What’s the Frequency, Sandra?

I have as of late been feeling quite nostalgic.  The start of the summer break always has a way of doing that to me, but this year’s Summertime Sadness has felt especially potent. It’s the memory of all those hot, heady, almost languid days of summers past when my biggest responsibilities were showing up at my part-time job for 20 hours a week and remembering to slap on a coat or 12 of sunscreen before hitting the backyard pool, lest I crisp up into a large Celtic lobster.

Anyhow, I’ve been feeling all of the nostalgic warm and fuzzies lately, particularly in relation to days of fashion past.  And what you’re looking at here is the nail art equivalent of an outfit I wore my final year of high school until the pants literally fell apart at the seams.  Because they were crazy gigantic, super janky jeans that one of my best friends quite inexpertly Frankensteined together out of a slightly smaller pair of gigantic jeans and two hip-to-toe panels of burnt orange paisley and polka dotted fabric.  And no, I did not attend high school in the 1970s – this was the mid-90s.

I would inevitably pair those jeans with my favourite t-shirt, because I wore that thing all the time, and if I wasn’t wearing it, I was probably naked.  Khaki green and printed with a huge black star across the chest, I’m pretty sure it’s the same t-shirt Michael Stipe wears in R.E.M.’s What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? video.  I’m not sure where Michael Stipe might have picked up his star tee, but I purchased mine from Ron Jon’s Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, Florida (that’s remarkable really only in that it turns out that Ron Jon’s was an unanticipated eight hour round-trip drive to and from our hotel; I will never forget that, and if by some chance I do, my dad, who drove that day through, like, the backwoods of Florida (I believe they’re called the Everglades) will be there to remind me!)

Rounding out the whole look was a beat-up pair of once-dusky blue Converse sneakers with “I hate my generation,” a lyric from a Sloan song, scrawled across the right shoe’s instep.

Good grief, being a teenager was – and no doubt is – (try)hard work. 😉