The Movie That Plays In My Head: I'm an Amazing Singer and I'm Inappropriate at High School Dances...

There is an Episode of Gossip Girl where Serena reminds Blair that no one is watching the movie she thinks her life is. It’s okay to mess up, no one else is listening and no one else cares. Now in the world of Gossip Girl this isn’t really true. Millions of us are watching and even if you take the audience out of the scenario, “Gossip Girl” is always watching. I mean she even has the inside to the horrible, scandalous things the parents on the show are doing. Serena isn’t the sharpest tool in the tool shed, but for real life what she said is true, and I am guilty of forgetting this many times in my life. Blame it on my wild imagination or love for the movies, but throughout my life I’ve tried to have movie moments and recognize the ones that just show up on their own.

Lemon Lady Movie Moments…

When I was in fifth grade I tried out for choir because all the other girls in my class were trying out of choir. Everyone who tried out made the Dare Elementary Choir, but the goal was to make “Show Choir”. Show Choir meant that you learned a bunch of songs about America and then got together with other elementary schools in the area and put on a Musical American Pageant for all the parents. (Another reason for not having kids… I can’t believe my mom and dad sat through crap like this.) On the day of auditions for Show Choir we all had to stand up before the group and sing My Country Tis Of Thee. If we were good enough for Show Choir we were told to stand on one side of the room, if not you stood on the other side knowing that all your friends made the cool choir, got to miss a day of school to practice for the pageant, and didn’t suck at singing like you obviously did. I got up, stood in front of my peers, and started singing about America. Most of the kids only sang a few lines of the song and were quickly told what side of the room to stand on. I almost finished the whole first verse, when finally the music teacher stopped me. Then I just hung out at the front of the room. She couldn’t make up her mind. It was like I could see the wheels turning inside her brain.

“Well, she wasn’t horrible.”

“Um, yeah, she wasn’t good either.”

“She just needs a little training.”

“She sucks and I bet her mother is a horrible singer, too. Runs in the family you know…”

“But, maybe…”

“But, no…”

End the end I got to join the cool kids in Show Choir and go on to perform in the America Pageant. I decided to star in “the movie playing in my head” on the day we got to miss school to meet up with all the other fifth graders from all the other schools and practice the pageant. That day was also the day solos would be decided on. Two things. One, ever since I was held in limbo that day at tryouts for what seemed like hours while my music teacher was trying to figure out where to put me, I had made up my mind that I was going to become the best singer ever to show her she made the right decision. Two, I was going to do this by trying out and getting a solo in the pageant.

The morning of the day we missed school we learned where to stand and ran through all the songs. Then we broke for lunch. Everyone had to bring their lunch and we ate in a large room with high school style lab tables and stools. Yeah, we thought we were really cool. I was there with five or six of my friends and during the morning we spent our time whispering to each other when we were supposed to be quiet, playing with my friend Jennifer’s fortune teller, and sizing up the six boys that were the only males in a sea of 100 fifth grade girls. All of the boys seemed to be from the same school and we all assumed it was a boys only school.

Anyway, at lunch I saw a girl sitting all by herself and I felt sorry for her, so I walked over to her, introduced myself and told her she should come join my friends and I. This girl looked up from her sandwich and seriously gave me the meanest look ever and said, “I have friends. They are getting their lunches. They will be right back, bitch.” Okay she probably didn’t call me a bitch, but it stung like she did. I mean I was just trying to be nice to this chick and she treated me like insulted her mother and chopped off her favorite Barbie’s hair. As soon as I got back to my table of buddies all six of the boys walked in aand sat at the table with Evil Lunch Girl. Evidently, they didn’t got to an all boys school…

After lunch I tried my hardest to put Evil Lunch Girl in the back of my mind because I had a solo to grab. The solo was in a song called “Going West” and it was the women’s point of view on the Oregon Trail. In my mind it was My Heart Will Go On, Memories from Cats, and that song from Dream Girls all rolled into one. I had been practicing for months and I was going to nail it. There were about 12 girls trying out and the music teachers had us all line up on the stage. One by one we walked to the piano and sang the solo. After we had sung they lined us up in order from 12 (being the crappiest singer) to 1st, the person who actually got the solo. I intentionally got at the very end of the line so I could go last and make a big impression. Evil Lunch Girl was somewhere in the middle. She stepped up, sang, and was immediately positioned at the front of the line in the number one spot. No other girl sang as well as she did and she was still number one when it was my turn to sing. I stepped up to the piano.

When I reached the piano I decided to let the music teachers know I was a star and instead of singing to them, who were standing on the other side of the piano bench, I turned and sand to the empty auditorium. I sang loud. I sang proud. I sang to all my stuffed animals I imagined could hear me in my bedroom. I sang to Tyler Harrell the boy at school I thought was cute. I sang to that other boy who ate lunch with Evil Lunch Girl who was also cute. I sang to make my parents proud. I sang with an expressive face and used arm gestures and I balled my fist at the part where I said I was tough as a man. I sang like every movie, every TV Show, ever London Theater play had taught me to sing. I my mind, in the movie I was starring in, in my head, I was the star. I was awesome. I sang the shit out of the Lady solo in “Going West”.

I was placed fourth in line.

Evil Lunch Girl sang my solo the next night.

This is the first time in my life I can remember the movie in my head not going the way I had planned. This was the first time I realized that maybe the movie wasn’t there, that maybe I wasn’t a secret Disney Channel Star.

There were a lot of other moments in my life that didn’t pan out the way they would have if I were staring in a Teen or Romantic comedy. But one that really sticks out is Homecoming Junior year of High School. Unlike my solo star moment in fifth grade, I didn’t plan this one. This moment just happened and it wasn’t until after that night when I was looking back did I realize it was a great movie moment in my life.

My date for the Homecoming Dance Junior year was my Ex-Boyfriend, Garrett. We had only been broken up for about two weeks, so we decided to just keep our date for the dance because it was easier than getting dates last minute. Our break up was pretty mutual and there weren’t any hard feelings, but to make it a little less awkward we decided to go with a small group of friends. This group included Christina, a Cheerleading friend, and her date Crazy Steve. Christina and I were on the same team and friends, but we weren’t really that close. She and Garrett were also seniors compared to me and Crazy Steve. I liked Steve a lot. He was smart, funny, and friends with a group of boys I became better friends with my junior year of school because my girl friends decided I wasn’t cool enough or something and stopped being my friends.

Crazy Steve was crazy in love with Christina. Or at least crazy in lust or like. For the whole previous year of school she had dated this one dude, but he moved away (as like 50% of my school did every summer because it was on a military base). So Steve quickly made his move at the beginning of the school year by grabbing Christina as his Homecoming date. The problem with his plan, asking her way early before anyone else, is a lot happened between him asking and the actual dance. One big thing was Garrett and Christina getting together right after we broke up.

Yeah, it was kinda awkward. So here’s the scene. I’m Garrett’s date, but I know he really wants to be with Christina. Christina is with Crazy Steve, but I know she really wants to be with Garrett, but doesn’t want to hurt Steve’s feelings because everyone told her he’s got a huge crush on her. Oh and Christina is wearing a dress she borrowed from me (which really doesn’t add anything to the story but I thought I’d let you know).

Yeah, dinner was awkward and at the dance Garrett and Christina stopped being polite and just had a good time together. I didn’t mind because I didn’t have feelings for Garrett and I could have even more fun with my friends than with my Ex-Boyfriend, but I knew Steve was hurt and sad. I knew his night was not going the way he planned it or saw it in his head. If he was starring in his own movie in his head, it was going downhill fast.

I found him outside the main room where everyone was dancing the night away. There was a large stairwell that led somewhere upstairs where students weren’t suppose to go and Steve was sitting under the stairs with his back against the wall. I joined him and we sat next to each other, shoulders touching for a long time. We didn’t talk. We just sat. I then took my shoes off, and without saying a word so did Steve. We wiggled out toes together to the beat of the music that was still loud, even though we were in a different room. Then we both started laughing and everything was fine. We talked about our crazy dates and the awkward dinner and photos we all took together. He told me funny stories about his friends and way they called him Crazy Steve and I shared stories of Cheerleading and our crazy coach from the year before. It was fun.

So, I already think this scenario is kinda movie like. Maybe we were in a sweet teen romantic comedy or something, but then it got totally better. We decided we had been antisocial for long enough and we were going to go and join our friends and dance and have a fun time at our Homecoming. We get out from under the stairs and I bend over to fasten my shoes. I bend at the waist to do this because it’s hard to crouch down in the dress I’m wearing. When Steve took off his shoes he did so by just pushing them off his feet, therefore now he has to try to undo the double knots of his dress shoes. At that exact moment our Principal and one of the coaches walks through the door coming from the dance. This is what they see…

Yeah I am bent over at the waist and Steve is behind me kind of swaying because he awkward and unbalanced with only one shoe on. Principal’s face turned bright red and started screaming at us to quit being nasty and get back to the dance, while Coach started cracking up and tried to be serious and point us back to the main room, but he couldn’t stop laughing. I had no idea what was going on because I can’t see what Steve is doing behind me and I honestly thought Principal was yelling at some other couple and not us.

Yeah, she wasn’t…

We spent the rest of the night dancing and laughing.

I spent the rest of my junior year and time at Ramstein High School avoiding Principal’s gaze.