I might need the warm, strong arms of Jake Ryan to get me through this

Hmm... so, how many times have I mentioned John Hughes on this blog?

Oh, wait, only three, apparently. I guess I didn't feel the need to overstate the obvious: he was a big influence in my life. Not because I grew up wanting to make movies, of course; but because I grew up wanting life - er, high school - to mirror exactly what I saw in his iconic 1980's films.

I don't know - there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been plastered around the Internet. I'm loathe to sound like every other mediocre blogger who tries to relate a stranger's passing to the symbolic passing of our own youth. But then, we Gen-X'ers are nothing if not self-loathing, so I guess I'll add my two cents:

Years before his movies became staples on basic cable - years before I think we even had basic cable - I used to rent the same rotation of titles from our local "Movies and More" video store: Sixteen Candles, National Lampoon's (European) Vacation, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller. I never knew until later that they all came from the same brain; I just knew, at the time, that I loved them.

Unlike most girls, I never aspired to be Molly Ringwald - her characters were awkward and insecure. I didn't relate to the stragglers, either - I was much too mainstream. But I LOVED the high school guys in the movies - the jocks, the bad boys, the guys from the poor side of the tracks, the depressed brooder, the whimsical deviant. I was sure I knew them all - sat next to them in social studies, could win them over in gym class, so long as I studied these films.

That, actually, turned out NOT to be the best way to fit into middle school, but I blame that on the rest of my class for maturing later than me. By the time I started high school, slacker culture had set in, and I didn't care so much for floppy hair and flannels as I did for cropped cuts and biceps. But every time I went to a school dance, sneaked alcohol underage, or saw potential for a raucous party, I mentally compared my life to theirs, these lucky characters born of such fun (and badass!) imagination.

Whether it was realistic to expect my real life to mirror these manufactured movies, I don't know. But John Hughes set my own imagination aflame, and I honestly can't picture my adolescence without him.