Girl Anachronicles

Backstreet Boys liked the back ways, eh!!! ;-D Saucy wenches!

… and I was like :-S “wait, whaaaaaat?”. Boy bands. They were one of the things most hated by me when they suddenly exploded in a flurry of tribal tattoos and hair-gel in the mid-90s. (That only serves to highlight the age difference between Vero and I). I brushed by The New Kids on the Block, but only while their new-ness lasted. As soon as the New Kids were more like Old News, I kissed them “Bye bye bye”…

Did you see what I did there? No? That's 'cuz you're STUPID, Jordan!

Not much time passed before I started squealing about other dudes… the bad-ass dudes:

Not much better for the show, though

…   I don’t know if deep down my lust after ”rough”-looking guys was just my way of rebelling (yeah, as rough as you can get while dressing up in pleather and satin shirts), but I honestly liked the music *sigh*… and I honestly developed huge crushes on these guys. 

I got SO pissed when the buys from school pointed out Tom Keifer looked like Ednita Nazario ... mostly because they were right!

 It was all very honest… and a little bit too obsessive. I papered my walls from bottom to ceiling with posters of Slaughter, Cinderella, Motley Crue, Poison, Nelson Nelson, etc etc etc. All long-haired dudes, all over my walls.

I guess my mother felt like parents from the 60′s felt when their girls went apeshit over  The Beatles, with the difference that the objects of my affection were not all that wholesome-looking and had a reputation of being “the spawns of the devil” (a myth my mother bought into all too easily). I only did what any self-respecting teen would: I moved onto darker, uglier shit:

He's so dreamy!

I eventually stopped developing crushes on strangers based only on their photographs and finished products of corporate  music. My fangirl days were over … until I saw this dude:

..oooh, that sunken chest! ...

… and then I became so dangerously close to being a paedophile that I just simply not talk about my crushes anymore. End of story.

Yesterday I found a website that trumps all other nostalgia websites I’ve come to know so far:  I’m Remembering. It’s a blog built on a Tumblr engine, its theme is specifically 80s and 90s nostalgia. I Love the 80s never had it so good and so right. I found things in there that I had forgotten about in the longest while, and others that I remembered but I couldn’t find elsewhere on the web.

Some examples:

Sea-pony whose only power is to blow bubbles underwater, yay...

I owned this exact My Little Pony seahorse, with the clamshell stand that would never stick long enough to the bath tiles… goddamned doll also looked like it was always dirty. It had a blowhole to blow bubbles, but being the little motherfuckers we were, we used it as a squirt-horse instead.

***

..he stares at you from his perch while you're sleeping..

This one came from nowhere. I suspect it was a hand-me-down toy, like many others we had – our youngest aunt was only 9 years older than me, not enough time to deem the toys obsolete and throw them away, so I inherited tons of them! I loved this Rowlf puppet so much that I salvaged him time and again from the trash bin and many charity collections, and is now probably slowly dying in a room in Mom’s house.

***

..creepy little clown to live on your nightstand. Whose idea was that? ..

This was obviously a pre-”It” item. I barely even remembered him until I saw him in the imremembering.com site. Then it was like opening the memory floodgates: the lamp in its full glory, then how it came apart little by little, until at last the only thing that remained were those immortal plastic balloons.

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..plastic lasts forever..

I was amazed when I saw this pic. We had these exact two cups at home (among a myriad of other assorted plastic cutlery pieces, such as Transformers bowls and He Man dishes). I still keep a plastic Hello Kitty cup from that time. These things indeed last forever!!!

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...all it was missing was the alternative of an alien head.

This was another hand-me-down from my aunt, but boy, did I have fun with this! This was the one piece that got me drawing fashion designs as an occasional hobby. Of course, by the time it got to me, the color pencils were long gone, so I had to make do with a carbon stick.

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MUSIC! FUCK YEAH!

This was one fucking useful toy! I used it every day: I played the Read-along vinyls, I played my Rainbow Brite record, I played just about anything that would fit into that record player. I would play things time and again until I made my mother nauseous. I’d put on plays for the whole family – and would force them to watch, god forbid they turned away! I was such an attention whore when I was a kid … I dunno what happened…

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If only I had been able to shrink tiny enough to play IN this castle...

I almost went into tears when I saw this: my favorite toy ever! This castle was a Little People castle, but it eventually became the “anything goes as long as it fits” castle. This castle was under siege by the GI Joes, it became soon the reign of She-Ra and friends, He Man knocked at its drawbridge! Even the Thundercats visited every once in a while…

And as a bonus:

RUN AWAY!!!

Not a toy, but a fixture in our local McDonalds playground. This tree reminded me of a talking tree featured in one of my favorite local children’s show – Titi Chagua. Talking trees were this thing I adored and abhorred at the same time. It eventually turned into indisputable adoration, until I was at last transfixed by the Ents. I <3 talking trees.

So, if you’re already over 21 and like going on a nostalgia binge … http://imremembering.com

Sunday mornings are something you lose after you stop being a child: the carelessness, the feeling of freedom, the anticipation of a day filled with games and fun. Saturday mornings were cool too, but not in the same way: Saturdays were the days Mom would stuff you in the back seat  early in the afternoon and would take you shopping for groceries. Fun, but not the same kind (plus sometimes you’d get a good berating for having too much fun in the fruit section).

Ahhh, the time is ripe for mischief. Banana stand: have at you!

My Sunday mornings were all about Dad. I’d gently wake him up at 6 am – …let’s be honest, I poked away at him, starting at 5:45 am. He’d begrudgingly wake up (although he would never admit to being bothered by it) and he would make me breakfast. Breakfast by Dad was a special thing. Dad didn’t know how to cook – he still doesn’t, unless nuking a cordon bleu chicken breast counts – so the options were limited. But he got creative, I think he barely ever went with the cereal-and-milk option. The usual would be far more delicious: sweet bread rolls with butter spread, sliced salchichón, and sweet cold coffee w/milk. Unhealthy as hell, but completely addictive, to the point in which I’d be glad to have that breakfast again today.

I'm amazed my blood health turned out normal after years of this.

After placing the breakfast dish in front of me and gluing me to the TV set, Dad would go back to sleep a bit longer, until the cartoon block was finished near noon and I’d go back to poking him awake. After that, it was usually game time: Dad would fill up the kiddie pool with the garden hose, and I would tow out all the barbies, water games, rubber toys, and other waterproof items. After that, dad would play with me for hours at a time, until Mom called us in to eat lunch. Those were the days.

Photo alteration of the 80s led us to believe that the whole family would fit inside these pools... we feel we've been had.

All Sundays… Father’s days …

The FIFA World Cup… I remember the first time I was aware of this magnificent sporting event in 1998: I was hanging around in my house (I lived with Dad back then), and I suddenly heard a big commotion erupting from his room. This was unusual because my father and his wife are usually pretty quiet when left to their own. I popped my head in and saw them laying on their bed, side by side, with big grins and luminous eyes. I had to ask. What they answered: “¡La copa mundial, niña!”. I didn’t sit to watch in 1998, but I came around to doing this in 2002, and I was hooked. The rush from the crowd, the orgasmic celebration whenever a goal was made, the noise, the music, the cheering … it was like a huge party being celebrated around a sporting event… way more exciting than any other sporting event. Mind you, I’m no fan of sports, but I’m a fan of excitement, so this was attractive to me.

..and I will never forget Ronaldo's haircut. WTF, dude?!..

This year, the World Cup is being held in South Africa. All’s been excitement as it usually is with one small particular variation that’s caught the attention of everyone watching: the vuvuzela. The first instance I heard a mention of it was a complaint from one viewer who was way beyond annoyed by the constant sound of the vuvuzelas. Apparently, everyone and their mother has a vuvuzela at the World Cup, and everyone seems to be blowing their own at the same time. I wonder how many idiots have passed out from blowing their vuvuzelas too hard or too long. It also makes me happy that so many healthy lungs are running around in this globe.

Sopla ese cuerno, marafaca!

During the first match I was able to watch this year, I was wondering what the vuvuzela would sound like. I had heard it was a major disruption on the transmission, that it was an unbearable noise that couldn’t be put in the background. I waited for it … and I waited … and then I realized: “…wait, what’s that hum-drum noise on the background? Is that an airplane?” I watched a whole match without asking … and then it dawned on me: “Oh! The vuvuzelas!”

Best. Facebook. Group. Ever!

It wasn’t intolerable, it wasn’t painful to hear … it was just… like an airplane. And hey! I LOVE airplanes! I love the noise an airplane makes when they take off. So, it comes to bear that I also like the sound of vuvuzelas.

Today, I kept thinking about that, mainly because so many people keep making such a big deal out of the vuvuzelas. I realized that I tend to like these kinds of noise: engines, sirens (well, when I’m not trying to talk on the phone), airplanes, noise music, oscillators … vuvuzelas. What is it in my head that makes me like cacophony? I don’t know, but it even excites me at times. I guess it has something to do with the inner ear.

… and I have to admit that even the noise of gunfire, although knowing the dangers that it entails makes it all the more horrid to me. The beauty of the thunder, the terror of lightning.