Talking To Myself

I doubt it's very unusual to talk to oneself. I hear people say they do it all the time. (Usually followed by that chestnut about answering oneself, hahaha. Some people have no imagination.)

I didn't put much more thought into it until a few years ago when the habit became an obsession and moved from the vertical to the horizontal. Or something like that.

(Cue back story)

When I was a pre-teen, I was obsessed with Mark Lindsay, then lead singer of Paul Revere and the Raiders. (Now I say I was obsessed. Then, I knew I was in love.)

I had three girlfriends at the time and we were all obsessed-cum-in-love with all of the Raiders, but they (being wise and cognizant of solid leadership and possessing the better part of valour) pretty much allowed me dibs on Mark Lindsay.

Every afternoon we watched Dick Clark's Where The Action Is and swooned over Mark. I nearly needed a blood transfusion when he announced he was going to cut off his ponytail, and I felt entitled to win the contest to own it when they did. (I thought I'd never forgive the person who won it for not recognizing my entitlement to it.)

(No, I did not stalk her.)

(She had an unlisted number.)

We babysat and mowed lawns and always managed to buy every single teen magazine Mark was in. I wrote a poem to him and sent it to him. I sketched his portrait from one of his photographs and sent it to him.

One time we went a little too far. A photograph in one of the magazines showed him talking on a telephone. There on the face of the telephone (pre-cell phones, pre-Touch Tones by golly!) we could just make out the telephone number when we used one of our grandmothers' magnifying glass.

So we took the number and pooled our money and met early before school one morning at the pay phone outside the cafeteria and we called it (squeal)!

We were so smart that we even knew that we needed to use the Los Angeles Area Code and dial a 1 first.

What we didn't remember was that Illinois was two hours ahead of California. And since this was also pre-answering-machine/voicemail-to-screen-calls, we woke some poor guy up at 5:00 a.m. asking for Mark, only to be told we had a wrong number.

I thought I would

Just.

Die.

Mark later left the Raiders and things were never the same. I won't get into all the drama of the lawsuits over the rights to the songs and Mark's right to use the Paul Revere and the Raiders name on his website, etc. That's legal history and it's pretty boring if you're not as much of a fan as I was. Besides, I'm legally bound not to tell because....

A few years ago I found myself on a temp job in Studio City working for an entertainment lawyer who, it so happened, represented Mark Lindsay.

Moreover, he still represented Mark Lindsay.

Morever,

(jump up and down squealing)

MarkLindsayCameToHisOfficeWhileIWorkedThereAndIGotTo

MeetHimAndShakeHisHand!!!!!!!!!!

(dead silence)

(pregnant pause)

There's something about pre-teen love. As hard to believe as it may be, it doesn't last.

Here I was a middle aged woman with a grown child of my own who I'd already seen through her pre-teen years. I met Mark Lindsay and his wife and we chatted a bit about the past and how much a fan I was, the present and how much he loved living in Hawaii, the future and how if I ever came to Hawaii I should visit. Quite tame, really.

The first thing I thought of doing afterward was to call my 13-year-old self on the phone!

Here was news! I had to tell someone! It was the exact impulse I would have had at 13 but there was no one who would understand it the way I -- and my contemporaries -- could. I had long lost touch with my pre-teen compadres before I even got out of high school.

I really needed to talk to me!

I think I pondered that concept for at least two weeks. To this day I still haven't managed to wrap my wits around it entirely.

I still think you're okay if you talk to yourself.

Hell, after all that, I even think you'd be okay if you answered yourself.

Hahaha.