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| Ahh, Troy Dyer. Didn't you just LOVE him?? Brooding, grungy AND played guitar. |
The year was 1994. I traveled to Iowa for a week to see my cousin and stay at her new apartment (which was only a block away from her parent’s home) and celebrate her new found freedom. When I was younger, we (my mom and I) never went on “family” vacations so I traveled to Iowa every summer to visit my two cousins, we’ll call them Meg and Amy, and though I enjoyed staying at my aunt and uncle’s house, when Meg got her own apartment, I was beyond excited to be her roommate for a week.
Of course the first thing we did was decide we were going to get some alcohol. Meg’s boyfriend was old enough to buy so we had that covered. Amy had already picked up some smokes, no more having to sneak puffs in her closet at her parent’s home (which we almost got caught doing during my previous visit).
The movie Reality Bites just came out on VHS. (Remember when Winona Ryder was in every other movie that came out??) Booze, cigs, movies – we were set, almost…what a about boys?? On a previous visit, I had met a couple boys my cousin Amy went to school with. She’d mail me pics of them along with updates on their relationship status and which information she’d shared about me with them. For me, being 16 and boy crazy, the ‘party’ we planned was not complete without the company of boys.
I cannot recall how we ended up meeting up with one of the boys, we’ll call him John, but we were quick to tell him about Meg’s new apartment and “we’re getting beer and you should come over, blah, blah, blah” and he showed up later with a few friends. The things I remember about that night are as follows: we all drank and smoked, Amy had one too many cigs, one too many beers and ended up getting sick and walking back to her parent’s home, John and his friends left, I stayed up late into the night talking with Meg’s friend Shawn, who I also had a crush on even though I knew he was gay, and he told me a series of books he had just started reading by Anne Rice (the first being Interview with a Vampire).
The next night, Meg decided she would stay at her boyfriends place, Amy was sick with a hang over, and I had the apartment to myself. John had mentioned the night before that we should hang out again before I left so he and his friends came over and picked me up. We went to someone’s house and drank, then back to Meg’s apartment to drink some more. His friends left and John and I stayed up talking (and making out) and listening to music, talking about music, making out to music. He had brought a mixed tape with (remember those?!) and I absolutely LOVED every song (most of which I’d never heard before). When he left that night, he forgot the tape. I promised myself I’d give it back if he asked for it but when he picked me up on his scooter the next day to take me to breakfast, he never mentioned the tape.
I only spoke with John one more time after that breakfast. He promised to call and/or write and he did call, once, and I cannot recall what we talked about. I kept that tape for YEARS. I would give anything to have that mixed tape back, mostly because I cannot remember all the songs on it no matter how hard I try. I just remember it was the BEST mixed tape I had ever heard. The songs, the order of the songs – genius. It’s not even that it reminds me of John at all but it reminds me of that time in my life. The 3 songs on the tape that I actually do remember are: Romeo and Juliet performed by the Indigo Girls, Wild Horses performed by The Sundays, and Strangle Little Girl by The Stranglers. Any time I hear any of these songs, I think of that time in my life.
That summer was significant because I was 16 and still figuring out who I was. When I left for vacation, my hair was down to the middle of my back, when I returned, it was cut like Winona Ryder’s in Reality Bites (5 minutes in the movie, I decided I was going to chop my hair off). I bought a copy of Interview with a Vampire and for the next year or so, read nothing but Anne Rice novels. The men in my life were Kurt Cobain (who had recently committed suicide, Shannon Hoon, Layne Stanley, and Eddie Vedder. I shopped at thrift stores and opted to spend more money on books than I did on clothes. I was a confused and aimless teenager who was about to get more confused, more aimless and go through quite the self-destructive phase.
So there you have it…I could have wrote about my trip to England during the summer of 2001, going to California with an aching in my heart once or twice, or one of the times I’ve gone to Mexico but I chose Iowa because NOBODY goes on vacation to Iowa. But when you’re 16 and living in a small town in southern Minnesota, you’re just happy to escape for a while and that trip to Iowa was one I looked forward to every summer.
This is what 1994 looks/sounds like to me:
Romeo and Juliet covered by The Indigo Girls
Wild Horses covered by The Sundays
Strange Little Girl by The Stranglers
R.I.P
The following is underlined in my copy of this book: "People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil... Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult."
— Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire)
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