Lately while I have been writing I have had two necessities. First, I have to have plenty of water or coffee, and second, I either have to have a musical playing in the background, or I have music streaming from the Internet. Not sure why I suddenly need these things to write, but I have definitely been more productive with these things in place.

Tonight I have been researching and compiling the needed resources for the book I am writing while listening to a Internet stream of songs from the 60's, 70's and 80's. I don't know whether it is the historical nature of the book or the music, but one if not both of these factors have left me feeling nostalgic.

I am the product of the 80's. I grew up before the technological boom, before the Internet was the place to be, and CD meant certificate of deposit and it was a new thing.

I grew up amidst day glow, Reaganomics, the Berlin wall, and rubik's cube. When I was growing up, school was a chore, cars were still made of metal and Michael Jackson was still a black male. Yeah, I know, skin disorder..

Things seemed so much easier in the 80's. There were two kinds of coffee - instant and fresh brewed. Ice cream came in 31 flavors and frozen yougart was something that strange people in LA ate while sitting in their smog surrounded cars. Aerobics was jumping jacks done in time with music and a computer was something that your rich friend's father had.

Beta was all the rage, and it was a modern miracle when VHS was invented and even more of a moracle when the camcorder was introduced. Now you could carry a camera around with you and shoot your own home movies, and when finished you popped the tape into the VCR and voila! You were in pictures.

Jerry Garcia was still alive and tripping along with the throngs of fans that followed him and his band mates everywhere they went. This was before he became an ice cream flavor.

Madonna was still a virgin (ha!), Heavy Metal was a force to be reckoned with, and jeans were ripped, faded, shredded and kept together with safety pins - and $40 a pop.

Gas was under a buck a gallon, a burger and fries was less than 2 bucks at Mickey D's and you didn't need to sell a pint of blood plus promise your first born to afford dinner and a movie.

Teased hair, leg warmers, and ankle boots were the rage. Men with long hair and earrings were followed by girls everywhere they went. We all wanted a bad boy. My bad boy's name was Joe. He was a rebel with a cause...which was to get me to to..well we won't go there. Last I heard he was an accountant, had three kids and was losing his hair...

But I digress.

Cartoons were for entertainment, not 22 minute commercials interrupted by a show. Bob Marley was a hero, and Eric Clapton was singing his songs. (Or is it the other way around?) Yeah, I know, I could go look it up and be more accurate, but I'm lazy.

There was no WWW, and the Information Superhighway was just beginning to be constructed. Email was an unheard of form of communication, and Yahoo, Google, and AOL were just a gleam in their now sinfully loaded creators' minds. Of course, without Al Gore, the Internet would never have come to pass.

Notice I didn't mention Microsoft. Satan had that planned long ago, he just needed for his spawn to come to earth.

Okay, so that wasn't very nice. Oh well. I'm not calling Bill Gates Satan's spawn, but I HAVE heard the rumor...

AIDS was a new, mysterious disease that effects gay men and drug users. How quickly some things change.

Dick Clark was the host of Rockin' New's Years. Interesting how some things remain the same.

Yeah, the 80's were cool. The 80's were revolutionary, The 80's were twenty years ago.

Now that I have sufficiently dated, and therefore depressed myself, I will log off here, take my geritol, slide into my craftmatic adjustable bed, watch some MTV and go to sleep.

Just as soon as I find my day glow jammies...
- posted by Kim @ 2:42 AM