Omphaloskeptical meme

So, I’m home sick today. I think my body was just tired of all the work and decided to wave the white flag.

When I’m home sick, I spend a lot of time free-associating. Since I had just finished reading How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time last night, Sassy was on my mind. I honestly think that it was one of the biggest non-person influences on me during my early teens. It gave me a vocabulary to understand my ideas on feminism and self-esteem. It showed me that there were girls like me everywhere that also didn’t want to think of other girls as the enemy and boys as the ultimate prize in life, that what I had to contribute to the world, not just in the future, but as a teen-aged girl, could be valuable.

And truly, I know how lame that sounds to anyone that was not a Sassy reader, but if you were a reader at just the right age, you’d get me.

So I was thinking that I’d make a list of the top five movies/books/magazines/tv shows/songs that had a direct impact on me when I was in my tweens to teens. Now, I’m not talking about movies I liked or my favorite songs; no, I am talking about things that actually changed something about me, whether it was how I behaved, who I decided were attractive, how much I wallowed in my room thinking no one understood me, how I decided to join a club or movement, how I decided to stop judging others, whatever.

Here’s my list:

• Somebody, song by Depeche Mode
• The Breakfast Club, movie
• Sassy, magazine
• The Outsiders, book & movie
• The Bluest Eye, book

I could probably come up with a much bigger list, but having to stop at top five really forced me to give it some thought. Each of those things has left an indelible mark on who I am. Or perhaps they resonated with me so much because of who I already was, or who I was on my way to becoming.

Either way, I am glad those things were in my life at the time that they were. If I were to stumble across them now for the first time, I’m sure that they would have a different sort of impact on me than they had, but the first time around, it fit a perfect groove in me.

Crap, now I want to add Love Story to the list.

Anyway, it’s your turn.