So I’m flipping through the iTunes Music Store, because the wife is looking for some obscure track, and I find myself on a list of “90s One Hit Wonders.” And looking over the 75 or so tracks, I think about the fact that the list includes some stuff I remember from undergrad, and some stuff that reminds me of those early days in Washington DC, and I can’t conceive of the fact that those were in the same decade.
There are some pretty sharp lines of demarcation. For one, I didn’t even *have* an email address until I left undergrad (it was eWorld, if you must know). For another, I didn’t really become a full live participant in the Greater Zone Community until after grad school was done and flunked out with. And I know I’ve mentioned it before, but in a span of six months in 1997, my entire life was completely transformed – my residence, my relationship, my career path, my bloody time zone for crying out loud.
Looking back, it’s absurd to even consider 1990 and 1999 part of the same lifetime, let alone the same decade. You could make a case that the transformation in my life since 1999 is considerably less drastic, even taking into account marriage and homebuying and the like.