Nostalgia

Blogger's been a pain lately, but today I persisted and so here we are, the first blog entry in a while. I was going to write about politics some more and about how women are their own worst enemy and if Liberia -- LIBERIA -- can have a woman president, what the hell is the matter with us? But enough about politics, because that's the future, and I'm more into the past these days. Not into the past in that self-defeating, anxiety-ridden way I have about me, but more in that golden "those were the days" kind of away. Mostly this has been brought up by two songs I heard on the radio lately and now I'm dying -- DYING -- to get copies of, even though I know they will drive everyone nuts because that's the kind of songs they are.

The songs I'm thinking about, that have specific memories associated with them, are "(And I would walk) 500 miles" and "What's going on?" C'mon, you children of the late '80s and early '90s', you know EXACTLY what songs these are and I bet to this day, you can scream at the top of your lungs, "WHAT'S GOING ON?" and I hope that you have someone in your life you'd walk 500 miles for. But the point of this is these songs remind me of my swim team, of when we used to sit under a big tent at the all-day district event, waiting for our 30 seconds of race (or in my case, the occasional 8-minute race as I did compete on the district level in the 500-meter freestyle -- 20 laps -- and the 100-meter breast stroke -- 4 laps).

We used to be known as the team to beat until a private club came along with an amazing coach (who, incidentally, was responsible for my breast stroke, which I competed in at the state level). And so we'd sit there at the district meet, our tent next to the private club tent, and just to annoy those snooty rich kids -- some of whom used to be on OUR team -- we'd turn up the stereo and we'd scream "WHAT'S GOING ON?" And then we'd sing at the top of our lungs, "And I would walk 500 miles, and I'd would walk 500 miles," in that rat-tat-tat staccato rhythm. And we would sing those two songs over and over again ALL DAY LONG. Even though we'd lost our first place standing to the private club, we were bigger and louder than them and we were giving them warning: we're right behind you. Just give us time.

It was totally awesome. Annoying, but awesome.