Tonight We're Going to Party Like it's 1986

Day 6
Mood: Excited

Last night I got down on my hands and knees at 1:00 a.m. in the morning and rooted through my crawl space for an item I wasn't even sure was there. The object of my search? A yearbook. I obviously hadn't thought about this yearbook in quite some time since I wasn't even sure it was in my possession; though after every move my parents make I seem to end up with more boxes of my shit, so the odds were pretty good (thank god my mother-in-law has never moved).

Not finding me in my usual blog surfing spot, and not remembering a kiss goodnight, Shakey sensed a scavenger hunt was afoot. I could hear him wandering around the house calling for me but for some reason sound doesn't travel up through the first floor. After eventually finding the door opened he peaked in asked if I was in there. Hearing a yes he walked away and went to bed. Shakey's learned over the years that when I get on the type of quest that leads me to a location like the crawl space at 1:00 a.m. it's probably just best to get out of the way.

After doing a marine crawl under two cross beams and scooting ten feet on my ass, I came upon the boxes I thought might contain my quarry. But first, I found old pictures from the first years after college. Had to stop and go through those of course. Then I found the boxes containing memorabilia from the wedding--skipped those too recent. Pulling away more dusty shoeboxes full of receipts, {cue heraldic trumpets} there I found the box I sought. Yearbooks from 1985, 1986 and 1987!

For those of you who choose not to remember those days, let me remind you of some of the hightlights:

• neon clothing


• tight-rolled acid washed jeans (pegged)


• leggings (oh wait that's today too--gasp!)


• BIG hair (Aquanet Super Extra Hold was my personal glue)


• the space shuttle Columbia accident; and


• the overuse of the word "rad"

I've recently gotten back in touch with a friend from highschool that I had chalked up to lost. He's one of those people you took for granted as a constant figure in your life and then one day you realized you had gone in different directions and you didn't know how to get in touch. Thanks to the ridiculous spam of Classmates.com we actually reconnected and have been catching up on lost time. Of course, all sorts of names I hadn't thought about in years have been tossed around and so I just had to find a yearbook to look these folks up.

Only 20 years have passed and I can't get over how many of my "great friend's" yearbook messages I can't even associate with a face or last name! But man have I had a good time reading through all of the signatures and laughing at all of the hair styles. And I found the people I was looking for. It's just so hard to imagine some of them "grown up."