Let's face it - I'm a total has been. I know that this was kindly pointed out by Steve Baldwin last year but I am finally feeling it.
Just stopped by Dooce's blog which is everything that my blogs are not - funny, prolific, high-profile.
Okay, so maybe I have just a wee bit of blog envy, but I do think she is terrific. Her latest entry "Snaggletooth and Soledad" (as in Soledad O'Brien), has a link to a CNN Roundtable featuring some of the top bloggers and Web personalities discussing Time magazine's Person of the Year.
In addition to Heather of Dooce, there was handsome-without-his-dreadlocks Omar Wasow of BlackPlanet.com and MSNBC/NBC Internet commentator fame. And leading the discussion was the aforementioned Soledad. And yes, pathetic little ol' me thought "I should have been there." Who me? Who am I anyway? Nobody anymore or so it seems.
I feel like wading in the shallow pool of semi-fame that I experienced back in the mid-90s, just for a little while. Ah, those were the days. I was limo'd out to CNBC as an Internet expert, featured on Lou Dobb's CNN show and CBS Evening News with Dan Rather (although never met the man - the producer of the segment was Karen Raffensperger).
I was the only woman invited to participate on a USA Today panel of heavy weight technology and media titans including Michael Dell and Comcast president Brian Roberts. Like Dooce, I remember being completely unable to say anything relevant but at least got a laugh when I jumped on someone mentioning "shopping" in regards to new technology developments and I said something to the effect of "I'm so glad I wasn't the one to bring up shopping." My favorite business writer Kevin Maney from USA Today made some sympathetic comments about my being a little out of my league there. But I digress...
So there leading the CNN Roundtable was Soledad O'Brien who I think is smart and talented and very savvy to have leveraged her newspaper gig into a TV stint on an early Internet-related cable show called "The Site." She interviewed me on that show sometime in 1997, I think it was. I was nursing a bad cold and laryngitis and she was incredibly sweet, bringing me some tea before the interview. She seemed so nervous on camera, but she and I had a nice conversation and stayed in touch. We had dinner one night in Manhattan after she started working for MSNBC news. She was so down-to-earth and talked openly about her marriage and personal life as well as business. I was excited to see her not only go from MSNBC and NBC to CNN but also to see her pregnant several times. She was birthing babies while I was miscarrying. She was moving up the television ranks as I wandered the country in an old RV then settled into obscurity in Wyoming.
Anyway, there at the CNN Roundtable discussion was Omar Wasow who actually got his start at MSNBC because I, like an idiot nincompoop, turned down an invitation to be part of the first group of "talking heads" experts for a brand new channel called MSNBC when it first launched. They wanted more women and minorities who could speak about technology, the Internet and even current events. I thought (stupidly) that it was better that I devoted my time to Cybergrrl, Inc., the company I founded. The producer at CNN asked if I knew any other women or minority who would look great on camera and fit the bill.
I recommended Omar and contacted him to see if he was interested. He was so I made the connection to MSNBC for him. He wisely leveraged his occasional role into a full-fledged position as an Internet expert, appearing on the Today Show frequently. The irony is that I tried so hard in those early years to position myself as the Internet expert on a morning show and was working with Al Berman at "CBS This Morning" before Brian Gumbal came back and turned it into "The Early Show" and fired a lot of people. Al was testing me out to be their on-air Internet expert and then everything changed over there. I think he went on to co-produce "Survivor."
At one point, I was in discussions with "Oprah's people" to come onto her show and teach her how to use the Internet because, back then, Oprah had no idea how to get online. The Oprah Show had approached me and they thought having a woman teaching Oprah would be so much better than a man. Then, they dropped me like a hot potato and instead went with Omar. I don't blame them - besides being smart and talented, he's was a hot-looking dreadlocked young black man.
Remembering where I was going in those days and seeing where I am now, I have mixed feelings. I am incredibly happy in my life now with a wonderful husband, a beautiful baby girl and a little house in Alaska, but I sometimes wonder why I took the road to career oblivion instead of the road to career success? I made some decisions based on what I felt was right at the time, based on what I perceived was integrity, but in hindsight was just fear of success or fear of failure and an incredibly powerful deep seated insecurity, a ferocious lack of self-esteem.
I think Heather, Omar and Soledad deserve their high profiles and don't want this to come off like I'm disparaging them in any way. I am no longer funny or prolific or on the cutting edge. Living so far removed from "that world," having a baby, struggling with miscarriages and now post partum depression - it all adds up to a whole lot of nothing in terms of my career. I've lost my identity. I walked away from the company I founded, Cybergrrl, Inc., with nothing but the right to refer to myself as "The Original Cybergrrl." And you know what is pathetic? I still use that reference now and then. Loser.
Today, my struggles with identity come from realizing that becoming a mother isn't what I thought it would be and has somehow replaced all the other things I thought I was. My addled brain has no room or energy for anything other than trying to get through each day. I can sometimes get a brain spark and blog a bit like this post, but what I really should be doing is working on my latest work-for-hire book (because I'm too freaking pathetic to get my own book deal these days). Deadline is fast approaching. And somebody has got to do it.
As usual, stealing things off my sister's blog. But these are my answers, of course.
Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be...so they say.
1. Who was your best friend?
Betsy
2.What sports did u play?
Drama
3. What kind of car did you drive?
1970s Fiat
4. It's Friday night, where were you?
Home reading a book - heck, I don't remember...
5. Were you a party animal?
Pretty tame stuff - mostly a goodie two shoes
6. Were you considered a flirt/player?
Well, I supposedly had a reputation as such, most likely made up out of jealousy, but I was sweet 16 and never been kissed. Then I had a very serious, steady boyfriend my senior year who went to another school.
7. Ever skip school?
I can't remember...I don't think so.
8. Were you a nerd?
I thought I was a nerd and thought none of the cute guys liked me but at my 20th year high school reunion, every one of them professed to have had a crush on me in high school but were too intimidated by me to ask me out. Gee, all that misery and loneliness in high school for nothing!
10. Did you get suspended/expelled?
Never. Goodie two shoes, remember?
11. Can you sing the fight song?
No clue
12. Who was your favorite teacher?
Can't remember any of them. Maybe I was taking drugs then and can't remember because I can't seem to remember the details.
13. Favorite class?
Can't remember - maybe English.
14. Your schools full name?
W.T. Woodson High School
15. School mascot?
Cavaliers.
16. Did you go to Prom?
Yes, with a basketball player who followed me into the girls bathroom to ask me out. I was eating my lunch in the girls bathroom to dodge him because I was hoping another guy would ask me out. But that guy asked some popular blonde and I went with the basketball player. I was pretty pathetic about it, crying at the prom until other girls had their dates dance with me so I had some fun. The basketball player later gave me two second row center seats to the Rick Springfield concert to make up for the bad time I had. It wasn't his fault - I was just hoping this other guy would ask me. (Not my steady boyfriend who lived in another state).
17. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
Never. Ever.
18. What do you remember most about graduation?
Standing in the hallway before stepping outside for the ceremony and watching the sunlight streaming through the doors thinking "I have to remember this moment forever. This is important."
19. Favorite memory of your Senior Year?
Starring in "Cabaret" as Sally Bowles. That was also my least favorite memory. Too much backstabbing and catfights in drama.
20. Where were you on senior skip day?
Did we even have one of those?
21. Did you have a job your senior year?
I think I was working at a clothing store.
22. Where did you go most often for lunch?
The girls bathroom or the hall by lockers - not the cafeteria. Too freaked out by everyone. Too shy.
23. Have you gained weight since then?
Yes. Had a baby. What do you expect?
24. What did you do after graduation?
Like right after? I think I went to some parties. If I say I can't remember, I'll sound totally lame, so I won't say it.
25. When did you graduate?
1982
26. Who was your Senior prom date?
The basketball player
27. Are you going to your ten year reunion?
Hello! I went to my 20 and plan to go to my 25th, this time, with my gorgeous husband and beautiful baby girl.
28. Who was your homeroom teacher?
What?
29. Who will repost this after you?
Don't know
30. Who was President of your class?
Tom Karl? I think so...
One of my best girlfriends was part of a team that wrote an economic study about investing in wine.
Excerpt: If you are heading out to the store to buy a case of wine for a holiday party this week, you might want to have a look at the latest economic literature before you depart. If you do, you might buy a few extra cases. Maybe even a truckload.
Wine, it turns out, may be more fun to invest in than to drink. The only thing better would be the discovery that it induces kids to eat their vegetables.
A new paper by economists Lee Sanning, Sherrill Shaffer and Jo Marie Sharratt at the University of Wyoming investigated the returns that wine investors get. They collected ``hammer price'' data for auction results of red Bordeaux vintages ranging from 1893 to 1998. They studied auctions that took place between 1996 and 2003, and estimated risk-adjusted returns for individual wines.
The results were stunning. The holy grail for investors is an asset that delivers healthy annual returns, but doesn't have a great deal of associated risk.
Read more about it on Bloomberg.com.
Yet another One Degree tale - a close encounter with someone famous. I've had a lot of these, some closer than others. Here is my story about Lori Singer, actress.
I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan at 72nd Street and West End. I used to walk my two Chihuahuas, Chewie and Ernie, at Riverside Park just a block away. On many occasions, I would see Lori Singer. I recognized her immediately and would watch her but try not to be too stalker-ish. She'd look over at me on occasion and smile.
Sometimes, she had a small child with her but I always got the feeling that it wasn't her kid but maybe a relative's or friend's. I don't know why I got that feeling. Maybe because I hadn't ever read in the movie gossip magazines that she had a kid. She always looked great - even when totally casual, sans makeup.
I remember Lori from Fame and also from a shortlived TV series that I loved called VR.5. (If any of you out there knows how I can get some copies of VR.5, I'd be totally psyched!).
Anyway, there isn't much more to tell. I'd see Lori walking around our neighborhood - I think she lived within a block from me. Again, not trying to be stalker-ish, I did see her going in and out of a building on 72nd closer to Riverside Park. I almost walked up to her to say hi once but couldn't think of anything to say. I figured anything I said would make me look like a stalker.
I repeat - I did not want to look stalker-ish!
VR.5 Links:
Another bunch of sites that I'm examining are sites that really promote community building entirely around content and even, in some cases, offer ways for publishers/community builders to earn revenues.
Squidoo
Gather
Helium
I saw this today on TechCrunch:
News from today’s Yahoo executive meeting confirms our earlier story that the company is getting a major reorganization in terms of structure and management. The company said in a press release that they will now align themselves around three key customer segments: “audiences, advertisers, and publishers.”
“The Internet is continuing to grow and evolve at a rapid pace, and we’re reshaping Yahoo! to be a leader in this transformation, just as we did successfully five years ago,” said Terry Semel, Yahoo chairman and CEO, in the release. “Our strategy capitalizes on big emerging trends and leverages our core strengths in search, media, communities and communications. We believe having a more customer-focused organization, supported by robust technology, will speed the development of leading-edge experiences for our most valuable audience segments.”
Yahoo said that their four key objectives will be expanding customer-centric culture, creating leading social media environments, leading in next-generation advertising platforms, and driving organizational effectiveness and scale.
What fascinates me about this news is that all the big companies that were pushing their content on us over the years as well as spending big bucks and burning through it rapidly to produce that content, are finally coming around to realizing that all you have to do is give the people the right tools and they'll create all that content for you. The bonus is that people online have always wanted to connect not only to information but to other people like them so community organically springs up from content whether you want it to or not. So leveraging that certainly makes sense.
This whole thing with social networking is fascinating as well. A guy I knew back in NYC in the early days of the Web tried to leverage technology to fascilitate networking between people with a site called Six Degrees but he was way ahead of his time. His concept took the notion that everyone we want to know is no more than 6 degrees away from us, and he encouraged people to set up an account and make connections with others through the people they knew. Really sophisticated stuff back in the mid-late 90s. Sound familiar?
Nowadays, sites like MySpace.com on the social side and LinkedIn.com on the business side follow the same model. I've set up my own pages on those sites to test them out and find that MySpace doesn't really do much for me other than keeps me updated about my sister and connected to a few far flung friends on an occasional basis. But LinkedIn has really proven the theory that all it takes is a warm lead to open doors and make connections. Everyone so far who I have wanted to connect to for networking purposes or to reconnect to because I lost touch has responded to my requests for contact.
Here is my page on MySpace. I guess I never get contacted by anyone because I'm old and married!
And my page on LinkedIn. I'm going to upgrade my account to take advantage of more features.
I can't emphasize enough how challenging it is to write or get any work done when you have a baby. Not only do I feel like I gave birth to half my brain, but the day to day demands of working at home and caring for baby are beyond my meager capabilities.
Luckily, I've hired a babysitter to come in during the mornings to watch baby while I get a few things done each day. My days of multi-tasking, juggling a dozen things and always meeting deadlines are over. Welcome to the world of Stay-At-Home-Work-At-Home Motherhood. Yeesh!
Well, I did turn in the first half of my next book. And the article for Hitched which was challenging to write because I wasn't supposed to write about traveling with a baby from a parent's standpoint but rather talk about how my husband and I handled the situations that arose. Also turned in the Costco Connection piece but not sure when it comes out.
Still working on several other assignments including something for:
1. Minority Engineer
2. SBResources.com
3. Wyoming Business Report
Also doing some consulting work - a nice big fat project that takes up my remaining brain cells but is really exciting. Totally up my alley.
I've heard that I will never get my lost brain back. I will have to go through life half-brained. Why didn't anyone tell me this would happen when I said I wanted to have a baby? "Sure you want to have a baby, but did you know that you push out a portion of your brain with the placenta? It is a scientific fact."
Where have I been? Where haven't I been is a better question. Suffice it to say, Planet Mommy is a jungle, and I'm only barely seeing the sunlight through the thick overgrowth of baby stuff.
So how do I get back into the groove of posting here? I think I'll start off with updates on the projects I'm working on, particularly my writing. Sure, part of my reason for doing this is purely selfish - it will help me remember what I'm working on and what I've done.
But I also hope that by revealing the inner workings of this writer's life, I can inspire other writers or let people know what it is really like trying to make a living writing.
I must confess that I do not write 100% of the time for my bread and butter. I have found that I can make a better living as a consultant (Internet, PR, Marketing, Content Development), but I still spend a great deal of my time writing books and articles.
Now that I have a partial brain back (the rest of it was lost during the birth of my daughter and I'm not quite sure how to get it back), I'm easing slowly back into writing.
Some things I have completed in the last month:
- an article for Costco Connection about MySpace.com
- an article for Entrepreneur about women business owners talking about selling from a female perspective.
- two women's business columns for SBResources.com.
- an article about employee Internet monitoring for PINK magazine.
Things I'm working on at the moment (okay, I'm wasting time right now on my blog but it is what I should be doing...)
- the first 50% of the manuscript for my next book.
- a travel article for Hitched.com
- my next few women in business columns for the Wyoming Business Report.
- my next two columns for SBResources.com
Gotta get back to work!
In honor of OneWebDay, I am posting to all my blogs a little story about how I first got started on the Web...
True Story: In August 1994, I was held up at gunpoint on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and kidnapped with a friend. Three guys, three guns. They took us down the block at gunpoint to the nearest ATM machine to take out money. It was dark and suddenly there was nobody on the street except for us. Long story short, we escaped, and I lived to tell the tale.
I left New York City for a month to regroup. Went to Santa Fe to visit my sister who was living there at the time. Now I'd been going online in one form or another since 1987 when I bought my first computer - an Amstrad 1640 dual floppy (no harddrive). The IBM of the UK, I was told when I bought it. I also purchased a modem (1200 baud?) and learned how to access local BBSs - bulletin board systems or computers in somebody's room or basement.
After I realized I could chat with others online and discovered the wonders of e-mail, I began networking with other women through America Online (which at the time was the smallest of the 3 big commercial online services - Prodigy was #1, CompuServe #2) and Women's Wire (which had almost 1000 members at the time). I also started consulting clients about Internet communications and marketing. This was 1992.
So back to Santa Fe, December 1994. I learned about the Web when I saw an ad in the local arts paper. "Discover the World Wide Web" said the ad. I had no idea what the World Wide Web was but I saw an e-mail address. E-mail I knew. So I e-mailed a query and found out that a guy was teaching a class on HTML in town. I took a 2 hour class for $10 in basic HTML and was immediately an expert. Well, in that amount of time, I learned all there was to learn - it was so easy back then.
I began building web sites and published my first one when I got back to NYC in January 1995. I called it "The Web According to Cybergrrl." I had decided not to use my real name online because I wasn't sure who was reading (we've come a long way, baby). So I drew a cartoon character of myself and called her "Cybergrrl" - "Cyber" because I had read and loved William Gibson's book "Neuromancer" where he coined the term "cyberspace" and "grrl" because I wasn't a "girl" and it was sort of a nod to the Riot Grrrl movement.
That month, I began pounding the pavement looking for clients for the new business I dreamed up - Web consulting. I called the company CGIM which stood for Cybergrrl Internet Media. I was wary of calling my company Cybergrrl because I wanted to be taken seriously in the decidedly male-dominated tech industry. Within a few months, everyone was calling me Cybergrrl anyway. My first client was the brand new New Media Director at the New York Times who would sneak me into his office after hours to teach him how to surf the Web and set up an account with an ISP because he knew CD-Roms but didn't know the first thing about the Internet.
My personal web site quickly became Cybergrrl.com, Cybergrrl, Inc.'s first official site for women followed by Webgrrls.com which had started out as an old-fashioned blog - literally a Web Log listing women's web sites around the world. Then we built the first searchable directory of exclusively web sites for women and girls called Femina.com in direct response to the fact that searching for "women" or "girls" on Yahoo.com at the time yielded nothing but pornography. Yeah, this was back in the day when Yahoo was just a side project for two kids in college and Cybergrrl was the most popular women's web site.
About a year later, Women's Wire went online with Women.com (I had approached them in early 1995 to help put them on the Web but they didn't have see the point at the time). Half a year after that, Candice Carpenter and Nancy Evans put up iVillage.com (I had lunch with them a few months before their launch and then held Webgrrls meetings at their offices after they debuted). Both were well-funded endeavors while Cybergrrl started as just me, my PowerBook and some hot pink business cards.
People ask why I'm not a millionaire if I started at the beginning of this whole Web thing and am known as the "woman who pioneered the Web for other women." The honest answer is two-fold:
1. I never set out to make a million - I was just hoping to pay my bills. Like so many women, I just wanted to do a good thing and love what I do. I figured the money would follow. I didn't take a salary for the first few years then took about half of what the receptionist made after.
2. I had a business partner who had a totally different vision for the company than I did. We clashed all the time. I finally walked away from the company and never saw a dime after that. I was able to continue to refer to myself as "The Original Cybergrrl" and "Founder of Webgrrls International," but I lost all of it.
Such is life. And that, in a nutshell, is my early Web story.
I am supposed to be working on my next book but instead I waste time commenting on the following email I received - Why? Because its there...
>>
You had that Fisher Price Doctor 's Kit with a stethoscope that actually worked.
Nope, didn't own one. I do remember using one of those play kitchens where the oven really worked - but was that mine or someone elses? Can't remember...
>>
You owned a bicycle with a banana seat and a plastic basket with flowers on it.
Me and my bad memory. I think I did. I think the seat was sparkly. But maybe this was something I dreamed of having.
>>
You learned to skate with actual skates (not roller blades) that had metal wheels.
I did have shoe skates that clamped to your shoes with metal wheels. I remember tightening them so they gripped my shoes really well.
>>
You thought Gopher from Love Boat was cute (admit it!)
Not really. I liked Julie the Cruise Director. Does that make me a closet lesbian?
>>
You had nightmares after watching Fantasy Island.
Not nightmares but dreams - I kept imagining myself not on Fantasy Island as a character but on the show Fantasy Island as an actress. Does that make me a closet actress?
>>
You had rubber boots for rainy days and Moon boots for snowy days. YEAH!
Yay for the Moon boots! I still have a pair of snow boots that are similar to Moon boots. I don't remember rubber boots though.
>>
You owned a "Slip-n-Slide",on which you injured yourself on a sprinkler head more than once.
I don't remember owning one of these. I do remember maybe sliding on one when I was really young in the late 60s but can't say we owned one of these. Maybe my sister would remember.
>>
You owned "Klick-Klacks" and smacked yourself in the face more than once.
Oh yeah, I LOVED my Klick-Klacks and probably still have a pair in a box somewhere. I remember a few injuries due to them but also being really enthralled with how fast I could make them go.
>>
You had either a "bowl cut" or "pixie," not to mention the "Dorothy Hamill". People sometimes thought you were a boy.
Not me - I had long super thick hair down my back, almost to my waist. My sister had the short hair. Including a forced and very traumatic Pixie cut when I took a pair of scissors to her bangs.
>>
Your Holly Hobbie sleeping bag was your most prized possession.
Nope - never owned one. Nothing Holly Hobbie at all.
>>
You wore a poncho, gauchos, and knickers.
Yes, I can picture wearing all of the above and also designing gauchos and knickers for my paper dolls. Making paper dolls and designing fashions for them was my favorite thing to do.
>>
You begged Santa for the electronic game, Simon.
Nope. First off, we were Jewish. Second, I don't think I cared much for that game but we may have owned it for a short while or at least played it at a friend's house.
>>
You had the Donnie and Marie dolls with those pink and purple satiny shredded outfits.
Nope - I had the Bionic Woman and my sister had the Bionic Man. She also had Star Wars dolls.
>>
You spent hours in your backyard on your metal swing set with the trapeze. The swing set tipped over at least once.
Can't say my swing set ever tipped over or if it did, it wasn't traumatic enough to imprint on my memory. Did we have a trapeze? My sister with the much better memory might know. Or it might show up in our old photos. I think it did have one and we'd hang upside down from our knees.
>>
You had homemade ribbon barrettes in every imaginable color. (Oh yeah!)
Nope - didn't do this. Does that make me a loser?
>>
You had a pair of Doctor Scholl's sandals (the ones with hard sole & the buckle). You also had a pair of salt-water sandals. (is this an east coast thing??)
I did have a pair of Dr. Scholl's but later in high school in the 80s. No salt water sandals even though we were on the East Coast. We also spent 1972-1976 in Madrid Spain so no salt water nearby.
>>
You wanted to be Laura In galls Wilder really bad; you wore that Little House on the Prairie-inspired plaid, ruffle shirt with the high neck in at least one school picture; and you despised Nellie Olson!
Nope - didn't care about Laura. I did like Mary. But I watched it in Spanish with adult women dubbing their voices. The funniest memory about this show was when we traveled to London and they had the show in English with the actors' real voices. My sister and I laughed hysterically at Laura and Mary's voice which sounded like they had sucked on a helium balloon. We couldn't stop laughing.
>>
You wanted your first kiss to be at a roller rink.!
In the 70s? Sorry, didn't kiss a boy until I was 16 so that was in the 1980s.
>>
Your hairstyle was described as having "wings" or "feathers" and you kept it "pretty" with the comb you kept in your back pocket.
No, that was for the POPULAR girls. I didn't cut my hair much and held it back from my face with two combs.
>>
When you walked, the "wings" flapped up and down, looked like you were gonna "take off"
No wings, baby.
>>
You know who Strawberry Shortcake is, as well as her friends, Blueberry Muffin and Huckleberry Pie.
Nope. Must have been when we were living in Spain.
>>You carried a Muppets lunch box to school and it was metal, not plastic. With the thermos inside!
I did have a metal lunchbox with a real glass thermos inside that would sometimes break and you could hear the shattered glasses tinkling inside like ice cubes. Cannot remember who was on my lunchbox...!
>>
You and your girlfriends would fight over which of the Dukes of Hazzard was your boyfriend.
Definitely not. Never watched it. Might have been in Spain at the time.
>>
YOU had Star Wars action figures, too!
My sister did.
>>
It was a big event in your household each year when the "Wizard of Oz" would come on TV. Your mom would break out the popcorn and sleeping bags!
Not really. Now that movie really DID give me nightmares.
>>
You often asked your Magic-8 ball the question: "Who will I marry. Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, or David Cassidy..?"
Hated Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett. Loved loved loved Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy.
>>
You completely wore out your Grease, Saturday Night Fever, and Fame soundtrack record album.
Grease yes. Still know every word to every song. Saturday Night Fever - nope but did like the Bee Gees. I didn't own that album until just last year. Fame - yes, and I danced to the soundtrack coming up with new dance routines all the time.
>>
You tried to do lots of arts and crafts, like yarn and Popsicle-stick God's eyes, decoupage, or those weird potholders made on a plastic loom.
Didn't really get into the God's Eyes too much. Or decoupage. But I still own my metal potholder loom. Plastic happened in the 80s or was the cheapy kind. I had metal.
>>
You made Shrinky-Dinks and put iron-on kittens on your t-shirts!
Nope - never heard of them.
>>
You used to tape record songs off the radio by holding your portable tape player up to the speaker.
I did record things off the TV like "Mork and Mindy" but I had a radio with a built in cassette so taped songs that way. I remember taping "Hot Child in the City."
>>
You had subscriptions to Dynamite and Tiger Beat.
I still have dozens of copies of Dynamite that I just repacked in a box a few weeks ago! Never subscribed to Tiger Beat but read it at a friend's house.
>>
You learned everything you needed to know about girl issues from Judy Blume books (Are you there God, It's me, Margaret.)
Yes, that's a fact.
>>
You thought Olivia Newton John's song "Physical" was about aerobics.
Of course I did!
>>
You wore friendship pins on your tennis shoes, or shoelaces with heart or rainbow designs.
Have no idea what this is.
>>
You wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer.
I WAS a Solid Gold dancer, baby! I loved to dance and would dance around our downstairs den all the time.
>>
You drowned yourself in Love's Baby Soft - which was the first "real" perfume you ever owned .. .
No, I don't think I liked it too much. Smelled like baby powder. I preferred a honeysuckle scent.
>>
You glopped your lips in Strawberry Roll-on lip gloss till it almost dripped off.
Not me. I prefered Bonne Bell Root Beer lip gloss in those big roll on sticks.
>>
PASS THIS ON TO ALL OF YOUR 30 OR 40-SOMETHING GIRLFRIENDS. IT WILL MAKE THEM SMILE TOO!!!!
