Nostalgia-ville: Population me

and, oddly, most of my friends on facebook.

i don't know how this started, but separately my different groups of friends on the facebook have started posting all these old, old pictures. stuff from high school and beyond. some of it is family old-pictures, some of it school stuff. it's kind of cool. no, actually i really dig this. it's really cool. even the people i haven't known for that long (or relatively haven't known for that long) have some pretty fantastic stuff up. it's neet-o.

also, it's really weird that it's happening all at once. like i can see how one or two friends might have spear-headed the movement in those circles, but how all of these things are happening at once. for all these different people. it's just really strange.

and it's weird, too, because i feel it in other areas too. i have two oldies stations programmed on my car radio. two. and until a few months ago, i didn't really listen to the radio. i just really need some oldies. and - And - on a non-oldies station that's not too shabby, the afternoon drive time show is 80's music. more nostalgia. don't even get me started on re-makes, and revivals. yeesh.

what's weird is seeing who people were. or that's the weirdest part for me. and seeing myself and thinking about who i was in a completely different way now than i did back then. for instance, i was pretty. i had No Idea. zero. man, if i had known that then...well, i probably still wouldn't have done anything differently. but maybe i would've been a nudge happier. that would've been nice. hell, we were all so pretty. really. maybe it's because we were so young and unjaded but, we were a nice looking bunch. and we weren't even the pretty kids at school! we were the theatre dorks!

i dunno.

i think maybe i'm looking for this (or any) connection, but i think people are trying to start falling back on good things. or, even if they were shitty times, at least they're familiar. take high school. a lot, lot, lot of my high school friends are posting pics from this insanely good year - 97-98 to be exact. the times were great. which is not say they were drama free. because they weren't or that we were all happy all the time, because we weren't. but damn, that was a fun year. and i think we all want to remember it. not that anyone's life is so shitty that that's what they have to fall back on. i don't think that's the case at all. but it's nice to go back and see who we were.

maybe we're all just trying to get a little perspective on things. or maybe it's just that 10 years have passed and that's time enough to want to remember again. or maybe we're all just ready for a democrat in the white house again and these throw-backs are getting us ready for better times...that might be a stretch...

i do know this:

tuesday was a long day. got up, drove to woodstock, helped my folks move my grandma from their home to an assisted living facility up in canton. it was hard. really hard. not just because of the grunt work, but because grandma has finally realized that she's not going back to chicago. and she ain't happy about it. so, to keep her distracted during moving in and to make sure my parents were able to do what they needed to do during moving in, i brought her an old picture album and we started going through it together.

these pictures are amazing. really. i hope i or my parents can scan them onto a disc, because they're so awesome. grandma's 89, which means she was born in february of 1919. she's got pictures from when she's as young as 2. of her family and her friends, and that whole passel of cousins she had. and they're the same pictures we've been taking. maybe with a bit less irony (grandma is not known for her sense of humor), but it's the same. made even more the same by the fact that my grandma, mom, and sister all share a face. me, too. it's odd and sweet and comforting all at the same time. and being a fashion junky i practically salivate over everything that everyone is wearing...but uh, it's pretty nice.

it's nice to see where you came from, you know? and be comforted in the fact that you might not go back, but the generations after you will.

i am dork.