January 20, 2008

I Knew Him When. . .

I played the saxophone when I was in elementary, junior high, and most of high school. I even won a solo award as part of our school jazz band one year. I was one of those "One summer, at band camp" kids, although I balanced it out with large doses of sports participation and dance committee type things. There was this one particular band guy. . .

You know the one. He’s the one that every girl drools over. The guys the band girls drool over are always different from the ones the mainstream girls drool over. This guy was a drummer, a really fabulous drummer. During jazz band competitions, if he had a solo (which was always), no drummer ever had a chance over this particular guy. If you were born within a three year span of Shane Rozum and were an aspiring drummer, well then, you were out of luck. He always took the trophies home. I think it was a combination of his mad drumming skills and that perfectly wavy hair that made the girls go crazy over him.

He was a year older, and it was a sad day when he moved up to the high school and left us lowly 9th grade girls pining behind in the junior high school.

Because we were silly girls, we made up songs about him, wrote poems about him, and were all comfortable sharing our stories and fantasies of dancing with him at a school dance because he was, what we concerned to be, unattainable. He was completely inaccessible to us in the way that Brad Pitt is to the general population of non-big-lipped women. At least that’s what we all thought.

If you know me (either personally or through my writing), you know that I’m the one out of the group who gets up to karaoke when no one else will and without needing 14 margaritas to do so. I’m the girl who goes to the interactive wax museum and thinks we are not getting our money’s worth unless we do each and every interactive (and possibly embarrassing) activity. Yes, I’ll volunteer.

I’ve never been accused of being shy.

So, when our all-important 9th grade dance was approaching and I didn’t have a boyfriend or any worthy prospects in my own grade, I had an idea. I called Shane Rozum.

The phone call lasted all of two minutes. I think he was as shocked at me calling him as I was at myself for choosing to call him. When the two minutes were up, I had a date to the 9th grade dance and some extremely jealous friends.

Don’t knock the scrunchie. It totally matched my dress.

The dance was fun. He brought me the obligatory corsage and I wore the dress my Mom made me buy, which made me look like a 7-year old instead of a blossoming soon-to-be-high-school-woman (whose body was a little confused about when it was supposed to start the whole blossoming thing anyway). You can’t tell from the pictures, but I’m pretty sure he wore sneakers with his outfit. Truth be told, we didn’t do a whole lot of talking (Get your mind out of the gutter!). For once I felt shy. We hadn’t really talked before. Gawking at someone and going on a real live date are two entirely different things.

We arrived like rock stars (Man, I should have seen it coming. . . ): me with my 80’s rock like ‘do, and Shane with his killer shades.

We did dance, and if looks could have killed. . . well, there were so many band girls who wanted me dead that I would have probably been six feet under half a million times which I think would put me safely through the Earth and out the other side. They could glare all they wanted because even in my pale pink lacy dress, I felt like a rock star being at the dance with the drummer extraordinaire.

Which leads me to today. I haven’t seen Shane since he was a senior in high school and I was a junior. Just this week, I reconnected with another old friend from high school on myspace who told me about the band that Shane is in, a band about to go on tour called "Jealousy Curve." And you know what? They totally rock! I spent some time on their myspace page and listened to their tunes and truly wished that my knee brace wasn’t holding me back from getting my groove on. They have toured with The All American Rejects and are now going on their own tour.

I also stared at Shane’s picture for a while because seriously, is that THE Shane Rozum, the one and the same that I went to the all important 9th grade dance with??? (You’ll only be able to see this with a myspace account. If you don’t have one, take one part typical rock-n-roll drummer, combined with one part wavy shoulder length hair which can be thrown all over the place while wilding drumming, add what I think are some piercings, and you pretty much have the idea.)

Just another one to add to the "I knew him when" list. . .