Moi at an Applebee's, to begin, should have been the first sign, like toads dropping from the clouds or Snookie becoming Madame Secretary of State. Like CBS Prime Time or Newark, there is nothing good about Applebee's. It is however, similar to CBS and Newark, a common place for families and the elderly to meet on occasion and kill time in between birthdays, weekends and holiday gatherings. Just like an outskirts airport, Applebee's offers little more than overpriced, watered-down booze and aging waitresses, desperately and pathetically still trying their hand at flirting for tips.
My true metier, thankfully, is finding fun anywhere, under most any condition, at any time, with just about any type of people, except maybe viscerally angry hippies. (My perceived nonchalance tends to make them angrier.) It was just so on a Saturday night at said-Applebee's, minus the angry hippies. Old hippies, yes; angry, no. My Viking and I joined my Parental Units, a great-uncle of the late-octogenarian set, and an old high school pal of Daddy's. There was also the odd-bird wife of Daddy's friend: a strange, hefty, California-state, government worker whom spent much of the eve talking about her questionably efficient diet and invoking Martyr Syndrome as a state union employee. Other than her intermittent, churlish gripes, the company was splendid, joyful and entertaining as the Parental Units are surprisingly humorous and liberal for Units and, the weekend having been Daddy's 50-year high school reunion, and having on his arm my Mom, his bride of nearly fifty years, still looking not much different than the day he met "The Prettiest Girl in the Gym" (Later to be known as "The Shortest Skirts on the Base" during his stint as an Air Force pilot and navigator), he was in an especially jubilant mood.
My Viking and I sat at the end of the long booth this night and, as most of the conversation focused on everyone at the other end, we entertained ourselves quite contentedly with inside jokes, stifled laughter and generally juvenile behaviour for a couple of quasi-adults. It was in the midst of just such a snickering behind hands when the event occurred. I caught myself bobbing my head, almost imperceptibly, to Applebee's piped in tuneage. A pleasant, comforting beat, it quietly and sneakily permeated the atmosphere with nary a hint of volume. Yet, there it was and before realizing it, I was tapping a foot. Then, in the midst of a private joke about union workers, it hit me ... Smells Like Teen Spirit. Nirvana had become Musac somewhere along the way when I was paying too much attention to skin care, pirates, Johnny Depp and my Barbie collection. The nice thing is that when this epiphany hit, the fact that I was now, in some circles, officially Old, I was very cool with it and calmer than one might think; much like the moment I verily believed our plane, en route from Stanstead to Amsterdam was going down somewhere over the North Sea.
I love my 90s, but I also like what's new and what may come: all forms of media known, unknown and to become known. I also like me very much, back then, right now and certainly the me of the future. (I imagine there will be a 3-Jack Donaghy situation in which I will meet all my selves and will delight in them all. Sound vain? Yeah, probably. Sorry. Still, I'm pretty sure it's not a crime to like oneself ... of course, let's see how the 2012 General Election goes.) Unlike many a folk whom cannot seem to get out of their high school daze, I welcome and delight in the opium of the current and the contemporary. I also, naturally, have moments of nostalgia whereby I do not long for said-days, but do recall them fondly and feel fortunate for my, thus far, Charmed Life.
I grew up in the '70s and '80's and have always wished I was born and raised in the 1920s and '30s (minus the dental practices); however, my Twenties came in the '90s and these are what I consider my formative years. I was a very young high schooler and an even younger college kid. Ergo, my On My Own-days bloomed late, at the sunrise of the '90s when I got married, when my husband went to grad school, when we started our business, when we travelled our asses off around Europe, somehow on waitress and student funds at that, and made our very first TV shows and other rather comedic productions.
Before my books were published, before we expanded our business, before my husband's fam learned to love me, and I them, before we moved to Virginia, and subsequently back to California, before Steve Jobs became a tool, before Bill Gates swooped in and saved Apple's bacon with 150million clams, before David Duchovny showed us his ass and Chris Matthews showed us his bias, before broadband video, streaming media and iBash were little more than a Pixelon lie, there was a desperately casual, blissfully lazy culture of a young, addictive Internet, DOS, flannel and sunflowers that effused roasted espresso beans, rain-coated Seattle streets, chicken squawk-modems and a chunky-heeled attitude of black berets, vintage aprons and The Rachel.
To quote the venerable Weezer, "Then my roommate said c'mon and put a brand-new record on; had a baby on it, he was naked on it. Then I heard the chords that broke the chains I had upon me ... These are my heart songs
There was grunge, Kurt Cobain, Niles Crane, Wings, Swingers, babydoll dresses and Doc Marten's, The X-Files, Counting Crows, Darkwing Duck, Tailspin, Weezer, Northern Exposure, Charmed, No Doubt, the Puget Sound, The Crow, floppy felt hats, 90210, Twin Peaks, Sugar Ray, Wolfenstein 3D, Rage Against the Machine, Barenaked Ladies, Salt-n-Pepa, The Cranberries, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Diedrich Coffee (where I was a snippy, sickeningly-sweet barista in berets and wooden platforms) Friends, Seinfeld, Coffee Tok, Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers, Reality Bites, Pearl Jam, Highlander (Adrian Paul, not the Lambert MacLeod ... "Same vine, different vintage"), The Fresh Prince, Winona Ryder, Before Sunrise, J.C. Bean's, Goo Goo Dolls, Daria, Incubus, A Different World, Whitley Gilbert, Edward Scissorhands, Howard's End, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Guns n' Roses, So I Married an Axe Murderer, Nine Inch Nails (pre-buff, still-hot, once-Edwardian Gothic Trent Reznor), Ducktales, Fargo, Peter Mayle's Year in Provence, Pinky and the Brain and a vintage, perfect Anne Rice. There was also a wild slew of friends, most of whom I've neither seen nor heard of, or from, since the pinnacle of pesto sauce and Frasier.
Nancy Owen Freeman, Hiltrud Gieseler-Wollhower, Jaime Hutton-Potts, Allen Matlin, Christin Something, Joy Hansen, Sherri McCuistion, Dan Williams, Tim Muller, David Ayres and a host of very good folks with whom my Viking and I shared way too much beer and wine, yet never, ever enough Hallowe'en parties, Romeo Cucina birthday dinners, Little Shrimp Western Nights, late-night coffeehouse lurkings and always great laughs and greater friendships.
As an aside to them, in case they are reading, and they very well might be, I have kept up steadily, if not voraciously with two of this lot: the preternaturally gorgeous Teuton, Hiltrud Gieseler-Wollhower, once voted "One of Munich's Most Beautiful People"; and, the very dear Mr. Allen Matlin, now a Real Housewife of Louisville extraordinaire and one of Louisville's officially "Best-dressed Men". What are the odds both of them ended up with such designations? Weird. Both still faves forever! Hey, dolls! (By the way, Allen ... SVP, pass along congratulations to your belle cousine Marlee and tell her G and I are cheering heartily for her championship on Celebrity Apprentice!!)
I sometimes think of these people and do not see them today, nor do I really ever expect to. (Wistful, wondering, intangible memory being one of the forgotten beauties of nostalgia in the modern world of Facebook and such: like the old thrill of a random, childhood-invoking find in a thrift shop versus just buying one of fifty Rubik's Cubes on eBay. It's still nice, yet somehow less precious.) Happily, they all remain bundled up in my mind's attic, a tad dusty but tidy and cheery, prettily red-bowed in a package called the 1990s.
I don't mind growing old, just so long as I never look old. -Blanche Devereaux
