Wow, one post per month--that's pretty pathetic. I have no excuse other than I've been busy (well, and kinda lazy, too--which can impair my ability to post).

I have a new temp assignment now, working for the guv'ment. Yep. I'm one of those. Government worker. Not as scary as I'd imagined, and the job is pretty much gravy, so that's good. There's a certain comfort in mindless and repetitive work.

I thought of this the other day and don't know how well it will look in print, but here goes nothing:

Things That Were Popular When I Was In High School

Whenever I happen to catch an old episode of 90210 or a showing of Doc Hollywood on the Fox Saturday afternoon matinee, I'm reminded of how truly hideous the fashions of the early '90s were. I'm starting to think that they were even more putrid than the worst of the '70s (Dorothy Hammill do's and brown courderoy gauchos) and the worst of the '80s (Madonna hairbows and pastel jeans). It's hard to even put my finger on what was so disgusting about the clothes and trends circa '90 - '93 --perhaps because I was in high school (class of '92) at the time and in the thick of it all. Yes people, I wore and did some of the same crap.

I will try to illustrate the sheer ugliness of that era through the following examples:

MC Hammer pants -- These were popular at high school dances. It was mostly a guy thing, but I do remember seeing a handful of girls inexplicably wearing these things. They were basically puffy pants--huge and billowy (I'm not kidding) around the thighs, then tapering off at the ankles. They came in various colors: blue, black, gold lame (I'm not kidding), red--mostly dark colors (pastels were seldom seen during this time, lest anyone be reminded of the eighties).

Air-brushed T-shirts -- a trend from the eighties that really came into its own ca. 1990-91. I was once felt up by a guy sporting an airbrushed T-shirt with "You Can't Touch This" (a nod to the MC Hammer song) emblazoned across the front. I was sixteen. I've never fully recovered.

Tight-rolled jeans -- Holy mother of God, everyone did this. There was an art to it; you took the cuff of your jeans and pulled it tight against your ankle, gathering the excess material on the outside of the leg. You then folded it over, then carefully and neatly rolled it heavenwards two or three times, according to preference. Then you put on your colored slouch socks (no pastels, you nerd!) and your brown loafers, grabbed your Liz Claibourne purse and hair pick, and you were good to go!

Giant sweaters -- I had 'em, you had 'em, we all had 'em. Many featured loud, clashing colors (in one of my senior pictures, I'm sporting a large orange and hot pink sweater with a cowl neck that threatens to swallow my whole big-haired head). The ones for boys were slightly more masculine and less fuzzy and featured geometric patterns in clashy hues. Even the "alternative" crowd wore these things (paired with black or leather pants, instead of tight-rolled jeans). Yes kids, in the early nineties, no one was safe from giant ugly sweaters.

Spiral perms -- Yes, I had one. Let's move on.

Cosmopolitan magazine -- With the advent of Teen People, Teen Vogue, and Sassy (R.I.P.), I imagine Cosmopolitan magazine has quite a bit more competition now than it did around '90 - '92. Back then, however, it was The Holy Bible of teenage girls. In my high school, wrinkled, torn, dog-eared copies of the latest Cosmo were passed around and memorized monthly. While we half-heartedly perused the fashion photo spreads and makeup tips, the real reason we worshipped this rag was one simple reason: sex. Cosmo was (and still is, I'm guessing) chock full of it. Sex articles, sex tips, sex info-graphs, sex pie charts, sex statistics, sexsexsexsexsexsexsex-sex-sexity-sex. The sex quizzes were the best. The thoughtful reader would circle her answers in pencil, so the next person who took it could erase her markings and write in her own. Unfortunately, this wasn't always the case, and sometimes the quizzes came to you so smudged with ballpoint ink that you had to transfer your answers onto a sheet of notebook paper and continously refer to the magazine so you could ascertain "How Kinky Are You?" (even if you were fifteen and had only ever gone to second base with a boy, it was important to be able to determine these things. You know, for when you turned sixteen). I don't think anyone over seventeen years old actually takes these quizzes, and (hopefully) no woman over twenty actually takes Cosmo's lame-brained sex advice seriously. If you know one who does, please slap her. Hard.