Top 5 Kisses....

Do you know your top five kisses of all time?

Some of you may and some of you may not. I do. I remember the top five. I don't know why I picked this number but I did and it seems perfect. Below are the top five kisses that I've had of all time. I don't know if I'll remember the other kisses once and if (and that's a very big IF right now) I ever find my Risotto Man but for tonight....I'm going to skip down memory lane.

"My First Kiss"

Oh first kiss. You have no idea how much you impacted me. Until you laid your lips on mine, I had no idea how fun kissing could be. It was at summer camp...summer CHURCH camp.

Do you remember?

You asked me the one night if you could kiss me. As I look back now, your gentleman behavior was very sweet, it was the first and last time I've ever been asked if someone could kiss me and I really do appreciate that you let me walk away, lips untouched. I do understand the next night when young teenage hormones got the best of you and you leaned in for a smooch anyway. *sigh*

I wish that my surprise didn't get the best of me, making me run away...I wish that as I ran over that unsteady terrain I didn't take a final look back and think 'Wow, so that's what its like'...and oh how I wish that rock hadn't been there and my foot hadn't hit it...

Falling on your face seconds after your first lip lock is really not cool.

"Kiss in the rain at least once, its worth it..."

Your penny advice for the night? Kiss in the rain at least once.

I was in high school, I was visiting a friend whose name I can't remember now and it was raining. I think it was spring, I'm pretty sure in fact. What I do remember is the boy. The handsome boy whom I sat with in his car in teh driveway of my friends house as we both got up the nerve to kiss.

At one point after he forced bravado and finally leaned across the way to kiss me, we decided to go inside the house.

Somehow, those same treacherous hormones got the best of us when we stepped outside the car to run inside. His mouth found mine and before we knew it, we were drenched and still kissing. What's so great about kissing in the rain?

The sheer unashamed joy of losing your mind to a moment.

It was raining, my hair was getting wet, his clothes were getting wet, we didn't care. For a moment ... all that mattered was his lips on mine and how delicious it felt. It didn't matter that it was late, it didn't matter that I would have to explain to my parents why I was sopping wet, it didn't matter that he had to drip dry before he got back in his car, I couldn't give a flying f*ck that the hair I spent an hour making straight as a board was curling into ringlets and I really really really didn't care that his ex-girlfriend was a semi acquaintance/friend of mine...

I just wanted him to kiss me in the rain... as the thunder roared and the lighting struck.

It was the single hottest moment of my life, up until then.

"Dance under a tree"

This is a simple one. I was in college. There was a boy I was crushing on. I had thought he was so handsome for weeks. I tried so hard to be cool.

Which, let's face it... I'm not.

Somwhow, he and I ended up at the same party one night. And then, somehow, he and I ended up across the street swinging on playground swings late at night. Somehow, he ended up pulling me into his arms and slow dancing with me under a huge elm tree. The branches far above us, he reached an arm up and picked a leaf for me as if he was presenting me with 3 dozen roses instead of a large green leaf.

I laughed off the chivalrous moment as we swayed in each others arms with a comment of "We're dancing and there's no music!" He leaned into my ear and whispered...

"I can hear the music. Can't you?"

And then kissed me....

I think I still have that elm leaf someplace.

"Las Vegas"

No romance here folks but the kiss was nice. I grew up in a small town about an hour and a half from Vegas. One year, I went to Vegas with some friends the day before New Years as they had never there. We met two guys while there and they convinced us to come back the next night for New Years.

The girls got to Vegas before I did, met up with a different group of guys and totally ditched me while I was driving up to meet them. Meanwhile, the guys from the night before had gotten into a bit of trouble after we had left them. One had been jumped so he wasn't feeling up to going out.

Snowboarder guy (which is what I'm calling my lip lock) and I were looking at a pretty dismal New Years at this point. So as I'm trying to find a parking spot ... in Vegas...on New Years .. at 9pm ... he's convincing me to just come hang out with him on the strip. That since we've both lost our group of friends we should just hang out together.

So I did.

And man... I had fun.

At midnight as we stood across the street from the Bellagio next to another couple who had a full bottle of champagne and thousands of strangers who somehow felt like our friends, he wrapped an arm around me and we shouted out the countdown.

"5!!! 4!!! 3!!! 2!!! 1!!!!!!"

Fireworks went off! People were laughing and shouting! He leaned in and kissed me...a long soft kiss. When we pulled apart the couple next to us handed us the bottle of champagne and we each took a long drink...and then started kissing again.

"Is it in the top 5 because it's the most recent, or simply the best kiss?"

Oh.this.kiss.

I quite honestly don't know if this is in the top five because it's been the most recent or because he somehow knew exactly how to kiss me. The first time he kissed me, we had met for drinks.

We were sitting outside on this patio at a trendy bar that I normally don't frequent. I'm so not trendy. We were off to the side and it was dusk so the bar had a fire lit. We were enjoying a beer, lightly teasing each other because we're really good at that.

I was semi thinking that although I was having so much fun and he was so cute and he really made me laugh, I did have to get up for work the next morning. I was talking about something and suddenly, he stood up, leaned over and kissed me.

I wasn't expecting it.

I had wanted him to so badly but since I was used to the semi awkward lean in and the moment where you both try to figure out how to kiss each other and somehow 99.9% of the time are not able to do so... this moment of unexpected lip lock self assurance completely took my breath away.

He had placed his hand on the back of my head, wrapping his fingers lightly in my hair. And placed his lips on mine. Kissing me in a rhythm that matched my own perfectly. His lips were the right amount of firmness and they had a confidence that is rarely in a first kiss. **sigh**

....and I was speechless....

If you know me, you know this is a rarity. So I said something very smooth like....

"You just kissed me... I forget what I was saying."