"I've always liked the time before dawn because there's no one around to remind me who I'm supposed to be, so it's easier to remember who I am."

-Brian Andreas

Thursday, April 15, 2010

imagine

So, I'm in my room reminiscing to some old tunes I used to run to and it's really hard for me to concentrate on writing when Destiny's Child "Booty-luscious" is blasting in the background. I can not, however, bring myself to turn it off. I don't think I'm ready.

Pause for now... I must dance.



Annnnnnnnnnd... done!


After my dance session, I put in a cover album of some of the Beatles greatest hits. It reminds me of my childhood. I went through a long phase in middle school where I swore I was supposed to be the fifth Beatle who was born into the wrong time period. My walls were covered with posters of the fabulous four and I would day dream about what it would be like to play the piano in the background while John, Paul, George and Ringo would rock out center stage. I sat perfectly still behind a beautiful piano during the song "In My Life" and waited for John to give me the cue with a look and a head nod, which meant I could take it away on the piano solo.

After I'd finish they'd all smile as they kept singing and I'd smile too because I knew after the show they would all tell me how proud they were of me.

I was a weird kid.

I lived mostly in my imagination with a few real friends here and there. I had crushes on guys I knew I would never meet, either because they were famous or they were dead. I often pretended like my life was a movie and I would take on different roles of different characters.

I made fun of my little sister a lot because she made this club called "the cleaning club" where she would talk to the mirror, a.k.a her TV audience, and teach them how to properly clean their rooms. Her room was the demonstration room. This is what she did for fun. I thought she was crazy.

Though I made fun of her as to appear "cool," I also talked into my mirror every time I was in my room. The difference was that it was cooler when I did it... I wasn't pretending to be the president of the cleaning club, I would pretend my "boyfriend" was on the other side and I'd be crying over a breakup, or that I lost my job and didn't know how I was going to support my kids. Once I was even on a hockey team that just won a national championship and I was responding to the the coach telling me I was the backbone of the team... although I'm pretty sure that scene was shortly after watching the quack attack come back in The Mighty Ducks sequel. I didn't always invent the scenes, sometimes I just re-enacted them the way I thought they should go. I thought of it as creativity with just a touch of plagiarism.

I was about to say I miss those days of my imagination running wild, but I can't necessarily say they are over. Things have definitely changed... I have to worry about paying bills and buying groceries, so I can't run around as careless as I did when I was a child, but I still daydream. I still talk into my mirror, but better yet, now that I'm all grown up I have my own camera and actually get to capture some of my nonsense on tape.

This is a peek behind closed doors when no one is around. I never planned on showing this to anyone when I filmed it, I just had the camera sitting there and I was bored, so I turned it on...



3 comments:

kt :-) said...

u are so cute!! i miss you loads, chica!

Anonymous said...

JJ - the video did not work for me- did you put a block on it?
I love your writing- I remember the cleaning club (I loved it) but I did not know that you and Betsy talked to your mirror - did you process that?
Love,
Ma

Meghan said...

ummm, you are hilarious!! i love it:) especially being dropped in the icecream bowl :)