DAY 96: NEON RIDER

Time sure has a way of slipping through my fingers, kinda like that Slime that came in the green garbage can container. Gooey, drippy, oozy, cold n' clammy....yup, exactly like time. Its been months since I had the opportunity to remind you of Me. It must have been awful. I'm sorry.

Lately the clutter and pace of the Present, and having to play a constant game of chess with the Future, has been as mind-numbing and exhausting as an Ingmar Bergman movie marathon without subtitles. 

I just haven't been feeling it of late. And then I received a sign.

As though patiently waiting for the right moment it was needed, wedged between a drawer and the back of the dresser where it had fallen aeons ago, I discovered this long forgotten reminder of the Past. A Neon Maniac Prophet.

This seizure inducing neon rider instantly transported me back to my misspent youth of the late 70s / early 80s. Not to a specific event or story, sorry, just the overall feeling of that general time and me in it. And I FELT like that kid again. Alive and rejuvenated. 

I mean sure I vividly remember the fashions that were indicative of the time and culture, from procreation stifling tight denim and Cougar boots with the red felt tongue pulled out, to harem pants and popped pink collars. And shows on television about superheroes and Cylons that made staying home on a Friday night worthwhile. And the airwaves were ruled by rock and made interesting by new wave music. But those are all THINGS, products.  

Remembrance of those Things may hark back to the period, but it isn't going to make me feel the way I did. I should feel that way all the time because they are all the same Things now recycled, the fashions, the shows, the music, except the rock is now classic and the wave isn't new.

But this shirt, this imagery encapsulates a time of my life, the feeling of that period perfectly. There is something about this particular neon that heightens my nostalgic recall and makes the past seem now. 

After drinking a box of wine I animatedly tried to explain this recondite intangible sensation in more words than was necessary to my wife, struggling to put into words how a motif or color, something non-specific, could transport me back.

Thinking these concepts so profound and esoteric that I was destined to disentangle and massage them alone like the fat kid locked in the bathroom on Prom Night, I conceded to silence.

My wife tucked me in and succinctly stated in her quiet patient way "Totally. Salt & Vinegar chips smell like Grade 7".

And there you have it.