old flames burn bright

when i was about ten, my parents would give us a dollar a week in pocket money. This dollar would stretch a long way back in the day. I'd usually hold my dollar close and eagerly await the short walk home after school, past a local corner store which sold unimaginable amounts of heavenly lollies. I'd be able to buy "twenty cents worth of mixed lollies please", and so the dollar would last me a whole week. Sometimes, instead of mixed lollies, i would buy twenty cents worth of musk bars, because not only were they pink, they were my favourite.

but i also learned the importance of saving at a young age, especially saving for something special, something expensive and something you would treasure for a long time to come. i had such a thing in mind. so i started saving my dollar every week, and for twenty weeks, i abstained from the lure of the lollies (and even musk bars), and saved my pennies.

after the twenty weeks, i asked my mother if i could change my twenty one dollar coins for a twenty dollar note. She didn't approve of what i wanted to spend my hard-saved money on. In fact i think she thought there could not be anything worse to spend my money on, but reluctantly, she gave in, probably because she knew that if she didnt, i would have gone and bought it anyway, with twenty one dollar coins.

so with my twenty dollar bill (how grown up I felt!), my mother took me to K-Mart, where I was about to purchase my very first, very special, cassette album. I went to the counter and asked politely if they had New Kids on the Block's album, Hangin' Tough. I was incredibly anxious about the whole process. What if they were sold out?? I had, afterall, been waiting twenty weeks. That's almost half a year! Plus my mother probably wasn't going to take me to another K-Mart.

The man went into a room behind the counter and after what seemed like an eternity, came back with a small plastic box, with the New Kids' picture on the front and oh yes, a cassette on the inside. I paid with my twenty dollar bill and could not wait to get home to listen to my very first, very own album.

i listened to the songs every spare minute of the day. As soon as i got home from school I would plonk myself down on the carpet, press play on my hand-me-down cassette player and sing and rehearse and by the end of the week, I knew every word to every song on the album, and i was day dreaming about growing up and marrying Jordan Knight.

time warp, almost two decades later to me, twenty-nine years of age.

So Jordan ended up marrying his high school sweet heart. They have two kids. Whatever. Fairytales are made for fairyland, I learned that one a couple of years ago after realising I wasn't going to grow up and marry Jordan Knight.

That minor blow to my ego was a little harsh, but it's ok, it didn't break my love for the New Kids. In fact last night, on a school night no less, I (with two dedicated girl friends in tow) went to their reunion concert in London, having been constantly paid out about it for the past month.

They were incredible. They were older, yes, but they were still them. Still the boys who stole my pre-teen heart all those years ago, still danced, still sung amazingly and if anything i think they've grown some much needed personality and facial hair since hitting puberty! I felt like I was twelve again, and the overwhelming memory of loving that album so incredibly, really made the show that much more special for me.

We danced and sang along and my heart melted just that little bit when Jordan sang "I'll be loving you forever"... because Jordan, I will love you forever!

Photos from the concert here.

Incidentally, gōng xĭ fā cái, happy chinese new year, and today also marks our one year anniversary in London!