Hangin’ Tough Until the Fall

The teenage girl living inside of my not-so-teenage-girl looking body (read: I’ve had a kid, things shifted, I cannot eat French Fries like they are the 6^th food group) is now adding another “oh my God” moment. If I knew how to text message, I’d let all my friends know this: OMG NKOTB IZ BACK! But I don’t know how to text message and I rarely even charge my phone, so this post serves as my announcement:

New Kids on the Block are touring in the fall!

Jordan, Jon, Joey, Danny, and Donnie are working on a new album and are back together! And guess what, I’m legal now!

The news got leaked in People Magazine and then the 5 appeared on the Today Show on Friday with the official announcement. I will admit that I have not been a consistent fan. This is nothing like Rick Springfield. I was a New Kids groupie when I was 14 but once the New Kids on the Block turned into NKOTB and tried to persuade us that they were actually talented, my friends and I were so over them. Major backlash from Pam, Juliann, Sharon, Jenny, and Dana – my best friends from kindergarten all the way up. We went from planning our weddings to our respective favorites: Pam (that’s me) loved Jon, Juliann loved Jordan, Sharon loved Danny, Jenny loved Joe, and Dana loved Donnie to “New Kids who? Ugh. Ewww.” I don’t know how it worked out that each of the 5 of us liked our own New Kid, but it worked out well for us and no one had to IM the other or text the other – oh, wait, it was 1988 and we had these things called house phones – call the other and threaten to not talk to that person if she didn’t back off her man.

I don’t know how many New Kids concerts we went to but some of them included going to Six Flags (for those not in the know, in 1988 it was simply called “Great Adventure”) and standing in the rain (some of our parents included) for 14 hours, backstage passes at Brendan Byrne Arena (now Continental Airlines Arena) where we were supposed to meet all of them but only Donnie came out, and front-row seats at Nassau Coliseum. Our parents were very good to us and drove us around to these concerts and endured the ear-piercing screams of thousands of pubescent girls.

The New Kids on the Block will be appearing again on the Today Show on May 16 to perform a few songs. It’s hard for me to keep that inner 14 year-old at bay, and I think I may need to camp out to see this for myself. The fall is just too far away and I’m already close to needing therapy for regression and delusional thoughts after that Rick Springfield concert last week, might as well add this to the bill, too. After this past week, I won’t be surprised if I get a few pimples and start slamming doors and refusing to talk to anyone. Adolescence – I’m back!