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robotnik2004Hey, kids: do you remember 1999?
Do you remember when there was a New Economy and we called the internet "cyberspace" and websites "new media" and the stock market was going up and up and up and "nobody can be told what the Matrix is" and every week another kid was a software billionaire? In 1999, half my students were cutting classes to sweet-talk venture capitalists and launch IPOs, and I thought about when I was 12 and split my time between playing D&D and programming Apple BASIC, but then I only kept one of those geeky hobbies going over the years, and in 1999 I asked myself, is it possible I backed the wrong horse?
Do you remember when Bill Clinton was president and everybody loved America and they said it was the end of history because of globalization and the Lexus and the olive tree and countries with McDonalds never went to war? And it was the end of the millennium too, and the only apocalypse we could imagine, the worst fate that came to our minds, was that our ATMs and coffee makers and Clippy the World's Most Hated Paperclip might think it was the year 1900 and go on the fritz.
Do you remember all those conversations about whether the new millennium started in 2000 or 2001? Technically, yes, the twenty-first century would not begin until the first day of 2001, but we all knew it wasn't the millennium that was exciting, it was the rollover. Nobody wrote a song about partying like it was 2000. We were counting down the seconds until the big odometer turned over, and all those 9s became 0s, and suddenly we 'd all be living in the future, lives renewed, slates wiped clean. "The year 2000," we said, practicing the feel of it in our mouths. "The year 2001. The year 2002." You had to say "the year" because these crazy science fiction numbers didn't even sound like dates yet.
Do you remember all those conversations about "Hey, if it's the future, where's my jetpack and my flying car?" I do, but I also remember shiny rave kids with fairy-wings and glow-sticks and this amazing electronic music and they were so awesome and happy and it did look like the future, dammit. I remember![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sneech515 at a party, two weeks to the day before Y2K, dancing to Paul Oakenfold MP3s, grinning, saying, "I'm dancing... to a COMPUTER!" Like we wanted the sci-fi future so bad we all just went ahead and made it.
I actually remember almost every second of December 1999. Maybe that's because it was a big symbolic milestone, and also a kind of turning point in my life, but mostly it's because I met Lisa, and we kissed, and the world turned upside down.
You've heard this story already. How I was invited to a party by a friend of a friend, and Dan said "there will be hot teachers there!" And we went, but to the wrong bar, and I told Dan I wasn't going to bother trying to meet anybody anymore until I finished my PhD, but then we went to the right bar, and there I met this hot teacher who'd just decided she wasn't going to date any more grad students, because they're so depressing. And we talked for five minutes tops and she asked me to dance. So we danced for five minutes and then that was it, but I called her the next day, and I had never cold called anyone before after so little interaction. And we went out for coffee and she was totally excellent, and she said, "Do you ever watch The Simpsons?" And I said, "Simp-sons, eh? Hmm. I'm not sure. On television, is it? Some kind of 'situation comedy'?" And then we went to see Being John Malkovich and that is not a good early date movie but then we went to see Princess Mononoke and that is. And then we kissed and I can say without bias they were the best kisses ever in the history of the world.
I remember when we talked about Y2K, and I tried to do the "hey it's the future, where's my flying car?" bit with her, but she cut me off and said "ok, but where's my flying public transit?" And I was like, "ho, snap!" as we said back in 1999. Because she totally got the flying car bit, she didn't need me to explain it, but in the instant I laid it out she had already gone way beyond it, simultaneously indulging me in this hackneyed conversational gambit and then revealing it for the little boy fantasy it was. If you're going to dream about that kind of future, she said, why not make it a socially responsible future, with flying buses and monorails and organic tofu stands? And that was one of a dozen moments when I knew I was going to fall in love with her, because forget the little candy ravers, she was the girl of the future.
A lot of other good stuff happened in December 1999. I saw the ex-girlfriend in Toronto and realized we could finally be friends again. I also got beyond a weird thing that was happening with my other Toronto friends, where for a few years I would see them and it would be fun, but not fun enough, because I had so much invested in them being my best friends, and a few weekends a year had to sustain all those relationships, and it just wasn't enough. But by 1999, my life in Boston was good enough that I didn't need those trips to Toronto to be everything, and of course as soon as I realized that I relaxed, and the Toronto trips became much more fun. Much of what made all this stuff possible was the buzz I had from my first month of knowing Lisa, and part of it was other kinds of euphoria, but a lot of it, I like to think, is that we were all getting a little older and wiser and figuring some stuff out.
And maybe Y2K had something to do with it. Because here's the moment I really remember. Late December 1999, the last night before I left Boston for Christmas, I went out with Lisa. We went to Hollywood Espresso in Cambridge, and she gave me two books to read over the holidays, like homework. One was her favorite novel; the other instantly became one of mine. And we walked back to her place on Oxford Street in the cold and we kissed a bunch on her doorstep, and wow. And I headed home, spinning from the kisses and crackling with energy like I was freaking Palpatine. And it was late and freezing cold and the streets were pretty empty, but Harvard Square was all done up in its holiday lights.
And then at the corner of Mass Ave. and Church St., right by the Sumner statue, a car came careening up from that underpass where the road goes under the Science Center, and it blew by me, and hit the curb or something and flew through the air. I swear this is true. And the car flipped up on its side, and it rolled all the way over, and landed upside down on its roof. Boom. I was stunned. But right in front of me was a police car, so the cop sprang out and was right there at the accident, and waved me on.
I never saw what happened to the driver. It's pretty self-centered to use something like that—somebody else's terrible, freakish accident—as a symbol or metaphor of my own little personal deal. But how can I not think about that when I think about that month? The rollover, get it?
(Also: Flying car, get it?)
I used to hate New Year's Eve. The cold and the expense and the crowds and the pressure to have the best time you're going to have all year all contrive to make damn sure you don't. And it's a big fake-out anyway, because even though we want the arbitrary flipping of the calendar to coincide with some meaningful change in our lives or circumstance, it almost never works out like that. But that year, everything kind of did line up. The odometer, and that car, and everything rolled over. And that December bisects my ten years in Boston almost perfectly. Before Lisa and Anno Lisa. The tough years and the easy years. The 20th century and the 21st. After Y2K I just stopped worrying about New Year's, because how am I ever going to top that?
(Clippy the Paperclip, alas, remains at large.)
Do you remember when there was a New Economy and we called the internet "cyberspace" and websites "new media" and the stock market was going up and up and up and "nobody can be told what the Matrix is" and every week another kid was a software billionaire? In 1999, half my students were cutting classes to sweet-talk venture capitalists and launch IPOs, and I thought about when I was 12 and split my time between playing D&D and programming Apple BASIC, but then I only kept one of those geeky hobbies going over the years, and in 1999 I asked myself, is it possible I backed the wrong horse?
Do you remember when Bill Clinton was president and everybody loved America and they said it was the end of history because of globalization and the Lexus and the olive tree and countries with McDonalds never went to war? And it was the end of the millennium too, and the only apocalypse we could imagine, the worst fate that came to our minds, was that our ATMs and coffee makers and Clippy the World's Most Hated Paperclip might think it was the year 1900 and go on the fritz.
Do you remember all those conversations about whether the new millennium started in 2000 or 2001? Technically, yes, the twenty-first century would not begin until the first day of 2001, but we all knew it wasn't the millennium that was exciting, it was the rollover. Nobody wrote a song about partying like it was 2000. We were counting down the seconds until the big odometer turned over, and all those 9s became 0s, and suddenly we 'd all be living in the future, lives renewed, slates wiped clean. "The year 2000," we said, practicing the feel of it in our mouths. "The year 2001. The year 2002." You had to say "the year" because these crazy science fiction numbers didn't even sound like dates yet.
Do you remember all those conversations about "Hey, if it's the future, where's my jetpack and my flying car?" I do, but I also remember shiny rave kids with fairy-wings and glow-sticks and this amazing electronic music and they were so awesome and happy and it did look like the future, dammit. I remember
sneech515 at a party, two weeks to the day before Y2K, dancing to Paul Oakenfold MP3s, grinning, saying, "I'm dancing... to a COMPUTER!" Like we wanted the sci-fi future so bad we all just went ahead and made it.I actually remember almost every second of December 1999. Maybe that's because it was a big symbolic milestone, and also a kind of turning point in my life, but mostly it's because I met Lisa, and we kissed, and the world turned upside down.
You've heard this story already. How I was invited to a party by a friend of a friend, and Dan said "there will be hot teachers there!" And we went, but to the wrong bar, and I told Dan I wasn't going to bother trying to meet anybody anymore until I finished my PhD, but then we went to the right bar, and there I met this hot teacher who'd just decided she wasn't going to date any more grad students, because they're so depressing. And we talked for five minutes tops and she asked me to dance. So we danced for five minutes and then that was it, but I called her the next day, and I had never cold called anyone before after so little interaction. And we went out for coffee and she was totally excellent, and she said, "Do you ever watch The Simpsons?" And I said, "Simp-sons, eh? Hmm. I'm not sure. On television, is it? Some kind of 'situation comedy'?" And then we went to see Being John Malkovich and that is not a good early date movie but then we went to see Princess Mononoke and that is. And then we kissed and I can say without bias they were the best kisses ever in the history of the world.
I remember when we talked about Y2K, and I tried to do the "hey it's the future, where's my flying car?" bit with her, but she cut me off and said "ok, but where's my flying public transit?" And I was like, "ho, snap!" as we said back in 1999. Because she totally got the flying car bit, she didn't need me to explain it, but in the instant I laid it out she had already gone way beyond it, simultaneously indulging me in this hackneyed conversational gambit and then revealing it for the little boy fantasy it was. If you're going to dream about that kind of future, she said, why not make it a socially responsible future, with flying buses and monorails and organic tofu stands? And that was one of a dozen moments when I knew I was going to fall in love with her, because forget the little candy ravers, she was the girl of the future.
A lot of other good stuff happened in December 1999. I saw the ex-girlfriend in Toronto and realized we could finally be friends again. I also got beyond a weird thing that was happening with my other Toronto friends, where for a few years I would see them and it would be fun, but not fun enough, because I had so much invested in them being my best friends, and a few weekends a year had to sustain all those relationships, and it just wasn't enough. But by 1999, my life in Boston was good enough that I didn't need those trips to Toronto to be everything, and of course as soon as I realized that I relaxed, and the Toronto trips became much more fun. Much of what made all this stuff possible was the buzz I had from my first month of knowing Lisa, and part of it was other kinds of euphoria, but a lot of it, I like to think, is that we were all getting a little older and wiser and figuring some stuff out.
And maybe Y2K had something to do with it. Because here's the moment I really remember. Late December 1999, the last night before I left Boston for Christmas, I went out with Lisa. We went to Hollywood Espresso in Cambridge, and she gave me two books to read over the holidays, like homework. One was her favorite novel; the other instantly became one of mine. And we walked back to her place on Oxford Street in the cold and we kissed a bunch on her doorstep, and wow. And I headed home, spinning from the kisses and crackling with energy like I was freaking Palpatine. And it was late and freezing cold and the streets were pretty empty, but Harvard Square was all done up in its holiday lights.
And then at the corner of Mass Ave. and Church St., right by the Sumner statue, a car came careening up from that underpass where the road goes under the Science Center, and it blew by me, and hit the curb or something and flew through the air. I swear this is true. And the car flipped up on its side, and it rolled all the way over, and landed upside down on its roof. Boom. I was stunned. But right in front of me was a police car, so the cop sprang out and was right there at the accident, and waved me on.
I never saw what happened to the driver. It's pretty self-centered to use something like that—somebody else's terrible, freakish accident—as a symbol or metaphor of my own little personal deal. But how can I not think about that when I think about that month? The rollover, get it?
(Also: Flying car, get it?)
I used to hate New Year's Eve. The cold and the expense and the crowds and the pressure to have the best time you're going to have all year all contrive to make damn sure you don't. And it's a big fake-out anyway, because even though we want the arbitrary flipping of the calendar to coincide with some meaningful change in our lives or circumstance, it almost never works out like that. But that year, everything kind of did line up. The odometer, and that car, and everything rolled over. And that December bisects my ten years in Boston almost perfectly. Before Lisa and Anno Lisa. The tough years and the easy years. The 20th century and the 21st. After Y2K I just stopped worrying about New Year's, because how am I ever going to top that?
(Clippy the Paperclip, alas, remains at large.)
