1983 and Board Games

In the end my 1983 experiment didn't fully happen either. Although in the past week as mentioned I tackled Jane Fonda's famous original workout video, which while its quality is undeniable felt radically unsafe compared to the careful 21st-century YouTube exercise routines I watch, the most intense 1980s experience was probably getting 'hooked' on music that came out in 1983 during the work week.

I listened to a few pop songs while performing a repetitive task, to cheer me up. On the one hand my conscious brain was still interpreting the lyrics and video of Billy Joel's version of "Uptown Girl" with regard to gender roles, and meditating about how the shift in the 1970s of more women into full-time work and large professional incomes might have been hard for men and women and gender-non-binary people to adjust to. On the other hand, my subconscious brain found "Uptown Girl" so terrifyingly catchy that it played that song on repeat to me for at least three days. It was almost a relief when "Why Can't We Be Friends?" was stuck in my head on Saturday.

Besides I did begin reading a computer filing system manual published in 1983, which spoke rather touchingly of a 'data base' and about how professionals in different fields might find it increasingly useful to store data on a computer instead of typing and re-typing it.

But for most of the day I breakfasted with the family, ate the rest of a pumpkin soup that I'd concocted Friday, and went cycling off to the allotment gardens. A gardening couple had just harvested the last apples from their three trees, and when I asked for some from the basket they were filling, they were eager to chat and happy that I asked their advice on how best to eat the fruit (cooked? baked? fresh?). The woman said that this year the yield had been unusually plentiful. Her husband was so modest, as well as echoing her friendliness, that my heart melted.

Then I tried baking cookies to take along to friends from work, who had invited me to join a larger group for board games. The baking didn't go well: the cookie dough was too dense for the piping cylinder, the cookies turned rather more than golden brown in the oven, and in the end there wasn't really a nice receptacle for the five or so good ones to go into. In the end I ran out of time and cycled off to the friends' apartment as quickly as safely possible.

The board game evening itself was lovely. I think that at work I've temporarily lost the ability to be friends with everyone, and be nice. Here in the more relaxed setting there weren't the same causes of friction to make me wary and snappish. Eating tortilla chips and cookies and cheese, sipping mineral water, chatting about non-work-related things, being careful not to sit on the hosts' cat, and playing a few rounds of Codenames and Wizard, was really restful.