Nostalgia

My roommate and I threw a sock hop in our living room. We carefully crafted a playlist of 50s hits - doowop, rockabilly, rock and roll - and hung up mock 45s made from colored paper and glow bracelets to mimic neon diner lights.

We had cheeseburgers and pigs-in-blankets. We weren't sure if onion rings were popular in the 50s, yet, but we made them anyway. And, of course, we drank milkshakes.

We danced to "Be-bop-a-lula," "Lollipop," and "Hound Dog," and then we crowded around the piano and sang "Summer Nights" (not strictly a song from the 50s, but a song about the 50s).

The night was full of anachronisms. Guests snapped pictures with their iPhones. I made a cardboard jukebox to put over my computer, which was streaming 50s hits from the web.

This afternoon I had leftovers, nostalgic for yesterday's nostalgia.

Of course, it's easy to be nostalgic for things we never experienced and don't actually remember. While my memories of the 90s - my actual childhood and adolescence - alternate between nostalgia for bike rides, lightning bugs, glitter nail polish, and the smell of brand new French textbooks to slight chagrin at slouch socks and scrunchies to the actual terror of stomachaches, long bus rides, spitballs, and unrequited but desperate crushes, my pseudo-memories of the 1950s - now those I can get behind.