Wednesday, January 30, 2008

blog stalking & blasts from my past

My hands have been feeling a bit sore, so I'm taking a little break from crafting. Nothing short of a complete interwebs breakdown would keep me off the computer though, and I thought I'd share a little* story with you all....

Once upon a time in a junior high gym class far far away, an evil princess named Riley (or some other gender crossing uber-fashionable name) was in the locker room changing clothes next our protagonist.... Rebel, aged 13, newly relocated to Southern California. Rebel is standing there in a t-shirt and what her mother deems age-appropriate floral patterned modestly cut cotton underwear. Riley, wearing a training bra (training for what, I'm not sure, since there had not been much 'development' for either of us) and pale pink satin bikini underwear. Riley takes one look at Rebel's underwear and starts laughing "Oh my god!" she exclaims in her valley-girl accent... "Do you really wear those??? They look like Grandma underwear!!!" Rebel, suitably ashamed begins an unfortunate stage in her life where she saves up her allowance money to buy unbelievably uncomfortable and highly impractical undergarments for the sole purpose of avoiding ridicule in the locker room. A highlight of this time period was when Rebel tried to run a timed mile with the worst wedgie known to humanity. In High School Riley would lose two fingers** in a tragic wood-shop accident.

Fast forward a few years, Rebel, now aged 16, spends countless spring & summer afternoons with friends at Kevin's house (Kevin's parents are extremely successful and their house has a heated pool, hot tub, a large screen TV with surround sound and... a laser-disk player!). We come over after school, change into our swimsuits and stay as late as Kevin's parents will let us. This is such a common activity that there's a drawer full of left-over swim suits that anyone can borrow if they happen to have forgotten their own. Kevin is a year younger than Rebel and is viewed much as a little brother by many of his female friends.

It's important to note that Kevin and Rebel and their friends are all good fluffy-pink Christian kids, who go to Youth Group & Prayer meetings for fun, it is a point of much pride that Kevin goes to the same church as Kirk Cameron. In fact one day we all get to be the audience in a video on the dangers of teen-sex in which Kirk Cameron is the narrator and Kevin's dad, a doctor, is the medical expert. Later Kevin and his mother will appear on an episode of the Montel Williams Show promoting abstinence for teens. Just painting the picture here.

One typical evening, Rebel and friends (including Rebel's current crush... he has a tattoo!***) are hanging out a Kevin's house, watching movies, being noisy, just having as much fun as a bunch of good Christian kids can have under the watchful eyes of Kevin's parents. At one point Kevin stands up and says "Oh - I just remembered..." ducks into his room and returns carrying high over his head a pair of bright pink satin string-bikini underwear and in front of God, the tattooed boy, & everyone announces to Rebel "you left these here the other day." If she could have died on the spot... she would have.



Anyway.... all of that is just to say I've been blog-stalking and googling folks from my past. It turns out Kevin is one of the contributors to his church's blog, he's a part of the 'music ministry'. He still lives in Southern California, and recently sang back-up on the High School Musical soundtrack if you're curious. He's married & has a baby girl now. :) I left him a comment, but I'm not sure he saw it because he never responded. He hasn't changed a bit since high-school, and it's making me wonder how much I have. Huh.

I'm back to wearing practical cotton underwear though****... that's something. ;)









* aka - long & pointless



**They sewed them back on... but it's more fun for me to imagine her with a three-fingered hand ;)



*** Of a dove ... gotta love those Christian bad-boys. ;)

**** Most of the time. ;)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great story. Is that why you picked this color scheme for your blog???

Bezzie said...

Ha ha!

But hey now, Chunky would have been "Riley" had he been a girl. It's my mom's maiden name and we wanted to name our little girl after her (had he been one!) and as my mom grew up hating her first and middle names we thought Riley would be perfect. Not all Rileys are uber-fashionable gender crossers ;-)

Rebel said...

Melissa - correlation but not causation.... Pink has just always been my favorite color :) I'm wearing pink today in fact (a pink shirt that is)

Bezzie - Riley's name is not really Riley, and Kevin's name is not really Kevin... but Kirk Cameron's name is really Kirk Cameron.

So no offence to Chunky's potential alter ego. ;)

Anonymous said...

Did she really lose fingers in Shop? Because that's messed up and pretty much the reason why I feared and hated woodshop (that and the fact that I couldn't draft to save my life).

Rebel said...

Well, I didn't see the accident, but I heard about it in school. Apparently yes, two of her fingers were cut off, but she was immediately rushed to the hospital (which was about a 3 min. drive anyway), and they sewed them back on. To my knowledge she's fine, but I never interacted with her in high school - so who knows what the truth was. But personally, I think it makes a great story.