I often get in moods like this late at night. I feel I am on the verge of something great and profound. I want to shout the injustices of the world and reveal some great hidden truth.
Underneath this urge is the threat of crippling nostalgia. My memory is a curse. While I struggle with basic concepts like, "I have an appointment at 3:30 today," I have a vivid memory for my place in the past. Long-gone smiles, remembered smells and snatches of music torment me. I can close my eyes and recall a moment almost perfectly. I get lost and when I open my eyes I want to cry. Days gone by can never be relived.
It doesn't matter if the memory is from a rotten time in my life. Why on earth would I want to be back in the mid-late 90's? Was I not frustrated, lonely, socially retarded, terrified of women and defeated? Yes I was. But there was this one time I was looking out the window of my apartment on Broadway at night, a Radiohead B-side was playing and giant snowflakes were falling. I stared into orange street lamps, feeling cold air leaking through the window. The radiator clicked and cooking dust drifted into my nostrils. I was lonely but content. I was free. It was the late 90's, I was there and I will never be so again.
Even as I sit here typing I wish I could just have an hour in that time and place, walk Broadway as it used to be and visit the young versions of my friends. We were so... I don't know... heady? Full of possibility. Now reality has scarred and scattered us. I miss us, those young people with their cigarette smoke, ironically-enjoyed b-movies and their, "What do you want to do?" "I dunno, what do you want to do?". I miss my apartment. I miss how it all made me feel.
Aw, Jeez. I guess I've strayed into crippling nostalgia. It's at times like this I must remind myself that the 90's weren't that great. Three of the ten top-selling albums from the 90's were by Celine Dion. There was this huge recession that nobody acknowledged, this awful, boring, drawn-out economic slump that affected everybody except baby boomers. My apartment had mice. Mealworms lived beside my bed. Dr. Jim Pankiw was my MP.
This isn't working. Thinking about the 90's vermin is making me nostalgic. I should probably just stop typing. Before I do, if any of my 90's friends are reading this, I'll just say I love you. We should hang out and watch a lousy movie sometime.
http://pharoahphobia.blogspot.com/
