I have always been one to joyfully indulge in her own obssessions . Pass no judgement because these things can stimulate old memories, and lead to...

reminiscing about missing out on the '70s Kiss phenonmenon:

When I was in kindergarten, my best friend was this boy named Oren Klein. Obviously, his parents were Israeli, too, and my parents started to hang out with his parents. For a time, it was very cool. Then Robi, Oren's father, got very very sick. He was one of those very friendly and boisterous fat men who love to drink. Obviously, it had all caught up with him and he soon died of congestive heart failure. The cool thing about Robi is that he was one of the only people I ever remember who could make Gid relax and laugh and be silly. Shortly after his death, though, my parents relapsed into their typically judgemental and elitist perceptions and decided that Shula, Robi's widow, was behaving inappropriately and cut her off. The Kleins moved to Rahway or Newark or somewhere horrible, because they had no money. Later on, in high school, Shula married someone new and the Klein family reappeared in Union. Oren was by then quiet and slightly dorky. I still thought he was pretty cute and nice, but my wild and crazy reputation made him a little wary. It made me sad.

Anyway, Oren had two older brothers, Ori was two or three years older than my sister and very popular. So popular, in fact, that having a name like Ori was no big deal but actually an asset. In my mind's recollection, Ori was cute like Ashton Kutcher -- all shaggy, shiny '70's hair with sleeveless T-shirts and scuffy Adidas. Yaron was the oldest and he was already in high school. I think he was like 16 or 17. Yaron wasn't as cute as Ori because he had a major Jew 'fro. But he had his own car, a sparkly blue Trans-am.Trans-ams became my favorite cars and I swore I would have one when I grew up.

Anyway, Yaron also had his own room. It was pretty dark in there and I remember that it smelled like cherry car freshener. Or maybe cherry incense. Obviously, now I know what he was doing in there with his cherry aromas - but at the time, his room and everything about him was a huge mystery of coolness. A teen-ager! He had all these black lights set up in there and those velvety posters of Kiss and Led Zeppelin all over the walls and ceilings. I even remember that one of the Zeppelin posters said "Black Dog" (thrillingly obscure.) I was thoroughly impressed. It was obviously incredibly cool to be allowed access to such regions.

Anyway, this was the era of "Disco sucks, Rock lives." I tended to subconscioulsy indentify with rock. Mostly because the graffiti was always written in cool psychedelic hard rock font. And it was scrawled in secret places and with serious fervor. Seeing the Kiss logo in bathrooms and sewn on feathered-haired girls' asses seemed like a secret language. It was dangerous and sexy and vaguely Satanic.

But even then, even with the zenith/nadir of Ozzy Osbourne bat-eating antics included, I knew that it was only rock and roll but I like it, I like it, yes, I do.