1986
birdmad the latter half of my freshman_year

kicked off with a bang (1/28/86) Challenger explosion

i was running and errand and saw it on the tv in the teacher's lounge as it happened

for weeks we told horrible jokes about it, the jokes were cruel and tasteless, but i think it had more to do with not wanting to admit how horrifying the thought of it really was

why did NASA switch to sprite?

they couldn't get seven up.

my first cigarette
010118
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hfc19 Thirteen years until we could party like it's 1999. One more year of highschool. Discovering more about the joys of sex.

Went to see "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" and "INXS" at the Tower theater in Philadelphia.

Also the year my father died. Why did he have to leave me so early in life. 44 years old. So many tears shed in 1986.
010119
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monde it was the year of Least Responsibility in my entire life

i lived at barrington hall, a student co-op in berkeley, long gone now, shut down when someone jumped off a roof on drugs.
everyone at barrington did drugs. or at least tolerated it. or stayed at the school and never came to the place.

we trippers had won it to ourselves
for a few bliss-filled years

it was a tradition to paint in VERY large letters the word "LSD" in the street on the Dwight Way and Haste Ave sides of the building

It was supposedly so people on the roof who were on acid would see it and remember they were on a drug and not to try to jump and fly.

the kid who died
didn't see them
he jumped into the parking lot on the side of the building

i still think he just fell

in 1986 none of this had happened yet
and life was free as a bird that could not change
(but would, eventually)

i spent my summer months getting paid for repairing the psychedelic murals there and painting new ones

i smoked so many bonghits
i started turning into a marijuana plant
i smelled like resin
walking by in indian skirt and orange hair

i had sex with this graffiti artist i had been terribly enamoured of
on may 29th, 1986
it was amazing
but in the morning he looked so dejected
knowing how stratospherically high he'd made me
and how for him it was just
something to pass the time
he didn't talk to me much after that

and the weirdest part was
the day after that happened
i moved into the room at the hall
he once occupied

room number 208
i kept finding traces of him everywhere
in three months i moved away because the room was making me insane

there was a big painting of bob marley on the wall, but every time i looked at it it didn't look like bob marley, it looked like this former denizen of the room

smiling at nothing
certainly
not me
not anymore

i still think he only fucked me as a means of closure, to make me GO AWAY like picking up a bug crawling on your arm in your two hands and holding it
but only as part of a process the ultimate goal of which is to
GET IT OFF YOU

and well, i kind of understand
how he must have felt
getting obsessed with a person is a
VERY bad thing
especially if it is under flimsy pretenses, if you aren't even good friends or lovers and you obsess on their very presence

some people are that magic, they have that kind of power

but leave it alone

1986 ended with a brutal tequila overdose
there was never another year anywhere near like it.
this is both bad and good.
010411
...
green_tenedril i remember it as a good year,
though all years seemed good when i was that young, i think.
at least in memory.
my aunt would dry her hair with the hair dryer, with her head upside down, and i would watch her, in the little suburban house. her makeup was teal and hot pink and she wore asymetrical skirts and big earrings. the cure would play on a bright yellow mono radio...she was in high school and the coolest person i had the privilige of knowing.
when she went out at night, i would lie on my back on her bed, play culture club, depeche mode and rod stewart albums and look at the record covers over and over, dreaming about being a teenager.
sadly, my aunt is now a yuppified one, there seems to be no trace of her 80's new wave identity...
tragic.
but i inherited it and will carry on
past 2006.
010411
...
Tim!!! i was 7 010411
...
god i was 16 011204
...
ClairE I was three!

My first memories begin...not very exciting, though.
011204
...
j_blue i think i was 8

could be wrong

had been in and out of depression for about 3 years by then
011205
...
optic discretion 1986 ... my 2nd year into a world full of love and hate, of prosperity and poverty, of light and dark. 1986 ... I spoke my first words. 1986 was a year of beginnings, a year of building, a chapter of my life, a year of childhood innocence yet untouched by the horrors of the world

yeah, 1986 ... the good old days.
011205
...
yummychuckle MY YEAR! HAH!
but really, I would rather have born in 1984, sounds like a good year to be born. Maybe even 1983.
020301
...
distorted tendencies The year I came into this pathetic fucking world. I wish I would never have been born. 020301
...
yummyC wow I didnt know you were my age...

also, thats nonsense, you have beautiful words and thats gotta say something. Many people cannot express their feelings like you do.
some are too stupid.
you obviously have worth.
you SHOULD be glad u exist.

cept yeah i understand.
020302
...
unhinged i was in kindergarten. my birthday was past the deadline, but i made it in anyways. i was a young one. i hated my first day of school but i sure loved that bon jovi video where they are playing in a stadium and bon jovi is wearing red leather pants. i don't remember the song though....living on a prayer maybe. 020302
...
benvolio the year AFTER i was born... wow... do i ever feel young 020313
...
Teenage Jesus Holy cow, I was a 19 year old college drop out working at "the cool" record store. Between 1985 and 1988 I tripped well over 500 times. It was great, but I feel a bit short-changed, as I've never had one of those so-called "flashbacks."

Maybe I'll have one on the way home from the office today...
020314
...
dionysos Melodrama at the Pollardville Chicken Kitchen Palace Showboat Dinner Theater on Highway 99.

Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Lodi Rep.

Acting crazy.

Police codes: 601 & 602.

No wonder "86ed" means "thrown out, never to return"
020314
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Adyana My birthday. 020525
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Kate May 1986, the month of my birth. May 22nd, 1986. Cleveland, Ohio. The year goes unrecorded in my memory.

"And your embers never fade
In the city by the lake
the place where you were born."
the smashing pumpkins

I'm quite proud of that line... I refer it to myself. My embers came alive then.
020526
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god i learned to drive. i got to third base. high school sucked ass. it was all bon jovi stryper dokken acid washed hell on earth. 020614
...
devalis The year I came into the world. The beginning of the end. Isn't that depressing? Born just to die. That's also quite cynical. Where's that shit comin' from? 020809
...
oppressed_youth What a year. I was selling Oldsmobiles at Arnold Venk's car emporium; lunch breaks at the canteen across the street. I was twice divorced, and going on my third at the time. The alimony checks were paying off quite well; I owned both halves of a townhouse. Life was sweet in 1986, my friends.

Actually I was one year old, and making noises like "gooodle."
020810
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Rae I was Six years old. 020810
...
good people spawned me! 020810
...
gumby weehee! sixteen years ago to this day, i was born. 020823
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D y a n n e The year of my birth but not till the month of November and not till the 13th of that month ... quite interesting huh 020824
...
~gez~ my year, i own it. the world come to a halt momentarily when i was born 020901
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yo the sad thing is..i wasnt even born then! 021223
...
the godfather trilogy is out on dvd haha, neither was i.
gah - i feel so young...but thats a good thing right?
021223
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girl_jane I turned one, and my birthday was recored with polariods in Texas. 021223
...
girl_jane or perhaps polaroids...shit I can't spell. Now is a time when I need blather spellcheck 021223
...
snowsweet i was only around for half of it.
alright, 4 months of it.
two years post-orwell. 1984.
how did that go?

war is peace.
freedom is slavery.
ignorance is strength.
030105
...
megan i was born. what a good year. :-) 030105
...
Rhin ...probably one of the most forgettable years of my life. this was the dark year. i remember always dressing according to my mood, and for pretty much all of 1986, i wore black. i was 15, and i swam in depression. i remember that even my dreams were infested with darkness. this was the year i became a 'katie', and that's a story better left in my past.

was the year i met Star, the best friend and the football player.

was the year that my brother left home...leaving me to fend for myself.

was the year that my father flipped his race car over the 3rd turn bank at the speedway.

at the end of this year, i met my best friend to date. i suppose it sort of ended on a good note.
030106
...
gmw i wanna go to druthers.......

HA HA HA.....


let rhin tell the story
030106
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Rhin no! (please don't) and call me for god's sake, because i'm tired of calling you and getting a busy signal! 030106
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Novice Hey I was born in 1986 030528
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me ditto 031130
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x kindergarten 031130
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chocolatte The year of the Tiger.

No, not Tiger Woods.

Tigers are known for their creativity, agression, and natural talent. They make passionate human beings, great lovers, and wonderful thinkers.
040108
...
RoXXXie I was 6 years old in 1986, and my brother was born April 9, 1986. 040109
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whitechocolatewalrus the year my parents didn't get fixed and protection didn't work. the year i became one too many kids in our 4 child family.

i know my parents love me though. and for some strange reason, i love them too.

everything works out in the end.
040109
...
magicforest I was BORN! 040110
what's it to you?
who go
blather
from