Christy The Writer

Guy and I take so many vitamins and supplements and prescriptions and herbs that on any given day, our breakfast table looks like the cover of a Jacqueline Susann novel.

I had a committee meeting last night that devolved into a lengthy discussion over where on a certain shelf we should display certain box. I haven’t been involved in such a heated, pointless debate since the family meeting we had in 1983 to decide on the dog’s middle name. True story. (Oh, by the way, we settled on Renee. I guess as a tribute to all the French people we knew in Kansas.)

I lived there for the first 25 years of my life, and I still can’t figure out why they call Kansas the “Mid-West.” It should just be the “Mid.” It really doesn’t get any more mid than that.

Have you noticed that women no longer wear “sweats”? Now we wear “yoga pants.”

It took me awhile to comprehend what my sister was saying. Something about Michael Jackson being dead. I couldn’t get my head around it.

When I finally realized it wasn’t yet another worn-out joke, I was stunned. I waded through everyone’s comments on Facebook – some touching, some snarky. I listened to the radio broadcasts, I watched the coverage on the TV news. And then I went to my closet, took down the small box of keepsakes that sits on the top shelf, and pulled out the only cassette I’ve saved from my teenage years: Thriller.

And then I cried.

Was I crying for the troubled man whose career I had seen go from top to bottom in the flash of a sequined glove? Was I crying for the young black man who had shattered a racial barrier and left shards of it under his moonwalking feet as he made his way up the Top 40 again and again? Was I crying for the pop star whose sappy love songs made my angst-ridden teenage heart feel a little less alone?

Yes.

I was in seventh grade when I got my first Walkman, a huge silver contraption that cost somewhere around $100 and weighed roughly the same as a fat toddler. The first cassette I bought myself was “Thriller.” I listened to it for hours, memorizing lyrics, hanging on every squeal, and shaking my head at my pitiful parents who didn’t understand why “Wanna Be Starting Something” was such an important social commentary.

My friends and I would dance to “Pretty Young Thing” and discuss, in surreptitious whispers, the masturbatory undertones in “Beat It” and OH MY GAWD I think “Billie Jean” is about a one-night stand! We were scandalized. And delighted. Michael Jackson, a Midwesterner just like us and not much older, was giving us glimpses of that promised land known as Adulthood.

And then he faltered. And then he fell. Did we love him still? Sure we did. We were children of the 80s. Iconic, moronic pop culture figures were a defining part of our generation. Cyndi Lauper. Madonna. Weird Al Yankovic. The Two Coreys. The Brat Pack. And Michael Jackson. We loved him for all that he was to us. And we loved him in spite of the fact that he wasn’t perfect. Maybe we loved him a little more because of it.

A piece of my youth died yesterday, and I mourned it the only way I knew how. I cried. Then I put on “Beat It.” And I danced.

After several weeks of problems (would someone like to tell me what a hacker could possibly want with this blog?), I’m thrilled to report we are back up and running! Some changes are on their way – it seemed like a good time for an update anyway. MISSED YOU GUYS!

A friend told me the other day that she’s always been so impressed by how I really seem to have it together. I instantly flashed back to the previous night, when I was alone in my kitchen, dancing and singing “Bungle in the Jungle” into a spoonful of marshmallow fluff and I thought, “Why yes, yes I do have it together. How nice of someone to finally notice.”

Guy and I were in Manhattan yesterday for a much-needed run to get fresh produce in Chinatown, bagels on the Lower East Side, a peanut butter and jelly doughnut at the Doughnut Plant (don’t you judge me), and as always, stopped at The Pickle Guys. As we were being waited on, a woman in line said to the man behind the counter (imagine a thick New York accent) “You look familiar. How long have you been here?” He answered “I got in about 8:30 this morning.” I went off into an absolute gale of laughter, which pleased him endlessly. God, I love New York.

 

Spotted on stroll this afternoon through Manhattan, where the cops like nothing more than writing parking tickets:

This is what’s called balls. They grow ‘em big in New York.

I just saw a headline that said someone is “breaking his silence.” I think it would be so cool to break my silence about something. The problem is I’m never actually silent about anything.