snapshot: 1988
I have to admit, gentle readers, that if my general internet use was logged for more than a day, most folks would probably wonder why I even bothered.
I don’t really ‘surf’ the Net. I have a few websites I like, and I’d just as soon not add to my repertoire and find yet more reasons to waste time.
This isn’t just because I have better things to do, like play with Puddin Face and all the 914 tasks, large and small, that go along with mommydom. I’ve always been like this.
Anytime I discover a ‘new’ website, I’ve pretty much been steered there by someone else.
I’m the same way with tv…I have a couple shows I like (though I never catch my favorites anymore (Daily Show/Colbert Report) and don’t have TiVo (which is just as well, really).
(I have to interject here that more and more in recent years I’ve encountered television tyrants….those ‘Tv is Bad For You’ types who think nothing of wasting anywhere from 2-12 hours a day in front of the computer…..what the difference is, I’d like to know….except one requires more clicking, but that’s a story for another blog…..)
So….that’s another way the mayor is a little…..left of center.
I have this whole big playground to explore and I opt to stay in my sandbox (which is cool, since I meet some really cool people here, frankly….*winkity winkity my salamander princess*). I have 300 channels to choose from and I only ever watch Comedy Central or Discovery (except my one guilty pleasure, as previously discussed, and perhaps one more but I’m sorry Chuck is just a REALLY good show and so dang clever I’m pissed I didn’t come up with it myself….)
Where was I? Good grief, how long have I been typing?
Anyway. It was a loooong weekend for reasons I can’t even rehash now lest my brain explode….suffice it to say that there was a FLOODING INCIDENT followed by MIND-NUMBING INCOMPETENCE from our lovely apartment staff, and ultimately resulting in an INDUSTRIAL-SIZED-FAN-WHICH-IS-NO-QUIETER-THAN-A-TURBINE which had to be run ‘as much as possible’ for a 3-day period and the collective amount of sleep had around here is NOT up to standard so if I seem even more, ya know, like, scatty than usual…..
(I can’t even finish that sentence. It’s too funny. How would you ever, EVER be able to tell, gentle readers?)
So.
Being that I stay in the sandbox, as it were, I’ve never been much of a You-Tubian. I have had my moments….(yes you, Mr. Panic-at-the-Disco)…..trading fun ‘remember this song?’-fests and such, but that’s about it.
But it’s slowly coming to my attention that, well, EVERYTHING is on YouTube. Music, comedy, clips, home videos, stuff-others-must-enjoy-but-not-me-personally, etc. etc.
Which brings me to the other night. I’m chatting with a girlfriend of mine..it had been awhile since we caught up and I was feeling like a train wreck with tiredness (see above: flooding) so I bid her goodnight.
I had the sudden thought…before I logged off…..to look up an old song I loved that I hadn’t heard in awhile. (I have the cd, but I wanted to see if there was the video I remembered from back in the day).
So I YouTubed for a moment. Found it. Watched it. Grinned like an idiot. Ah, memories. So of course I watched it one more time.
Then it happened…..
‘Oh! I forgot about this song!’
‘Wow…I wonder if they have that song!’
(hint: they have EVERYTHING. I’m sure you all know this already).
Oh, I was having so much fun! Just looking up song after song from my past….reminiscing….amazing how such specific memories come back with each song……
And then I looked up and it was an hour and 45 minutes later.
OH…..so THAT’S how it happens.
You have to understand, gentle readers….this was a new experience for me. Going to look up one little bitty thing and just sort of…getting…sucked in….and not even realizing it.
Nevermind that I was sacrificing precious much-needed sleep to get this fix….because let’s face it, my blocks of uninterrupted time are few and far between unless in the wee hours.
Thankfully, it was the weekend so I could be a little bit lazy the next day. LOL. Yeah, right. Oh well…at least I had help that day.
And you know what? This is all just…prelude.
This isn’t even the point of the blog.
MAN I need to get some sleep.
But first….I have to let you in on the song I looked up…the one that started it all…..that brought so much flooding back to me……
And just so you know, I make no apologies. I loved this song then, I love it now, I’ve never gotten tired of it, and am listening to it as I type. I just, ya know, can’t believe I ever had a crush on a guy who wore stirrup pants.
But whatever. Here it is, for your viewing pleasure….(I’m certain not all of you will listen all the way through lol….)…though please tell me if that’s *not* Jamie Foxx in the beginning of this video, if it’s not his twin…..because wow……(sorry embedding has since been disabled on this video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtdPMoX2iws
Say what you will, gentle readers, but those dance moves scream ‘secure in my sexuality’ to me!
And now for the back story (since I know you’re all RIVETED at this point)…..
The year was 1988. I was 18, and spending some obligatory (oops I mean ‘anticipated’) time with my maternal grandmother at her assisted living community.
Now I love my grandma, gentle readers (who is 98 at the moment and still kickin’…..though my mother gets frazzled sometimes when she says she seems to be getting ‘a bit confused’ sometimes. She’s NINETY-EIGHT. I’d say a little confusion would darn near be required at this point, wouldn’t you? But I digress……)….but she’s never been a sort of….typical grandmother. She doesn’t knit, or bake, or really cook, and rather than relish quality time together, these forays to her place were basically spent trying to find something to do while she went through her routines, up to and including watching ‘her story’ (As The World Turns) and socializing with her friends, which pretty much consists of 3 topics:
*did you hear who died
*did I tell you what my doctor said about these bunions
and
*SAG (stories about grandchildren)
To say I was a bit bored, at 18, would be an understatement. Thankfully, I had my walkman (size of a small toaster) and headphones (metal slider with foam ear coverings).
I was doing my best to entertain myself during grandma’s daily routines, I really was. I wasn’t even considering pulling one of those emergency rip-cord things they have stashed in every room to see what response time was *really* like in this joint, or anything.
At one point my grandma must have taken pity on me and brightened up (during a commercial break) and said ‘Oh you know what? We have a library here now!’ She knew I loved to read. Still…how exciting could a library full of donated books at an assisted-living community be? I wondered.
Well I gotta tell ya, gentle readers, I was pleasantly surprised. I stumbled on a gem that would shape my future reading in many ways: my very first Dean Koontz book.
It was called Phantoms. The cover was eerie and I read the blurb on the back and I gleefully checked it out and took it back to grandma’s room and devoured it in one sitting…..listening to my lovely walkman.
This must have been the week the album Heart Break came out, because I heard “If It Isn’t Love” for the first, second, third, and most likely fourth and fifth time while I was poring through this book. The song had an edgy feel to it, to my mind, and some of the backbeat and sound effects were suitably creepy to be the perfect soundtrack for this book.
And to this day, I still love this song…..and it still reminds me of reading Phantoms by Dean Koontz….which turned me into a lifelong fan. I always called him my favorite author….(until about, say, the year 1998…winkity wink)….I don’t absolutely LOVE all of his books, (though they are good….) but I feel as though I grew up with him. I’ve followed his work and his career and I love how he stuck with it and made a name for himself despite years of frustration and negative feedback.
He’s a household name now, bitches! Har de freakin har.
Yeah.
I need sleep.
Thanks for reading, gentle readers. I’m sure I’ll be adding some more snapshots in the future, because this was fun. In the meantime, feel free to share your own!
(p.s. I can’t find the original cover on this search here but it was much cooler)