Who doesn't recall 2007? Those halcyon days of free love, E, pleated skirts, disco revival and bloody fucking shotgun carnage. I think I was in the process of getting ready to divorce. The past is all cataracts, for me. Where was I? What was I wearing? Which one was my favorite Ghostbuster?
I recall that my brother dipped his nuts in melted chocolate, simmering in a saucepan on the stove, and my mother had to drive him to the emergency room. He was 32. At the time, he was dating a stripper he'd met at a 12-step program. (Perhaps this memory crosses paths with a memory that I've already posted.) A good four weeks would pass before he could touch her or anyone else with his gonads, and by that time the woman was long gone, kidnapped by Hell's Angels or residing in a log shack with a Hungarian fur trader (depending on who tells the story).
I recall that the N-64 was all the rage with game aficionados, Phillip Roth was chewing up the NY Times bestseller list, Empire Strikes Back was poised to hit cinema screens everywhere, and Debbie Harry was regrouping with Blondie for the ninth and final time. Somebody said we were going to go to the moon, but that dream fell flat on its face. Fucking Russians were dicking around in the Belgian Congo, murdering anyone with a press pass, orange was everyone's favorite color, the Winnipeg Jets were all Norsemen(!), and Nine Inch Nails were seconds away from scoring their first number one hit.
The world was brimming with something like promise. Maybe it was hope.
My brother went to ball rehab after whats-er-name left him high and dry. Not so much as a greased palm or Dear Jim letter. Mother has refused to allow him into the kitchen ever since. There are jokes, of course--Mom thinks she invented the term "tea-bagging" and I haven't ever attempted to set her straight.
Remember polyseter pant-suits and the Play-Doh barbershop?
Fuck, I miss 2007.
All the years since feel like nothing but autopilot, to me.
--WBCz (live from Gronlid)
