Why I loved back-to-school time, part 2

Last week, I wrote a tender homage to my first lunchbox. I also noted that, although I have been out of the educational system for a long time, I still have a thing for school supplies. There are two reasons, I believe: first, I was (and am) a nerd who loved school; second, I was (and am) a shopper. And back-to-school shopping was the best...here's why.

New clothes and shoes
I've loved clothes for as long as I can remember, but I didn't become label-conscious until fifth grade. That year, a couple of brands nearly succeeded in turning me into a little Paris Hilton. I fell hard for this:
and pestered my poor, overworked single mother until she bought me two precious Izod shirts, and a few pairs of alligator footie socks. If Lacoste had made underwear, I would have worn it. My mother thought (and rightly so) that I was out of my mind, but she hadn't seen anything yet. Shortly after I began cultivating my Izod sickness, I developed another obsession, one that lasts to this day:

This, my friends, is a Nike Cortez sneaker. These were the first fancy, name-brand sneakers I had ever owned, and I loved them. For the first two or three weeks after I got them, I set them on my dresser before bed every night...so that I would be able to see them first thing each morning when I woke up. I still love flashy sneakers, but now I can (usually) restrain myself from looking at my feet in the mirror a million times a day when I'm wearing them.

Great organize-y gear
My name is absepa,and I have OCD. Obsessive-compulsive disorder doesn't just happen overnight, you know, and mine started early. I remember going to my granny's office when I was five or six and happily re-organizing everything in her desk. It was no surprise, then, that my discovery of the Trapper Keeper changed my school career forever. All the folders fit inside! There were so many pockets! Even my little plastic pencil case was designed to fasten into the Trapper Keeper...and then it allll closed up neatly with a velcro flap!
That's a little bit of nerd/OCD heaven, right there. The only thing that could improve it would be...

Lisa Frank stickers
Unicorns, rainbows, hearts, puffy clouds (sigh), all covered with more glitter than Dolly Parton and Beyonce combined...Lisa Frank's designs were enough to make my little head explode from pure, girly awesomeness.

I covered every possible surface, including my Trapper Keeper, with as much Lisa Frank-y goodness as my meager allowance could provide. Apparently I never outgrew that obssession either, because I realized, as I just spent a few minutes checking out LF's website, that I kind of miss this stuff. One of the bummers of adulthood is a serious lack of sparkly stickers, I think. That boring, black leather binder that I carry to meetings is just crying out for some puppies and unicorns.

I learned from the comments on part 1 of this story that not everyone has such good memories of back-to-school shopping. (Sorry, Kathy and JD.) How about you? Am I the only one who loves school supplies? Drop a comment, and tell us about your favorite back-to-school memory!

While you're at it, how about a smiley?

A New Direction

It's been hard for me to think up blog topics lately. I've had what seemed like some good ideas, but they either fizzled out as I tried to write them, or I didn't have the technical know-how to make them work.

Everyone says that you should write about what you know, and the thing that I know best is, well, me. I have been going through a great wave of nostalgia for the 80s lately, since I reconnected with a bunch of old friends on Facebook. So, without further ado, I am going to present a semi-regular series of posts called:

Why I Loved the 80s
Part 1: My First "Real" Concert

In the 80s, I pretty much lived to watch MTV. Oh, I went to school, hung out with my church youth group, had a part-time job, babysat, and all the other things that teenage girls do, but all free time was devoted to MTV. And, if you were watching MTV in 1986/'87, you know that there was no escaping Bon Jovi.

To say that my stepsister, Melinda, and I were obsessed with Bon Jovi would be an understatement. We had the tapes and the posters; knew all the words to all the songs; and went into fits of ecstasy when the videos aired on MTV. When Melinda and I heard that Bon Jovi would be appearing at Rupp Arena (in 0ur hometown of Lexington, KY), in March of 1987, our joy was quickly eclipsed by despair, because we knew that we would never be able to afford tickets. Neither of us had jobs at the time, and it took a LOT of babysitting hours to buy a concert ticket. We were disconsolate.

The day of the concert arrived: March 21, 1987. Anguish, gloom, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, various other forms of melodrama, etc. (no one does despair better than a 16-year-old girl, after all). Midway through the afternoon, my mom came in and told Melinda and me we should start getting ready to go out. We asked why (gloomily, of course), and she said, "You want to be ready for the concert, don't you?" In what was probably their single coolest act ever, our parents had bought us tickets for the show.

Oh, how the air filled with AquaNet then! We quickly put together our coolest outfits, pushed our hair to the limits of poofiness, and headed out to Rupp Arena. I had been to a couple of concerts when I was little, but this would be my first "real" show. Excited? You have no idea. We got there early, found our seats, and settled in. The opening act was Cinderella, who I loved at the time. (They must not have left much of an impression, though, because I can't remember a single song they sang.) We screamed, but we were reserving most of our excitement for the Big Moment.

Bon Jovi hit the stage with "Livin' on a Prayer," and the screamfest was on. The only time we settled down was during "Never Say Goodbye," and I was worried at that point that the dude behind me was going to set my heavily sprayed hair on fire when he held up his lighter. (The lighter wasn't the only thing that guy fired up during the show, but I was too naive at 16 to pay attention to all the people around me smoking doobies.) Melinda and I screamed pretty much nonstop through the whole concert, and had the time of our lives. We didn't stop discussing it for weeks.

I couldn't speak, at all, for four days. My choir director was fit to be tied, because our Easter program was the next weekend and I was supposed to sing a solo. Despite a very stern lecture about how screaming can damage the voice (and the fact that I totally lost interest in Bon Jovi a couple of years later), I still count that concert as one of the best times of my life. And that's one of the reasons why I loved the 80s.