Thursday, March 3, 2016

Here's how old I am

(Vaguely inspired by Joe Brainard's I Remember and Wayne Koestenbaum's My 1980s.)


  • My earliest memory is a car crash. There were no car seats when I was growing up, so I was riding Britney Spears-style on my dad's lap. What I remember isn't the impact, but the sense of confusion as my dad clutched me to his chest so I wouldn't go flying out the window.
  • Seat belts weren't a requirement either, until I was in junior high. We used pile in the back of Mrs.P's party van (where half of the "P" children were probably conceived), lolling back and forth with each turn.
  • Most of my teachers smoked. In school. Okay, no one had the audacity to light up in class, but many a busy work was assigned while sneaking off to the lounge to smoke. 
  • My first taste of the internet was through my uncles dial-up AOL account. I was twenty.I thought, "meh, this won't fly."
  • I remember where I was when Reagan was shot and when John Lennon was assassinated.
  • Censorship was something that came from the right, even when it came from the left. (Tipper Gore, et al.)
  • I learned to type on a DOS-based boat anchor. I still have a drawer full of 8-inch floppies.
  • The first person I knew who'd come out as gay was also the first person I knew to die from AIDS.