Earlier last week, in a small class much like one of your own, I was searching for my long lost syllabus in my bag, when boy a few rows ahead turned slowly to face me. I was momentarily surprised. How was it I had never noticed his potential before? His curly hair, the first thing on most of my friend’s to-do lists, and the way he was cutely yet accurately left-handed? It was clear to me that he was turning around merely to glance at me, but when I pulled my face out of my bag to completely check him out without him knowing, he was still watching. I was just about to smile, coyly and confidently, when a frown covered his entire face, even his hair. Then, he shushed me. I could say that I wasn’t even a little miffed, or even fazed. But the truth is, I was slightly hurt. I felt like a moron. More to the point, I was assured of my inadequacies for an entire half-hour after the incident, until a girl told me she liked my shirt and that boys are shitheads.

For all my vast knowledge in matters of college drama, I haven’t been able to stop thinking lately of my even vast(er) knowledge of junior high drama in The Baby-Sitters Club. When it comes down to it, it appears to me that some of us have yet to transcend the views of ourselves as the uber awkward Mallory - desperately hoping for someone to look beyond our superficial and gigantic adolescent flaws (braces, kinky red hair and the worst bookcover outfits). Is it really possible to outgrow those glaring insecurities so deeply rooted in us since our adolescence? When, in all of our growing up, did we reclaim our junior high selves?

In a crowded, but trendy Uptown bar one night, my girls and I sat down to sip silly little cocktails. Mired in Babysitter’s Club philosophy, it appeared to me that each of us took on a perfectly accurate role; J. was unquestionably Stacy McGill, the girl I always wanted to be in junior high - blond, skinny and obviously hot. A. was a brunette version of Dawn - practical, witty and classically pretty. And then, there was me. Except, it was a wary and inevitable question. I was, and ever will be, Kristy Thomas. It seems obvious now, that the optimal names like Stacy and clearly, Dawn, were given to the pretty girls. And I was Kristy, who wears lots of sweatshirts, is bossy, obsessive-compulsive, a perfectionist tomboy and the last to get a bra.

By this time, J./Stacy had (naturally) already been pulled onto the dance floor. She was smiling that “I realize how cute I am, and I’m glad you finally understand how much” smile, twitching her hips in her best imitation Cameron Diaz dance. It was humorous, until A. insisted on dancing as well. Three songs later, A. had apologetically abandoned me for some doof in a striped polo shirt and gelled hair. I stood alone on the edge of the floor in true Kristy-wallflower fashion. The evening, which seemed so promising at home, in front of my own, happy-nice mirror, began to, in a few words from my youth, totally blow.

But it never ends nicely, with me sitting down and ordering another g & t, getting to play air hockey in the basement with other random, bored and underdressed people like myself. The worst occurred as I tried to leave the crowded floor in platforms. Someone pulled me backwards and began to gyrate madly to ODB. This someone was approximately 5’8”. And he was rapping the words.

To be fair, dancing has never actually surpassed the stage it reached in junior high. With that memory fresh in my mind - the tragic waiting in large clumps of girls, the pretty girls dancing with cute, albeit non-rhythmic, boys - I felt then, at that moment, I’d had more than enough. I ran quickly away from the dance floor. I ran past the bar. I ran to the most acceptable place for taking caffeine pills (not that I ever did) and crying (also never) that a girl can know - the girl’s bathroom.

Standing at the mirror, watching one girl adjust her Diesels, I had a quick burst of laughter - the dance floor incident had not been traumatic or embarrassing, but rather funny. Now I had not only a story to write, but also a legitimate excuse to waste four dollars and an hour or so on air hockey.

The idea that I was still my alter-ego junior high self was clearly present, but that didn’t make my theorizing correct. It is true that I still maintain Kristy Thomasesque sensibilities. Stacy still has lots of admirers, but she can’t fit into her hot pre-puberty jeans anymore. They’re still on a shelf in her closet, staring at her whenever she opens the door. And Dawn, a wallflower much like myself, is more confident and outgoing than she was at thirteen, but still as pretty. The English Department, if they were to wisely critique and assign such fine reading as The Babysitter's Club would call the stories “coming of age.” And how. I realized then, in the bathroom, that the curly-haired boy in my class was going to have to be subject to my foot unapologetically tapping his chair for a fair portion of the semester. In the same moment, I changed my mind. I do have a lot of sweatshirts, but I have bras now, too.