vogue!

So I was going to title this post "pose" and then had a hilariously scary flashback to the 1980's, the prime of my teenage years. Oh joy.

• Big bangs and lots of hairspray, with girls and glam rockers alike (like who could tell the difference?)

• "Seventeen" magazine and advice from Brook Shields 

• fake plastic costume jewelry (in every shade of color to match your outfit)

•  anything paint splattered or neon green, or both (note books to t-shirts)

•  wide "V" hip belts worn over excessively baggy clothes (Vent: Why were the 80's about baggy drapey clothes when our bodies were at their sleekest?! This vexes me when I think about it and is the only reason I wish that trend would come back around--to cover up our teens today and so I don't have to try and fit into tight jeans, and form fitting shirts.)

•  satin pumps dyed to match your prom dress (yep, mine were scarlet red)

• Ferris Bueller's Day Off (and SJP was just a Square Peg, nowhere near Matthew's fame!)

•  stretch pants and pegged pants (no wait...acid washed jeans...pegged and worn with Sperry Top Siders. Guys? Seriously, like who told you that was okay?)

•  Depeche Mode, The Cure, Run DMC, The Beastie Boys, Flock of Seaguls, MC Hammer (two words: parachute pants)

•  Glam rock (may you live on in our aging husbands and Bret Michaels. Will he ever get a hair cut or stop pouting his lips?)

•  Molly Ringwald: Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and...wait for it...The Breakfast Club. (Although we couldn't watch it a million times because we could not afford one of those new VCR things. Netflix who?)

•  We cannot forget: Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Anthony Michael Hall, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe (he always gave me the heebie-jeebies, as do all guys who are manly pretty)

•  Can I just interrupt here and say that I never saw The Blue Lagoon, but I just watched St. Elmo's Fire for the first time a month ago? That scene with Demi Moore locked in her barren apartment? Quality acting people.

• Records. True vinyl. (I have my U2 collection that I will one day sell on Ebay.) And then...the advent of cassettes and the Walkman. (I never had enough batteries.)

• And lastly...the original "Lady Gaga" leading us into the 90's by telling us all to "vogue".

vogue: to strike poses in campy imitation of fashion models especially as a kind of dance. 

Why? Because when you vogue you take yourself a little less seriously. You lighten up. Step out of your modest confines and ham it up, create some laughter, amuse yourself and others. Kinda like the 80's did for us insecure teenagers. (Well maybe not, we thought that the five-story bangs were cool.) And still does for us late thirty/early forty somethings when we look back at ourselves in all our 80's glory.


So add to your list of to-do's today to take a brief time-out from your serious life and do a little voguing (that would be a gerund: a verb used as a noun). It's good to laugh at yourself once and a while.

Oh, and if you vogue you are a voguer. For real. I looked it up.

Wow. I think we owe a lot to Madonna.

p.s. OMG! I forgot Duran Duran! Could not leave them out. Fellow 80's friends...am I missing anything else??

p.p.s After reading over this post I realize that for some of you very pre and very post 80's people may have to do a little Googling for the next hour. I cannot expect you to know what a Square Peg is or who Anthony Michael Hall is, or even what a record looks like. I didn't really want to riddle this post with links to every Wiki page so go get to Googling. And then come back and tell me that you are so thankful that you lived your teen years in another era.

post edit: Duh...Wake me up before you go go...I forgot George Michael. Two people have now reminded me of my omission. Wham! Choose Life!