something spicy

i'm not sure why, but for some reason, i've been thinking about the spice girls most of the morning.

no, wait- i know why.

after work yesterday, i babysat for one of my favorite families, so they could go out and enjoy this tiny little football game (in-state rivals). i had several hours on my hands after the kids went to bed, and i spent it catching up on my magazines, as well as reading a couple of people magazines that were laying around.

i am not a regular reader of people magazine, but i'll leaf through it if it's around, and i usually make it one of my frivolous airport purchases, just because i can kill 45 minutes-1 hour catching up on the lives of beautiful people.

anyway, i noticed something a little disturbing last night.

have you ever seen an issue of people magazine that didn't include victoria "posh spice" beckham?

me either.

out of all the spice girls, did you really think that posh would be the one we'd still hear about nearly ten years later? (i, for one, figured that after a solo album, playboy pictoral, and ambassadorship, we'd still hear about geri "sexy/ginger spice" halliwell on at least a bimonthly basis. sadly, america seems to be out of the loop on that one.)

which brings to mind something i found while digging for that link- it seems the spice girls were supposed to reunite for the july 2nd live 8 concert. (did anyone actually watch? i'll admit that, although i was glued to the original live aid concert, i didn't go out of my way to spend the day watching this latest incarnation.)

anyway, there i was this morning, driving to work, flipping through radio stations, and singing "wannabe", which i'm sure looked more than a little odd to the elderly couple who wound up stuck at not one, but two stoplights with me during my morning commute. (i should add that to my list: 201. i sing in the car, and i don't care how stupid i look doing it.)

"wannabe" hit the airwaves as i was heading off to college (better add that to my soundtrack), and i clearly recall digging for the lyrics to the song on the internet from the comfort of my dorm room. (i believe this was while evil ex-roommate #1 was out "acclimating herself to college life", by which i mean she was getting piss drunk and would be sleeping it off until at least 2pm the next day- but that's neither here nor there.)

snicker all you want, but the spice girls were hugely popular because girls saw themselves in them, and guys just....(how to narrowly sidestep a rather crude phrase?...) wanted to be with them.

i mean, the spice girls had it covered (or uncovered, as in sexy/ginger/solo spice's case):

~there was sweet, innocent emma "baby spice" bunton- the group's token blonde.
~there was always fashionable victoria "posh spice" adams, who wound up marrying the most famous soccer player in the world since pele.
~there were the two melanies- melanie "sporty spice" chisholm, and melanie "scary spice" brown
~and, of course, my favorite- the aforementioned geri "sexy/ginger/solo/ambassador spice" halliwell.

i'll freely admit to being a combination of at least three, and possibly four of the spices, and i think most women can find themselves in one or two of the spice girls- or is it the other way around?

it reminds me of the one and only time i went out to a bar/club/social establishment in kansas city- early in my college career, as i recall. the high point of the evening was seeing one of my college crushes out and about, but for some reason, i actually managed to refrain from following him around and pestering him. (uh, yeah- that would be considered a good thing.) the most interesting part of the evening was this guy we met who, suffice it to say, was attracted to my best friend, heather. (that happened all the damned time. it was a little frustrating for me then, but looking back now, i am quite okay with the way things turned out.)

when we first met don juan (his real name is long forgotten, as i had no reason to add him to the "kiss list", and therefore, i have no way to look it up...like it matters anyway....), he wandered over to where heather and i were dancing with our friend livia, and struck up a conversation while demonstrating his minimalist style of dancing.

"you know what they say about groups of girls?"

(insert blank looks from us)

"in every group of girls, there's always a smart one, a sporty one, and a slutty one."

"oh."

of course, this led to some discussion over who was who. to this day, heather claims i called her a slut, though i'm pretty sure i went with "sporty". then again, as i've already mentioned, guys were drawn to her....

he followed us back to our table, where we met up with friend #4, susan, who threw the "3 friends" theory out the window (since...well, she was number four), which led to more discussion about what the fourth sterotype would be. (somehow, i'd wound up with the "smart" label, so susan was clearly the odd one out. i can't recall what stereotype we settled on for her, though heather seems to recall that she tried unsuccessfully to strip me of my title.)

at the end of the evening, our new acquaintance asked heather and i if we could give him a ride home.

"it's right around the corner," he said.

well, "right around the corner" turned out to mean "halfway across the damned state". to this day, neither heather nor i have any clue where it was that we finally wound up dropping this goober off. however, it did require an extra trip to the gas station (we were waaaay out there), as otherwise, we may not have made it back to civilization again.

which would have been bad, as i'm pretty sure i'd left my spice girls cd home that night.