If I don't know precisely to what you're referring, it's because I'm choosing to live in the micro as much as humanly possible these days. Let's keep me dumb for now. I'll have plenty of time to stay "informed" when I'm dead. (Closes eyes. Hugs dog. Remains sane.) 💕
In other news, I attended Jane F.'s killer webinar yesterday. Grounding, to say the least, but also encouraging. I'm further along in "the process" than I realized - or was willing to admit.
1. All my prom dates were save-face friendship dates,😱
2. So no remember fondly forever prom song! But the next year, freshmen year college, I did dry-hump with a stranger to the disco thumps of Nine Inch Nails’ Closer at a dirty dirty Dallas dance club, is that romance? It felt naughty and shameful but also I couldn’t step away!
3. Um… question about this platonic spooning… sounds great for kids, but now? Surely, it’s not innocent when you’re married?!?!
1. Only once did I attend a dance with an actual "boyfriend," but it was one of those boyfriends that was a set-up and other people wanted us to date each other more than we actually wanted to date each other. High school is effing weird.
2. Dry humping is definitely a romantic-adjacent accoutrement. You read Dot, right? The "stranger" part makes it a bit less "sweet" in my mind. Unless the two of you kept bumping (no pun intended) into each other in less dry humpy situations after that for all eternity. Then it's DEFINITLEY romance. 😊
3. This question raises so many other questions around fidelity. This is why I love writing about teenagers, though. They're much better at nuance than adults are when it comes to gestures of affection. Still, if one was committed to a person and then spooned outside of that commitment, it could be damaging. Especially if Nine Inch Nails entered into the equation. 😇
Nailed it again. As always, Meg, I am suddenly 17 again when I read your YA romances. That's why I like them so much. They remind me of who I was, which is sometimes better than who I am now. A brief escape. As for spooning, I am ALWAYS the big spoon. Little spooning makes me feel trapped. I don't like trapped. Your writing is so refreshing.
I don't know if I'm better now than I was then. But I've logged considerably more missed opportunities by leaning away. If I went back in time with all my experience points in tow, I like to think I'd handle that dance floor moment with a little more confidence. Or bravery. Whichever one I was missing at 17. 😊
My future hubs and I went to several HS dances together - homecoming, Jr year prom, etc, but were cycling through those lean ins/outs by our Senior prom enough that he asked SOMEONE ELSE (from a rival school even) to prom and I freaked out on him so that he dumped that chick (“sorry my ‘girlfriend I guess’ had other plans for me”) and took me instead. I think he probably still wonders if he missed a better one but he stuck with me 😆
I don’t remember a specific prom song but since it was 1989 it was probably cheesy and awesome. 💕
Oh my, that's some serious sweetheart drama! So, you were dating your now husband when he asked another girl to the prom!? Or were you in one of those convenient "off again" spells and he was being an opportunist? :-) Either way, if she was worth his time she would have fought for him. Seems to me you won fair and square. 😊
In my memory, we were in some kind of “allowed to date other people” stance…but in my mind that did not include our Sr Prom!! He was grabbing the opportunity but was corrected 😂
Have a glorious birthday! I love this piece. So sweet and charming. What a wonderful memory.
I went to my junior prom with the HS quarterback. He was a dick. We "made out" but because I didn't sleep with him he was awful and spread rumors about me. Years later, he married, had a daughter and apologized to me. I guess having a daughter woke him up to how crappy some teen boys can be. Maybe he was trying to avoid karma?
Yikes! That story reads like a YA novel, complete with epilogue.
A dick, indeed. The long overdue apology was a nice touch, but I suspect he was still dodging karma every time his daughter brought a potentially dickish boy home from school. 😏
Is it sad that I don’t really remember that many dances from high school? I do recall one dance (though it wasn’t prom). It was the JROTC Ball. My date and I went as friends but I ended up spending several dances with a dreamy Top Gun Maverick type. It was tradition that all the boys get down on one knee, holding the hand of a girl of their choosing and sing “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” by the Righteous Brothers. Probably the closest I ever got to being in an eighties rom-com.
My most memorable school dance memory is from 1985. Picture this, a darkened junior high school gymnasium that smelled of feet and floor polish. Cheesy party lights surrounding the DJ and his stacks of albums up on the stage. Me and my best girl friends standing along the edges of the makeshift “dancing” space. My crush braves the gauntlet of giggling girls and asks me for the next slow dance. To which I replied a wide-eyed, goofy-grin, too enthusiastic “yes.” Of course. It was my crush asking! He quickly scampered out of the gym to wait for the said slow song to start (and die a 100 slow mortifying deaths) in the hallway—safely out of view. Then from the speakers blast the latest Whitney Houston hit “How Will I Know?” And we all take to the floor. My girl posse rightly put me in the center as we all belted out the words.
I may not remember the actual slow dance with my crush, but I remember the moment I knew that he really liked me… the moment he asked for a slow dance…
YES!! KDRAMA!!! Ahem. Loved all the little percentages. It was a little different in Australia. We didn’t have proms, we had formals. And I don’t think we got the memo on “prom song” either because the theme song for my final year of high school was “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi.
YEAH! I really, really enjoyed Crash Landing On You. Thank you so much for the recommendation. My brain is now picking it apart and deciding how best to unpack/review it for the masses. 😊
In high school we had an annual semi-formal in December, but just one "Junior" prom. The latter was only different in that the dresses and accessories cost way more, and the venue wasn't the cafeteria. 😉
"Livin' in a Prayer" was an anthem for a generation. Excellent choice.
I do love that its secondary theme seems to be “found family”. You know in comparison to her actual blood relations. There are some “rules” in romance KDramas! Like not kissing until episode 8, and episode 13 is where the external plot really catches up to their little bubble of happiness, etc.
Not that I know of … no wait, I read something here on Substack that was pretty on point, let me see if I can find it again. But after a couple of them, you figure it out. Btw, “Descendents of the Sun” or “Hometown Cha Cha Cha” next on the rotation? I mean, once you’ve got two or three watched you’re pretty much hooked, I mean, you’ve figured out the story beats.
Happy Belated Birthday!! Such a sweet story. To answer your questions:
What was your prom song? Share the year, if you’re not shy about it. 😉 - I didn't go to prom. But I did go to Homecoming with my gay bestie and that was fun because we both love to dance. And he had me cracking up the whole dang time. They also had other dances at our school, and I remember dancing with a guy named Carl, who I shared a class. Don't remember the song, the year, or the class. LOL I did a lot of crushing from afar in high school. When you're a drop of chocolate in a sea of milk, you do a lot of crushing from afar. And if someone "liked" me, I never knew.
Did you dance/fuse to it with the right person? 🎵 - When I danced with both Mike (the gay dude) and Carl, it was the respectable distance of hands on his shoulders, his hands on my waist. At that point, Mike hadn't come out of the closet yet and was trying to be "normal". I'd met Mike the summer before our senior year in a summer math class and we were inseparable the whole summer. Mid-senior year, when he was in his element with the theater folks, he came out. For about a day, I was like, "What the WHAT?" It changed our friendship dynamic a little bit because he'd started to hang out with the theater folks more, but I'm glad he finally did come out. He didn't know how his friends would react.
Generally speaking, are you the big spoon or the little spoon? 🥄 - I would definitely be the little spoon in this scenario. LOL
I remember slow dancing in middle school always took that polite posture of having enough room for a third person in between the two slow dancers. 😂 Things shifted to something more like horny-hug-swaying in high school. And of course, there were always the guys that would try to put their hands on girls' asses during a slow dance, or otherwise rub up on them. 🙄 As an adult/parent I now feel for those poor chaperones trying to keep everyone in line. 😏
Hope you had a GREAT bday! My Prom song was Faithfully by Journey in 1994. It was definitely with the right person...he's my husband! :) We were high school sweethearts so I have fond memories of those years!
My high school bestie's older sister's prom song was "Faithfully." She went to the prom with the guy she'd later marry. I sang at their wedding and then two of them danced to -- you guessed it --- "Faithfully" as their first dance.
Also, I went to the prom my senior year with my high school bestie's little brother. Had way more fun at his prom than I did at my own. Less pressure, I think. And my dress only cost like $30. 😂
Happy Birthday! Stay warm (possible) and sane (impossible) during the long, grim weekend ahead.
Thank you!
I suspect we'd thrive in each (the) other's personal hell.
I'd actually rather hang out with my kids than anyone else most days.
Psychotic, I know. 😉
Unfortunately I was thinking more macro-related events. Let the micro keep you grounded.
If I don't know precisely to what you're referring, it's because I'm choosing to live in the micro as much as humanly possible these days. Let's keep me dumb for now. I'll have plenty of time to stay "informed" when I'm dead. (Closes eyes. Hugs dog. Remains sane.) 💕
In other news, I attended Jane F.'s killer webinar yesterday. Grounding, to say the least, but also encouraging. I'm further along in "the process" than I realized - or was willing to admit.
Such wise advice, Mr. Gowani. Set your focus where it can do some good. Why subject ourselves to something horrible that we have no control over?
Happy Birthday! I'm 100% sure you'll have a great time today! (Or, maybe, 98% sure. But I'm *really* rooting for ya!)
Here's hoping you lean in to it, in any case!
PS - love how the initials stamped into the top spoon are almost "M.O."
Ha! It took me a minute to see the almost M.O. because it's the upside down C.W. I saw first.
Thanks for the birthday wishes. I'll do my best to honor them.
Would you believe at this moment I don't know who this is.....?
There's a good reason for that. 😏
1. All my prom dates were save-face friendship dates,😱
2. So no remember fondly forever prom song! But the next year, freshmen year college, I did dry-hump with a stranger to the disco thumps of Nine Inch Nails’ Closer at a dirty dirty Dallas dance club, is that romance? It felt naughty and shameful but also I couldn’t step away!
3. Um… question about this platonic spooning… sounds great for kids, but now? Surely, it’s not innocent when you’re married?!?!
1. Only once did I attend a dance with an actual "boyfriend," but it was one of those boyfriends that was a set-up and other people wanted us to date each other more than we actually wanted to date each other. High school is effing weird.
2. Dry humping is definitely a romantic-adjacent accoutrement. You read Dot, right? The "stranger" part makes it a bit less "sweet" in my mind. Unless the two of you kept bumping (no pun intended) into each other in less dry humpy situations after that for all eternity. Then it's DEFINITLEY romance. 😊
3. This question raises so many other questions around fidelity. This is why I love writing about teenagers, though. They're much better at nuance than adults are when it comes to gestures of affection. Still, if one was committed to a person and then spooned outside of that commitment, it could be damaging. Especially if Nine Inch Nails entered into the equation. 😇
No, no, no! Don’t do it!
(Don’t dry hump strangers! Don’t spoon someone who isn’t your spouse!)
What's your view on body pillows? 😂
If your spouse is on vacation: understandable.
If your spouse is downstairs? Less so.
On second thought… no. Don’t dry-hump the body pillow.
Nailed it again. As always, Meg, I am suddenly 17 again when I read your YA romances. That's why I like them so much. They remind me of who I was, which is sometimes better than who I am now. A brief escape. As for spooning, I am ALWAYS the big spoon. Little spooning makes me feel trapped. I don't like trapped. Your writing is so refreshing.
Thank you, Sharron! 💕
I don't know if I'm better now than I was then. But I've logged considerably more missed opportunities by leaning away. If I went back in time with all my experience points in tow, I like to think I'd handle that dance floor moment with a little more confidence. Or bravery. Whichever one I was missing at 17. 😊
My future hubs and I went to several HS dances together - homecoming, Jr year prom, etc, but were cycling through those lean ins/outs by our Senior prom enough that he asked SOMEONE ELSE (from a rival school even) to prom and I freaked out on him so that he dumped that chick (“sorry my ‘girlfriend I guess’ had other plans for me”) and took me instead. I think he probably still wonders if he missed a better one but he stuck with me 😆
I don’t remember a specific prom song but since it was 1989 it was probably cheesy and awesome. 💕
Happy Birthday!!🎉
Oh my, that's some serious sweetheart drama! So, you were dating your now husband when he asked another girl to the prom!? Or were you in one of those convenient "off again" spells and he was being an opportunist? :-) Either way, if she was worth his time she would have fought for him. Seems to me you won fair and square. 😊
In my memory, we were in some kind of “allowed to date other people” stance…but in my mind that did not include our Sr Prom!! He was grabbing the opportunity but was corrected 😂
Have a glorious birthday! I love this piece. So sweet and charming. What a wonderful memory.
I went to my junior prom with the HS quarterback. He was a dick. We "made out" but because I didn't sleep with him he was awful and spread rumors about me. Years later, he married, had a daughter and apologized to me. I guess having a daughter woke him up to how crappy some teen boys can be. Maybe he was trying to avoid karma?
Yikes! That story reads like a YA novel, complete with epilogue.
A dick, indeed. The long overdue apology was a nice touch, but I suspect he was still dodging karma every time his daughter brought a potentially dickish boy home from school. 😏
Happy Birthday 🎉
Thank you! 🥂
Is it sad that I don’t really remember that many dances from high school? I do recall one dance (though it wasn’t prom). It was the JROTC Ball. My date and I went as friends but I ended up spending several dances with a dreamy Top Gun Maverick type. It was tradition that all the boys get down on one knee, holding the hand of a girl of their choosing and sing “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” by the Righteous Brothers. Probably the closest I ever got to being in an eighties rom-com.
Several dances with the same Maverick??? That's something special. 💕
I lived for school dances, so it's not surprising to me they became so sticky in my memory vault.
The only tradition the boys at my school had was to insert the names of girls at the dance into that song "Da' Butt." 😂 So, consider yourself lucky. 😉
My most memorable school dance memory is from 1985. Picture this, a darkened junior high school gymnasium that smelled of feet and floor polish. Cheesy party lights surrounding the DJ and his stacks of albums up on the stage. Me and my best girl friends standing along the edges of the makeshift “dancing” space. My crush braves the gauntlet of giggling girls and asks me for the next slow dance. To which I replied a wide-eyed, goofy-grin, too enthusiastic “yes.” Of course. It was my crush asking! He quickly scampered out of the gym to wait for the said slow song to start (and die a 100 slow mortifying deaths) in the hallway—safely out of view. Then from the speakers blast the latest Whitney Houston hit “How Will I Know?” And we all take to the floor. My girl posse rightly put me in the center as we all belted out the words.
I may not remember the actual slow dance with my crush, but I remember the moment I knew that he really liked me… the moment he asked for a slow dance…
Happy birthday!
Aww ... love that story. 😊 Junior high can be a tough scene. Always nice to have fond memories associated with that era.
Have you heard Sam Smith's cover of "How Will I Know?" It's crushingly good. https://open.spotify.com/track/3yb2hJ1kKDEhLo3qfw7zlr?si=ae36de5c06fb4fb1
I’d not heard his version before. Beautiful! (Though it hits differently, doesn’t it?)
It does!! But I love a cover song that can hit a different chord than the original.
No idea on the song but prom for me was ‘94. I subscribe to this for the same reason an alcoholic might subscribe to a teetotaler’s blog 🤣
Is that because an alcoholic would want to read about how the sober half lives?? 😏
I graduated from eighth grade in 94. I remember lots of R&B music in those years (Boys II Men, En Vogue) plus Celine Dion was huge at that time.
Dunno, but I like your perspective! Boys 2 men were especially big around me being that they were from Philly.
🥂
"Motown Philly" and "End of the Road" are respectively attached to different middle school crushes I had. 😂
YES!! KDRAMA!!! Ahem. Loved all the little percentages. It was a little different in Australia. We didn’t have proms, we had formals. And I don’t think we got the memo on “prom song” either because the theme song for my final year of high school was “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi.
YEAH! I really, really enjoyed Crash Landing On You. Thank you so much for the recommendation. My brain is now picking it apart and deciding how best to unpack/review it for the masses. 😊
In high school we had an annual semi-formal in December, but just one "Junior" prom. The latter was only different in that the dresses and accessories cost way more, and the venue wasn't the cafeteria. 😉
"Livin' in a Prayer" was an anthem for a generation. Excellent choice.
I do love that its secondary theme seems to be “found family”. You know in comparison to her actual blood relations. There are some “rules” in romance KDramas! Like not kissing until episode 8, and episode 13 is where the external plot really catches up to their little bubble of happiness, etc.
Is this KDrama rulebook readily available?? I must read it. I definitely picked up on the many ways the show style differed from American soaps.
Not that I know of … no wait, I read something here on Substack that was pretty on point, let me see if I can find it again. But after a couple of them, you figure it out. Btw, “Descendents of the Sun” or “Hometown Cha Cha Cha” next on the rotation? I mean, once you’ve got two or three watched you’re pretty much hooked, I mean, you’ve figured out the story beats.
Found it! https://open.substack.com/pub/excitedmark/p/how-to-write-a-kdrama-romcom-romantic-comedy?r=1mk6at&utm_medium=ios
Bookmarked! Thanks for sharing. 💕
What a sweet, sad, sure story there Meg. So original with your “thing”.
💕Thank you, Kim.
Happy Belated Birthday!! Such a sweet story. To answer your questions:
What was your prom song? Share the year, if you’re not shy about it. 😉 - I didn't go to prom. But I did go to Homecoming with my gay bestie and that was fun because we both love to dance. And he had me cracking up the whole dang time. They also had other dances at our school, and I remember dancing with a guy named Carl, who I shared a class. Don't remember the song, the year, or the class. LOL I did a lot of crushing from afar in high school. When you're a drop of chocolate in a sea of milk, you do a lot of crushing from afar. And if someone "liked" me, I never knew.
Did you dance/fuse to it with the right person? 🎵 - When I danced with both Mike (the gay dude) and Carl, it was the respectable distance of hands on his shoulders, his hands on my waist. At that point, Mike hadn't come out of the closet yet and was trying to be "normal". I'd met Mike the summer before our senior year in a summer math class and we were inseparable the whole summer. Mid-senior year, when he was in his element with the theater folks, he came out. For about a day, I was like, "What the WHAT?" It changed our friendship dynamic a little bit because he'd started to hang out with the theater folks more, but I'm glad he finally did come out. He didn't know how his friends would react.
Generally speaking, are you the big spoon or the little spoon? 🥄 - I would definitely be the little spoon in this scenario. LOL
I remember slow dancing in middle school always took that polite posture of having enough room for a third person in between the two slow dancers. 😂 Things shifted to something more like horny-hug-swaying in high school. And of course, there were always the guys that would try to put their hands on girls' asses during a slow dance, or otherwise rub up on them. 🙄 As an adult/parent I now feel for those poor chaperones trying to keep everyone in line. 😏
That’s a sharp takeaway. Of all things, it reminds me of GLOW’s pro-wrestling credo: “It’s all about the chase.”
Yeah. I was all chase in high school. Only got me in trouble a couple of times. 😂
Also ... welcome aboard!! 💕
Happy to be aboard, the enthusiasm is infectious.
One of the few infections I can feel good about spreading around. 😉
Hope you had a GREAT bday! My Prom song was Faithfully by Journey in 1994. It was definitely with the right person...he's my husband! :) We were high school sweethearts so I have fond memories of those years!
Thanks, Shannon! 💕
My high school bestie's older sister's prom song was "Faithfully." She went to the prom with the guy she'd later marry. I sang at their wedding and then two of them danced to -- you guessed it --- "Faithfully" as their first dance.
Also, I went to the prom my senior year with my high school bestie's little brother. Had way more fun at his prom than I did at my own. Less pressure, I think. And my dress only cost like $30. 😂