“My So-Called Life” on DVD

The writer’s strike seems poised to happen on Monday, so I’ve already started watching TV on DVD by Netflixing all the episodes of My So-Called Life. It aired from 1994-95 and only lasted 19 episodes, but I think it was the first show to center on a teenage girl in a truly realistic way. Without it, there’d be no Buffy, Felicity or Joey Potter. MSCL is like the anti-Hannah Montana in just every way imaginable.

The show in a nutshell: Angela Chase, in the throes of an identity crisis, dyes her hair red, lusts after Jordan Catalano (you could never just call him Jordan, part of his mystique was that you always called him Jordan Catalano), befriends bad seeds Rayanne and Ricky after ditching former BFF Sharon, all the while evading the crush of nerdy boy-next-door Brian Krakow.

The show is so high school circa Clinton administration (right down to Angela’s mom’s Hillary haircut). I remember watching the show when it first aired, and then a lot more when MTV would air reruns after the show was canceled. It definitely feels like time travel; in the same way people who grew up in the 80s relate to the pitch-perfect pop culture references in “Freaks and Geeks,” this show takes you right back to the moment when flannel ruled the ensembles of both boys and girls, and people listened to grunge and still made mix tapes. It seems to capture a time took place so long ago, and it really is only ten years old.

If you ever wanted to remember how angsty and self-important you were in high school, this show reminds you quite nicely.

I went to high school in the mid-90s, and while watching the first episode of the show on DVD, I recalled that I lived my very own “My So-Called Life” moment. There’s an episode towards the end of the series when Angela wakes up and realizes she finally no longer has a crush on Jordan Catalano. I even remember the line from her voice-over: “I am so over Jordan Catalano.” She celebrates by dancing and jumping on her bed to the Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun.”

So me: I had the hugest crush on a guy in high school who was in my Latin class. He was sweet, smart and very cute, and one year older than me. He was also president of the Latin club. See, it might not sound like he could have been smart or cute on that basis alone, but he was the anamoly of hotness in four years of Latin.

I had a very Angela-esque crush on him. Because Angela focused on the little things like “one time I think I touched his sleeve during a pop quiz,” and Angela could live on that moment for days. Same for me. Me and him– let’s call him Rocky–did some mild flirting once in awhile, and were “class” friends in the sense we talked during class but not outside it. But I knew I was completely out of league.

He graduated, and somehow I got his email address, and got up the nerve to email him at college, and he emailed like three sentences back (“great to hear from you, college is great, how’s latin?”) and I lived on that for days. I was able to sustain a giant crush on him for an entire school year even though he wasn’t even there. That takes tremendous brain power, really, to spend that much thinking about a person I didn’t even see anymore.

I would dream that he would come back and visit our class (some people came back to visit old H.S. teachers) and see me, and then fireworks would fly and daisies would cry and he’s finally like me just as much as I liked him.

One morning in the spring, I woke up with this thought: “I am so over Rocky Balboa.” And then like magic, “Blister in the Sun” came on the radio. It was kismet! I danced around my room a bit–I might have even jumped on my bed. I felt like Angela Chase, like I conquered something that had been dragging me down for so long. I went to school feel fresh and free.

I’m in Advanced Latin later that day, and the door opens. In walks Rocky, looking like a grumpy king forced to come back see how his peons were operating. He sat down in the easy chair at the front corner of the classroom, and looked a little heavier that his high school days. To say I was in shock really undermines just how outright flabbergasted I was. Because I just had had my moment! The song came on, and I danced, and I was actually over him! And now he was back, if just to visit, during his spring break. Cruel fate, why me?

I think I went over to him and said something which I can’t remember (although what ever I had said mortified me, because I reran it in my head and carried it around like a heartache for days, wishing I had said something more fun or witty) and he gave me a hug. And that was the last time I saw him.

I don’t recall how much longer my crush lasted beyond that. I think Rocky’s actual return deflated the image I had built and lovingly nurtured over time. But the strangeness of my Angela Chase moment colliding with his reappearance has always made me laugh–at myself, and at how weird life can be.

Like I said above, more than any other show, “My So-Called Life” viciously and deliciously awakens you back to what it was like to be a teenage girl: a grinding kind of insecurity and hopefulness, and the occasional bit of delirious perfection that could come from touching someone’s sleeve during a pop quiz.