See, now this is where this gets funny. So I'll put away my hanky from that last post and tell you the sad, pathetic story of my unrequited teen years.

As luck would have it, I ended up going to school on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. Incline Village to be exact. From about 2nd grade on. Not until I reach 6th grade did I realize the wonder that was Grady Clifford. He played drums in my band class. Clifford, meaning Doug Clifford. Cosmo. Not that I even grasped that fact at the time. He just played drums and I played clarinet. Was there ever a more sexy instrument than clarinet? Just ask Benny Goodman.  So he was like the pinnacle of hotness and he dated some chick named Cindy and they made out in the back of the bus all the way down to the Nevada Band-Off or whatever the hell the field trip and I drowned my sorrows in Twizzlers. Such is love at 14. I carried a torch for Grady for a year or two. Until the time one winter where I actually got to ride up the ski lift with him. OK. Yes. Here was Shelley's big moment. The culmination of all my dreamy ruminations in my girly bedroom, painting my toenails and tracing his initials on my Keds. The moment I had dreamed of for all of 1986. My girlfriend (who was TECHNICALLY DATING HIM at the time) let us take a lift ride together. And what did I do? All that time imagining the day we would actually come face to face. Applying makeup in my Clairol mirror just so with the blue eyeliner, just a touch of the shimmer pink lipstick.

Total silence.

I did not say one word the entire ride. All the way to the top of the lift. Zip.

And that was that.

He went left, I went right.

Isn't that weird? If I wasn't a sad, sad, confused teenager, I'd really beat myself up about that one. But I'm beginning to forgive myself for being a complete douche between the ages of 12 to 19. I know, 19 seems beyond the douche cut-off but break me off, eh?

Anyway. I wonder sometimes what Grady Clifford is doing and if he knows that he had any effect on a silly retarded girl from junior high. My guess is no but then maybe. Just maybe.