In the past I have linked to many cool contests, but never actually hosted my own. Well that is about to change...
Welcome to my 1st Official Contest!
It's your turn to tell me a lil' sumpin' sumpin' about yourself.
Author Barry Lyga has graciously volunteered an AUTOGRAPHED COPY of his wonderful book BOY TOY for my contest winner. Boy Toy explores the ramifications of a relationship between a 7th grade boy and his teacher.
Now we all know that such relationships are wrong. And damaging.
And just plain icky.
But who hasn't had the hots for someone they weren't supposed to?
I certainly have.
Mr. Cushing. My 11th grade English teacher. He was Hollywood hot with a subversive charm. We read The Handmaid's Tale, A Clockwork Orange, and Demian to name a few. He understood my sarcasm, my angst, and my apathy. Never once did he tell me I was squandering my potential; he just let me be me. I loved him for that. And he was so damn sexy that I even managed to stay awake in his class, most days. I learned a lot from that man and I credit that to my crush. If only he had taught Economics, instead of that ogre Father Glass...
It was a harmless crush. It never crossed that line. And I'm sure you've had one of those yourself. So, here is your task: TELL US ALL A LIL' SUMPIN' SUMPIN' ABOUT YOUR MOST ILLICIT CRUSH. That time you were hot for teacher, or for that den leader, or that cute rabbi whose pants were too tight, or your best friend's mom, or the local Lolita, or that cousin that wrote poetry and windsurfed into your heart.
Of course, only write about an UNREQUITED LOVE. No tales that would force me to call the authorities or throw up in my mouth.
The best crush story wins the prize. Best being completely arbitrary, I know. But think salacious, honest, funny or tender, and well crafted. I'm open to a variety of forms; haiku, short essay, rhyming couplets, rambling.
I can't wait to read all your entries- post them below by August 28th!
A winner will be announced on August 31st. Best of luck!
I have one that I think is actually fairly common. I had a crush on the dad of a set of kids that I babysat for. He was tall, young-ish, still had a full set of thick hair, plus he was a lawyer.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the dads in the neighborhood were sort of MIA. The moms would call me to babysit, the moms would go through the routine, the mom would pay me and and at the end of the night make sure I got home safely. The dads could barely muster a "goodbye" as they were swept out of the house. Or a hello when they got home if the mom was meeting him straight from work.
I guess this dad must have been around more often, because I remember him being funny. He must have tried to joke with me, or you know, at least knew my name. Maybe that's why I had a crush?
Anyway, I knew that it was super inappropriate, so in order to hide my crush, instead of acting "normal" around him, I'd try to ignore him. No siree, his wife would not catch me trying to make eye contact. My eyes were suddenly very interested in the tile pattern on the floor when he walked in. Flirting? Ha! I was mute around him. No words would come out, nothing could be misconstrued.
Eventually my sister took over the babysitting responsibilities. I should ask her if she had the same crush. Or at least if they ever talked about how weird it was that I was two totally different people around them. Sigh, clearly that would indicate a crush too.
Haiku 0 - Rambling 1
Pink Socks
ReplyDeleteI was pretty sure she knew everything. It wasn't just that she was amazing at math which I was failing at the time, or that she had spent more time on the elusive East coast. But I was sure she was a creative genius, proved by her writing, acting and fashion sense, and I was sure she could look in my eyes and tell I'd been thinking about her all day, and that I longed equally to kiss her and be her at the same time.
She did theatre. Like she wasn't just in a theatre class but she DID theatre. As a whole medium. She was a junior in high school while I was a mere freshman, and she was rumored to have written a one woman show. It would have been more than a rumor if I had dared to talk to her more than I did.
The fact is, we only really spoke three or four times with no one else around. She told me about going to a queer bar. I had no clue what that meant, but figured it was somehow related to the small rainbow pin on her backpack.
I did everything I could think of to get her attention. And by everything, I mean I copied everything cool about her. I listened to the non-awkward way she laughed, and I practiced it in a mirror. I watched her draw on the back of her hand and spent hours doodling designs up to my elbows. When she got a haircut that was angled, I tried my darndest to get my curly, floppy mop to create a definable shape.
While she had a small rainbow pin, I had a pink triangle I personally cut out of an old sock. It frayed at the end and was incredibly far from being triangular, but I wore it proudly for two days until it rained.
In the end, I ended up being the one who moved to the East Coast. Before I left, I wrote her an embarassing, anonymous letter in which I quoted song lyrics and confessed my secret love. She responded only with a wink when she signed my yearbook.
Now, when I think of her, she was not at all my type. She was not at all butch. She was not shaped like a teddy bear. Rather, she was someone similar to current myself, a writer, an activist, a nerd. It's possible that I was in love with her, but more likely, I think I had a crush on future me, the person I wanted to become, someone confident, funny, artistic. If I had known that then, maybe we could have been friends. And maybe I would have had two pink socks.
Goddamn, this is a tough one. Alas, most of my crushes were normal as hell. The attractive girl with big brown eyes. The other attractive girl with big green eyes. The slightly less attractive but still pretty damn attractive girl with big blue eyes. And so on. However, there was the time (in fourth grade) when I had a huge crush on this girl--WHOSE NAME SHALL GO UNMENTIONED (just in case she's the self-Googling type)--and my best friend in the world asked her out before I had the chance to.
ReplyDeleteExcept, see, this was fourth-grade-asking-out, and fourth-grade-asking-out meant you asked your best friend to ask the girl out for you. And since I was my best friend's best friend, I had to go over there, all the way across the Goddamn blacktop playground, to ask out the girl I had a crush on FOR my best friend. It was humiliating, to say the least, and crushing, to say somewhat more than the least.
Basically, it was the worst thing to happen to the ten-year-old version of me.
Much to my chagrin, this beautiful, wonderful girl who I adored in every which way said yes, and I was forced to relay the good news to my friend in as excited a way as possible. Talk about difficult. Understand--I couldn't let anyone know that I had a crush on this girl! Because, firstly, my best friend was now "going out with her" and I was as loyal as loyal gets, and secondly, that would just be too embarrassing to admit anyway, regardless of whether or not my best friend was "going out" with her.
They fourth-grade-dated for a year, until fifth grade, at which point she moved far away, forever and ever and ever. And I was left there longing...not for her so much as the desire to have told her this thing that I thought about for so damn long. Basically, I wanted to know if she liked me, even just a little bit. I wanted to know if she would have said yes to me if I had asked her out.
Oh well, says I, fifteen years later.
So many crushes, so little space to write about them... I guess the one that makes the most sense to bring up on here though, is one mini-crush I once had on an older man while I was in high school. He was the father to a girl I knew- not a friend, just a classmate. It was less of a crush and more of an intense admiration and the desire to be noticed. He was kind, funny, caring and a great person. Obviously it was not the kind of crush that you have on someone your own age, which results in thoughts of wanting to kiss the crush and wanting to be asked out to the movies by him. I remember feeling really excited and a bit too happy when he came to prom junior year to chaperone or something, and told me that I looked pretty. Now when I think about those days, I laugh. Mostly because the entire thing was ridiculous, but also because I'm a little creeped out. Nothing ever would have happened, but we will always have that prom moment. Swoon...! ;)
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