homage
January 4th, 2013 @ 5:24 pm
back in 1992, i hung out with this cool chickadee named suzie. i’ve known her since i was like 8 or 9, and we went to elementary school together for many years. it wasn’t until she graduated a year early and left for intermediate school, that we started hanging out (here in NYC, it’s kindergarten-6th grade and then 7-9 (JHS), unlike most other places that are K-5 and then 6-8 and then high school).
anyways, with her going to a new school, we started hanging out, outside of school. summer vacation, weekends, we’d watch TGIF, play on my babysitters block (where she also lived) and had tons of sleepovers… i remember we used to have a secret club, and we’d go to the beach with her mom, and most importantly… we’d play with our legos.
i don’t remember which was my first set, but i do remember one of my first sets was pool side paradise set. i remember after i discovered that there were sets like that (ones that weren’t all just red/yellow/green bricks), i was *obsessed*. i got a bunch of those, and then i started adding in the POLICE lego sets, because they had high/tall lego pieces and awesome/modern windows.
as i was growing up, my mom was trying to become an interior decorator on the side. she got all of these different design/decorating magazines that i would sit and sift through for HOURS/days/weeks at a time.
it was the early 90’s, and i was obsessed with built-in/lacquer furniture (even though i didn’t have it) and modern style. i was constantly re-arranging my room and putting my furniture together to try to mimic that type of design, since i had to make do with what i had… (view commericals // 01 02). the magazines had floor plans and layouts and i started drawing up my own. i was constantly drawing up dream houses and started building them in lego form. i also got really into frank lloyd wright that year (i still even have a few books on him, and his works).
i don’t know where i went wrong, but i fell off of the architecture-dream-future wagon, i think it was because i was horrible in math and really just wasn’t a book-confident kid. i guess i was just always more of a street-smart kid.
i STILL collect legos and even have some of mine from 20 years ago. mainly smaller sets and minifigures, because my apartment is too small at the moment for displaying cool/large sets. funny enough, lego released frank lloyd wright lego sets (which i do NOT own, yet?). i think it’s super cool seeing your interests come together that way.
in closing, i thank suz and mom for leaving me with interests that still hold strong, 20 years later.
funny enough, i just found suzie on instagram again recently (i forget how), but she still also has lego interest going on. she has a few big pirate ships hanging out on top of a book case, and she also built a light house that even lights up, lol.