The New Old Me
I’m back. Somewhat changed but still the same sunny me.
I did not mean to be away this long, but things have been muy loca. Over the holidays I changed jobs while simultaneously attempting to finish two freelance gigs with the worst pain-in-the-ass-grunt-work to pay ratio in all of mediadom. Herr Guitar was this close to packing up the baby and leaving me for a wife who doesn’t sell her sanity for $1 a word, a wife who understands work/life balance and doesn’t scream at her g-mail and can fit into her pre-pregnancy jeans. But then I met my deadlines and auld acquaintance was forgot and lang-syned, and things calmed down again.
Then I started a new job. I gave up on my plan to be a work at home mom after reasoning that neither Swaddlini nor I could handle watching that much Judging Amy. He enjoys running around someplace other than the living room once in awhile and, honestly, so do I. So I compromised, and left my career- and mind-deadening West Side butter tub and leapt back into the “real world.”
Turns out, the real world got a lot younger while I was away. I guess I should have expected it – my new job involves the Internet, and you know how the kids love that crazy thing – but I feel like a dinosaur. A mommy dinosaur, who doesn’t own an iPod*, who has never sent nor received a text message, who has never owned a Dave Matthews album, and so on.
Oh well. The good thing about being older than everyone in the room is that I’m better. I sucked in my twenties, as much or more than every 20-something sucks, and I would not go back if you paid me. I saw an old acquaintance at a party a few weeks ago and he remarked that I looked and seemed better than ever. I haven’t really hung out with him in about 10 years, and he recalled that an evening spent with me usually ended in my being upset or crying. It's a dead-on description, sure, but it left me feeling so nostalgic for crazy me. Not that I want her back, I just want to know her friends again.
This is similar to the semi-paralyzing nostalgia that gripped me recently upon viewing an After-School Special called, "That's What Friends Are For." I bought these After-School Special DVDs a year or so ago and never found time to watch them. They are pretty stupid, for the most part, but this one episode hit all the right notes. The premise: mother and daughter move to Santa Monica, post-divorce, in 1979. They move into an apartment building, where the young girl befriends the building's weirdo, also a divorce kid. Trouble ensues (involving ritualistic doll destruction in the name of parent reconciliation - sort of like Chucky Meets the Parent Trap, only deadly boring), etc. It was awesome. The apartment building, the weird kid, the look of the film stock - it all worked on me like madelines worked on Proust. I still haven't recovered - I see everything in mellow, slightly grainy light, as if backlit by a sunset or powerful scented candle. All music has become a Bread medley. All fashion a pair of pastel SWAT overalls and a t-shirt with a rainbow across it. All food lick-em-aid and spam sandwiches with mustard. And I have an overwhelming need to go back!
* I now have an iPod. Thanks to my Valentine, HG. xo
I did not mean to be away this long, but things have been muy loca. Over the holidays I changed jobs while simultaneously attempting to finish two freelance gigs with the worst pain-in-the-ass-grunt-work to pay ratio in all of mediadom. Herr Guitar was this close to packing up the baby and leaving me for a wife who doesn’t sell her sanity for $1 a word, a wife who understands work/life balance and doesn’t scream at her g-mail and can fit into her pre-pregnancy jeans. But then I met my deadlines and auld acquaintance was forgot and lang-syned, and things calmed down again.
Then I started a new job. I gave up on my plan to be a work at home mom after reasoning that neither Swaddlini nor I could handle watching that much Judging Amy. He enjoys running around someplace other than the living room once in awhile and, honestly, so do I. So I compromised, and left my career- and mind-deadening West Side butter tub and leapt back into the “real world.”
Turns out, the real world got a lot younger while I was away. I guess I should have expected it – my new job involves the Internet, and you know how the kids love that crazy thing – but I feel like a dinosaur. A mommy dinosaur, who doesn’t own an iPod*, who has never sent nor received a text message, who has never owned a Dave Matthews album, and so on.
Oh well. The good thing about being older than everyone in the room is that I’m better. I sucked in my twenties, as much or more than every 20-something sucks, and I would not go back if you paid me. I saw an old acquaintance at a party a few weeks ago and he remarked that I looked and seemed better than ever. I haven’t really hung out with him in about 10 years, and he recalled that an evening spent with me usually ended in my being upset or crying. It's a dead-on description, sure, but it left me feeling so nostalgic for crazy me. Not that I want her back, I just want to know her friends again.
This is similar to the semi-paralyzing nostalgia that gripped me recently upon viewing an After-School Special called, "That's What Friends Are For." I bought these After-School Special DVDs a year or so ago and never found time to watch them. They are pretty stupid, for the most part, but this one episode hit all the right notes. The premise: mother and daughter move to Santa Monica, post-divorce, in 1979. They move into an apartment building, where the young girl befriends the building's weirdo, also a divorce kid. Trouble ensues (involving ritualistic doll destruction in the name of parent reconciliation - sort of like Chucky Meets the Parent Trap, only deadly boring), etc. It was awesome. The apartment building, the weird kid, the look of the film stock - it all worked on me like madelines worked on Proust. I still haven't recovered - I see everything in mellow, slightly grainy light, as if backlit by a sunset or powerful scented candle. All music has become a Bread medley. All fashion a pair of pastel SWAT overalls and a t-shirt with a rainbow across it. All food lick-em-aid and spam sandwiches with mustard. And I have an overwhelming need to go back!
* I now have an iPod. Thanks to my Valentine, HG. xo
posted by j.m. at 6:37 PM
1 Comments:
Good to have you back! I was going through blog withdrawal.
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