January 11, 2003 | 10:05 AM

I'm at work today and it being a weekend I get to blare music all day and dance around my office. I'm basically just on call in case the students need anything, which so far today they haven't.

Today is NOSTALGIA day on my Win Amp. I am only playing music that I listened to between the ages of 11 and 16 and the rule is that it has to be of that era so basically it's new wave/post punk day at the office.

I'm digging New Order and Heaven 17 and The Cure and Siouxsie and Morrisey and Scary Monsters Era Bowie. Yeah, some of this came out when I was like three, but I still consider it of the era that I grew up. Funny how much I identify with that time period even though I wasn't a teenager until the nineties-- I was 14 when Nevermind came out, and don't get me wrong, I LOVE/LOVED Nirvana and riot grrl and lo fi etc., but I always felt more of an affinity for the late 70's eartly-mid 80's underground.

God, this stuff was pop music once upon a time. You could see this shit on Mtv. I know there was a lot of crap too but I have so much nostalgia for a time when being goth didn't mean listening to boring crap like Marilyn Manson and you could be poppy and arty and fun all at the same time. You could party on the dance floor and you could mope and you could do drugs and you could live cheaply in a cold water flat in London.

Le sigh.