I mean, come on Francesca. You didn't think that you could just strut around in your little towel and turn Cole's head, did you?

I stopped going to high school midway through my junior year. There were a lot of reasons for this: fucked up serotonin levels, insecurity, stat/trig. My favorite reason, however, is Sunset Beach.

Yes, I stopped going to high school for a daytime soap.

I remembered all this, just now, lying sick (ok, propped up with pillows sick) in bed, glancing at a muted infomercial (juicers! I love juicers!).

Being sick isn’t what it used to be.

Sick days used to entail a cool, discerning parental hand across the forehead and permission to pull the blankets up snug and roll over blissfully. The best sick days were the ones when my mom would come home from work with magazines, crosswords and Betty and Veronica. She brought me my first issue of Seventeen magazine when I was eleven. Milla Jovovich was on the cover. This was before feminist theory ruined glossy fashion publications for me. Back then, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen (save perhaps Mia Sara in Legend).

I made the mistake of staying home sick the day Sunset Beach premiered. A show I hadn’t missed the first twenty years of! Sweet! Pre-Tivo, I began to weigh my options. Clive Robertson or math? I’m a sucker for British accents. Good thing I feign illness well. Move over Ferris Bueller.

I once rang up Dax Griffin while working retail in Los Angeles. I had the urge to hit the guy for cheating on Meg, but thought better of it. Instead, I silently cursed him for ruining my education.