I'm a '90s girl, in a '90s world...

Sometimes I only get the chance to blog once a week. And since I can't always get up the motivation to think of a topic, it's nice to have other friends to blog with so we can take turns. I enjoy being challenged to write about stuff that might not normally come to mind and also reading everyone else's thoughts on the same topic. Blog Project 3.0 has been going on for over a year, even though one of the group members changed after a few months. I love blogging with this group and I hope we can continue to inspire each other.

This week, I chose the topic: The '90s

First, read what everyone else had to share on this topic. I will be only posting links to posts on this same topic from my group. So check back if you were hoping to read their blogs and don't see a link yet.

Darwin Shrugged
Froggie
Moma Rock

A while back, this blog project group talked about the '80s, before Darwin Shrugged joined us. Too bad because she would have had another excuse to talk about Bon Jovi. ;) In any case, I decided to get all nostalgic again this week, as I'm obsessed with Hindsight on VH1 and that's all about the '90s. I feel more of a connection to this decade because it's when I went to high school and college. I started my adult life toward the end of 1999, so most of this fabulous decade was spent in school. I even wrote a short story about the '90s. Hindsight came out a few months after that, but it's funny that both are about time travel and involve someone going back to 1995.

Instead of writing some long-winded post about everything 90s (trust me, I could go on all day), I am going to share some top five lists. These are written from the perspective of my personality in the 90s, even though I still like most of these things now. (I introduced the 80s stuff the same way.)

Top Five Favorite '90s TV Shows

1. Friends: Could this show BE any funnier? (Speaking of funny, my BFF sent me this post about what Friends would be like in 2015.)
2. Seinfeld: This show had a bigger impact on my life (at the time) than just making me laugh a lot.
3. Party of Five: If I didn't already want to move to San Francisco because of Full House, then this show would have sold me all the way. I even re-watched all the episodes when they were on Lifetime.
4. My So-Called Life: So sad that this was cancelled so soon. I even got to meet Wilson Cruz (Ricky) in the early 2000s.
5. Animaniacs: See the story of how I "sort of" met the voice of Wakko.

My sister and I with Wilson Cruz in 2003

Top Five Favorite '90s Movies (links are to trailers)

1. Clueless-I'm not a Jane Austen fan, but I am thankful to her for inspiring such a fabulous teen movie.
2. Beauty and the Beast-Why it didn't win the Oscar for Best Picture, one will never know.
3. The Wedding Singer-I still love Adam and Drew together (seeing Blended confirmed that) and this started everything off. So cute, funny, and romantic. A great throwback to the 80s too, with lots of fun music!
4. Life is Beautiful-In my opinion, the best movie ever made about the Holocaust. I cried way more for this than I ever did for Schindler's List. So incredibly touching.
5. The Shawshank Redemption-I wasn't expecting to be so moved by this film, but it has definitely stayed a classic for me 20 years later.

See the rest of them here.

This next section is all about music. I did a blog series on '90s music a few years ago, but will share some of the highlights here.

Top Five Favorite '90s Male Singers/Bands

1. Nirvana
2. Barenaked Ladies: Saw them in concert twice (2001 and 2004)
3. Toad the Wet Sprocket
4. Green Day
5. Gin Blossoms: Saw them in concert when they performed at an Independence Day festival by my parents' house.

Top Five Favorite '90s Female Singers/Bands

1. Jewel: Saw her in concert, even though getting there was a bit chaotic.
2. Alanis Morissette: Saw her in concert with BNL in 2004
3. Natalie Merchant: Saw her in concert at Illinois State in 1996.
4. Juliana Hatfield: I almost saw her in concert to open for Aimee Mann, but then she was sick and Beki Hemingway opened instead.
5. Jill Sobule

Top Five Favorite '90s Albums

1. Nevermind, Nirvana
2. Dulcinea, Toad the Wet Sprocket
3. Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette
4. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Sarah McLachlan
5. Tails, Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories

Top Five Favorite '90s Soundtracks

1. Rent
2. Clueless
3. Reality Bites
4. Empire Records
5. Wayne's World

Top Five Favorite '90s Songs

1. "Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
2. "Plush" by Stone Temple Pilots
3. "You Gotta Be" by Des'ree
4. "Who Will Save Your Soul?" by Jewel
5. "My Favorite Mistake" by Sheryl Crow

Top Five Favorite '90s Books

1. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
2. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
3. I Know this Much is True by Wally Lamb (It was 900 pages and I breezed through it...and during winter finals too)
4. Most V.C. Andrews novels (hard to choose just one, but I was a bit obsessed with Secrets of the Morning from the Cutler series.) 
5. Most Katherine Stone novels (also hard to choose just one)

Getting to meet Wally Lamb in 2013

Top Five Favorite '90s obscurities

1. Welcome to the Dollhouse: If you knew me in 1996/97, you know how obsessed I was with this movie. I think I had it memorized at one point. "Wanna see my fingers?" 
2. Liquid TV: This show on MTV with cartoons and puppetry. They had regular sketches like "Aeon Flux," "Winter Steele," and "Dog Boy." Beavis and Butt-Head originated from this series, as did cartoons about Milton from Office Space.
3. The Murmurs: My friend put a song of theirs  ("Mission," from their self-titled album in 1994) on a tape for me and I loved their sound so much, that I had to listen to more of their music.  Only one song of theirs was ever on the radio: "La Di Da."
4. Cupid and Diana by Christina Bartolomeo. Fairly underrated, but if Chick Lit Central had been around in 1998 when it first was published, it would have had lots of love and attention. It takes place in DC, which I loved about it even long before I knew I'd live in the area.
5. Tribes: My pen pal got me into this show and then it was cancelled soon after and I was so upset that I wrote Fox to tell them to air it again. They replied to my letter but just to say that they had already made up their minds. 

Top Five Favorite '90s fashion trends

1. Bajas: Apparently they resurfaced from the '80s because people were wearing them a lot in the early '90s.
2. Birkenstocks: I had an imitation version, but I still loved the style and comfort.
3. Grunge: I wore the flannel shirts and Chuck Taylor hi-tops through my early years of college.
4. Rolling the ankles of jeans tightly
5. Overalls/overall shorts

Rockin' the overall shorts and (imitation) Birkenstocks
while pretending to be in the opening credits of Friends. (1996)

Top Five Favorite '90s memories

1. My "Rocky Horror" phase
2. Speech team tournaments in high school
3. Waiting all day to get front row seats for Rent
4. Going to see Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind every weekend
5. College

With a few friends from college at this restaurant
where the waiter (behind us) managed to break a table from a booth.
(And yes, I am wearing overalls here too.)

What are some of your favorite things from the '90s?