On "ordinary girls"

For a while, before we were even in middle school, Jon Bachman and I used to hang out together in the library. Which wasn’t out of the ordinary for me. I “hung out” in the library a lot as a kid. I mean, all of those books! In walking distance!

But Jon’s public persona was not much about reading. Or, really, girls. And especially not girls who like to read. He was tall and handsome. White teeth. Good at baseball. All of that stuff. And a little bit mean, especially as we got older. The kind of mean that boys are to survive middle school. He ended up being the sort of guy who would call you “gay” if he didn’t like the way you looked. Or if he had an audience.

But before then, we used to hang out together in the library. I had recently discovered the adult stacks, where all of the secret books about dreams and psychology were hidden. (Part of my personal legend includes checking out Child Psychology text books before I had graduated from Elementary School. Yeah, I’m exactly that sort of ridiculous.) Jon was fascinated by the copy machine. And information about scary things like ghosts and demons that he could uncover in the encyclopedias.

Once, I did a project about Rasputin, though I can’t remember why or for who. I just remember sitting at one of the big tables in our small town library, watching Jon trace a skeleton and telling him about the Russian Revolution. And the lost princess.

So that’s probably where my fascination with Anastasia stems from. And I remember when the Fox Animated film came out. I was 14 by then. I remember an ad campaign the summer before the movie was released. It showed an elaborate winding road and at the top it read, “An ordinary girl is really a princess…” and at the bottom, “Story sound familiar?”

And Yes! It did sound familiar! Even at 14, this was my favorite fantasy. And ordinary girl discovered for her hidden, extraordinary self. If I’m being honest, this is probably still one of my favorite fantasies.

There’s nothing particularly radical you can say about Anastasia. Its not an interesting movie from a cultural history perspective, either. Pretty basic. Even the music is good but not great. All in all unnoteworthy.

Except that an ordinary girl is really a princess. That you could be something other than yourself, secretly.