By Sarah

So, awhile back I wrote a blog about the supernatural aspects of writing. For example, you might be writing about kumquats, a fruit you haven't seen or eaten in years, when out of the blue an old friend sends you a membership to the Kumquat of the Month Club.

Well, it's happened to me again. This time for Sweet Love, my next book, which is about a forty-something woman meeting up with an old crush. Once again my life has imitated my "art." (Hey! I heard you laughing.) That's right, out of nowhere I've made contact with a boy I swore one day I would marry. Granted, I was eight and still believed in mermaids. Also, I'm embarrassed to admit, unicorns.

Not that he had a crush on me. I'm sorry to say that this was entirely a one-way romance on my part, a pathetic schoolgirl fantasy about a boy who probably thought I was a total whack job. But it was a great fantasy and he was a great boy who lived safely far away in the Midwest. You'd understand if you'd grown up in Bethlehem, PA, in the 1970s among the...well, Josh is here so I won't insult him except to say that he was an outstanding exception to the rather depressing rule.

The point is that the relationship was all in my own pre-adolescent mind. However, when I grew up and started meeting real men, I found I was looking someone I dreamed my crush was - a man who was intelligent and funny and athletic and charming and great with children. A man with adorable Midwestern values and, perhaps most importantly, drop-dead sexy. Yes, I'm talking about Charlie, my husband for nineteen years. I really lucked out.  Thanks, old crush.

The old crush is long married with a solid family including a son who's about as old as he was when I last saw him. (Does that make sense?) I'm sure we'll never see each other again, but it has been so fun to catch up on line. Ah, the delight of the Internet.

Wish I could say that about some of the other emails I've gotten lately from boys in my past. Yes, most have been innocuous, hey-I-saw-your-book-at-Barnes-and-Noble-and-wondered-if-you-were-that-idiot-girl-in-math-class type. We've traded details about our families and then signed off. Perfectly run of the mill. Some were former BMOCs in college or cool jocks in high school who are now, magically, really sweet. Funny how life can knock even the cockiest off their pedestals.

I was catching up with one old childhood friend, a girl who later became a Presbyterian minister, on a sunny Tuesday morning six Septembers ago. We were happily emailing back and forth about our families and mutual long lost friends when a New York Times alert popped up in my email. A small plane, believed to be a commuter plane, had reportedly flown into the Pentagon. Two minutes later, another plane had flown into the World Trade Center. And then another. "What's happening?" I wrote Connie. "I don't know," she wrote back. "I think I need to pray." That was the last I've ever heard from her.

Then there are the few that deserve their own special category.

For example, here's an excerpt from a guy I'll call Billy Ray. Bill Ray wrote me earlier this month to note that he is now a successful businessman out west with a suburban lifestyle he was "once opposed to living," but that sometimes he lets his mind "wander." One night, after dealing with his last employee, his mind drifted over to me. (Why does this sound like the beginning of a Penthouse Forum letter?) Indulge me while I quote:

What about Sarah?  We weren't really good friends.  We were acquaintances who happened to have a few classes together. I was the smart partier.  A bit different from most partying types as good
grades came easy to me and I would have continued to get good grades if I wasn't bored out of my mind with school.

Sarah, if my few brain cells are functioning correctly, came from a good
family with the right address and hung out with other super good people who
wouldn't be caught dead with somebody as crazy as myself.  She talked to me
every now and again.  But friends?  Wasn't in the stars.

You get the idea, right? Look, I wouldn't be blogging about this except he went on (and on and on and on) to conclude, finally,

I will not lie and tell you that I'm going to run out and read your books. If you wrote a math book, photography book or a book on government or politics, I'd be ordering from Amazon as I write this :-)

My own memories are enough fiction for me :-)

Okay, people, here's a tip. If you're going to write an author and ask them to pull out the yearbook and see if they remember you, please don't end the letter with, "by the way, I won't be buying your crap." Especially since, in this case, I had no clue who this guy was.

Or, as a woman from my past wrote me shortly after my first book was published, "I, too, aspire to be a writer...though not like you."

What did that mean? I have no idea because I've yet to see her name on the shelves.

It's fun, these on line reunions, especially when you have a book due in November and anything, anything is a welcome distraction. It's also nice because there's no face to face. I can still imagine the old crush as the strapping 19-year-old he was when I last saw him, not the forty-something banker he is now. And let's hope he still thinks of me as 18 and not the, er,...Well. We'll keep it at that.

All right. I know I'm not the only one out there who's had this experience. Come on - tell us yours!

Sarah

Comments

[Nancy Martin]

Because I have a generic name, I get a lot of those emails--high school guys looking for the Nancy Martin they knew back in the day---and some of them loved hard and put away wet, if you get my drift. One from Texas was signed "Honey Bear," which put some pictures in my head that I wish weren't there.

[Nancy Martin]

By high school guys I meant--Oh, nevermind. The time on my comment should explain it.

[Kathy Reschini Sweeney]

First off, Billy Ray? Jackass. Can I have his e-mail address? Because I have a message for him. This is the kind of jag who refers to himself in the third person.

My maiden name is the least generic you can find - so when I hear from an old flame, it's definitely me they are looking for. I noticed a real upswing in contact as we reached and passed 40.

As far as 'coincidence'? Not sure I believe that - I tend to think/hope that things happen for a reason. Part of a grand plan. If you are so inclined, the Holy Spirit at work.

Kumquat is a funny word. Makes you wonder if the person who discovered them actually hated them.

[Josh]

Sweeney, I've got the email address, but I'm not disclosing.

I decided that I liked a girl in high school, despite not knowing her in the least. She was reasonably attractive, tops or close to tops in the class, and totally uninterested in me. I stalked her for three years, but we didn't call it that back then. After graduation, I don't think I saw her again. In about 2000, when I got access to the Internet, I cyberstalked her, I mean, looked her up, got her general employment, her phone number and address (3000 or so miles away). I never contacted her. I mean, what would I say? "I cyberstalked you after 27 years so that I could apologize for stalking you from 1977 through 1980?" Or, "I was not responsible for tying myself up to that tree in front of your house, my friends had kidnapped me from our pierogie-making, and I managed to keep them from taking my pants off, although I had to walk back to their house barefoot because they got my shoes off?" Not hardly.

[ramona]

Hey, I had an old flame find me through TLC! And it wasn't because he wanted to apologize for breaking my heart a bazillion years ago, though I finally got one out of him. Funny how apologies seem to lose that special feeling of sincerity when they are demanded. At the time, I gave him the "no hard feelings" line but I've decided I was lying. I think everyone needs an enemy, or at least an old grudge. It's kind of sad, though, that mine is two decades old. What am I doing wrong?

Anyway, peeps, be careful what you write, you never know who's reading.

Now, here's a question. What's the difference between cyberstalking and just plain Googling someone? Because I Google people all the time. Does that make me a stalker, or just a curious person using the technology at hand?

Fun post, Sarah.

[Maryann]

There are three guys I would dearly love to hear from (or even about), since they were the crushes of my high school years...unlike my first real love who dumped me after three years to date one of my sister's classmates. Although I'd like to send him a thank you note for leaving me unencumbered when my own Chuck came along :o)
One didn't even know I existed. He was a 'bad boy' who played football but hung around with 'the hoods'. Red hair and a swagger. The second was a guy one year behind me (although a month older) who had the most goregeous blue eyes and black hair. We actually went out for a bit.
The third and best of the lot was my friend's boyfriend. We were friends...and he was a charmer. We used to meet at school early and just walk around and talk (not about her). I'd love to know what he's doing now. Geez, now I'm all nostalgic...I may have to Google these guys.

[michele martinez]

"I stalked her for three years, but we didn't call it that back then." Josh, you gave me a good laugh!

Fun blog, Sarah.

I can't say an old flame ever tracked me down through email, but an important ex-boyfriend once showed up to one of my signings, and I got to apologize to him for ending the relationship badly. Maybe this story belongs in the atonement blog. Then there's the issue of the strange messages people send to your website email. Many are lovely, but some people just have too much time on their hands.

[SarahS]

In this case, Google had nothing to do with it. His father died and his brother, with whom I've sort of kept in touch, wrote to tell me. His father was a really spectacular person - smart, engaging - a college professor who never stopped teaching, even in his off hours. Which was why he had such spectacular children.

So...it was a very sad circumstance that prompted our on line reunion.

And is on line two words or one?

I know the girl Josh "stalked". She was a friend of mine in high school. One of the "good girls" to whom Billy Ray was referring, i suppose. Anyway, she hasn't kept in touch with any of us.

Josh was really involved in a sort of love triangle. My word, every calculus class was a freaking soap opera. Like Romeo and Juliet for geeks. There was the jock who wooed the object of Josh's affection. And then there was Josh on the math team - very funny and MUCH MORE PERSONALITY than said jock.

Josh, I've never said this before, but I think *she* totally blew it. Picked the wrong guy.

[Harley]

Wait, Sarah, wait -- am I to understand that mermaid and unicorns are not . . . real?

I am still chortling over the "I, too, aspire to be a writer" comment. You gotta tell that one on your Oprah interview.

[William Simon]

I have to agree with Harley; next thing you know, Sarah's going to tell us Santa Claus isn't real.

I got a death threat through my website once...does that count?

[ramona]

Just so you'll know, Sarah and Josh, the high school soap operas haven't diminished in the least. In my book group, we have an on-again, off-again couple that makes everybody nuts. Major drama all the time. One time, she sat crying at one end of the table, he say crying at the other, throughout the whole meeting. The rest of us just pretended they were invisible, and we discussed the book.

[Cheryl]

I had a guy contact me that had taken me to the 8th grade dance and then moved away to Arizona. Funny how a 13 year old can already have a conservative streak. He was a "jock" and was overly concerned about me hanging out with the "stoners" even though I was the kind of person that hung around with many crowds. He may have been the first person that had an idealized version of me that had nothing to do with reality! He did send a picture of his family, he's married to a tiny blond, which is not an ounce like me.

Fortunately I have a very generic name, so it is really difficult to find me. After my days of working for Planned Parenthood and then as a therapist, I really don't want folks to find me. Phones are in my husband's name, so someone has to be really motivated to find me.

[Josh]

Did they do it? Not that it's important. It's been a long time, and I'm over it. (He says as he opens his seventh floor window.)

I didn't know about this love triangle until later. If they actually did it, then good for them. She seemed as if she would have been mature enough to handle it. He was a jerk then and apparently still is, but if he scored with her, then more power to him. I would not have been mature enough to handle doing it with her, or knowing that he had.

I had an on-again-off-again romance with a woman in 1st year law school. We sat next to each other second semester until something happened, I don't recall what. I remember my going to my civil procedure professor's office to tearfully change my seat. She asked what was wrong, knowing that it had to do with that crazy person, and I, barely holding back my tears, sort of sobbed "nothing." Twenty-one years later, she still chuckles about it.

[Kathy Reschini Sweeney]

Josh - you should have your own TV show. I mean it. This stuff is so much better than half the crap on the tube.

[Debby]

For the most part, I know where the majority of my former objects of affection are...

Guy #1 became a minister, and married a girl named Debbie. LOL!

Guy #2 is a twit. I kept his family after we broke up due to insensitive comments he made about my brother at my brother's funeral. I am Aunt Debby...he is the bomb.

Guy #3...who cares.

Guy #4...is guy #3 bestfriend. Ugh. Nicer than guy #3, but lets guy #3 make decisions.

Guy #5...is a keeper, I think.

As for blasts from the past, I was going through the bank drive-thru when the teller asked me if I was the same person who had attended a certain elementary school. Yesssss. Next thing I knew, I was getting phones calles and unannounced visits at my home. She didn't last at the bank as she forgot that what she did was illegal.

[ArkansasCyndi]

Before my twenty year HS reunion, I received a letter from my HS boyfriend..totally out of the blue. I'd been married for about 10 years and I had no idea he even knew my last name. (found out later that his mother had gotten my last name and current address from her hairdresser and I have NO IDEA where she got it - more about small town life later) The letter went on about how there were certain people who made a difference in his life, me being one of five people he listed (the only female in the bunch). He apologized for not understanding me better, hurting me, etc etc. I dropped him a return letter - kind of a don't worry about it. He called my work place and we talked a number of times. Then he sent the most delicious danish to my office. This all happened BEFORE the reunion. Saw him at the reunion. Talked to him a couple of times after and haven't since. (although, he looked GOOOOOD at the reunion.)
He's never married. Been engaged once to a girl named (are you ready?) Cindy! His mother told her best friend (who happens to be my mother's next door neighbor - see what a small town is like) that her son (I'm not using his name) had never gotten over me! and had compared every woman to me and -heck, I don't know..found them lacking? Ridiculous, of course. But terribly flattering, don't you think?

Sarah - I want to be a writer too...just not like you! LOL LOL LOL That person need someone to slap her nekked and hide her clothes.

Nancy - we must hear more about these high school boys you're communicating with! Jail bait, baby!

Ramona - I literally LOL'ed when I read about the crying couple and everyone else just going on with the book club. What a great scene for a book!

[Cyndi]

I've re-met a few old high school friends on MySpace but the funniest thing happened this summer when my daughter made best friends at church camp with the daughter of my 7th-11th grade crush! We live a couple of hours apart but they keep in touch.

[Mary Storyteller]

Wow -- I must be missing opportunities all over the place. I haven't re-connected with anyone from my school days. In fact, Ritenour class of '66 hasn't even had a reunion for a while. My earliest crush was in kindergarten, when an older neighbor boy lifted me over a GIANT puddle so I could get home. I told my mother I was going to marry him when I grew up, but now I can't even Google him, because I don't remember his name.
A former student, from my very first years of teaching, did find me through the web, and his positive comments helped me through those last few NCLB-crazed years of teaching. He's perfoming in a Christian rock group -- gotta love that! He's the only one to seek me out, though I run into former students all over the place. Just yesterday in the library a former student invited me over to read and help with a paper she was writing -- I love it!) My friends would say, "We can't take you anywhere." I just think it's proof that the influence of teaching never ends. I think I'd rather hear from former students than former lovers anyway . . .there's usually a good reason they became "former."

[Mary Storyteller]

Book review here, and a bit of a tie-in to the Day of Atonement thread --
Beekeeper’s Apprentice (Oh, Jerusalem, Letters from Mary, A Grave Talent)
By Laurie R. King
This is a wonderful, well-written adventure: Sherlock Holmes’ friendship with Mary Russell, bright girl growing to brilliant partner in detective work. It’s a jewel of a book. I first listened to a well-read, but much-too-abridged taped version, then went on to savor the complete text in the book. (I recommend doing the two in the opposite order -- much as I do the Harry Potter books). I also accidentally ended up reading the Jerusalem part on Yom Kippur -- delightful serendipity!

[Kerry, the Martial Tart]

OK - my first big high school romance turned out to be a real creep. The second one turned out to be my first ex-husband (it took a good 20 years for my taste in men to mature . . .). I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW where either of them are I do not want to hear from them, ever. I got majorly creeped out just discovering that the ex- wound up marrying the daughter of a guy who ended up teaching in a university 20 miles away from where I taught -- just the thought that he (the ex-) might ever get that close to me again was enough to give me nightmares.

I guess I'm kind of lucky in that I keep in casual contact with the very small handful of people from HS who meant something to me. Just Xmas letter/cards, but enough to know that these good people are still around and living good lives. I like that.

Also, Laurie R. King's books rock, all of them!

[Mary Storyteller]

I'll be reading all of them, then! I do like the original topic of things showing up when one is thinking of them, reading them, writing them. One day after a very unpleasant encounter with an education snob (public schools don't educate, etc), I opted to stop at the library to cheer up before going home and ran into TWO former students ready to tell me of their respective successes!
I traced a college friend when I heard her voice on Prairie Home Companion. The staff graciously forwarded my letter to "Susan the Cheese Girl" and we've been writing letters and now e-mails ever since.

[Tom]

Hmmm. If memory is yet green, can cumquats and unicorns be far behind? That could be a question for Mad Ethel Flint and her Magic 8-Ball. It is strange how portents and events connect.

Today is debut day for ISABELLA MOON by Laura Benedict, a former student assistant back at KWMU and the University of Missouri at St. Louis. You may have read her short story, 'The Erstwhile Bridegroom,' in the current issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. It is an elegant thing. It's a big day for Laura, and I'm very, very pleased for her. If you're going to BoucherCon, tell her you heard about ISABELLA MOON from me.

These days I am in touch with an old friend from high school and summer stock days. He had a much better background in music and the theatre than the rest of us. His career in international finance grew from his awareness of how funding fuels theatre production.

Now he'd like some help locating one or two former co-conspirators of the musical stage. He's an expat, living in Russia with his family; I'm in California. Most of the folks from Them Days are back in the Midwest. Common names, changes of name after marriage, and so forth are the norm; I'm not having a lot of luck. If anyone cares to share tried and true location techniques, I promise to use this knowledge only for good . . .

[Susan]

I made contact with my high school boyfriend about 10 years ago via Classmates.com. This was a guy I dated all through high school and I was convinced I was madly in love with him. He claimed to feel the same, but while the rest of my friends were fighting off their boyfriends (or, alternately filling their first prescriptions for the pill), I was wondering why this guy who said he was crazy about me barely laid a hand on me. I was reasonably attractive, other guys would ask me out during those time I'd be on the outs with guy #1. I just didn't get it. We had a great time together; in fact, in many ways, he was my closest friend, closer than any of my female friends.

Well, you can probably guess what he disclosed to me 20 years later. He's happily living in San Antonio with a wonderful man named Chuck. He didn't apologize for not telling me back in the old days (we weren't quite so open about sexual identity back in the 70's, although my best female friend was and is a lesbian and I knew about when we were in high school). I was just too naive back then, I guess, to get what was going on. And clearly it wasn't something he could name or talk about. It's kind of sad when I think about it, although he seemed very happy now and doing well. So at least the power of the Internet solved that particular mystery.

[Laura (in PA)]

I think I've told this story before on here, but an old high school boyfriend sent me flowers on the 20th anniversary of the day he first asked me out our freshman year. We were on-again off-again during high school, and during one of the off-agains I introduced him to a friend of mine, and ended up losing him to her for the rest of high school. The date became a special one to us, which both of us mentioned in our yearbook notes, and he contacted me a few times on that date after high school was over. The flowers came out of the blue, after about 10 years of not having talked to each other (he moved to Buffalo, I moved to SE PA).

This was about 7 or 8 years ago. Since then we've emailed and spoken on the phone - sometimes frequently, sometimes not (it's been about 3-4 months since we last spoke). I'm glad we got back in touch - he still makes me laugh.

I Google people all the time. Love to see if I can find them and where and what they're doing now. I don't try to reach out, though. I'm just nosy.

Oh, and Laurie R. King books are awesome. :)