Love hurts, love scars Love wounds and marks Any heart Not tough or strong enough To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain Love is like a cloud Holds a lot of rain Love hurts Ooh, ooh, love hurts
I’m young, I know, but even so I know a thing or two I learned from you I really learned a lot, really learned a lot Love is like a flame It burns you when it’s hot Love hurts Ooh, ooh, love hurts
Some fools think of happiness Blissfulness, togetherness Some fools fool themselves, I guess They’re not foolin’ me
I know it isn’t true I know it isn’t true Love is just a lie Made to make you blue Love hurts Ooh, ooh, love hurts Ooh, ooh, love hurts
I know it isn’t true I know it isn’t true Love is just a lie Made to make you blue Love hurts Ooh, ooh, love hurts Ooh, ooh, love hurts Ooh, ooh…
As a recently-retired GenX elder (born in 1965–the first official GenX year), I am going to use this prompt to tell you a couple of stories about how we did things at my first job. You will probably find these stories boring, but that’s life. Older people will tell you their stories (repeatedly), regardless of their audience’s level of interest.
In the late 1980s, we had computers on our desks but no email or internet. So, if you wanted to put something into writing for others to see, you had to type it up in a Word document and then print it out on a ridiculously slow printer. “Memos” were written up like business e-mails are today, with the date (which you had to figure out yourself—people were always putting the wrong year on their memos in January and February), a “TO” line, a “FROM” line, a “SUBJECT” line, and a “CC” line. After you wrote and printed your memo, you had to initial it and then make Xeroxes (old timers called them “mimeographs”). Then you ran around the office, leaving your memo on peoples’ desks. As you can imagine, memos were used strictly for covering your ass, because otherwise, you’d just tell your co-workers whatever you wanted them to know.
Some people (me included) spent a great deal of time chit-chatting with co-workers throughout the day. One guy I worked with “made the rounds” ALL afternoon. After lunch, he went from office to office, desk to desk, cubicle to cubicle, trading information and gossip. He knew everything about everyone, which was very valuable back then. One person that everyone knew they needed to be liked by was the boss’s assistant (we called them secretaries back then). If the boss’s secretary didn’t like you, you were fucked. I once made the HUGE mistake of taking the boss’s secretary’s gift away from her during a Yankee Swap holiday gift exchange (which was my right, per the rules of the game). It was a salad spinner and I wanted it, but so did she! It took me months to get back on her good side. The so-called “soft skills” (reading a room, communicating, putting people at ease, small talk, empathy) were very important back then. Excel spreadsheets were non-existent.
So that’s how we rolled in the late 1980s…and don’t call me Boomer.
For me, there was no greater growth experience than college. The college experience is like no other. The sheer number of new people and new ideas you’re exposed to in a short timeframe is bound to change even the most “set in their ways” 18-year old.
I was lucky my parents paid the bills and my college had no core requirements whatsoever, so I could take whatever classes I wanted—from poetry to Russian history. (Amazingly, I didn’t take a single science class.) Throw in my semester abroad, internships, guest speakers, drug experimentation, and a winter trip to the Soviet Union, and it really was a mind-expanding time for me.
Hanging out in college: my roommates Ann and Carla and other friends in our on-campus apartment in 1984 or 85. The three of us shared one bedroom, but we had a nice living room and a kitchen.
It’s sad that the liveaway college experience has become so expensive and debt-producing. It’s not fair. I think the four-year model needs to go. Three years of college is plenty, and would be significantly cheaper. “Uni” – as they call it in the UK – is only three years. I mean, maybe a few select majors (like Engineering) need four years, but everyone else (Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, Business, etc.) could be done in three.
Speaking of the college experience, we went to see One Love, the Bob Marley biopic, based on DanLovesFilm’s recommendation (American critics be damned) and I had fun. There are definitely some weaknesses in the script and I had a hard time understanding the Jamaican/Rastafarian accent, but the music is the music and it’s great. Marley is played by Kingsley Ben-Adir and he’s 🔥
Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley
So, GenX: I recommend you have yourself a cocktail or a weed gummy (or both) and go see One Love. You’ll have a good time jamming in your theater seat to one of our key college soundtracks.
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.
My feet don’t match. The women on both sides of my family have severe bunions. My genes, combined with too many pairs of pointy shoes in the 80s, led to me develop large, painful bunions by the time I was 25.
One day, in my mid-twenties, I had to cut short a walk home from work and hop on the T because my feet hurt so badly. That was it. I loved walking in Boston and I decided this was no way to live. I made the decision to go under the knife and get the worse bunion removed surgically (my left one). I figured I’d go back and get the other one done later.
Well, the pain was SO bad after the surgery, I never went back and got the right foot done. (I was in a big surgical boot for 6 months and then I had to have a screw removed from my newly straightened big toe.)
In the grand scheme of things, a bunion is pretty minor, but my right foot still causes me a lot of pain, especially when wearing any kind of a dress shoe. When I have to get dressed up for something, the dilemma is always the shoes. What shoes could I possibly wear with this outfit that won’t hurt? There really are no comfortable dress shoes for me.
Consequently, I have worn flip-flops to more occasions than I care to remember. I have gold ones, silver ones, sparkly ones, beaded ones, leather ones, plus the usual plastic/foam ones. Flip-flops are really the only shoes that don’t hurt at all.
So, here’s to my numerous pairs of flip-flops. They don’t hide my ugly bunion from the world, but at least they showcase a nice pedicure.
A fancy pedicure I got once. Also, I just discovered there’s a flip-flop emoji 🩴
I went to just one college—Trinity College in Connecticut—four years, straight through, with one semester abroad. In many ways, it was the quintessential New England liberal arts college experience, except we were in a city (Hartford), not a rural area. Music was a big part of it. My college memories all come with a soundtrack. That’s one reason I love this blog. If you’re a GenX music lover (and who doesn’t love music?), you need to check it out. He’s a wonderful writer with a great playlist. It’s about as close to my college soundtrack as I can imagine.
Here are a couple photos from Trinity College Spring Weekend 1985. We had the Ramones and Til Tuesday on campus. Til Tuesday leader/songwriter Aimee Mann (with the platinum mohawk) had a huge hit with “Voices Carry,” so I think she was the headliner, but it looks like there was some slam dance/mosh pit energy happening during the Ramones. What could possibly go wrong? (According to classmates on Facebook, something bad did happen that day, but I have no recollection of it. I just remember a good ole time. Funny how memory can be selective like that.)
The Ramones performing at Trinity College, 1985Men slamming to the music – stay out of the way!Til Tuesday Aimee Mann, a Boston musician, wrote “Voices Carry,” a song about an affair, and it was a huge hit in 1985. The QuadStudent with his XL Boombox – very 80s
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