Do you ever have days where you just feel ruddy brilliant?
You think to yourself, "my life is pottering along splendidly! I'm warm and snuggie in my comfy wittle house, with my cozy little writing projects, and my dog with OCD. I've got tea in the kettle, pasta in the pantry, and Splenda in the bowl. Add all that to your 'A' in algebra, and you're life is just friggin' ducky!"
At least, that's what I think to myself.
So, imagine my surprise when I log into my Blogger account to write up a spiffy little post (more on that later), to find that the last post published was from January 19th.
"Didn't I have one scheduled for January 20th?" I ponder.
I must investigate!
Reginald Kitty can read the writing on the wall. It spells out M-O-R-O-N.
One might imagine that, after two years, and 266 entries, I would have figured out how to make a post on my own bloody blog by now.
For those of you who are unaware of the process, you have to push the GIANT orange button that says "PUBLISH POST".
Someone forgot to do that.
That someone was me.
Yup, college really does a world of good for the mind, doesn't it?
So, without further ado, here's a post that was supposed to be read eleven days ago.
January 20, 2011
Guilty confession: I'm having 90's radio night. There. I said it. Child of the 90's, what can I say?
As I sat down to write this post, I thought to myself, "right, girly, you need mood music!" And off to YouTube for my late 90's/early 00's (is that what we're calling the last decade?) rememberies.
By the way, that's pretty much what this post will be about: memories of a not-so-distant childhood (if you want to call it that, 'cause it sounds really stupid coming from someone my age).
Why do I need music to remind me of it? I was there, after all.
It just seemed the prudent thing to do.
Anyway, on with the merriment!
I'm pretty sure this thinking process started with Rolos.
(Hang in there, we'll all make it out of here with minimal damage if you just take direction.)
For the first time in far too long, I actually sat down with some of the awesometastic, caramel-y, chocolate-y goodness. As I unwrapped the golden foil from the glossy sweet, I gently set the featherlight wrapping aside; I'm thinking this was a reflex action, as I wasn't really aware that I had done it until I noticed there were five wrappers stacked neatly on top of each other.
I looked at those wrappers for a moment as a distant, foggy thought entered my brain.
"I wonder..."
I picked up the wrapper on the very top of the pile, admiring my psychotic talent of not ripping the candy's foil (it's a thing of mine, not to rip the foil, but to unfold it. If you haven't yet discovered, I was/am a strange duck), I began to gently smooth it out into a full square.
Yes, it was coming back to me now.
I began folding the foil into an envelope, and the entire process came back to me like I had done it just a few days ago.
Before I knew it, five Rolo wrappers turned into a memory from when I was very small...
Yes, I minted my own play-money (I'm refraining from making many political jokes).
I remembered playing Pirates, or Gypsies, or, on occasion, Caesar/Judge Judy (you would be surprised how many children didn't understand the concept of the Judge Judy game. It was very simple, actually. I was Judge Judy, they were plaintiff/defendant. This meant that I would point at them and yell "that's irrelevant to your case!" I made a few of the weak ones cry. It was eventually a game I played alone, but enjoyed no less). If you ran out of coin, you just ate more chocolate! It was a perfect plan.
Pleased with remembering a little tidbit of my younger years (that just sounds ridiculous coming from someone my age), I started my evening blog rounds.
When I ran across this post of 90's Childhood's Greatest Hits, I chuckled to myself.
"How silly," I thought, "childhood! We're technically still in it! Oh, what piffle."
Then, I started to read the playlist (and contemplate the extinction of the mixed tape, but that's neither here nor there).
I was shocked.
Reading over the titles brought back a flood of memories I hadn't thought of in eons.
Like a kid I knew that was absolutely obsessed with the Spice Girls. She never shut up about them, or the Spice Girls bicycle she got for her birthday.
It felt like there wasn't five minutes to go by without her shouting "girl power!" on the playground. I didn't know her as well as some of the other kids did, so I didn't have to deal with her too much, but she did rather wear on the nerves.
Or when the Disney Channel put up the "Ooops! I Did It Again" video on their website before it was supposed to premier on MTV (or wherever it was going to show up), so my sister and I waited over four hours for it to load on our lousy dial-up service (I seem to remember that we were both very disappointed at the end of that long wait).
Or - dare I say it - when I was the envy of every girl I knew because I had secured tickets to an N*SYNC concert.
In the midst of thinking back to being a wee bit shorter, a wee bit dumber, firm in my belief that I was the hippest cat around, I was jerked back to the present, and reminded of this interview I saw recently (2:38 timestamp, if you don't care to see the whole thing)...
I'm sure that the Backstreet Boys has been outranked as favorite concert; I know for a fact he was one lucky bastard and got his grubby little mitts on a seat (well, I say a seat... it was a standing room only gig, but whatever) to see Paul open The Joint in Las Vegas. We tried for a pair of tickets, but the odds were really, really, really against us. A 4000 capacity venue, countless people on the lines... I believe it set a record at the time, selling out in under four seconds.
As an aside... Pet Sounds? Revolver? Oh, you speak my language, Mr. Ross.
As I was contemplating the intricate weaving that makes up a life, the final blow was dealt.
From the other side of my screen, across the desk, and another screen, my mother says, "hey! You remember him!"
She turns her computer around to reveal a picture...
Fellow 90's kids may remember Danny Tamberelli from the Nickelodeon network.
I remember Danny Tamberelli as the reason I watched the Nickelodeon network (some things never change).
No, really. When his contract expired in 2000, I stopped watching kiddie television. This was around the time my passion for HGTV started, so I had something to fall back on, but that's not what we're talking about at the moment.
We played the "what happened to him?" game on TMZ, did my mother and I. As the page loaded, and I was greeted with the "...and here they are now!" photograph, I felt my eyes sharpen around the edges.
I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm making a direct quote from myself when I restate: "I think my childhood was just raped."
(Oh, yes, laugh it up. It's all so funny, until you realize our generation will one day be in charge of your pension checks.)
So, with the last traces of Drops Of Jupiter leaving my ears (stupid here forgot Train existed up until she heard "Hey, Soul Sister" on one of the two radio stations available in this po-dunky little town), here I sit, slightly jaded, but wiser.
What have we learnt from this sequence of events:
*I can, in fact, still fold a mean Rolo coin.
*I plan on sharing the aforementioned skill with my niece when she gets to be a little bigger (I'll also teach her the Judge Judy game, if she so fancies, though I shall warn her that it may make her unpopular).
*My mother has since asked to be taught how to make these, and, if I find myself folding Rolo foil, she'll keep our newly-minted treasure (for reasons unknown).
*While looking back can be fun, it's not something you should do often.
*I stand by what I said during last week's episode of The Bachelor. I don't care if you're getting a private concert from Train at the Hollywood Bowl, that you've had a one-on-one date with the Bachelor (PART TWO) to a spa, they've let you play dress-up with a bunch of fancy frocks (by the way... she had all those dresses to chose from, and she picked that one [it's just a picture, not a video. At least it shows you, though]?), you're still getting screwed if they don't play Drops Of Jupiter.
I leave you with this...
It's a wonder our generation has any brain cells left.
