Twin Peaks

{I'm having some trouble with uploading the right image, so please excuse the lack of them in this post}

When I was working at the Barnes and Noble outside of Atlanta when I was 17, my coworkers and I watched the entire Twin Peaks series on cassette. Every Thursday, we would go over to this guy Alan's house and we'd watch three episodes. Alan was slightly older than me, had bad acne scars and this poster of Marilyn Monroe hanging in his living room:


I had a huge boner for him, the same way I had a huge boner for any boy three years older than me who was skinny and treated me like I was pretty. I had a boyfriend and I'm an honest woman, so nothing ever happened. I just wore impeccable white socks from the Gap when I came over to his house in case I had to take my shoes off. Once he commented on how clean they were.

The other two people were Kim, a goth AIDS activist with horn rimmed glasses, and this guy Sean who I would now describe as an arrogant film guy but at the time just seemed really cool.
I loved these people. I had never met anyone like them. They were nice to me, even though I was Mormon, insanely naive, and my favorite band was 311. I swear to god Kim changed my whole life when she said in passing, "Jesus, half the people in the world are trying to pretend to be something they're not!" Her words were tremendously influential; it was like she was telling me something I needed to know that nobody had ever told me. It's nice to remember this, because if I overheard a 20 year old goth girl say that now, I'd be bored. At the time though, I was a girl who wanted each pair of her white cotton panties to be perfectly folded and the crotches to be impeccable. In fact, here is a photograph taken during this time, of which I was secretly very proud:

(I bought each pair of those with my own money that I should have been saving for college).

But Twin Peaks was great. I have the loveliest associations with it. I felt so cool at Alan's house. They'd drink a beer or two; I wouldn't leave like I normally would have with my high school friends. I'd sit far away but right beside Alan. After the shows one night, they played a Portishead cd. It was like Susanna Adult School.

I moved to Provo, Utah to attend BYU. When I came back during the summer, I had platform black patent leather Steve Madden strappy sandals, Victoria's Secret pantyhose and I had this new way of putting all my hair on my head so I looked like some sort of hip Roman goddess with baby barrettes. I kind of looked like I worked a salon in a mall in Atlanta, but I wore much less foundation and pinker lipstick. I went to work and flirted with Alan, but after a few days I realized he had this new creepy side that I hadn't seen before. I still don't know what that was.

I eventually took Kim's words to heart; I left BYU, the church, and overtime I even stopped shopping at the Gap. All of those socks are now lost, but I still have and wear many of the underwear. And yes, they are all still immaculate.

Kim got a job full time at AIDS Atlanta. Sean moved somewhere. Alan became a cop, but I didn't know that. He was killed at work in 2000 by a hit and run driver. My name was in his datebook, so they called my house and spoke to my Mom. When she told me about it, I couldn't remember who he was. I didn't know any Alan who would have become a cop.