An Amazing Loss
I was in my kitchen when I heard the news. I’d turned off the TV earlier, and the only music we heard was from the bite-sized voices in the living room: my children. Phil was out, picking up dinner. My father was chasing his grandchildren. The phone rang. It was Phil, delivering the news.
There’s no question that Micheal Jackson was talented, an icon, a dynamic performer who changed the scope of music. Despite his controversial life, he’s loved throughout the world, and this is an amazing loss. People remember where they were when JFK died, Princess Diana, and now we’ll remember Michael Jackson in the same way.
He’s flavored all our lives in one way or another. Two days ago, I was at the gym, working out to ABC on myPod. Music colors our lives and enriches our memories. As a tribute, this repost, of how he’s colored mine (aside from the fact that I, at one point, wore a rhinestone-pricked white glove):
“I just pilfered through his computer.”
“Uh oh.”
“I went searching for something I wouldn’t like. I found photos of his past.”
“That’s what we always search for first.”
“Half-naked pictures of women he’s slept with. Of course it made me feel like shit.”
“At least they’re pictures from his past, not the present.”
“Very true. I can’t imagine. Still, what’s wrong with me that I’d go looking for something that would upset me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you; every woman does that.” No they don’t. Do they?
In 1983, I was in second grade, at Lori Kalka’s house for a sleepover party. I remember staying up later than I ever had before. We all had brought our own sleeping bags and were folded into her carpeted basement, with bags of chips and cans of cheese between us. We were staying awake to watch Michael Jackson’s Thriller video on MTV.
Lori’s older sister Robin was there. Robin was adopted, Lori said, but I later learned that really Lori was adopted. Lori had silky blond hair that looked as if it belonged on a doll. Kimberly Fillion, another girl in our class, had blond hair too, but that night when we were trying to give one another electric shocks by rubbing our feet, covered in socks, against the carpet, we all swore it looked green under the basement lights. Lori had a projector television; it was the first I’d ever seen like it. I think she also had two poodles, the big kind that needed proper grooming and seemed stuck up. Kimberly had a Yorkshire terrier named Juju who she cradled like a baby and encouraged up her tee shirt, insisting the dog wanted milk from her “boobies.” This is what I remember of Michael Jackson’s video. I don’t remember it being scary, only that I wanted it to be. I was terrified that night but not from the video. I was afraid I’d wet the bed, as I was still apt to do, and would continue to do for many years. I don’t know how my parents allowed me to sleep at other kid’s homes. Didn’t they ever fear a phone call in the middle of the night?
I find it fascinating the way we like to scare ourselves. We sit in the dark and encourage group tales of ghosts and murders and cars with teens parking and men with hook hands scraping at windows. We sit in dark theaters and watch movies about rings and getting lost in woods. We set ourselves up, frightened, our hearts racing… why?
“It’s like we want to make ourselves feel. It’s the drama, the pulling of excitement out of the calm of our lives, like warped magicians, yanking white from the black."
"I was just going to say that."
"On the one hand, we’re completely insecure for looking in the first place. And if the stuff we find (emails, letters, photos, texts, IMs) bothers us at all, then we’re even more insecure. Because we shouldn’t care, or we should at least be secure enough to know that it doesn’t mean anything, but how can it not bother us? When you get to the point where you confidently shrug your shoulders, don’t you worry that you don’t even really love them anymore, or don’t love them like a lover? I want to be the kind of woman who doesn’t give a shit, but for me, that probably means actually not giving a shit.”
"Everyone wants to be like that."
We strap ourselves into rides with metal bars pulled into our laps, and then climb the ticks of a roller coaster, waiting for the plummet. It’s a build and release the same way a thriller movie is. But what about when we create these “thrills” in our own lives? We create drama to feel more alive. I certainly do. It has been a while since my alter psycho has been unleashed. I’m much more secure now (thank God), but not all that long ago, I was a thrill-seeker in the worst way. Far worse than the moonwalk.
"It’s easy to type it into a neat little paragraph about how strong we are, whipping up perfectly rational statements about ‘in the past.’ Please. Not every day is fitted in my starched security button-downs. Sometimes, I get sloppy, and my life becomes untucked. The next day, it’s better. Still, I can’t believe he was with some of those women. They were really beautiful, and it made me feel bad about myself… like, why is he with me? I know deep down it’s because of who I am, that I don’t see me how others do, that I’m unique, and he’s connected to me because of that… But why does he keep his past? Why do any of us? They remind us of where we’ve been, sure, but why do we need the reminder? We’ve all been with someone hotter. Everyone has those stories, about the ridiculously hot one we slept with, or dated. We’ve all had hotter than we’re with. We don’t choose on looks alone, none of us. But why do we go searching and then let ourselves feel like shit when we stumble upon anything that might be a something?"
To feel alive.
A YEAR AGO: Fitting Room Nightmares
3 YEARS AGO: Barely
4 YEARS AGO: No Brainers, Club Wed
June 26th, 2009 at 4:35 am
I’ve read this same post a lot of times here, and in your book SUAD. I thought this was going to be about Michael Jackson but you wrote about thrill seeking again – which is cool, it’s your blog, but you’ve already covered this, there isn’t anything new you say about the topic… Yet sticking to the topic, the persons who comment and feel that people should throw out everything about their old relationships: I’d never do that. The guys I was with had a big influence on my life and partially made me who I am today. Pictures of them are pictures of my own past as well, I wouldn’t get rid of that. Maybe even as a reminder that I’m better of today
I’d never display those pictures around the house though. I once had to ask a guy to remove a picture of his ex-girlfriend from his bedroom wall – she kept staring at me every time we got busy, that was just soooo wrong.
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June 26th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Farrah Fawcett also died.
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June 26th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I love the way you tangled those stories together. Very nice!!
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June 26th, 2009 at 10:58 am
it is so very sad… when i first heard it, i couldn’t believe… i heard you this morning on Bob and Sherri and just had to search you out… and i was every so delighted when i found you had a blog… hope you don’t mind if i hang around a bit….
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June 26th, 2009 at 10:59 am
I was reading along wondering if I’d entered a time warp and that you were pregnant with a new set of twins. Good god. I nearly choked on my coffee bean! Thank you for keeping the dates on the bottom of each post.
As for me? Drama free…99.5% of the time.
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June 26th, 2009 at 11:37 am
i once asked a boyfriend to tear-up a photo of him and a jr. prom date he had stored in a memories box (along with blue ribbons for art contests and other precious tokens of his life well lived). i feel so terrible that i imposed my insecurities on him and our relationship. how dare i ask him to tear-up his past. i did not own his past and had no right to it. in fact, his past experiences all made him the boy i admired. twisted girl i was. not sure why, but i seem to really have grown-out of that insecure nonsense. who knows, maybe the ugly thrill seeking will rear its head in the future. i hope not, for my own sake and for the sake of those that i am fortunate enough to have love and care for me. there are better, healthier, saner ways of extracting passion and thrill from life. ways that don’t harm you or loved ones.
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June 26th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
If someone asked me to get rid of old pictures with exes etc I wouldn’t…. That’s part of who you are. You don’t have to disavow your past just because you’re in your present. In fact you shouldn’t. What’s the point of having varied and diverse experiences if not to collect the memories, good and bad? It’s not even about the “finished product” it makes you as a person. Your memories are your life. It would make me really question being with someone that wanted me to get rid of that.
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June 26th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
This is just not a seminal event for me. I will forever remember every detail of 9-11. I will forever remember how I felt when the election was called for Obama. But where I was when I learned of Michael Jackson’s death? Not so much.
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June 26th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Michael Jackson was definitely the most talented sexual predator ever.
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HelenSparkles Reply:
June 28th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Funny how little press this is really getting.
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June 26th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Ug, I feel you. Weird thing is, I was never drawn to snoop until my last relationship. It was lacking, and I knew it, and so of course I found all sorts of evidence of such through snooping. Made me feel ill every time I found something, and, as you say, more insecure. Take-home for me is that I will never snoop again. If my relationship is that precarious, my instincts are probably right. I will trust myself next time and address it with him. And as for hot exes…I *really* don’t want to know
What’s important is that I feel like he finds me attractive now. If not, then that’s the issue, not the exes.
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June 26th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Yeah, I really can’t mourn and care about where I was when I heard the news. I’m pretty convinced that MJ did, indeed, molest children and I cannot forget that. Now that he’s died, everyone can just forget all his misdeeds? Sorry, but in my world, we don’t mourn those people.
In my mind, his star burned out long ago. Whoever it is that died today isn’t the person that made a few cool records that I listened to when I was younger.
Not so long ago, the media was saying what a freak he was. Now that he’s dead, you’d think he invented puppies.
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June 26th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Did I miss something because this post made no sense at all! Michael Jackson’s song Thriller influenced your self-sabotage tendencies how? I don’t see the connection other than the name of a song which seems like a really awkward segue given the situation.
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June 27th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
What a beautiful story!
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June 27th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Long time lurker, first time commenter:
Just wanted to share that I heard you on Bob and Sheri yesterday morning, and it was great to hear you share a bit about “Moose.” I’m excited to see the film come out. Hopefully that interview will allow others to follow your writing.
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June 28th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I was in ninth grade and I had taken the neighbor boy across the street to our Catholic all-girl’s school Christmas Formal. The biggest excitement of that night was coming home to watch Thriller.
I also remember the first time I ever heard about Michael Jackson: My sis and I had a gift certificates to The Record Bar and she chose Off the Wall while I think I got one of those albums that had Knock on Wood and I Will SUrvive on it. My sis showed me the MJ album, and I asked her, “Are you sure you want to get THAT music?” I remember thinking she wouldn’t like the album because he was black. How horrible is that. Then we fell in love with the music.
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June 28th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Wait! Just read that comment before mine… Moose got optioned?!?!?!? TELL ME!
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