back down...

But my life isn't over yet. And I have hope.

When and where were you happiest?
In a hotel room in Boston watching someone sleep roughly a decade ago

In Western Australia, driving to see my Aunt and Uncle in Perth with my fantastic, absurd, brilliant 18 year old Aussie cousin who is like my long-lost brother and realizing I was somewhere I belonged.

Which talent would you most like to have?
To be a tremendous athlete and dancer

What is your current state of mind?
ready

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would be more athletic and more motivated.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
Christmas

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
probably a worried little hen. Or a bear.

If you could choose what or who to come back as, what would it be?
A great dancer

What do your consider your greatest achievement?
The lives I have had a positive impact on

What is your most treasured possession?
My grandmother's engagement ring

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Witnessing the death of a friend or loved one who is not yet old

What is your most marked characteristic?
my red hair, my (almost compulsive) need for everyone to be happy and safe and okay

What is the quality you most like in a man?
decisiveness, honor, kindness

What is the quality you most admire in a woman?
warmth, confidence, kindness

What do you most value in your friends?
loyalty, a lack of judgment, acceptance

Who are your favourite writers?
A.A. Milne, Tom Robbins, Terry Pratchett, Harlan Ellison, Jane Austen, Cormac McCarthy

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
Jamie Fraser
(Go ahead, make fun. I don't care.)

Who are your heroes in real life?
One of my friends who died last year - she ran toward danger when every other person was running away. I hope to have that strength of character in my life in the moments when I have no time to think about my choices.

What are your favourite names?
Christopher, Grace, Gabriel, Michael, Dougal, Colin, Lorelei...

What is it that you most dislike?
getting out of bed on a rainy morning, yelling of any sort

How would you like to die?
Many decades from now, in the arms of someone who loves me

What is your motto?
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting their own battle.

I didn't re-read the old one first and looking at them both - some things obviously have knee-jerk automatic answers... But I feel like so much has changed. I love this exercise. Sometimes so much happens that you come out the other end different. I think I am different. But in a good way. Or at least mostly in good ways.

It's kind of reassuring to look at the changes in yourself and walk away from it thinking that, on the whole, you're happy with them.

The Dame Questionnaire!

I'm working on answering the Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire again. Now, I'm no Proust (then again, when it comes to questionnaires, neither was Proust. The Proust questionnaire is famously named for him because he ANSWERED two questionnaires rather notably when he was young - not because they were his idea). OBVIOUSLY. But working on that questionnaire got me thinking. I have questions. I have a lot of questions, actually. I narrowed them down to the ones I would most like to ask, the ones I would submit to someone, were it socially acceptable, upon first meeting them. Some of the ones that are most interesting to me.

I realize it's very presumptuous to put together a questionnaire, but these are just some of the the things I wonder about how and why people tick. I'd love it if someone chose to answer (post me a link, or if you don't have a blog - you're welcome to answer in my comments), but I'll probably just use it as an inventive new way to harass my sister. I can email her the questions to her one at a time when I'm having a slow day at work. I wonder how many I can send before she calls to ask why I'm torturing her with my incessant questioning.

Also: I am going to post links when people let me know they have answered the questionnaire - so you can view answering blog posts to the dame Questionnaire at:
The Chick Voice's At Altitude
cookiegeisha at The Death of Glitter
Lenore Kay at Pugs Can't Fly

Ideally - answer as simply, as quickly, and as honestly as possible. That's where the fun really lies in a questionnaire. In having an honest conversation with yourself.

Dame's Questionnaire

(imagine jazz hands here... and maybe a snappy drum intro)

What fictional person, place or thing would you make real, were it in your power?

What do you find comforting?

What makes you almost hold your breath in excitement?

What offends you?

What always makes you smile?

How are you in a crisis?

What is your most unusual or rare quality?

What woman has had the strongest impact on your life?

What fictional character did you love most or identify most closely with as a child?

What's the strangest job you ever had?

What's the hardest job you ever had?

If you could relive any moment in your life, which would it be?

Who was your first crush on?

What song makes your heart sing?

What book do you never tire of?

If you could live in a book, which book would it be?

What film have you watched the most times?

What film do you quote most often?
(Actually quote, not wish you were clever enough to quote regularly and INTEND to quote. What do you ACTUALLY quote?)

What film's dialog do you love most?

What poem or line of poetry resonates with you most strongly?

What famous quote do you repeat or refer to most frequently?

If you could (or had to) freeze your physical self at one age, what would it be?

What view would you choose if you could have any view from your bedroom window?

What one thing would you give to everyone you know if you could?

If you could be a tremendous success at any one thing, what would it be?

What, if anything, do you hesitate to do for fear of looking silly or being laughed at?

Who would you choose if you could talk to anyone who is no longer alive for an hour?

If you wrote your will, who would you leave your most prized possession to?

What sentence did you never say to someone, but wish you had?

What do you most like getting the opportunity to say?

When have you laughed the longest or the most?

Whose face is your favorite face?

Where do you feel safest?

When do you feel most yourself?

What makes you nostalgic?

What is the best lesson you have learned in life?

I pared this down by a few questions because I felt it was too long. And too repetitive. I'd ask you 50 questions about film and never tire. Also, I can only email my sister so many questions before she just goes insane... ;)

How to Write Again

Obviously I'm having trouble with this. Life got hectic. Then I lost someone. Then I lost a few more people and this got so much harder to do.

I guess it just feels trite sometimes. Useless. Self-important.

I'll be walking down the aisle in the grocery store and start thinking about some topic and I'll just ramble on and on about it in my head but as soon as I sit down to write... it seems hollow and silly.

A friend and I were talking today and she has had a hard year or so. And I have had a hard couple of years. And she was talking about a crush she had on someone and then she stopped and looked up at me and said, "But this is stupid. It's so unimportant. It feels stupid to even think about it." Because, in the grand scheme of things, a crush on a stranger or fleeting thoughts about life, the universe and everything that come to you in a grocery store aisle... well, it all starts to seem a little trivial by comparison.

But I'm determined to get writing again. Even if it means subjecting Tracey (my most patient and faithful supporter) to terrible drivel.

I can't tell the drivel from the revelations any longer. I think all the time. And when you'd give anything to hear a person's voice again... suddenly small things can seem so large, can't they?

How do I separate the trivial and the tremendous?

The thing is - I can't. And for a little while, that may have to just be okay.

Just Like Starting Over

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

I've always been fascinated by the idea of living a more spare life, finding a way to live without being surrounded by excess material possessions. I try to purge unnecessary belongings. I try to organize and simplify my life. It goes in cycles, every six months or so I am swept up in a fit of frenzy to clear the excess baggage from my life... in this last year that urge - and the sense that I am too tied down by things - has just grown and the need to pare away the unessential comes upon me with far greater frequency.

When I wrote this old post, I was just moving into my current home. It's been a good nest. A place to heal wounds after a painful and complicated breakup. A place to become myself again and get my bearings. But the last year has brought a lot of changes to how I see the world. I don't feel safe all alone in this house. Incongruously, I've gained a fearlessness in my approach to taking chances that I can only attribute to having lost so much - eventually you start trying things because little failures, embarrassments and inconveniences that you once found daunting are small and insignificant in the face of so much tragedy. I overcame my fear of traveling across the world to meet my family. Joined a local performance troupe that does edgy humor - something far outside my normal comfort zone. I'm working on overcoming my fear of public singing. And I think I'm ready to genuinely let go of the life I built in this house and start anew.

I have an opportunity to move to a much smaller space - an unused studio apartment in the back of an old friend's home. The offer was prompted by her desire to help me set aside savings so that I will be able to buy my own house - something I want dearly to do - but the result will be that I spend the next year in a very beautiful but very small space. Right now I live in a fully furnished two bedroom house. In my new home I will be surrounded by gorgeous views and have a private porch and sit in my bed and look out into vast forest, but I will also cook on a hotplate and have to pare away well over half of what I own.

I'm terrified. And exhilarated.

I once told a friend that, when making life decisions, I wait and listen to my gut reaction. I listen for that little thrill of fear and excitement. A singing of nervousness that ripples through me when I stand in front of a change and some part of my knows that this is what I must do. Because that's where the great fear comes from - from that knowledge. From seeing what must be undertaken.

Since I feel like I'm building myself again - from the ground up - I think going through a similar exercise with my life will be just the thing I need. So I am staring at my books. My furniture. My television. My dishes. My rows of shoes... Deciding what I can live without.

So far, I'm feeling like I can probably live without everything except the bunnies, the books and the shoes.

I feel that rush of adrenaline. I think I'm ready to leap.

"A little simplification would be the
first step toward rational living, I think."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Unconditional

So the last year (the last two years, really..) have been difficult and insane and I kind of feel like I'm starting over from scratch. Like anything extraneous about the person I was has been seared away and I'm sitting down and trying to sort out what's left.

In the midst of this, the people in my life have changed. The people who find tragedy too overwhelming (or who don't have the patience for the fact that I average 4 months to return a phone call these days) have fallen away. But the friendships that HAVE survived have become stronger. And some support has come from places that seem surprising. People I barely knew when this happened. Family I had never met before this past year. And teh interwebs! Sometimes it's still funny to me how you can bond with people you never meet... but it makes sense in a way that this place where I put my thoughts and my lessons and my laughter has led me to some amazing people.

Tracey at Beyond the Pale always checks in with me and gives me someone safe to talk to (Thank you!)

And I don't think Greg, Sheila or Nina hane any idea how much it improves my day to hear from them and keep track of them via their blogs.

I drew into myself a great deal this year, and it was often misinterpreted as a desire to be left alone. As I explained it to one friend: I want to connect, but I don't know how anymore. I want to know that my friends are there and care about me, but I may not be able to talk. And sometimes the hardest thing in the world is picking up the telephone. Sometimes talking to the people I am closest to is far more difficult than talking to people who don't know what happened - because I can't hide things from the people who matter the most.

So she started sending cards to me every week. For MONTHS. How amazing is that? This weekly reminder that you matter enough to someone that they will just send you love. And know that you love them back without requiring anything in return? Those cards have been such a blessing.

One friend called me weekly for the first few months after the shooting and just left messages. Crazy messages. He told stories. He went on for as long as the voice mail system would let him. About silly things. Dreams. Monkeys. Anthropomorphic brooms.

My family in Australia had me come visit them and I fell in love with a big group of virtual strangers who took care of me and showed me their world and just let me in and loved me as if I'd been there all along. (I have to write about that trip. I'm not certain I even have the words to write about it. It was so important to me. I found a new home. Part of me feels like I belong on the other side of the planet.)

So I guess I'm saying: If, and when, you have friends experiencing profound loss - I know it's hard to know what to do. It's awkward. You don't know what they need and nothing makes it okay. We all know that. Just love them. The most amazing gift is to be shown love in ways that ask nothing in return. Love without conditions. Love that accepts that you are not yourself. Love that will be there when you put yourself back together again.

Sometimes the only light at the end of the tunnel was knowing that there were people who hadn't given up on me.

There have been people there to give me that and, in that, I am so blessed.

Therapy

So I'm seeing a therapist.

Four people in my life died violent deaths in the last two years. Three of them died in front of me. So... yeah. TOTALLY not feeling shy about the therapy thing. Feel a little funny when I hear people sigh in relief that I'm finally trying this out, mind you, but feel pretty certain that no one's gonna razz me for getting myself over to see a shrink.

My therapist is kind of great.

He's actually the second one I've tried. The first one specialized in trauma. Oddly enough, this made her pretty much useless to me. I think this is because I'm not your average trauma therapy patient. Since my first session has to start with what is essentially me listing the exhaustive number of bizarre traumatic things that have occurred in my life, I'm not the type for pussyfooting around. It's old hat enough that I'm pretty matter-of-fact about it. I don't need to be coddled. The first therapist was very worried about "re-traumatizing" me by letting me talk about the very thing I had come to see her to talk about.

Trauma is NOT my new therapist's specialty. And that's okay. I'm talking to SOMEONE. Which is good. And I'm sorting through things... which means having to feel them. I'll admit, I'm not 100% sold on this part of the process being a good idea. But in the end I'm moving forward in some way, shape or form. I think THAT part is very good. Instead of being in some sort of grief-shock stasis at all times. I guess it says a lot when crying at the drop of a hat and having lots of nightmares is progress. Buy hey! I'm doing something.

Doc referred to me as a "statistical anomaly" the other day - citing the fact that most people have some trauma and tragedy in life, but there are some oddities who either never experience any trauma or experience a disproportionate amount of it. You know which one I am. I found this oddly reassuring. Like being told you aren't crazy. I wanted to shake his hand. "So it's not just my imagination that this is a little excessive? Ok, good. I was hoping it wasn't just my imagination."

I kind of felt like looking up at the sky and saying, "See? He thinks I've had more than my share, too."

Lately I just find the whole world to be overwhelming. Which makes sense. All my resources are going to just, you know, getting out of bed in the morning. Holding my brain in place in spite of the fact that the last two years are actually real and sooner or later I'm going to have to allow that to sink in fully. All this admirable fortitude and getting out of bed and all takes up a great many resources. Which means that any teeny tiny little additional thing that happens is one more thing than I have the energy or strength to cope with.

You SO don't want to see what happens if I stub my toe or get snapped at by a stranger in the supermarket check out line.

So the other day I'm filling Doc in on my week and whatever I currently feel I am completely incapable of surmounting and he says, "Well, It's just life. There's no right way to do it."

I know it sounds silly, but it was a genuine relief to have someone say such a simple thing to me.

So this is me, checking in. Still breathing and all that fancy stuff. Defying statistics. Muddling through.

And I can do this. I mean, hey - It's just life.

I Talk to Dead People

Maybe this isn't unusual. Maybe this is how a lot of people cope. I don't know. I've lost a lot of people over time, but this is new.

We're loading in tonight for the next show I'm working on at my theater. I'm not what you would call a handy person. I'm good with a paintbrush and so far I haven't permanently injured anyone with any of the power tools. I maintain that it is only a matter of time.

So tonight I've got a project to complete and I cannot complete this project with the use of the staple gun. I root around in the tool closet in the back of the theater. Find what I think is a staple gun. Locate staples. Try to load them into the gun. They fall out. I try again. Same result. I look at the fine print on the side of said gun. It says, "Load nails here." Ok. Wrong tool.

I go back. Find another thing that looks like a staple gun to me. Actually locate the word "staple" somewhere on it. Satisfied I have the right tool, attempt to find the place that the staples go in. After about five minutes of struggling and pulling at different bits of metal and trying to pop SOME PART of this thing open I am FED UP. I don't know a damn thing about any of this. I cannot remember this ever being so hard. I have never been so frustrated at the theater before and I OWN A STAPLE GUN AT HOME that I know how to use. I am beside myself.

Then it hits me. Standing in the tool closet, away from the 20 other cast and crew members who are noisily painting and drilling and sawing out on the stage I have a sudden moment of clarity. At set calls, I would come to Allan. I would hold the offending power tool or doohickey out to him and say, "Make it do." He would stop whatever he was doing and come and set up the tool, walk me through how to use it, pat me on the head and go back to what he had been doing. Eventually we got to where there were no words. I would hold it out and frown, he would smile because he liked being needed. He would walk through the steps and hand it back. I'd lean against him for a moment in a no-armed sort of hug. And work would begin again. A cooperative ballet as we built. He who knew everything, I who knew nothing. We had a rhythm when we worked together.

And tonight I stood in that tool shed and felt so lost. My partner is gone. I stared at the tools, tears rolling down my face, and just started talking to him... something I do a lot these days.

What will I do without you?

How will this ever feel right again?

Do you know how hard this is?

Are you here? Are you gone?

Do you know how much I love you?

I need you here. I need you with me.

I can't make this fucking staple thing work.

I'm useless without you.

God I miss you.

----------------------

There's another set going up. Another set he wasn't here to help build. Another set none of them were here to help build. And it isn't the same. And sometimes it's so damn hard. The theater is my home. It's where my heart lives. It's where my friends died. It's where I talk to them. It's where I'm trying to heal.

I found someone to help me. I finished my project. I'm going back tomorrow to touch it up and then we begin dress rehearsal.

The shows will open. The work will get done. I will heal.

It would be faster if he were here, though.
He knew how to fix anything.

One More Time, My Homage to John Hughes

I originally wrote What I Learned From John Hughes in March of 2007. My complaint, while in jest, was made to express primarily one thing: John Hughes had an impact on my formative years and my personal development through an art form that is dear to my heart. His films may not have been high art but they accomplished something that great art aspires to: they touched us, they let us know we weren't alone at a time when we most needed that message, and in some strange way they even changed us and impacted the people we became. What a strange, significant and lasting mark to have made on the world he left behind.

So here it is, one more time:

What I Learned From John Hughes

I have a friend who has a pet theory about John Hughes films. He says that John Hughes is responsible for 75% of all the relationship problems our generation has experienced because he destroyed our ability to realistically assess romantic situations and relationships. My friend may be on to something.

I started thinking about the John Hughes films of my teenage years and the impact they had on my impressionable, puberty muddled brain. For the purposes of this review, I consider THE John Hughes films to be:

Sixteen Candles (1984) JH wrote and directed
The Breakfast Club (1985) JH wrote, directed and produced
Weird Science (1985) JH wrote and directed
Pretty In Pink (1986) JH wrote and produced
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) JH wrote, directed and produced
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) JH wrote and produced


And, for better or worse, this is what I learned:

Just be yourself.

"Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself."
- Matthew Broderick, Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Every Hughes film touches on this. Andie is the quirky, weird girl in Pretty in Pink and WE LOVE HER FOR IT. Garry and Wyatt in Wierd Science meet girls who like them as they are. Ferris Bueller dances to his own drummer. He isn't the star quarterback or president of the student counsel. He has his own unique sense of style... and he's the most popular guy in school. Maybe in the city. He's a freaking legend. In Some Kind of Wonderful, Watts never changes. She stays a tomboy who plays drums and works on cars - and eventually Keith realizes how amazing she is JUST AS HERSELF. John Hughes let us in on the secret that being yourself was really where it was at.

"You had to be big shots didn't you. You had to show off. When are you gonna learn that people will like you for who you are, not for what you can give them."
- Kelly LeBrock, Lisa, Wierd Science

Stick to your principles.

"If somebody doesn't believe in me, I can't believe in them."
- Molly Ringwald, Andie, Pretty in Pink

I swear I learned half of my stubborn willingness to sacrifice anything to stick to my principles from my father and half from John Hughes films. From early on, I knew I should never accept anything less than what I deserved. I never let anyone tell me I wasn't good enough. I have always been honest and direct to a fault. A lot of that is my dad. But a lot of that is Andie and Duckie. And Watts and Keith.

"You remember how I said I'd rather be with someone for the wrong reason than alone for the right one? Well, I'd rather be right."
- Lea Thompson, Amanda Jones, Some Kind of Wonderful

Everyone finds love.

Sam and Jake Ryan. The Athlete and the Basket Case. Andie and Blaine. Keith and Watts. Farmer Ted and Caroline. Duckie and Kristy Swanson. Long Duck Dong and that really tall girl. These films taught us that, no matter who you are, there is someone out there for you. I'm not sure that's really a universal truth, but it's a nice message. It's reassuring. No matter how insecure I was in high school, I never doubted for a moment that someday a boy would love me. Someday an incredibly cute boy was going to come along and realize that I was the most amazing girl he had ever met. John Hughes told me so.

... And everyone just wants to be loved.

"I want a serious girlfriend. Somebody I can love, that's gonna love me back. Is that psycho?"
- Michael Schoeffling, Jake Ryan, Sixteen Candles

To me, this was brilliant new insight into the world. Beautiful, popular Jake Ryan wanted to find someone to love him just as much as Sam wanted to find that. Claire kisses John Bender in the closet and suddenly he isn't so tough, after all. Blaine may be rich and popular, but what he really needs is for Andie to love him and forgive him. This was a tremendous equalizer. People made a lot more sense once I understood this.

"I believed in you. I just didn't believe in me. I love you. always."
- Andrew McCarthy, Blaine, Pretty In Pink

We're not really all that different.

"We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all."
- Emilio Estevez, Andrew / The Athlete, Breakfast Club

Another popular message from Hughes, and probably the most consistent. All of his films lead you back to the idea that the geek and the jock and the rich girl and the tomboy - they all have insecurities. They all screw up. They all worry. They all want someone to love them. They all have imperfect families. They all had problems in high school. It's nice to know.

"Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place."
- Judd Nelson, John Bender / The Criminal, The Breakfast Club

The best guys are geeks and/or hard-core individualists.

"I feel compelled to mention to you, Jake, that if all you want of the girl is a piece of ass, I mean, I'll either do it myself, or get someone bigger than me to kick your ass. I mean, not many girls in contemporary American society today would give their underwear to help a geek like me."
- Anthony Michael Hall, Farmer Ted, Sixteen Candles

I have JH to thank for a lifetime of falling for the most interesting guy in the room. John Bender. Duckie. Cameron. Keith (I still have SUCH a crush on Eric Stoltz). Pretty boys have their work cut out when it comes to me. Instead, I fall for the rebel, the artist, the geek, the guy who has the guts to wear crazy vintage shoes and knows all the words to "Try A Little Tenderness." Super shy men or men who make me laugh or guys who look like trouble from a mile away. It's never the all-american average joe for me. If something isn't wildly different about him, I'll probably never notice him at all. In a John Hughes film, that character is the most appealing. He taught us to love the oddball.

Oddballs and rebels everywhere owe John Hughes big time.

"I know I'm old enough to be his mother, but when the Duck laid that kiss on me last night, I swear my thighs just went up in flames! He must practice on melons or something."
- Annie Potts, Iona, Pretty in Pink

If you want someone badly enough,
they will love you back.

This is where John Hughes caused a LOT of trouble. Sam pining for Jake Ryan. Garry and Wyatt pining for... well, for ANY actual girl. Andie pining for Blake. Watts pining for Keith. John Hughes taught us that the most unlikely romances can work out, and that WANTING IT seems to be the magic ingredient. As my friend is fond of ranting, this has caused no end of trouble. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride. But they aren't. Crushes don't always work out. Frequently they end in tears instead of candle-lit birthday cakes on top of dining room tables with hunky boys. But Mr. Hughes left that part out.

"That's why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they'd call them something else."
- Paul Dooley, Jim Baker / Sam's Dad, Sixteen Candles

Date and make friends outside your social circle / peer group.

There's just a lot of class line crossover in John Hughes films. The geek boy doesn't fall in love with a geek girl. The criminal doesn't meet a great chick who has a pierced nose and a wicked tattoo. They all find love in the unlikely places. So that's where you're apparently supposed to look. I'm not sure it makes sense to teach teens that Mr. Right is almost never going to be the guy you have everything in common with... but I met a lot of interesting people thanks to it. In the midst of exploring outside my comfort zone for nifty boys, I made many great friends I might never have met otherwise. At least insofar as it applies to making friends (remember Molly Ringwald doing Ally Sheedy's make-up in Breakfast Club? I loved that.), it's sound advice. I just don't think EVERY romance needed to be across class lines. The closest he ever came to bringing two people together who were on the same side of the tracks was Watts and Keith. And I liked them together. But they were the exception to the rule. Which leads me to...

The person you're meant to be with
may be right under your nose.

"Don't go mistaking paradise for a pair of long legs."
- Mary Stuart Masterson, Watts, Some Kind of Wonderful

Sometimes the best relationship is the one you end up having with a friend. Maybe instead of looking for the perfect face, you should be looking for an incredible person. Someone who already likes you for who you are. This is the case for Watts and Keith and it was supposed to be the case for Duckie and Andie (and WAS the case in the original ending, but was booed by audiences and didn't serve the rich man / poor man agenda of the film). Honestly, I always figured that Andie was going to regret that one day. It's nice that she got what she wanted and all, but even on his best day, Blaine was no Duck-man. Duckie was the greatest guy EVER. So Pretty In Pink taught me not to make the mistake Andie did, or that Keith ALMOST did. Pay attention, or you might miss out on someone like Duckie. And men like that come along once in a lifetime. If you're lucky.

A certain lack of respect for authority is healthy.

"Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions."
- Anthony Michael Hall, Brian Johnson / The Brain, The Breakfast Club

Teachers and parents everywhere had John Hughes to thank for low-level rebellion becoming more socially acceptable. Really wild kids were going to act out anyway, but John Hughes taught the tamer kids that questioning authority (and the wisdom of being stuck inside on a perfectly nice sunny day) wasn't really bad. It was just logical. But honestly, John Hughes films are probably the healthiest and safest place for a teen to learn that some rules just need to be broken.

Of course, JH never covered the consequences of rebellion in any detail. He left out the part about how you end up grounded for most of your senior year because your DAD doesn't agree that it's reasonable to skip school to spend the day running around with your beautiful, trouble-maker boyfriend just because it was SUCH a gorgeous day outside...
But I'm not bitter (and, admittedly, don't regret it at all).

"I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong, I'm going to defend it."
- Alan Ruck, Cameron, Ferris Bueller's

Relax. Have fun. Spontaneity is it's own reward.

"Wyatt, you're going to have a heart attack by the time you're forty if you don't learn to relax."
- Kelly LeBrock, Lisa, Weird Science

"It's called a sense of humor - you should get one - they're nice."
- John Cryer, Duckie, Pretty In Pink

Value the moment. Enjoy your youth. Do the thing you are afraid to do. The rewards can be great, and if nothing else at least you lived fully. After all, look at Claire and Bender. He kissed her back. There is a lesson the be learned there.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it."
- Matthew Broderick, Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Oh, and almost everything happens in Shermer, Illinois.

John Hughes grew up in Northbrook, Illinois. Which was once known as Shermerville. His high school was located on Shermer Road. Thus the fictitious suburban town of Shermer, Illinois is born. An homage to his own home town, Shermer, Illinois is featured as an imaginary suburb of Chicago in several John Hughes movies, including Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink and National Lampoon's Vacation. Also, the high schools in The Breakfast Club, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller's Day Off are all named Shermer High School. There's more on Shermer at The John Hughes Files.

This isn't actually something I learned per se.
I just remember being 14 and wanting to know where Shermer, Illinois was.

John Hughes
February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009

I want to say thank you.

For a redheaded character who WAS the pretty girl. For the hope that someone like Jake Ryan might exist. For an awkward tomboy who got her man. For John Cryer lip syncing to Otis Redding, a moment in film so glorious to me that I never really recovered from it. For so very many characters I loved and performances that stayed with me. For the sense that the awkwardness, the angst and the insecurity I struggled with in my teenage years was such a universal experience that some guy was actually making films about it. Thank you for the laughter. Thank you for some of the most quotable dialog ever written. Thank you for the bubble gum of it all. Thank you for pop culture icons. Thank you for the glorious geeks and unforgettable rebels. Thank you for giving us Shermer, Illinois.