This is how old I am

...courtesy of Zoesmom and Becky.

I had the Star Wars soundtrack on vinyl. There were 4 records in all, and the record sleeve opened like a book. I also had the Annie soundtrack, The Grease soundtrack, and the Mary Poppins soundtrack, all on vinyl. Each was played on a pink record player--I believe it was Holly Hobbie.

Every year at Christmas, we decorated our tree listening to the Carpenters' Christmas Portrait (with it's Norman Rockwell-esque cover), and Christmas with the Beach Boys, again, on vinyl. It wasn't Christmas in our house until we heard Karen Carpenter sing "There's No Place like Home for the Holidays," and my mom shook her head and said, "What a waste. Such a beautiful voice." It still isn't Christmas to me until I hear a holiday tune sung by both the Beach Boys and the Carpenters. My husband is deeply bothered by this.

I wanted to be Princess Leia (except when she was chained to Jabba the Hut. Ew). My first crush was Harrison Ford. I used to make my boy neighbors play Star Wars with me, they got to use my baton as a light saber.

My first bedroom was orange. The carpets in the condo we lived in had pea soup green carpets. All of our kitchen appliances were avocado.

The best. thing. ever. growing up was a Monday night "special" airing of the Muppet Show. That meant we got to stay up until 8:30. It also meant the cool spinning "special" graphics CBS used to air right before it.

Anyone who comes from Fairfield will appreciate this: Before Blockbuster ever existed, we used to rent our VHS movies from the grocery store: Fairway Beef on Black Rock Turnpike. That was the only game in town, until it burned down (there's a CVS there now, but it's still called Fairway Plaza).

I went to my first Yankee game when I was 8 years old. Don Mattingly was playing first base, a very young Willie Randolph played second, and Craig Nettles played third (in his last year as a Yankee--I was devastated when he got traded to San Diego. Even more so when my grandfather loyally followed him there). Dave Winfield, my second favorite Yankee (Don Mattingly was my first) played in the outfield.

I, like Zoesmom, remember vividly when Luke and Laura got married. I loved the Christopher Cross song, "Laura" (Thank God my taste in music got much, much better), and thought the whole thing was just so romantic.

I wore black rubber bracelets a la Madonna up both my arms. I could not have enough black rubber bracelets.

I thought Who's the Boss was the. coolest. show. ever. because it took place in Fairfield, and Samantha Micelli and I were the same age. I felt we were living parallel lives (with the exception that my father was not a housekeeper for a rich divorcée).

I grew up on MTV, when they played videos, and only videos. There was no other programming, save for Remote Control, which I tolerated. I looked up to Martha Quinn. I wanted to cut Adam Curry's hair while he was sleeping.

I was in college when Kurt Cobain committed suicide.

In college, I was a "commercial art" major. I had to learn how to operate a stat machine, and had many mishaps with rubylith, xacto knives, and rubber cement (these are all pre-computer layout relics). I owned, and used, a T-square.

When we finally graduated to computer use, I learned Photoshop version 3; this version introduced layers to the world of computer graphics. I could save all of my Photoshop work on one 3.5" floppy (remember the stink Apple cause when it discontinued floppy drives on the iMac?).

There was no internet in college. It was a great event when my school got Zip drives for the computers--after I graduated, of course.

My second "real" job had email. I hated the job itself, but was afraid to leave because email was so new at that time, I was afraid other companies hadn't caught on yet. I lasted a year; and yes, the company I went to after that had email.