The most notable reading memory

I read books everywhere as a kid, not excluding the shower sometimes, where I would prop it up on that shampoo holder thingy.

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The Baby-sitters Club was the real deal, people.

The 4th grade memory

In 4th grade our classroom was set up in a big ‘U’, though less rounded and more angular. (I’m sure there might actually be a math shape that matches what I’m trying to explain. So there’s some foreshadowing for you.) And my teacher at some point had put me and my best friend at opposite ends of the U – the harder to communicate with each other, I’m assuming. So one day, for whatever reason I still can’t believe I was dumb enough to do (though I know I did it factually), I decided to slither out of my seat and crawl around the back of the U to pass a note to my friend.

SURPRISINGLY I was seen by my teacher and busted, about five desks down the row.

I also got my first D that year, in math, and in retrospect, I kinda don’t blame my teacher for not liking me much. 4th grade was not a banner year for me. My big turnaround was 5th grade, in part because my Pat Benatar haircut had grown out.

The end.

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ETA: I’ve decided that if my first random memory tomorrow is not somehow affirming, I’m skipping it until one pops up. I have had more success in my life than my subconscious is trying to show so far, ha. 🙂

The uncle wedding memory part one

I had just turned 12 when my uncle and aunt married. I wore a flowered dress with a fat, plastic belt that slid into the buckle but had no holes or prong, and my favorite party trick for the night was to push my belly out and make the belt slide out. And at some point in the evening I went into the bathroom and got the back of my dress tucked up into my panty hose.

I mention that because it pretty much sets the stage. I’m truly not kidding when I say my life – glasses included – has always sounded like perfect fodder for virtually every Liz Lemon skit I see on 30 Rock. Who was voted Book Worm? This girl. Holla!

So my new aunt had a stepsomethingthirdremoved who was a year or so older than me, that at the time I had a wicked crush on. Wicked crush. Naturally, someone convinced Hottie McCousinson to ask me to dance (perhaps to earn an Eagle badge?). While out there, my other uncle moseyed on up and started teasing me about it.

While I was shuffling around. Awkwardly slow dancing. Because uncles suck like that.

And in retrospect I wonder if maybe he wasn’t teasing me at all, he was just trying to tell me my drawers were showing, I don’t know. But I still look back on that and blush with total humiliation; I really do. Because I should have sarcastically (and wittily, if one can dream) told my uncle to take a hike. Or I should have pulled Tall Blondeyguy away from the dance floor under pretenses of being thirsty. But instead I just swayed back and forth, refusing to look up (or sideways) to make eye contact with anyone, red as a beet. I have no idea what dude thought, but it surely was filled with admiration for my obvious badassery.

Oh, no wait. That can’t be right. He was most likely desperately trying to look anywhere except at the unicorns prancing across my ass.

Regardless, we didn’t work out, thankfully. Probably because we were not-really-but-enough-to-be-awkwardly related. And because I moved away eventually. And he was older than me. Or, because I was rocking the Midnight Oil song they played over and over, sliding around on the dance floor on my slippery feet, pretending I was doing the one iconic Risky Business move I knew, since I in retrospect was definitely not old enough to have seen the entire movie yet.

And that is why there is only one tag appropriate for this story, from beginning to end.

Wait, what?

Whaddyamean you don’t want me to house-sit for you? I’m Martha Stewart!

… on crack, apparently.