and I can take it or leave it each time

Because this is the sort of girl I am, I used to blame babyboomer-obsessives--not the actual boomers, mind you—for accelerating nostalgia. We watched them miss things, on screens, in print. In college, in high school, we began missing things too, sometimes things we hadn’t even been alive for.
This fall marks 10 years since my last first day of high school. I like the way that sounds better than, “In May, it’ll be 10 years since my graduation.” It’s been a good near-decade, full of mornings when I don’t walk out of the house silently cursing my mom for wanting me to “have a good day” out loud.
Jesus, this is maudlin. And you’re not even seeing the version the computer ate.
Nostalgia’s a funny thing.
What brought all this on? 2 things: the zine workshop thing I’m planning for Teen Read Week, and a sentence from Rob Thomas’ book, Rats Saw God.
On Novelist (my favorite-est database, after those Library of Congress ones I nerded out over last time), Patrick Jones goes so far as to call this the best YA novel ever. All I know is, if I were a boy and I read this in 1996, when it came out, Rats Saw God would be my Girl.
Here’s the sentence:

I thought about Doug playing in an MTV all-star softball game, rounding third and trying to take out Bo Jackson at home plate.

This line is such a simple, throwaway joke, tossed off for an audience that gets it, most likely ignored by audiences that don’t. It ties the story to a time and place, in a way that even the Cobain mourning scene doesn’t.
Does MTV even do Rock’N’Jock anymore?
***
I want examples of zines at the workshop, and I’m mostly using my old collection. The moving gnomes have taken most of them, hoping (I guess) to turn Southern Fried Darling, Sourpuss, a couple random Cometbuses, and so many others into profit. Here’s what I’ve got left: blue-stocking revolt #1, altocumulus undulates #1, and Swing Set Girl #3, from years later and the other end of Pennsylvania. This is in addition to the black binder with “The Official Bernadette the Squirrel Archives” silver paint markered on the front, which also houses the Waste Another Year Archives and my one-shots.
I threw away my diaries (or journals, or gournals if you’re feeling Paul Ruddish) only a couple years after high school. I’m kind of glad I did. I don’t think I ever need that much of a reminder of how lonely I was, how much I hated everything. People that keep their diaries remember their secrets; because I kept my zines, I feel like I remember everything else, plus almost like a distillation of those secrets.
And they’re a lot funnier. I love that, that we could all be so sad, or so pissed off and/or righteous, and then so silly.
***
And the next time I decide to read a YA novel published in the mid-90s while going through old zines? Kick me in the head, someone, please. Kick me in the head, and then take away my copy of No Alternative.