What was going on when I was born?

ARLINE FEINBERG learned to bide her time. For 23 years she lived in Westchester with her husband and their two children and waited for the time she would be able to move into Manhattan. While she waited she visited show houses and studied decorating magazines -always looking for the designer who would create the ''perfect'' penthouse for her family's needs. Mrs. Feinberg began her journey to Manhattan in earnest two and a half years ago. As soon as her co-op - a 3,000-square-foot penthouse with an unusual 2,000-square-foot walled-in terrace - was in hand, she proceeded to sell the entire contents of her suburban house. ''Sheets, towels, dishes, flatware, everything,'' she said. ''It was time for a change. I kept only my good china and crystal, and I didn't give away my family photographs.''

The Nigerian economy is in deep trouble. When the Government laid out its current five-year development plan, the forecast for 1983 was that production of high-priced oil, at two million barrels a day, would earn the nation $30 billion. As world oil markets faltered last year, the forecast was trimmed in November in an austerity budget based on production of a million barrels a day. At the time, industry analysts reckoned that, for the first quarter of 1983 at least, black Africa's largest oil producer would be able to pump 1.3 million barrels a day, about the December level.

Tales of paper shredders, charges of mismanagement and corruption, refusal by a President to turn over certain documents. These and other elements give the current dispute over the Environmental Protection Agency a familiar ring to followers of scandals in Washington. But the ingredients of the controversy over the environmental agency are as bewildering as they are familiar. Even those involved in the matter acknowledge that many of the charges are based on supposition. The conflict had reached a boiling point when the Administration, according to sources involved in the dispute, relented today and agreed to provide documents that it had withheld from Congressional investigators. Much about what has occurred in the agency in the last two years remains the subject of angry charges and countercharges. To clear up the confusion, no fewer than six Congressional committees have started investigations of the activities of the environmental agency.

The staff of the State Financial Control Board cited ''sound grounds for optimism about the city's future'' yesterday and recommended that Mayor Koch's preliminary budget be approved. Reacting to the Mayor's tentative $16.5 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 and to an overall financial plan running through fiscal year 1986, the staff projected that New York would have $65 million more to spend in the next fiscal year than the city's budget office had listed. 'Some Selected Restoration' It said the projected surplus assumed ''enactment of the state's fiscal year 1984 budget substantially as proposed.'' The city's budget forecast had come in a mid-January report that called for service cuts, new taxes and thousands of layoffs. But yesterday, the city's Budget Director, Alair A. Townsend, described that package as a ''worst case'' scenario and predicted that the city would be able to make ''some selected restorations in areas of the worst pain.''

Housing starts soared a record 35.9 percent in January to an annual rate of 1.72 million units, the highest since September 1979, the Commerce Department reported today. Last month's unusually good weather, lower mortgage interest rates and builders' confidence in economic recovery were the main factors, the department said. At the same time, builders applied for 15.9 percent more building permits in January, signaling an intention to keep the housing boom going.

''IDON'T think I ever wanted something as bad,'' said Benjamin Fischler, a Manhattan 11-year-old whose parents gave him a home video game for Christmas. ''But I never had to work harder for a present before. I guess parents are afraid the games will interfere with schoolwork.'' He paused in thought. ''Maybe they think that kids will spend too much time at the joy stick rather than at the pencil.'' ''We negotiated for months, but we finally bought one,'' said his mother, Shirley, about their video-game system. ''I resented the fact that it's so expensive. And I have the gut feeling that there's something not too healthy about playing a game where you lose - all the time, every time, no matter how high you score.''

Paul A. Volcker told a Senate panel that for the rest of the year, the Fed wants to promote recovery while containing inflation. The chairman of the Federal Reserve indicated that it would continue to rely more on its own judgement in setting overall monetary policy than on targets it sets for growth in the money supply. Thus, he left the exact outlines of Fed policy unclear. (Page D1.) A standing-roomonly crowd gathered to hear Mr. Volcker's testimony. (D6.) Housing starts soared a record 35.9 percent in January, reaching an annual rate of 1.72 million units, the highest since September 1979, the Commerce Department reported. It cited better-than-usual weather, lower mortgage rates and renewed confidence in recovery. Analysts said the new figures indicate that the economy may be recovering more rapidly than expected. (D1.) Factory output rose 0.9 percent in January, a sharp improvement that many analysts said reflects the end of the recession. (D5.)

''The guerrillas are busy upsetting people in El Salvador, creating hell, shooting their way around.

President Reagan said tonight that Air Force Awacs reconnaissance planes had been sent to Egypt for ''training exercises'' amid reports of renewed tensions along the Libyan-Sudanese border. At his news conference, Mr. Reagan insisted that the planes had been sent to Egypt for regular exercises. But he did say that ''we're well aware of Libya's attempts to destabilize its neighbors and other countries there in that part of the world.'' On other foreign policy matters, Mr. Reagan strongly defended his ''zero option'' proposal for nuclear arms reduction in Europe, and repeated an Administration offer to increase American troops in Lebanon if it would help speed the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces from that country.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee put off its vote today on the confirmation of Kenneth L. Adelman as the nation's chief arms control official. The action came after Senator Charles McC. Mathias, the Maryland Republican who was considered a swing vote, indicated that he would oppose the nomination, putting Mr. Adelman's endorsement by the committee in jeopardy. It also followed new questions about Mr. Adelman's commitment to arms negotiations.

Stunned by the sudden change in their fortunes, managers of the nation's money market mutual funds are still sifting through the figures to determine exactly what caused them to lose 16 percent of their assets in the last two months and whether the outflow will continue. On the surface, the answer seems simple. Since Dec. 1, assets of the money funds have dropped by $37 billion, to $195 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute, a Washington-based trade group. Banks and savings institutions, freed by the Government on Dec. 14 to offer whatever interest rates they pleased on savings accounts, have lured $232 billion into their new ''money market accounts.''

Industry sources said today that the British National Oil Corporation would lower its North Sea oil prices by between $3 and $3.50 a barrel Friday. It would be the most significant price break since OPEC members failed last month to reach agreement on prices and production quotas. Such a decline, coming on the heels of reductions in the Soviet Union, the United States and Egypt, would put extreme pressure on Nigeria and Libya, whose oil most resembles North Sea crude. Oil traders and stock analysts here agreed that Norway would immediately follow the lead of the state-owned B.N.O.C. and that members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would also lower prices in a matter of weeks.