[A Valentine’s Day installment in the ongoing series “Really Kinda Gay Things I Did Before I Was Really Kinda Gay.]

By the spring of third grade at Manasquan Elementary the boys vs. girls mentality was beginning to break down. Cootie shot technology was available to all who were willing to walk around for the day with a ballpoint circle and dot on their forearm. Cootie tech allowed one to have physical contact with the opposite sex for the rest of the school day without having to worry about contracting the cooties.

The cooties was a highly contagious disease with no agreed-upon symptoms. I think today we’d call it a “syndrome.” A social I.B.S, if you will.

Shots were necessary because the playground was evolving. In the Fall, the schoolyard game of “Girls Chase the Boys” involved actually running at top speed to avoid being caught. Yet, in the Spring, the boys somehow got slower, and the girls got noticeably more aggressive in their pursuit. And it wasn’t just tag, it was “accidentally” tripping and some aggressive tackling. Then I began to notice that certain girls were chasing certain boys, and certain boys were angling to be in the path of certain girls. Instead of running in straight lines, the would run serpentine until the right girl caught them. They all were starting to change.

I milled about at the edge of field.

I figured I had best allow myself to be caught, and I knew exactly who need to do the catching: Lori Townshend. There were only two flaws to my plans. First, I was peripheral to her world. I existed only when dittos needed to be handed back to the person behind you. She, like everyone else, just sort of tossed the papers over her shoulders so she could get to sniffing the sweet, sweet ink that gave us the energy to get thru whatever dullness Miss Volpe decided to ditto that day. Second, if she were to chase me, then I couldn’t see her hair, which most certainly trailed behind like a herd of wild mustangs answerable only to her.

But I lie. Hair was too mild a word for what Lori possessed. From my perch behind her, I would hold crayons up to it in an attempt to determine its exact color. We weren’t just dealing with long brown hair. Chestnut waterfall maybe. Or a russet cascade. Maybe an auburn tsunami. I was kid with a 64-box of Crayolas and a thesaurus; I could go on all day. Continue reading →