I don’t think I’ve quite reached the nerd status of Ms. Blanche (Scrabble has never been my choice of nerd-poison), but I’ve had a few shining moments growing up that put me right alongside Liv and her ultimate nerdom. The nuns at our high school, yes, we attended the same school, must have put something in the water that made us reach such geek potential. All those scorching August days without air-conditioning on the third floor of ND clearly messed with our ability to become “cool” adults.

I admit, as a kid I fell in love with everything related to Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen: the movies, books, calendars, dolls, etc. Maybe because I grew up watching a Friday night line up of Step by Step, Full House, Family Matters, and Boy Meets World, I was doomed to become infatuated with everything the early 90s threw at me. My sister and I would beg our parents to take us to Blockbuster to rent Olsen movies and would leave the store with an armful of hits like  “Double, Double, Toil and Trouble,” and “It Takes Two.” I felt personally invited to all of “The Adventures of Mary Kate & Ashley,” the twins sleepovers, vacations, and birthdays. I sang along with the songs and played dress up along with the other 10 year old girls dancing on the TV screen.

As I got older, the obsession grew. As my freshman year of high school loomed, I continued to drool over every hot guy that the Olsen preteen movies threw at me. “Holiday in the Sun,” “When in Rome,” “Passport to Paris,” and “Winning London” cycled through my VCR every weekend, and I longed to live the on-screen life of Marky Kate and Ashley. A normal 13 year old travels to Europe, rarely attends school, and always finds a super attractive guy with an accent who falls in love with her, right? My preteen perception of reality clearly became skewed from all the MK and A adventures abroad.

Before I went to school, I begged my parents to record “Two of a Kind” and “So Little Time”(this is before the days of DVR and TiVo) so I could watch the shows when I got home. By the time I entered high school, I learned to set the VCR myself and continued watching anything that involved the Olsen twins. I didn’t know a single person going into ND because I didn’t come from St. Francis of Assisi, Queen of All Saints, or Our Lady of Sorrows, whose graduates seemed to saturate my freshman class. This left my Friday nights open for full-on MK and A marathons.

Luckily, for my social skills sake, I joined two sports teams and started to make new friends. I weaned myself off the Olsen twins and began to “grow up.” I left my obsession at home and started attending high school mixers and football games. One of my best friends from ND (to whom I didn’t get close to until the very end of my tenure), also admits to an addiction to everything Olsen. Had I known that freshman year, we would have become best friends even sooner.

Thinking and writing about my old nerdy habit made me think of all the different type of likes/obsessions/addictions I’ve either had myself or heard about from my friends. I’m sure I missed some and not everything on this list is applicable to everyone; however, it’s a start.

Hey it’s ok…

To read the Twilight series (yes, all four books) more than once and think Kristen Stewart makes a horrible Bella Swan.