New Kids On The Block are back!!!

Rather than call this a new blog, I should call it what it is...an open letter in honor of the members of New Kids on the Block. That’s right! They are back. They are back and my heart quickens a bit at the very thought of it. I remember, vaguely, the moment I first saw a grainy black and white video on MTV, depicting five young guys from Boston, doing their best to "hang tough" because they were, in fact "rough". I remember being a young girl of seven years old, feeling a very real, very strong, very confusing, attraction to an eighteen year old young man named Jordan Knight and knowing, for fact, that if we ever met, he would instantly fall in love with me and he would ask me to marry him right then and there. I remember lying in bed at night, just before drifting to sleep, listening to my little stack of NKOTB tapes or waiting for my favorite radio station to play their songs or announce an item of trivia I hadn’t previous knowledge of. I remember covering my jean jacket in huge, head-sized buttons with the boys’ faces on them and knowing that I was at the height of super fan fashion. To say the least, I was quite smitten as a child. I never quite lost that loving feeling for the boys of New Kids on the Block. I have, at this moment, a CD of their greatest hits, in the console of my car. I asked my husband, in the event of the tour coming through our area, to appease that seven year old girl inside me. I asked if he would think I was crazy for wanting to go to that concert. He laughed and said, "Whatever you want".

This is exciting. The last time I saw New Kids on the Block in concert was May 4th, 1990. My Daddy was aware of my obsession/fascination for the group and subjected himself to an evening of several thousand pre-pubescent, screaming central Arkansan females, at Barton Coliseum. Though, soon after that, it became, somehow, uncool to be a fan. I’ve never really been one to follow a crowd, even then. I didn’t give up on them. (I did, eventually, quit sporting the buttons, however.) When the group broke up, so broke a piece of my heart. I was saddened that an era had come to an end and I had to move on. More boy bands were sure to come after that point. Sure, there was the Backstreet Boys...they did nothing for me. Then there was N’sync...who cared? 98 degrees didn’t faze me. Where were my boys singing "Please Don’t go Girl, I’ll be loving you, or Step by Step?" I was a broken spirit…wishing for the day, biding my time until some cataclysmic event would occur, some aligning of the planets, some way my group would come back and give me some type of closure. Now it has happened. All is right with the world.

As you see, I have no hard feelings, even after getting no response when using my best Lisa Frank stationary to send them love notes. (I wish I was kidding!) I am pumped for this tour. If, for some reason, they don’t come anywhere close to us here in Arkansas, I will at least get the consolation prize of a new album and I will be able to rest easy. I might even have to buy a special button to be donned on my diaper bag.