“I’ve never really gone out with someone as basic as you.”

So gee. It’s 1 a.m. and “Say Anything” is on TV. I do not know why I can’t turn it off. Reminders of childhood? Of days when conversations like this seemed prophetic?:

Guy at Party: “I don't know you very well, you know, but I wanted to ask you—how'd you get Diane Court to go out with you?”
Lloyd Dobler: “I called her up.”
GAP: “But how come it worked? I mean, like, what are you?”
LD: “I'm Lloyd Dobler.”
GAP: “This is great. This gives me hope. Thanks.”

Yeah. Anyway. I recently re-read my high school yearbook in an odd moment of discovering one of two boxes that contain my childhood (divorce scatters memories, throws them in the trash). Will I ever be given words as poetic as the ones from the boy who wrote to me, “You are da bomb”? He was a bit of a stalker, yes. But who will ever say that to me again?

Then there’s the girl in the movie, who, at the party, says to Diane, “I know we were ultra-competitive this year,” when Diane clearly doesn’t know who the fuck this girl is but is terribly gracious anyway.

I have to stop before I start quoting Lili Taylor’s song: “He-eee / likes girls / named ‘Ashley'…”

(Bonus quote: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that. ")

Yeah. So. It’s 1 a.m. and I’m watching “Say Anything.” What are you doing? Because maybe it is better than this. Maybe you are dreaming complicated things. Maybe you are involving a random schoolmate in a complex dream when you have not even thought of this person since you were 15. It happens.

It doesn’t seem natural to get this much joy from an ‘80s nearly-brat-pack-but-not-literally movie. Are there even movies like this being made anymore? Ones that are so earnest, but not utterly stupid, heartbreaking and teenage, a movie that gives you the feeling you are as uncool as these characters and that’s okay? Movies that make you dirty dance with your 13-year-old friends in their parents’ bedroom the first time you see them? Of course not. You’re not 13 anymore.

But sometimes, maybe, you wish you were.