'let's all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born'

When I was growing up, my bedroom was a purple shrine to all things Duran Duran. Every square inch of the four walls was covered with posters purchased from Coach House Gifts and pinups extracted with surgical precision from BOP magazine. I believe it's safe to say every girl who came of age in the 1980s who had a pulse probably lived in a bedroom like mine.

During the course of my obsession, which is, I'm not going to lie, still sort of with me, my mother was forced to listen to 'Rio' more times than should be legal under some sort of UN treaty. Every time she'd enter my room, she'd ask, "Now, which one is Simon?" and "How come three of them have Taylor for a last name, but they're not related?" and I'd answer "My future husband" and "Some weird twist of fate," and then further educate her on these and all other things pop culture, and I was sure I'd done a pretty good job teaching her. Before I moved away, my mother was aware of Madonna and knew that we shouldn't make eye contact any time she passed by my room as Prince's "Darling Nikki" was blaring from the stereo. I was proud of the pop culture student she'd become.

Cut to this week when mom stopped by my house to give me something she'd found in my old bedroom.

That is an old Nike ad I yanked from a magazine and taped to the back of my childhood bedroom door sometime during my late teens, aka 'The Seriously Angsty Years (Prior To Those Presently Being Experienced).' That, my friends, was the last bastion of my old life, preserved for lo these many years and never uncovered until just recently because my mother no longer has the pleasure of living with a teenage daughter who slams her bedroom door shut in bitter defiance to whatever injustice she feels is being handed her.

(That wasn't me, though. I was the eager to please first born good child.)

Anyway, I couldn't figure out why mom was giving this to me. It's just an old ad, I told her. You could have just tossed this. "I was going to," she replied. "But then I turned it over and, well, I know how much you like the Beatles, so I thought I'd bring it by and let you decide what you want to do with it."

This is what's pictured on the other side:

Ladies and gentlemen - THE BEATLES!!

I think the one in the middle is Paul. The haircut is reminiscent, at the very least. I also think I failed my mom in all things pop culture. Although how a woman who should have experienced life during the height of Beatlemania is this confused is beyond me. If I had a guitar, it would probably gently weep. Perhaps this ad was inspired by the Abbey Road album cover.

Regardless of my failings, I loved that woman when she was 64, and I still do now that she's 66. She makes me happy. Also crazy and exhausted and overwhelmed and irritated and delighted, but mostly happy. So do these other things:

• Swimming (if for no other reason than it forces me to shave my legs)
• Finding my INXS Live Baby Live DVD while cleaning and wasting the rest of the afternoon watching it because gah! And swoon! That sea of bodies freaks me out.
• Stumbling across Improv - Ice Starring Styx on TV this weekend. Figure skating to the music of Styx as performed by the remaining member(s) of Styx? Bring me the cheese!
• The kind elderly lady who, when I found a book for her today, said, "Cool. Bless your heart!" I needed that.
• Additionally, the young woman who asked "Where is your erotica?" The word 'erotica' makes me skeevily happy.
• Saving a ton with coupons. I'm not extreme, but I'm damn efficient.
• Speaking of my mom, the way she pronounces 'quesadilla.' She doesn't pronounce it as it should be, but rather she's straight up Napoleon Dynamite-style when she says it, and she doesn't even realize she's wrong! I love it.
• Finally, and without remorse, giving up on The Jersey Shore. No more!
• Finishing 'The Leftovers' by Tom Perrotta. It's not erotica, but it's good.