Comment: What a Feeling

Still not into this whole "winter" thing. What is UP with the snow and all the crap it entails? Not impressed.

But what can you do?

Join a gym!

Right. So we joined a gym, and we're actually using it. My husband works out, as do I, my kids take swimming lessons, and my daughter and I do the tappa tappa tappa thing there, too. Good deal.

Now I'm really more of an outside runner girl, but with this lame weather, it only seems sensible to take it indoors. I'm not really a fan of gyms, what with the whole hamster-in-the-wheel vibe going on. I mean, have you ever just stopped and WATCHED everyone in the gym, just for a few seconds? (Not in a wierd way). It's like watching little rats in a maze, endlessly and fruitlessly pursuing the out-of-reach cheese. It all just looks so, well, stupid.

We drive our cars to the gym, work out like maniacs without getting anywhere, then drive home.

And then there are the TVs! Must we have TV screens every place we go? Airports, doctor's offices, emergency rooms, gyms, schools, TARNATION.

But before I get too high on my horse, I will confess it: this gym has its own music video stations.

I had never heard of such things. My, the things technology can do nowadays.

And one of said stations is in fact...wait for it...an 80s station.

Yes, I get to work out to The Romantics, The Go-Gos, Depeche Mode and OMD!

OMG, OMD!

I even saw a Neneh Cherry video today. Videos were so simple in the early 80s. Now they have to be a multi-million dollar production. I saw Kim Wilde's "You Keep Me Hanging On" today and it has got to be one of the most BORING videos ever. She just lies in a bed, fully clothed, looking tormented (or possibly with a mild case of heartburn) and then she stands in front of a fan and confetti blows around her while a man stands ominously in a doorway. I mean, it must have taken at least an hour to make this video.

Anyway, it was a simpler time then. People were amassing small fortunes and spending it on blow. (Well, I wasn't; I was taking classes that guaranteed me a future of minimum wage frustration while simultaneously drinking my youth away while wearing neon-colored cut-up sweatshirts. Good times.)

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying, if I'm saying anything at all, is I still enjoy the 80s music and simple videos. Have you seen ABC's "The Look of Love (Part One)?" It was made in a studio the size of my garage! With nuns and clowns and balloons and sort of a hyper Mary Poppins-in-the-park homage.

Nostalgia is very powerful. If Proust had his damn cookies, surely I can have my vintage MTV.

When the winter outside freezes my ass off and puts a scowl upon my face, I can enter the warmth and retro fabulousness of the 80s as I run, on the road to nowhere, with Talking Heads and Men Without Hats.