Nostal-gebra

Before you ask… no, this is not a blog about my love and longing for algebra. Seriously… I loathe math. BUT – lately I’ve been feeling really, really nostalgic. I’m not sure why (“maybe it’s because you’re in your mid 30s and feeling O.L.D.,” says the a**hole), but I keep having these little longings in my heart for things I felt in my youth. And it’s funny, because it’s not that any of it is sad stuff I’m thinking about… but there is something about it that gives me… well… an ache. Particularly when I think about highschool.

“Seriously… highschool,” the reader asks?

Yes. Highschool.

This all started several weeks ago when I read that first TWILIGHT book (she says with audible humiliation). Yes! I drank the kool-aid and succumbed to the peer pressure and read the stupid book. And well… it was better than I thought it would be. Let me first say that overall, I don’t really care about vampires. They just don’t interest me at all… I know that I’m HUH-WAYYYY in the minority here – but I just don’t find them compelling or sexy. But I will say this… I LOVE reading about love! Especially young, teenage, first time, obsessive love! For example, those early scenes in the book –-- looooved them! You know, when Bella first meets Vampire Ed, and their eyes meet for the first (and second and third) time, and then she starts looking for him as she turns every corner at school just hoping to catch a glimpse of him… oh man, that totally got me! I mean look, I’m a happily married woman. Very happily married. But I will say that what Stephanie Meyer has in her writing is an uncanny way of describing those early feelings of a crush. Not just a little crush mind you… but a CATASTROPHIC crush… Remember that angst, lust and heat?

Oh Gawwwwd I do! In fact, I remember Tamara Woodis and I trying different routes between classes just to figure out WHICH route would cross paths with our CRUSH! And it was really frickin frustrating sometimes!! We’d meet up between class (our lockers were close together) and be like, “Did you see him? Did you see him” --- and many MANY times it was, “No!” DAMNIT! But a stroke of genius hit me one morning when I realized that my crush (I won’t tell you his name, but his initials were B.J. and it rhymes with Rett Ohnson) would be coming from Mr. Klein’s office before my Algebra class (which was just a few doors down the hall), so all I had to do was take the stairs by the old gym, and… and… and HOLE. EEEE. SHIT – I could totally start running into him!!! – Suddenly Algebra was something I looked forward to! I would get to class, just after seeing my crush, and while Mr. Remmert taught us the importance of the Pythagorean Theorem (which is A-squared + B-squared = C-squared – that’s right Mr. Remmert, it was not all for naught)… I would daydream about Rett…

Ooooooooooooooooooh doctor… I’m just saying… those were good times, although to be honest, not that great while it was going on. I mean, I was a total leper to boys in Highschool… I couldn’t get a date to ANYTHING. I was the total choir nerd, good girl, who was afraid of her own shadow. But I look back on her fondly and just wish I’d been more brave. But here I am years later, and actually, I still have a lot of that highschool girl in me. In fact, I’m still afraid of my own shadow… and I still always hear my a**hole criticizing me. Case in point… it’s giving me hell RIGHT NOW! It’s saying, “This is the 6th time you’ve written this stupid blog entry, over FOUR days… and it still sucks.” --- But I’ve decided to ignore her (my a**hole is a she). I’ve decided to just write what comes to me, and put it out there. Because SOMETHING is telling me too. Something other than the a**hole. I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve decided to trust it – that’s right…. I’m going to trust the shit out of it… so hear goes. Blog #4 – is now posted… and I don’t really like it to be honest.