At the age of 12, when I first was attending Redwood Intermediate, I was blessed with a shameful lack of self-awareness. Though I was a complete persona-non-grata, I really believed that everyone had their "piece of the pie," socially. Though I wore huge glasses with lavendar frames and had my braces that restricted me from opening my mouth all the way when I talked and my hair was curley on one side and straight on the other and though my voice was sometimes so high-pitched it could sometimes be inaudible like a dog whistle, I thought that even the cutest boy in school should have a crush on me because afterall, I had a lot to offer personality-wise.

That being so, whenever I had a crush on a boy, I would look up his phone number in the phone book and cold call him. I would say, "You might not know me but we have P.E. together..." Often times the conversations would go well but they were never acknowledged the next day at school, of course I thought, "oh, he's probably just shy in person." Never did I think he might not like me.

One of these lucky boys, his name was Jayson, spelled with a "y" (how exotic) happened to have his locker right next to mine. I would call him after school sometimes and we would talk about who our friends were and what we liked to do on the weekends and other such garbage until a burning romance blossomed on my end of things. It got to the point where I could no longer hold it in and I had to say something directly. Contrary to my normal confidence I thought it would be best to share my feelings with an unsigned note stuck in his locker, I mean, the passion was strong, he would get the idea.

This would be a special note and only the most special combination of words could be used. I might have thought about what to write in this note for at least 1 hour before I wrote it and what came out were the words to one of the most beautiful love songs there ever was, one that I heard at many a teen center dance, Foreigner's "I Want To Know What Love Is." I used only the chorus:

"I want to know what love is,

I want you to show me,"

and slipped it secretly into his locker early in the morning when none of the other kids were around, before my "0 period" of marching band practice.

After that I ran to band practice with my clarinet banging against my acid washed, tapered-ankle jeans and never called him again. I figured he would know to call me.

Here I sit, waiting.

21 October 2003 - 10:54 PM

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