I don't know WHAT I was THINKING

I'm certain I was vacuumed into an otherworldly vortex earlier this year. There is a possibility evil female hormones and midlife crisis and life stresses all combined to slurp me into a black hole that eventually spit me out all covered in Poltergeist-like slime, which I had to shower off and simultaneously squeak out "what the FUCK was that?"

Because I can really see no other reason why I'd fall for the rat-bastard likes of Rex-goddamned-Smith! Are you kidding me? Six-and-a-half years of post-secondary, some times of intense tragedy and very little joy, years of rollercoaster living, and what it really comes down to is putting stock, forever and always, in the wrong people. But honestly — goldilocks there? The forces of the universe combined at just the wrong time, is what it is, to play a cosmic joke on me. In a fit of nostalgia last spring, I had ordered a DVD copy of an old movie-of-the-week, Sooner or Later, starring Rex Smith and Denise Miller. It was a movie I remember watching while babysitting and it fulfilled every teen dream that hurt little girl would have had. Rather than the expected lesson at the end of the movie ("never try to be who you aren't," "don't lie to older guys," etc.) — the girl got the guy in the end, much to the delight of every girl who'd theretofore had to sit through the moralistic preachings of most young adult literature.

It maybe was the mist of nostalgia that had me return to the movie. Daily. For weeks. Working around my work and family schedule, I began to buzz to the best parts. Eventually, I could say the dialogue word for word. Why? What a waste of time fawning over the beautiful (and truly, it was Greek-god like) countenance of Rex Smith? It wasn't enough that I became obsessed with the movie, I also became obsessed with the man. I dug deep, and found he'd put out albums with a hard rock band in the very early '70s that traveled with Ted Nugent and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I hit the vintage vinyl shop in town and bought the albums. I downloaded songs off the Internet. I joined a chat group. I began to order obscure and just-plain-bad TV and movie works off E-bay - a Harlequin movie (Ballerina and the Blues!), an ill-advised Knight Rider-ish ripoff, Streethawk. I ordered the entire book series written by Bruce and Carole Hart (who are notable for writing the Sesame Street theme song along with being early SS writers) — the Sooner or Later series, paying close to $30 for a yellowed, two-buck paperback. I found out his brother had been in a demi-successful band in the '70s also, logged onto his odd myspace site, and engaged in some pretty racy flirtation with him (never mentioning his younger brother). It didn't matter how I got close to him — this golden man had entered my consciousness and would not let go until I exhausted every avenue and every single bit of information I could scrape up. I began finding other women in their 40s who were just as inexplicably seized with the same kind of surprising, blindsiding obsession. Always analytical, I started to do research on the psychology of idol worship and began writing an article about what exactly it is that happens to women who end up locking sights onto specific celebrities, especially middle-aged, previously apparently normal women.

That article sits in my files abandoned now. My phase has concluded. It was helped not a little by the experience of an online friend who went to Mr. Smith's live play Pirates of Penzance and was roundly treated like less-than-nothing the two times she ran into the man. I have no doubt about the pool of untapped talent in Mr. Smith's tight California body — I have no doubt either about the scattershot, ADHD-like, get-rich-no-matter-how approach to his life that will forever relegate him to the also-rans and has-was bins. It's a shame.

But I need to wonder in a very deep way about how I could have been ripped from my life's moorings in such a bizarre way, by such a bizarre subject at such a bizarre time. Perhaps the strength of nostalgia had control of me. As a young teen I was equally subject to severe crushes and obsessions, so I was already prone. I do think some weird combination of hormones and the position of the moon and the space aliens that invaded my cerebellum also had to have something to do with it. Whatever it was, it was a very sad waste of my life's energies for several months, and I am pink-faced with embarrassment for having lived it.

And what have I learned from my little Take-My-Breath-Away foray? To seek my joy in my life's realm and devour it whole. Also remain loyal only to Rick Springfield! HA!