Come and see me, I'm the same boy I used to be.

So, in a recent discussion with some Imaginary Friends about music or dating or youth or first cars or whatever, I was reminded of The Punk Rock Girl (have I mentioned her here before?), and started wondering about what she was up to these days. It turns out that she currently lives in the same city as I do, which is not the same city that we lived in in 10th grade. Quandary -- contact her or not? "Stalkerish and creepy" or "welcome blast from the past"? Oh, the conundrums of poor Jackson's life!

Since I am too lazy to do a search to see if I have mentioned her before (until now, there was no tag for her, so I am guessing that I have not), here's the short version. It was the era of AOR (album oriented rock) radio -- filled with corporate schlock and fossilized and heavily repeated classics. The PRG and I had known each other since 6th grade, but became good friends when we started working at the same place one summer. Long before any of these people made it on the radio in our part of the world, she introduced me to Elvis Costello, the Police, British new wave pop, and pre-"Purple Rain" Prince. She and I went to concerts, hung out at indie record stores, and watched hours of MTV during Martha Quinn's shifts, because she seemed to play the stuff we liked.

Yes, as one has noted, this isn't really punk rock (although she also introduced me to the Clash and the Sex Pistols), but that's what some old (like 30-ish!) dude at work called her one day, and so that's how I've always thought of her. She was artistic and cool and talented in a million different ways (she used to cut my hair and painted wall murals for a local business). I had a bit of a crush on her, but our outings never seemed to turn into dates.

We ended up going to different high schools (she moved a short distance) and then different towns for college. And I had a girlfriend senior year, who wasn't terribly interested in having me spend a whole lot of time with the PRG seeing shows. So . . .