Resuscitation

The other day, I was asked about breathing life back into this blog by a very attractive, very funny, very sexy young redheaded woman.  I pondered it for a few seconds days and, at her continued urging, decided that, yes, I guess I could maybe string a few words together in a manner somewhat pleasing for your senses.  Because, when have I ever been suggestible to the words of a hot woman?  Right?

Then I realized that it's Groundhog Day.  Groundhog Day!  The symbolism of rebirth, of being dragged unwillingly from a warm den and tunnel!  Oh, the symbolism is strong with this day.

Fear, anger, hatred?
A Groundhog knows not these things.

And once I began thinking about the symbolism of Groundhog Day, I remembered that it was the birthday of on Betsy Hagar, the Teutonic goddess on whom I crushed throughout high school, unrequited, silently, there in the corner...there in the spotlight.

*clears throat*

You get the idea.

At this point, I don't remember all the stories I told in the past, and frankly, I don't feel like going through all my past entries and reading everything that I've already written.  I mean, I like you guys; I just don't know if I like you that much.  Except you.  Yes, you.  You know why.

In movies, there's always the guy pining for the girl who is way out of his league, and he wants her from afar, but he never summons up the courage to tell her that he writes and masturbates to erotica about her that he has deep, deep feelings for her?  And then at the end of the movie, he finally grows a pair, and he walks up to the girl and he tells her that he loves her and then she always--always--falls into his arms and they go off and presumably live a happily ever after life filled with, presumably, lots of sex and blow jobs?

Well, that's what I decided to do with Betsy...from the safety of the other side of graduation.



What?
We were the Vikings.

After we shuffled of the educational coils of one Huntington North High School, I did the graduation party circuit.  I went to a lot of my friends' parties and did what I could with cards and gifts and stuff--it felt a lot like Squidward in that episode of SpongeBob where he's playing Santa Claus but is basically just giving away all his shit to make SpongeBob feel good?  Yeah, that was me with post-graduate gifts.

This is the situation in which I found myself at Betsy's graduation party, cheesy card and shitty gift in hand, my heart racing in my chest as I pondered the speech that would certainly win Betsy's heart and make her mine for that happily ever after story, complete with lots of sex and blow jobs.  I walked in, gave her the card, she gave me a hug, and...I got distracted talking to someone else.

Now, I don't know if you remember a lot of the graduation parties that YOU went to, but, well, they are thrown so that the graduate is the center of attention, so that the graduate is showered with undying adulation from their friends and family, so that the graduate is the center of the spotlight.

They're not thrown so that some other dork can have his teen romcom ending to his high school career.

And so it was at Casa de los Hagars.

The longer I stood in Betsy's living room, the more unnerved I became.  Eventually, I gave up, since she was ringed by a least a dozen other attractive high school girls (all fellow graduates of HNHS Class of 1994) serving as sort of a Midwestern Swiss Guard.  I approached Betsy, got another hug, and told her that I needed to be going.  She asked if I couldn't stay longer (I think I had another party to get to, honestly), and I made the polite small talk of telling her I wanted to, that I would miss hanging out with her, and that I hoped to see her again soon.  Not quite the romantic ending that I had built up in my mind, but it was still gallant.  Ish.

Spoilers:  I never saw her again.

Now, sure, in high school, I was an athlete.  I wouldn't describe myself as athletic, but I also wasn't a tub of lard that hurled himself forward by the mass of my gut sticking three feet out in front of the rest of me, either.  And while I had decent dexterity of foot (pedantry?), I, like everyone else, would still trip and fall slip and make a fool of myself.

As I was walking down the steps from Betsy's living room to the door, a framed photo collage that was propped on the back of the couch and leaning on the banister railing slipped and fell behind the couch.  It was loud, at it startled me a little bit.

Betsy, however, thought that I had keeled over and came running to help me.  There was a look of confusion on her face when I was standing there, quite upright, attempting to get the picture collage unwedged from behind the couch and back in its place of display.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes, quite.  The picture just fell, that's all."

"Oh, I thought you had tripped and fallen."

There was a long moment where we stared at each other, and then I finally said, "Well, no.  However, I guess I shook this loose while walking down the stairs..."

We bid each other adieu once more, and then I walked out of her life, forever.   And the last thing she said to me was that she thought I was enough of a clumsy lummox that I had fallen down the stairs and done myself a grievous injury.

No.  Not the romantic ending I had envisioned for that particular relationship.  But at least I felt her boobs pressed against me.  Twice.

Small victories.