Trax! Whaddya want?

I've been trying to find my spirit, my 18 year old spirit. At least that's what a very good friend of mine said, and I tend to think that's right. One of the ways I thought I would try to do that is by watching Pretty In Pink, my second favorite teenage angst movie of all time. In case you were wondering it falls behind only The Breakfast Club.

I watched Pretty In Pink on Wednesday night. God, I love this movie. Jon Cryer is inspiring as Duckie Dale and growing up I wanted to be Molly Ringwald so bad.

I was an Eastsider as they called me, so I felt I could identify with Ringwald's Andie in this film. She was from the other side of the tracks. She created divine ensembles from her own hands with the help of second hand stores, she drove a pink car, and wore hats. I worshipped her.

I would push my small tape recorder up against the speakers on the TV and make audio tapes of this film so I could listen to it in bed at night. In the summer when I went up north with my Grandparents I would act out one particular scene far out off the shore of Houghton Lake where no one could hear me.

"Andie it's after eight, don't waste good lipgloss!"

"Blaine? His name is Blaine? That's a major appliance that's not a name!"

Loved it all including, "Blow me buttwad, coming from you I take that as a compliment!"

I think I can find my spirit by doing simple things I enjoy like watching "Pretty in Pink", it seemed to help on Wednesday night. In this process I am also partaking in things more complex, and that's a struggle for me. "Where is my head?" I keep asking myself.

But then I return to Andrew McCarthy's classic line to James Spader, "That's it isn't Steph? She thinks your shit and deep down you know she's right." If we could all just recognize the shit, then life would just be so much less complex and our spirits would soar.