back to the 80s

it's an absolutely beastly rainy day and i'd rather be in bed. since work's slow today (the flood kept our candidates at home, smart of them), my officemate put on a CD with music from the 80s. so for at least an hour and half, i was back at a time where people went out on weekends to go dancing, where parties were not complete with the ubiquitous mobile, and coffee shops and celfones were non-existent.

this was a time in life when high school boys and girls met each other in underground (read: not sanctioned by the school) soirees at the girl's house (must be the girl's house, if you have it in the boy's house, you're considered cheap) where you'd have all sorts of games to get people to talk and eventually dance with each other. and the ultimate thrill was for one of the cute boys to ask for your home phone number. and you were the envy of all your other classmates when they find out the following schoolday.

this was when people actually talked on the phone for hours at a time. not being hampered by the burden of text messaging, boys would call girls at home and put on the moves then. the braver of the boys would get their close buddies (two at the most) to act as their wing men while they visit the girl they like at her house. and the girl would have an equal number of friends who "happened" to drop by her house at the same time. snack of choice was coke and the red granny goose tortilla chips.

these were Aquanet days -- girls would tease their bangs and spray it in place and come out with the Aquanet look. props for the girl with the best looking bangs. you didn't Aquanet your hair, you were as good as dead.

it was that difficult period of growing up, where all the proverbial changes were hitting you hard and you felt all you had was the music of mike francis, depeche mode, fra lippo lippi, snap, and color me badd to get you through.



this is for april and nadine, two good buds who made that difficult transition of pretending to grow up so much easier.