SIXTEEN BLUE

...is one of my absolute favorite Replacement's songs. I keep waiting for someone to comment on here, saying "Oh, you like the 'Mats, I'm a fan too." I would absolutely freak. I have one person in my life who even knows who they are (were) AND loves their music. It didn't take me long at all to learn every single known fact about the band, their recordings, etc. And I talked to "the other fan" at great length, ad nauseum, I'm sure, until there was nothing more to discuss. So, for all intents and purposes, I have exhausted my one and only outlet for Replacements worship and adoration. I would be more than happy to recruit, if anyone is interested...

My original intention for today's writing was to share my life as I was "Sixteen Blue". But upon the realization that my "Fourteen Black" may prove more therapeutic, (though less entertaining for you, Reader) I decided to revert two additional years and visit those formative, psychotic, impressionable days and nights when my teenhood was blossoming and my womanhood was floundering. And vice versa.

Fourteen was rough. I was the oldest of six kids, freshly uprooted from a "town" rearing into the isolation and desolation of "country living". I shared a room with a younger sister of whom I was insanely jealous. (Would an English major please tell me the correct way of saying that last sentence?) I was the tall lanky bookish quiet invisible one. She was the adorable, short and sassy brown-eyed, curly-haired cute one. My motivation at this point in my life was to get my driver's license, become a groupie, move to Big Sur, change my face and grow into the length of my legs. I was all into Sixteen Magazine, Seventeen Magazine, Tiger Beat, FM radio and Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. I had known for two years by this time, just exactly where babies came from and was still of the mindset that "no boy is ever going to do that to me!" I had crushes on boys but no big plans to act on any of them. I still wasn't so sure that boys were anything more that perverts. Although it was around this time that I started adopting them as friends and was learning that they were more fun than girlfriends. That kind of set a pattern for my later life. To this day many of my dearest, faithful friends have been male. They kind of know the secret of bypassing all the BS and getting straight to the nitty gritty that always worked better for me. And you rarely have to deal with the pms, the bitchiness and well, you know what I'm saying...

I remember fourteen as being a very confusing age for me, full of contradictions, insecurity and general ignorance about all things great and small. I had ideas and suspicions about things but didn't have the courage or resources to pursue answers. You see, I never had a Big Brother. That may very well be the one thing I craved most during my teen years. I wanted/needed the guidance, the protection, the prestige, if you will, of having my very own Big Brother. I don't think I ever fully recovered from that unmet need.

You know what, this isn't going in the direction I'd hoped. Maybe because, and Jeff can back me up here, all I can concentrate on this very moment is that I would trade my soul for a deliciously long, deep drag off of a freaking cigarette. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for me.

Come to think of it I was just fourteen when I had my very first puff. Made me dizzy as hell. Don't you think that might have been a clue...

STHTTMMS: I overheard someone at work today mention that I was one of her favorite "discussion" buddies. That made me feel good. I don't even like discussing, particularly. ;-)

GSL: "Your age is the hardest age/ Everything drags and drags. You're looking funny. You ain't laughing, are you? Sixteen Blue." From Sixteen Blue, the Replacements, 1984