Hit Me With Your Best Shot

I hesitate to write this entry because you just simply cannot get the gist of it.  Unless you lived it.  With me.  If you are one of those people, you deserve a medal. 

Yes.  You guessed it.  I'm talking about my obsession with Danny Feeley.  I don't typically put full names in this blog but, in an attempt to try to fully disclose this period of my life, I feel as if I need to give you as much information as possible.  I'm sure he won't see this - I don't think he's often on facebook, but I think it'd be hysterical if he did.  After confirming that I wasn't still stalking him and waiting for him behind the corner in his livingroom, he'd be able to relive his younger days and feel like a rockstar. 'Cuz I totally thought he was one.  For real.

I don't even know where to begin really.  It all started innocently enough.  I decided to participate in Oskey.  Oskey is (I guess I'll say "was" as I don't know if they even have Oskey any more and if they do, it may be very different) a high school variety show.  Great tradition in town.  Anywho...the opening number was 'Summer Nights' from Grease.  I (a freshman) was cast to sing the "Sandy" part and Danny (a senior) was cast to sing the "Danny" part.  Really, the story should end there.  La, la, la, you sing a song with a guy.  You move on. 

I so didn't move on.  For years.  In fact, my ability to move on was remarkably impossible. 

There's no need for me to go in to his physical attributes that I found so appealing in every way - his hair, his clothes, his scar (yes, I said scar) by his ear, his earring.  All you really need to know is that he was the lead singer in a rock band.   Could he have BEEN any cooler?  He also played the bass guitar and that was an added bonus.

So, while school was still in session (Oskey was in May so, during the spring), I of course, looked for him in every corner of FHS.  We clearly ran in different social circles so the possibility of seeing each other was next to impossible.  I barely ever spoke a word to him.  And yet, whenever I did happen to catch a glimpse of him, it was clearly fate and simply a precursor to our wedding day.  I mean, the fact that we both happened to be walking down the hallway in the high school we both attended was a clear sign that we were destined to wed.  Right?

He used to work downstairs from FSPA in the News Store.  He once sold me a snickers bar. I saved the wrapper.  For years.

He also worked at the gas station downtown.  He filled my aunt's car with gas once. She called me immediately and told me what he was wearing and saved the receipt with his initals on it to give to me. Now that's love - my aunt's for me, not his for me...but clearly, in my mind, he did love me. 

I was able to relate every. single. song. that I heard to the radio to him.  I honestly thought that Lisa Lisa was writing specifically about me. 

Any time I saw the color red, I would look at my friends and they were to just know, that simply seeing the color red, made me think of him.  All I needed to give them was a glance.  Why red, you ask? I'm not really sure.  I think maybe his car was red.  I have a faint memory of seeing a red cloth or something (maybe from the gas station) hanging out of his pocket once.  Anyway, anything red, sent me in to alpha-warp.  Complete and total alpha-warp.

He graduated and, while I don't remember for sure, I'm sure I was a mess. He was leaving me.  Now, mind you - we. barely. spoke. a. word. to. eachother. Ever. He had no need for me (why would he?)   I, however, had a great need for him.

I can't tell you how much gas I (and my family and friends) spent driving by his house EVERY DAY, numerous times daily when possible, in hopes of catching a glimpse of him as he walked from his car to his house.  (At one point, I knew his license plate, but I'm happy to say, that it escapes me now.)

He went off to college.  However, this surely didn't stop my obsession, or drivebys to his house, or crying over song lyrics.  It continued.  With a vengeance.

One day, in English, we walked in and on the board we saw the letters DF.  I think it referred to certain periods of the day. I looked at AJ, my best friend, and wrote on a paper, "Danny Feeley".  She wrote back "Dave Forgotten".  I remember this so vividly because it was my first (and really only) time as part of an intervention.  It was terribly dramatic.  I had a boyfriend at the time (...blog entries to come...) and she was trying to snap some drama-filled sense in to me that I was more obsessed with DF than Dave.  Yep - I think I was...She was always so much more mature than I...

One night, I was in D'Angelo's and he was in line in front of me.  I was beside myself that he was home from college for the weekend. Of course, I didn't go up to him to say hi.  I was WAY to shy - but still obsessed.  (Plus, I'd have drooled over myself and then wet my pants).  He ordered and left - never saying hi.  I went home and sobbed on AJ's shoulder that night for (what I remember to be) hours.  Her shirt was completely soaked from my tears.  Come to find out (and I don't even remember how I know this) it was his brother in line in front of me, not even him!!!!  I still find it shocking that I could have made that mistake.  In my defense, they did look a like from the back, I think.  In any event, if AJ hadn't won the Best Friend of the Year by then, she should have!!

So, this went on for years.  I would write down every single time I saw him, a friend saw him, a relative saw him, a friend saw a friend of his.  Every time I heard a new song (pretty much any song) that made me think of him, I would listen to it ad nauseum. (I don't know how my parents lived with me.)

At our Senior Banquet (I wish I had the video), 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' came on.  (My corner of) the dance floor opened up and I launched in to my own rock star lip sync performance.  Of all the songs, this was the biggie.  I not only had my own moves, but I also added in some of his that he did when playing the song in Oskey. There I was - big hair, hot pink lips, hoop earrings to match.  Lunatic. Singing in to Mr. Gianetti's massive 1990-style camera.  But really, I was singing to Danny.

When setting up my bank account in college, my pin number was his phone number.  I had that pin number for years, until finally, G was like "so, we've been dating for years and it's weird that you still have his number as your pin."  It was weird.  I admit. (They, by the way, were friends in high school, which makes the whole thing even funnier.)

My freshman year in college, I came home to go to Franklin Junior Miss to "give away the my title".  That sounds so queer. I don't know what else to call it, but surely I don't mean to make it sound all fancy schmancy.  Anywho - they were just about to announce the awards and I was finishing up my speech.  Before I was even done, I happened to look over to stage left and who was there - on stage - in a tux with flowers for me, yep.  Danny Feeley. 

Are you kidding me? I think I literally stopped my speech in mid word.  (I probably threw up a little bit in my mouth too.)  I don't even remember taking the flowers from him but I know that as I went around the ramp, my friends in the audience were screaming.  I don't know how they were able to stand it.  My poor boyfriend, D, at the time, came home (which was a huge deal) and gave me flowers as I walked around the ramp as well.  That was so nice of him, but really I was like, "ya, whateva, I just got flowers from Danny Feeley in a tux.  Step aside."  (Poor D.  We've since had a chance to apologize for being not all that great boyfriend/girlfriend to each other.  It's all good.)

Anyway, we went on one date a few weeks after that and had a perfectly fine time.  He was, to  my recollection quite nice.  I think I was inwardly hyperventilating the entire time so my memory is a bit foggy.  But really, he was a nice guy. (I'm sure he still is.)  Poor guy, though, he could never have lived up to what I imagined him to be in my head.  And surely, to him, I was a complete and total nutjob.  Thank you, Sweet Baby Jesus AND his Mother Mary, I was never one to make unwise decisions and he was a complete and total gentlemen that night.  He did kiss me goodnight and when I closed the door, I literally fell on the floor like a ragdoll.  Mature.

The story of him showing up in a tux at Junior Miss is, to this day, one of RL's great accomplishments.  She has had some pretty heavy-duty accomplishments in her life...and yet, we joke that one of her greatest accomplishments is the Danny Feeley in the Tux thing.  I still don't know how she did it.  I think she just called him up at college and said, "look, this would be really funny. I'll handle the details.  Just show up."  Nicely done, RL.

I have a HUGE scrapbook of my DF obsession in our guest room.  Not because I'm still obsessed. (I promise.)  But because when M and/or H come home one day, completely and totally out of their minds obsessed with a guy three years their senior who smokes and plays in a rock band, I will tell myself (and Guy who will be passed out from heavy drinking) that all will be okay.