Back in my day

There are so many posts out there about 1980s beauty products and the best 1990s products and everything we remember from school. However, the lists never work for me.  My high school years were 1988 to 1992, so half the products are from when I was too young and the other half are when I was older. I decided to make my own list of the things that defined my high school years, and there's going to be a comparison of then and now.

Fresh Breath
I was a tapper. I tapped my fingers, my toes, my pens. The folks around me couldn't stand it, and so I started chewing gum - lots and lots and lots of gum. My fresh breath went on and on with Big Red. I went through a large pack of 20 every day. When I was a Rotary Youth Exchange Student in New Zealand, I discovered that cinnamon gum was an American thing. There was no Big Red in Hamilton, and I couldn't even find cinnamon gun. My parents sent it to me in bulk a couple of times, and after a month in customs, I got to chew my nice, stale gum.

Top: Big Red cinnamon chewing gum, Bottom: Altoids cinnamon mints

These days I avoid chewing gum, but I still love cinnamon. I usually have cinnamon altoids in my purse. I love the heat.

Multiple Earrings
My mom had my ears pierced when I was four, but when I hit high school I wanted multiple ear holes. I had a second set done my junior year of high school. My senior I went for all the funkadoo and put a third hole in my right ear only. Within three years, I was back down to my original earring holes only.

Left: Ear from someone on the net, if it's yours, let me know. Right: My left ear

In the early 00s I got an inner conch piercing, so now I sport my original holes from when I was four, my inner conch, and a nice couple of scars from the three additional high school holes.


Star Trek
Back in high school I had this weird belief that Star Trek was something to be ashamed of. I have no idea why since I was a fairly unapologetic nerd. I preferred Star Trek Next Generation to Deep Space Nine.

Top: Star Trek Next Generation, Bottom: Star Trek Voyager

My first Star Trek may have been Next Gen, but these days my heart belongs to Janeway.

Romance Me, Bay-bee
My stepmother gave me my first romance novel when I was eleven years old, and I filled my life with them. I read several per week.

Left: A Harlequin Romance from the 1990s, Right: An awesome werewolf lesbian romance

Then I got older and got out of the closet. Years of supermarket romance have been replaced by my current obsession with lesbian vampires and werewolves. Ok, fine, I might read other books, too, but my lesbian supernatural lovers don't mind.

Hair Products
I know I started high school in the 1980s, but I stopped using Aquanet before high school because I heard that my hair was killing the ozone layer. I used Rave. It was cheap, and you only had to clean out the spray hole every few days.  I can't remember what kind of mousse I used with it, though.

Left: Rave Ultra Hold Hairspray, Right: Kevin Murphy's Antigravity Spray

These days I use what my hairstylist gives me, and she sold me Kevin Murphy's Antigravity Spray. I also use the Kevin Murphy powder wax and the dry wax spray sometimes. My hair's short and brightly colored now!

Wakeup and Makeup
I started wearing MaryKay at eleven years old when my stepmother threw a MaryKay party for me and my friends to learn how to wear makeup. I wore it for years, eschewing the cool Maybelline that my friends wore so that I could put on my purple eyeshadow from my pink compact.  No primer, no setting spray, just three shades of purple eyeshadow, purple eyeliner, and purple mascara. The purple shadow trifecta!

Left: Marykay compact with interchangeable shadows, Right:  BH Solar Flare

These days I wear a lot of different kinds of makeup, but I use some of those massive eye shadow palettes. Sometimes I pull out three different palettes to use only one color from each! First I have to pop on some eye primer, use a matte neutral, then go with a couple of these for some pretty metallic shimmery joy. I skip the eyeliner most days because I've got such hooded eyes, and my mascara is brown,or very occasionally black.

Nummy Nummy Smells (I'm channeling Spike here!)
My mom sold Avon, so I used a lot of Avon products. Sure, it was the age of Skin So Soft everything, but it was the peach products that used in high school. In college I was all about The Body Shop, but in high school, I swore by that peach shampoo and lotion!

Left: Avon peach products, Right: body butter from TheSheaShak

These days, I have problems with scents, but I still like having soft skin! If I don't make my own body butter, I use Etsy, and  my current favorite shop is TheSheaShak. I buy unscented most of the time, and the delicious scent of cocoa butter and coconut oil is amazing. I do get lavender essential oils sometimes.

High Hair
So here's the thing, I was a Jersey girl. High hair was a requirement. The best high hair out there was Jennifer Keaton's. She was the perfect girl. She was smart, athletic, beautiful, and her hair, oh my goodness, she was a dream.

Right: Jennifer Keaton, Family Ties Season 6 or 7, Left: Tina Yothers, the actress

And guess what, Tina Yothers, the actress who played Jennifer Keaton is an absolutely gorgeous adult who still has a beautiful smile. She also learned that we don't need to tease our hair to look fabulous.

Nail Polish
Ah nail polish. I got in so much trouble for nail polish as a wee kid. I decided that pink would be a good color for the side of my dresser. It turns out parents aren't keen on that type of thing. The nail polish for all young girls was Wet n Wild for $0.99.

Left: W&W polish circa 1980s, Right: W&W 2018

These days I use... Wet n Wild for $0.99. They've stepped up their game. I bring it with me when I go for a mani/pedi, and it lasts longer then the fancy polish they use there!

Kissable Lips
I loved my lip gloss. I still wore Kissing Potion long after everyone else stopped.  I mean, unless it was a Rotary event, at which point I'd put on some Mary Kay lipstick, but I still have a soft spot for rollerball lip glosses because of that.

Left: Kissing Potion lip gloss, Right Clinique Pep Start

Lets face it, Kissing Potion just makes your lips sticky. Nobody wants to kiss that. So while I do war lip gloss sometimes, I generally prefer a sheer tinted lip balm. The Clinique Pep Start is a great color for me, and I've got super soft lips ;-)

Tip Toeing Through the Tulips
The shoe of 1990 was the boat shoe, and it had a very special knot!  It was this funky loop around the edge. My friend, who I am still friends with almost 30 years later, showed me how to do the knots. I think I could still do them, too.  However, I don't wear LL Bean boat shoes anymore, so, well, I have nothing to do the knot on.

Top:  Some other brand of boat shoes with knots, Bottom my favorite pink short boots

I have more shoes then I had back then. These days my favorite shoes are knee high leather boots and these little hot pink booties. Truthfully, I chose to show you my pink booties because they fit in the frame better than my legs in boots that go all the way up to the knees.

Moving Right Along
My first car was a 1980 Chevie Citation, white. It was falling apart. You couldn't put your foot down when you stepped into the driver's seat because it was rusted through - if I'd put my foot down too hard, it would have gone through the brake lines!  The passenger side window was busted - if you put it down it wouldn't always go up, even if you had someone pull on it while you turned the handle. The driver side door was broken. You could open and close it, but it didn't always work. It was better to just slide across. Oh! And I replaced the transmission twice (with a junk yard transmission). But oh, what fun it was to drive in a rusty Chevrolet!

Top: somebody else's chevie citation, Bottom: My new stinky ride

These days I live in the Boston area, which means I could afford a vehicle or I could afford rent.  I've got a monthly charlie card, so I can get around town on the bus and train! I think my first car was in better shape than the vehicles that take me to the office.

Rescued Film

Per their website,

"The Rescued Film Project is an online archive gallery of images that were captured on film between the 1930's and late 1990's.  Each image in our archive was recovered from found film from locations all over the world, and came to us in the form of undeveloped rolls of film.  We have the capability to process film from all era's.  Even film that has been degraded by heat, moisture, and age.  Or is no longer manufactured."

I've been looking at the photos for over 30 minutes, and I can't stop looking through them. What if the next photo has a picture of someone I know? What if there's an abandoned photo of me in there? My mom? A kid I went to school with? I know that I lost film and disposable cameras at times in my life, and other people have as well.

What if some of those photos are of my grandparents? I wouldn't even know if the young woman in the 1940s was my grandma or her sister or someone else. Would I recognize a photo if it was of my mom as a toddler?  Nope!

These lost moments in time, who are they, and what does each photo mean. I stare into each person's face and look for a recognizable quirk of their eyebrow, I look at the background for signs that they were taken someplace I know. Is that the same knick knack that Julie's mom had near the tv? Did I just see the hallway at my old high school? No, that's somewhere else. Wait, that wedding, I've seen that wedding dress before. No, I haven't, it's one of a million wedding dresses that looked alike in the 1980s.

What memories are captured on this site never to be seen again? They developed a stack of film from an unknown WWII soldier. What are the chances that the people in these photos are even alive, let alone going to take a look at the website.

What will happen to my photo albums when I die? My pictures are largely unlabeled, and I don't have kids to pore over the albums like I went through my parent's albums and yearbooks as a kid. They'll be tossed in a rubbage heap somewhere when I'm the only person left who even knows they exist. My dad would recognize that photo of Gloria from back in high school, but my niece has never heard of her; I doubt my sister even remembers her. I've no idea whatever happened to her once she moved away.

In another 50 years, everything I know now will be gone. The photos I took as a kid won't mean anything to anybody but me and maybe a few random people in the world who I may or may not still be in contact with (or may not even be alive). I don't even know who that dark haired girl is in the background of that photo I took of Melissa when she was rolling her eyes at me on a Girl Scout trip. By the time I'm 90, no one around me will even know that I took that photo of Melissa or who the photo is of.

Heck, if she saw photos today of me ten years ago, she probably wouldn't recognize them if they weren't labeled. Like this unlabeled photo of me taken in 2006.  Heck, my own father wouldn't even know this was a picture of me or why it's so important to me!

Weird.

"Paper Dolls" in the Computer Age

Katie posted such a fun Chanrio Character Creator.  As soon as I saw it, I created two.  One of I was dressing up as little kid, and one for if I was dressing up myself as a grown up. I'm not telling you which is which!

The cuteness overload is making me giggly!  The directions are in Japanese, but I didn't need to use the translation service to figure out how to do this. I have also discovered that I need a magic wand with a glitter star on it and a Hello Kitty purse. I'd also like a pink bow for my hair and some fun star barrettes.

I love all types of creators. I have this awesome Pony Creator downloaded onto my android phone, and I went crazy a few months ago turning all my friends into ponies. Perhaps a better phrase would be creating ponies that look like my friends?

This is my pony:

As you can see, I made my pony when my hair was teal and purple! I am back and forth on my next color, so it's the standard brown with some bleached ombre at the bottom (leftover from when I had bleached my hair to dye it).

I'm not a huge fan of the Great Gatsby, but the Great Gatsby Avatar Creator's just the bee's knees! I'd have hated the 20s because even at my slimmest I'm too curvaceous for those awesome flapper styles. Avatar creators fix that! Check me out in art deco.

Do you have a favorite character creator program you'd like to share?

EDIT: 09/21/15 - Peanutize Yourself!

Loquaciousness

I was an angel!

Of course, I was a darling little angel in what appears to be an old bed sheet, but I was also a talker. The nuns apparently taped my five year old mouth shut and later begged my mom for forgiveness. Mom loved to tell me the story because she'd always laugh and say she wasn't angry because sometimes she wished she could tape my mouth shut, too.

My dad used to offer me a quarter for every ten minutes I'd go without talking on the way to the bowling lanes.  The joke was that some weeks I'd make a quarter on the ride.

Chatting with one of my best friends in high school, she stood up and started walking away. I stopped talking, and she said, "Oh, keep talking. I'll be back in a minute. You won't even notice I'm gone."

Goody two shoes, but my only after school detention was for talking in class.

One of the biggest things I remember about my childhood is being told to be quiet, to shut up, to stop talking. I remember being yelled at that nobody could get a word in edge wise. I remember the joy of spending time with a few people who let me blather on happily because it was so very, very rare.

I don't remember anyone ever sitting me down and explaining why I should talk less. I realize I was a kid who was constantly moving and talking. My mind was always whirring, so my voice tried to make sure everybody knew what I was thinking. I wanted to share all the things I thought about and didn't really understand the concept of privacy.

I did eventually learn some conversational skills and techniques, but it was hard work, and I floundered my way through it alone. Even then, hell, even now, when I realize I've been talking for a little while, I start to feel guilty, I apologize to the person, I let them know that they are always welcome to jump in and ask me to please stop talking because I understand they may want some quiet time, or I might have spoken too quickly for them to get a word in edgewise.

So I've always known that people want me to be quiet. As an adult I fell in love with someone who always wanted me to be quiet. I spent so much time attempting to remember to not to talk because he needed quiet time, and he spent so much time trying to not be angry because I was talking. I assumed this was normal life. After all, I always talk too much and my entire life I'd been told to be quiet.

I learned his body language over time, but I didn't always catch it. It has helped me learn other people's body language, though, and I'm better at knowing when to end a conversation, but I still miss the queues a lot. I know that the majority of people who talk to me need me to be quiet, and I do try, but I don't know why I can't. I read books about how to have conversations, but when I get excited or upset or happy or really any emotion other than exhausted, I want to share. So if I'm in a coffee shop and someone sees me writing with a fountain pen they might stop to chat with me about it. So far exactly two types of conversations have ensued:

1. The person shows interest, but I get so excited about sharing the details about styles of pens and why I like them and how they react with different inks that they grow bored, and I don't realize it until they walk away.

2.  This is much less common and hasn't happened in a couple of years, but they'll pull out a fountain pen catalog they just received or bring out their favorite pen so we can admire each other's pens. We'll chat and chat and chat and, if it's a man, he'll ask me on a date. With men interested in fountain pens this ALWAYS ends in being asked out. Not one woman has asked me on a date in similar circumstances. These folks humor me and let me blather on and they blather on and we both go on and on and then they get tired of listening to me and leave.

In both instances, the same results - I got too excited, and they didn't want to continue the conversation, and I missed the queues until they were annoyed (except the guys who think that a fountain pen is a symbol that someone's looking for a date - why on earth has that only happened one time when I was almost in a position to accept a date?)

So I get that I talk too much. I really do, and it doesn't seem like it to the folks around me, but I spend a fairly large amount of energy working to be quiet. If I'm not talking, I'm humming or singing or tapping or in some way creating a noise that annoys people, so when you see me sitting quietly, you know I'm either exhausted or working hard at being the quiet person you deserve to be able to spend time with.

The thing is that I've learned over the last two years that not everybody always wants me to shut up. There are people out there who enjoy listening to me chat, who like having conversations with me, and who actively start our conversations by telling me that one of the things they like is that I'm chatty and will carry a conversation because they like to listen but aren't very good at finding things to say.

Let me repeat that. There are people who enjoy spending time with me BECAUSE I TALK. I had to repeat it because that's one of the things that drives most people crazy - as a talker, I will often repeat myself. At work I spend a fair amount of time editing my emails to make sure I don't repeat myself in a few different ways. Ironically, as a proposal writer, re-stating the obvious over and over is a handy skill because they'll ask the same question in five different sections, and I'll have to answer it in five different questions, and I need to add a bit of a spin so that each time the information sounds fresh and new and not like a cut and paste job. See, being a repetitive talker has one real life application.  Ok, it's only one, but that's better then none!

So here's the deal:  I'm 40 years old and still attempting to learn what an appropriate level of conversation is and how to find the balance between sharing a conversation and overwhelming it. I

I am responsible for doing my best to grasp the social queues the people around me send out. However, the people around me are responsible for making sure their needs are met and should let me know when my conversation is overwhelming them or too repetitive or just annoying because they need quiet time. Hopefully by surrounding myself with people who work within the concept of letting each other know their needs, I can continue learning to be a better friend and talk a comfortable amount for both of us.

But damn I wish someone had sat me down and helped me learn all these things when I was 10. Having people around me point out what type of restlessness means that I've blathered on too much and how to find the place in conversation where I pause for someone else to jump in would have helped me so much more than just telling me to be quiet. I wish people would just tell me now. I've actually got some new friends who have told me they like our friendship because I talk a lot, but that still doesn't really help me know when I'm overwhelming them, and if I've only known someone two years I'm probably still incapable of figuring out their non-verbal queues.

No Kiddies

I hate the terms "child free," "childless," "non-breeder," and even "child-friendly."  I also hate the term "breeders."

I don't have children.  This is a defining factor in my life, just as having children is a defining factor in other people's lives. I apparently told my mom when I was in kindergarten that I wasn't going to get married or have children, and she believed me.  She never questioned it or suggested I might change my mind.

If I had children, I'd be in a pretty miserable state right now.  I'd have an ex-husband married to his child bride and have had an inability to leave the small town we lived because of both his parental rights and my inability to support myself and children in a more populated area.  I'd have had to choose between staying there and working as a civil servant secretary mom or living in the Boston area as a proposal writing divorcee.  So I made the right decision.

However, I'm not hugely thrilled with the concept of a childfree movement.  Many people choose not to have children, and many change their mind as they age.  When I try to meet people to date, they have to work around divorce visitation schedules to decide when they'll see me. This is much easier to do with men then women - men are far more likely to only have visitation every weekend or every other weekend while women generally only have availability every weekend or every other weekend.  The reasonings behind that are a whole other kettle of kiddies that I'm so not ready to contemplate in this post.

Anyway, as I was saying, I dislike the concept of choosing not to have children being a movement.  It is a simple fact of life, and people have been choosing it for years without it becoming a huge ordeal. I am not part of a "movement." I am an individual who made a decision decades ago, who has thought about that decision and re-decided things every few years, and who doesn't think the world needs to start a movement of not having children. I think people should spend time deciding if they want to be parents before just doing it. I think that when possible, people should also try to do it when they have the ability to support their kids (although it doesn't always work out that way, life is kinda trickie).

A great thing about being a 40 year old divorcee is that it's been a few years since anybody has told me that I'll change my mind or that I shouldn't worry because there's still time. As a single 40 year old woman, I instead get people who ask if I have children, I say no, and they say they are so sorry to hear that because children would be such a blessing in my life during a divorce.  Umm, what? Has anybody watched their friends get divorced? Divorce sucks. Divorce with children sucks even worse. Children may be a joy in your life, but they are not a blessing during divorce. They make it more complicated and mean that you are stuck with your ex FOREVER.  They make the court proceedings more complicated, and it means that the kids go through hell at the same time as you!

So if you find it necessary to ask a woman of any age if she has children, and she says no, just continue the conversation on another topic!

Girls Use Pink Legos

When I was a child, I played as a child; I understood as a child; I thought as a child, but then I stupidly put away childish things.*

Lincoln Logs

While legos were fun, I preferred Connectors and Lincoln Logs as a kid. I remember using lincoln logs "wrong" so they'd build what I wanted. While I assume I must have owned legos, I don't have memories of playing with them in my own home.

I spent my college years wondering if I should attempt to be more into legos and RPG because so many of my friends were. I ended up not worrying about it

I don't spend much time in the toy aisle at stores, so I'm not really up on current toy trends. I heard of Brat dolls last year, but they've apparently been around "forever."

Legos, though, they're legos. I thought I knew legos.  Sure there are more kits than ever, but they're blocks you build things with! And if you are in the downtown Boston area someone fixed the corner of a building by adding a Lego market!

Congress Street, Boston (two blocks from the Children's Museum)

Unfortunately, legos aren't as cool as they used to be. The company has created an extreme gender divide in what should be an easily "shared" toy.  

Legos BOYS Timeteacher

Girls are pink and purple.

I really like that they've added the pinks and purples to the product line. Yay for more colors, but by separating it so that the boys get the primary colors and the girls get pinks and lavendars they're making it impossible for kids to enjoy the benefit of the increased color selection!

I can't believe that such a classic has also fallen the route of strict childhood gender separation.  Back when I was a kid lego boxes had boys and girls on them, and everybody was playing with the same legos. We all used the same red wagon.

No, we didn't all use the same dolls (girls had Barbies and boys had GI Joe), and I have no idea what the boys had instead of the Easy Bake Oven. The 1970s were not a utopia of joy and happiness, but a lot less toys were separated by sex. Google "1970s Legos" and check out the ads. Everybody played with those red and blue bricks!l.

However, now the Lego Girls kits are princess theme or filled with puppies. Lego Boys kits are cars, trains, and police vehicles. Instead of a castle you have to choose either a princess castle in pink technocolor or a primary colored castle forest.  Boys can build ninjas and ninjas and helicopters.  Girls can build ponies and stables.

What a great moneymaker lego has stumbled onto! You can't let your macho 3 year old boy play with his older sister's pink tiara and homemaker legos! No, he needs macho pirates instead. Your little girl then throws a hissy fit at the idea of using her big brother's  police cars because she needs a PINK  princess carriage kit!

Gender marketing isn't a new thing, but wow, it's so damned specific now!  When you follow these instructions to make gummy lego candy, make sure not to specify if it's boy or girl candy. Let people decide for themselves if they want the extra calories.


04/05/16 UPDATE: NPR published a piece on where the Lego corner came from.  http://tinyurl.com/hhua3qm


On a side note - I'm not sure why so many people felt it necessary to comment when a woman in a dress and high heeled sandals crouched down on the ground taking a photo of the corner of a building repaired with legos. I mean, there's a lego market right there on the corner where I'm taking the photo!`
---
*Purposeful misquote of First Corinthians xiii. 11. from the Bible.

A Well Written, Succinct Post

I want to write a post that will be succinct and well written. I want my post to demonstrate that I am thoughtful and caring, that I am experienced, and that I stayed current and knowledgeable about a variety of interesting and unique topics.  This post should be insightful and funny while and show my feminist, left, liberal leaning politics without being over bearing.  I want to write a post that will change someone's life.

Instead, I'll just point out that I'm not that good at social media and post this lovely unicorn in a rainbow tutu. 

KenziesTreasures on Etsy!

I really, really want a rainbow tutu.

War Memorials

I grew up in a town that had two memorials in the local park where I spent the most time.  This park had an Arts and Crafts class in the mornings, the best children's playground in town, the ball fields, and the local pool.  There were picnics, ballgames, fireworks, and festivals held at this park.  Children played and ran and sang and danced (and cried and screamed) all over the park. We sat on, next to, and against the memorials.  We ate on them, slept on them, and I'm willing to bet that we even talked about sex while sitting on or near them.

There is another memorial that sits smack down in the center of the town square next to the courthouse.  It's some guy standing on a tall pedestal.  I have no idea what it's for because I didn't ever do anything except drive or walk past it. I never spent any time there and didn't care in the least about it.

The WWII Memorial in Washington DC on the site of the Rainbow Pool

 
There's a forward going around Facebook where Curt Autry at NBC12 states that people wading in the Rainbow Pool at the WWII Memorial in Washington DC are being disrespectful.  He blames it on bad parenting and a generation of people who, he says, feel entitled to anything even when they have low SAT scores.  You know what?  My SAT scores weren't horrible; I respect veterans; I don't feel entitled to having everything handed to me on a platter.

What about wading is disrespectful?  Going out on a hot day and looking at all the memorials around DC is exhausting.  Taking off your shoes and enjoying the refreshingly cool water around your ankles is a nice way to spend some time at this monument.  Sitting down and observing the monument, looking at the arches and the golden stars with your feet in the water is also a good way to rest and reflect on what's around.  If you're vacationing with your children, it seems like this would be a nice way to sit down and chat with them about what the memorial means, why it's there, what happened during war and why people are dead because of the war.

The WWII Memorial was built early in the 21st century, and the Rainbow Pool was there for over a century before the WWII memorial portion was built.  Look at this 1924 photo of people enjoying the water.  Folks were wading in that pool a long time before they built a WWII Memorial there.

When they decided to build the WWII Memorial on the spot of the Rainbow Pool, they kept the shape and location of the pool although they made a few changes like sinking it lower down into the ground to better fit the idea they were working with for the war memorial.  Nothing was done to change the look of it being pool and turn it into an obvious fountain that people should not go in, e.g., instead of putting a lip around the pool, they built steps that lead you to walk down and into it.

As you can see in the above photo, the "no wading" sign is small and can't be seen from every direction that you may approach the pool from.  Folks in various sites around the internet have also commented that they've asked park rangers if it's ok to wade, and the rangers have replied that they could wade as long as they don't get loud and boisterous.

The memorial and the pool go well together.  I can't speak for you, but I remember the memorial I played on and interacted with.  I don't remember that one in the town center that has some random guy sitting there.  Wading is not a sign of disrespect - nor is laughter, playfulness, or enjoying a beautiful day.

Childproofing

My niece has a wee young 'un who is a fast learner - she was walking before she was a year old, so now she she's a year and a week old she's running like a crazy, laughing, giggly fiend.  Seriously.  I've seen photos and videos.  It's awesome.

So my niece posted this article last week about why a blogger mom prefers that you come to her  home instead of you inviting her to your lovely, unstained, fancy adult home. 

It has me thinking about my own childhood.  A bunch of my mom's friends from when I was learning to walk where still her friends when I was a teenager. The stories I used to hear where all identical, "Your mom would walk into a place and start putting things up where you couldn't reach them when you came to visit because you were such a wild child!"

Uhhhh... or maybe this happened because, like my niece, my mom had the first kid and nobody else's place was childproof?  I know that if I invited a friend with a toddler over to my apartment, I'd probably have to spend a couple of hours rearranging half my apartment and tying up things that are totally in places that the little one can't get to because my cat can't open the cupboard with the toxic chemicals, and she's old enough that she doesn't rub along all the pretty sparkly breaky things that are near the ground. And trust me, there's no way I'm putting a toilet lock on.  This is why I don't invite folks with toddlers over - it's not fair to any of us, and my things will be broken or ruined in some fashion that I can't even conceive of.

Plus, I was baby in the 70s - everybody sat on the ground on beanbag chairs back then, so I assume everybody's cups were on the floor or on stools and tables that were exactly my height. 

I found this on google image search, but the link was broken.
If you know who I can give photo credits to, please let me know!

Fast Talking

Jersey Girls are fast talkers, and I was one of the fastest.

Here's an excerpt of Vanessa Huxtable's fast talking friend on The Cosby Show.  I realize that The Cosby Show took place in Brooklyn, but here's an excerpt of Vanessa's friend, the fast talker.  She was on several episodes, and my family said she talked just like I do.

I was a Rotary Youth Exchange student to New Zealand in the 90s, so I had to slow things down.  Think Simon and Garfunkel (if you can't name that tune, I'll do it for you at the end of this post).  I was only in New Zealand for a year, though, so I sped back up.  A friend I grew up with ended up at the same college as me, and I can remember running into her and the two of us talking the day before classes began.  Imagine a man bopping his head three times faster than these kittens, and you'll have a vague idea of what this guy looked like:

However, fast talking might be acceptable in New Jersey, but it's not something you can do all over the country.  Arizona, for example, is a much slower state. I worked hard to speak more slowly, but when I was very busy, I automatically sped-up my voice the same way I had to speed up my actions.  Unfortunately, my boss took that to mean I was panicing whenever I was approaching a deadline, so I worked hard for a decade, and I believe that my boss stays at a well modulated speed most of the time.

I'm in Boston now, and while people are faster here than in Arizona, work might move quickly, but voices just don't have that faster Jersey girl sound to them.  So imagine my surprise when I started a new project working with a Canadian who spoke as quickly as I used to (ok, as quickly as I still want to talk about 1/2 of the time).  She was going on "aboot" the project, and I couldn't figure out why I was so drawn into a conversation about a boring (but necessary) portion of the project.  Then I realized that she is a fast talker!  It was wonderful.

Sometimes I miss being a Jersey girl.  Did you know that Jersey gave the world people like Danny DeVito and Jon Bon Jovi?  I do. I grew up in the 80s.  Knowing that Bon Jovi was one of us was a requirement and something that all the sixth graders bragged about.

Mostly, though, I miss being someplace where people aren't surprised when I forget to self-censure and just talk as fast as I want.  In fact, I've lost my skills - even when I talk fast, I'm slower than I used to be!

One last thought - folks from Jersey don't speak in "Joisy Accents" because that's not a Jersey accent - that's how folks from Brooklyn talk.

Girl Scouts and Christianity

Girl Scouts (GS) is a religious organization, regardless of what their website states. I am a former GS, and a large portion of my childhood is defined by Girl Scout activities. My troop met at a church, and we always participated in Girl Scout Sunday (girls show up in uniform and handled the collection plates).  My troop leader was my Godmother.

As GSs, we vowed,"...to serve God, my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Laws," (Girl Scout Promise, 1980s to present).  Every week troop meetings began with a recitation of the Girl Scout Promise and the Girl Scout Laws.

            I will do my best

            to be honest

            to be fair

            to help where I am needed

            to be cheerful

            to be friendly and considerate

            to be a sister to every Girl Scout

            to respect authority

            to use resources wisely

            to protect and improve the world around me

            and to show respect for myself and others

            through my words and actions

                                    The Girl Scout Laws, 1972 to 1997

The GS laws do not mention religion, but they do discuss respect, protection, honesty, and fairness. These qualities were, to me, necessary for interacting with others. They are overreaching qualities that cover things like religious intolerance, acceptance of sexual orientations, gender equality, and many of the other qualities that led me to feminism in the 1990s.

Childhood Memories

My mother wanted to have my ears pierced to be pierced when I was a baby, but my father couldn't bear the idea of his sweet baby girl to be hurt. So my ears remained unpierced.

There's this idea that families in the United States were made of fathers who went to work while mothers stayed home to care for the children and clean house. Then when father returned, she would make him a martini and they would all have dinner together.

There are families who managed to live that way, but they were called "The Brady Bunch," "The Cleavers," and "TVs Ideal Lovey Doveys." My grandmother and grandfather both worked supporting their four kids, and my mother and father did the same. My father rose early in the morning to go to work while my mother took care of me all day. When my father came home, my mother left for work while my father stayed home.

Some days my mother would dress me for a walk downtown. Here's a photo of her dressing me when I was about two and a half years old.

I have no memories of our walks before my sister was born, but just before I turned three, my baby sister was born, and I have a flashes of memories walking downtown after she was born. I remember walking downtown when my sister was in a stroller. I had to hold onto the stroller while my mother pushed it. I also remember drinking hot chocolate at the counter in Woolworths with my sister being in the stroller. I have several different flashes of memory drinking hot chocolate at locations around town. I believe I have always been a chocolate oriented individual!

My mother liked to tell stories of my childhood, but she never mentioned my having to hold the stroller when we were walking downtown. However, we had to cross one large intersection to get downtown, so I assume I probably had to hold the stroller to cross it. She also told me about how I was allowed to get my ears pierced for my fourth birthday. She and my grandmother took me downtown to the jewelry store.

The jewelry store is gone. Woolworths is gone. Whenever I return to visit my family, it seems like more of downtown is falling to pieces. However, there are new stores on the outskirts of town: a Walmart, Sears Hardware, Kohls, Blockbuster, etc. I wonder if parents are telling stories to their children about the drive to Walmart, the time they spent sitting in traffic, how they were often cut off and barely missing accidents in the parking lots, spending time beneath the fluorescent lights, and buying a cheap cola from the vending machine on their way out.

Even if they do, it won't be the same as memories of walking downtown in the sunshine, holding onto the stroller, sitting at the counter and enjoying a drink, then walking home so we can all sit down for dinner at 4:00 p.m.