You make me feel like I’m living a teenage dream. The way you turn me on, I can’t sleep.
The fact that I write YA makes me have to think back to what I was like as a teenager…then I realize that it has been six years since I graduated high school and all of a sudden I feel like an old woman…an old immature woman that still giggles at the word ‘felatio.’
Originally when I started thinking of writing this post I wanted to talk about my celebrity crushes from high school, the guys I longed after my junior/senior year and really show my age. But then…the funny part was…I couldn’t think of any celebrity crushes that I had. (I guess that only comes after being married and longing after American Idol contestants…) So I started to think, what was I like junior year of high school? WHO was I lusting after?
That’s where the above picture comes in. That band is called The Color Morale and the leader singer is Garret Rapp- originally from my hometown of Winnebago, IL. So do I know him? *giggleteenagegirlblush* Of course I know him and have spent hours staring at him while he worked behind the counter at the local skate park! I mean…what? Okay, yeah it’s true I did used to have the biggest crush on him. He always had that shaggy skater boy look and was the lead singer in various local bands which equals immediate eye candy for every screaming girl in the area.
Just thinking about that brought out my inner most teenage girl crush-ridden gushiness. The way my friends and I would spend our Saturday nights getting ready—lacing up our converse sneakers and zipping up our patch covered hoodies—trying to act like we weren’t trying too hard, but we were totally hoping that Garret would talk to us after the show or even show up at Perkins where we would hang out after the show. (Okay this was actually before it was cool to do this. I was NOT a scene kid, scene kids didn’t even exist when we were in high school. I had a few friends that actually went to shows and we got made fun of for painting our nails black and wearing converse.)
So today’s musings (besides the fact that now my teenage crush has a record deal and is opening for bands like The Used—awesome), is to get back to that teenage girl feeling. To remember what it was like to wait all day just for them to look at you and then smile and giggle when they did. The feeling you got when the boy you dreamed of asking you out, did just that. (Note: Teenage girls…do they still call it “going out”? That’s what it always was when I was in high school you were “going out with him,” not dating or “seeing each other,” but “going out.” Am I not with the times?) I’ve been writing a practice manuscript while the last bit of critique notes come in from my partners on HOW TO DATE AN ALIEN and it’s the perfect place to get in all my teenage girl gushiness and then later add them into my manuscript. It’s actually quite fun and even though my husband thinks it’s crazy that his pregnant wife sometimes acts like a teenage girl…he still loves me and all my weirdness.
Who was your teenage dream? What do you do to inspire that inner teenager? Do they still call it “going out”?
