Being Ordinary, the plain one.

Brenda, Beth, Gina ... can't recall the name associated with the fat girl with the pixie cut hairdo, waxed down sideburns, red nail polish. Claims she's Gino's girlfriend, that he lives in North Van, British Properties. He's coming soon to "pick me up" so I bum another smoke. We wait outside the school grounds. Gino's coming. Another free cigarette.  The wind shyly scatters leafs in parking lot, as cars depart and the emptiness fills up with the smell of dinner and darkening skies.  Eventually my hunger abandons her and her pack of cigarettes, once again.

Apparently he's some rock star and they are lovers. She's 15-16 years old at this time, and I'm impressed she can make up such stories and think the crowd she hangs with actually believe her, that we allow her to continue day after day, without a limo arriving to pick her up after school, in the leafy storm of empty lot.

There's another girl, too.  Cindy.  She says "Lennox" is coming from his spaceship. She is tall and gangly and has greasy black pixie cut, and wears 3D glasses and a zipper smile. Except she doesn't smoke cigarettes, so we don't waste our time waiting for alien arrival.  We don't waste our time on Cindy at all.

I can't top either story. I don't know how to bullshit and appear truthful. I don't have the look. I am ordinary. Plain. My hero is the curly blonde haired guy, who died in the movie "Carrie", American Hero, Starbuck, the Captain on the Love Boat and Mrs. Partridge. I won't have grown to have a musical influence for another year or so .... I will be a follower, a listener, a believer, a disbeliever, a friend with a nicotine habit.



As a member of the 10 year and 20 year reunion committee, we could not contact Cindy. She has simply disappeared.

And as I type this in my Blog in the year 2013, it is my hope that she somehow finds her way back, that the plain girl still stands beside her for at least a few minutes as she waits for Lennox.