My (old) favorites | slackermama . com

Don’t you hate when you’re filling out some sort of online survey or profile page or whatever and it asks you for your favorite things? Like your favorite movie, musical artist, television show… I never know what to say. I don’t have any favorites, for the most part. Maybe I’m just too cut off from society. There’s a lot of music that I enjoy here and there (right now I’m totally crushing on OneRepublic’s “Apologize”), but a favorite song or artist? I couldn’t tell you. Favorite TV show? That might be easier. I’m a big “LOST” fan. Still, I don’t know if I could say it’s my most favorite of all time. Favorite movie? Oh hell. So yeah. No real favorites here.

I used to have favorites though. Back in high school, I had a ton of favorites. My life was all about favorites. I had absolutely no trouble coming up with a favorite ANYTHING. For instance…

My favorite song was “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. Hands down. Shoot, maybe it still is my favorite song. I loved that song BIG TIME for so many years. I was a big fan of “Say Anything” for many years and that was a huge influence. But I was familiar with the song otherwise and it just always seemed to me to be the PERFECT song. I dare you to tell me I was wrong.

I saw Peter Gabriel in concert in 1993 and it was pretty much the end-all be-all of my existence at the time.

My favorite movie(s) at the time, well, that’s another easy one. Hands down, we’ve got the “Star Wars Trilogy”. This probably sounds unbelievably geeky and it probably is. But I was a major fiend for those movies when I was in high school. Ask anyone who knew me then. And I hope you realize that I’m talking about the original trilogy. Not those new, stupid movies. Forgive me for saying so, George Lucas, but the new movies suck donkey balls compared to the original trilogy. Anyhow, I loved me some “Star Wars”. I would watch it any time I had a chance. I even saved up my money so I could buy a special boxed set of the movies (on VHS, no less) in widescreen format. I think I still have that set around here somewhere. It used to be that I could quote large sections of the movie from memory and was quite possibly the largest repository for useless “Star Wars” related trivia in the city of San Jose. Yeah. I was a TOTAL nerd.

My favorite TV show at the time was probably “Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman”. Anyone else remember that one? I think it’s safe to say I had an unnatural affection for that particular show. My friends and I would actually pass notes in class on Monday mornings, discussing all the juicy stuff that happened on Saturday’s show. Yes. On “Dr. Quinn”. Oh, it was SO juicy, you just don’t even know it. Okay, right about now I’m starting to feel pretty ashamed of myself.

And that shame isn’t going to go away anytime soon. Because if asked what my favorite music group or artist was when I was in high school I don’t think I would have hesitated before answering “Ace of Base!” Some of you are probably scratching your heads and wondering, “Is Ace of Base even considered a music group? I thought they were an ATROCITY?” Whatever. I was in high school and we’ve already established that I was pretty much a pretty flaming nerd. I was a fan of their entire album at the time, but held a special spot in my heart for “The Sign”.

Had I been asked who my favorite author was in high school. I think it could be safely said that I was a HUGE FAN of Christopher Pike. Even now, I’m not sure which of his books that I read first. I think it may have been “Remember Me” which is probably one of my favorites of his (along with the “Final Friends” trilogy which are still some of my most favorite books ever). I remember visiting my brother in Nashville one summer and we had dinner at the Bluebird Cafe (rather famous around those parts) and for some stupid reason, I had brought one of my Christopher Pike books with me (I want to say it was the third “Final Friends” book). I ended up leaving it there and was DISTRAUGHT until my dear brother called over there the next day and asked if anyone had found and they HAD so we were able to go retrieve it. Yay! Anyhow, those books were awesome. At least, they were until Christopher Pike started getting weirder and weirder and his stories became rather disturbed. Or, I guess, MORE disturbed than they already were.

Love of Christopher Pike aside, if asked what my favorite novel was back in high school, I would have told you it was Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. We were assigned this book in my sophomore year of high school and I fell in LOVE with it. I even highlighted my favorite passages, with PINK HIGHLIGHTER. I watched the BBC miniseries multiple times (and even bought the video, for shame!). I have no idea why I loved it so much, but it just seemed unbelievably romantic to my young, teenaged self. Then again, I also thought Han Solo and Princess Leia were romantic so shows what I knew.

Those are my favorites of times past. How about you? Do find that the last time you really had FAVORITES was in high school or do you still have favorites to this day?

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