Volcanic Ensemble

Today’s lovely guest is the fabulous Sizzle. I first got to know her online a few years ago when I saw her comments on all of the sites I regularly commented on. I finally clicked through to her site and saw why she was so loved by everyone. She’s got one of those personalities that fills the room and makes you want to be part of the party. I met her at BlogHer in 2008 and she was roommates with Kerri and I in Chicago last year. She’s got a sharp wit, a big laugh and a heart full of love that knows no bounds. I am insanely proud to have the honor of calling her my friend and am happy that she’s taking the time out of her busy life (You should read her stories about the apartment building she manages) to share her post with us.

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When I was in the 8th grade I wanted to be one person and one person only.

Molly Ringwald.

Specifically, Molly Ringwald in Pretty In Pink (from here on out referred to as PIP).

I wanted to be Molly Ringwald so badly that I asked my Mom to make my 8th grade graduation dance dress in the fashion of Andie Walsh’s in PIP. For those of you who lost the 80′s to a blur of cocaine or were still in utero, Andie is Molly Ringwald’s character- a senior who lived on the “wrong side of the tracks” who worked part-time at a record shop called (aptly) “Trax” and lived with her despondent father while spending most of her time with her best friend, Duckie, before she fell for Blane, a popular schmuck played by Andrew McCarthy who woos her with pre-IM computer wizardry on gigantic monitors in the library.

How anyone could pick a Blane over a Duckie is beyond me. BUT I DIGRESS.

Andie, being poor and crafty, sewed her own clothes. She’d take vintage clothes and modern clothes and make something unique and inevitably pink out of it. She drove a pink VW Karmann Ghia. She had flaming red hair, pouty lips and freckles. We were practically twins! Except for the fact that I didn’t yet drive and couldn’t sew and had mousy brown hair. Details, details!

Molly as Andie going to prom solo because she's wanted to "let them know they didn't break her". She's tough on the outside but soft on the inside and pink all over.

And so my Mom being the great Mom that she is, attempted to recreate that pink dress for me. It was pink satin underneath with – I kid you not- an old lace tablecloth cut up and fashioned as an overlay. She tried her very best to make it look like the dress Andie made. It even had the high neck!* I wore that dress proudly hoping to God that Jacob Sherriff would ask me to dance. I had the biggest crush on him despite the fact that he once told me I had big ears and subsequently have always styled my hair over them since. Love is blind, people. And sometimes, deaf.

Myself and a fellow classmate, Mark P., arrived first because our moms were on the set up crew. Mark P.** was too smart for his own good and always in trouble. I had spent the past 9 years being seated next to him because teachers love to put the good girl next to the bad boy hoping good will rub off on bad. We were friends by default. I remember being outside the hall where the dance was being held nervously pacing the grass. I was afraid that my homemade dress wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t good enough. What if no one asked me to dance?  In the middle of my neurotic obsessing, Mark P. walked up to me and said, “You look beautiful.”

That was the first time any boy had said those words to me. Prior to that the only male to ever tell me I was pretty was my Dad and everyone knows Dads are required by paternal law to say such things. I was taken aback yet flattered. I was 14 and had no idea how to take a compliment.

Later while Billy Vera & The Beaters*** sang out from the speakers, I danced that dance I dreamed of with Jacob Sherriff and I looked across the dance floor to see Mark P. dancing with my friend Rozanne (the girl he had a crush on). I blushingly remembered what he said to me alone earlier. We shared a shy smile then looked back at the wall. Anywhere but at our dance partners or at each other.

I’ve remembered that moment on the grass on the precipice of our futures, two young kids ripe with possibility and hormones, for 23 years and I’m still so grateful to him for being, however briefly, my Duckie.

So yeah. I was 14 and I got to be Andie Walsh for one night.

And it was awesome.

*Looking back on it, it really didn’t look much like it and why didn’t anyone tell me that dress was a shapeless, unflattering cut? Sheesh.

**Mark P. & I dated 10 years later. That’s another blog post entirely.

***I totally downloaded “At This Moment” after I wrote this. For old time’s sake.

That's me in the middle with the short hair and the dress that looks VAGUELY like Andie Walsh's dress. And no, Jacob Sherriff is not in that photo. But Mark P. is.

P.S. How much lace is going on in that photo? Good gracious! Forgive us. It was the 80′s.