Sometimes I wonder if I follow the world or if the world follows me. Synchronicity is a common thread in my life.  Sometimes I start something in my own head and the next thing you know, it’s just out there and not only that but manifold, like that time I went deep inside myself, peeling off my layers to find a witch.  Now, it seems, all the witches are coming out. Or maybe we are just feeling the effects of the 100th Monkey.

Lately, I’ve been blasting into the past and I tell myself not to get stuck there or I would end up like my grandmother who had dementia.  She was a time traveler, rest her soul.

I was there when AIDS popped out of its unsightly head, and I had friends who caught it and died, like the drag artist queen, Amor, or Roger, another friend.  All ghosts now. And some survive to this day because of the miracle of medicine.

Also, back then, the parties were a feast and as one of the pioneer “fag hags” of that day, I went to the best ones where the people never stuck, and I wonder now, what happened to them all?

I’ve always felt like just a mere observer here, occasionally dipping my feet into the pool.  There’s been too many parties where I was the only one clothed because I can never be that free, although I envy them.  

I have never seen myself as an extrovert, but somehow I managed to live quite the life. Not bad for a lurker.

I remember the modems and the tricks I used to play to get free calls from the phone booth next to Ralph’s because my parents didn’t let me talk on the phone too long, and they wouldn’t give me any change so I had to be resourceful by using 411 operator as a jump box.  I can’t even remember how I picked up that trick, but there were always a few tricks despite not having smart phones or google to help guide the way.  The kids nowadays don’t know how easy they have it.

I remember the BBSes, IRC’s, and AOL, hanging out in the Warez rooms that were quick to spawn and die, phishing for accounts and booting people off for fun. Once, I booted this hacker off and he got mad because he didn’t like my handle, but quickly he changed his tune when he found out I was a girl. He called me on the LAN and said he could get me a ticket to fly out to him in Texas, which of course I didn’t fly out. He showed me some stuff he said he hacked from the government and I wonder how much of it was real or for show. Those were the youthful days of Gen X exploring new territory, pioneers to the digital world we know now. I believe we were also pioneers to Industrial, Punk, Grunge, Goth, and whatever else we decided to spill into our ears.

Now when I hit the goth clubs I see a room full of Millenials and Gen Z’s dancing to the music we blasted to back then because it’s in again, or rather, it never went out.  Occasionally I’ll find some of us from Gen X, the kids who never really quite grew up, at least some of us, blending  in.  For the first time now I hear buzz terms like alpha babies, the newborns gens that have finally been named. Clips on the generation wars are just entering my peripheral, and I wonder if I am late to the party of have I just never left. Still, I refuse to join TikTock no matter what anyone says. I know times are changing sadly into days where kids dream to be influencers because popularity is now a career., even if you’re dumb. Nowadays, we make dumb people and criminals famous and rich. Meritocracy never had a chance.

Now the 70s show has hit the 90s and and I am laughing because things have gone full circle, and I wonder if those boomers ever felt the same, looking at themselves on tv. I was child of MTV at a time when positioning those antennas was a skill because we didn’t all have the luxury of having cable.

I guess our generation was copycat too, strutting those bell bottoms because real style never goes out. Now the Y’s and Z’s want to be us like the way we dreamt of being at Woodstock, only, our version was disaster where people drank and played in their own shit. So glad I missed out on that party.

Well, gotta run to Daiso.