Good Morning, It's 1986

This was my post from yesterday. I forgot to upload it! Father's Day check-in coming soon.

We just got our new DirecTVHDDVDVDDDDDVVRR box yesterday. (New = it works!) I couldn't sleep, so at around midnight, I went upstairs and installed it. that took 60 seconds, so didn't help my sleeplessness much. When I went back down to bed, the box was still 'acquiring satellite' or whatever. turns out, Jo Ann woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. So she came upstairs...and finished the programming of the box. Pretty darn funny how that worked out.

When Pablo woke up this morning, he was staring down the barrel at a blank DVR. None of his programs have Tivo'd yet. No "Maggie And The Ferocious Beast," no "Little Bear," and no "Max and Ruby." Before he could freeek the funk, I scrambled and looked for something–anything–on TV. (I am clunky at this, cos we only really watch 'Tivo'–ie, the media equivalent of 'i didn't inhale,' i know, but true....) The first thing I saw that was appropriate was also one of the best movies ever dedicated to film: 'Pretty In Pink.'

While there are few truths that apply to everyone, everywhere, 'Pretty In Pink' as a filter for life is one of them. Anyone our age (yes, that includes you) was touched by this movie, its characters, its actors, the music that springboarded from it. This movie has soul, and that's why it was so cool to stumble upon it. We were soothed by how it took us back to '86, and many other subsequent years. We also loved sharing it with Pablo. The scene where Ducky dances around Molly's record shop lip-synching to an R&B song...he got that! In fact, last night, i was playing guitar and he started oscillating wildly, surely an ode to Ducky.

In high school, I was Ducky. For sure. Jo Ann says, 'I wasn't from this movie, only you were.' That may be the case. Cos I was a helluva Ducky.

This brings me to a related topic.

I have many basic beliefs in life–here are some sample entries in that list:

• As an American, I can never ask for directions in London

• I know there is a God, because I have never gotten into a head-on auto collision surfing through the twisty left-hand blind curves of the Silverlake hills

• Once in a while, it's OK to crank KLOS (ie, klassic rawk) in the car. And it's even more OK that I know all the words to every song

And, most relevant to this post:

• Everyone everywhere is one of the characters out of 'Pretty In Pink'

Like I said, I was Ducky. Were you, perhaps, a spicy, sinister James Spader-type? Or were you the super-cute, crossing-the-social-tracks Michael McCarthy-type? I have known quite a few Molly Ringwalds over the years–cool girls, cool clothes, totally know who they are.