All right people, I'm here. My dog ate my ethernet cable so I wasn't able to post yesterday. Really.. he did. Honest. No friggen lie. Munched on the end of it.

Anyway.. okay.. My first Crush.

The Scene:

2nd grade, Panther Lake Elementary School. Kent, WA. Mrs. Dunn's class

The players: Me, Mrs. Dunn.

In 2nd grade I was 8 years old. It was 1975/76. I remember 1976 because it was some sort of Centennial Celebration for the United States. You'd think I'd know more about it, but shit.. I don't. I just remember a lot of Red White and Blue and a lot of talk about Revolutions. History is not my subject. I could actually care less about American History. I think it's a skewed representation from white folks point of view. I've always thought that.. even as a kid I had some sort of weird understanding that what I was being tought was not the full story. Anyway.. that's probably a whole other post.

My 2nd grade teacher. Mrs. Dunn. She had long blonde hair and wore the coolest 70's clothes. She was tall and thin and had these long fingernails. She had the whitest teeth. She had a tiny tiny slight overbite that was somehow very compelling. I was so drawn to her. She always smelled like Vanilla. She was so nurturing. I remember one day I was sad because somebody teased me about my short hair. She sat with me and looked me in the eyes and said I was beautiful just the way I was. That was it for me. I was in love. Head over heels, magically in love with my 2nd grade female teacher. I wanted to be her daughter. I wanted to be her husband. I wanted to move in with her. I had elaborate fantasies that she was my mom. As you can see it was a rather mixed up type crush, but hell I was 8.

Mrs. Dunn became pregnant during my time in her 2nd grade class. I was jealous of that baby. She looked so happy and radiant and I wanted to be the reason for it. I would deliberately be sad or upset sometimes, just to get her attention. When 2nd grade came to an end I knew I'd never see her again. She was due that summer and wouldn't be returning to teach for a while. The last day of school I brought her a homemade goodbye gift of sorts. I wrote her a letter and told her I thought she was the most bestest teacher in the world and that I loved her. Yes, I said I loved her. She got down on my level and gave me the biggest hug. I'll never forget that.

So see, nothing lascivious. Entirely innocent, if not a little.. weird.