In the Beginning

And you may ask yourself - well...how did I get here?

I knew some pop songs when I was younger, but I really got interested when I was 12. I listened to Eagle 106 as background music. But the real change happened when I got my MTV. It was April 1987. I forget the whole history lesson, but I grew up in Philadelphia and cable just wasn't available there until the late 80s. We got cable as soon as we could. The simple placement of artist and song title at the start and end of each video taught me so much, influenced me more than the visuals did. I could now group individual songs by group and album.

My mom bought me my first cassette, Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet. I could listen to it on my crappy old toy cassette player or the car stereo. I was in the end of 7th grade.

At the time, I was freakishly good at math, and bad to the same extent in gym. My favorite TV show was the Transformers, which I videotaped everyday. I had the same two best friends, sisters, since pre-school. Debbie was a year ahead of me, and Susan two years behind me in school. We've grown apart, but they are still a second family to me. Their mom made their home a haven for me from the craziness of my own home. In elementary school, I had a few good friends in my class as well. Shae and I went to the Transformers movie together, but she moved and went to a different school for 7th grade.

I was always aware I was different than my classmates, but it wasn't until junior high that I started to feel left out. I got along with most everyone, but missed those important bat mitzvah invitations that the other Jewish girls gave each other. I met another friend in class that year, A, who was so influential. She also liked Bon Jovi and had a disability which kept her out of gym.

A and I kept in touch over the summer between 7th and 8th grades and went to Willow Grove Mall together. It was my first time going to the mall on my own, without an adult. I tripled my cassette collection - bought Madonna's True Blue and Genesis' Invisible Touch with babysitting money. She told me I needed a boombox to play my music, and to dub a copy of everything for her, and I got one for my 13th birthday that September. She shared her music with me too.

A was cooler than I was. But was she? She told me she was, and I believed her. She knew more about music than I did, and already cared about boys. I was friends with some boys, because we had similar interests of computers, chess, and Transformers, but they were just buddies. I don't think she had crossed over to the dark side yet, but she got rebellious and manipulative after her parents split up in 8th grade. She really lost it by 12th grade, and really hurt some people. I stayed friends with her out of loyalty, but had had it by sophomore year of college. Haven't talked to her since. More about that in context later on.

What was even better than finding out new bands? Seeing them in concert! A month after I turned 13, I got to go to my first one...