At 17, I’d never heard of T. Boone Pickens or Carl Icahn, but overnight, my teenage fears grew the way they did in springtime when tornadoes tore through nearby towns, ripping roofs off houses and lives off their foundations.In 1985, the Youngest Gen-Xers...
The Rise of Micro Generations: Xennials, Zillennials, and Zalphas
© 2025 The Jennifer Chronicles. All rights reserved.What Are Micro Generations? I want to find something I’ve wanted all along / Somewhere I belong. (Somewhere I Belong, Linkin Park, 2003) Micro generations are narrow age bands that fall between the generational lines...
USPS Stamp Encore Voting Open Now
I rarely post news releases on my blog, but I was an avid stamp collector when I was a kid and I love this. Pouring over the Littleton Stamp Company catalog was one of my favorite things to do. Today, the U.S. Postal Service is excited to announce the Stamp Encore...
Alison Martino, Curator of Old Los Angeles
Why Martino’s Vintage L.A. Matters More Than Ever I was born in Boyle Heights in 1967, when East Los Angeles was still a city of pocket-sized bungalows, backyard tamale steamers, and local movie houses that glowed like lanterns at dusk. This was before the open-air...
Generation X Birth Years: Why Gen X Starts in 1961, Not 1965
Acalanes Class of 1980, Lafayette, CA., looking quite preppy and light years from the groovy 1970s. These folks were born 1962-1963.© 2025 The Jennifer Chronicles: Are You There, God? It's Me, Generation X. All rights reserved. This content is the intellectual...
🎯 Ditch Death. Get a Screening.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”— Ferris Bueller🚨 Generation X is dying younger and faster than Baby Boomers ever did, and no one is sounding the alarm. Ferris Bueller skipped school to seize the day. This...
The Generation X Health Crisis and Deaths of Despair
How can you mend this broken man?How can a loser ever win?Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again...(The Bee Gees, 1971)More and more, the data is pointing to something many of us have felt for years: Generation X is dying way too young. Of the...
Traces of the Last Analog Generation: Gen X and the Card Catalog
A young Gen-Xer flips through the card catalog at Fisher School Library, circa 1980. The exact city/town/state are unknown. This photo is ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Rare Evidence I’ve been searching online marketplaces, thrift stores, and flea markets for photographs of...
Marked Safe From Fondue Night
Way Safe. My mom had such high hopes for her fondue set. In the end, she went to bed upset and I went to bed hungry. My Barbies put the tiny forks to good use, though. And, basically, I've been marked safe from Fondue Night since 1976. Way safe. Alison Martino...
Mary’s Swap Meet in Oklahoma City
Mary's Swap Meet in Oklahoma CityWhere the air is a stew of Oklahoma dust, fryer grease, and the musk of penned animals.Where the air is a stew of Oklahoma dust, fryer grease, and the musk of penned animals.Castoffs July 9, 2025I grew up in the dust of thrift stores,...
Gen X Curiosity Shop
Proprietor’s Note Note: This post first appeared on the Generation X Newsletter on Subtack. What I loved about Elizabeth Wurtzel’s writing, especially Prozac Nation (1994), was her electric ability to write what was happening as it was happening. She didn’t wait for...
7 Forgotten Films of Generation X
Let's watch these half-remembered films in front of the Panasonic. Better yet, let's make it the Zenith.The Forgotten Films of Generation X Let me start with a confession: I probably have no business writing about the forgotten films of Generation X. I saw so few...