My previous-but-one entry was originally intended as an aide-memoire, so that when I returned to blogsville I'd recount pithily, yet with a hint of pathos and more than a tablespoon of urbane wit, you'd find out precisely *what* about American teenagerhood I feel I missed out on. But I can't really put it into words without going off on one of my over-extended diatribes.
What's bizarre is that my longing isn't going away. If anything, it's getting worse - every TV show, film and book set over the water contibutes a scene or an entire plot to my growing mountain of desire to have an American childhood.
Books are the worst - reading The Basic Eight and Speak (massive snogs and unending gratitude to the Llew for her wonderful gifts) made me come over all over-emotional and slightly peculiar, and almost made me cry at the unfairness of it all. I kind of wish books didn't fuck me over so much, emotionally - I am almost scared to read new novels these days in the off chance that I'll spend a week depressed, besotted, in existential despair, all of which have happened before (assuming I have the slightest clue what "existential despair" means) and I'm not sure I want them to happen again, especially when I can't control how, why or for how long they manifest themselves.
(note to self: the reason you're not really a proper writer is because of travesties like the previous paragraph. Learn to use full stops!)
Anyway, I've lost my train of thought. Over to you.
Posted by biondino at August 14, 2002 12:18 PM1) I think this condition deserves a neologism. My suggestions: teenvy, dawsonia, nu-stalgia.
2) d00d - it's the 90s! On the internet you can EXPERIMENT WITH THE KRAZY FLUIDITY OF IDENTITY and be WHOMSOEVER YOU WANT TO BE! Why not change your nick to MARCELLA and start frequenting teen chat rooms! Wait...
3) Maybe you could just kidnap an American teen and experience it all VICARIOUSLY?
Posted by: Le Troussé on August 14, 2002 12:54 PMhm. try having this feeling while living less than 100km from the american border... it's all very confusing. as a canadian (and i'll quietly rant here for a moment), i have to say i experienced similar feelings towards american childhoods and teen experiences. canadian teen fiction and stories about being a teenager are always so rooted in a slightly bleak reality, and if there is humour, it is self-effacing and cynical yet naive (e.g., the degrassi tv series). it's like it's taken the horrors of teen identity crisis and added the complexity of canadian identity crisis. plus a lot of blowing snow, and/or trees, tundra, wolves, multiculturalism, what have you. *however*, gordan korman was wicked teen fiction - i often wished my teenage years would be a bruno & boots humourous romp. alas. it is cynical humour though, therefore still adhering to my (fairly weak, i'm sure) theory about cdn teen fiction. anyway though, a lot of american teen fiction made me want to move to the "heartland", which to me is some nebulous place where all kids climb trees and run through fields and play arcade games and misbehave in class and come of age in proper ways. but then, maybe i was reading the wrong books. i don't know.
does anyone ever wish they had been a british teenager?
(oops, i seem to be taking over mark's blog. how vicarious of me.)
Posted by: robyn on August 14, 2002 06:45 PMi know this yearning.
i wanted to be the brit kid damnit!
i bought smash hits and star hits
and listened to ROCK OVER LONDON
every week, starting at the age of 10.
i was never a real anglophile,
really.
but.
i knew i wasn't happy where i was.
i'm still not tho, so...
hmph
and, robyn, i so loved degrassi
back in the day.
that made me wanna be a canadian kid.
i wanted to babysit for spike
and free lab animals with liz!
(liz-was that her name?)
i think that, basically, the american
kids who weren't raised to be
utterly and completely stuck on themselves,
were aware enough to realize that there
was more to the world than this precious
AMERICA everyone cherishes so much.
i'm conflicted about it at times.
ya know how people talk about whitle guilt?
i've always had AMERICAN GUILT.
even when i was younger.
oft the phrase "well, you can't help
where yr born" has sprung from my lips.
i do love it here tho.
i do.
michigan is beautiful, and you can go from
town to town and it'll be so the same,
yet so diverse.
i'm curious as to what exactly it
is about this *american teenage years*
fantasy that's got you going so...
i mean, we were more repressed in my day
and especially before...
it's surely not now,
given the way culture is going.
but.
i still think the very roots
of being teenaged are the same
everywhere. if you aren't rebelling,
you're wanting to. mass hormonal confusion
comingling and spewing from every pore.
i mean, what gives?
maybe i shouldn't adress this issue.
end post.
amy out.
Gordon Korman!! Yay!
I remember after reading the Adrian Mole series I had a brief stint where I wished I'd been a british youngin', but I think most of this stemmed from the fact that I thought school uniforms were terrifically great. Like Amy said, I remember when I was about 6 realizing what country I was from and suddenly thinking it was very ODD I was an American, especially after I learned that long ago my German relatives had taken the boat over, etc. etc. I thought it was so bizarre that they had LEFT.
Posted by: mandee on August 15, 2002 05:46 PMhaha, adrian mole so made me *glad* i wasn't british, as much as i absolutely love those books. i was always confused about 'beetroot' and then later realized that it was just 'beets'. i'm glad degrassi made amy want to be a canadian kid :) for me it was like watching the neighbourhood kids on tv, what with the low production value. though now i'd call it 'dogma 95 pre 95'. hehe. who knew?
you totally have the right to address the issue at hand, amy. you were a teenager once - i think that's all that matters, ie, "mass hormonal confusion comingling and spewing from every pore." i had to read "comingling" a few times before i read it as co-mingling. i was like, coming-ling? what? hehe. maybe if i visit michigan we can dose up on synthetic hormones, create new and trivial insecurities and pretend we're teenagers (i'll even pretend to be american). or we could just drink beer.
robyn! let's, like, totally, take over
mark's blog as our little personal conversation
space!
we could just drink beer.
but we could also do all that you mentioned
above.
sounds fabulous.
we should find some high school dance
to crash or something.
better yet.
some "alternative night" at an underage
club.
wouldn't that rule?
ha ha ha
oh, and, sorry for my coming confusion!
*cough*
and, yeah, i know i got the right
to adress the issue, i was just at
the point where...
i was either going to make a point
or keep babbling. basically :)
it had to be stopped.
and, yeah, mandee...
i totally dig what yr saying.
it still hits me now and again,
"how did i wind up an american?"
i feel really lucky and blessed
about it sometimes.
just out of freedom and security
measures of fate alone.
but anyway...
ohmygod, a high school dance! as long as i can wear an over-sized t-shirt with a neon-green happy face on it a la 1987. and as long as i can fail miserably at the electric slide and other such synchronized dance mooves. oh man, the bad gymnasium lighting, the teenage mustiness, the flourescent-lit walk to the bathroom, the awkwardness of being 13 and seeing the Boy You Like in said hallway and doing nothing about it except giggling and blushing a bit. and being sweaty. i think my mom can pick us up and drive us home after, amy.
oh, the pain. i would probably fall down and die upon entering a teen alternative niteclub. it would all be too much. it would be like re-reading my teenage poetry.
here's a poem about school dances. i've just made it up. it is a teenage poem. it is deliberately both wonderful and abysmal.
my new air nikes can dance
me around the gym
all these lights and the music
and you
across
from me
in the dance circle.
electric slide me out of here
and walk me home,
kiss me on the doorstep
with the moon above us like a disco ball
and 'pump up the jam' still ringing in our ears.
damn, i think i put too much rhythm in there. i'm not being atrocious enough! and no teenager would use 'electric slide' as a verb... i have failed to access the 1988-93 teenage psyche. will try harder next time. (however, the poem *does* suck. horrah!)
Posted by: robyn on August 16, 2002 10:14 PM