How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?

Happy Food Coma Day! (God, I love Thanksgiving. I'm going to have leftovers for brunch right after this...) Next year, I have a high school reunion--no, I'm not going to discuss which one it is, because it will make me seem incredibly old, even though I'm really not. (really!) Just thinking about it makes me feel like I've lived for a hundred years. (But I haven't!) Anyway, I've been thinking about the reunion and what music will be played there, and what music reminds me of my high school experience, and this song--"Forever Young" by Alphaville*--just sounds like that experience to me. There are songs that, for some reason, just ARE graduation songs. When they come out, every high school in the country chooses them, or should choose them, as the song played at graduation. "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day, for example. Or "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday" by Boyz II Men. Or "These Are The Day...

When I was in high school, some friends and I would often go to the underage clubs in Milwaukee. I don't remember any of the names specifically, but there were two or three of them. We would get dressed up in old black clothes (I remember with particular fondness a black velvet jacket I had, and a number of white shirts with lace ruffles) and put on dark eye makeup and dance until we could hardly stand. I suppose we were proto-goths, although we called ourselves New Romantics, after the British bands we listened to. It was at this club that I met Myke and his friends. They were older, edgier, cooler than we were, and they were city kids, unlike me and my friends. It didn't occur to me at the time to ask why Myke, who was 22, would be interested in a 16 year old girl like me, although, in hindsight, Myke wasn't the most mature guy I've ever dated. Perhaps we were evenly matched. Anyway, Myke and I started dating and one night, I went out with him and his friends,...

This afternoon while I was driving to pick up a pizza, I heard the song "Angel" by Aerosmith and had a little bit of a flashback. I was thirteen or so, no older than that, and I was in Palmyra, Wisconsin, visiting my friend Hope, who had moved away from our middle school the year before. It was January. She and I were on our way back to her house from a dance at her new school. One her friends, an older guy, maybe someone's older brother, was driving. He was someone's older brother, I think - I don't remember feeling any romantic vibes from him, ether towards me or Hope, although I could have been wrong. I wasn't always the best at picking up on those things. I don't remember his name. Anyway, we're driving home from the dance. I'm in the backseat, sitting sideways with my feet up, tired in the good way that you get tired from dancing your ass off the whole night. I'm sleepy, and happy to be with Hope, who I had missed a lot after she w...

I went to college in a small town in New Mexico because I got a scholarship to go there. Because it was such a small town, there wasn't a whole lot to do on the weekends besides go to parties and drink. This is not a bad thing. Concrete Blonde released their classic album, Bloodletting, in 1990, the year spanning my freshman and sophmore years. The song "Joey" about a failed and destructive relationship between the narrator and the title character is on this album, and it is awesome. It's every bad relationship you've ever had in 4 minutes and 10 seconds. Not surprisingly, it makes me think of this guy I used to know named Joey. Joey was beautiful - dark hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion like that found on maids in old poems, just beautiful. Joey and I never went out. We never had a bad relationship. He was a friendly acquaintance, in fact, the kind of guy I said hi to at parties and chatted with for a minute before seeking out more likely prospects. Joey also wa...