this decade is where i did my growing up. after i grew out of my motley crue phase i started listening to inxs (pronouced "inks" because i'd only read about them in hit parade.) give me a break motley crue was some hard shit back then and i didn't know how else to be bad. until, that is, i heard punk rock. charlie sexton didn't stand a chance. adam ant was closer but mike muir was my voice.

i was just a betty hanging at the half pipe. what i really mean is that i was in middle school and one of my friends lived close to the highschool hangout which was the ramp with the most vert in the neighborhood. wow. so there i heard suicidal and the buttholes and the spermbirds and oh some uh descendants and those innocent type punk rock bands.

i started cutting the sleeves off of my dad's old dress shirts and wearing them buttoned all the way up with some sort of brooch or pin at the top button. i started wearing black eyeliner and long underwear under shorts. i was so cool that it hurt my parents to look at me. i started smoking and stealing my parents' car at night just to drive around and buy cigarettes and show off to the other kids.

needless to say, i wasn't watching a whole lot of tv. (i do remember, however, really digging "moonlighting.")

i was off the hook when i got my own car (yes my parents bought me a car... two, actually but that's a spoiled brat story for another day -- let's just say that the first car was a 1979 firebird and the second was a 1983 oldsmobile cutlass supreme...) in the meantime i drove a bunch of skinheads around in my mom's wood panelled station wagon, but i've told that story before (i believe.)

i spent a bunch of the eighties at the 930 club in DC. funny that i hate underage shows for making me feel old today. but then? how fucking cool was that? punk rock shows for kids in DC! there were matinee shows at the safari club!! and don't forget that your friends' bands are playing at the firehall on friday night. i think i've said all this before, but these were the best and worst years of my life (in that horrible cliche way.)

i hated high school. i mean i fucked up there so much socially that it was just pure hell. when i hung out with the angry kids i just felt like i could do no wrong. i was that rich girl with the car, but hopefully not that annoying one. (i hope not anyway cuz she was a real trick.) i was the private school girl that cared just a little too much about what other people thought. that tried her best to make it home at least somewhere NEAR curfew.

in the 80's i went from hanging out at the mall to hanging out at house parties tripping on sugar cubes. i went from cut off jordache and baseball tees to doc marten's and bomber jackets. a global leap in anyone's book.

the eighties are THE decade for me. i can't explain it and it don't mean it in an "i love the eighties" sorta way. i mean i don't think i owned one pair of leg warmers. (i do now, though... sue me.) it just was the decade that defined my growth. i found punk rock and camaraderie.

i also found blackouts... i'd guess you'd call it a trade-off of sorts. heh.

kali remembers how cool it was to wear long underwear under shorts. Cause it was and is cool, dammit.

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