Last night I watched Reality Bites for the 496th time. This movie is to my sanity much the same way that oil changes are to a car, in that I need to watch it every so often in order to keep going. I’m sure everyone has certain movies they own and watch frequently. Personally I have a few and this is probably the “best” one, sadly. (I mean, not sad to me, because obviously I love it and worship it and in fact have a small mini-shrine for it in my bathtub, but sad to most other people, who are normal.)

The first time I saw Reality Bites was in 9th grade, age 14-ish. I went with my two best firends at the time, a girl and a boy. We all loved it, but secretly I knew that I loved it the most. Because I am crazy!

At the time, I had no personal experience with much of the movie: the post-college life, first jobs, national recessions, junky apartments, boy triangles, the hijacking of my art by a pseudo-MTV music channel, etc. But I knew one thing completely: I wanted to be Winona Ryder’s character when I grew up.

Starting with the hair. I am not ashamed to admit that I pretty much spent my entire high school career trying to get my hair to look like (her character) Lelaina’s. It was all perfect and floppy. And I loved the dark hair with pale skin and red lipstick thing - that was good too. Also, her clothes. Not all of them, mind you; even in the mid-90s I could tell that baby-doll dresses were unflattering and would not be around for long. But the boys’ Levis jeans and t-shirts and shirtdresses and Converse sneakers, yup, check, got it. All over it. It all went into my grand vision of What My Life Would Be Like When I, Too, Was That Age.

And still, even now, I love the character. How many movies, even ten years later, have really great, dynamic, young women as the main character?

She’s meant to be the straight man amongst her more obviously eccentric friends, which has always been my MO, but she’s not dull at all. She stands up for herself, and she’s supportive when her friends are worried about AIDS or coming out, and she’s smart but self-effacing and charming. Also she really does try hard to land a new job, with all those interviews and stuff. (Fast-forward nine years to my first year out of college and oh! Look at that. Another national recession and I basically DID turn into that character. but with no gas card.)

I love the clips we see of the documentary she’s putting together, and I love that we know her well enough to imagine just how good it would have turned out if the Ben Stiller guy (Michael) had not convinced her to sell it to his network.

(“It was never meatloaf!” Word, Winona.)

And all the junk food and drinking and lounging around with fun friends? To my fourteen-year-old self, it just looked like the best life ever. Certainly better than the hell that was high school.

Finally, there was the boy triangle. It’s funny, but when I watched this movie back then, it never even occurred to me that Ethan Hawke’s character, Troy, was sort of a dick. I mean, there’s that part after they sleep together when he runs out in the morning after saying, like, four words to her, but at that age I guess I never imagined how jerky that actually was. Maybe before you start having sex you have no concept of how much it can shake your life up? Or maybe I was just thick-headed, who knows.

It certainly wasn’t that I was all *Ethan Hawke, swoon!* because I wasn’t then and I’m not now, but for whatever reason when he comes to her at the end and spoiler alert asks her to forgive him because his dad dying has made him want to be a better man or whatever /spoiler alert, I was always like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, now for the kissing! Cool.”

It was NEVER an option in my mind that Lelaina should have gone with Michael, because in my mind it was way worse that he had turned her films into crap. Also, he was pretty annoying, right? He was all unintelligible and inarticulate. Whereas Troy has that scene where he answers the phone with “You have reached The Winter of Our Discontent,” which made me want to read that book. It became one of my all-time favorites, so good job there, Troy.

There are even more reasons that I love Reality Bites. Here they are, along with accompanying embarassing personal information about me:

1. The music. So, the girl I saw it with bought the soundtrack and made me a copy (on CASSETTE, no less) and we would hang out after school together and listen to it all the time. She even convinced me to (oh god, am I seriously about to say this) record the two of us singing, a capella (no music to back us up!), the Lisa Loeb song Stay, into my tinny tape recorder. And then we would play the tape back and listen to ourselves singing and argue over who sounded better.

And this might single-handedly explain why I did not have my first kiss until I was fifteen, so, moving on…

2. The cameos. I actually had good musical taste when I was in high school, Lisa Loeb notwithstanding. I was OBSESSED with Soul Asylum, and I mean before they came out with that song with the missing kids that everyone can sing in their sleep. I loved them and I loved the singer and I loved that he and Winona were dating in real life. So when he showed up with one scene and one line, it just clinched the movie’s coolness for me.

3. The hair. I wanted to think of a third random reason I love this movie, but I think I have gone on for QUITE LONG ENOUGH ALREADY, thank you. So I am going to say it again: Winona Ryder’s haircut. It is masterful.

Aaaand, just to give you all another reason to feel better about yourselves, the other movies I mentioned before? The ones I also watch frequently to cheer myself up? Include “Tommy Boy” and “Shallow Hal.”

And yes, I am aware that I am the only female person ever to like that last one. I’m not proud of this stuff, people.