First, there are the entire Saturday afternoons that I spent reading Babysitters' Club books outside on the swings:
Or the evenings in the fourth grade when I would come home and read Animorphs while listening to Backstreet Boys and Hanson:
Oh the crushes that I had on Jake and Marco.
Oh and the even more serious crushes on Brian and Taylor. There were some feelings there.
And then the fact that I would also play with my Barbie dolls. My next door neighbor, Jana, who was two years older than me (and the coolest girl in school-- everyone thought so) would come over, and we would pretend that our Barbie's had boyfriends (because once you got married, things were boring). My favorite Barbie outfit (which I can't find a picture of) was a bright pink going-out dress that looked like a Spandex bodysuit with a giant tutu attached to it. Man, oh man.
I totally had this Barbie doll.
And this Barbie Jeep.
And, in my spare time, when you know I wasn't totally trying to impress Jana, I would read American Girl books.
Felicity was my favorite.
And then when I got a little older (you know, the ripe old age of 11) and decided that I needed to read about more grown-up things, I started on the Sweet Valley High books. Those are such gems.
Those books really taught me what to expect when I went to high school. All the drama with friends and boys and crazy parties. You know, all that stuff that I experienced in high school.
And I also never nonchalantly worked my way through Anna Karenina for about two months or so.
So, while I may not have memories of different video game systems, game books, and television shows like Marcus does, I was getting done as a kid. Super getting it done.
