riff

The Gramercy Riffs. The Turnbull ACs. The Baseball Furies.  Man, I loved “The Warriors.” And, I mean… Swan was SO cute. Michael Beck is such a dreamboat. That smile, that hair… c’mon. What a fox. (And now a silver fox!) Pardon me, Mrs. His-Wife-of-Almost-40-Years. but I’m coveting your husband.

So, I guess my graffiti-riddled nostalgia train is heading to 1979 today.  For most of 1979, I was 12-years old. My brother had gone into the Navy in 1977, so it was just me at home with my parents who were progressing well on the fucking up of their marriage. My Dad had a horse, and an on-going, extramarital affair, and my Mom wanted to leave him.

Sometime in the early part of 1979, my parents sat the 12-year old me down on the couch in the living room and they told me they were going to split up. My Mom was going to live with my half-sister  on Neville Island, and I was going to stay with my Dad because he needed someone to cook, and clean, and do the laundry.

I shit you not.

Me as a 12-year old girl… being told my role is to cook and clean and do my father’s laundry since his affair caused my Mother to leave him.

(*Spoiler alert: when you see the naked picture I’ve already schedule to post on Thanksgiving as a thank-you to everyone who’s been reading, liking, and commenting on this blog, this little anecdote serves help you understand what I mean when I say “daddy issues…”)

Yeah, so…

yeah.

It’s practically textbook that a movie like The Warriors would have such a profound impact of a middle-class, hormonal pre-teen whose home-life was falling apart. The way Swan wouldn’t let Mercy be ashamed of herself…

(*fans face with one hand trying to not cry*)

…that’s just an amazing scene. It made quite an impression on my young, fucked up self.

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After they dropped their big bombshell on me, I stood up and started crying and then ran out the front door, and down the street to my friend’s house. Her mom tried to comfort me and when she asked me what was wrong, I told her what had just happened… which, by the way, pissed my parents off because they worried  my friend’s mom would start gossiping  about their separation and I guess they’d wanted to keep it a secret or something.

 

Holy shit, my marital behavior patterns and those of my parents are just plain ol’ certifiable Freudian case studies. I’ll bet it wouldn’t even take that long to find a chapter and page to quote. Goodfuckinggrief. 

*Note: thank you, WordPress, because I really can’t afford a therapist.

 

Aaaaaaanyhooooo…

Mom didn’t make it on her own for very long. I was always under the impression she came back home because she couldn’t afford to live on her own (so to speak). For years, I was always a little disappointed in her for letting money be the reason she gave up. I wanted her to be stronger. I wanted her to not have to depend on my Dad.  But knowing now what I didn’t know then, I’m thinking she also may have come back for me – so I wouldn’t have to be stuck with that life.  She would turned 50 in the summer of ’79. They had their 20th wedding anniversary in 1979. My Dad was even more of a selfish fuckface than usual in 1979.  And there’s also the possibility that she really loved that asshole.

To quote the master: And so it goes.

Mom came back. We got on with life. We had happy times. We had unhappy times. Laughs, fights, consequences. The usual. I lost my virginity in June of 1981, two months before my 15th birthday. The guy had just turned 16 and lived down the street with his mom and grandmother. His dad was out of the picture. We dated for a year and a half… which ended up doing just as much damage as you might expect the first unhealthy boyfriend/girlfriend relationship of a manic-depressive 15-year girl old with daddy-issues would go in 1982 suburban, working-class Pittsburgh. I was right there with Mickey Gilley just a’lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.

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I just linked the trailer for The Warriors to this post (above). Of course I had to watch it first. It gave me goosebumps. I was welling up with tears by time it got to The Warriors.

I might have to do some kind of internal”digestive” cleanse or something. Clearly I have too much sugar bacteria in my system… or in my wherever.

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In 1979, I started counting down the days until I would graduate high school. It was over 2,000 at the beginning. In 1979, my goal in life was to graduate, and move to Key Biscayne, Florida so I could let Andy Gibb fall in love with me, and be with me forever. This plan changed, of course, after I lost my virginity and discovered I could get drunk and have sex with… well, pretty much anyone. And anywhere.

 

1979. Me at 13. Here I am inventing the selfie so I can send my picture to Andy Gibb and he can hurry up and fall in love with me already.  (Yes, I really did create my own photo shoot so I could send my picture to Andy Gibb. Let’s just move on.)

Okay, so… as it turned out, his not falling in love with me wasn’t exactly the worst thing that ever happened.