So it is clear that my attention to this blog has fallen by the wayside the last few years. There are many reasons for that including, but not limited to: a real, non-imaginary-man boyfriend, a house and a dog.
There is another reason that will be far more interesting to you which is that I have been writing a book! If you’ve liked what goes on here (when things were, you know, actually going on) then I guarantee you will like
Today is the 59th anniversary of James Dean’s death. The man would be 83 years old now and who knows what he would have done with his life and career had he survived a car crash. He may have gotten fat or bald, made terrible movies or been hawking products in TV commercials. Instead he is frozen in time just like this:
Eternally young, handsome and cool. Recently my boyfriend and I watched East of Eden because we were going to the central California coast where the movie is set. I watched Dean’s movies a lot when I was a teenager and spent most of that time alternately swooning and grieving that he was so stunningly beautiful and so tragically dead. Watching it now with an adult perspective I really appreciated how incredibly talented he was and how he certainly was one of the first true archetypes of the Wounded Misunderstood Man Child Who Just Wants to be Loved that so many of us are drawn to (paging Dr. Doug Ross, looking at you Tim Riggins.)
On our trip we drove out to Cholame where Dean died and is memorialized around a shady tree next to a diner right out of a movie set. The first time I saw it in the early 90’s there had been small sort of cameos of his face as part of the memorial that had been filled over with plastic to keep them preserved. But over the years fans had chipped away at the plastic attempting to get to the image underneath. Those were no longer there and I figured that this long gone, not many people stop there to see the memorial anymore.
Inside the Jack Ranch Cafe next door with its walls covered in Dean memorabilia, country music playing in the kitchen and warm cherry cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream we learned from our waitress that every single day people still come in there because of James Dean. EVERY. DAY. That’s some pretty amazing longevity for someone who is probably more well-known by Kids Today for merchandise with his face on it rather than his film work or cult of celebrity.
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So rest in peace James Dean – nearly six decades gone and we’re still watching you, talking about you and looking for you.
Today I discovered the feature on Facebook that lets you look at an archive of your old posts and status updates. I randomly selected April 2012 and scanned through to see that I sure posted a lot about food, Downton Abbey and Ewan McGregor!
I also found a status I posted on a day I clearly remember for a very important reason:
I have been so useless today. I’m supposed to go out now even though I’d rather go to bed, I’m so exhausted by my uselessness ;-p
That Saturday is still very vivid in my mind: I wasted a lot of time doing nothing at my apartment. Then I went grocery shopping and in the parking lot I ordered out and picked up my dinner on my way home (I was too lazy to cook what I just bought!) then I got comfy on my couch eating take-out and catching up on my DVR. I was due to go see my friend’s band at 10PM and that’s probably near when I posted this.
I really did NOT want to go but I was a single girl with no good excuse to bail on seeing friends on a Saturday night. The gig was about 5 minutes from my house and I could be home in two hours tops.
And that’s what happened – despite being cranky and texting on my phone a cute guy bravely walked up to me to say hi and introduced himself and like that – my life changed forever. I would have missed out on meeting The World’s Best Boyfriend and nearly a year’s worth of discovering what it really means to meet that one person who is your perfect fit because I thought getting out of comfy pants and away from Revenge was too much effort.
You want to know something Miss Josephine Potter? I think the world just may surprise you yet. I mean you fall in love, and it doesn’t work out, you think it will never happen, but it does, believe me it does, in the strangest of places.
So what’s my lesson here? 1. Always Listen to Pacey!! and 2. Get off your ass and make things happen. Sweet, handsome, loving, supportive-of-your-Boy-Band-obsession-bring-you-cookies-and-make-you-dinner-guys don’t just knock on your door and ask if you’re available!! You have to do the work and put in the time and sometimes whether it’s a project, job, goal or a boy – really lovely things happen.
My favorite part of the book may have been the section where John talks about how the fandom started taking off for the band in the early 80’s and how the fangirls operated:
What began to happen was that girls aligned themselves with their favorite Duran star. Some gangs of friends formed subgroups of five, mirroring us where each friend could have a favorite Duran without stepping on the toes or desires of the other four friends, because if you were an Andy fan, clearly you could not be friends with another Andy fan. That would not work. You could be friends with a Nick fan, however, because there was no conflict of interest. Both friends could live together in harmony with Nick and Andy on that designated fantasy desert island for ever and ever, without a hint of envy.
OH MY GOD THIS IS SO TRUE!! (except for the fact that he thought there were “Andy Fans” – as if!) This is a very delicate but important rule in Fangirling: Do Not Pick the Same Crush as Your Friend(s). The first to claim their boy gets dibs on that boy in perpetuity and no – you may not crush on him, plan imaginary weddings with him, or write your name as it would appear if married to him in your notebook.
A true friend will recognize this and honor the code, picking the next available boy (but never Andy 😉 )
A few weeks ago I was in NYC for the day and discovered that One Direction has their own store!
Apparently it is a “pop-up store” which means it’s not permanent and is probably cashing in on the current 1D hysteria/Christmas shopping season. And while that’s lovely for all the One Directions fans I want to know how come we never had a Backstreet Boys Store?!?!? We had to make our own damn Christmas stockings and nesting dolls!
In related news I’ve decided that Pretty Boy Louis Tomlinson is who my Inner 14 YO girl would be writing “Mrs. Louis Tomlinson” all over her notebooks for. However, my actual grown-ass woman self wishes he’d do something about his hair:
Kids Today probably don’t know Louganis very well but I L-O-V-E-D him! Not only was he beautiful with that gorgeous body – but he was an incredible and graceful athlete. He won 4 gold medals and excelled at both springboard and platform. And not only that but in 1988 at the Olympics in Seoul he hit his head on the board and then less than an hour later got back up and not only dived again but later went on to win a gold medal. Did you catch that? He won a gold medal diving off a high platform and hitting water at a crazy speed WITH A HEAD WOUND!!!
That’s some impressive sportsmanship. I saw him in the audience for the Men’s Synchronized Diving this week and squealed when I saw him. I will always heart Greg Louganis – Original Olympic Boyfriend!
The best thing about being an Out and Proud Fangirl is that friends think of you whenever they see something about one of your crushes that they know you will like.
For example – recently I was alerted by two different girlfriends on the same day that I needed to see this photo of Ewan McGregor in the latest InStyle:
All I know is that I am very excited for this new album and probably just as excited to see this pouty faced pretty boy back in denim and styling products:
she liked Imaginary Men best of all 