Alternatively titled: The post where she speaks about the movie Dirty Dancing and shamelessly relives her Middle School Days of Youth to the Blog World (and not about Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead which I just finished reading and LOVED!)

Robbie Gould: I didn’t spend all summer long toasting bagels just to bail out some little chick who probably balled every guy in the place.

[Baby is pouring water into glasses for him]

Robbie Gould: A little precision please Baby… Some people count and some people don’t.

[Brings out a copy of the fountainhead from his pocket]

Robbie Gould: Read it. I think it’s a book you’ll enjoy but make sure you return it I have notes in the margin.

Baby: You make me sick. Stay away from me, stay away from sister or I’ll have you fired

[Baby pours the jug of water on his crotch]

And thus began this 14 yr. old Jennie’s awareness of Ayn Rand. I know I picked up the book at the time, JUST because I knew this quote, from the movie. Of course, I didn’t get close to finishing the 2nd chapter. Hey, NEVER claimed to be an intellectual!

So, Dirty Dancing has been on my mind lately. And I thought. Wow. This could bring bloggers (at least female bloggers) of *our generation* together! We could all have a Dirty Dancing carnival and post our own tragic stories to share with each other. A sisterhood of sorts.

So I shall begin the Dirty Dancing Carnival with my observations.

Begin.

Ok. No shame. I LOVED this movie. I had the Keds. I knew the Kellerman’s Resort Routine. I hear the fabulous soundtrack and I remember every scene in the movie. (Um, Cry to Me anyone?) And Patrick Swayze, was a hearthrob. I made up silly *musicals* to the soundtracks and forced Lil brother to participate. (Bren, you were just too young!) The quotes made it to inside jokes in college “I carried a watermelon”

Twas the summer before 8th grade, which was also the first summer I went to boy/girl parties that year. And movies with my friends, alone. And I was able to get my ears pierced! Oh the innocence.

I remember sitting at the Cine, after a rousing game of Putt-Putt mini golf! (Hey, small town people, small town!) probably for the 3rd time seeing the movie…being an obnoxious teenager singling along with the Kellermans Theme and doing the hand movements in unison. Yes, we knew we weren’t cool.

Which leads to the boy/girl party and my Dirty Dancing moment. I had these two friends Denice and Kevin. Denice was my friend, she has the same birthday! She was smart and skipped a grade, which put her with us, and her brother Kevin. *Think Bart and Lisa Simpson but not quite as extreme!*

We would hang out with Denice in the basement learning Dirty Dancing moves with the girls while Kevin was upstairs with his friends. By the end of the night the silly games “capture the flag” and “spin the bottle” would take hold, but during the day…

The very famous scene where Johnny and Baby are practicing their dancing and they are crawling towards each other on the floor, they where actually just messing around and were warming up to do the real scene, but the director liked it so much he kept in the film. IMBD

We would take turns being Baby and Johnny and then vote on who did each part the best. I was never a very good Baby or Johnny. The seductress vixen Jennie? Not at all! I was a very good impartial judge.

Anyhow, one of the times, our friend was crawling all over the floor and doing a very good job and right at the part where she says “C’mhere loverboy” Kevin and his friends jumped from the stairway and scared us all shitless. It was a teenage girl mortification equivalent of finding out that your little brother read your diary that said “I love D**” times 27!

“Me? I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of what I saw, I’m scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.”