The Sunset Strip Diaries Read Online Free PDF

love and family seemed sweetly simple yet things like décor and manners were more formal. While watching those 1940’s movies, I felt more at home than I did in my own family. When times were bad, I used those old films and pictures to bring me security.
     
    I really started piling on the makeup even more that year. I felt relief each time I applied another layer to my face. It was a literal mask I hid behind. I felt braver with it. When I took it off at home, I felt vulnerable. I started wearing tons of foundation in the wrong shade; tons of dark, loose powder from a pink plastic container (both hand-me-downs from my aunt Billie), along with loads of blue eyeliner that winged out at the sides. I reapplied it all after each class and sometimes during class. One of the more outspoken ninth graders looked at me one day and said, “Dude, you are going to drown yourself in foundation!” I always had tons of makeup on the collars of my shirts and jackets. I looked like a broken-down, teenage Joan Collins.
     
    Like most teenagers, I was curious about sex and was too frightened to ask my parents how it worked. I wasn’t sure how my mother would react, but I knew I didn’t want to ask her. My dad wasn’t as pervy toward me that year, maybe it was because I was no longer twelve. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to rehash his feelings by asking him about the facts of life. That would be a stupid move. I didn’t have any friends to ask- Karen was still hanging up posters of kittens. So I took my cues from music and TV.
     
    I liked a new group called the Beastie Boys; I thought Ad-Rock was cute. I didn’t know then that anyone looks cute next to Mike D. and MCA, but that is neither here nor there.  I listened to my Licensed to Ill tape, rewinding it repeatedly to try to decipher the lyrics to get some sort of clue as to what people did behind closed doors. They were risqué and talked about having sex with girls, although I could barely decode what they were talking about between their thick Brooklyn accents and their slang. It didn’t make much sense to me. A wiffle ball bat? Forty Deuce? Turn tables? White Castle? I could not have picked worse teachers.
     
    I started actively searching for meaning in other songs on the radio by groups like Def Leppard, Ratt, and, of course, Madonna. Most of the music I was listening to was from the viewpoint of a man, and what I learned from it all was that men desired women and wanted to do stuff with them. I just couldn’t figure out exact directions. I remember many Genesis songs, songs from Janet Jackson’s Control album and songs from Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet album . Despite the racy album name, Bon Jovi wasn’t too bad. They were kind of like long-haired Bruce Springsteens. They were from New Jersey and they sung about the prom, waitresses and steel workers being broke; blue collared, anthem-type of songs. I liked hearing the songs through the wall when my sister played them. She always found hip music before I did.
     
    There was a new Glam Rock band out at that time called Poison, and they really caught my eye. They had a catchy song called “Talk Dirty to Me.” They always appeared to be in the dead center of a huge party. Their videos were a mess of electric green, hot pink, red, baby blue and leopard skin. They wore lipstick and had long hair, sprayed with what looked like tons of Aqua Net. They were always checking out chicks walking by, humping the microphone stand, gyrating, and flicking a tongue between two fingers. They were still guys . It was confusing, yet exciting: the beauty of women, yet the sexuality of men. A perfect combination if I ever saw one. I was intrigued.
     
    I lost interest in Mark Poletti that year because I saw that there was some fresh meat in the grade below me. There was one boy in particular who I found super cute, named Zack. He was in my English class and kept turning around in his chair and checking me out. I didn’t know what to do. I