“Barry,” my cousin Mike said, “I think it’s time.” It was clear that my brother didn’t feel the same way, but he only shrugged, which Mike took as agreement. “Dave,” he said, giving the words as much gravity as he could muster, “Go get the dictionary.” I was nine years old, and a tag-along. I’d walked in on my brother telling a story about how—during school that morning—a girl he knew got her period in the middle of French class. And I laughed like the dickens. And then they called me on it. After I’d lugged the dictionary down from the spare room, Mike told me to look up the word period and read out the definition. “The end of a cycle, a series of events, or a single action?” “Keep going,” he said. “The full pause with which a sentence closes?” “Not that.” “An interval of geologic—“ “Gimme that!” He yanked the book towards him, read down the page, and pointed me towards the definition he’d found. Menstruation: the monthly discharge of blood from the uterus of nonpregnant women from pu...
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My first crush was on Disney's animated Robin Hood - yes, the fox. In the cartoon. As voiced by Brian Bedford.
He was so gallant, kind, great with kids, and willing to risk his life for those he cared about.
Most of all -- he spoke with an AMAZING British accent. My crushes on articulate British men are well known and persist to this day, but this was the first.
My "definitive" crush was on Joey from New Kids on the Block. I continue to enjoy ridiculously rich men to this day.
I mean sheesh! You think you know someone.
My first crush was on my teacher Mrs. Young.
The thing about a definitive crush for me is that, well, I don't really have one.
I had crushes on all different kinds of girls.
Even Dave!
I'm sorry that your crush template was British and articulate, and I turned out to be neither.
But at least I'm a fox, because I'm so incredibly hot--and also, I like to sneak into barns and bite chickens in the neck.
A cocky boy, fond of track suits and ball hockey. Knew 10 x 10 was a hundred (I claimed it was 20.)
Mr. Flash card genius was in the highest math and reading groups, the ones with names like "The A-1s" or "The Superstars" versus the ones like "The Donkey Kongs".
Pattern one: smart obnoxious boys.
But even then he had the whiff of the Canadian beer commercial, the quintessential well-adjusted everyman (circa 1982 anyway).
Pattern two: boys so acceptable I always seem like a feakshow in comparison.
Three years later he pinned me against a portable in jailbreak and I remember my knees buckling. I got my best friend to ask his best friend if he liked me. The answer was "NO!"
Pattern three: boys who are emotionally expressive only in what they are not capable of.
I like to imagine he grew up into a man with an unidentifiable office job, maybe in insurance, who floods and freezes his backyard for his kids to play hockey on. The kind of man my babysitter was married to and who might not even exist anymore.
Regardless, he doesn't have an identifiable Google identity so anything is possible.