Flashdance Flashbacks

Ah the 80's. The decade of decadence. I was juste une petite fille in the 80's. Living as the Godfather of Soul himself sang it in 1985 "in America" was my dream.

By 1988 the then Madamoiselle had learned a few tricks. I knew how to get my hair to levitate as if by magic six inches above my scalp (Aquanet). I knew how to fray stonewash jeans to give them that chic by way of trailer park air conditioning (Razor blades and putting rocks in your dryer). I could after hours of practice perform with precision the choreography (by Paula Abdul) in Janet Jackson's video "The Pleasure Principle". If you want to understand why I still boast of this with pride even though I couldn't do a lot of those moves now that I've ripened into Madame, check out the video below.

Remember I said "with precison". Meaning down to the back flip ladies and gentlemen. And unlike Janet I didn't have a stunt dancer do it for me director to yell cut and or film editor to give me offscreen time to pick up my choreography. I shoulder shrugged. I moved my feet and didn't miss a beat in the music to the next of Janet's steps. And the chair bit? I must have face planted about a hundred times before I got it right.

In 1988 I was obsessed with absolutely everything. The 80's was nothing if not a decade full of fads that came and went. Something could be in for a week and somehow while you sat in your math class with Ms. Slater who had a nose that looked like an obtuse triangle it would be over. Poof! And punishment was severe if you didn't realise that you were out of the loop.

1988 was the year I wanted my life to be like Dirty Dancing + Flashdance + Sixteen Candles + Flight of the Navigator. I really did. I watched Star Wars repetitively, worshiped Madonna, had Teen Beat posters of Corey Haim on my wall, went to the mall, and kissed Tommy Campbell.

I was wearing tri-colour pocketed stonewash jeans with zippers on the ankle and a t-shirt with penguins on it from the Boston Aquarium. I had accessorised this look with pink and white L.A. Gear sneakers that lit up when I walked, a side ponytail held up by a hot pink plastic banana clip, and three pairs of scrunchy socks that matched the colours on the pockets of my jeans. He was wearing a Guns-N-Roses Appetite for Destruction t-shirt and Levi's. He had braces and told me that my tongue was "slippery when it's wet" and then our seven minutes in heaven (heaven being a blanket with a wolf motif on it thrown over a dining room table) were over. I would later find out that Tommy Campbell had Return of the Jedi sheets, but despite how cool this made him in my eyes, he lived all the way in town and had a mother that didn't like driving him around.

By the time the 80's ended I was no longer paying much attention to boys because they were nothing but trouble. I traded my kicks for Birkenstocks, my tight jeans for peasant skirts, and my t-shirt of penguins for one of dancing bears (Keep truckin' Jerry).

But the 90's is a story for another time because if the 80's was the decade of this and that for now not later it was always about the things but in the 90's I became a teenager and the thing that kept changing all the time was me.