Nisha Sharma

Memories Monday: Jeannine Garsee

nisha — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:36:17 +0000

It’s time for more memories this Monday morning! Woohoo! Today, Jeannine is going to tell us about her high school crush. Hehehe. Enjoy!

His name was Jonas. It wasn’t his real name, but it was the name he preferred.

He had dark, almond-shaped eyes, curly black hair, and a smile to die for.
He wore bell-bottomed jeans, a fringed suede vest, leather bracelets, and platform shoes.
He was slender, and elegant, and glided, not walked.
When he laughed, he snorted. I found that most endearing.
He loved Elton John and Liza Minnelli and Billie Holiday and anything Broadway.
He sang, played the guitar, and was a terrific actor and a straight-A student.

I couldn’t take my eyes off this guy. I’d take roundabout ways to my classes because I knew which halls he’d be walking down at certain times. I’d send him notes in the classes we shared. My heart would explode whenever he sent one back.

I’d call his house, although back in the 1970s it was considered borderline taboo for a girl to call a boy. I could listen to his voice for hours on end.
We both belonged to the drama club. When we gave a partial performance of “The Gingerbread Lady” I played Evy, an alcoholic singer, and Jonas played Jimmy. Though the character Jimmy, I learned later—this was NOT discussed in a 1971 drama class—was probably gay, Evy kisses him in one scene. Really kisses him.
Which means I got to kiss Jonas.
Really kiss him!

A friend snapped a Polaroid picture of our infamous lip-lock. It was just a kiss between two imaginary Neil Simon characters, and yet, at fifteen, it was the first time I’d been kissed.
And it was Jonas who kissed me.

Through high school, he’s almost all I thought about. No, he wasn’t my boyfriend. But he was definitely my first love.
My best friend had a crush on him, also. Too bad for both of us. Our friendship suffered, never mind that Jonas never thought of either of us as anything but friends.

I vowed to change that. I dreamed of Jonas and I running away together—to New York, perhaps, where he could make a name on Broadway and I’d become a best-selling author. We’d live in a loft, survive on Chinese takeout, and flourish among thousands of other desperately poor artists. Soooo romantic!
One night my mother attended one of our drama club performances. When I excitedly pointed Jonas out to her, she blanked out for a moment—and then she said, “That’s the guy you’ve been yammering about all this time?”

“Yes! Do you love him? Isn’t he fantastic?”

I gushed on and on, till my mother stopped me with, “Jeannine, he’s queer.”

My gushing halted like someone sliced off my head. The “old folks” still “queer” in those days, though “gay” was gaining popularity. The word rocked me to my very core.

Never one to beat around the bush, Mom teased, “Didn’t you ever wonder why he never asked you out?”

“He doesn’t date anyone,” I shot back, momentarily vindicated…and then it hit me.

No, Jonas didn’t date—anyone. He had a lot of friends who were girls, but no particular girlfriend. And now that I thought of it he had no male friends whatsoever. In fact, guys avoided him, leaving him surrounded by fawning girls, a fact that often made me seethe with jealousy.

“He’s not gay!” I argued when I could find my voice.
“Suit yourself,” Mom replied.

Crushed, I started to view Jonas in a different light. No guy friends at all. A multi-talented drama club geek. A rabid fan of Elton John, bordering on hero worship. A guy who sent flowers to Liza Minnelli when she appeared in town for a concert. Who glided, not walked. His wardrobe rocked. He didn’t date girls. And he was the sweetest guy alive.

But he kissed me, remember?
I couldn’t forget that kiss. Yeah, he’d been acting. But I’d wanted so badly, and for so long, for him to kiss me for real, I refused for the longest time to accept the truth.
I’d stare at my precious Polaroid night after night.

After a while, I hated it. I hated my mother for exposing my naivety and destroying my fantasy. Most of all, I hated myself for falling in love with someone who could never love me back.
Jonas never “came out” in high school. This was decades ago; people, especially kids, kept their gayness a secret because they’d be socially ostracized and relentlessly tormented—as, unfortunately, they still often are. If Jonas’s female friends knew he was gay—and I’m sure many of them weren’t as innocent as I’d been at the time—they never mentioned it.

They loved him.

I loved him more. And for a long time I was devastated.
After graduation, I never saw Jonas again. I heard through friends that he moved to California where he openly embraced his sexual orientation. Now, years later, being an author, I did what any other writer might do to celebrate, and remember, the first boy she ever loved.

I put him in a book.
Wherever you are, Jonas, if you’re reading this: I still have that picture of us.

Aww, Jeannine. Trust me, I know exactly how you felt. I’m sure most girls know how you felt. Thanks for sharing Jonas with us!! For those of you who want to know more about Jeannine, check out her website here.

Jeannine Garsee is the author of SAY THE WORD (Booklist’s 2010 Rainbow List and a YALSA 2010 Best Book for Young Adults) and BEFORE, AFTER, AND SOMEBODY IN BETWEEN (a 2008 NYPL Book for the Teen Age and a 2007 Borders Original Voice).

Sexy Sunday:Channing Tatum

nisha — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:15:32 +0000

I can’t tell you how long I slept during the day yesterday. I think I just kept sleeping because I had studied for like, two weeks straight and I cut back on the ZZz’s to get more time for cramming. Anywho. That’s my lengthy explanation for the lack of sexiness on my blog. But today, we shall have sexy studs! Absolutely! Okay, peeps. Here is some sexiness for you today: Channinnnnngggg. This boy is hot no matter what type of movie he’s doing. Sigh. Enjoy.

Sexy Saturday: The McSexies of Grey’s Anatomy

nisha — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:56:43 +0000

I couldn’t just pick one McSteamy, McDreamy, McHottie. Sooo, I decided to put them all up today! Check out the McSexiness that is Greys.

Memories Monday: Eileen Cook

nisha — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:54:15 +0000

It’s that day of the week again when we take a look into another YA author’s past. This week, Eileen Cook dishes about her first crush. Eileen may be the stellar author of ‘Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood,’ but she crushed on someone just like the rest of us. Let’s take a look at her hysterical story.

I went to a Catholic high school. We were required to attend church on random schooldays as our souls needed way more saving than could be completed on a Sunday morning. We all grumbled about having to go, but it was better than sitting in math class having to sort out quadratic equations and polynomial expressions. In theory we were supposed to be pondering our eternal souls, but in reality most of us spent the time whispering, passing notes, and plotting our romantic lives. Attendance was required so it provided a great chance to scope out various classmates all in one place. A sort of Target of dating, everything you could want (or never want) all under one convenient roof.

I had a crush on someone. I’ll call him X. Over the course of a few weeks we had passed the preliminary stage of acting like we didn’t care and had moved into the stage of having our friends discuss our potential relationship. God forbid we directly discuss it ourselves.

My Friend (MF): So what’s up with X?

His Friend (HF): Why do you ask, does Eileen like him or something?

MF: Maybe. Does X like her?

HF: Maybe.

This negotiation process had continued for some time and now all parties were fairly clear that:

a) I liked X, and X liked me;

b) Cardboard boxes had better communication skills than we did;

c) Our friends were in training to be United Nations ambassadors by getting maximum information while promising nothing; and

d) It was time to take our relationship to the next level.

X and I were engaged in meaningful glances during the church service when it happened. The world began to seem far away. I could hear my best friend whispering to me, but she sounded like an adult from a Snoopy cartoon “wah, wah, wah, waha.” I suddenly was covered with a clammy sweat. Black spots started to appear in the corners of my vision. I knew love was supposed to make you feel wonky, but this seemed all wrong. I had to get out of there.

I could see X’s face. His eyes were growing wide as I stumbled towards him and the aisle. I stopped in front of him. My vision narrowed.

That’s the last thing I remembered, then I passed out.

Apparently I gave some sort of primal grunt. My friend described it as “it sounded like you were trying to pass a cow.” I then lunged for X, although I suspect it was more of an uncontrolled fall. No doubt X thought one of the following had happened:

1) I had been overcome by my love for him and had to have him right then, right there,

2) I was having a religious vision;

3) I was a zombie and wanted to eat his brain; or

4) I was a total loser and social geek and should be avoided at all costs in the future.

X went with option four. I regained consciousness after only a minute or so. Everyone was staring at me, except for X who was clearly planning never to look at me again.

This experience taught me a couple valuable lessons.

1) Always eat a good breakfast or you could become lightheaded.

2) Although the idea of “falling for someone” sounds romantic, in reality it involves making unattractive noises and drooling. If you are wearing a skirt you may fall over with your panties on display. This should be avoided at all costs.

My advice is if you plan to skip breakfast be sure to wear pants and don’t fall for anyone unless you’re sure he’s the kind of guy who can be counted on to pick you back up.

X should have totally gone with option 1. lol. Thanks for joining us, Eileen! Your story made my day. For those of you who want to read the crazy amazingness of Eileen’s writing, check out her website at Eileencook.com. Thanks for sticking around! Until next week!

Sexy Saturday: Eric Bana

nisha — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:16:22 +0000

The movie ‘Time Traveler’s Wife’ just released on DVD so I thought we could check out some hotness with Eric Bana. Enjoy this sexy stud!

RWA National Conference 2010

nisha — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:38:26 +0000

I’ll be at the 30th annual RWA national conference in Nashville! It’ll be held the last week of July at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.
This year, I’ll be giving a workshop titled “Goal, Motivation & Conflict in the YA Novel.” Come join me and hundreds of other authors to celebrate writing and the romance genre!

Memories Monday: Tera Lynn Childs

nisha — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:50:59 +0000

Today is officially the launch day of my Memories Monday column! I think it’s perfectly placed because it’s Memorial Day (yeah i know, memorial day has nothing to do with childhood memories, but work with me here), and it’s the day after Valentine’s day so talking about first crushes is very apt.

courtesy of teralynnchilds.com

My first guest blogger is none other than Tera Lynn Childs! Tera is super-star author of ‘Oh My Gods,’ and ‘Goddess Boot Camp.’ She is also a Founding Fiver and a contributor to the blog, Books, Boys, Buzz.

Although most authors who will be blogging about their memories will talk about high school crushes, embarrassing moments, etc, Tera’s first crush started long before high school(which is why it’s so awesome she’s my first blogger). Let’s check out her heartwarming first crush story….

My first crush began in first grade. (I say “began” because I don’t think I’ve ever fully gotten over him.) I was attending a very progressive arts-oriented school in Montreal where, even in first grade, we changed rooms for various classes. Starting off in “family” with Madame Kena. To Madame Alias for music. To Louise for voice. And to Jacqueline for math. Every day I looked forward to math for two reasons. First, my best friend Ursie was in that class. And, second, so was Joshua.

In retrospect, I don’t think I knew a lot about Joshua. He was an Anglophone (an English-speaker) with dark hair who wore plaid shirts. At recess, my friend Nicole and I used to play kissing tag with him and his friends. Well, just regular tag, actually, because we never kissed anyone. My friend Yasmine and I choreographed a dance routine to “Mickey” by Toni Basil, which we performed for them. (And, yes, I still remember our choreography. You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand….)

One of my earliest embarrassing moments was about Joshua. Ursie and I had spent part of math class cutting construction paper into little squares and writing “I heart Josh” on them. When my mom picked me up after school she found one of the squares and asked me about it. Though I denied it to the death she never did believe that the love note belonged to Ursie. Thus began a lifetime of hiding my crushes from my mom.

To be released: July 2010

Joshua was the beginning of many things. I blame him for my obsession with dark-haired boys. (Cases in point: Griffin in Oh. My. Gods. and Brody in Forgive My Fins.) When we moved away at the end of second grade, he became the beginning of my longing for boys past, for the fantasy of the reunion moment. When it came time to start my writing career and I entered a 100-word contest about how your mother influenced the romance in your life, I wrote the story of the colored “I heart Josh” squares. And you know what? I won.

Thanks, Joshua, for all those beginnings.

I heart Josh, too! Thank’s Tera! For those of you who want to know more about Tera, you can check out her website here. Check out more memories next week on Memories Monday!

Sexy Saturday: Leonardo DiCaprio

nisha — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:35:58 +0000

I don’t watch horror movies, but I considered watching Shutter Island for all of .5 seconds just because my man Leo was in it. I love Leo, even though he looked like he was in high school up to the age of 30. Anywho. Here is some awesome Leonardo-ness.

New Blog Series: Memories Monday

nisha — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:37:14 +0000

I’m cringing right now at what I’m about to tell you. Seriously. But first, I have to precursor it by telling you why I’m about to tell you what I’m going to tell you.

I couldn't find any really recognizable high school pics so i figured everyone would know 10 things i hate about you.

I’ve started this fabulous new blog series called Memories Monday. Authors like Tera Lynn Childs, our first blogger, Melissa Walker, Neesha Meminger, Jon Skavon, Amanda Ashby, and many more YA authors are going to be guest blogging!

Let me explain what’s going on. Almost every Monday from next week until the end of the year, I’ll have fabulous authors discussing crushes, embarrassing moments, life lessons, and whatever else from the days they cruised down the high school halls. Although the series doesn’t start until next week…if I’m going to make guest bloggers go through the process of pulling out dusty memories from the file cabinet, I should probably do it, too. Unfortunate for me, high school wasn’t all cheerleading and hot jock boyfriends.

*gulp.* Oh, this totally sucks. Okay, here we go. Maybe I’m making it worse than it really is….probably not.

I grew up in a really, really small town. I was always chubby, and awkward, and had the strangest sense of humor and personality. Most of the kids I went to elementary and grade school with were ignorant asses that had never seen a Hindu before, let alone someone with brown skin. Seriously. My background made me stick out all the more.

For that reason, I left many bad memories behind and went to a high school preparatory academy 45 minutes away from my house. In Scranton, PA. No joke. And yes, I’ve watched the Office. Anyway.

I only knew one other person from my elementary/middle school which was awesome. I made friends, weeded out the ones who weren’t cool, found some that were. The first two years were horrific because I was still shedding my tackless, awkward, quirky personality for something a bit more refined. I hit my stride in junior year and never looked back.

Okay, so now the embarrassing moment. When I started my freshman year, I had some serious issues getting used to going from class to class. Remember I said that I was awkward? Well, I was clumsy, too. REALLY clumsy.

At Prep, getting from class to class in three minutes between bells meant that I had to weave through a swarm of other people, most of them taller than me (as I was and still am 5′1″ tall). The staircases were the worst. The high school was four floors and sometimes I would have to travel from floor three to the basement then back up to the fourth floor. They were wide, slippery marble steps (yeah, you totally know where I’m going now, don’t you?) Anywho.

It was only the second week of classes (yeah, I know) and I had to go from English on the fourth floor to Algerbra on the second floor. There were a lot of kids flooding down the stairs. I always tried to grab the banister so I didn’t fall, but for some reason, on that day, there was no way I could grab the banister because of the amount of people in the way. I started freaking out. Hyperventilating. A chant started to drum through my brain: I’m going to fall, I’m going to fall, I’m going to fall.
Just as I got to the last thirteen or so steps that lead to the 2nd floor, my clunky black mary janes got stuck on something. Maybe I tripped over my own two feet. I couldn’t really tell. I ended up tripping and literally rolling down the rest of the stairs. Funny how the way is cleared for you when you fall, eh?

So you’d think that people would laugh, right? Well, at the moment, I had no idea if they were or not because I cracked my head on the edge of a bench at the bottom of the stairs. I was knocked out for like, 5 minutes. When I opened my eyes, two teachers were leaning over me, the nurse, and the one girl I knew from elementary school. She stayed with me the whole time. I didn’t know if it was to get out of Algerbra, or if she actually cared because we never ran in the same circles. Either way, she made sure that my skirt wasn’t exposing stuff. My uniform, yes I wore a catholic girl uniform, was totally ruined because of all the blood stains. I had to get 45 stitches on my head because the skin split straight to the skull.

It sucked. Seriously. Everyone knew me after that point as the girl who fell down the stairs. Because I had a concussion, I had to stay home for two days (no hardship because of the amount of embarrassment I suffered). When I went back, everyone was like, dude, what happened? I made up some lame excuse about me fainting. Of course, they still laughed, and teased. Especially since after I fell, the rumor mill was that I was near death because my head exploded all over the second floor landing. By junior year I was laughing with them, but it was still ridiculously embarrassing to fall down the stairs the SECOND WEEK OF SCHOOL.

So there you have it! One of many embarrassing high school moments. I am locking the vault on those memories now, and you shall not hear another one unless I’m under duress.

Thanks for tuning in! Stay tuned for next week when YA author Tera Lynn Childs talks about her high school memory. Happy Monday!

Sexy Saturday is fashionably late

nisha — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:47:13 +0000

Yes I know it’s Monday and I missed Sexy Saturday by two whole days. And no, I don’t have a good excuse besides laziness. I’m fessing up to it though, right? That’s gotta count for something. Anywho. I’m going to try to make it really good today for all of you. Here is a classic hottie that I would want despite the twenty some year age difference between us. Sigh. Oh, George!

And just for fun….teeheehee….