When I was in grade 5 I was introduced to the world of soaps by my brother. He watched Days of Our Lives endlessly during the summer and that's when I was hooked on it too! My love affair with Days lasted til my high school days. Absolutely love it still, the show just never gets old!

I used to love the Power Rangers, as did most other kids my age. Anyway, for the most part, my parents forbid it cause it was always on the news for portraying violence to little kids and whatever but i still sat in front of the tube everyday at like 4:30 (i think that was the time) on weekdays just to watch it. I watch it now, sometimes, just for kicks, and man, that show is really out of date. Oh yeah - they used to have these commercial segments, where they try to teach a moral lesson. Those were always entertaining...

"Full House" was the best TV show! I remember watching the last episode and clapping with the audience. I saw it again last year and I never realized as a kid how cheezy it really was!

when i was in kindergarten my mom and i were in walmart one day and i ran up to who i thought was my grandmother and started telling her all about my day. i rambled on and on. finally i yelled "love you grandma!" and ran off to look at the toys across the aisle. after we left the store my mom told me that wasnt my grandmother, it was my kindergarten teacher. (!!!) they looked so similar. i was mortified when i had to go to school the next day. i couldnt look my teacher in the face for a week.

In 7th grade, I saw my kindergarten teacher at a Baskin Robbins and didn't recognize her, although she recognized me.

I learned that even though the school faculty seems nice, all they want to do is make money.

See, I was the only kid in my class at that Jewish private day school who could read. My parents asked the faculty if they could do more for me so I could get the education I needed, but the faculty said that they were doing "all we can" for me, which wasn't very much. So I got transferred to a school for gifted children.

I was 12.
He was a day older than me. I didn't know that then. I did know he was extremely short, and really cute.

That one day we were at a bar mitzvah. The service hadn't started yet. He was in the row in front of me, and we were just talking over the back of the pew. And I had this sudden urge to kiss him. I wasn't in love with him. I didn't even like him, you know, like a crush. I just wanted to kiss him.

The next bat mitzvah we went to we asked each other to dance simultaneously. He told everyone I asked him, but I told everyone he asked me. Two days later I found out he liked me.

We went through this 4 month period in which we were both in love with each other, but neither had the guts to ask the other out.

Then it happened.
The day before his bar mitzvah, the day I was going to ask me out (lest I die in the shower, as my friend predicted), he told my cousin (who I'm very close to) that he didn't like me anymore, and would she please tell me.

I learned how to tie my shoes from Seasame Street. I watched Ernie do it once and then ran downstairs to grab one of my size 8 children's sneakers before he did it again. I followed along and, bam! I did it, I could tie my shoes!

That was easy.

It was time to show my mom. I ran up another flight of stairs to her bedroom where she was sleeping. I put my shoe on the bed and then began showing her my mad skillz. Boy... was that a mistake. Ernie didn't tell me not to put shoes on a bed.

I am not a huge fan of family weddings. I love my family dearly but I have never been able to small talk my way out of a paper bag. Forgive me for the muddled expression. This limits the enjoyment I get out of not only weddings, but also major holidays, large birthday parties, and family reunions. I'm great with strangers but for some reason I cannot seem to care about many of the inane things my relatives have to say to me while they, in turn, pretend to be interested in my job, friends, school, etc.

The one wedding that will always stuck out in my mind was probably ten years ago. One of my cousins was getting married, and honestly although I've narrowed it down to two, I'm not sure who it was. I remember nothing about the ceremony, less about the food, and I'm sure the conversation was just as uncomfortable as always. However, there was a D.J. Like there almost always is. And my parents danced.

My little sisters and I came back to the table, having just done that dance that everyone does to "Love Shack" with our little cousins. My parents were laughing in wonderment about how we just knew the best dances, or something like similar, that only parents can say without being offensive. And then some other song came on and my father asked my mother to dance. She agreed. They walked to the dance floor. They danced.

My parents relationship has been weird for the most of my life. For the majority of my youth and even today I was convinced that they were the "stay together for the kids" cliche in the flesh. I can vividly recall several times when my sisters and I considered who we would live with when after our parents' imminent divorce. But that night, watching them dance, my mother with her matching artificial hips and my father in his prematurely old man combination of khacki pants, blue blazer, and red tie, they actually looked like they liked each other. My sisters and I just sat there and watched, mesmerized.

I've never spoken to either of them about it and now, having written it down, I can't help but wonder if they remember this night the same way I do.

Dancing was never my thing. My first girlfriend told me I danced like a fool, that I looked stupid when I danced, like Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Seinfeld without the grace. Yikes. For the longest time, I'd hate going to clubs cause I'd feel self conscious about the grandfather-clock-like arm movements and the army marching feet rhythms that I mentally pictured.

It wasn't until I met this one girl who changed it all. She said that I danced well, she said that it was fun dancing with me... she made it enjoyable for me to be on my feet. That was the only confidence booster I needed.

Sometimes, when I have those moments of self consciousness on the dance floor, I think of her and that night we danced, and then I let it flow.