What was going on when I was born?

The Soviet Government press agency Tass today dismissed United States officials' stated hopes of high-level talks on arms control next month as an attempt to ''instill complacency'' among Americans and Europeans. At the same time, Tass confirmed a State Department announcement Friday that Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko and Secretary of State George P. Shultz will meet Jan. 18 in Stockholm. They will be there for an East-West conference on security in Europe. But the press agency dispatch said that neither the East- West conference nor the Gromyko- Shultz talks ''can substitute'' for the suspended Geneva arms control talks.

''THE thing I'd love best is to be out of a job soon,'' said Joan Wright, a former Assemblywoman from Woodcliff Lake and, since last March, head of the state's Division on Women, ''but women have a lot of catch-up ball to play.'' Mrs. Wright considers her position an ''awesome responsibility.'' And although the division's accomplishments during the first eight months of her leadership have been organizational rather than activist, she already has received high marks from women's organizations throughout the state. The Women's Division, an arm of the Department of Community Affairs, was formed nearly 10 years ago to serve as an information clearing- house, providing referrals to county and private agencies that assist women, and holding seminars about pending legislation on issues that affect women.

The improbable season of the Seattle Seahawks continued in sensational fashion today as they defeated the Miami Dolphins, 27-20, to advance to the American Conference championship game next Sunday. A victory would put them in Super Bowl XVIII on Jan. 22 in Tampa, Fla. The Seahawks, who qualified for the playoffs as a wild-card team for the first time in their eight seasons, will play the winner of the other A.F.C. divisional playoff, the Los Angeles Raiders or Pittsburgh Steelers, who meet Sunday in Los Angeles Coliseum. The Seahawks defeated the Raiders twice in the regular season, 38-36 and 34-21, and lost to the Steelers, 27-21.

Governor Cuomo will propose next week that New York State take over the supervision of criminals convicted of felonies and sentenced to probation instead of prison, top state officials said today. The proposal will be part of an effort to overhaul probation, parole and other alternatives to incarceration and thus relieve the severe overcrowding both in state prisons and local jails, the state officials said. This effort will be the key criminal- justice initiative in the State of the State Message Mr. Cuomo submits to the Legislature on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo's aides said. New State Agency Proposed Probation, the sentencing of a criminal to a term of supervision instead of prison, is currently the responsibilty of the counties or localities. Parole, the release of a criminal before the completion of his entire prison sentence, is handled by the State Division of Parole.

-estate developer, new owner of the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League, at the 68-story Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue: One does not see Donald Trump right away, though; one first must see the eight-minute slide show about Trump Tower and Donald Trump. One is ushered into a plush room - but everything about Trump Tower isplush, from the six-story-high atrium with waterfall in the marble lobby, to a pink marble football on a bronze tee in his office. (There is, however, a sense of style, and the lobby has a pianist and violinist playing in tuxedos, and the marble football has white cotton laces.) ''Can't I just skip the slide show?'' a visitor asks Trump's pleasant secretary. ''Mr. Trump would like you to see it,'' says the secretary, pleasantly, firmly.

SOMEONE said the other day that the American novel was, of course, not political: By comparison with the European novel, say Zola and the Russians, our home product was primarily domestic, unconcerned with public affairs. It was a surprise to me to learn that this strange notion was taken for granted - a truism - by common opinion; to me it was a new idea. At once a contrary list sprang into my mind, ''The Bostonians'' and ''The Princess Casamassima'' lining up with Henry Adams's ''Democracy''; behind them Mary McCarthy, the novelist and essayist, most recently published ''Ideas and the Novel.'' marched ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (''did much to hasten the American Civil War'' - Oxford Companion to English Literature) and ''The Blithedale Romance,'' Hawthorne's satire on the Brook Farm experiment in communal living; ahead were Dos Passos' ''U.S.A.,'' ''For Whom the Bell Tolls,'' right up to Norman Mailer's ''Why Are We in Vietnam?''

-turvy,'' said Walter H. Monteith Jr., president of the Southern New England Telehone Company. In the past year, Southern New England has entered unregulated communications markets for the first time, he said, and the new businesses it has started in that area are not doing as well as expected. Company officials have ''learned some hard lessons'' about competing in the business world, he added. A year ago today, Southern New England and Cincinnati Bell became the only companies in the Bell System that were free to get into unregulated businesses. This was because they were the only utilities in the system in which the American Telephone and Telegraph Company owned only a minority interest. Southern New England went right into a number of various ventures, while Cincinnati Bell took a less aggressive position.

MIAMI THE helicopter swooped down over the Orange Bowl and landed just inside the 20-yard line at the east end of the field. Several players from the University of Nebraska were giving interviews before a practice last week, and the commotion aroused their curiosity. Mike Rozier, the running back, the 1983 Heisman Trophy winner and a young man not easily distracted, was finishing with a group of reporters as the doors to the helicopter flew open. ''Who's that,'' he said, turning toward the noise, ''the President?'' It wasn't the President. But the gray-haired man with the pipe who hopped out of the helicopter might be elected President if only votes from South Florida were counted. That's the sort of impact Howard Schnellenberger, the University of Miami's coach, has had since he took over a faltering football program five years ago.

ADDITIONAL repairs on the Mianus River Bridge on the Connecticut Turnpike in Greenwich are scheduled to begin Thursday, and officials in the county and in Connecticut say they are preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. The repairs are to take five days, if weather permits, say officials in the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Contractors will remove the temporary portion and wooden approaches that were put into place following the collapse of a 100-foot section of the eastbound half of the bridge last June 28. They will also surface the steel bridge deck, constructed beneath the temporary section, with bituminous concrete. While the repairs are under way, two lanes on the other side of the bridge will be used for westbound traffic and one for eastbound. A crossover will be installed to accommodate the eastbound flow. In addition, eastbound ramps onto the turnpike, also known as Interstate 95, at exits two, three and four will be closed to ease the amount of traffic.

L ess than a decade ago, Hollywood directors, hellbent on debunking movie conventions, demystified every genre from horrors to Westerns. In films such as Mel Brooks's ''Young Frankenstein'' and Howard Zieff's ''Hearts of the West,'' movie mystiques were dissected, mocked and analyzed in Hollywood's version of Oedipal revolt. Now, the mystique seems to be back - and so are new versions of old classics or personal favorites that have tickled contemporary directors' fancy. Among Hollywood's Christmas offerings, three - ''The Man Who Loved Women,'' ''Scarface'' and ''To Be or Not To Be'' - are remakes of earlier movies, and they're only the swell of a wave that has already included ''Breathless'' last year, and that promises to crest in the coming weeks with ''Unfaithfully Yours,'' ''Against All Odds'' (''Out of the Past,'' updated), ''Where the Boys Are,'' ''Crackers'' (''Big Deal on Madonna Street'' redux) and, soon, ''The Razor's Edge.''

THE recovery in the United States has spurred a worldwide economic reawakening that should continue well into 1984 in most key industrial nations. But the pace of economic growth will slow in this country from the 6 percent rate of 1983 to between 4 and 4.8 percent in the new year, many economists agree. That is likely to have a ripple effect on other nations, slowing their economic growth as well. Consumer spending of the sort that made Christmas sales boom was at the heart of the American recovery in 1983. They are likely to continue strong in 1984, keeping the recovery going, economists predict. Consumer spending is also a big factor abroad, along with the strong dollar, which has made it easier to sell goods to the United States.

A source in the New Jersey Generals said yesterday that Lawrence Taylor, the Giants' all-pro linebacker, had signed a contract, to take effect in 1988, with the United States Football League team. Taylor's original contract with the Giants, covering six years and an option year, expires after the National Football League's 1987 season. Reports have been circulating for weeks that Taylor, who is 24 years old and in the midst of renegotiating his contract with the Giants, had signed with the Generals. The source, who asked that he not be identified, said the Generals would pay Taylor $2.7 million over four years, with annual salaries of $600,000, $650,000, $700,000 and $750,000. An option-year salary would be negotiated. In addition, the source said Taylor would receive a $1 million loan, but no signing bonus.