Hi! A few things. Just as a first approach to calling out the apparently current American dream as complete bs, this article is great. Take the time to read it, if you can. A little bit over my head for a Saturday morning with little sleep last night, but I liked it. Bonus are the haikus about Matt Damon on the page. My favorite: Your "Good Will Hunting"/ 'Twas a masterpiece. It's true:/ We liked them apples.
I myself am finding that I'm completely glad to not be in any kind of a rat race or super mommy race or aggressive career race or recapture my youthful figure and athleticism (although my atheticism was, how you say, non-existant) race. Kind of beating the race thing to death. But you get the idea. I can relax about all that stuff now and focus on the important stuff, like figuring out how to live so that I don't feel miserable all the time. How to love the people around me and let them know that, even though I have to spend less time with them than before, due to the fact that I really really really just want to lie down.
*sigh* On the flip side to the whole perfection/rat race thing, also in this Saturday's NY Times Magazine, is a picture, real close like, of a pot-smokin granny. A pot smokin granny who has done so, for 35 years (8 joints a day! Good Lord!) because of, you guessed it, MS. Mother feckin MS. So two extremes covered in one magazine. Are these my two choices? Ima gonna choose something in the middle, thank you. Maybe skewing a little towards stoner grammy. But hopefully without the pot. All this on a foggy, cognitively-challenged Saturday morning. Good mornin' to ya!
I started off thinking about writing a new post because this happened to me yesterday. I realized my sister is Hipster Kitty. She said these exact words to me, completely unironically mind you, yesterday in a phone call when I started joking about the song Friday. Even down to the Tuesday part.
A lot of things started to fall together once I made the connection. But then I started to wonder. Do you think she knows about these memes? The hipster memes? Does she think they're funny? Like, in a meta way? Or does she think she's actually cool and these memes are making fun of people who only think they're cool? Lots to ponder. I love her, but she's a "dose" as my mom says.
Oh, so last night at the PTA charity event, the gift auction. I won nothing. Bupkiss. How do you spell that? Nada. I think I was the only one at the table for whom this was true. So sad!
My friend Kristy said (paraphrasing here), "I can't wait for those PTA b's to pressure you about doing more! Then you can tell them where to go!" (She said it much more funnily.) That whole idea, though, is predicated on the idea that I exist to the PTA b's. And I do not. It's kind of a cultural thing, I think. It's a bit of an insular society around here and for someone like me, introverted, quiet, not from New Jersey, they don't know what to do with me. So they do nothing. Which is fine. I don't really care, but I felt bad for the friend I went with because she's much more social than I am and I weighed her down a bit. But she asked me to go and I gave it my own half-hearted effort. I should call her and apologize.
Anywhoo, the whole thing was not my bag. In the same way that sororities were not my bag (though I ended up rushing and joining - for my mom) or that a debutante party in Mississippi was not my bag (though I ended up doing that - for my mom). This PTA thing, I would try to do for my daughter, but I'm realizing that I really can't. Can't do it anymore. Does this fall under the parvenue of races in which I'm no longer participating? Think so. Have your permission to fall out of this race too? Yea? Super. I just don't want it to affect my daughter, but I officially have an excuse now a days, so other, more important things to worry about.
The theme was "Disco Night". One funny thing that happened was that this woman wore this skin tight, 70's style hot pink dress (she looked like a hot pink stuffed sausage) and my very nice friend commented on the dress (saying she looked great!). And she rolled her eyes and said, "It's supposed to be a costume! No one's getting that!" Her, I liked.
The other thing that happened was that they played the Deee Lite song "Groove is in the Heart". Funny thing about that song is that it has a particular poignancy for me. Christmas break, freshman year, was a particularly good time for me. School was going well. I liked my dorm, my roommate, my classes. Myself. The whole sorority thing hadn't started up yet (that was in the spring freshman year). And I came home to my good friends and because I was finally 18, we went to the local Daytona night club, The Coliseum. (It still exists, btw. I think that's one of those "you can never go home again" kind of a things.) I was fucking on top of the world that night.
I found a diary from that period recently, and apparently, a bunch of guys liked me. For the first time in my life, this was true. And I was completely smitten with the idea that a bunch of guys liked me. My ex-boyfriend wanted me back, then there was a guy at school who liked me, along with a friend of one of my high school friends back home and a skater friend of mine from high school. (The last one I should've picked. He's going to be a famous novelist soon. For real. He's super super talented.)
It's one of those snowball effects, I think. You like yourself and you become attractive to those around you. Plus I was skinny and boob-y and just... happy. So anyway, that night at The Coliseum, I remember the moment that I realized I was kind of euphoric. I had a self-aware moment. I remember everything about that moment. I was wearing a really really cheap, polyester knock-off Pucci style dress. Like this, only polyester and much much uglier:
Yea. So. I thought I looked good. The thing about Pucci dresses is that there's not a lot of room between a good design and an "Oh. My. God." design. Not a lot of room. I wish I still had that dress because I'd like to photograph it for you.
The main reason I bring this whole little story up, though, is that I remember the song that was playing because it related to the dress. "Groove is in the Heart" was a fantastic song. Is. Bum, bum bum, bum bum bum, bum bum, bum bum bum bum bum. Repeat. I danced and danced and danced and sweated and danced some more. And was truly truly happy.
So... they played that song last night at the gift auction. And I smiled as I remembered that night twenty years ago. And I escaped for a bit.
Until next time.
For all that it bothers the hell out of me when people screw up lyrics, I always thought this song was saying "Roses in the park" and still hear that whenever it comes on.
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