05 January 2001 ~ The Reagan years (or, Helena the kid)...

I woke up feeling sort of foul and melancholy. I think it's a touch of PMS.

I'd dreamed about a plane. I was on a plane, and this girl kept coming onto me, only she was really skanky and nasty. Then I was kissing someone, this guy, and the Skankchick kept whining, "if you don't kiss me, I'll tell your boyfriend you're kissing someone else!" I said to her, "Yeah, well, screw you. My boyfriend wouldn't hate me for it." Something like that. Whatever. She was skanky. I woke up, and couldn't think of anything except the plane in my dream. I wondered where it was going.

In an effort to clear my mind a little, I tried to think about George Washington's false teeth, a little trick I picked up from a Tom Robbins novel, but unfortunately, the only thing that came to mine was Ronald Reagan.

THAT put me in a foul mood.

I do not remember the Reagan years, as such. I remember playing in mud, sneaking to the top of the stairs to listen to the Twin Peaks music on TV, and falling off my first bike.

I was in a bar last night with Norman and his friend Elli, and she commented, "at least we know we're not rock stars since we've lived past the age of 27." (Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and I think Jimi Hendrix kicked the bucket at that age; Kurt Cobain too...) I'm not sure she was addressing me; either she thinks I'm a hell of a lot older than I am, or she was just talking to Norman. Certainly, though, I don't look older than 27. Twenty-four is pushing it. Maybe Elli just thinks I don't like to drink in public and never really considered that I get thrown out of bars not because I don't HAVE my ID, but because my ID says I'm still a kid...

...And as a matter of fact, I don't remember the Reagan years.

I'm embarrassed to tell people my age. If I'm younger than they thought, they get sort of awkward around me and feel like they've been talking to someone who is much less experienced and intelligent than they thought. If I'm older than they thought, and they say, "gahd, I thought you were like, 18," then I'm sort of offended that they thought I was still a high-school-aged kid, and that they haven't noticed the extra two and a half years of development and experience I've had.

I don't lie about my age. I'm not a very convincing liar, usually -- okay, yes I am. But I'm always afraid of getting caught. If I mention, "I moved out at 18," and then later say, "I've been living on my own for two and a half years," then I'm caught and can't go on telling people I'm 24 or whatever. Also, once you're caught in a lie, then you're untrustworthy, and it usually takes a lot to redeem yourself. So I just say nothing and let people wonder.

...And I keep silent when someone says, "I remember this song from when I was a kid," and it's like, something from the early 'seventies. I was quite ashamed to mention that Kurt Cobain had died at 27. The fact that I KNOW that means I'm young enough to have CARED when Kurt kicked the bucket, to have actually read the articles and clipped them and kept them in a drawer for awhile. It's SO awkward to be sitting at a table in a bar drinking orange juice and avoiding the bartender's glance and talking about fucking Kurt Cobain while my table-mates are talking about Janis Joplin and drinking rum-and-cokes and beer. I felt so fake. It's just a few years, and obviously Norman knows how old I am, but sometimes I'd just like to fucking FORGET that I'm different; in that difference lies an assumption that I don't know what I'm talking about, and maybe that assumption is correct. After all, I don't remember the Reagan years. Shit, I don't even remember John Lennon getting shot. I was a baby. Was I even born? I think I was four or five months old.

There are very few people who do not judge based on age. Norman, who swears that age is subjective and has nothing to do with one's, ahem, "existential being," still mentions from time to time that he can't believe I haven't seen such-and-such old TV-series and makes a huge deal out of it for a minute or two. And Elli -- what would she think if she knew she'd spent an evening talking about crack and studying and hallucinating, with a kid who can't even drink yet?

When I was 16, my dad forbade me to spend the night at Peter's house. I launched a two or three-hour debate insisting I was old enough and mature enough to spend a night at a boy's house without getting into trouble or doing anything awful. He didn't buy it. Sometimes, I feel like that argument never really ended, like people STILL think I'm not old enough and not mature enough to [fill in the blank]. So I don't tell people my age.

[To say nothing of the fact that nobody looks pleased when I mention I'm dating/friends with somebody more than a few years older than me, which seems to be a constant with me. People look at me like I'm getting used, and look at my friend or significant other like he's a creep. After all, what DOES somebody want with a little girl, anyway? I HATE subjecting Norman to that. I've always hated subjecting David to that too, come to think of it.]

I do not remember Neil Diamond being popular. I do not remember the Carpenters being on the radio other than "light-rock" stations. I do not remember Reaganomics, although when I was four I helped my mom pull the voting-lever to vote for somebody else. I was a LOSER in high school for listening to Rush; Norman's yearbook has freaking EVERYBODY quoting Rush. I do not remember television before the Cosby show and I'd be hard-pressed to remember the names of the characters on Family Ties.

I barely remember a time when people were not afraid of AIDS. My parents have probably never been tested. Hell, Norman and his friends probably didn't bother getting tested until their 20's. I was first tested a month or two after my 18th birthday, with no stigma attached.

There is SO much I didn't live through. So much I was too young to understand, while Norman and Elli and freaking everybody else were taking in everything. Sometimes, I feel so... deprived. Mostly, though, I just feel embarrassed.

I'm heading out now. Off to get myself an orange juice, maybe, at the bar.

Love,
~Helena*