It is both thriliing and dismaying to have all the angst of your adolescence bundled neatly into one TV show. "My So-Called Life" was not so much life-altering as life-defining for me. In high school, I was dorky-cool. I made bad friend choices. My best friend was gay. I didn't dye my hair red, and my parents weren't married, but so much of the rest...
So you can imagine that seeing this show — THE SHOW I CAMPAIGNED PASSIONATELY TO KEEP OVER THAT RANCID "TOOL TIME" — on Noggin weirds me out. When I loved this show, I was 21, remembering being 15. Seeing it now, at 33, I am startled to find myself this old. Ew. I am a parent. A suit. The Man. I need to closely manage my use of "like" as a pause word. People call me ma'am and think I am cool "for a mom." I AM VERY CLOSE TO THE AGE OF THE PARENTS PORTRAYED ON THIS SHOW.
The So-Called Truth seems inevtitable:
• Lu will hate me.
• I will be so lame, the words I speak will make little lame fumes.
• Lu will be bored and put upon and better than me.
• Lu will love someone with good hair and bad grades...OMG, Jordan Catalano just walked in! Quotes from Angela after that:
"I can't believe that Jordan Catalano was actually trying to diagram my sentences. His sentences were really short."
"You know how sometimes the last thing you said just keeps echoing in your brain? And it just keeps sounding stupider, so you have to say something else to make it stop?"
That last bit of insight is still a defining force in my life. That's reassuring. You can be 15 or 33, and still say a bunch of dumb stuff all the time.