I have no idea how this happened, I was under the impression that I had been denied the boy-band-worship neurons that the girls I grew up around all seemed to possess in abundance. I remember whole heartedly lying through my teeth about how enthused I was as I learnt a dance to a Backstreet Boys song with my primary school best friend, Anna.
I'd always skip to song 11 because it was the only one I liked well enough to remember the words to and after a while it became abundantly obvious that I was really bad at dances. 'Let's make up a dance!' was a slogan that was frequently thrown around at my primary school and for the life of me I still have no idea why it was so popular. I remember my mother rolling her eyes and distractedly looking at something far to my left when I forced her one day to watch a dance I had choreographed myself.
When I confronted her about her lack of enthusiasm she said to me 'Natalija, it would be much more interesting if your dance was creative and didn't look like it was a mime for the deaf. You needn't spin around when the song says 'spinning around' and pointing at your eyes whenever someone says 'I' is unnecessary.'
I was crushed and decided that I would create a dance so spectacular that the popular girls at school would be jealous and my scornful mother would eat her words and applaud my choreographic creativity. I can't remember the song my fabulous dance was to be created around but it never eventuated. My appaling lack of any musical ability meant that I couldn't remember the routine despite me being the creator and the 'moves' being painfully simple didn't help either.
The highlight of the entire fiasco was when a girl I didn't like very much asked if she could join in and learn the dance. I told her no, because my mum was knitting us all matching costumes and she didn't have enough wool to make her a costume also.
MY MOTHER. KNITTING. Oh the hilarity, I was a child genius. It sustains me that in a parallel universe, 15 years ago a young Nani was tearing up the d-floor in a costume that is entirely crochet.
I also managed to survive the Hanson hysteria that took over school and I think this is because by that stage I'd ditched Anna as my best friend and had befriended (and fallen in love with) a friendly red-haired kid, Aaron.
Later it would break my heart when he started going out with a girl from grade 5, a hard truth he broke to me by writing in our joint diary that we kept at my house. Yes. A joint diary. Just another fact that made me a child-genius. For the love of god I wish I still had that diary. I would give up on this blog and on The Letter Drop and just publish the work of art that was my grade 6 journal.
So, despite my many years of being immune to boy-band love I woke up the other morning - quite suddenly and before I even opened my eyes I had the song Boyfriend stuck in my head and seared into the back of my eyelids was the image of Justin Biebers pristine face. I listened to it on repeat that morning for 2 hours while I got ready for school and today I clicked on my youtube history and this is what I saw.
I am definately a belieber now and I'm not sure there is any turning back. At work I said 'Hells yeah! I'd totes tap that, he's legal in the US now mother fuckerrrrrrs'. I was greeted with blank stares until someone said with disbelief in their voice 'Did you just say, 'tap that'?'.
What makes me sweat a little is that I don't actually know how old Justin is but I remain confident in the belief that I could make him a man if he wasn't already one.
Oh my god. That is officially the creepiest and most pedo-friendly thing I've ever said. Let's all forget I said that until I google how old he is.
...
JUST TURNED 18! That was in capitals because I thought it was an epiphany and I was now cured of all Bieber-fever symptoms, false alarm everyone, the shouting was in fact relief that he is technically legal. In Australia anyway.
Love Nani
x
