Celebrity Crushes: A 20 Year Retrospective (part 2)

The High School Years: 1992ish-1995

Kadeem Hardison as Dewayne Wayne
Dewayne Wayne: One of the classic nerdy-turned-cool guys. And much cuter than Bill Gates, no? He had the flip glasses, the witty banter, the calculus mind, the romantic touch that finally won over Whitley. And me. Kadeem, you rocked my homogeneous world. I like to think I could have been the one cool white girl on your campus.







Luke Perry as Dylan McKay
Listen up people: Dylan was not just a "bad boy," he was a renaissance man. He was a poetry-reading, AA-going, tear-wiping, daddy-hating, Brenda-loving, wetsuit-wearing, Harley-riding Byronic hero. He took Brenda to donate blood for their first Valentine's Day, y'all!

To be honest: This crush did linger into my college years, when an unnamed roommate and I watched 90210 from the very beginning. (Even the episodes we had missed due to our parents' censorship or the unfortunate seasons that ran on Wednesday nights.) One of us actually made her class schedule based on the airtime for these shows. Um, it wasn't me.


Robert Sean Leonard
3 words: Dead Poets Society.

My love for ol' RSL knew no bounds. Then he was in Swing Kids. Then he completely fell of the face of the earth. But, BUT! He is now back on House! Not quite so cute as before, but, in my humble opinion, a pretty stinking good actor. I am hoping that this TV role does not end in his shooting himself or being shipped off to a concentration camp.









Ethan Hawke
Noticing a pattern here? What can I say...for a girl whose wildest fantasy was being shipped off to boarding school, Dead Poets Society was practically porn.

I was fairly convinced that Ethan was a cinematic genius, but then...Reality Bites. Even with all the greasy hair, that flick, kids, was deep. And very, very 1994. (As it was aptly observed by my friend who did not watch the movie until 1999.)
I actually own that movie on VHS and I might drag it out later tonight.




Bonus: GirlCrush........Dana Delaney
The History Channel started running reruns of China Beach in the afternoons when I was in 9th grade. I still think that was one of the best shows ever to air on TV. Dana Delaney was spectacular with her no-nonsense haircut and her bad drinking habit. Way better than the current slop on Desperate Housewives.

I think this was about the time I started dying my hair red.

Note to self: See if China Beach is on NetFlix...







Part III coming soon........

Car Musings

We went over to Fayetteville this weekend to celebrate our nephew's 12th birthday. It was a fun trip, but awfully quick--which means the ratio of hours IN the car to OUT of the car was not exactly weighted in our favor. A couple of thoughts from our 10 or so hours in the Volvo:

*Surely some deep meaning lies in the lyrics of that siren Laurie Berkner:
Oh, Bumblebee-hee, can't you see?
It's just you and me--
One...two...a hundred-and-three

*When do little kids start developing correct stress & accent in their speech? Sometimes I find it really hard to decipher what John Mark is trying to tell me because the rhythm is all wonky. Like carrying on a conversation with a tiny Andre the Giant. (Was I the only one who had to watch Princess Bride like 13 times before I understood any of his lines?)

*The word "Mama" is much like the Hawaiian "Aloha." It can really take on any meaning, depending on the context. At some point in the last 2 hours, "mama" has meant all of the following:
I threw my pacifier and now want it back.
Turn on the DVD player.
I'm hot.
I'm hungry.
I'm thirsty.
I'm tired of being in this car seat.
The music is too loud.
The music is too soft.
Hold my hand.
Make the See'n'Say play "Old MacDonald" again.
Hey, look!
What's that?
Quit talking to each other and pay attention to me.
I can't think of anything else to say, so I will say your name. Again. For the forty-eleventh time this minute.

*The Electric Company is still fabulous, even 25+ years later. John Mark and I are trying to perfect his "Heeeeey Yooooooooou Guuuuuuuuuuuuys!" Also, Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader--it don't get any cooler than that, kids! If you do NetFlix, put the "Best of the Best" DVD in your queue, stat.

Coming soon: Part Dos of the Celebrity Crushes Retrospective.....

Celebrity Crushes: A 20 Year Retrospective (part 1)

The Early Years: 1988-1992 (6th-8th grades)

Joe McIntyre of New Kids on the Block
Oh, Joe. You were so fab with your falsetto singing. Or, perhaps, just your voice that had not yet changed--I was too young to tell the difference. I remember being so shocked to hear my mom say that "Please Don't Go Girl" had been popular when she was in junior high. Surely no one but Joe could do this song justice! I listed to that one on my walkman at least 4 times a day in 1989.
Many tears were shed over being denied my requests to go to a New Kids concert. (Yes, I know they are on a reunion tour now--that does not erase my pain.) Validation came in 2004 when I saw Joe on Broadway during his run as Fiero in Wicked.





Kirk Cameron
This probably goes without saying, because who didn't have a crush on Kirk Cameron in junior high? The hair, the tightrolled jeans, the impish grin--he was the total package. My love for Kirk only grew when I saw him in some James Dobson abstinence video at a youth rally in Newport.
I am sad to say that Kirk's stock took a sharp downward turn when he decided to star in the Left Behind movies, but my pre-pubescent heart still flutters a little when I see pictures like this one...pictures I would have cut out of Tiger Beat and hung on the inside of my closet door.





Michael J Fox as Alex P Keaton
Hmmmmm. Looking back, I see this crush as, perhaps, a sort of foreshadowing in my romantic tastes.
Well, Alex P/Michael J....So much to love:
1. Gotta love the initial. I give him props for starting the initial craze way before it was cool. C'mon--did you really think Samuel L Jackson thought of that all on his own?
2. Again, please note the fabulous hair, just bordering on a mullet.
3. Sock ties.
4. The dorky earnestness of a Young Republican.
5. Much repressed emotion.

I did not love Michael J quite so much in the Back to the Future series, but Spin City was a pretty great show, even if I did only watch it in reruns.


Bonus: GirlCrush.........Alyssa Milano

The lipgloss!
The clothes!
The bangs!

Alyssa had it all. The greatest compliment of my junior high life was when some girl at church camp told me I looked like AM. It was totally untrue, but I clung to those words with all the vanity in my 13-year-old heart.

Ten Things Tuesday

It's Tuesday....um, like 3 months of Tuesdays, really. Would it make me sound SuperSpiritual to say that I have been fasting from my blog? Ooooooooh. I bet you are feeling very humble and NotSpiritual right now, aren't you?

Okay, okay--I have been a) busy, b) completely uncreative and c) somewhat forgetful of late. However, in spite of the busy-ness, there have been some great moments in the past few weeks. I have much reason to give thanks!

1. John Mark is now 2 (!!!!) and has started using quasi-sentences. It's the most precious and amazing thing ever. Sometimes I think if I loved him any more my heart might explode.

2. The drama for WOW came off pretty darn well, I think. My son is still singing "Go, Go, Go Joseph" every day, so at least one kid found it memorable. The cast was fantastic. I was so proud of them!

3. I don't have to work on the drama for WOW 2009 for at least 5 more months!

4. We had a wonderful trip to Hungary with the mission team. It was great to be back at the Bible Camp.......exciting to see our missionary friends with their new baby...........fun to team-teach with Robin again........a huge relief that our son did not scream for the entire trans-Atlantic flight.......exhausting to eat out for every single meal with a toddler in tow. All in all, a huge blessing for our family to be on this trip. A little bittersweet that this will be our last Ash-MG mission trip for a few years. I'm already looking forward to our next adventure! (See JM riding with Daddy on a subway in Budapest.)

5. My nigh-unto-perfect husband took off 2 afternoons last week to help finish our family profile for the adoption agency. Woo-hoooo! I am so glad to have that done, signed, sealed & delivered.

6. My air conditioner works. I really, really hate to be hot, so I do NOT take this for granted.

7. I have an air conditioner in my car. (See #6.)

8. Just a few more weeks 'til the "school schedule" starts. I know--we don't have a child in school. But so much of the world runs on this schedule that all of life seems to settle into a nice routine come Labor Day. Ladies' Bible Class, library day, Kindermusik....I'm looking forward to being back in that groove.

9. Now that all my summer projects are completed, I get to tackle some fun home projects. I have been looking forward to these for months. At the top of the list: finishing up the transition of JM's room to his "toddler" room and starting work on the nursery.

10. My dear, sweet friend Alyssa got married this weekend. I am incredibly happy for her...even though I am not ready to admit she is old enough to get married! I got to see some of my first "babies" who are now full-fledged young adults. They make me cry just a little--they still make me laugh my head off--they make me proud all the time.

Bonus! 11. John Mark walked down the aisle at Alyssa's wedding without a hitch. Well, except that just as he started into the auditorium, he hollered, "MAMA! Walkin'!!!" (as opposed to sprinting, which he had been warned not to do!). Then about halfway down the aisle, he spotted me waiting for him on the front row and said, "Peeee-yow!" (pillow). Not bad for a barely-two-year-old. He was rewarded with a trip to the candy store :)

It's good to be back!