the grizzly bear

Rewind to 1997 - it was my senior year of high school and the seemingly one hit wonder, the cardigans, had their song 'lovefool' playing endlessly on the radio. some girlfriends and i get tickets to the la concert. since it's general admission, we get there really early and wait in line for hours. the hot topic of discussion was the upcoming sadie hawkins dance and who we were all going to ask. surprisingly, i couldnt think of any one to ask (this is surprising because i cant recall a millisecond in hs that i didnt have a crush on someone)...the girls convince me to ask our friend grizzly because we were good friends and they were positive that he didnt already have a date.

though we were just friends, i thought i would do something cute/special to relay the invitation. i made a puzzle, asking the question "will you go to sadies with me?" placed all the pieces in a cute tin and wrapped it in the "good wrapping paper"...i had bombi come over that night and pick it up - so that she could hand deliver it to grizzly's house. i wait at home, expecting the phone call with an eager 'Yes!' response. that phone call never came. i got tired of waiting and called him...

me: ummmm, so did you get the puzzle?
he: yeah, thanks
me: ummm, ok?
he: yeah, so, i dont think so
me: oh. ok. bye. click

i go to school the next day and yell at the girls for telling me to ask him. i dont think he ended up going with anyone, and i think i got over it pretty quickly. so here we are, 8 years later...he's one of my bestest friends in life, claims to not remember that infamous sadie hawkins puzzle debacle (liar!), out and proud, and one of the greatest people i know. the will to my grace, the hand clutch to my WHY?!, the one that will come over and straighten my mane with a curling iron strand by strand when my flat iron breaks. love you, grizzly...happy birthday!

"love me love me
say that you love me
fool me fool me
go on and fool me
love me love me
i know that you need me
i can't care about anything but you..."