That hair is NOT ballet hair, btw. The face, though, is Pure Bershon. (TM Sarah Brown)

Tales From the Brain Attic, Part One in an Eventual Series: Will I Ever Dance Again?, by Lurlene McDaniel

Here is what I remember of this thing which I have not seen in a minimum of 20 years (but in this case is actually 30 years), and did not review or fact-check at all except to find a pic of it on the Internets:

There's this girl, whose name I can't remember. She's in high school, and ballet is her LIFE, and but she also sweats some cute boys (of course) but ain't nobody really got time for that because of ballet. She starts feeling weird, almost passing out, thinking it's just because she starves herself for her art. Her little sister is like, "Damn girl, why do you smell like nail polish? And how come you're so thirsty all the time no matter how much you drink?" And she's all "BUTT OUT, TROLL!" But lo! After some sort of incident at school, we discover it's not merely starvation and overexercise -- turns out, she's A DIABETIC!!! How embarrassing! And tragic. She could DIEEEEEE!!! Of the diabeetus! And her mom and dad go all super-helicoptery and want her to cease dancing IMMEDIATELY (docs say, nah man, exercise is good for the diabeetus, you're overruled, psychos). And she almost passes out in class at one point on account of her blood sugars but remembers she's supposed to eat some LifeSavers candies and drink some OJ and she does and it's ok. And then! There's this audition to join ... maybe a prestigious ballet school? In New York? and her parents are like FUCK THAT, you can't manage this horrible tragic embarrassing disease on your own, you're going to live with us, sedentarily, forever! and she fights with them and is all dramatic about it (teenagers!), but talks them into it eventually. And finally, there's a dance at school and she wants to go and wear jeans (because jeans are cool) and her mom says no way are you wearing jeans to a Formal Dance, and she says GOD MOM IT'S THE EIGHTIES, and they fight, and but then end up compromising on a "plum-colored" pant/sweater combo from a department store and the main boy she's sweating is like damn girl I like your plum-colored pant/sweater combo, let's derail your future with a teen pregnancy (just kidding about that last part, it's very chaste -- the drama in these YA novels you'd get at the Scholastic Book Fair or at like Waldenbooks was all about Ballet- and/or- Clothing-Related Angst).

My sister had the WORST crush on Bruce Willis because of this. And also his wine coolers commercial. Oh, 80s, never stop doing you.

Random Lines I Remember From Moonlighting, Which Ran From 1985 - 1989 (When I Was 11-15 Years Old), By Which I Mean I Remember These From the Original Run, Not From a Re-Watch: A Partial List

"Where are the pieces of guy?"
"The what?"
"The pieces of guy!"
[There had been an explosion, presumably killing a guy, but BW points out there were no "pieces of guy" to be found]

"Her name's Freddy, short for [can't remember].  ... Her favorite color is rug burn."
[BW on a suspect]

"You know my usual jelly? Make it a cruller!"
[Agnes di Pesto, living life out loud]

"David, may I please have some answers?"
"Delaware, all of the above, 90 degrees ..."
[fucking SLAYED ME -- actual weeping with laughter]

"Oh, the Danburrys! Big alums!"

In my current lifestyle, I not infrequently come into contact with people who are at that next level of wealth and connection -- the one where it goes beyond just having a comfortable income and having what you need in terms of consumer goods and the like: the level where they're not the ones going to the gala charity functions, and not organizing them, but being the whales that support them or the name that gets it done in the first place. But I think this is maybe where I, personally, top out -- me with my small-town Methodist pridefully-poor background, my scholarship-supported Ivy League education, etc.; I get glimpses of what happens behind those doors, and occasionally get vaguely invited into the lobby ... but I don't know how to walk through, nor, honestly, what I would want that for. Case in point: a family party Mr. Gleemonex and the kids and I went to on Saturday night. Fun party, love the hostess, but the place was chock full of the kind of people who are on the boards of stuff (i.e., a person more adept at and desirous of making that type of connection could've had a very productive evening), and I spent fully half of my time talking to two 20-something German au pairs. Oh well! They were funny and interesting -- who cares if they can't get me on some bullshit board.

Sorry, we only carry sizes 1, 3, and 5. You could try Sears.

Cunty Things Said to Me By This Person, Emma, Whom I Used to Work With at the Hi-Tone Nanny Agency In San Francisco in the Late 90s: A Partial List

--"You like Elizabeth Hurley? Isn't she a little too glam for you?" (In some insipid lunchtime conversation about celebs, amongst all us gals.)

--"Hunh. Provolone. Kind of bland, isn't it?" (Judging my cheese/fruit/baguette lunch, which was A, none of her business, and B, all I could afford at the fancy grocery store nearby.)

--"Well, when you've grown up a little more, you'll see it's not really that much." (Upon my wide-eyed reaction to hearing how much her house in the then-gentrifying area of the Lower Haight cost.)

--"I think you've worn those exact shoes to work every day this week." (Probably I had; I owned about three pairs, total, of work-appropriate shoes. Nice of her to notice.)

--"Heyyyy! You're getting skinny!" (Approving of my figure about a month after my dad died -- a fact of which she was well aware; she'd complained about how "long" I was out of the office, which btw was three days -- when I was at my lowest-ever adult weight on account of I had basically stopped eating for awhile there.)

--------------------------------
Randomly thought of this woman the other day, sparked by Shatner-knows-what; Emma is not her real name. She was/is about 5 years older than me, and was from Money, and worked at the agency as a counselor (who met with clients and placed nannies/housekeepers/etc.), whereas I was a mere admin. In fairness, she was generally pretty nice, and helped me out a lot with wedding planning and, like, restaurant suggestions, but she could occasionally just drop some fresh steaming cuntiness on my desk for no reason as she passed by. 

You can wear my clothes

Anybody wanna know what my 1993 was like?

The lengthy excerpt from Margaret Atwood's "Cat's Eye" is not even the weirdest part of all this.

I do not have time right now to go into this, because I have to go practice my bass and then go get my kids from school, but the September 1989 issue of Seventeen is making me feel as though I have not ever had an original thought in my ENTIRE LIFE, as if everything I have ever thought, or felt, or worn, or held in esteem, came from this ancient scroll which I now hold in my hands. TIME IS A FLAT CIRCLE.

And a third unrelated thing: It seems like I should be able to sing "Lyin' Eyes," but it's actually at some really strange pitch range for me and the breath control required is beyond my skill as a vocalist, even alone in the car. Weird.

Two Things, Unrelated to Each Other and Both Entirely Apropos of Nothing

1) I remember when I finally saw a twinset in real life. It was during college, early on, like probably freshman year. Some girl was wearing it/them in one of my Core classes. This girl looked like she would've been more at home at, like, SMU or Duke than at Columbia. And as my eye fell upon her, and stayed there -- skirt, sensible low heels, hair neatly arranged in a crisp smooth style, light makeup, subtle jewelry, at nine in the goddamn morning at college -- I realized that on her top half, she was wearing a thing I'd only ever read about: a twinset. It was a ... a sweater, over ... a sweater? It was a lovely blue, very fine gauge, beautiful material -- I have more or less stopped wearing sweaters myself because of the Mamie Van Doren effect and the fact that even the thin ones add about 23 pounds, visually, to my own top half, and for these reasons plus my entire lack of style I would never, ever, layer a sweater upon another sweater, no matter how fine the gauge. So I was impressed, and fascinated, and but almost laughed inappropriately-loudly from the unexpected revelation I had had right there in Lit Hum: THAT'S a twinset! Hot damn! 

2) Mr. Gleemonex and I had a date night a couple of weeks ago (we HAD to go see Dumb and Dumber To, the original is a thing with us), and on the way through the parking garage to the mall where the theater was, I was striding along with my Fast, Purposeful, 360-Degree Visual Awareness Radar, Don't-Rape-Me walk. Which is the way I walk in all such spaces -- parking garages/lots, city streets, endless Las Vegas hotel corridors, etc. This is the way I've done since at least my teenage years, as I suspect most women do, and I never even think about what I'm doing -- if I'm in a space I perceive as any more threatening or dangerous than a Barnes & Noble kids' section, that's how I'm ambulatin', son. And but so Mr. Gleemonex was like dragging on my arm, all "Slow down there, Run Lola Run, we're actually on time for once -- why you gotta be walking so fast?" (not his actual words). I slowed down, suddenly aware of my FP360DVARDRMW, and it was only later that I thought back on it and realized that he, Shatner bless 'im, doesn't walk like I do, because he is a man -- now, he's a GenX lefty feminist man, to be sure, and his walking behavior was as unconscious on his part as my walking behavior is on mine, but if the difference between the two styles doesn't illustrate what rape culture is, then I don't know what would: I perceive the potential for bodily personal threat everywhere (which is unfortunately not unreasonable), and he does not.

It's ok. Last year I got saved so I could go on the ski trip.

Here Is A Thing Which You Probably Did Not Know About Me, and Which Will Likely Make You Laugh the Freckles Right Off Your Face If You Also Know Me IRL

I was in the church choir for a not-small unit of time, back in the seventh and eighth grades.

(Might've been sixth-seventh? My mind is like swiss cheez.) ANYway. It wasn't my fault -- me the non-singer with the weak pipes who had a rabid case of performance anxiety despite being a loudmouth in general (maybe I thought nobody was listening?). It was the fault of a person who ... well, I don't know if you could properly call this person a friend; more like -- a person who was in the same class as me, and hung out with me, and did all the usual friend-y shit with me, but who mostly used me as a prop, an extra, in her life. And SHE wanted -- for reasons ever opaque to me -- to be in the church choir. She press-ganged me into doing it with her; the only thing I remember besides her extreme persuasiveness in the matter was that I did like the notion that I'd be seen as a super-extra-Christian if I did it. So.

We auditioned for the music director -- it was an all-volunteer thing, they took all comers; he just needed to see which section to put us in. We were placed, and told to show up Wednesdays at 6:00 or whatever for rehearsal, and 15 minutes early for church on Sundays for a refresher and to get our robes and whatnot. I must say, I adored being welcomed as a "fresh new young voice" by the real choristers, and treated like the Exemplary Christian Teen -- that precise stripe of vanity, rather than a genuine Love Of The Lord or desire to Know His Grace or whatever -- drove about 97% of my churchin' overall. (Sorry, Ma. Truth.)

And we ... well, we did about 60 percent of what was asked. We often showed up to rehearsals, sometimes even on time. We mostly sang what was in the hymnal. We sat quietly during the sermon and whatnot, and you probably couldn't even tell from the pews that we were playing hangman with golf pencils on the backs of our programs the entire time.

Friend-ish Person X got bored of whatever reason she'd had for doing this in the first place and bailed after a few months; I kept going for awhile longer, but then sort of drifted off and finally officially quit when I got a paying gig keeping the church nursery during services instead. And thus ended my gospel singing career.

When we meet again, it won't be me.

I went super-deep down a rabbit hole the other day, putting together a perfect Halloween costume -- I wasn't really planning on dressing up because although it is fun and cool to dress up, the last few Halloweens have been on weekdays and I have young kids and all we do is make a circuit of the cousins' apartment complex, which hardly feels like worth going to any trouble for, but this year we're staying local and going to do our rounds in a neighborhood that I am assured has an AWESOME Halloween scene, so when Kid Gleemonex asked what me and Daddy are going to dress up as, I suffered a spasm of long-buried need to Do Halloween. SO.

Anyway. I wanted to be this, and it is this that I spent the day working on (trolling every website from Zappos to Lands' End, with large amounts of time on eBay, etsy, and LL Bean):

And but then I was double-checking the shoes, and watched the whole scene:

And realized that age wise, I'm much more properly suited to this (although not, in both cases, nearly so striking-looking):

And now I'm wondering if it would in fact verge on the grotesque to try to do my original idea, and anyway if Mr. Gleemonex won't do this (which he hasn't said yes or no yet):

Then what exactly is my deal? New idea ... new idea. Hm.

My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it *was,* you're lucky to get out alive.

So hey, show of hands: Who else is writing a novel set in the early 1990s and just realized that a not-small chunk of it (of which you were pretty dang proud) is actually just a mashup of two episodes of My So-Called Life, including the names of two (2) minor characters?

Oh. Just ... just me then. Mkay.

Oh, yew've had PLENNY a honeymoons -- ya have one every time ya meet a boy!

Men I Have, at Various Points of My Life, Been Certain I Would Marry: A Partial List

--Kevin Bacon (1984-85)
--Matthew Sweet (1990-93)
--Andre Agassi (1988-91)
--Charlie Sheen (1989-92)
--Christian Slater (1989-91*)
--Michael Jackson (1983-86)
--George Harrison (1987-89)
--David Bowie (1986-88)
--this guy Tim that was my mom's friend and almost certainly gay as a tangerine (1980-90)

-----------------------------------------
*Entry appears solely because of stuff people wrote in my yearbooks. I do not remember feeling this way about him at all. But apparently I did, for awhile? 

It's like our Sergeant said before one trip into the jungle: "MEN! Fifty of ya are leavin on a mission. Twenty-five of ya ain't comin back."

38/40

Last Days of School, Ranked From Most Awesomest to Worst Crappiest

3rd grade: Party at Miss B.'s actual house! Rolling down that crazy-steep sloped lawn! Lemonaaade!
11th grade: We are officially the kings of the world! SENIORS 1992!!!! Also I leave for D.C. in a few days to spend the summer as a Congressional Page, so hand me a wine cooler and let's tear this place UP!
8th grade: I'm in Washington, D.C., gettin' my National Spelling Bee on. Fuck yeah! Also: I never have to play that fucking flute again, boyeeeeee! I'm free!
4th grade: Feels like summer, the circus is in town, and we have a trampoline at my house!
10th grade: No more geometry! Pile in my car, we're gonna drive around this town till the gas runs out, y'all!
1st grade: Popsicles and air-conditioning over at our grandmother's house! Yay!
2nd grade: Everything is awesome!
9th grade: Woo hoooooo! Only one more summer without a car! Quick, get your sister to drive us to the mall so we can see Major League again (and again, and again).
5th grade: Ucch. This was a weird year, socially, and a relatively tough one, academically (particularly math-wise -- I've begun to struggle). Glad it's done.
12th grade: Zinging back and forth between euphoria, cheap nostalgia, dramatic sentiment, terror, elation, and super-weirdness, everything feels Important and both too big and too small all at once.
7th grade: Oh thank CHRIST this year is over.
6th grade: Holy shit we have to hide! We have to hide from the 7th and 8th graders! They're gonna get us with shaving cream and flour! Run, goddammit, RUN!

change the world! hahahahahaaa oh shit lollllllll

29/40

Stolen from -- I mean, inspired by -- the brilliant Me At 13: This is the room, c. 1989, of someone who might be a bit confused about things, the room of a person who is still at the stage of accumulating all of the influences and has yet to even begin the process of culling, of figuring out who she really is and swimming up out of the enormous pile of Maybe I Am.

And also: LAMBORGHINI DIABLO.

Upon reflection, I'd have to give this one a pass.

23/40

One of the fun things about being my age and having small kids is getting to revisit a lot of the stuff you knew about three or three and a half decades ago. There's a lot of WTF involved.

The Revisit: Peter Pan (Disney, 1953)

We watched this over the xmas break on family movie night, figuring it'd be OK for both kids (ages 6 and 2) and the grandparents. Well ... yes and no. There was no cursing, sex or violence, but yikes, that thing was NOT what I remembered from the once or twice I saw it as a kid.

The story itself is pretty thin -- it'd be about 30 minutes if they told it straight. But then they go and add all this crap about the whole family tiptoeing around this blustery clumsterfoot of a domineering dad, which makes me not like the Darling family much. And then and THEN they have this really long (like 15 minute) super crazy racist scene at a "powwow" with what Kid Gleemonex, bless 'er, called "Native Americans" -- big old red hook-nosed Injun "braves" and nasty "squaws" and one suspiciously pale young princess (because only light-skinned people can be pretty), all this "How!" and "Big Chief smoke-um pipe" business that just went on for god.damned.EVER. Plus there is this longer-than-necessary scene with the deliberately pre-pubescent/latent Peter Pan and these clearly adult and super, SUPER-cunty mermaids who get their mer-vajays all stretched sideways over the amount of attention he pays to young miss Wendy -- it's pretty fucked up, honestly. Not Judy-Garland-as-Dorothy-Gale fucked-up, but close.

You can wear my clothes!

18/40

So the actual date is past, I am 40 now, and it is: Completely OK. I always have liked the round numbers better than the nines, and the sevens better than the fives. In fact, here are some of my favorite age numbers, JUST as numbers, regardless of the state of my or anyone else's life at that time: 33, 17, 42, 6, 54, 92, 71, 88, 40, 32, 77, 27, 60, 104.

Anyway. I had a great, great, GREAT party (one of our band weekends, a one-nighter actually, with Mr. Gleemonex and a small handful of our oldest, dearest friends and all of our kids around somewhere, mostly staring at Apple devices; early-90s theme for costumes and setlist), was not dreadfully hung over the next day (just tired, since we rocked until almost 2:30 a.m.), and have spent a whole lot of time appreciating just how full and blessed my life really is and how undeservedly but terrifically lucky I am. This is a pretty goddamn good way to enter one's fifth decade on planet Earth, and I am so, so grateful for it all.

Tried to take a hand-selfie, but couldn't hold the iPhone steadily enough, ha!

14/40

I have my grandmother E's hands -- knobby knuckles, long fingers, a certain amount of vein action starting to become apparent on the back -- with the breadth of the palm of the other side of the fan (more like my mom's). I've notice this fairly recently, and it's one of the things I am most OK with about my aging-ass body, because it's a tie to the past: My Grammy, to whom I was very close, lives on -- not just in my thoughts, but physically, in a way I see every day.

The Winona Resonance: Dig Its Continued Effex

3/40

You Might Have Been Born in 1974 If This Was Your Absolute Fucking Favorite Outfit (and Best Hair) Of Your Entire Life Up Til This Point

I remember the occasion -- on the way to Fort Worth for a listening party for a record my dad and his writing partner (an actual musician) had made. I managed to cadge two (2) wine coolers during the course of the party and it was enough at that tender stage to make me loooooopy. Haha!

It took me awhile to get this many items; it was a happy decade, but fraught with a certain kind of angst and agita that I am glad to be over with.

2/40

Things I Miss About My Twenties: The Complete List

--Oh, to have that kind of recovery from The Drinkening ... the quicker metabolism, the ability to sleep till like TEN A.M. holy fuckballs

--FOX "news" not even being a thing

--Letters. Like, paper mail. From one person to another person.

--Having all four grandparents and a set of greats still up and kickin'.

--Weed. That shit was fun.

I'm going to kiss you now, Gerald.

Friends, the image on this magazine cover is everything I wanted to be, look like, and do with my life at the age of 16 (almost 17), which I was when it arrived in my mailbox in December 1990. EVERYTHING. I didn't even care all that much about Johnny Depp -- it's not about Johnny Depp. It's about wanting to look like her. This version of her -- I'd've taken any version, honestly, but this is The One. It's why I made the tragic decision to wear a hat in one of my senior portrait poses. It's why I wore blazers and pearly things, and experimented with weird lipsticks and haircuts to try to get this way -- it's why I stopped using Sun-In, for Shatner's sake! Fuhgaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh I still want to look like this.

Sounds major.

An excerpt from A Student's Handbook to The History of  [Cowburg] County: EVERYTHING you need to know!, by Winona Louise Gleemonex, Mrs. L's Fourth Grade Class, c. 1984.

VII. Social Life - and - Amusement
The early settlers were always hospitable and friendly to visitors and neighbors, as was their custom. Cowboys were always, always welcome.

Horseracing was very popular. [Cowburg] County had many tracks, on which very famous horses raced. 

Barbecues were held, and dance contests and singings. In other words they were very social and friendly people.