June 23rd, 2005
111946995110184302
The incredible, shrinking internet, and a brief summary of first love (part 1)
I’m going to tell you a story. It’s not very short, or very interesting, but it’s a rather personal and self-serving soliloquy, so knowing this you can decide whether to read on or wait until I make another post about bad Japanese English and talking cats.
Ok, fair warning.
When I was in high school, I was probably like most people. I felt extremely confident on a rare occasion, and for the most part worried about what other people thought of me. I took a big swipe out of my nerd factor by ditching my replica Steve Urkel glasses at the end of junior high, scoring both contacts and a night-only retainer. I tried dating because it was something uncharted and interesting, and there were a number of girls on my level with similar feelings. The hormones might of had something to with it too.
So like all nascent attempts at relationships, I went through all the bad kissers and hand-holders before I got to my first love. Now love at seventeen is quite a different thing from love at twenty-five (especially if there is a lot of other failed love in between), but don’t tell that to anyone seventeen or they’ll just tune you out and go back to listening to “The Joshua Tree”. It just so happened that right before my seventeenth birthday the girl down the street that I had adored forever broke up with me because she couldn’t return the intensity and passion I was bubbling over with. It crushed me and it was everything I could do to not to ruin my long list of extra curricular activities from the sorrow. Among other things, I was in charge of writing and directing a skit for the homecoming pep rally as it was, and I had a contingent of very dutiful freshmen girls playing the roles of spirited TJ cheerleaders A, B, and C. As it was C had other obligations (so she said) and feeling especially sorry for my plight, introduced me to a replacement, who was equally supportive of my emotional malaise (and even cuter).
And that’s how I met Mari, with whom I had the most sorted, passionate, and crazy relationship ever. I’m sure that being seventeen and in love for the first time was a big part of it, but to her credit I’d still say that she is the most spirited and loving person I’ve ever met.
We had all the trappings of a textbook high school love story, with some extra drama thrown in for good measure. Up until this point I’d always been a straight-A shooter and had no reason to even need time-based restrictions. But now I had my Charger, and everyday I wanted to be with Mari more than anything else. So either she and I were hanging out at my house and perpetually ten minutes late for her curfew, or I was wrapped up with her on the sofa at her house and two hours late for mine (much to the consternation of my father). He may or may not have disliked her, but it probably was mostly that he didn’t like the things I did because of her. It was always third gear and swinging around the curves north of town, godammit how could we be late again?! Her mother and father separated shortly after we started seeing each other, so I didn’t have to worry too much about all those half-jokes about him having a gun. But her mother was pretty good at getting angry, and that was never helpful for fitting in with the family.
Though we took her little brother and sister trick-or-treating around her house, our first real date was to go see Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in Romeo and Juliet. I was late picking her up in a really bad green and white Structure cotton sweater, having gotten thoroughly lost driving my calculus tutor home, with whom I didn’t really even study calculus (I just talked about Mari). [His name was Geoff, but he made the big mistake of telling us that some people called him "Ug", due to his stunning full beard and stout, caveman-like posture. He grew incredibly bitter after we tried so hard (good-naturedly) to set him up with a date for prom, because he thought we were making fun of him. He went to Carnegie Mellon and left the year before I got there. I think he was in the robotics club.] Mari was understandably upset, but I think she got over it quickly enough because I really don’t remember seeing the second half of the movie.
The first time we kissed actually was at my seventeenth birthday party, the first of four great celebrations I would throw my senior year of high school. She unabashedly adored me with all her heart, and I think I was just incredibly dense because it didn’t sink in at all until we were outside and pressed against the brick wall of my house with sparks flying. She gave me a black leather belt (as I only had one that was brown), which I had to get my dad to drill holes in for me because I was (am) so thin.
Those first couple of weeks seemed like quite a long period, probably because it was the most I was ever with one person on an daily basis. Homecoming was in November, and she looked more beautiful than any high school girl show ever be allowed to. We weren’t a bad couple actually, because at that time I still got sleep and a regular diet and it showed in my grooming. I bought her a yellow corsage for her emerald green dress, and I received a white carnation on my father’s navy blazer. We danced to a terrible DJ, but Oasis’ “Wonderwall” made the night and I can’t remember being happier than driving home with her hand on top of mine on top of that worn, vinyl gearshift.
sleep( 500 );
