When we were young.

We were 14 and bored and at home unsupervised for hours everyday after school. What else was there to do but read old copies of Spin and listen to our Rancid tapes over and over. Well, I guess we liked to play with fire too. But like many other children have learned over the years, it’s difficult to rebel when you grow up a privileged child in an upper middle class two parent home. What’s there to be upset about?
Liv and I liked to dress up in our finest thrift store punk rock outfits. She would work on her make up while I spiked my hair. She would tie the purple laces in her boots (the ones with spikes in the top of the leather) and I would put the safety pins back in the collar of my torn, striped sweater. And then we would walk down to the 7-11 to loiter out back, or if we were especially bored we would walk the half hour to the Tower Records to read the magazines.
On weekends we would ride light rail, or more often get a ride from our parents to mid-town. There we could spend the whole day wandering from thrift store to costume shop to record store. We always made sure to stop in on The Hindenburg, a tiny little record store on the second floor of a small commercial building in the back of a parking lot. I loved The Hindenburg because they sold punk rock 7”s, a true novelty to me at the time. Later, a different girlfriend of mine would end up living in the first floor of The Hindenburg on a couch for a few months. She always referred to it as, “the cutest little shooting gallery I’ve ever seen.”
But most days we spent at her house or my house, leafing through magazines and burning things out in the backyard.