So, uh, a little history and perspective.

Now, unlike my esteemed fellow blogger, I'm not much for ranting nostalgia, or for that matter, a lot of emo blather.(No offense, bro.) My chief interest in this blog has been trying to spread the geek love.

That said, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. (Not having a job to distract you will do that.) I've been working on the novel, trying to shape up the first half before November comes and I start working on the second half. For those of you that haven't read it, the first half of the novel takes place in the winter of 1989, and is about a group of high school kids and how they interact over the course of a long weekend. I realized, after writing the original 50,000 words in one caffeine and sugar fueled month, that as much as I liked the characters, I couldn't totally relate to them. Why?

Well, they fuck like rabbits. Seriously. (Okay, that's not the main reason I'm having issues with it, but it is a factor.)

I was a senior in high school in 1989, and let me tell you, I was not fucking like a rabbit. I was, in fact, completely mystified by the female animal.

In 1989, I was a slightly overweight, bespectacled Star Wars geek who was too busy working like a dog to manage to keep my C+ average and working like a dog after school to put some money away for college. I had a few friends who were girls, but no real prospects. That probably had as much to do with the fact that I didn't have a mullet, a Camaro, or a bass guitar hidden away in my garage as it did with my inherent geekiness. As a result, I struggled along, going to the prom with a co-worker who took pity on me after I got shot down by the two other girls I asked. (Unlike Will Piedmont, I wouldn't have gone stag.) It also didn't help that the two guys in my circle of high school friends that I held in highest regard appeared to be getting a great deal of interest from the opposite sex. (Later in life, I would find this not to be true, but at the time, it was like a guillotine blade over my head.)

In the spring and summer of '89, I managed to get my first girlfriend. She was another cashier at Stop and Shop, and our relationship was short and bittersweet. We had three dates, a brief amount of fumbling physical interaction, and then I was summarily dumped for a guy with the aforementioned mullet and Camaro. This, unfortunately, put a brief strain on my relationship with her brother, who was a pretty good friend until I broke his nose. (He was mad at me, I was mad at his sister, it was dumb, and I apologized for a few weeks afterward.)

After that disaster, I almost got laid by a woman twice my age. I worked with some wonderful, hard-partying people in those days, and any excuse for a party was a good one. In this case, it was my departure for Marist. Towards the end of the evening, the hostess of the party and I were sitting outside when she decided that she needed to stick her tongue down my throat. Alcohol was a factor(for her, not for me) but because I was a good boy, there was some fumbling, and a few wonderful moments, but in the end, the Boy Scout in me won out, and that was the end of that.

So, headed for college, I was having no luck at all with the fairer sex. (It gets worse before it gets better, believe me.)