Showing posts with label Throwback Thursdays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Throwback Thursdays. Show all posts

Throwback Thursday: My First Kiss(es)

Today, I'm linking up with Bonnie over at The Life of Bon for Throwback Thursday.  And we're going to talk some kissing...

Have you ever thought about how gross kissing is?  And how we, as humans, thought to do it?  Like who thought pressing lips against someone else's would feel good?  The textbook we use in our composition classes at the college has an article on how kissing may have evolved, and it could go back to when mothers chewed their children's food and deposited it in their mouths (like mama birds).  And in times of famine, the feeding motion (kissing) would give the hungry babies and toddlers comfort.

Anyhoo...

I was pretty boy crazy as a very tiny girl.  I was always "marrying" one of the neighborhood kids (Rocky and Scotty mostly, depending on where I was living at the time), and I had a crush on a boy named Andrew in kindergarten, and I used to kiss ALL of his stuff that was stored in our bathroom.  (We had a bathroom in our room that doubled as a closet.)  Yes, I KNOW.  CREEPER.  (Me, not Andrew.)


Here I am in all of my creeper kindergarten glory.  My mama was pretty upset I didn't take my sweater off for my class photo.

Fast forward a few years, and I am best friends with Jess, and we are both fighting over a boy named Tim, who was in Jessica's grade but liked me more.  (I was two years older.)  When you are a teacher, you make a FOOL of yourself every day, and one of the ways I do this is by telling and showing my students my first kiss.  (Not actually showing them--get yer minds outta the gutter, folks.  I don't kiss my students.)

in my fifth grade glory/model phase

I will pull directly from a PowerPoint I used last spring.

In fourth grade, I had my first kiss with Tim ______ during a sleepover with his little sister.  We were playing Truth-or-Dare, and my best friend Jessica dared him to kiss me.  I didn’t want to kiss him, but Tim kissed me anyway with Jessica’s help.  It wasn’t a real kiss because I was able to turn my head away.  But Jessica still got mad at me for it.
VERSUS
His name was Tim ______.  When I was in fourth grade, all of the girls (and boys) in my neighborhood were younger than me, including Tim’s little sister Amber.  So when she asked me to spend the night in her dad’s brown-gray tent in their overgrown backyard, I packed my favorite pillow and a Barbie toothbrush.  She also invited my best friend Jessica, who swore she was going to marry Tim as she doodled his name in a heart on her notebook.  (They were in the same grade.)  Tim suggested we play Truth-or-Dare, a game we took very seriously in elementary school, so Jess dared him to kiss me.  I, of course, being much older and wiser, refused to kiss this baby and pushed him away and squealed.  But Jess held me down while Tim went in for the kill.  His two puckered lips came at my face like an alien spaceship zooming through the sky.  I thanked my stars when I was able to turn my head at the last moment but not fast enough.  Tim’s kiss was . . . slimy.  And salty.  Wet in a woozy kind of way.  We were two kids who had rode our bicycles in the sun all day and were now coated in a fine layer of sticky sweat.  Ugh.  Despite this failed first kiss, Jess was jealous and mad—at me.

The first example tells the story.  The second one shows the story.  And it almost makes my students want to throw up.  So...winning?!  Yes.  Yes, I am.
My first real kiss happened when I was sixteen and dating this guy that I didn't really like--but everyone else thought he was hot--and I used to skip class and go hang out with him and his best friend, who my best friend was dating.  And he kissed me one afternoon in the back of Steph's car, but I kept my mouth shut tight.  And then we broke up.  After he kissed another chick.  No big deal.  I didn't really like him.  But I'm mad at myself to.this.DAY for letting my grades drop over those few months.

my blonde-highlights-show-I'm-a-rebel-and-discovering-myself phase
(Also, the Polaroid I-Zone Instant Camera Phase)

The next guy I kissed kinda ruined kissing for me because he was really good at it, and I tend to count that first kiss with him as my first real-real kiss.  I think I was seventeen.  It wasn't until I kissed Zach that anyone came close to David or close to surpassing him.  Of course, this guy had lots of practice.  (Um, he changed girlfriends as often as he changed his underwear, I think.)  And it's not like I kissed a lot of guys.  (Um, maybe five?  And most of them only once.)  Then I dated another guy named David (David #2), and the first time I kissed him, his teeth knocked against mine so HARD that I thought I might have chipped a tooth.  So I never thought I would find someone who could kiss as well as David #1.

But then I met my husband.  After I dated a really country boy, who dipped (for those not in the know--chewing tobacco), so when I kissed him, I tasted tobacco and sweet tea.  Ewww.  Let's try again.  Ewwwwwwwwww.  See?  Kissing is gross.

(In his defense, he was pretty sweet.  And we had the same birthday.  Just a good ole' country boy.  Just not my type?)

during my country boy phase
(Tasha ended up marrying her country boy, who was friends with mine.)

Oh, and I kissed two three (um, four?) more guys in there somewhere, one that was kind of rocker and angsty and I was crazy about; the second I don't really remember except for the fact that we kissed in the rain because I wanted to get a kiss in the rain, and then another guy who had had lots of practice kissing, too.  I really know how to pick 'em.

my wild kissing days with my pal Katie on her birthday

And then I met my husby.  And on our first date, we were walking around one of the college campuses in Conway, and we sat down on a bench, he put his arm around me, and then he said, "Kiss me."  And so I did.  And it was gooooooood.  :)))


And so we decided to kiss forever!
But I'm not letting you see that because I think kissing photos are awkward.  Just like this post.  ;)

WHAT ABOUT YOUR FIRST KISS(ES)?


A SUMMER OF THROWBACK THURSDAYS
BLOG STYLE


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Throwback Thursday: Cruisin' to Cozymel

Today, I'm linking up with The Life of Bon for Throwback Thursdays' Favorite Summer Vacation.  All summer, Bon has been inspiring folks to explore memories from their childhood (and adolescence, too!), and this week's topic is about favorite trips from this time of year.


My family didn't really do summer vacations because we didn't have a lot of money, and my parents/my mama couldn't take time off usually.  There were only a handful of family trips before my parents divorced.  We went to area theme parks, Dogpatch, U.S.A. (kind of like Silver Dollar City in Branson, but not quite as good), and Magic Springs in Hot Springs, and we tried to go to SDC one fall.  When we got there, it was a trip a la National Lampoon's Vacation--the park was closed.  Only my dad wasn't Clark Griswold, so he didn't kidnap the security guard and force him to take us on roller coasters.

As I got older, I started going to church camps and journalism camps, and the summer before my senior year, I went on a cruise to Mexico with some of my best friends and my best friend Tasha's family (and friends of her family and their families--there were 18 of us, with 9 adults and 9 kids!).

In New Orleans
Oh, the days of disposable cameras!
(Tasha and me)


It's now a tradition to sing "I Love Rock-N-Roll!" when we are together.  :)
(Tasha, me, Sara, Jenn)

dinner in the formal dining room one night

On the pier in Cozymel--just over 11 years ago!

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formal dinner
I got my dress at a consignment shop, and it was a bit big in the bust.  (I was very small-chested.)
The little girl is my best friend Tasha's little sister Savannah, who is now graduated and just had a baby girl of her own!


my lovely blue-plaid one-piece and back pre-scoliosis-surgery ;)


around New Orleans after we landed

While the cruise itself was fun and I loved seeing another country (even though going on a cruise isn't exactly seeing another country) and eating, swimming, and taking pictures--the part I LOVED best was NEW ORLEANS!  I loved, loved, loved the French Quarter.  It felt very European to me with its old cobbled streets and balconies and verandahs, the colored homes lining the street, the gas lit street lamps.  I loved hearing about the history of the city on our ghost tour and seeing houses that were in Interview with the Vampire.  Then I would walk around the corner and feel like I was in a third-world country, which broke my heart for the people of NOLA, long before Hurricane Katrina hit.  We were too young to take advantage of the wilder side (though Tasha and Jenn, I think, went in a x-rated store with some of the adults--Tasha's family are kind of crazy like that! *blushes*), so we were able to see it with some rose-colored glasses on.  For the longest time, I even planned to have a NOLA-themed wedding.

I haven't been back to NOLA since then, but I did go on another cruise with Tasha and her family in 2007 when she was pregnant with her daughter.  Then, we went to Cozymel again but also Jamaica and the Cayman Islands and left out of Galveston.  But New Orleans is one of the places I long to go back to, and it's on mine and Zach's list!

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