02 July 2006

Proustian Years in Review

Part 3: 1992



For me, 1992 was:
  • a Penguin Classics copy of Dickens's Hard Times that fit into the pocket of my anorak, and which I seemed to have with me throughout much of the fall.
  • a pair of pre-faded Gap jeans that were darned (by my grandmother, oddly enough) on one leg because they got torn in the first week I had them.
  • Mariah Carey's heretical cover of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There," which seemed to be on the radio much of the summer.
  • a bootlegged copy of the computer game Hardball III, which featured Al Michaels's play-by-play, and which I played obsessively when I was supposed to be studying.
  • the abysmal Drew Barrymore film, Poison Ivy, which I saw with friends in a supercool air conditioned theatre one summer evening.
  • pizza with tomato, mushroom, and onion, consumed by my friends and me on late Friday nights at a 24-hour Italian place.
  • the sturdy black box that contained my father's ashes, which I carried from the car to the gravesite, on the day we laid him to rest.

What was 1992 for you?

7 comments:

Paperback Writer said...

1992...I was sixteen. Let's see....

My first kidney stone.

Watching the Thorn Birds and Who's Line is it Anyway, from my hospital bed.

Volunteering - ginergly afterwards.


Developing a deep infatuation with a boy who would eventually break my heart.

Trying not to be sad about the breakup of a friendship

Learning how to drive.

Reading Thomas Hardy and cursing my teachers for it.

Learning that I love Mythology.

And that a young Paul McCartney was really, really, really cute.

Liz said...

What happened with the friendship?

Paperback Writer said...

Hmmm....let's see. I wrote briefly about JJ in my Friday's Feast post. I think though, he found out that I had a crush on him. Or that perhaps testosterone finally caught up to him and made him an insufferable jerk.

Oh, and he was completely and utterly a right-wing republican who didn't mind telling me everyday how wrong I was.

The Whining Stranger said...

Right-wing Republican?

That would have marked the end of the friendship for me right there. :)

Liz said...

1992 - Falling in love with my state.

Breaking the heart of the nicest boy I'd ever dated by falling for the boy who would break my heart.

Going to the park with my friends, in our college sweatshirts, so we could take pictures to hang in our new dorm rooms.

Putting up a map of NJ, to the chagrin of my beloved roommate.

Having my heart utterly and completely ripped out.

Finding out my best friend was pregnant with my now 13 year old godson.

Driving around Freehold, NJ, on winter break, crying my eyes out and listening to "My Hometown" by Springsteen. (That's Bruce's hometown, not mine.)

I'd love to say "getting over it" but that didn't happen until 1993.

Paperback Writer said...

WS: Oh, yeah. Right-wing Republican.

EDW: Man, what was it about 93 that broke our hearts?

The Whining Stranger said...

1992-93 is a period of universal heartbreak, I think, based on a sample size of three.