Middle School.

The most awkward period of everyone's life. Marred by the burning desire to fit in and sit with the cool kids; the desire to please your parents, but be accepted by your peers. Easier said than done.

Take for example the 5th grade Christmas dance, where I decided it would be most appropriate to wear a sparkly gold sweater and velvet pants. Complete with matching purse and choker. Add to that my mom's obsession of steam rollers and hairspray and you got this...

I thought I was stylin' and that all the girls would ask me for fashion advice. Looking back, I was clearly mistaken.

Then picture that awkward, skinny, towering 11 year old version of me dying for the chance to dance with a boy. ANY boy. Instead of sitting on the sidelines watching every other girl dance only joining in when the Electric Slide or Macarena played. I was so desperate, in fact, that I decided to chase a boy around the dance floor until he agreed to dance with me. Yes, you read right. I CHASED him around the dance floor, in front of teachers, classmates, parents, and the DJ.

Not my proudest moment.

Carousel Horse

One of my old teams at work, held a gift exchange at Christmas. The idea was that half of us would bring white elephant gifts and the other half would bring nice gifts - while staying within a budget of $20. I was tasked with bringing a white elephant gift and decided it would be best to look at local "junk stores" and flea markets to find the perfect gift. I spent hours looking before hitting the white elephant jackpot.

High on a shelf hidden, amongst lots'o'junk, I saw it. The PERFECT white elephant gift. A HUGE figurine of a carousel horse, I'm talking at least 2 feet tall 2 feet wide. It was painted in pastel shades of pink and purple, had fake pearls stuck all over, glitter accents, tulle wrapped around the base and neck, and a fantastically shiny gold pole going up the middle, along with a gold horn on its head. It. Was. Ugly. And, because it was so huge, finding a way to wrap it that made it look like a nice gift proved difficult, I had to creatively tape boxes together before gingerly wrapping it up and topping it with the prettiest bow I could make.

The next day, I hauled it to the party, held at my leader's home, and placed it in the gift pile. I was beside myself with excitement to see who would be the lucky recipient. We drew numbers to see what order we would pick (or steal) our gifts and the fun began. About mid-way through, someone finally picked my gift, opened it carefully, and looked shell-shocked when they realized what they had just received. It. Was. Classic. Then they wanted to know who in tarnation brought the gift and why.

I explained that I spent hours at all the various junk stores and flea markets in town looking for the perfect white elephant gift, when I saw the unicorn I had to have it because it was just so ugly and no one would possibly want it. Just as I finish my explanation another co-worker excitedly pipes up and says, "My sister loves unicorns. She collects those figurines!! She'll love it!" Inevitably she steals the white elephant gift to regift to her sister.

And me? 2 years later, I'm still working on pulling my foot out of my mouth...

When I was 2 or 3, my cousin introduced me to Janet Jackson and I danced and sang my way through "Nasty" and "Lately". My parents further encouraged this behavior by taping it using their VHS Camcorder. We were cool like that.

When I was about 7, I remember receiving my own personal tape player and microphone set-up, perfect for rapping to MC Hammer or Vanilla Ice on my parents' screened in back porch. It was dope.

When I was about 12, my family started having karaoke nights, despite the fact that none of us good sing...well, we could sing, we just weren't any good. Our karaoke machine was well loved and our song selection was impressive, we had a binder of CDs from which to choose, but inevitably I always chose "Brick House". Complete with a little self-choreographed dance.

My adolescence was marked with age inappropriate karaoke.

Then, I went off to college, got my first apartment and realized that I could own karaoke games. Karaoke competitions? In my own home? Count. Me. In. I bought SingStar, Karaoke Revolution, and Get On Da Mic and held karaoke parties with friends. Watching each and every person try to hit a perfect score was entertaining to say the least, but best of all it provided me with 3 karaoke standards, should someone every bribe me to sing karaoke in public.

These standards have proven invaluable already, after an overconfident and unfortunate group effort involving "Scarborough Fair"... [Did you know there are more words to it than "parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme"? We didn't.]