Most Certainly Not

Summer Slow Down

It's July already. I don't deal well with regret--I try not to have any & if something goes awry and I am aware that regret is possible, I pull back on the reins and try to manage a 180.

Summer 2012 is providing me with the red flags that regret is on the horizon. I need to quickly apply some force or I will be sad when next month shows on the calendar.

So far this summer I have spent no appreciable time with my girls--especially the two of them together. They have been here, there, and everywhere but home. I understand this is a phenomenon known to many parents, but frankly, at their ages, this is a little too early for me to accept the empty nest. I take partial blame too because my job's busiest time is from mid-May to mid-July. 

I want to document my plans for July and early August here so it's staring me in the face, in writing, so I don't miss the chance to say we had fun this summer.

RIP John Hughes

John Hughes.

A pretty benign name.  A totally iconic film director.

Mr. Hughes died today at the age of 59.  He collapsed while on a walk in Manhattan, suffering an apparent heart attack.

Maybe it's because I wanted to be Molly Ringwald in the worst way when I was in high school.  I always wished I had the quirkiness and uniqueness to be her Andie Walsh in Pretty in Pink, but fell much closer to the insecure and cookie cutter, Claire, in Breakfast Club or the hapless, Samantha Baker, in Sixteen Candles.

There is no song I love more than the awesomely cool Psychedelic Furs' Pretty In Pink.

I remember my high school boyfriend's room (not that I was in there for any other purpose than feeding his pet lizard or finding his running shoes) had album covers hanging from his ceiling.  Psychedelic Furs.  New Order.  Echo and the Bunnymen.  Butthole Surfers.  Yeah.  He was sooooo cool.  Then, we come to find out that he and his friends thought girls from my school were easy (and some totally were) and that's why he'd first been attracted to me.  Well, that and my killer mini skirt and the fact that he thought I was in college when he ran into me on a Saturday night--um, I wasn't even 16.  It didn't last long, but we'll always have the music, right?

As for the movies, I can't even pick a favorite.  Anyone of John Hughes' films will make me stop surfing the channels and watch until the end, no matter how far along the movie has progressed.

The voice of a generation.

The voice of my generation.

How absolutely sickly and sad that there is not one movie for this generation of kids that comes even close to one of his films.  And, we were blessed with so many.

Thank you, Mr. Hughes.