Don't You Forget About Me

John Hughes was the master. An OG hipster in a way that didn't make you want to push him down the stairs ... who's tumbling now?? (Just kidding, I heard that somewhere and thought it was funny, but the truth is, I love Tumblr). Anyway, The Breakfast Club was a huge part of my young adult experience. I would watch it over and over (still do) and swear there was really only one person in that room, each kid just an aspect of his or her personality. Because really, I identified with each one of them, felt their stories, got their pressure ... their desperate and futile grasps at pleasing their parents, their humiliation (the tape), their embarrassment (the lipstick trick), the wide-eyed terror of the high achievers, balanced on that razor's edge between fleeting success and the death spiral of failure. And this was in a time before college applications and sports scholarships were the end game starting in kindergarten. This was a time when you may still have found a minute to press your diamond earring into the gloved hand of an unhinged rebel and just catch the opening riff of a Simple Minds tune as you rode away in your family car. Memories like that are the sparks that fuel my work, drift through my words like ghosts and morph into stories before my eyes. If I was crazy enough to impose advice on my girls - now in the midst of their college years - that would be it ... find the rebel, gift the earring, and don't forget that moment.