I'm gonna party like it's 1994

I know I blog too much about feeling old when I haven't even reached my 40's yet. But I've experienced the strange phenomena of thinking I'm in 1994 way too often lately. I'm not specifically thinking I'm 24 but whenever someone mentions to me that such and such happened in 1992 I think to myself that it was a recent occurrence when in fact it was SIXTEEN YEARS ago.

Hell, even things that have happened in the early 2000's are over 5-7 years ago. That's a lifetime for my youngest son Gabriel. I guess the 80's have a strong enough nostalgia following that I don't view much of what happened in the 80's as something recent. Ronald Reagan, Michael Jackson who was black and wore one gem studded glove, the space shuttle blowing up and Max Headroom are all things that seem like ancient history to me. But Kurt Cobain's death, the grunge look, Bill Clinton getting a BJ, and 911 are all things that feel like they've happened in the past year.

I guess it's a 20-25 year trend for actual nostalgia to set in. Happy Days and American Graffiti came out in the 70's when nostalgia for the 50's was at it's peak. I certainly recall a feel good movement over the hippies and Woodstock in the late 80's as well.

What's even stranger is that while I feel like things in the 90's aren't all that long ago the reverse seems to be true for gadgets and inventions. Technology is progressing so fast that it makes you feel like things are outdated before they even turn 3 years old. I looked at my cell phone from 2002 and it looks like a bulky and clumsy punch card fed computer. You ever look at pictures of iPods when they first came out? While they aren't exactly dowdy the look and feel is entirely different just a few years later. Heck, it wasn't a long time when you owned a Pentium I and felt out of sorts because the Pentium 2's just came out.

So, technology goes faster than actual history and nostalgia does. The back and forth is causing me great stress lately as I am afraid that next year the iPhone will be obsolete and I'll try to go see The Mask at the theater. Chalk it up to cognitive dissonance or just my crazy brain but I can't seem to have a grasp on what year it is. Please, someone tell me this isn't 2008 and I've been dreaming.