Back in the 90s

You find yourself wanting to write about the 90s. Why?

It was a difficult time. There is so much of it you still don't understand. So many people moving in and out of your life. You've lost touch with them all.

Your stoner friend who kept a handwritten, numbered list of the men she had slept with. She rated them on a scale from 1 to 10. There were a lot of 3s and 4s. She moved out west for a time, and then lived abroad.

The manager from the cafe where you worked. He and his girlfriend lived in the apartment over yours. He'd come downstairs sometimes to smoke and drink with you and your housemates. Your then-boyfriend, pretentious and rich, brought out pate, and the manager, vegan before it was a thing, called it "chopped up bunny rabbits." That was the last time you all hung out.

Your serious, ambitious friend who wore black turtlenecks and burgundy lipstick. She spent summers interning in DC, in New York. She writes sometimes for the New Yorker now. You hear she lives in Brooklyn, married to a journalist twenty years older, a young daughter in private school. That was the last you heard, and that was a long time ago.

The math and physics guy who hung around for a while, even though he had so little in common with the rest. He watched you all like research subjects. He was quiet, blushed bright red when you tried to make him dance in the living room. You went to his wedding, years later. Your friend called his wife "a walking reproach."

You held a lot of odd jobs, didn't do them very well. Spent all the money you made on cigarettes and vodka and the occasional splurge at the fancy market, salmon, or a couple steaks you could make on the little round grill you borrowed from your housemate, set it on the concrete slab just outside the back door. There were always people around, dropping by with beer or wine coolers, or dime bags you'd all roll yourselves. That one guy who always had chewing tobacco, leaving big wet clumps of it in plastic cups.

Blurred years that still feel shameful somehow, like you wish you could say that was not you. The desperation, the longing, the panic, the recklessness. How you thought you kept it hidden, that no one knew you were disintegrating. How obvious it must have been.

Why now, you think. Why revisit. The 90s in the zeitgeist again? The chunky platform shoes and plaid skirts?

The soundtrack (attempt #1 - suspend all yr judgment)