I personally have known or seen people who have considered the X to be short for �extreme�, but looking at my generation I wonder if that X was meant to mean �Brand X�. Generic, everyday, you�ll find that particular brand for anything out there. A bland, tasteless product created by major corporations to off load the �junk� left over at the bottom of the barrel.

Then I look around to all the �Generation X�ers� I know and I�m finding the �Brand X� explanation to be more fitting then the �extreme� theory.

I wonder if I can trade my generation in for a Playstation 2 and a Whatchamacallit candy bar. Something tells me I�ll get more use out of a game console and a candy bar then my generation.

Then again you really can�t blame my generation for being so boring. You can only recycle an idea so many times, slap a new label on it, then call it �refreshing� and have it be believable. We are the children that grew up with the eighties molding around us, the constant question in our heads, �Why is that Flock of Seagulls hairdo so popular?�

The eighties a decade of greed, self indulgence, cheap techno music, and the birth of hardcore designer drugs.

No wonder why we are so screwed up, we didn�t stand a chance.

Many of us are old enough to remember the seventies like a fading nightmare we couldn�t, thankfully, grasp why they where so frightening. Bell bottoms where traded in for parachute pants, disco was traded for techno pop, and free love was traded in for fear anything some else has touched with bare skin. The beginning of the AIDS scare enveloped this nation which lead to blind fear. No one knew who had it, but you where sure that you wouldn�t be one of the people who would, but just in case don�t sit on that public toilet seat.

And lets face it the fashion trends of the eighties nobody is proud of today. Then again look at what came before it, disco pop traded in for eighties glam. I think the AIDS scare mixed with the horror that was the seventies created a level of mass confusion that took at least a decade to get over. In an explosion of men wearing more make up then there girlfriends and giant hair with enough Aqua Net in it to protect you from stray meteorites floating down from our atmosphere, it all ended with a loud whine of what we call now the �grunge movement�. Or as they called it back then, alternative. Alternative because it was the only extreme choice you had to what had become of main stream music. Then, defying its definition, Alternative became main stream.

Are you getting a grasp at how confusing it was for my generation?

We grew up with these environments filling our senses at a time we where most susceptible to suggestion. When we where still developing our own opinions, identities, and loves. And what did we have to turn to during those times? New Kids on the Block, Poison, and Nirvana the �voices� of our generation.

It�s enough to make you wonder why kids didn�t start turning psycho and shooting up schools earlier and with more frequency.

I�m turning weird in my �old age� in a not so good kind of way.

I remember a time when pizza boxes littered everywhere was such a common occurrence that it was conceivable to make furniture out of it. I remember the days when a mess was out of sight, it was out of mind. Fuck cleaning that mess, a piece of furniture hides it. A time when the house was clean as long as the high traffic areas where cleared of debris. Dishes where never washed until you have made a mess of every dish you own. When you�re down to eating cereal with a big ass wooden spoon and sipping your drinks out of vases, that�s about time you contemplate taking care of that biohazard you call a sink.

So, with this in mind, what did I do today? I cleaned the �horrendous mess� that is my apartment. Horrendous mess to my standards now, but me ten years ago would have said �that�s damn near perfectly clean, buddy!�

Yes I was a flaming idiot ten years ago, time has only matured that fact.

Let me run down what has made, in my eyes, my apartment a �horrendous� mess.

Dishes needed to be done :

What this means is I didn�t do my dishes from Saturday yet. Two plates, one fork, one spoon, a pan, a spatula, and a bowl had my teeth a bit on edge as it littered my sink. Add on I was going to have even more dishes for Sunday�s eats, oh my god catastrophe!

The living room is a pig sty :

Two half full ashtrays, some cushioning from my falling apart chair on the floor, a few minor pieces of garbage, and some ashes on the end table.

THIS MUST BE FIXED NOW!

That�s it that is what consisted of my �horrendous mess�. That is the saddest shit. I�m freaking out about that tiny little mess.

So I get up and do all that work, but do you think I�m happy then? Oh hell no.

The blanket vacuuming was done, but really those crooks and corners are unreachable with the bulk of the vacuum cleaner. Bust out the hose and get in those annoying little areas, crack open the heater and suck out the dust that built up in there, clean out the dust bunnies forming under my book case.

It took a youthfully act of rebellion like will power to keep from lifting up my chair and doing a thorough cleaning under there.

I�m losing my fucking mind here! I have never been a clean freak of any sorts, now I�m taking the polar opposite of that and doing the detail work I thought was tedious and pointless.

Do you know how hard it was to not walk around my apartment with furniture polish and a rag and take care of the nasty messes all the nick knacks in my apartment are? Instead I broke down and used a duster to clean them off instead. Of course I did this before I vacuumed, because really I don�t want to vacuum up the dust I just settled on the floor.

You realize the me of ten years ago would be checking my bedroom for an alien pod concealing my true self after saying that.

And the madness doesn�t end here. I can sense it already. My apartment is completely clean; there is nothing for me to do tomorrow. I know tomorrow I�ll break down and take off everything on my three book shelves, dust and wax every surface, then neatly rearrange everything in symmetrical formation. Then, for fun, I�ll empty all my CD towers and reorder everything by alphabetical order and then timeline.

I�m not sure if I should silently pat myself on the back for growing up and getting my priorities straight, or smack myself hard tell I knock some �sense� back in my skull.

Seriously, I think I need some help. That or I�m redirecting wasted sexual energy and if I could just spend a week of getting laid, three to five times a day, I�ll go back to being the lazy fuck I know I am.

Then again, who�s going to clean my place?

It's about time - Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2004
An Honor for Chrome - Friday, Feb. 20, 2004
A great loss - Monday, Oct. 20, 2003
a terrible announcement. - Tuesday, Sept. 09, 2003
Chrome speaks: - Friday, Sept. 05, 2003