I may or may not have been studying for finals here in the spring of 1986.

Part 2: The College Years 

“Boys and girls and music. Why do they need gin?” Annie, It’s a Wonderful Life

Everything fun happens at night.  Especially a summer night.

When you’re young and fun, all the good stuff happens in the dark.  I have always been a night owl, and night-time was always the right- time back in the 80s and 90s.  There are a whole bunch of Gen X and Millenials posting on social media about how they love to be in bed in their jammies by 8 o’clock at night and how their favorite thing to do on a Friday or Saturday night is stay home.  What. The. Fuck?  I’m old, by Gen X and Millennial standards and I still crave nighttime activities.  The problem is that everyone else thinks the way these people do and I’m left with no one to seek nighttime adventures with. 

Night.  Music.  Boys.

I kind of got around for a while there in the 80s.  Everyone did. Guys and girls. I was not as wild as some people I know, and a little more than others I know.  If I could go back, I think I might throw caution to the wind more.  It was really fucking fun.  Boys and music mid-80s style.  Situationship #1- Summer, New Order, Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen, Cabaret Voltaire, 80s Goth and synth-Wave. Driving around at night.  Sometimes in a convertible. Lots of weed.  This particular relationship kind of had two parts- actually maybe three.  College for me-he was younger- robbing the cradle I guess.  Actually he was only about a year and a half younger, lol. We worked at Tops grocery store (if you are a WNYer you know Tops.) as did some of the friends we hung out with. Tops had its own culture – and I was never really a part of it.  I just worked there for two summers.  I wasn’t a lifer.  Or a year long-er.   Someone referred to me as the “punk cashier” because I had an asymmetrical mid-80s style haircut.  I actually went to the local barber to have it cut.  I think I gave the poor guy a heart attack when I walked into the shop and asked him to cut my hair.  He was very tentative but did a great job. Back to the boy. We reconnected during another summer in my life where I was sort of emerging from one situation into another. Hot summer nights we listened to more music, met each other in another city, got high some more, talked, shared some personal life stuff and generally had fun.  This person is still a friend,and although we rarely see each other we stay in touch.  I will forever have a special place in my heart for this person. Once we both grew up, and I consider that I finally grew up recently- lol, I put our decades long situation-ship in perspective and appreciate him as an important person in my life.

Situationship #2- Summer of 1987.  I was very tanned from my lifeguarding job and I was extremely blonde.  Damn that was a fun summer. I associate this particular liaison with the Psychedelic Furs, INXS, Steve Winwood, Robert Palmer. And driving around at night in what I think I remember correctly as a Plymouth Horizon?  Is that a funny thing to remember or what?  Also lots of weed. And a few other things. Sand. Water. Skinny dipping. Outdoor showers at night. What a summer.  This was another fellow that I also had a very long infatuation with. I crushed hard on him for a long time.  I am not sure when the infatuation ended.  Maybe when he got married.  Maybe. And again, the universe was working in my favor when she decided that, despite my long time lust, it resulted in a limited, short-lived liaison.  

Situationship #3- I loved a senior blond-haired lacrosse player my sophomore year of college.  A lot of girls loved this lacrosse player.  And he loved a lot of co-eds back.  I can’t exactly remember if we talked about specific music, bands or singers, but I absolutely cannot hear certain songs from 1986 without thinking about him.  Prince. Prince. And more Prince. Madonna. Falco. The Bangles.  Nu Shooz I Can’t Wait. And one song in particular transports me right back to the shores of Seneca Lake, a college campus in May bursting with blooms, day drinking and going to lacrosse games, and being head over heels.  That particular song is The Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls.  Maybe I’m just in a weird end of the Year of the Snake head space but just remembering this song brings back so many feelings and is making me a little verklempt.  I suspect most of the people I’m writing about here have probably forgotten about me, or any details of any relationship we may have had, but I have a weird memory.  

I can remember some of the most minute and bizarre details about some of the most impactful experiences from my long ago life. 

Me and my asymmetrical haircut! LOL!!!