So I am making a mix for Rosemary and I put Hi-Five�s "I Can�t Wait Another Minute" on it. It made me remember a whole bunch of girls who I haven�t thought of in a long time�really really strange. Memories of school dances where they say "snowball," and then people switch partners. Dances where you dance awkwardly with the girl of your dreams (at that time it may have been Kristi Witek) or maybe just with a friend who, for that one moment, saw that you looked sad because you were alone and thought that maybe she would just make your day and come dance with you. I remember one dance where the only true Valentine girlfriend I had (up until college), Jenny Lang (who I later lost track of because we ran in different crowds�even I can be elitist sometimes, and she became a�gasp!--stoner in high school) stood me up. I called her at her friend Erin�s house from the school office over and over again. I think she was even crying in the background�for some reason she thought that I didn�t like her�the girl who was my first kiss on the lips (at the roller rink, gone now, with Dale Keem watching, pointing, and laughing).
But sometimes, at those dances, magical things happened. Like the end of my eighth grade year. I had a crush (one of about three that she received from me in three years of Riley School) on Candy Irons. She was my first girlfriend, in seventh grade. I never kissed her but she once wrote in my yearbook "Party on�and save the last piece of pizza for me". I think we held hands on the bus once or twice in those blissful five weeks that we were together.
Anyway, I was at the last school dance of junior high, and I had a really big crush on Candy. Real big. There was just something about her�everyone knows how that goes. So the last song of the last dance ever (or so it seemed)(until high school) came on, and in one of those moments where life is really poetic, it was Vanessa Williams�"Save the Best For Last." I pretty much hated that song until that night.
In my infinite wallflowerishness, I had given up on telling Candy that I liked her again. I was never good at admitting a crush. Most people aren�t�like that dog says, "by definition, a crush must hurt".
So Vanessa Williams comes on and I am really sad and almost crying and people are pairing up and I am feeling a little like Kevin Arnold without his Winnie. Which is pretty sad. Borderline pathetic.
I think I was leaning on the pushed-back bleachers wondering how I could be such a loser when I see someone weaving in and out of the crowd towards me. Whoever this is, I can tell that she is making it a point to walk towards me. I figure that it must be Vanessa Kaeplinger�one of those girls who decides she likes you when you don�t think of her that way, and once she moves on, you can�t believe you didn�t think of her that way. Vanessa liked me then and so I figure that must be who it is.
Ohmigodohmigodohmigod.
Candy saved the best for last. And the best, for the last, was me.
We didn�t talk. We just danced. It was one of those moments where you really do believe that the next step in human evolution will be telepathy because we both just knew what each other was thinking. We were going to be older soon, in high school�and we just wanted to save the best for last. The crush no longer mattered, because I knew for that one moment that our hearts were beating together, and that a moment like that should not be changed by me telling her that I liked her. She was my friend Candy, who had gone through a lot with me in the past and who was now acknowledging that she appreciated me as much as I appreciated her. And for four minutes or so, the world was nothing but a couple of eigth graders, a sappy song, and a lifetime of memories.
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Please say a prayer for my grandma and grandpa for me tonight, if you are into that sorta thing. my grandpa--we called him "pops"--died four years ago today. i was much more confortable with that back when i was more sure about god and such. so keep him in mind and take a moment of silence or something for me. thanks.
love,
metraboy
p.s. happy valentine's day.
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"each night when we go to bed i pray
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--the jayhawks, "take me with you(when you go)"
