Author: the outside lane

Happy. That about covers it.
Style

The Ugly 70s

the outside lane

I finally finished reading Girls Like Us, and I’ve got 5 stars for it.  I won’t write a proper review of it right now because I’ve only just put it down about half an hour ago, but a little conversation I’ve been having on Facebook has outgrown its venue and I am moving it over here.  And that conversation?  The ugliness of the 70s.

This is where my Facebook conversation started:  Even attractive people were not attractive in the 70s.  It was impossible to be truly attractive from about 1970 through about 1986.  The 70s were to American style what the ages of 12 to 16 are to most children.  Awkward.  Pimply.  Greasy.  Brace-faced.  Gross.

I was born in 1970.  The year of the Dog is right.  Dog ugly.  Everything was vinyl and polyester.  The most fashionable colors were avocado, harvest gold, apricot, and brown–even in summertime!  People wore bell bottoms, leisure suits, terry cloth, and collars so long and pointed they could touch the edges of their shoulders.  Carpets and hair had the same shag styling.  Miss America looked like this and Elvis was fat.

Me. And everything that was wrong with 1975. Polyester jumpsuits–oh yeah, that was a one piece that zipped up the back. Wingtip collars. Furniture in Harvest Gold and Earth. Painted bricks.  And, as I recall, that throw pillow would have landed on a couch with a huge, sticky vinyl cover on it.  What you are missing is that when my hair wasn’t teased into presciently 80s oblivion, it was parted down the side so that I looked like Rob Reiner as Meathead from All In The Family.  Ugh.  Everything was SO UGLY.

The 70s was a sweaty decade.  Everyone always looked slightly overheated.  In part, due to the grotesquely shimmery makeup that was popular, and in part due to the fact that the most popular fabric was a non-breathing synthetic.  You couldn’t help but sweat.  You couldn’t help but look like you needed a shower.  And the hair…oh, the hair.

70s hair is infinitely worse than 80s hair.  Yes, 80s hair is large and overprocessed, but 80s hair is also largely clean–or, at least it is easier to hide a greasy scalp behind 3 inches of teased bangs.  In the 70s, with everything parted down the middle, you could just–yuck.  Okay?

And on television?  Was there an attractive man on television?  I know there were attractive women because I watched Charlie’s Angels and Wonder Woman with a religious fervor, but think how much better looking those shows would have been, had they been initially produced today!  I mean, Farrah?  Farrah in her prime taken outside the 70s?  She would have been too much for television.  In a way, I suppose we were fortunate that the burgundy blush, and frosted eyeshadows toned down her hotness.  We’d have been all sweaty for a different reason.

I did have crushes on David and Shawn Cassidy, Andy and Barry Gibb, and Dirk Benedict (as Starbuck–the only Starbuck, thank you.)  But even as a child I understood that their pants were freakishly tight, their hair unflattering, and their satin Members Only jackets gauche.  You worked with what you had in the 70s, and what I had was poofy-headed, tight, sateen pant wearing, hairy-chested pretty boys.

This post…  I started this post 3 hours ago, then went searching for a picture from a yearbook.  I got sucked into classmates.com, where there are yearbooks online, then ancestry.com, which is like crack cocaine to me.  I couldn’t find my Kindergarten yearbook picture, then I remembered that my picture was so bad, it was not included in the Kindergarten section of the book.  I had a massive cold sore that ran from inside my lower lip, halfway down my chin, covering the entire lower left side of my mouth.  They took my picture in profile and it was still visible.  I sport a lovely scar which is nicely apparent when I get overheated.  I guess the school didn’t want people to think they let lepers go to class.

My first grade yearbook isn’t online.  Thus and so, I give you my second grade picture, taken in 1978.  I look really happy to be there, don’t I?  Oh, there’s a story behind that one.  But not for tonight.  I need to get off this computer before I turn into one!

Top row middle. That’s me. 3rd row end. That was my adorable boyfriend through fifth grade, until we moved to Texas. And even then we wrote letters for a couple of years. The 70s were kind to him.
parenting, Thor

Swimming in the Deep End

the outside lane

Today I decided on the word that best characterizes my son.  Bonhomie.  He is a genuine bonhomme, possessed of a truly pleasant and affable disposition.  I like him a lot.

I like him even more as he grows.  I know the teen years are coming, and I know that all the chemicals washing through his brain are going to bring changes that can only result in him becoming a TEENAGER, but the glimpses of the future I get in his more mature moments–like when he stops himself mid-action and says he needs to start over properly, or corrects himself when he’s being rude, or congratulates an opponent on a great play and tells the player how proud he is of them, or when he turns his efforts to self-enforced politeness–feed my optimism that no matter how badly he might smell, how loudly he might play his music, how much he might argue about the unfairness of the rules, he will still lovingly, and playfully pat me on the head from his new vantage of height and try to do the right thing.  My moments of greatest pride are when I realize that B and I are raising someone we both would have sought out for friendship, were he our peer.  And my moments of greatest relief are when I realize that Thor is going to attract the kind of friends that B and I have today.

Every day, I tell Thor these things:

  1. I love you more than anything in the world.
  2. I like you, and I like being around you.
  3. I am proud of you.
  4. You are a good person.
  5. You have a great mind.
  6. You are the best part of my day.
  7. I will always love you.

I strive to back up those words with actions.  Spending time with him, having real conversations with him, really listening to him, reading to him, drawing with him, sharing my thoughts with him, answering his questions, and letting him poke his fingers into what I am doing–you know, until I have to go lock the bathroom door and beg for five minutes alone.  It isn’t enough to say the words.  The words without the back-up are just empty, and he’ll start looking for what he thinks fills them.

The idea is for him to be confident enough in having a foundation of love and support at home, that his metaphorical legs will be strong enough to leap over any cracks he finds in the foundations everywhere else.  The idea is for him to be confident enough in his value and self-worth (which we back up by feeding his mind) that he doesn’t even notice peer pressure, save to see that it exists and he doesn’t need to take part in it.  The idea is to give him the childhood it takes to face the teenage years without falling into the deep end.  Actually, the idea is to give him enough of a push out of the kiddie pool, that he can swim to the deep end on his own power, get out, and start doing cannon balls off the diving board.  Because we all know that the deep end is where the fun is.  It’s just a matter of knowing how to swim in it without drowning.

I am incredibly thankful for his grandparents, who give him confidence in ways parents cannot.  I am thankful for the teachers he’s had, who have understood him and loved him.  And I am thankful for our friends, who have always treated him with adult-like respect, and who have modeled great behavior to him.

 

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More Grub and how to Fake Grill Marks

the outside lane

I happened to make a nice rub for chicken.  Here it is:

  • 3:1:1 ratio of garlic paste, lime juice, lemon juice
  • Dash of paprika
  • Dash of chili powder
  • Salt & Pepper to taste

Rub that on chicken breasts, then let it sit for about 10 minutes before grilling, roasting, whatever.  Nice flavor with a little kick.  We don’t have a grill, and I wanted prettier chicken.  So, I used my Hamilton Beach electric griddle, and heated a cooling rack on it.  I seared both sides of my chicken breasts on that rack, faking up some pretty grill marks in the process, before butterflying them to cook through on the griddle.  The result was pretty looking, and really moist and tasty.  There is probably some safety hazard reason that I shouldn’t have done this…

Serve that over a salsa of:

With some grilled onions on the side.  Makes a nice summer meal.  Actually, it makes 3 nice summer meals.

I put the above on a salad for my mom, put it in tacos for B and me, and gave the chicken by itself to Thor, with a spoonful of the salsa and a tiny side salad.  Four, because B and I are polished off the leftovers as quesadillas this morning.  Salad was served with Ranch on the side, and tacos were served with Sour cream/Horseradish sauce.

2:1, sour cream and creamy horseradish, mix well and let your sinuses open with the soaring glory of the flavor.

parenting, Thor

Merry, Merry King of the Bush is He

the outside lane

Thor starts camp next week–his first real camp.  Not daycare.  Camp.  He is delighted, as you can well imagine.  Since the camp mascot is a Kookaburra, we have been listening to that Kookaburra song over, and over, and over again.  And over again.  And over again.  The things you do for love, right?

I still really can’t believe how he makes my heart skip a beat.  From the moment Bryan put him in my arms in the hospital…man.  He just takes my breath away.  Even when he is gnawing on my last nerve, I love him with every fiber of my being.  This is very helpful when I have told him seven times to put on his shoes, and he is still sitting in the floor starting at his toenails.

Anyway, the Kookaburra song.  “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree.  Merry, merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, Kookaburra.  Laugh, Kookaburra.  Gay your life must be.”

Thor asked me what gay meant.  “Happy,” I said.  “Dancing, singing, twirling around because life is so good, happy.”

“I like that,” he nodded.

“Me too,” I agreed.  Then, we sang the song again before he headed to bed, taking with him my old comparative study bible.  I wonder how old he will be when he starts putting two and two together, and asking questions about why the bible’s got a problem with dancing, singing, twirling around because life is so good, happy?  We’ll have to talk about how the bible has problems with his love of crustaceans, too, and maybe that can throw the rest into perspective.  Because that boy loves crab.

Meanwhile, I am anxiously awaiting the new vocabulary that will come with his reading of the King James version of the bible.  And the New American Standard.  And the Amplified.  And the New International Version.  Because that’s going to be spectacular!  And hilarious.  He’s already been reading the notes I wrote in the margins and shouting those out to me with his own added commentary.  Lord.  How am I going to explain concubines?  I’m going to tell him they are a kind of porcupine, and old kings liked to keep them for pets.

I suppose we should censor his reading, but other than that CSB, he hasn’t shown an interest in any books that would alarm me.  I’d rather our bookshelves be open to his whims.  If he has questions, he’ll ask.  And that way, he won’t feel like he needs to hide books he likes (like I hid James Bond.)  Since my CSB was next to a huge collection of Douglas Adams, I’m hoping he’ll pick up the Hitchhiker’s Guide next.  The only thing better than feeling gay, is being a hoopy frood.

 

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Musing on Music

the outside lane

Careless Whisper has come on the radio and suddenly, I am transported back in time to the summer of 1985.  Jamie and I spent most of that summer between DFW Medical Center, where we striped candy, White Water waterpark, and Six Flags Over Texas, where we spent godawful amounts of money, pumping quarters into the video-jukeboxes at the park.  That was the only place we could watch our Duran Duran videos on demand.  And, oh, were we demanding.  We were fourteen.  That was our job.

As I recall, we liked Wham!, but we had a loyalty to uphold, and since Sirs Michael and Ridgely were our preferred band’s main competition, we didn’t carry their pinups in our Trapper Keepers.

I was headed into my Freshman year of high school, hopping from Adams Middle School (where I had made friends of Francine, Becky, Danna, and finally Karen–all of whom are still at least Facebook buddies. Francine and Karen would eventually become my roommates, and still like me even after living with me!  Maybe not immediately after, but eventually, and currently.  I think.) to Ursuline Academy.  Since moving to Texas, halfway through fifth grade, I had already been to three schools.  I would attend two more before graduation. 

That summer of 1985 was the best summer of my childhood.  I only remember being happy that summer.  No.  I remember being happy and having a pair of bright yellow shorts that I thought were the coolest things ever made.

The second best summer was the summer of 1988.  I was 17, had my own car, a boyfriend (or three, but that summer I mainly saw Robert–who busked in the mall for me, to collect the additional $3 I needed to buy a CD.), and Francine was living with us.  Where was I working?  I think that’s the summer I worked at Denny’s.  That summer, my song was Lita Ford’s song, It Ain’t No Big Thing.

My first taxable summer job was at Six Flags Over Texas.  That was the summer of 1987, and Notorious was my theme song.  Then, I got a job at Denny’s.  From Denny’s (while I was obsessed with The Smiths, having a fling with The Cure, and cheating on Duran Duran with U2), I went to work at Express (Berlin was my musical fixation, and John Crawford surpassed my crush on John Taylor), and then to Sears (was listening to Then Jericho at that point, and was in love with Mark Wren.)  Then, when I started college, I decided I needed a more professional gig, and I got a bank job (and started listening to a lot of The The, Nine Inch Nails, and Billie Holiday.)

Don’t Stop Believin’ has come on now.  The very first concert I ever attended (without a parent) was to Journey cover band’s show at the middle school (the second was a Duran Duran show at Six Flags, the summer I worked there.  I remember being alternately scandalized and strangely nervous a/k/a titillated that I could see the outline of Simon LeBon’s underwear through his white pants.  Byron and I convinced the poor morons sitting behind us that we were with the band, and were just slumming it out in the audience for goofs.  Then, Byron got a nosebleed and we had to jet.)  At the Faux Journey Sheaux  I sat in the bleachers with Francine and Becky, and that’s the night my friendship with them gelled.  I remember discussing the merits of Matt Dillon, who was then my number one imaginary celebrity boyfriend.  He would be replaced by John Taylor in the coming year, who would maintain his status until I discovered Rupert Everett.  Me?  Have a type?  Possibly.

It seems like I have a strong memory attached to every song that comes on the radio, but I’ll spare you until Ordinary World comes on.  Then, I’ll regale you with more stories from my first trip to NYC and the David Lynchian twists of that time.