Continuity

In Hollywood, movie producers have someone called a “Script Supervisor” who is on set at all times making sure that when scenes are shot out of order they don’t lose continuity. In my real life, that’s what my friends are for. Coming from a family that is fractured and spread out, sometimes I feel like it’s my job to remember every detail of my childhood in order to keep it, and the people who starred in it, from disappearing. My memories and stories keep my past alive. And the people who were there with me validate it.

Over the weekend my baby Charlie stepped on a bee and got stung. The first thing I thought was “crap – I hope he’s not allergic”. The second thing I thought was “well, at least it’s only one sting” because as a child my brothers and our friends the Ratti girls and I stepped on a nest of ground bees in the woods and were chased by a swarm into the south river. I haven’t seen the Ratti girls in decades. But when I posted something about Charlie’s sting on facebook, I almost immediately got a message from Jacqueline saying “remember that time we stepped on the bee’s nest and got chased”. And knowing someone else shared that memory with me made it more real. It made a childhood that seems so far away seem closer. And it made even kind of a bad memory, a good one because it was shared and everything is better when you share it.

Saturday night Bobby and I watched Hot Tub Time Machine again. If you haven’t seen it, get yourself to that red box in the Safeway pronto and rent it because it rocks. Watching it got me thinking, if I could go back in a hot tub time machine who would go with me? It’s a hard question because you can only fit so many people in a hot tub so you’d want to choose wisely. My friend Nancy was a no brainer because I’ve known her since I was five and we met John Cusack (star of Hot Tub Time Machine) together.

My friend from middle school, Anne, would have to come, too, because she grew up to be this super smart, responsible, do-gooder who I totally love but when I met her she was a roller skating rink loving, hair feathering, making out with Bob Ekstrand on the back of the bus to Kings Dominion and then smoking in the sky lift rebel and seeing that version of Anne again would give me a huge laugh.

From high school I’d bring my friend Aileen because even though we’ve only seen each other maybe twice in the last twenty years, when I text her she’s still the same teen movie quoting, snarky comment making, ready to laugh at anyone ball of fun she was in the 80’s. Plus I would love the chance to engage in crazy hijinks and have her earnestly tell me to “Blame it on Rio” even though I’ve still never been to Rio.

And finally, I’d need my friend Fissy, who I saw the movie with in the theater, there. Fissy and I weren’t friends till the very end of the 80’s but we made up for lost time by spending a year wearing matching outfits and tooling around in my convertible. When I hear Fergie sing “sippin', reminiscing on days when I had a Mustang” I think of me and Fissy and I get all giddy. When Fissy moved to California, it was like the day the music died. Some people from Bowie have actually asked me in rather accusatory tones “how did you let her go?” People from Bowie sometimes have a hard time letting go of the past. Trust me, I was born there. Oh, and she came back so get over it guys.

So I’ve put together my passenger list and now I’m just waiting for Chevy Chase to show up with my can of Chernobly. But if my hot tub time machine never shows up, and sadly I think the chances are pretty slim, it’s still pretty fantastic to have so many classic, recurring characters in my life. Without them I might forget who I was before “Mac and Charlie’s mom”, and that would be a shame because if continuity is correct, I was always pretty awesome.