CrushCrushCrush

In my continuing effort to figure out why I am the way I am, because there is some really strange wiring in my head, and because I'm essentially the sum of my many influences, I had the idea while driving home to talk about some of the larger sized crushes of my childhood and see what evidence comes out of that. When I was a kid, I never really went through the "girls are icky" phase, and I learned very early on that many girls are really really really cool. However, I could never really capitalize on the lack of girl ickiness due to my paralyzing shyness, so the two of those things working in combination with each other caused me all sorts of angst and frustration. Even so, I liked girls a whole lot. Yes I did.

Here we go ...

Mean Mary Jean. I'll be honest and tell you that I really have no idea who this is, except she was in some local commercials when I was too young to remember them now. But my dad insists that I was in love with this woman, and since she's technically the first it would be wrong not to include her.

Gwen Stacy. To put her in easier to understand terms, Gwen was the Betty to Mary Jane's Veronica in Peter Parker's Archie like lovelife. That is to say that while MJ was the vixen, Gwen Stacy was the girl next door (the MJ of the movies is more Gwenish than her counterpart in the books). She was the "good girl" and I totally dug her in a lot of the older comics I read in reprints. I say that because she died in one of the earliest issues of Spider-Man that I read. So not only did this start the germ of the good girl thing I have, paving the way for girls like Erin and Chrissy, but it also sparked my passion for tragic love affairs. I can actually draw a straight line from Gwen to Laura Palmer, who was also dead before I ever got to meet her.

Julie Newmar. I was such a fan of that Batman show and it's crazy cast of villains, but the one I always looked forward to the most was the Catwoman episodes where she was played by Julie Newmar in that skintight black cat costume. She was without a doubt the sexiest thing my little brain had ever encountered, and gave me the interest in "bad girls" that I have, paving the way for girls like Melissa, Samantha, and Jen. This early imprinting may be why I have such an interest in cosplayers like Ruby Rocket, too.

Daphne Blake. Not only was she the dish on Scooby Doo, but she was the hottest thing going in cartoons overall at the time. She almost certainly installed in me the whole Damsel in Distress thing that I've had my entire life.

Shelley Nicholson. From the time we moved to Bernardston when I was in the middle of the first grade all the way through high school graduation, she was the IT girl at school. All of us liked her, and I was no exception. This is a rare case where I was able to defeat my programming by letting her know I'd had a crush on her, although I had to do it by writing it in her yearbook at the end of senior year.

Miss Couture. The legendary hot substitute teacher of Bernardston Elementary. Everyone, without exception, loved her and I don't recall a single instance when any of us acted up or gave her a hard time when she was subbing for us. In true 70's fashion, she had straight blond hair that went on forever. I remember her being nice to a fault. Later on she got a regular teaching gig there, but I wasn't lucky enough to be in one of her classes. I think Colleen had her for a year, but I'm not sure. Either way, I'm sure she couldn't appreciate her good fortune on many of the same levels that *all* of the male children in the school would have.

Pinky Tuscadero. The only woman in the world cool enough to win the heart of the Fonz, even though they didn't end up together. They could have, and she would have been the right one for him. When she's in that demolition derby and the Malache brothers are closing in on her after her car has stalled out ... I was genuinely terrified that she was going to get hurt.

Sally Field. The first encounter was in Smokey and the Bandit, when she's picked up hitchhiking and stays for the adventure. I've always dreamed of driving along and coming across my own Sally Field. She was so awesome in that movie that I fell right in love with her. This was later exacerbated when Gidget went into local syndication.

Laura Petrie. During my childhood she'd already moved on to the Mary Tyler Moore show, but I've always loved her best in black and white as suburban housewife Laura Petrie on the Dick Van Dyke Show. I hoped that someday I'd grow up and meet someone just like her.

Olivia Newton John. Of them all, this one was the biggest. When I saw Grease a neutron bomb went off inside my head, and her character Sandy became a huge measuring stick against which everything later would be judged. She had me right away as the beautiful and sweet as apple pie Sandy, but at the movie's conclusion, when she shows up all sexified and vixenish ... it's impossible to explain the impact that had on me. This movie helped bridge the gap between the otherwise contradictory impulses towards good girls and bad girls (see: Gwen Stacy; Julie Newmar) that were a swirling cauldron inside me.

Honorable mentions: Marsha Brady, Barbara Eden as Jeannie, Yvonne "Batgirl" Craig, the Invisible Girl, Linda Carter as Wonder Woman, Josie McCoy (of the Pussycats), Maren Jensen on Battlestar Galactica, Princess Leia, the Black Canary, and Zatanna.