LB Gregg: Love Hurts

NOTE: This is an interactive post...you don't have to watch the vids in their entirety, but do click to get the gist.

Hello! Thanks Kiss and Tell Girls for having me today!

Today, I'm talking about PAIN.

We all love to get to the pinnacle squishy moment in a book. The moment that builds slowly, the ones we work for, the ones that sometimes take 100 pages of angst and fist shaking to find. Tender, heart swelling, climactic gems that are the pay off for every bit of crap authors fling at us as we root for our hero/heroine to come together (sometimes literally).

I'm going to tell you a secret.

I'm a sucker for the excruciating moment. Humiliating, painful scenes that makes you die a little inside. The moment that also makes the good things later all the more satisfying.

My friend Tumperkin calls them screaming into the pillow and kicking her heels moments and she loves them, too. In Cover Me--yes promo moment--My POV hero, Michael, humiliates himself utterly--right at the get go. I'm not afraid to dig into that. I think it's real--and we all have excruciating moments in our lives to draw material from.

Which is what this post is about. The MATERIAL I draw from. (awkward segue but I'm tired).

Most notably for me, are my hideously embarrassing crushes from the 1970's. Yes. I'm that young.

::dream sequence music::

1975

When I was in the fifth grade, my best friend Beth and I used to meet on the playground to act out scenes from Starsky and Hutch. I was always Hutch. I liked him until this trainwreck. So one day I'm watching Saturday afternoon TV and I came across Fiddler on the Roof and this embarrassing interest in Paul Michael Glaser began.

He's a good guy.

1976

The year Donny & Marie launched their variety show, with the ice skating production opener and the wild costumes and that I'm a little bit country/I'm a little bit rock-n-roll skit bit. I was riveted. It was uncool. A kitch disaster. It was humiliating to admit that I tuned in each week, but even the young lisabea knew a fabulous thing when she saw it.

Today I carry the secret torch for Donny because he still possesses the quality I find most attractive in men: he can laugh at himself. Watch the vid! Don't skip it!

1977

The year I chose to go see Race For Your Life Charlie Brown over Star Wars. My family was disgusted. While my sister lusted for Mark Hamill (later I would lust for Han Solo, and rightly so...) I went in kicking and pouting to see Star Wars. Naturally, at eleven, I fell for one of the droids.

Growing and maturing is the worst. You say My how you've matured to an 12 year old and you've effectively ended that relationship. TRUST ME. So. I matured. At 12 I found one of the least cool men in America to plaster posters on my wall of. Yes friends, it's four eyes himself--and it kills me to post this--but that's the point. You have to tap into that to write it...so....uh

::dies:: But it's the Muppets! I was 12.

1978--Jr. High

In for a penny, in for a pound. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Moving onward. I saw this movie seven times in the theatre. 7th/8th grade. I was hooked, but I want you to guess which one of these losers I fell for.

Isn't this fun? But you can see that even though we often fall for the 'right man' like--Robert Redford or Sean Connery or Sting--it's the wrong man we can mine for pain.

Anyway--who's your nightmare crush from Jr. High? C'mon. I showed you mine--show me yours.

LB