I hate the laundromat. It always succeeds in reminding me of my own insecurities and inadequacies. I am not generally inadequate, but I feel that way most of the time. I feel, almost always, as though I’m not good enough.
This is incredibly hard to reconcile with my knowledge and real belief that I am somebody, and more than that – somebody good and worthwhile. How do you work that out in your mind? For me, I guess, it’s that I think I’m quite alright, but I’m somehow truly mystified to find anyone else who agrees with me. But, I’m off my subject. This has nothing really to do with laundromats.
It’s just that I feel so utterly conspicuous here. A laundromat is just one of those places where people have little choice but to look at other people. And be looked at in our turn. Here I feel fatter than I am, uglier than I am, stupider than I am.
Why am I so deeply concerned with other people? People I’ll never see again. People who will never think about me again?
I hate the laundromat.
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The older I get, the less conspicuous I feel. And the less I care what people may or may not be thinking about me at any given time. Mostly I’ve just realized that strangers think about me, or even notice me, far less than I imagine. But I wonder, was that insecurity that made me (and sometimes still makes me) feel observed and scrutinized? Or was it just another form of ego and self-absorption?
The first album I ever bought was Asia’s sefl-titled début record, and I bought it because I liked the cover. What can I say, I was 12 and I just really wanted to own a record.
Remember vinyl records and those big gorgeous covers? And if you were lucky you’d open them up and all the lyrics would be on the inner sleeve and you’d lay on the couch and play the record over and over until you knew all the lyrics by heart. *sigh* That lasted through my cassette tape years, but I was beyond that by the time cd’s came out.
We are now in the digital age, and I don’t even think I’ve bought an actual physical copy of an album in over ten years. Times they are a changin’, and music along with it. But I have a huge place in my heart for the music I grew up with in the 80’s, and that will probably never change. By the way, I really liked that Asia album. 12 year old me knew a good cover when she saw one. 🙂
Here’s a little sampler of the music I listened to in the 1980’s:
1980 – 1982 These were the boombox years for me, when I’d carry that thing all over the neighborhood. I remember when I got my boombox for Christmas. It. Was. Beautiful. Remember listening to the radio, waiting for that one song you loved to come on, your finger hovering over the record button? I remember that.
Air supply – The One That You Love, All Out of Love, Lost In Love, Even the Nights Are Better
Hall & Oats – Private Eyes, Kiss on My List, I Can’t Go for That, Maneater
REO Speedwagon – Keep on Loving You, Take It on the Run
Pat Benatar – Hit Me with Your Best Shot, Heartbreaker, Treat Me Right, Love Is a Battlefield
The Police – Don’t Stand So Close to Me, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
But Abracadabra by Steve Miller Band is the one that always comes to mind first when I think of that boombox. This video is hideous hilarious:
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1983 – 1985 MTV came to my town in ’83 or so, and that’s when I really got into music. Or at least the music they were playing on MTV. Actually, most of these songs blend together along the early 80’s timeline in my brain.
Huey Lewis and the News – Do You Believe in Love, The Heart of Rock & Roll, If This Is It, The Power of Love
Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), Here Comes the Rain Again, Would I Lie To You?
Culture Club – Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, I’ll Tumble 4 Ya, Karma Chameleon
Cyndi Lauper – Girls Just Want To Have Fun, Time After Time, All Through The Night
The Go-Go’s – We Got the Beat, Our Lips are Sealed, Vacation
Madonna – Borderline, Lucky Star, Holiday, Crazy for You, Material Girl
Tears for Fears – Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Shout, I Believe
Duran Duran – Hungry Like the Wolf, The Reflex, Rio
Bryan Adams – Strait from the Heart, Summer of ’69, Run to You
John (Cougar) Mellencamp – Jack & Diane, Hurts So Good, Lonely Ol’ Night
Pink Houses is the one I really liked the best. My Nannie lived in a pink house, and I always thought of this song when I thought of her house:
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1986 – 1987 I got my license in ’86, and after that I wasn’t sitting at home watching music videos much anymore. We were cruising town!
Bon Jovi – You Give Love a Bad Name, Livin’ on a Prayer, Wanted Dead or Alive
Heart – Never, These Dreams, Alone, Nothing at All
Madonna – Causing a Commotion, La Isla Bonita, Open Your Heart, Papa Don’t Preach, Live to Tell
Bruce Springsteen – Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark, Tunnel of Love, Brilliant Disguise, Born in the U.S.A.
The Eagles – New Kid in Town, Life in the Fast Lane, One of These Nights, Take It to the Limit
The Dream Academy – Life in a Northern Town, Bound to Be, Indian Summer, The Love Parade
I saw The Dream Academy on Saturday Night Live and bought their album after only hearing those two songs. I’ve been in love with them ever since.
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1988 – 1989 Graduation and my first year at college! We went to a few concerts these years, too, which are great memories. I went to school in the mountains, and many an afternoon I was riding through the hills blasting The Eagles, Indigo Girls, and Bruce Hornsby. Singing at the top of my lungs. Those poor, poor cows.
U2 – With or Without You, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Where The Streets Have No Name
R.E.M. – Stand, Orange Crush, Pop Song ’89, Begin the Begin, Fall on Me
INXS – What You Need, Need You Tonight, Devil Inside, New Sensation, Never Tear Us Apart
Aerosmith – Dude Looks Like a Lady, Janie’s Got a Gun, What it Takes, Don’t Get Mad Get Even
The Smiths – Is It Really So Strange, Sheila Take a Bow, Panic, Ask
Indigo Girls – Closer to Fine, Tried to Be True, Secure Yourself
Bruce Hornsby and the Range – The Way It Is, Mandolin Rain, Every Little Kiss, On The Western Skyline
This one was harder than the movies by a long mile. I wanted to list every single song I remembered from the 80’s! This is just a tiny sampling of the great music I loved from that decade, in the general order of when I remember listening to it.
You know, I just realized that some of the albums I fell in love with in the 80’s – Bruce Hornsby, The Dream Academy, U2, The Eagles – those are still among my absolute favorites today. More than 2o years later. And I still get excited when I hear them.
What were you listening to in the 80’s? I mean, if you were alive then. 🙂
Okay, so I’m doing resolutions again this year. A little late, haha, but that’s me all over. I did okay with my goals in 2012 – not as well as I’d like, but my failures were in those giant goals I set for myself that would require a radical overhaul of my 43-year-strong habits. Cause, you know, that’s not too much to ask of myself, right?
I spent a lot of last year beating myself up for those failures, and the rest of the time learning how to suck at something without hating myself for it. (If anything, I’d say that’s the real lesson I learned.) At the end of the year, I wrote a big long post about what I thought I’d learned. Basically, that for those major life change, long term goals, I really needed to plan out steps and smaller goals along the way. Which is not a wrong idea, in and of itself. You know, if I knew how to do small steps like a normal person with good sense and a modicum of patience.
So, naturally, at the beginning of 2013 I did the typical Michelle thing: I made the work of goal achieving harder and bigger than it already is. I mapped and planned and plotted and charted and listed. Same old thing; biting off more than I can chew and overwhelming myself before I even really get started. All my charty listy mappy plans were just too cumbersome and added more work to already difficult (for me) goals. My checklists fell by the wayside almost immediately, and I struggled all last year to get my act together goal-wise, not getting any further ahead than I had been at the beginning.
I did accomplish a lot in 2013, I really did. But I missed the simple resolution process that I’d started in 2012. I wanted to do many of those same goals again in 2013, but without the reminder and prod here on the blog, I let a lot of the smaller things, like visiting family and taking an outing each month, fall by the wayside. I missed doing those things, but they don’t come to me naturally. Without my resolution list, I simply forgot to aim or plan for them.
This year I’m going back to the 2012 method of setting and tracking my goals here. Some of those not-so-simple goals are back, but I’m working with a life coach to help me learn to set reasonable steps, or goals-within-a-goal. But I think the main thing she’s going to help me with is to slow down and not bite off such big chunks. Patience. And to enjoy this whole process, because it should be fun and inspirational and a kind thing I’m doing for myself.
So here are my 2014 goals:
healthy budget
healthy diet
exercise
spend time with family or friends I rarely see
go someplace different or go to an event each month
keep a daily thankful journal
Write at least 6 Queries for the blog this year
re-paint my kitchen and put up shelves
take a computer class
go to bed at the same time every night
get up early every morning
So that’s it, my 2014 resolutions. I’m excited to get started, or re-started, as the case may be! I hope 2014 is a great year for me and for you, too!!
6/8/97
steadily skipping stones 