Pictures of Ricky Schroder, Chad Allen, Fred Savage, and Corey Haim (RIP) used to adorn the walls of my teenaged bedroom. Torn from the pages of Teen Beat, Tiger Beat and Bop magazines, they hung on my walls, silent observers of my teenaged life.
When I moved into my first apartment, my roomie and I didn’t have much in the way of tchotchkes but we were flush with posters. Jason Priestley and Luke Perry adorned the walls of our dining room, while Sully from Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, lurked in my bedroom.
Getting married kiboshed any objects d’ art lovingly taped to our walls, mostly because half the bedroom would be plastered with Fred Dryer from Hunter, Maks from Dancing with the Stars and possibly a dragon from Dragon’s Den (hey, tastes mature) while the other half would look like George Lucas had been our interior decorator.
#1 Dreamboat
There is one tiny corner of my bedroom that holds a glimpse into my past. In a frame that used to hang beside my bed – at eye level, like the good old days – but now sits on my dresser, replaced by a picture of our littles, resides a picture: Kirk Cameron on one side; Richard Grieco on the other.
One of my brothers gave me the frame for Christmas two years ago. A nod to my teenagehood, and a story I told him: when I ripped the Kirk Cameron centerfold out of a Teen Beat magazine (Kirk was looking svelt in a white dress shirt and jeans) I realized that on the back of the centerfold was Richard Grieco, bare chested wearing a leather jacket (hubba-hubba).
Kirk spent most days observing me from beside my window, but when my friends came over, I’d flip the picture to reveal Richard in all his sexiness.
#1 Bad Boy
A silly teenaged tale, really. But one (thankfully) my brother couldn’t resist. Every time I look at that poster, I am filled with nostalgia for the sanctuary that was my teenaged bedroom.
Miss Q is starting to really get into art these days. Over the Christmas break her pictures have changed from heads floating on a page, to detailed pictures of people complete with pupils and eyelashes. The other day she was drawing jellyfish, sea anemones, and various other sea creatures. ”Now we don’t have to go to the aquarium, because it’s all right here.”
When she’s ‘artisting’, as she calls it, you can see she’s in a zone. She hates being distracted until her work is complete, and though she’s usually tolerant of Miss S, heaven forbid Miss S plucks a marker from the pile beside her. (This is why we got them each markers and paper for Christmas this year.)
“I just let my pens think up what to do and they work together with my mind,” she told me the other day.
“That’s the way to do it,” I responded. Then asked her to draw a picture of us, her family.
Miss Q eagerly complied. When she was finished, I asked her about the picture. She pointed out Miss S, her daddy, and herself. ”Is that me?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Is that Miss C in my arms?”
“No,” she replied. ”That’s you holding a bag of candy.”
“But what about Miss C?”
“This was before she was born.”
Annd, I’ll try not to read anything into that. Eek.
In the end, she had five pictures that she was really proud of, so I suggested she hang them in her bedroom. This made her chest swell and eyes glow. Because tacking them to the 1950′s plaster wasn’t in the cards, we used masking tape.
Stepping back to admire her work, my breath caught. There they hung: five pictures; slightly off centre; brightly coloured; each a story of its own. They were her first step to expressing herself; to carving her own nook; to her own sanctuary in our house; to Richard Grieco.
If you want to know what I look like, look no further. "This one really captures your hair and eyes," Miss Q told me.
I love that Mike Sheehan has a picture of Kirk Cameron/Richard Grieco in his bedroom. Awesome.
meee too