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April 21, 2001, 5:19 p.m. || not a fan girl

Surrounded by fanboys of all ages, pawing through cardboard boxes of old comics or shilling out handfuls of bills for imported toys, my fifteen-dollar admission fee paid off when I got the chance to ogle a haggard-looking Corey Haim .

He was at the fan convention signing autographs, but sadly, no one wanted one. He had inch-high stacks of glossy photographs from his various films, from Lucas to The Lost Boys to License to Drive, neatly arranged in piles, just waiting for the hordes that never came. Sandwiched between a former ensemble player from M*A*S*H and the craggy blonde actor from The Wrath of Khan, I think these middle-aged, badly managed men, with their paunches and pastel sweaters, were drumming up more business and pressing more skin than the former heartthrob.

He was never my type as a preteen because I was all crushed out on Mary Stuart Masterson with her red leather gloves and tomboy pixie cut, and I could hardly be bothered with a smirking white boy in gelled hair, shoulder pads and a dangling earring. Still, it was kind of tragic in that bitter washed-up teen star way, tragic like bad car accidents or desperate haircuts, but that didn't stop me from staring at his wrinkles or the thickening flesh around his jaw.