Why can't I be cool like Jordan Catalano?

DIARY

So I've spent a lot of the last week rewatching the series My So-Called LIfe and since I've more of an artistic perspective this third time through, I think I'll go ahead and review it.

First, however, I have to separate the emotional baggage. I know this blog has been more on the confessional side lately, but it's just that time of year.

When I started tenth grade, I was deeply involved in theater, obsessed with the music from Les Misèrables, Sting, and the reggae pop band Breakfast Club, couldn't drive, had never been to a laser light show at Longway Planetarium, and had never seen My So-Called Life.
Only one month later, I was deeply involved in theater, obsessed with the music of Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins, drove, had been to innumerable laser light shows at Longway Planetarium, and had taped every released epidode My So-Called Life.

Unlike many other kids my age, these altered my wardrobe very little. This was part pride (because only the weak "reinvent themselves, like all at once") and part a lack of social awareness.
Unlike many other kids my age, these changes didn't alter my friendships either. The friendships came first, which means happened first. People befriended me in spite of my liking Sting. They brought their musical tastes to bear, and were the first to recommend "March of the Pigs" as the best NIN song ever and dragged me along to the planetarium, but they came first in the process.

Still, I went through that time with a strong sensation of very consciously changing what I wanted to change. It wasn't puberty, which always struck me as very arbitrary and unreasonable. Rather, I was selecting at my discretion the best-of-the-best and using it to replace in my life what it always seemed I'd chosen by default. There was great discovery... and the discovery was not rendered meaningless by the control I imposed; it was more a grand adventure in extrapolation: "I love and respect this person, so I'll try to love and respect their music, and if their music is played at the planetarium, so be it, I'll ride, and if the kids at the planetarium are talking about this new show they're showing soon, I'll watch it."

And the timing was perfect. Claire Danes (who's changed since then as much as I have, it seems) was fifteen at taping; the same age as me, and the same age of her character, Angela Chase. The main characters of the show: Brian, Sharon, Rickie, Rayanne, and Jordan, were all sophomores. I was a sophomore.

When I look at great transformations in my life, they seem to arrive in the middle of things. I was similar in 9th grade to junior high, and similar in college the first couple years to the end of high school. It's when a pattern has set in and we're examining all of the gears in motion that we make profound adjustments to the machinery. When the machinery's busy at work, we just have to let it do its thing.

Jordan's deal was leaning, and he was very good at it. He inspired, I think, to some degree, John, who, granted, was as sharp and focused as Jordan was quiet and pondering. But John's deal was wearing shades, and he was very good at it too. Somehow, as a very upsettable, very passionate kid, I admired these two for their cool detachment and control. Leaning back, wearing shades.

I remember, some following summer, I had to pick up my brother from a trip in the middle of the night. They were bringing them back in buses. I had to pick him up in the high school parking lot. I'd been watching the show before hand. I drove out "my" medium red 1990 Saturn SL (I was the only one regularly driving it at this point), and leaned back in my seat, and wondered if I looked even remotely as cool as Jordan Catalano.

Which My So-Called Life Character Are You? Find out @ She's Crafty