Cringe

Tomorrow I am taking a massive chance in my favorite city. I'm taking the train to New York tomorrow, to do a couple of things and visit with a couple of lovely people, but really just to read at Sarah Brown's Cringe event.

I am the queen of Internet attention deficit disorder, and there are very, very few blogs I read on a daily basis. Lots I check in on a few times a week, but daily is reserved for People.com, Flickr, and Sarah. I don't remember where or how I discovered her, but since I did I have rarely skipped a day checking out her words or her pictures. She is the kind of writer I would like to be, in many ways, and in some ways hope I already am when I cut the crap. Plus she's funny, and she's cooler than you. Sorry, that didn't come out very nicely. But you know how it is.

Sarah started up this series a few years ago, and it's turned into a book for her and a potential tv pilot. The deal is that people get up on stage and read selections from their diaries/letters/journals/detritus in general from their teen years. Since this whole blog is sort of an exercise in self-disclosure, I figured early on that I had to participate in this. A three-hour trip is all that stood in the way of the world hearing the story that I wrote, actually on purpose - about my HUSBAND John Taylor from Duran Duran, and our honeymoon trip to an island somewhere. I think it might have been Anguilla, which I didn't know from Dallas, Texas at that point except that i knew that DURAN DURAN FILMED VIDEOS THERE and JOHN TAYLOR WAS THE BASS PLAYER AND I HAD A FEDORA LIKE HIS THAT I ACTUALLY WORE IN PUBLIC AND HE WAS MY MAN, SO SUCK IT SUPERMODELS. I'll just be over here in my Forenza sweatshirt with the (help) cabbage roses on it, orange Sun-In hair and fake Jordache jeans with the little hippo or unicorn or whatever they gave little fat girls on the pocket as a consolation prize. Also, he wore jazz shoes, and therefore so did I.

Someday I'm going to write a book, a collection of essays entitled: "The Really Low End: Me and the Rhythm Section." (and yes it'll be grammatically incorrect like that. So rock 'n roll.)

In searching for my JT story, which I still can't find, I located my Precious Moments diary. SHUT UP. I KNOW. And when I found it, I immediately spent like an hour delving into my crazy little brain, circa 1985. I read the part to my mom aloud about how much I hated my family because they left me at home when they went to see the Christmas lights at the Mormon Temple. And in case anyone wonders why I take everything super seriously, my mother looked at me gravely and said, seriously, "You really didn't hate us did you?" Even at 14, totally healthy adolescent hatred was unacceptable in our home.

I laughed out loud when I saw that I had written the actual address for the American Top 40 Long Distance Dedications in the inside front cover, in pencil, just above the ominously inked "PROPERTY OF LAURIE," which I had clearly very carefully inked over and over and over, in case the masses who would be dying for a peek inside the pink cover didn't get the message. I even had "Property of LAURIE" stickers on the facing page, like that I obviously bought at a store. Someone sold stickers like that. I would pay big bucks to have those back, I'd just walk around slapping them on everything at this point. They'd have come in seriously handy in some roommate situations, and at work. Except I'd have to add "bitches" in ink now, now that that word contains such weighted ironic power, unlike in 1985 when it just meant more than one bitch was all UP IN YOUR GRILL.

I rejected my neurosis that I really HADN'T progressed that much in 20 YEARS, and I went back to the days when two things made my world go round: John Taylor, and Dante Aguilar, a boy I went to grade school with, who sat behind me in 7th grade and sang "Sexual Healing" to me in his cracking, uber-sexy Bolivian accent. "Get-tup get-tup get-tup get-tup." Really, there was no one hotter than him, all 13 years old and rocking the Catholic school uniform. And I'm sure my Peter Pan collar and green plaid jumper was just as appealing.

All I can say is, that wherever Dante is, and whomever he's involved with/married to, I hope she loves him right, because no one could POSSIBLY have been as devoted to him (as a concept anyway - like I knew what to do with a real person at that point? Ha.) as I was. Sarah says the key to a good Cringe reading is if it makes you - yeah - CRINGE when you read it. Done, totally taken care of. Oh my God, cringing all the livelong day. Still cringing, in fact, inside. My longing emanates from the page. The resigned detachment, the rationalization that it was a good thing when he dated my BEST FRIEND. The almost-running-into-him-at-the-mall if I hadn't had to go to the damned LIMITED to return my FORENZA sweatshirt for an even bigger one with the cabbage roses on it. Anyway, more of the world will learn of him tomorrow than he ever imagined, and I hope he's cool with that. It's a good thing it's a fairly common name. I looked around on Facebook and the other options in the voyeuristic world of "social networking" and I think that might be him? But I'm not sure? And hi, could someone else send that message? That "Hey I wrote about you in my diary alot 20 years ago and now I'm going to read it aloud to a lot of people in a bar in Brooklyn" message? Cause I'm not gonna lie, I'm having a little trouble with the semantics on this one.

I am amazed that more of this book was not written in colored ink, however. I have a tendency to write in obnoxious Sharpie colors even now. (Hello. Am 12.)

So Sarah has held a slot for this craziness, and I can't wait. I'm sure I'll be the really nervous one. In fact, my eye is twitching a little already. If you see me, say a kind word. I can't promise I won't write about you though.

Comments

[Neil]

I don't even know you that well, but I can actually see you in that green plaid jumper! I'm sure your journal reading was a big hit. By tomorrow, all of Brooklyn will be talking about it.

[Erica]

Rock those Sharpies!
We didn't have the vast palette of colors way back when that we have now. I mean, I just got a Limited Edition pack of Rain Shower, Clover, Pumpkin, Rose and Violet. C'mon! Best Ever!

Uh... now I SO get the neurosis about not having progressed much in 20 years. *sigh* Me too.

Screw'em anyway, at least my pens make me happy. Love your Sharpies and be proud!

Did you take any pics to accompany your report on what a big hit your Cringe reading was?

[Sarah Brown]

Laurie, I'm so glad you came and read! You were hilarious. And thank you for the all the compliments here, my face is warm.