wifercize wednesday: crushes, part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of my discomfiting chronicle of grade school and high school crushes.  Your comments are not only appreciated but necessary to the purging process.  Don't leave me hanging.

Now, where were we?  Grade 11?

My obligatory crush on a poster boy for the 90s (long, greasy hair, wore plaid shirts, rocked out to Green Day and Nirvana) came in the form of Blair Brandon.  On Valentine's Day our school organized several "O-Grams" that students could purchase and the money benefited...something.  No doubt our swim team.  Malvern had an amazing swim team.  I was not on it.  One option was a "Stalker-O-Gram" or "Picture-O-Gram" or something equivalent - it could be purchased anonymously, and required someone to take a picture of your crush on your behalf, delivering it to you a few days later since I went to high school in the 90s and WE STILL USED FILM.  When the photo of Blair Brandon, donning his signature backwards Boston Bruins baseball cap, arrived secretly during homeroom class I swore I would never throw it out.  That was until he slow danced with my best friend at our school's video dance party later that month to Seal's Kiss From a Rose.  Which not only broke my heart but also destroyed my image of his cool, 90s charade.  Seal is so mainstream.

I was Luke Lockyer's girlfriend a total of four times.  Each time, I broke up with him.  The first time, we remained an item for the duration of history class (with Mr. Nider), geography class (with Mr. Butts - no joke), the period of 12 hours following (spent at our respective houses, sleeping), and before morning announcements I had broken up with him.  Via a letter I gave to him via a mutual friend.  The details of other three times allude me, but they were similar in cowardice.  Via his pager (remember pagers?), via the phone, etc.  We wrote bad poetry to each other.  Not bad-indecent, just bad-clumsy.  He wrote one entitled "Confusion" (no doubt due to our on-again-off-again relationship status) and I responded, appropriately, with "Confusion: The Reply".  Suddenly Melissa Etheridge's lyrics meant so much when I heard them on _____, "I don't care what they think / I don't care what they say / what do they know about this love anyway?", and when I reheard them on mix cassettes from Luke.  He went out on a limb and began writing song lyrics of his own for me and made a mix cassette of those too: "I'm walking in the snow / Like Pierre Elliot Trudeau" touched me deeply although it's impossible to say why.  We may have continued our volatile relationship had it not been for my switch to private school for my OAC year.  That, and my brothers' discovery of Luke's musical debut on tape and consequent mockery.  Which continues to this day.

Philip Holman both frustrated and intrigued me.  His marks were first in almost all our classes (I believe I beat him in English), while I couldn't shake the #2 placement, and we often sat together in alphabetized seating arrangements, Holman and Hunter.  Although his intelligence drew me in, his constant teasing (and the stubborn fact that I was a sore loser) guaranteed that the crush never fully developed.  Jerk.

A friend of mine, Charis, asked when I was going to write about the boys who crushed on me.  A valid question, and one that is mighty temping (I still have old poems and hijinxs committed to memory), but my story is the only one I can tell properly and it delves into the touchy subject of exes which I have written about previously.  Besides, the only boy who crushed on me that matters is the one who I married.

wifercize wednesday: crushes, part 1

After watching Easy A (three times in two weeks) and then Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (which is arguably the best movie ever filmed) I began to recall the angst of high school days, and high school crushes.  You know the kind: the relationships that launched, flourished, and terminated without ever materializing outside of your own contemplations.  The crushes you (still) refer to by their First and Last Names.

The tales only made tolerable through self-deprecating humour and, preferably, Emma Stone playing a quirkier, prettier, more triumphant version of your high school self.

All names used are real.  I apologize if you just now discovered that I am blogging about our fictitious romance over a decade after we went to school together through the magic and horror of Google.  But, then again, you're the one Googling yourself so we can share in the humiliation.

First came Hart Massie.  I didn't realize that his first name was effeminate or his last name derived from the famous Massie family.  I just thought he was cute.  We began "going together" (my mother's term) sometime at the end of grade eight, after our year-end trip to Québec City.  Halfway through summer holiday a friend asked me, "Hey, how's Hart?"  I had completely forgotten we were dating. I called him up and we both agreed that a forgettable relationship was one which didn't require continuation.

His best friend, Dave Foster, systematically dated each of the girls in our group of friends starting with me.  He asked me out by tucking a piece of paper into an the case of an empty permanent marker and passing it to me during class.  The note read: "Would you like to go out?" and two boxes accompanied the proposal, a YES and NO.  I checked YES.  We broke it off a week later.

Ingmar Mak was my first alterna-crush.  He was Asian, super smart, creative, hilarious and quick.  Too quick.  Once, during a class we shared, the teacher had not shown up (this detail, in retrospect, is peculiar - what teacher just doesn't show up for class?) and we were all busying ourselves by doodling on the chalkboard.  For reasons beyond comprehension, I took a piece of chalk and wrote "I ♥ INGMAR" in billboard-sized font.  BUT: I WROTE IT IN CODE.  It was a stealthy code used in many intimate high school correspondences between girls.  It was airtight.  Except that Ingmar knew the code.  And Ingmar was confident enough in his findings to summon my, and everyone else's, attention.  "Sarah, does that say I ♥ INGMAR?"  In my panic, I recanted.  "What?  No.  Did you think-?  Oh, no, not what I wrote.  You're probably thinking of the other code..."  I improvised a variation of the well-known code and wrote it up on the board for all to see.  I only discovered later that, according to my made up code, I had written "I ♥ INGQAV" which was not only a phonetic impossibility but also eerily resembled Ingmar's name.

Mack Fyfe, or Matthew Ian Fredrick Darian Fyfe, had the coolest name I had ever heard.  We were schoolmates and also performed together in musical performances at the community Beaches Arts Centre.  Our British director, Anne Butler, referred to us as "hooligans" and spent half of our precious rehearsal time telling us to pay attention.  He is one of a handful of people who can match my energy level.  In a performance of Good News!, a musical, Mack's character said of my character: "She's like a wool sweater.  Hot and drives you crazy!" and, in Jack the Ripper (again, another musical, if you can believe it) his character referred to my character as "Slaggy".  I thought it was endearing until I found out it was a British form of "skank".

Poor Tristan Ticmanis was keen to get my phone number for what seemed like the majority of grade 10. I finally acquiesced by giving him all the digits of my phone number except the last one.  I changed the last one.  That's how cunning I was.  It took him a few months and then he worked out that the phone number I gave him was not the same as the phone number all of our other friends had for me.  I pleaded insanity.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week.  This is too good to give to you all in one dose.

wifersize wednesday: beard, beard, no beard?

In honour of Movember, which is fast approaching, I'd like to outline my feelings on beards.  Or, indeed, facial hair in general.

The fascination with beards began at a tender age.  I'd sit on the edge of the bathtub and observe my dad shave in the bathroom mirror.  Not completely shave, mind you, as it was the height of the 80s and my dad sported a nifty Tom Selleck:

Because he was my dad, I naturally came to the conclusion that mustaches were the embodiment of manliness. I also became acutely aware that girls did not possess the powers of facial hair, since dad's kisses were scratchy and mom's weren't.

My girl friends and I spent high school mocking the peach fuzz that began to encroach on the upper lips of our male peers.  One of my first poems, entitled "Men", was published in the yearbook, much to my delight and my mother's horror, that began with the lines:

men are weird

men grow beards

and pathetic little 'staches

that make them feel 

cool

I fancied a number a few hardly any guys before I dated Andrew, almost all of which exhibited the goatee/soul patch.  I'm not sure when or why I acquired this penchant but I know it began to dwindle at the end of university, which coincided with the height of the metrosexual era.  The equation became: smooth faced boys = desirable. 

Something odd occurred when Andrew and I began our relationship.  He had a goatee at first (which, clearly, since I was so over that I wasn't thrilled about)...and I began to like goatees.  Then he Bic™ shaved once or twice...and I switched back to preferring him clean-shaven.  In spite of my protestation, he grew a full beard to celebrate Movember a few years ago...and I ended up liking that too.  At the end of the month he shaved all but a fat, caterpillar of a mustache that not only reminded me of my dad in the 80s (see above) but also took on a personality of its own as Andrew narrated things like, "The Mustache feels like Chinese food tonight.  The Mustache would like to watch television.  The Mustache made me do it."  Imagine my terror when, at the end of a week, I EVEN LIKED THE HORRIBLE, ANIMATED 80S MUSTACHE.

My theory is this:

I don't care what it is, just as long as it's on him.

Andrew's Italian hair follicles are similar to those of a wild boar - making his smooth face turns spiky by the end of a day, which I adore and is a lovely way to exfoliate.  Plus, his cheek/chin have a lovely way of retaining his yummy scent so I generally spend a lot of time around that area.  It doesn't matter what he's doing - kissing me in return, responding to emails, doing laundry, trying to sleep...  He concedes to my endless kissing as a water buffalo accepts the bird riding on its back.

My poetry matured along with my taste in men, thankfully, and Andrew's scruff inspired one called "Barbed" early on in our dating phase:

like fresh cut grass
on bare feet
his cheek
is ticklish
and pricklish
and delish
my kisses are quick
small skips
on fresh cut grass
it’s my little field of dreams
it’s my little corner lot
it’s my little Brillo pad
more dangerous still
than sandpaper,
though,
are the days
when a razor clears the way
for thoughts too hot to hold
so soft
so smooth
so…
a little barbed wire
to protect a treasure
is not
such
a bad idea

Recently I have fallen for the latest ad campaign from French Connection featuring a handsomely coutured and bearded male model.  Imagine my delight to discover it has made an appearance on our own Bloor Street with the declaration "THIS IS THE MAN.  FEEL LIKE WOLF":

Movember marks a special season in the lives of my gentlemen friends.  They begin to sprout all manners of facial growth, from full beards to Fu Manchus to handlebar mustaches to dirty-French-lip-hair.  My own brother ended up like this last year:

Upon the discovery of PicnicFace's infamous Beard, No Beard Movember madness reached fever pitch.  The possibilities were endless: beard, beard, no beard? beard, beard, MOOOSTACHE.



For further reading, I recommend visiting The Beard Revue which features art inspired by facial hair including this desktop wallpaper and handy legend (click to see larger image):