Crushes...A Window To The Soul? Oh Dear God I Hope Not!

Ok, time for a totally pointless entry. Every good blog has one right?  There is no moral story here, no lesson to be learned, just good ol' fashion randomness and unproductive thinking.  Nothing about this entry will make you examine your choices in life and ask you to reconsider your thinking.  In fact, this entry probably won't ask you to do much thinking at all.  If this is as appealing to you as it was to me, than please continue on this journey of poor time management.  

     Let me first start of by asking you to read this without judgement.  Don't be scared, just know that I make no apologies for my sense of humor, or what you might consider lack thereof.  So, as you might have guessed by the title of this blog entry, this is about crushes.  The word 'crush' has the ability to cause very different reactions in people. For example, when you hear the word crush you.... 

• Giggle at the sound of it, remembering with fondness all your past crushes or maybe even a current one, and how cute he or she was/is.  
• Shudder at the sound of it, remembering with mortification  all your past crushes and praying to God that no one ever finds out you had a crush on THAT guy/girl.  
• Immediately start bawling your eyes out over 'the one that got away' or in some cases 'the one that filed a restraining order against you after one too many late night stalking sessions'.  
• Panic, thinking maybe someone knows that you are crushing on someone right now and that they are going to blow your 'I just like them as a friend' cover you've been using for the last couple months.  
• Smugly insist that you never have crushes because crushes are for teenage girls and you are far too mature and confident to have a lowly crush, in which case I would have to refer to you from this point on as a BIG FAT LIAR!  

     And if you are anything like me, you experience all of the above reactions simultaneously. That being said, crushes are inevitable and universal.  No one is above having crushes, and unfortunately you can't always control the outcome of your crush.  But, you CAN choose to find the humor in your past crushes  and use them to make other people laugh, hopefully with you and not at you.  This is precisely what I felt like doing, using my past crushes to bring some much needed comic relief to the all work and no play lifestyle that so many of us get wrapped up in.

     So let's go back to a time of innocence when my life revolved around jolly ranchers, foursquare, and a boy named Tyler.  Ahh, Tyler. I was in elementary school, probably 3rd or 4th grade, and I was most definitely in love with Tyler.  I mean, he pushed me on the swings for goodness sake, that move still works on me today.  He had blonde hair and blue eyes and he was like so popular.  I can remember the most exciting part of my day was when I heard the glorious ringing of the bell, signaling the sweet release into recess.  I had to make sure I made it to the foursquare court faster than the other girls so that I was first in line to compete, yes compete, for a chance to be Tyler's girlfriend during recess that day.  It was me versus all the girls who were eyeballing my man, which was a lot because like I said, he was like sooo popular.  I had my game face on and I looked my opponents square in the eye as if to say, "let's do this."  I winked at Tyler who was standing close by like a king watching the women of the village fight to be his queen,  and let's just say he was into it.   I was taking down opponents one by one without even breaking a sweat when 'she' walked over.  Her name was Kiley and she was enemy numero uno.  I had lost many a battle to this girl, and today I was determined to take her down.  She had been on the arm of my man one too many times, and I needed to put her in her place.  Well, yada yada yada, I lost to that little b word again, and she walked off into the sunset with her king leaving me in the dust.  That was my first experience of a crush gone wrong, and let's be honest...it sucked!
     Fast forward a couple years to the oh so horrifying middle school years.  The hallways are filled with girls with side ponytails towering over boys the size of smurfs.  The boys try desperately to make up for their 'short'comings by wearing pants that are 3 sizes to big and shirts that could fit the jolly green giant, thus making them look like what I and my fellow wolf-pack brother like to call, ra-tards.  I discovered quickly that I wouldn't be finding Mr. Right in the hallways of Daly Middle School, so I expanded my horizons and turned to HOLLYWOOD!  I needed only to turn on the t.v. or open the pages of Tiger Beat to find my next crush, and boy did I.  My walls were covered in posters of JTT (Jonathan Taylor Thomas for all you laypeople), Devon Sawa and maybe a picture or two of NKOTB (New Kids On The Block).  I can remember as if it was yesterday, sitting in front of the t.v. fast forwarding my Casper VHS to the end, when for two glorious minutes I got to see that friendly little ghost turn into the cutest boy ever, Devon Sawa.  I would rewind and fast forward until my fingers bled from pushing that button so many times, but it was worth it.  I was in love, and there isn't anything a 13 year old girl wouldn't do for love...well except maybe date a middle school boy.  But sadly, my Sawa saga ended abruptly with the the discovery of Indiana Jones.  Sawa out, Harrison Ford IN!  I forgot all about that casper freak the moment I laid eyes on the rippling muscles and rugged manliness of one Mr. Indiana Jones.  I was completely captivated by the eye candy I saw on screen, which developed into my first ever MAN crush.  I was a young teenager alone in her worship of Harrison Ford.  My girl friends couldn't escape the cult of Freddie Prinze Jr. and Leonardo Dicaprio.  I was an outcast among peers, known by others as 'the girl who likes that old dude.'  I didn't care though, because after all, I was suffering in the name of love.  Looking back, I realize that I was a weirdo, and if I could go back and meet my 14 year old self, I would make fun of her and tell her to keep her creepy man crush to herself.  I am still teased to this day for my crush on Harrison Ford, but I am thankful that I had him to compare all future boyfriends to...

• Handsome? Check
• Mysterious?  Check
• Resourceful? Check
• Fedora and Whip? Ooh, sorry dude, move along!

     I firmly believe that Indiana Jones himself saved me from some loser boyfriends in my lifetime.  But, like most crushes, especially celebrity ones, it died out and was quickly replaced by a new one.  Enter Brandon.  Brandon was not a hollywood hunk, but he was the new kid in town.  I liked him from the first time I met him, and I continued to crush on him for about 7 years.  I deserve some kind of an award for my faithfulness to my crushes, or an intense therapy session to figure out why I don't ever get the balls to tell the person I like them.  He had all the qualities I was looking for in a guy...tall, funny, and single.  I stood by and watched him date my good friend, become the class clown, tattoo people illegally in his bedroom, and get hit in the face with crutches in a high school brawl.  Yep, I know, dreamy right? I don't know what it was, but that boy had me at hello.  He was all kinds of wrong for me, but he made me laugh like nobody had ever done before, and anyone who knows me knows that's the fire to my ice...it just makes me melt.  But alas, all that ever became of that crush was a little game of footsie while watching a movie in my room.  La tee frickin da.  I finally realized it was probably better that we never dated when I saw him years later, covered head to toe in tattoos, smoking a cigarette, packing up to move to hollywood.  Oddly enough, the tattoos made him more attractive, but that's a whole other story.
     I have left out a couple other significant crushes for the simple reason that I doubt many of you will even get to this part of the story because I've basically written a novel here, and don't expect any of you to have the time nor the interest in continuing on.  I do have to give quick honorable mentions to Clay Walker (yes, the country singer), Vin Diesel (whom I once had a FRAMED picture of), Collin Farrell (right up until he went all homo-erotic in Alexander), and Corry Austin (a non-hollywood crush, who is what I consider a temporary lapse in judgement that only lasted 5 years or so).   I hope you got a laugh or two from this, and don't feel too guilty about wasting as much time as you did reading this pointless blog entry.