Gil Santos - long known as the voice of the New England Patriots and a fixture at WBZ-1030, said goodbye to his fans and listeners.
Gil Santos was a class act. Unlike sportscasters of today, who seem to scream over one another for attention, Santos knew how to grab his audience without turning them off. His excitement was genuine, not forced and followed by a plug for sketchy items like Cash4Gold or weight-loss scams. Like his news counterpart Gary LaPierre, who also retired not long ago, Santos was a fixture of the old style Boston news, one that told a story without flashy CGI graphics and teases for segments.
And, he doesn't have to get up at 3 in the morning anymore. That's a good thing.
1/16/2009
It's the quiet ones you've got to watch, and the shy ones you've got to gently press
I posted an article about shyness in the workplace on Facebook from the New York Post (link here) and a few days later I got into a nice conversation from an old classmate of mine.
This classmate (female, if you want to know) said "I totally agree with you...I still blush once in awhile, but I'm beginning to become better at speaking up being more forward."
I think in all of my 37 years in existence, that message was like a tiny drop of water hitting a calm pool and reverberating throughout the pond. That simple message of "I know where you're coming from, I'm in the same boat" was nice, refreshing, honest, and direct.
For many years, I've held myself back, all because I thought the next words to come out of my mouth would either be a rooster's crow or something I would regret. I never went to dances, semi-formals, proms, or anything remotely resembling social gatherings because I was too shy to ask a girl out. Asking questions at my job takes a little bit of courage, but I always seem to preface it with a joke to take the edge off of that anxiety. Once the question's asked, though, I feel much better.
To "shore up" the shortcomings I have with the Cleary Squared tongue, I take solace in writing. I don't know if it's because the delete or backspace key is within easy reach, or I think better through a 110 key piece of machinery (I'm on my fifth keyboard in five years), but there's a certain satisfaction of clicking your way to a conversation, rather than coming up to someone face-to-face and going, "a-duh, homina, homina, homina" and actually insulting the one you intended to ask out for a coffee or a night out.
There are probably people who seem really bold, forward, almost obnoxious, who are actually as shy or reticent in person. The quiet kids who don't speak all that much actually tend to be funny and smart, but don't want to reveal all the cards they have in their deck until they know the proper time to use them. Sometimes people mistake the quiet people who don't say much for shy people who are too afraid to say anything.
This classmate (female, if you want to know) said "I totally agree with you...I still blush once in awhile, but I'm beginning to become better at speaking up being more forward."
I think in all of my 37 years in existence, that message was like a tiny drop of water hitting a calm pool and reverberating throughout the pond. That simple message of "I know where you're coming from, I'm in the same boat" was nice, refreshing, honest, and direct.
For many years, I've held myself back, all because I thought the next words to come out of my mouth would either be a rooster's crow or something I would regret. I never went to dances, semi-formals, proms, or anything remotely resembling social gatherings because I was too shy to ask a girl out. Asking questions at my job takes a little bit of courage, but I always seem to preface it with a joke to take the edge off of that anxiety. Once the question's asked, though, I feel much better.
To "shore up" the shortcomings I have with the Cleary Squared tongue, I take solace in writing. I don't know if it's because the delete or backspace key is within easy reach, or I think better through a 110 key piece of machinery (I'm on my fifth keyboard in five years), but there's a certain satisfaction of clicking your way to a conversation, rather than coming up to someone face-to-face and going, "a-duh, homina, homina, homina" and actually insulting the one you intended to ask out for a coffee or a night out.
There are probably people who seem really bold, forward, almost obnoxious, who are actually as shy or reticent in person. The quiet kids who don't speak all that much actually tend to be funny and smart, but don't want to reveal all the cards they have in their deck until they know the proper time to use them. Sometimes people mistake the quiet people who don't say much for shy people who are too afraid to say anything.
1/11/2009
Dear Patrick Swayze...
I watched your interview with Barbara Walters on YouTube.
I am the son of a lung cancer patient who died in 2005. When he was diagnosed in 2004, the cancer was discovered as osteosarcoma hit his femur and the bone snapped. The next day, tests confirmed that osteosarcoma came from a mass in his lung. We all got to watch cancer transform him the same way it's transforming you - weight loss, chemo, etc. You still don't look too bad, but those last few weeks he was alive, he was down at least 25-30 pounds. Not once, though, did he want pity, sorrow, or anything else. He still cracked jokes and did what he could to keep his quality of life until he drew his last breath on November 22, 2005. When my father finally passed away, however, I didn't scream or cry. I felt so relieved and happy that he didn't have to suffer through the monster that was cancer anymore.
When I watched that interview, however, not a single time did I say, "Poor guy, he's doesn't have that much time left." I said, "Wow, Patrick Swayze could kick cancer's ass and do a scene from Dirty Dancing at the same time!" (Or at least give it a temporary kick in the naughty bits.)
Certainly, it's going to be sad to leave your wonderful wife of 33 years, Lisa Niemi. It's still sad for my mother, as those past memories will rush up like a wave and crash at the least expected time. What's left over is not the body, not the voice that you hear when you wake up in the morning, but the memories and the love. That's the most wonderful gift you can leave before and after you die.
The late Bill Bixby once said, "People with cancer just die, give up...you can't do that." That's precisely what you're doing - keeping everything up just to maintain your sanity. We all die - that's a fact. When is the variable that makes us nervous - some die moments after they come out, others last for a century or more. Only God (or your favorite deity) knows for sure. When that moment comes, it will not be a sad moment. It will be a joyous one.
I wish you the best of luck during these times, and keep on with that uptempo attitude of yours!
Cleary Squared
I am the son of a lung cancer patient who died in 2005. When he was diagnosed in 2004, the cancer was discovered as osteosarcoma hit his femur and the bone snapped. The next day, tests confirmed that osteosarcoma came from a mass in his lung. We all got to watch cancer transform him the same way it's transforming you - weight loss, chemo, etc. You still don't look too bad, but those last few weeks he was alive, he was down at least 25-30 pounds. Not once, though, did he want pity, sorrow, or anything else. He still cracked jokes and did what he could to keep his quality of life until he drew his last breath on November 22, 2005. When my father finally passed away, however, I didn't scream or cry. I felt so relieved and happy that he didn't have to suffer through the monster that was cancer anymore.
When I watched that interview, however, not a single time did I say, "Poor guy, he's doesn't have that much time left." I said, "Wow, Patrick Swayze could kick cancer's ass and do a scene from Dirty Dancing at the same time!" (Or at least give it a temporary kick in the naughty bits.)
Certainly, it's going to be sad to leave your wonderful wife of 33 years, Lisa Niemi. It's still sad for my mother, as those past memories will rush up like a wave and crash at the least expected time. What's left over is not the body, not the voice that you hear when you wake up in the morning, but the memories and the love. That's the most wonderful gift you can leave before and after you die.
The late Bill Bixby once said, "People with cancer just die, give up...you can't do that." That's precisely what you're doing - keeping everything up just to maintain your sanity. We all die - that's a fact. When is the variable that makes us nervous - some die moments after they come out, others last for a century or more. Only God (or your favorite deity) knows for sure. When that moment comes, it will not be a sad moment. It will be a joyous one.
I wish you the best of luck during these times, and keep on with that uptempo attitude of yours!
Cleary Squared
1/08/2009
I'll take the calorie counts, easy on the nanny statism, please
I know I'm fat. Not pleasingly plump, not extra padding, just plain, ugly, disgusting fat. The battle of the bulge has been going on for nigh on eighteen years, ever since I left working at a shoe store and found myself at a love affair with a computer and sedentary living. My doctor and I still can't understand why my blood sugar and cholesterol are so outstanding, but the dirty zone is the old gullet. Once in awhile, I hear hushed English voices trying to determine if I'm the second pregnant man in the world (or the first authentic pregnant man), but rest assured, you will all be the first to know if that gut was either a ectotopic newborn or just my huge stomach. I'm definitely not proud of it.
However, parents have been sort of looking the other way. They're too busy holding two jobs, watching their 401(k) dwindle to nothing, and basically surviving on the smell of an oily rag. A trip to McDonalds is Tavern on the Green, so why not fill their cherubs with stuff that will keep them happy while they try to beat the debt collector?
The things I've noticed in my gustational journeys are many. The more I think about it, though, I eat because (a) I'm hungry, (b) I'm bored, (c) things ain't going well in Cleary Squared land, (d) it's there.
What I've noticed in my eating habits is as follows.
- A few months ago, I went to Cambridgeside to grab some dinner. (I've been learning to eat at 5:00 because if I eat later, I wake up in the middle of the night sweating, leaching off that meatloaf or cheeseburger pie.) Taco Bell is one of the best places to get Mexican food, even though Qdoba and Chipotle make theirs much fresher. I couldn't get near the place, or even the register. Couldn't have been the 79, 89 or 99 cent taco/burrito specials, couldn't it? Cheap food = popular food, and no wonder - BK's value meals were clocking in at $7 minimum! And places like Sakkio (great chicken teriyaki) were also busy as beavers as they had $4.99 chicken teryiaki with maki rolls! The other specialty shops, however, were bare. The Indian shop hardly had a person there, as well as the Thai place and the mini-bistrots.
I think what bothers the health scolds is that when people don't have a lot of money, they're going to see what they can get for as little as possible - both monetarily and nutritionally. They can't swing over to Souper Salad or visit the local vegetarian place and hope that $5 will fill their tummies, when a single bowl of mugilltawany soup is $4.99 before taxes. If these health scolds want to introduce healthier foods to the public, bring down the exorbitant prices of healthy foods! Is it too much to say, "to hell with the bottom line and profits...let's make healthy food cheap!" This includes all of the trendy food items like organics and fair trade items - which are marked up considerably over plain Jane foods. I don't care if my blue corn chips came from an labor faction in Ecuador - all I want is affordable (and delicious!) food.
- I don't like Weight Watchers. Period. Most of the leaders are very nice, and have lost anywhere between 60 and 100 pounds. Weigh-ins I liked, because it was in front of the nice leader instead of my doctor, who keeps on (sarcastically) suggesting stomach surgery. The points system is pretty neat and scientific. The culture of meetings every single second, however, are the deal breaker. Weight Watchers is food's version of AA-I'm overweight, not injecting myself with 98% pure heroin and selling my kids to feed my habit. If my weakness is food, wouldn't a more rounded program of (a) one-on-one with a qualified nutritionist, (b) one-on-one with a qualified trainer, and (c) one-on-one with a qualified psychologist to dig deep down and figure out why I'm gaining all this weight? Forget all the fad crap, like Hydroxywhizbang and Dr. Lala's Cabbage and Lemongrass 30-day fast. I'd like to lose the weight and keep my sanity, thanks.
- Health eugenics - raising a more perfect human race through nutrition - is a dangerous thing. Self-righteousness is even more so, as the assumption that Your Way should be Everyone's Way is not merely arrogant, it's dead wrong. For every vegan (militant, obnoxious, or just a fussy pain in the ass) who throws a fit every time someone dares to bring in a hamburger, there is a long-time practicing vegetarian who can whip up a 100% vegetarian meal that looks like the real meat-laden McCoy and no one ever suspects a thing, and will not be bothered in the least if you drink skim milk in their presence. The way to introduce healthy eating and avoiding obesity is not to jam it down people's throats - although that hasn't stopped politicians from hiking cigarette taxes through the wazoo while redistributing that money through everything else but health. Sure, I don't mind calorie counts on the menus, and I hardly notice the missing trans fats. (It's a nice test in math to see if you can make a filling meal for under 500 calories.) When the busybodies (pardon me, the "concerned") delve into the holy nonsense of taxing sodas and pulling out vending machines because Heaven forfend there's a molecule of trans fat in it, that's when people get turned off into getting healthy, and do their best to sneak around it. Hey, prohibition really worked for Al Capone, didn't it?
The only person, believe it or not, who gets the health thing right is Richard Simmons. Kids are so overprotected and hovered over these days is that they don't get to run around and get the pent-up energy out of their systems - yet when these same kids get fat, the administrators and teachers panic and overcompensate. The best solution for this is bringing back physical education, something I give huge support to (even though back at Latin Academy, we had a huge floor that passed for "gym".) You get kids who get exercise and maintain a healthy life, and teachers get more attentive kids. Not a bad deal.
However, parents have been sort of looking the other way. They're too busy holding two jobs, watching their 401(k) dwindle to nothing, and basically surviving on the smell of an oily rag. A trip to McDonalds is Tavern on the Green, so why not fill their cherubs with stuff that will keep them happy while they try to beat the debt collector?
The things I've noticed in my gustational journeys are many. The more I think about it, though, I eat because (a) I'm hungry, (b) I'm bored, (c) things ain't going well in Cleary Squared land, (d) it's there.
What I've noticed in my eating habits is as follows.
- A few months ago, I went to Cambridgeside to grab some dinner. (I've been learning to eat at 5:00 because if I eat later, I wake up in the middle of the night sweating, leaching off that meatloaf or cheeseburger pie.) Taco Bell is one of the best places to get Mexican food, even though Qdoba and Chipotle make theirs much fresher. I couldn't get near the place, or even the register. Couldn't have been the 79, 89 or 99 cent taco/burrito specials, couldn't it? Cheap food = popular food, and no wonder - BK's value meals were clocking in at $7 minimum! And places like Sakkio (great chicken teriyaki) were also busy as beavers as they had $4.99 chicken teryiaki with maki rolls! The other specialty shops, however, were bare. The Indian shop hardly had a person there, as well as the Thai place and the mini-bistrots.
I think what bothers the health scolds is that when people don't have a lot of money, they're going to see what they can get for as little as possible - both monetarily and nutritionally. They can't swing over to Souper Salad or visit the local vegetarian place and hope that $5 will fill their tummies, when a single bowl of mugilltawany soup is $4.99 before taxes. If these health scolds want to introduce healthier foods to the public, bring down the exorbitant prices of healthy foods! Is it too much to say, "to hell with the bottom line and profits...let's make healthy food cheap!" This includes all of the trendy food items like organics and fair trade items - which are marked up considerably over plain Jane foods. I don't care if my blue corn chips came from an labor faction in Ecuador - all I want is affordable (and delicious!) food.
- I don't like Weight Watchers. Period. Most of the leaders are very nice, and have lost anywhere between 60 and 100 pounds. Weigh-ins I liked, because it was in front of the nice leader instead of my doctor, who keeps on (sarcastically) suggesting stomach surgery. The points system is pretty neat and scientific. The culture of meetings every single second, however, are the deal breaker. Weight Watchers is food's version of AA-I'm overweight, not injecting myself with 98% pure heroin and selling my kids to feed my habit. If my weakness is food, wouldn't a more rounded program of (a) one-on-one with a qualified nutritionist, (b) one-on-one with a qualified trainer, and (c) one-on-one with a qualified psychologist to dig deep down and figure out why I'm gaining all this weight? Forget all the fad crap, like Hydroxywhizbang and Dr. Lala's Cabbage and Lemongrass 30-day fast. I'd like to lose the weight and keep my sanity, thanks.
- Health eugenics - raising a more perfect human race through nutrition - is a dangerous thing. Self-righteousness is even more so, as the assumption that Your Way should be Everyone's Way is not merely arrogant, it's dead wrong. For every vegan (militant, obnoxious, or just a fussy pain in the ass) who throws a fit every time someone dares to bring in a hamburger, there is a long-time practicing vegetarian who can whip up a 100% vegetarian meal that looks like the real meat-laden McCoy and no one ever suspects a thing, and will not be bothered in the least if you drink skim milk in their presence. The way to introduce healthy eating and avoiding obesity is not to jam it down people's throats - although that hasn't stopped politicians from hiking cigarette taxes through the wazoo while redistributing that money through everything else but health. Sure, I don't mind calorie counts on the menus, and I hardly notice the missing trans fats. (It's a nice test in math to see if you can make a filling meal for under 500 calories.) When the busybodies (pardon me, the "concerned") delve into the holy nonsense of taxing sodas and pulling out vending machines because Heaven forfend there's a molecule of trans fat in it, that's when people get turned off into getting healthy, and do their best to sneak around it. Hey, prohibition really worked for Al Capone, didn't it?
The only person, believe it or not, who gets the health thing right is Richard Simmons. Kids are so overprotected and hovered over these days is that they don't get to run around and get the pent-up energy out of their systems - yet when these same kids get fat, the administrators and teachers panic and overcompensate. The best solution for this is bringing back physical education, something I give huge support to (even though back at Latin Academy, we had a huge floor that passed for "gym".) You get kids who get exercise and maintain a healthy life, and teachers get more attentive kids. Not a bad deal.
12/20/2008
The difference between romance and love
In this NPR article, a very touching and outstanding story about two people who lived through a cancer diagnosis, until the person with the diagnosis passed away one week after their engagement at the age of 36.
I made the following comment to the person who posted this article on her Facebook page...
The difference between love and romance is that we make ourselves attractive for romance, but for love, attractiveness doesn't matter. It's that willingness to show up and support your loved one when they need you the most. That endurance makes a giant difference.
I made the following comment to the person who posted this article on her Facebook page...
My father, when he was first diagnosed with lung cancer back in 2004, would have never known he had it if he didn't break his leg. It was a medium sized tumor, but the damage was done - by September 2005 it had spread to his spine, his brain, and everywhere else. But the greatest thing of it all - he never let anyone feel sorry for him. He still joked about things and kept as lucid as possible until his last days, which were filled with hallucinations, focal seizures, and goodbyes. We even had an Irish wake for him the day before he died.
When you think about it, though, it's a true test of love and friendship to sustain and stick by those in their darkest hours. We may pay the price by losing our loved ones, but we won't count the cost of what we sacrificed to get there. But the memories remain, and that's the real gifts they leave behind.
The difference between love and romance is that we make ourselves attractive for romance, but for love, attractiveness doesn't matter. It's that willingness to show up and support your loved one when they need you the most. That endurance makes a giant difference.
12/16/2008
Airing of the Grievances (a tribute to George Carlin)
In the spirit of the late George Carlin and the currently very much alive Jerry Stiller, I present the Airing of the Grievances.
Note to the folks: this entry has R-rated language.
1. People who can't walk a straight line, cut you off when you're trying to get somewhere, and then decide to yap on a cell phone endlessly. The opposite of this are people who stand there like statues. What, is this some kind of fucking game of "Red Light, Green Light?" Keep moving, unless you want to be moved or pushed to the floor.
2. Here's an idea for you neurotic wimps out there who hate smoking, drinking and other vices that are still legal: we don't picket you when you're running around naked with your naughty bits on display. We don't try to force you to sell certain kinds of "organic" produce. And we don't follow around people who we suspect might shoplift, when they're actually looking to eat healthier. $5 for a pound of apples raised in cow shit is a sin.
3. Wall Street. My 401(k) is now a 332.6(k), but it could have been a 201(k). Thanks, Hank and Ben. Please don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
4. Hollywood. Earth to actors and actresses: you not the fucking royalty of America. You get paid millions of dollars to pretend or perform, and yet you think you can pass down your noble royal edicts as gospel? There are actors who do great services the right way - as far away from the red carpet and cameras as possible. There are others who are just attention whores.
While we're at it: can we stop with the bizarre child names? I have two lovely nieces named Hollace and Riley. Those names are fine. My brother and his wife had the smarts not to name them Celery Moonbat Munster Cheese or Cross Bronx Expressway or Lightning Bat Chain Puller. Weird names work for the Zappa folk, although Dweezil is wondering when he can change his name to Dennis.
5. Reality TV. Trollops with fake tans, fake boobs, fake teeth, and the slimy men who adore them, should be put into a cage with hungry wolverines to rid them of their chances of 15 minutes of fame. As for the umpteenth editions of Survivor, Amazing Race, and Big Brother, how about shifting those cameras to the urban centers of our land? God knows a little sunshine is the best disinfectant, and those millions can be used to spruce up quite a few places.
6. Gossip. It's time we got rid of glorifying overpaid brats and sent the paparazzi to Iraq, where instead of getting that great shot of Britney Spears' hoo-hah, they can take pictures of soldiers and others who yearn for the comforts of home and stability. The paparazzi can then understand what it feels like when IEDs and bombs lurk among them and be grateful their last picture wasn't given a posthumous Pulitzer.
7. The press. The newspapers and TV networks are losing money left and right because they've become the public relations board for various lobbies. Somehow they lost their way from reporting the news to acting like tittering high school girls with a crush on the football captain. Time to clean out the queen bees and the goths and get back to reporting, rather than spreading vicious high school gossip.
8. Politics. We still have people in Washington who are so fucking clueless about what the nation really needs! We need people to lay down their ideology - the far left with their Marx worship, and the far right with their God worship - and find out where the hell the happy medium is. It's not gonna happen when you act like some asshat Robin Hood on steroids, or the second coming of Jesus. And it certainly isn't going to happen by telling certain people they can't be poor and certain people they can't be rich. And yes, the sooner term limits to weed out the deadwood and corrupt hacks infesting Capitol Hill is implemented, the better off we'll be.
That's all I can think of for now...
Note to the folks: this entry has R-rated language.
1. People who can't walk a straight line, cut you off when you're trying to get somewhere, and then decide to yap on a cell phone endlessly. The opposite of this are people who stand there like statues. What, is this some kind of fucking game of "Red Light, Green Light?" Keep moving, unless you want to be moved or pushed to the floor.
2. Here's an idea for you neurotic wimps out there who hate smoking, drinking and other vices that are still legal: we don't picket you when you're running around naked with your naughty bits on display. We don't try to force you to sell certain kinds of "organic" produce. And we don't follow around people who we suspect might shoplift, when they're actually looking to eat healthier. $5 for a pound of apples raised in cow shit is a sin.
3. Wall Street. My 401(k) is now a 332.6(k), but it could have been a 201(k). Thanks, Hank and Ben. Please don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
4. Hollywood. Earth to actors and actresses: you not the fucking royalty of America. You get paid millions of dollars to pretend or perform, and yet you think you can pass down your noble royal edicts as gospel? There are actors who do great services the right way - as far away from the red carpet and cameras as possible. There are others who are just attention whores.
While we're at it: can we stop with the bizarre child names? I have two lovely nieces named Hollace and Riley. Those names are fine. My brother and his wife had the smarts not to name them Celery Moonbat Munster Cheese or Cross Bronx Expressway or Lightning Bat Chain Puller. Weird names work for the Zappa folk, although Dweezil is wondering when he can change his name to Dennis.
5. Reality TV. Trollops with fake tans, fake boobs, fake teeth, and the slimy men who adore them, should be put into a cage with hungry wolverines to rid them of their chances of 15 minutes of fame. As for the umpteenth editions of Survivor, Amazing Race, and Big Brother, how about shifting those cameras to the urban centers of our land? God knows a little sunshine is the best disinfectant, and those millions can be used to spruce up quite a few places.
6. Gossip. It's time we got rid of glorifying overpaid brats and sent the paparazzi to Iraq, where instead of getting that great shot of Britney Spears' hoo-hah, they can take pictures of soldiers and others who yearn for the comforts of home and stability. The paparazzi can then understand what it feels like when IEDs and bombs lurk among them and be grateful their last picture wasn't given a posthumous Pulitzer.
7. The press. The newspapers and TV networks are losing money left and right because they've become the public relations board for various lobbies. Somehow they lost their way from reporting the news to acting like tittering high school girls with a crush on the football captain. Time to clean out the queen bees and the goths and get back to reporting, rather than spreading vicious high school gossip.
8. Politics. We still have people in Washington who are so fucking clueless about what the nation really needs! We need people to lay down their ideology - the far left with their Marx worship, and the far right with their God worship - and find out where the hell the happy medium is. It's not gonna happen when you act like some asshat Robin Hood on steroids, or the second coming of Jesus. And it certainly isn't going to happen by telling certain people they can't be poor and certain people they can't be rich. And yes, the sooner term limits to weed out the deadwood and corrupt hacks infesting Capitol Hill is implemented, the better off we'll be.
That's all I can think of for now...
12/02/2008
The Real Love Guru - nine years old
Warning to Doctor Phil and the slicksters on VH1: Alec Greven puts you two folks to shame with his direct, wonderfully clear dating book.
Some of his tips from the nine-year-old genius and my comments in red:
"It is easy to spot pretty girls because they have big earrings, fancy dresses and all the jewelry...[p]retty girls are like cars that need a lot of oil...The best choice for most boys is a regular girl. Remember, some pretty girls are coldhearted when it comes to boys. Don't let them get to you."
I can attest to that. A lot of the girls who seemed really pretty to me back in the day were sometimes pretty mean-spirited. And the longest-lasting friendships I had came from regular (not as pretty) girls.
And also:
"Crushes are like a love disease. It can drive you mad."
Also very much true. Crushes are like those songs you hear in your ears constantly - you never can seem to stop thinking about them. The girls I had serious crushes on were extremely flattered to be the object of my admiration/adoration, but I was more afraid of the boyfriends - I still have all my teeth! I could also never look them in the eye or hold a coherent conversation with them - I was so nervous I would slip up.
The true love you obtain will rarely be a crush you've had. It will be someone you'll feel comfortable and proud to share your day with.
and the best advice of all...
"Girls always like the smartest boys."
AMEN TO THAT! Back in the '80s, smart boys (back then called "nerds") were as popular as a nuclear power plant. The flip side to that was that the smartest boys, most often then not, had a lot of the answers, and actually listened to the girl's questions and concerns rather than giving a cursory "I don't know." Girls, once they knew they had a credible and reliable source, became fans of the smart boys for life, even though on the surface they seemed to despise them. So what if they dated the football captain or the baseball star, or their friends thought the smart boy was uncool to be even seen with. To a girl, the smart boy was a revered God.
Some of his tips from the nine-year-old genius and my comments in red:
"It is easy to spot pretty girls because they have big earrings, fancy dresses and all the jewelry...[p]retty girls are like cars that need a lot of oil...The best choice for most boys is a regular girl. Remember, some pretty girls are coldhearted when it comes to boys. Don't let them get to you."
I can attest to that. A lot of the girls who seemed really pretty to me back in the day were sometimes pretty mean-spirited. And the longest-lasting friendships I had came from regular (not as pretty) girls.
And also:
"Crushes are like a love disease. It can drive you mad."
Also very much true. Crushes are like those songs you hear in your ears constantly - you never can seem to stop thinking about them. The girls I had serious crushes on were extremely flattered to be the object of my admiration/adoration, but I was more afraid of the boyfriends - I still have all my teeth! I could also never look them in the eye or hold a coherent conversation with them - I was so nervous I would slip up.
The true love you obtain will rarely be a crush you've had. It will be someone you'll feel comfortable and proud to share your day with.
and the best advice of all...
"Girls always like the smartest boys."
AMEN TO THAT! Back in the '80s, smart boys (back then called "nerds") were as popular as a nuclear power plant. The flip side to that was that the smartest boys, most often then not, had a lot of the answers, and actually listened to the girl's questions and concerns rather than giving a cursory "I don't know." Girls, once they knew they had a credible and reliable source, became fans of the smart boys for life, even though on the surface they seemed to despise them. So what if they dated the football captain or the baseball star, or their friends thought the smart boy was uncool to be even seen with. To a girl, the smart boy was a revered God.
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