It has come time to share the three most awkward/embarrassing moments/periods of my life with the world. Why? Because I have no other inspirations for articles/entries/random babblings besides (choose one) A) How service people in Indonesia were still just as automatonish as here, if not more, and how surprising and disappointing that was, given I thought that was limited to the so-called First World, B) The trials and tribulations of trying to be a restaurant critic when my teeth keep falling apart and sending me excruciating pain signals whenever I try to eat anything crunchier than yogurt, or C) an impassioned plea for an a cappella group that needs an alto. These will come later! Right now I feel like debasing myself in front of my audience of millions... I mean three.

3. Number three just has to be a collection, an eye-covering, wildly blushing overview of how I handled crushes, relationships, and men in general in middle and high school. I obviously had not emotionally matured enough to even consider having a boyfriend, but at the time, of course, I considered myself an accomplished woman of substance and remarkable composure. To wit:

a) Boy in my 7th grade cooking class who I otherwise did not know at all: I wrote secret heart-shaped notes and proclamations of undying love that I would drop through his locker grates, or (I cannot believe that I was EVER this stupid) gave to my best friend to give to him. (My best friend and I were inseparable, and went everywhere together, so much so that many people from middle school believe to this day that we were a lesbian couple that came out really early.) Hmm, if she gives him a secret valentine, I wonder who it could possibly be from?? Anyway, despite this, I chose to believe he would never find out it was me, and when one of my friends/worst enemies (you know how those tend to exist in middle school) walked up to him one day and spilled the beans, I was speechless and unprepared for anything except staring down at my hands folded on my desk as he waved my valentines angrily around my head and demanded answers.

b) Hot drummer in marching band: I picnicked outside his house with my best friend even though there was no park there, hoping he would emerge; went in early to school to listen to him practice the marimba (mulled around the percussion room in what I thought was an eminently subtle way; it obviously wasn't); talked about other boys in front of him hoping he would hear and realized what a woman of experience I was, pretended to fall accidentally into the pool on our trip to Disneyworld so he would come to my rescue, etc. What is the notable missing link in this list? That's right, actually asking him out. Once, it must have gotten so obvious that he dragged me into the sheet music closet to question me about my crushes. Even when confronted so directly, I chose to evade the obvious answer and made up stories about some guy in my history class.

c) Guy I liked who kept dating everyone in our group of friends except me: this is a short one; I pretended I hated all his good qualities while simultaneously clinging to him and when he didn't want me to call every night I held a grudge against him for a year.

d) This one I found threatening suicide in the back room at a party. I thought that comforting him and making out with him would be essentially the same thing and serve essentially the same purpose. This resulted in a week-long relationship that ended after I discovered that every date would be spent watching anime and moaning about his ex-girlfriend.

e) Guy who I dated for a month or two even though I knew I wasn't attracted to him: I pretended I was attracted to him right up until the end and then dumped him right before his prom. This was actually an accident. I didn't think of it that way at the time. Then I got all stroppy because he didn't want to go to prom as friends. What an asshole, right?

f) This last one is actually only embarrassing because I'm choosing to share it, which makes it decidedly odd of me to want to. At the time, no one witnessed the awkwardness and because of that, I didn't realize that it was awkward. I thought that it made me cool and mature, with a sophisticated secret. It didn't, as you shall see.

I was about sixteen, old enough to know better, and in some sort of AOL chat room when some college guy from Northwestern University started IMing me. We somehow got onto the topic of crazy things that we had done, and the tone started subtly changing to challenging. "If you're so crazy," he said, or something, "why don't you prove it?"

"How would I prove something that like that?" I asked, stupidly not saying something like "and why do I have to prove anything to you?"

"By meeting me," he said. "Come over and meet me right now. I live at the corner of blah blah blah street and blah blah et cetera. Most girls wouldn't just meet a strange guy off the internet. If you do, I'll believe you're really crazy."

What did I do? I did it. Writing those three words embarrasses me beyond belief. I can't imagine my mindset at the time that craved acceptance from some creep I didn't know. But I went over there - he lived in a frat house - and he led me like some kind of serial killer down the back hallways - I could hear the other frat brothers shooting pool on the other side of the thin walls - to his room, where luckily the first thing he did was call me a frigid, scared bitch when I wouldn't reach under his scuzzy blanket and feel his penis. Even whatever mindset I was in at the time didn't prevent me from indignantly stomping out and slamming the door on his feeble 'how about a hug?' It should have also not prevented me from slapping him, screaming, reporting him for pedophilia, etc., but, unfortunately, it did. Fortunately, he was sluggish and vaguely apathetic and didn't bother chasing me. I went down the front stairs and the brothers playing pool saw me, but didn't blink an eye, not even a collective eye.

2. At a slightly more appropriage age to be doing stupid things (four) I was at a diner with my parents and a couple of friends of theirs. I remember there being two player pinball machines and arcade games everywhere around, but none of the adults would play them with me. Thus, I was bored, and also inherently a very naughty child. Not the kind of naughty that screamed and cried and threw things and beat up other children, but the kind that plotted and schemed and always found a way to get what it wanted without appearing the least bit naughty.

In fitting with that, I thought up something provocative to say that would create drama. I knew it had to be something that could be attributed to childlike innocence and wouldn't get me in trouble. So in the middle of one of my mom's sentences, I looked up and announced to the table, "I WANT TO GROW UP TO BE FAT!"

My parents' friends were both fairly fat people, with 'fairly' being a nice and totally inaccurate adjective. They were, in actuality, both really fat.

My mom grabbed my arm and half hissed, half laughed (she hadn't decided whether to let her anger out or pretend it was a light admonishing) "We don't say things like that to people!"

"Why?" I responded sweetly - calculated sweetly enough to push her over the edge.

"BECAUSE WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT? YOU DON'T WANT TO GROW UP TO BE FAT. WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO GROW UP TO BE FAT? THAT MAKES NO SENSE!"

So inadvertently my mom had let her anti-fat prejudice show in front of her fat friends and she has probably never forgotten it, to the point that when I bring it up to her she insists that it never happened.

I guess that's more of an embarrassing moment for my mom than for me. But I'll let it stand.

1. This one was only about a year and a half ago. I was in Indonesia, teaching one of the newer teachers how to ride our motorcycle. I never quite forgot that, when Nick and I were learning, we'd done crazy, stupid things that should have killed us, but for some reason didn't. Like once when I was driving on a gravel road I swerved to avoid a lizard - A LIZARD! - and of course skidded out on the gravel and dumped me, Nick, and the motorcycle right into the sand at the edge of the beach. Or the time Nick was driving into downtown and was tailgating a truck. The truck stopped suddenly at a traffic circle. Nick pulled desperately on the clutch, screamed 'the BRAKE ISN'T WORKING!!' and plowed into the back of the truck. (Left handle: clutch. Right handle: brake. Not the same thing.)

Anyway, I remembered all this when I was teaching the new teacher to ride, and was jittery and uncertain when after only about a half hour she said that she felt okay driving on the main road home from Skow Sae (a beach about an hour and a half away), but I climbed on the back anyway and let her go for it. On one of the first deep turns on the road, she didn't lean enough and went driving straight over the shoulder, bouncing but in remarkable control, into a field of tall, waving grass. I screamed and unstinctively clutched her right where I always clutched Nick when he did something scary. Around the chest. On Nick, that was totally appropriate because a) he was my boyfriend and b) he was male. On her, however, when ended up happening was that I squished her breasts over and over with my wildly panicking and grabbing hands.

We did not die - we didn't even tip over. She just rode through the grass and out the other side. I had just completely and inappropriately overreacted, and now I had accidentally felt her up. We eventually switched places and I spent the entire ride back awkwardly trying to explain myself and trying to look back and gauge her facial expressions without losing my balance and driving us off a cliff.