cheryl and i met on gayfers teen board and went to different high schools (VERY different high schools). she was a year younger than i was (and remember what a HUGE deal that was in high school). i thought myself very magnanimous hanging out with her. i liked being magnanimous. i like it that i have written magnanimous three times now and spelled in differently and incorrect all three times. i was born to live in the era of spell check.
cheryl still lives in tallahassee and has the cutest twin babies (OK, so they are in middle school now, but i still think of them as babies). she didn’t name one after me but i have forgiven her for that since i didn’t name any children after her either. the babies were very premature and i came and saw them in the hospital all tiny and tubes hanging out everywhere. i was amazed at the strength that she had during those months. i was also amazed that she could nurse both babies at the same time once they came home with her. i choose friends with a myriad of skill sets.
cheryl crashed every car she ever drove in it’s first few months of life and i don’t think many of those crashes were her fault... at least that was what she told me. we had those annoying secret words for things and our favorite movie was about last nightstarring demi moore and rob lowe. i am sure that my parents had NEVER seen that movie or wouldn’t have been allowed to watch it (and again, let’s thank the Lord that we live in the internet era and can check things out on pluggedinonline.com). we watched that movie so many times that we could actually quote entire scenes from it. we wanted to look exactly like demi moore and we wanted to splatter paint a couch just like she did. i think we may have splatter painted keds tennis shoes as our own personal homage to demi’s design tips.
we also had the cassette tape with ALL the songs from the movie (i think i had the cassette tape AND the record too). and we LOVED those 80’s pop songs that were the background to that movie and my senior year of high school. in fact i believe that i chose several songs from the movie as the background music for my last gayfers teen board fashion show. it was quite a production.... i have photos if you want to see them...
cheryl’s mom made the BEST chili and i still use her recipe when i make a big old pot of chili and top it with cheese and crushed up saltines and i can almost hear sheena easton sing...
No way of knowin' where we're goin'
No way of tellin' what we've got
Love is attraction, calls for action like it or not
We're no one-nighter, we're much righter
I taste tomorrow in your kiss
But I can't sell you, I won't tell you
That we can't miss, I'll just say this
So far so good
We've been movin' right along just like we should
So far so good
If it isn't love it's still in the neighborhood...
wow, those are some kind of lyrics...
i like how the “one-nighter” and “righter” line myself. and i tell you i just get shivers with the “if it isn’t love it’s still in the neighborhood”. i would have killed to hear some boy whisper that little sweet nothin’ in my ear in high school. but alas, cheryl and i were off watching the VHS of “about last night” for the 249th time and no boys were whispering in our ears.
thanks for all the fun times cheryl, for loving that horrible movie with me, for your mom making chili, and for being younger than me so i felt magnanimous with our friendship. when in retrospect, i think you might have been the magnanimous one after all being friends with me.
