Strolls down memory lane...

I was playing some tunes tonight on YouTube while working on a few things on the computer and chatting with some of my besties on Facebook...

I posted song after song and my friend, Shannon, kept "liking" each post. So, finally I asked her if she was actually listening to them or just "liking" them. She said, "Yes!" She was listening to Eddie Money "Baby Hold Onto Me." He puts on a great show. I love his voice.

So, then she posted a song on my wall. "Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners. I still have to look up the lyrics to that song. You just can't understand that guy. You'll be singing along and then you're like, "What the heck did he just say?"

She reminded me how we used to push the sectional against the wall at my mom's house to open up a dance floor for us to perform. We would put on 33's (if you don't know what that is, you just need to quit reading my blog now because we likely will have nothing in common, plus, you're making me feel old so piss off!) and wear socks and slide around on the linoleum floors. We were hot stuff. Let me tell ya!

That got me thinking what ELSE we used to dance to.

This:

This is so freakin' bad. It's superbad. It's embarrassing to watch -- but I did. I guess it was morbidly fascinating how excruciatingly pathetic it is now. Seriously, I just cringe.

I think if you get kicked off So You Think You Can Dance, they should duct tape you to a chair and make you watch seasons of this over and over... leave you with a parting gift of some Nair, a gift certificate for a perm and some silky spandex pants. Woo hoo!

I recall one specific time while at my maternal grandmothers in Mesquite, my sister and I were watching Solid Gold. I remember, too, with acute clarity the dancer whom my sister most admired. She was this beautiful waify black woman with hair like Crystal Gayle. She was built like a ballerina. My sister wanted to be her. That evening she wore this ridiculously small gold stretchy leotard. I was telling my Meme -- that's what we called her you see, "Meme"-- that my sister wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer -- JUST LIKE HER! (picture me here pointing to the television)

"A Solid Gold Dancer?" she exclaimed.

Without a second thought she spewed forth unsolicited advice (which she was always known to do.) She proceeded to tell us that in order to be a Solid Gold dancer, one must shave your entire genital area to wear their costumes.

Yes, I was ten year old and my grandmother was talking to my sister and I about shaving our crotches.

It was distinctly the most bizarre conversation now that I think I ever had with her... or either of my grandmothers for that matter. I mean, they're GRANDMOTHERS for goodness' sake. They're supposed to talk about baking cookies... being nice to puppies... bacon grease... making good grades... how to cook... perhaps about how they walked four miles to school up hill in the snow both ways -- not shaving pubic hair!

All I can think of now is that I had to have only been about nine or maybe ten years old -- tops! I'm not even sure that a ten year old girl -- even being the conducive genius that I was -- could contemplate the true understanding of what that entire conversation actually entailed. I mean, I know I hadn't even entered PRE-puberty, let alone been under the full understanding of what grooming rigors that would entail later in life.

I think just the shock of it all then and there shot down my dreams of being a Solid Gold dancer. And, to this day, you can thank my grandmother for the fact that I did not become one. For you see, at ten years old, I was scarred for life.

Solid Gold. Grandmothers. Crotch shaving. What an odd trail of thought I leave you with tonight.