An Open Letter To My Second Grade Crush: I'm A Changed Man

To my second grade crush, Alysa:

First of all, I may or may not still have feelings for you. Wherever you are right now, stop what you’re doing and listen to "Marvin’s Room" -- and think of me.

Secondly, you realize that the name "Alyssa" is spelled with two s’s, right? Seriously, spell check LITERALLY has a red line underneath Alysa as I type it. But, kudos to your parents for saying f*ck it, all the same.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about you recently. You know, with it being #TBT and all, I get rather -- I don’t know -- nostalgic on Thursdays. I want you to know that I’ve changed a lot from those elementary school years. Sure, the tips of my bangs are no longer dyed blonde, or flipped up like a f*cking “tidal wave” in the front of my scalp.

I hope this poses itself as a good thing in your eyes. I mean, if not, I’m sure we could discuss having that done again, if you ever gave me a second chance.

Dead-tookus, I’ve got some bleach lying around the house -- I just did the “whites” portion of my laundry last night. But, the fact of the matter is, I’ve changed a lot as a man, too.

I hope you’re not still sour about that in-class incident, the one where you lost utter faith in me as a 7-year-old boy (granted, it was extra-f*cking-sour apple).

The truth is, before I licked up half that Ring Pop, and stuck it in your hair -- I really meant to give it to you -- in the wrapper still, of course, as a show of affection. You know how the guys are, though, I was just trying to give the crew a laugh.

Like, c’mon, can you really blame me? Ms. Isaac was reading “The Giving Tree” out loud for the fourth time that week, I was just trying to break up the monotony. Peer pressure doesn’t start with a little pot in high school, Alysa. I hope you can understand.

I’m a writer now. At least I try to be. I’m sure I could scribble up a love letter right this moment that would put my old, literally scribbled, notes to shame. In all fairness, I do my writing on a MacBook now, so the whole miscommunication over handwriting thing is no longer in play.

Sure, I know the index card I passed you back then, actually read, “hate you” -- but, I swear, I just didn’t connect the bottoms of my “d’s” all that great, when I was 7. It really meant to say “date you.” I probably should’ve proofread it though, that’s on me.

I guess I forgot the question mark, and the “can I” part. If only Ms. Isaac stressed the importance of “subjects” and “correct punctuation” in sentences, instead of a third encore of "The Giving Tree." But, hey, you can’t win ‘em all.

Call me crazy (it’s been done before), but I think you should take a page from the book of "The Giving Tree." Not literally, Alysa.

I don’t want you to physically rip a page out of that book; frankly, I hope you never have to see that book for the remainder of your days left on this planet (that sounded grim, I hope you have many days left on this planet).

I mean it philosophically, like, what would the Giving Tree do? You wanna know the answer? The Giving Tree would, almost certainly, give me another chance. After all, it’s the f*cking Giving Tree we’re talking about here.

All that big, majestic piece of wood did was give, and give, and give, to other people. Sh*t, that sounded really sexual -- I didn’t mean it like that. Unless you liked that statement... then maybe I did. All right, I’ll stop now.

Contact me!

Dan