I have already written 1200 words tonight, but I’m not going to post those, because it felt a bit too personal. I’m saving them, though, and they totally count for my daily writing project.
Look, I did warn you that the goal is writing, not posting. Don’t look at me like that.
I don’t want to break my habit of daily posting, though, so here’s a little something to keep that streak going.
I can’t hear the song “Pink Houses” by John Cougar Mellencamp without hearing Mr. Cougar Mellencamp growl, “And then we paint the mutha pink.” It’s just something I remember from wayyyyy back in the day on MTV, back when MTV was cool and played lots of music videos and also had great contests.
Me and Val were sitting in the office today and listening to Spotify and “Pink Houses” came on, and even though each of us were deep in our own work, I growled out, “And then we paint the mutha pink,” just because.
Val looked at me like I’d grown a second head, and I laughed, and tried to explain that it was from a long-ago commercial. Then I went a-googling, and sure enough, I found this ancient cultural artifact from the long-ago time of 1984. Watch, and reflect on how very different the world was back then.
I’d watch that at my girlfriend’s house (because my dad refused to pay for TV, so we did not get cable for a long time. My mom finally just called the cable company and made an appointment to have it installed, a few years after that, making an end-run around my father’s financially-motivated Luddism.) and I’d laugh. But who would want to live in Indiana?
I am 100% certain I entered that contest. Sadly, I did not win. I probably only sent, like, one postcard. It cost a stamp, which was $0.20 back then, which, honestly, even then was a bargain. Not sure if that was before the Republicans decided to kill the US Postal Service or not. It was the Reagan years, though, so likely so.
Anyway, enjoy imagining what your humble writer looked like back in the era of big hair and New Wave. No photos of me from then have survived. NONE. I SWEAR IT. NO, DON’T GO LOOKING CAN’T YOU TAKE MY WORD FOR IT?