Thinking about 1994

My life is oddly wrapped up in 1994. Its the pivotal moment in my adolescence, a time where "me" was becoming less dependent on the decisions or influences of my parents but I was still too young to embrace the era as my own. I turned 12 in 1994. Started listening to modern rock instead of oldies and Broadway musicals. Tuned in to My So-Called Life, identifying with Angela Chase's angst even though I was still the childlike age of the character's kid sister Danielle. I threw flannels over midriff baring baby tees, sported chokers around my neck.

I've noticed that other girls my age look back wistfully at the 80s. "We are children of the 80s" they chime, recalling the days of neon and slap bracelets. But that decade had nothing to do with us. We were still in a sense dressed by our parents, given our Skip-its, our trapper keepers by adults. It is the early 90s that in some way begins to belong to us. If only slightly. This past fall when Urban Outfitters displayed a season of courderoy and flannel, I celebrated a little on the inside. Because this time, 1994 was fully mine to embrace.

Of course, my affinity to this particular moment in time may also have a lot to do with the fact that in the summer of 1994 my family packed up my childhood home on Greythorne and moved our lives to the neighboring town. My brother, the natural leader among his group of peers struggled with going from the most popular boy at Beechview Elementary, ready to enter the 5th grade as king of the playground, to a sudden and shocking nobody. I on the other hand was already a relative nobody. I had outgrown my neighborhood friends, those whom I had befriended years before because of their close proximity to my own home. Those girls who I spent my days up til age 12 who had never treated me well. Made fun of my shyness, picked on me as I grew awkwardly tall and remained preposterously skinny as they filled out. I was teased for not being normal to them. "Hey Emily, if you turn to the side, do you disappear?" they would taunt. Another would hold up the silver chain of a necklace, "Look Emily, its your long lost twin."

For years I would come home and grab a book while the other kids played. My mom would question my decision to stay home. "Mandy and Katie decided they don't want to play with me today." I never shed a tear, simply understood that this was just how things were with my friends. I was smart enough to know that it wasn't right however, and when my parents announced our move, I had little remorse about leaving them behind.

Years later I found myself in a small seminar class at university with one of these so-called childhood best friends. We smiled at each other in acknowledgment on the first day when role was called but we never spoke that semester. What was there to say? Did she know how poorly she treated me in youth, remember our friendship the same way I did? By the time I saw Ruth in that classroom I was a different person, a more accomplished and confident person. We didn't need to speak for that to be clear. It also helped that I was far better looking by then, having finally grown comfortably into my long limbs and learnt to tackle my mane of curls. Perhaps my smile had said that for me on the first day, "look at me and look at you, who's better now." Petty, I know but it felt good.

Some of the most beautiful and inspiring images i have ever seen

Explaining me

My mom is just like me, only blond. And with much bigger boobs. Whenever she comes to visit I hear the same echoing response, "Oh, this explains so much about you," or "I totally understand where you're coming from now," and so on.

I wouldn't necessarily call my mother weird (although on numerous occasions this is precisely what I have called her) but she no doubt has a quality to her personality that makes her a little, let's say eccentric.

"What in the world..." my friend Tammie exclaimed as my mom entered the basement in a battered old wedding dress, sporting a sizable baby bump. A faux cigarette which usually sat as decoration in a bathroom ashtray hung loosely from her lips. I was 15 at the time and my mom was definitely not pregnant. Tammie broke into a fit of giggles while I stared mortified in embarrassment.

"I'm having a shot gun wedding ladies!" Mom cooed in a Southern accent that forty-some years in Detroit had not naturally bestowed. I started bellowing for my father, the only other member of my family whom I deemed somewhat normal in those years. There was something more subtle in my dad's humiliating acts, like a little kid just trying too hard to impress. We referred to my dad fondly as a "funny little man" although he was neither intentionally funny nor all that little. But the name nevertheless always seemed to fit strangely perfect.

"There's my man!" Dad had entered the basement, a look of baffled amusement on his mustached face. After twenty years of marriage, this behavior was hardly shocking. Regardless, he stumbled with his words, not entirely sure what my mom was up to with this get-up on a Saturday morning in early August. Mom narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't stand there looking so shocked! You're the one that did this to me!" She pointed in exaggeration at her pregnant belly and spun on her heels to rustle up the stairs.

To be fair to my mom, the whole thing was not entirely out of nowhere. A manager at a home decor store in the mall, that afternoon she had a meeting with her staff regarding shoplifting. Apparently, mom later explained in the car (still sporting the bump but sans the wedding garb), a common practice is actually women who sport a fake pregnancy all the while stuffing goods under their grossly expanded maternity tops. My mom thought she'd make an entertaining entrance for the meeting.

As for the wedding gown, it was the first random piece of clothing she could find big enough to fit. And she found it just plain funny.

"You're mom is so cool!" Tammie later exclaimed. She had insisted on walking my mom through the mall to her store in order to see the reactions on her coworkers faces. My dad and I, dignified as always, waited outside in the car.

It took another few years for me to realize just how much her personality had rub off on me. Certain times I've caught myself repeating her odd phrases or unintentionally impersonating her actions. As a child my mom and I were hardly very close, although looking back, even then we were more similar than we really knew at the time. Because when it comes down to it, my mom is just plain fun. And I often think that may be the greatest gene pool trait she could possibly have given me. Although I wouldn't have minded inheriting the boobs too.

Magic*

So my lovely friend Caitlin is currently residing in my home sweet home which is beyond magical to me. We're very similar souls and have known each other for many many years. 

Technically she is not my roommate. My second room is being rented out by the production company of a documentary i'm helping out with. The lead singer of the band being featured needs a room a few nights a month during production and the rest of the time, I have a spare room... enter Caitlin!

Right now we're laying around drinking coffee, writing stories and playing music. This is going to be a wonderful year!

The only political statement I will ever make...

I would never pretend to know anything about politics. I don't keep up with the debates, know little about the candidates, and basically vote democratic because it seems to be the less obnoxious of the two parties according to my peers.

However, I will make one statement regarding this past brouhaha for the democratic nomination. For as much as I know, I would have been fine with either Hillary or Obama taking the ticket. My only serious disappointment in Obama's success with the primaries is the unfair attitudes towards Hillary in the media and a tragic number of voters.

I'm not a stand on my soap box and preach equal rights kinda feminist however this election made me realize just how blase society is regarding gender prejudice. Attacks on Hillary were rarely to do with her actual politics and more to do with her sex. The wife of a former president, was she only worth electing to get Bill back in office? If she cried tears of joy or disappointment she was criticized for being an over emotive female. Put down for her dowdy suits or choice of hairstyle. Why is this ok?? Why is it that a country that can be so conscious of being racially accepting, not making stereotypical or prejudice remarks towards a black male candidate can so outwardly and unapologetically sexist. 

Its sad that this sort of discrimination and mindset is still so widely accepted.  Maybe Hillary isn't the best choice for presidency, but if thats true it certainly isn't because she may have menopausal mood swings during a UN meeting.

Stepping off my soap box now....

Counting Crows - Round Here

This song is me. Not in the lyrics or even the music particularly. There's no quote I could pull out and say it describes my life in the way that other songs so often do.

This song is me because it represents the birth of who I have become. This song was the beginning of the rest of my life. There is no other way to really define it otherwise.

Absence

I haven't written in a long time. At all. Not on my blog nor in general. Which is kind of painful for me to admit, because writing is really the thing I love. Or is it? Sometimes I think its just something that others have always told me that I'm good at, but not something I necessarily BELIEVE I have any right to do. 

"Oh I left my job and now I'm just writing," I tell the high school peers I run into in the park over the weekend. They're fascinated. They think that's so exciting of me. I think I'm just a total fraud. I know I haven't written anything worth being published, nor do I have the confidence to even attempt to get published.

I'm basically fucked.

An author I once worked with said that ideas are pretty much worth shit. Writing is all about the actual act of sitting down and typing. Which is why I can hardly claim to be a writer. Sure, the little bit of writing I do is fairly good. I imagine that if I keep going, with all the plans I have on where I want my story to go, I could have a pretty fucking awesome book. But I'm stuck on page three, not ready to go beyond because I'm afraid to be disappointed in what I actually leave on the paper. If I don't write it down, it exists only as this fabulous idea in my head. 

Which is shit. 

Sometimes working in publishing I would get annoyed. "I could write this book so much better!" I would whine about a bestselling chick lit novel. And maybe I could, hell I know I could... but I don't. That's the key. The difference between someone like me, who honestly does have the talent to write and the women writing some of the stupidest girl about town novels is that they actually sit down to type. All I do is complain that they suck.

I really need to start writing again. If only to show my parents that paying off my student loans is totally worth their hard earned money.