Reading Ariel Schrag’s Awkward and Definition, remembering my high school experience of not having any dates, then falling into dumb relationships with boys who weren’t anywhere as smart as me, staying in those situations too long, not believing I could do better (not realizing that being alone could be a form of doing better), being intensely in love with my best friends. I’m wowed by the way the comics represent adolescent (girl) fandom, in terms of really specific practices, like making shrines to your Object of Desire, trying to find & wear items of clothing you’ve seen on your Object (in pictures in magazines you’ve collected & put on your wall), quoting the Object (or the character(s) s/he plays) in letters to friends & in conversation, watching movies/listening to songs over & over, trying to physically transform yourself into some version of the Object (with makeup, attire, hairstyle), dreaming about (or, if you’re Schrag and living in a place where you have access) going to shows, book- or record-signings to see/meet the Object.

Schrag’s comics made me remember buying rose-patterned fabric to tack over my windows because Robert Smith was wearing a shirt with a rose pattern in one of my Cure posters; wanting to look like the woman on Jane’s Addiction’s “Classic Girl” single (and wanting to live inside the Ritual de lo Habitual cover art), practicing drawing & painting like Lynda Barry, looking for glasses like John Lennon’s or Keith Haring’s.

On the walk from train to work, I had a moment where I was hit with one of the waves of loss I’m having these days. They’re not big, don’t persist; the last one happened when I was leaving the PJ Harvey/John Parish show & saw the smartly-dressed man-woman couple walking ahead of me & thought I’m no longer part of that, part of a good-looking couple going out to a show, part of a hip straight duo in their 30s, married. But then (the then of this morning, not the then of Saturday night when I was going solo) I remembered how T. had called last night to tell me about the bizarro dream he’d just had & the thought of the dream made me smile, and that was enough.