Felicitations

Last week, Facebook in its infinite wisdom recommended I become friends with someone I went to junior high school with (and a little bit of high school, barely), but with whom I have never even spoken. Sure, sure, Facebook often does this, recommending people that I should be friends with whom I don't know at all, most often the parents or siblings of very very distant friends. But this recommendation was ridiculous enough that it gave me reason to give pause, laugh, and even write a blog post about it.


Facebook suggested I become friends with Keri Russell. Yes, Keri Russell, the Mouseketeer; Keri Russell, Felicity; Keri Russell, the Waitress; Keri Russell, the everything else she's doing now. Oh, Facebook.

I have three distinct memories of Keri Russell--and I would say that none of the three, even when all added together, would even come close to constituting Facebook friendship (mostly because I only have three distinct memories of Keri Russell and I guarantee you she has zero to negative four distinct memories of me, she'd be all like, "Friend request from LMNT? I have no idea who she is. In fact I have negative four ideas who she is." That's how much we don't know each other).

First memory is of her short shorts. She was an eighth grader and was so cool. And I was a seventh grader (and simply by virtue of being a seventh grader), was so not. Me awkward, acne, braces. She beautiful, no pores, veneers (or ridiculously straight white teeth). And she wore short shorts. Of course we'd all try to emulate her style, which I know looked straight-up ridiculous on my gawky, lanky, translucently white legs. It's not so much that her shorts her short to begin with. It was spring 1990, so they were actually kind of longish, but she (and when I say she, I mean she and all of us to follow) would cuff them up multiple times to make them shorter. I would usually go for a double roll, but I swear to you she would push the limit and go for the triple. Because she could. Because she was KERI RUSSELL. True, the world didn't know who she was yet, but everybody in our suburban junior/senior high certainly did. And when I think about it, the shorts rolling thing was kind of like when we used to peg our jeans. In fact I might even have a half memory of how Keri Russell pegged her jeans like an absolute pro. Of course she did.

Second memory is of her showing up at 1991 Homecoming. She would have been a sophomore at the time, but had left our school to go be a Mouseketeer, and even yet was still so unbelievably cool. And I was a freshman, was not a Mouseketeer and was still awkwardly not cool. I remember her showing up at the cafeteria turned formal dance venue wearing a tight short red dress. And it was not the kind of dress that any of us, your average thirteen and fourteen-year-olds, would have found in the juniors section at J.C. Penney's or May D&F. It was the kind of dress that only famous actresses would find in their famous actress stores where famous actresses live. And she had red high heels. We are talking high high heels. Me awkward, acne, braces, relatively conservative black dress and flats. She beautiful, no pores, fantastic teeth, lady in red with heels that nobody I knew at the time would have been allowed to leave the house wearing. Which reminds me of the awesome black and white dangly Claire's Boutique earrings I bought with my babysitting money and I hid from my mom. I'd take them to school in my ESPRIT canvas bag and put them on when I got to my locker. Oh, did I think I was pretty smart and cool, not to mention HAWT! Yeah, it's kind of like that, only not like that at all because I'm pretty sure Keri Russell didn't have to sneak out of her house and change into her sexy red dress and heels in the school bathroom. Oh and also because she actually was cool and HAWT! Gah.

And the final memory of her? Well, that's actually a whole different post in and of itself, one that I promise you'll get sometime soon. Suffice it to say that Keri Russell and I might have had the chance to have more encounters, but lucky for her (or maybe it was not luck and was just really good representation from her talent agency) she dodged a proverbial bullet and her career bloomed instead of being flushed down into--what some might call--a pool of anger.

To be continued (eventually)...