Alright, so I’ve got a huge crush on Sean Nelson. I’ve been in this state of being all 8th-grade-y about it for weeks. And I’m okay with that. I know that it’s neither unhealthy nor permanent, so I’m sitting it out for the time being. And really, there’s something sort of pleasant and amusing about having someone you don’t know and can’t know occupy your waking thoughts. At other times, it’s extremely frustrating. There’s something especially maddening about following a Twitter feed that seems impossibly intimate and also unreal. Worst of all, this is pretty much the only worthwhile information out there. When I was younger, I really could spend whole days digging up information about my then-crush Soundgarden (as a whole organism) and reading about them, looking at pictures, hunting down bootlegs, and the like. When you’re 26, and it’s a fairly obscure band, the searches aren’t so fruitful, and the internet runs out of the informational opium that both stokes and tamps the fire.
Like the nerd I’ve always been, this is a data crush like all the rest. Obsessing over Soundgarden was always less about seeing Chris Cornell shirtless than gathering an impossible amount of factoids. Then, when you suspend your disbelief a hair, it’s almost – almost – like you know the band. I once had a dream that Kim Thayil and Chris Cornell came over to my house and I fed them lemonade and we hung out in my back yard. This is the very pinnacle of crush success – a dream that fulfills my every fantasy. I don’t lust after physical encounters – I lust after people I respect enjoying my company and friendship. It’s ego-masturbatory. It’s the fantasy that I’m an interesting, worthwhile person. It’s the fantasy of being completely comfortable in social situations, even those in which I should probably be more star-struck than cool. And it’s the fantasy that I can be part of something I’ve completely lost, but still feels so elemental to my composition – Seattle rock music.
This morning, I had my lemonade-analogous dream about Sean Nelson. The dream had lots of parts, but the meat of it was that I Sean and I were in the same class, oddly at UCLA. Actually, it was Steve Luck’s, and he was teaching cognitive neuroscience, and I think several other Seattle rock figureheads were in the class as well. Anyway, I tripped in front of Sean after class (admittedly a ruse to get his attention) and he helped me off the ground. We ended up hitting it off, and walked to where ever we were going together. We had lots of witty repartee, and I did a great job of not seeming like I wanted to hang out that much. He tried to take me on a shortcut through campus somewhere that involved climbing up a big bridge/tunnel, and then back down the other side. Unfortunately, the other side didn’t let us off at ground level, but spiraled further and further underground until we were in this big cavern and it was too steep to get back out the way we came. This is where it gets a little Goonies-esque, as the cavern contained only a rickety old piano. So Sean played a little piano (nothing in particular) and three doors opened up behind us. This is as close as it gets to lusty – I pecked him on the cheek, realized it was really awkward, and apologized profusely. We walked into the only one of the doors that had any light coming out, and ended up in a basement apartment full of sunshine, and no one home. We opened another door (in the apartment) and found a bunch of old-timey vagabonds in something like a cave saloon. Turns out there’s a whole underground city (presumably subterranean Los Angeles) of people who were trapped there forever. We had to give up our cell phones and money as means of barter, but then decided we would try to walk out of the cave instead of settling there. And then I woke up.
I’ve been sort of miserable about this all day. It was such a perfect dream in that I behaved all calm, cool, and collected, and someone I really admire found me worthy of his company. And that’s all there is to it. I have to wake up and tell myself that I can do that with all the people actually in my life, and that there’s nothing particularly worth knowing about any of these famous people I sometimes settle on. They’re just people too, and given that I’m rather picky about my friends, there’s no telling that I’d get along with any of these people. But something about being human, about the nature of celebrity, about fame and notability and desirability, dictates that people you’d pay money to see are people you’d want to know. And there just aren’t that many things in my life I really want, and really can’t and shouldn’t have.
I can’t think of any other time I crave the forbidden. Not only will I never run into any of these people in normal circumstances, the amount of thought I’ve already put into it makes it taboo to even hope to try. For these reasons, I can never say hello or get the autograph on anyone I really follow. It’s the same reason I bought a Yuma, AZ hat (with a cartoon Wylie Coyote on it!) at a thrift store in Midway 10 years ago, that I’ve carried with me through several moves, and even brought to a number of concerts, but have never had the gall to ask Damien Jurado to sign it. I’m sure Damien would be happy to sign it. I’m just as sure it’s rather presumptuous to ask for any of his time. And when it comes right down it it, I’ve done the one thing that is most likely to make it impossible to ever meet or run into any of the people I adore – I moved out of state 8 years ago. I have not been a Washington resident in any capacity since I moved to England and my parents left the state – a full 4 years ago. And I have no plans to move home; I’m in a PhD program and will be for the next 5 or 6 years. And I’ll spend my time in California leading a completely happy, healthy, successful life. And always feel a little bit like I’ve accidentally lost something that made me very happy – home.