TERRY GENE BOLLEA, AKA WRESTLER HULK Hogan—born in Tampa, Florida, Thunderlips in Rocky III—this was the guy I would end up spending my life with, I thought. After a stormy divorce from Terry that for two years served as a platform of entertainment and drama for the tabloids, our marriage was over. I’ve seen myself through a lot of things, but this was something that I thought I would never have to face. In retrospect, the reality of this happening was the hardest thing I have ever had to go through in my life personally and publicly. Starting over again at fifty has been life-changing, an uphill climb, and a test of endurance. It was my choice to move on, ditch the drama, and start living again.
I needed to start my whole life over and I needed to be with my family on the West Coast for a while. California has always been my real home, but I ended up staying in Florida full-time until the divorce was settled. Another arrow in my heart. While distance from Terry would’ve been nice, I stayed strong during the two years when my divorce was tried. And when it was all over, I was finally able to spend some time in the place I loved.
California, here I come. Surf’s up, bitches!
As I’ve spent more time here again, I feel like the old Linda. Actually, I feel like a young Linda—the one who doesn’t just live life, but lives to live life. Family has always been such an important thing to me, and my parents have set a solid example. They have stayed together through thick and thin and just celebrated their fifty-second wedding anniversary.
IN 1957, MY MOTHER, GAIL, MET MY FATHER, JOE, IN THE GRANDSTANDS of Hollywood High. My mom was in tenth grade and my dad was a senior. There was an immediate attraction between the young couple. My mom said my dad looked like James Dean. And he proved to be a rebel with a cause: to offer my mom a better life.
Dad came from a big, warm family with an older brother and a younger sister. His father was a police officer and his mother, a nurse. My paternal grandfather was German and English, and my grandmother was a full-blooded Swede. My father’s side of the family were all blonds, so obviously I look like them, but I definitely get my energetic personality from my Italian mom.
My mother’s grandparents came from Italy to the United States for a better life. After my grandfather sold his share in an Italian market he owned with his brother in Michigan, they settled right in the heart of Hollywood, California, on Sunset Boulevard and Highland Avenue. Since my grandfather (whom I never knew) understood the grocery business well, he got a job working at Ralphs, which would eventually become a popular chain of supermarkets on the West Coast.
Just as infidelity would eventually take its toll on my marriage to Terry, it also affected my family several generations prior. My grandfather ended up having an affair with a woman who was a cashier at Ralphs. My grandmother was not only devastated but also torn. While Hollywood marriages come and go, back then if you were Catholic, it was almost unheard of to get a divorce. However, the faith that my grandmother had in my grandfather had been destroyed. It was impossible for her to save the marriage.
My grandmother got divorced and eventually landed a job at Bank of America to support her two young children. Often, my great-grandmother would watch the children during the day while my grandmother was at work. My great-grandmother was used to the old country in Italy where children had more freedom to run and play. However, this was Hollywood—a whole different world. One afternoon, tragedy struck. My great-grandmother was watching my mom’s four-year-old sister, Linda (whom I was named after). She was playing in an alleyway where the delivery trucks would go. A delivery truck was parked nearby, and Linda played in a planter by its back bumper. The driver got in and never saw Linda. He put the truck into reverse, and accidentally ran over Linda and killed her.
This horrific accident sent the family and my mother into an even more difficult phase of their lives. My mom became a latchkey kid and attended nine schools in twelve years. When she met my father, his normal upbringing and solid family unit were a breath of fresh air. She was longing for a stable family life and was strongly drawn to him.
My mom married my dad when she was seventeen and he was nineteen, which was not unusual for that era. Almost immediately after they got married, my mom got pregnant. I was their first child, and I was born on August 24, 1959. My dad went off to serve in the army and was stationed in Texas. During the first two years of my childhood, I didn’t see much of him. My parents were devoted to each other and to their new little family. They had so little financially, yet they had so much dedication in their marriage.
I dreamed of one day having a marriage like the one my parents had. They have always had a mutual respect for each other. Sure it was stressful with my father working to support three children, but my mom had this uncanny ability to always see the glass as half full. They genuinely loved each other, and I think that has helped them weather many storms. My mother was very attached to having a family because she grew up without one. She swore she would do things differently, and she did. I think her influence of not dwelling on the negative in the marriage and the ability to keep turning to the next page in life helped me stay in my marriage with Terry for over two decades.
My mom and dad presented a united front when it came to us kids. As my marriage to Terry evolved into us raising children, I have always wished that we would have had the same mind-set that my parents did. Instead, I was always the disciplinarian and he was always the good guy. Whenever I had to reprimand the kids, Terry would mock me behind my back as if he was one of the kids, too. This made me out to be even more of a bad guy than I really was. Even when he knew my decision was the right one, and better for the kids, safer or whatever, he’d still go against me, mimicking me and starting arguments between us. Even if it wasn’t the right thing to do for the kids, he just loved pushing my buttons, confusing the kids and trying to be the cool parent, so he could win the “popularity contest.” If I said black, he said white.
Kids need parents to maintain a united front. It shouldn’t be the parents’ priority to be their kids’ friends first. They have friends at school. It really made it so hard for me, trying to rear them with his senseless game playing and button pushing, that I frequently wished my marriage could’ve been more like the one my parents had. No matter what happened when I was growing up, if I was in trouble, my mother backed my dad up and vice versa, regardless of whether either parent was right or wrong.
WHEN MY DAD GOT OUT OF THE ARMY, MY MOM, DAD, AND I MOVED back to California. We settled in North Hollywood. Within that first year, my younger sister, Christie, was born. She was a shy, skinny, towheaded girl, and I welcomed her company. But before she turned four months old, my mother announced that she was already pregnant again! Nine months later, my littler brother, Joey, came into the world. My mom had always wished for a boy, so I guess that’s why they tried again, and bingo—Joey! Joey was a little rug rat, not a Swedish blond as my sister and I are. He looks Italian! Little Joey was cute with a round face and giant brown puppy dog eyes. And boy was he feisty. I love having built-in friends in my siblings. We’ve always been very close, and to this day I call them both daily. I still wish that I hadn’t had to live in Florida for twenty-five years, where I was so far away from them and where it was difficult for my kids to see their aunt and uncle regularly.
In California, my father worked as an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. He was an integral member of the force until he retired in 1985. Prior to that, he had become an experienced airplane pilot during his tour of duty in the army and eventually got his helicopter license. Dad started the air support division within the LAPD—the first of its kind in the United States. He ended up becoming the chief pilot and trained all of the new arrivals to that division on the force. He held this position for twenty years.
We had a growing family, and his work was often dangerous. When I was twelve years old, he was flying over the airport training a colleague when something in the helicopter malfunctioned. Whether it was the helicopter or the new student he was training, they were going down! He stayed calm and focused on strategically steering away from the airplanes parked on the ground, which were full of fuel. Dad took control of the chopper as best he could, steered it to an opening, and just missed hitting two airplanes. When he crashed, he suffered a couple of bumps and bruises and some deep gashes on his legs. His student was shaken, but alive.
Being the wife of a police officer, my mom realized the dangers of my dad’s job early on and let out a sigh of relief every night her husband came home safe and sound to his family. She never took his safety for granted, especially now that they had three kids.
My father was not only a man of the law at work, but he also laid down the law at home, too. I had a strict dad; he definitely kept us in line and respectful.
That was when we were young. As we got older, he could still be an intimidating force, especially when it came to dating. When guys would come to the door to pick me up for a date, he would give them the once-over and say, “Are you going to have my daughter home by eleven?” And they said, “Yes, sir.” He had some kind of an air about him that the guys I dated knew not to mess with. And so did I. On Hogan Knows Best, when Terry shot the dating scenes with Brooke and the guys came to the front door, it reminded me of my dating years except Terry made friends with the guys. Although at times Dad seemed a bit overprotective of us kids, I realize now that he just wanted to make sure his daughters and son were safe. As a veteran police officer of twenty-five years, he had seen the ugly side of life—incidents the general public rarely hears about. My father brought home books full of crime scene photos that only police officers were allowed to see. He sat us down and made us look at photographs of murdered female hitchhikers—back in those days hitchhiking in California was the thing to do. The books had grizzly photos of victims found in the woods with decapitated heads, fingers cut off, and other atrocities. Not exactly warm and fuzzy bedtime stories for us kids. However, it surely made a point and we never hitchhiked.
It also gave us the kind of knowledge I think we needed for survival. It taught us how to have protective eyes, which my dad called “learning how to watch your ass.” My sister and I always watched our surroundings and made sure nobody was following us. He taught us what to do if we were ever forced into a situation where we ended up in a car with a stranger. He told us to kick, scream, scratch, punch, poke—whatever we had to do to get away from that person. We hoped that we would never have to rely on this advice, but it gave my sister, brother, and me a different edge over the other kids we knew. Later on in life, if I ever argued with Terry, I think my reason for often just giving up and leaving rather than getting into it with him was a “fight or flight” mentality. Antagonizing and getting the last word in during an argument were never the answers with him. It was a lot safer to remain quiet and just disappear. My siblings and I were wise about many things thanks to our father. Being the child of a police officer was a different way of life, but it worked well for our family. All of the kids turned out with good morals and values.
My mother brought a creative vision to our family, one that I think rubbed off on me. She’s an extremely gifted interior designer and over the years has helped many people around Los Angeles with their homes. She was a stay-at-home mom who dabbled in designing until I was eighteen years old and she opened up her own interior design shop in Westlake Village, California—a suburb of L.A. My mom was and still is today a prominent interior designer in the Los Angeles area. Television and movie stars often live outside of the hub of Hollywood. They have big monster homes and land in places like the Valley. Many celebrities have used my mother’s services because she offers high-end upscale design.
One day, to my mother’s surprise, legendary Italian actress Sophia Loren walked into her shop. Sophia has always been a symbol of great beauty and elegance combined with a salt-of-the-earth quality. My mother went to Sophia’s home to help her put the finishing touches on an old, lavish ranch house that she had owned for years. Although she was humble, a quick look around her home reflected that she was indeed Hollywood royalty. There was Sophia in framed photos with everyone from leading men like Cary Grant to world leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev. Sophia had exquisite taste in art and there were some breathtaking paintings on the walls, including some Rembrandt etchings. My mother was a bit taken by a particularly morose-looking painting that was one of the largest pieces on her walls. Because it was filled with dark colors and ugly faces, she felt it was a real downer and had to go immediately. “Sophia, why don’t we take that one down and put something really colorful up on that wall?” my mom said.
“Gail, there are only two in the world and the other one is hanging in the Louvre,” Sophia responded, nonchalantly.
“Wow. Okay, it’s a keeper!” Mom responded and began to admire the painting.
My mom eventually furnished Sophia’s home with sofas, beautiful wall coverings, and distinctive bookcases, “bibliotecas” as Sophia liked to call them. Working for Sophia still stands as one of the crowning moments of my mother’s career. With her talents, she could make a person’s home look warm and classy. But they needed to add a touch of their own class to pull it off. Sophia projected class through and through. In essence, she and my mother complemented each other well and were a good team. It was exciting that my mother worked with somebody who was so famous and so classy, and, to top it off, she was Italian!
Even though my mom and dad were busy with their careers, they were never MIA as parents. They were there to help us with homework, hobbies, rides to school every day or to friends’ houses, and home-cooked meals. We didn’t have a lot of money, but my parents still found a way to make holidays and birthdays special with tons of presents and lots of love. One year we received new bikes, only to find out twenty years later that they were used and my dad had painted them! Even today at fifty-one years old, I can call my mom and dad anytime of the day or night and they’re always there for me. After all, that’s what family is for.
Sundays at Grandma’s
I loved our family Italian Sunday dinners. They were always feasts. Food and fun! All my cousins, aunts, and uncles!
On the weekends we would pile into our station wagon and head over to my grandma’s little ranch-style house early to begin cooking. I learned a lot from watching my mom and grandma cook. Who knew I was going to marry a three-hundred-pound wrestler with the appetite of three men? Trust me, I eventually put everything I learned in the kitchen as a young girl to use cooking for my hubby. I had to make a lot of food and make it fast!
Nobody in my family was shy about eating. Grandma made sure there was always enough for everyone. And at our dinner table everything was homemade and real (except maybe Grandma’s dye job). We would get fresh eggs from her chickens and tomatoes from her garden. The pasta was also made from scratch.
When it comes to Italian food, my mom has always had a motto: if you cook it, they will come. And, boy, was she right! Besides our immediate family—which was fairly large—there seemed to be a constant revolving door bringing people in and out of Grandma’s house, including the priest, Father Fitzpatrick, from the local parish. Another one of my mother’s celebrity clients from her interior design business was Dick Van Patten of Eight Is Enough fame. He heard about these traditional Sunday dinners and wanted to come join us for the festivities. Dick became a die-hard fan of my mom and grandmother’s cooking. He joined us many times, bringing his wife and two sons. He had a great sense of humor and was a genuinely down-to-earth man. Wow, did they love the homemade wine and playing bocce in Grandma’s front yard! It was like having a touch of Italy in the San Fernando Valley. Even Dick began to spread the good word about the good food served.
One time, when my mom was working at Dick’s house, Farrah Fawcett happened to be visiting him. He started raving about my grandmother’s cooking, and Farrah immediately became intrigued. She was amazed that our family did this big Sunday dinner on every weekend, without fail.
“Gail, why haven’t you invited me?” Farrah asked.
Why didn’t I invite Farrah Fawcett to my mother’s for dinner? Mom wondered, shocked. Probably because, at the time, Farrah was the resident angel on Charlie’s Angels and one of the most famous actresses in the world.
“Would you like to join us for dinner some Sunday?” Mom asked.
“Of course, I’d like to come over this coming Sunday,” she responded, enthusiastically.
Mom went home and told my grandmother that on this particular Sunday we would need to make a meal fit for a queen—or an angel, that is. Mom said to her, “We’re going to have a few extra people over this Sunday. In fact, a big star is coming over for dinner.”
“How big? How many eggs do I need to put in the pasta?” answered Grandma. To Grandma, a “big” movie star meant a large movie star, like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. When she made the homemade pasta, the recipe called for one egg per person.
My family considered Farrah to be Hollywood royalty. We wanted to make it a special day for her, but when she arrived at our home on that Sunday afternoon, we quickly realized that the red carpet treatment was the last thing that she wanted. Farrah didn’t seem impressed with herself and was eager to learn about us when we all sat down at the dinner table. Quickly, Farrah became like one of the family, with her southern grace. The glamorous star we watched every week on national TV showed a warmth of personality that took everyone by surprise. Farrah possessed a special innocence and loved the sense of family she got from sitting around and laughing with us. It just confirmed that no matter how famous someone is, everyone needs a sense of home. My family took pride in offering that to her and others who came to our house to eat.
I’m four years older than my brother and sister, so I always helped with the dinners when we were growing up. We rarely went out to eat. We would be lucky if we got a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the weekends. Later on in life, my mother was really good about teaching my sister and me how to cook. I was always interested in learning her recipes and little tricks. I was a little overweight as a preteen and my father would sit at the other end of the table and say jokingly, “Okay, Linda, which leg are you going to put that in?” or he’d ask me how much bigger I wanted my feet to get. He could be a pretty funny guy, too! My siblings and I would laugh at dinner, sometimes making our drinks explode out of our noses!
Mom was always good about making more than enough food for everybody. She would make sure to feed the men! She told me that you always want to have something cooking when people come over because the smell of food on the stove draws them in. It made a house a home. I always did that in my marriage to Terry, whether it was coffee brewing, a cake baking, or chili simmering on the stove. It would bring people together. (Quick tip: Brown an onion!)
During all of those Sunday dinners at Grandma’s every week, I didn’t realize what kind of impact they would have on me later in life and how I would end up entertaining the same way as an adult. When I was a kid, my grandmother could feed an army of people, while still laughing and having fun doing it. And everybody was always welcome. Family, friends, friends of friends, neighbors—she never turned anyone away. That influence made its way into my life.
Being married to a wrestler, I found that the kitchen was the hub of our home. I was always cooking for the fellas. Even though Terry and I didn’t come from money and he eventually became really famous, we had this yearning to remain grounded and welcome all kinds of guests into our home. People weren’t going to a big celebrity’s house; they were just going to Terry and Linda’s house. And guests knew that if they came over to our house, it would be a feast with beer and wine, kids, and tons of food. It was always a good time.
These recipes are from my mom, Aunt Rosie, Grandma Ciccarelli, and Aunt Judy. I’ll always remember all the delicious Sunday dinners with my family!
PASTA SAUCE
2 pounds pork bones (neck bones or farmers’ ribs)
olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 gallon tomato sauce
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
Brown the neck bones in olive oil; add the garlic and cook for one minute. Add the tomato sauce and parsley. Cover and simmer for about 2 hours. Add salt and pepper to taste.
When sauce is done, you can add parmesan cheese for additional flavor.
GRANDMA CICCARELLI’S BISCOTTI
Makes 2 dozen
6 eggs
2 cups sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons extract (any flavor you like)
4½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup dried cranberries
1½ cups chopped walnuts
powdered cocoa or cinnamon (to taste)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, oil, and extract. Once mixed together, add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix together. Then add the chocolate chips, cranberries, and walnuts as well as the spice (cinnamon or cocoa). Knead it together.
On two nonstick cookie sheets, form the dough into four large logs (two logs per tray). Bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove from the oven and immediately cut each log horizontally into thirds. Lift each section and place onto a cutting board. Cut each section into one-inch slices and place the individual slices back onto the cookie sheet on their sides. Put them back into the oven for 10 to 15 minutes (or until slightly brown). Take the cookie sheets out and let cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Valley Girls Like to Party
Growing up, I felt like a geek. I was terrible at sports. I was the typical kid who nobody picked to be on their team. I’d basically sit on the bench and eat lunch all by myself.
Although I didn’t have many friends in class, I did have a few who lived on my block. Immediately after doing our homework, we’d go outside and play until dark. We’d play dress up, dodge ball, pogo stick, and Chinese jump rope. We’d ride bikes. We’d chill out in someone’s tree house. Now that I look back, those are the things that kids are missing out on today—good, clean, wholesome fun.
As a kid, I had long, blond hair, and I didn’t bother to take care of it. I was a tan, outdoorsy girl. I didn’t wear any makeup. I went to school, did my homework, and helped my mom around the house. I loved to swim and ride my bike. I only had a couple of girlfriends and spent a lot of time babysitting my younger siblings. I didn’t have much of a social life outside of my neighborhood.
As I headed into the ninth grade at Chaminade Catholic Prep School, I decided to try out for the cheerleading squad. I thought that maybe this would help jump-start my social life. Well, I didn’t end up making it. I was devastated. I immediately went from an unpopular chick, to an unpopular chick who didn’t make the cheerleading squad. Then, I learned a very important lesson: it’s never over until it’s over. Soon after, I got a call from the cheerleading coach saying that one of the girls on the squad was moving and I was the next in line to shake her pom-poms. Just like that, I was a junior varsity cheerleader!
Almost overnight, my whole life changed. People who never knew my name were now passing me in the hallway saying “Hi, Linda!” Pep rallies, football games, basketball games, school fund-raisers—you name it, I was cheering at it. I was always full of energy. The quarterback asked me out. In fact, I had every football player on the team looking to score a touchdown with me. Who knew that all I had to do was put on a cheerleading uniform to go from geek to chic.
I think the life lessons I learned as a cheerleader were important. Cheerleading gave me confidence. I became more outgoing. I learned how to laugh. Most important, I learned how to network with other girls instead of being jealous of them. This has served me well in life. Like the old saying, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
Just when my social life seemed to be on cruise control, my parents pulled the emergency brake. By the end of eleventh grade, tuition went up at my private school, and my mom informed me that they couldn’t afford it any longer. I would now have to attend a public school. What?! I thought, stunned. Right before my senior year? It took me so many years to fit into a school with seven hundred kids. Now I had to start all over again in a public school with twenty-five hundred . . . whoa!
My first day of public school in the Valley was shocking! I walked into the bathroom of Chatsworth High before class and girls were smoking cigarettes. I even smelled pot. This was a far cry from what I had been exposed to at my prior rules-oriented Catholic school. But I soon thought this school was a cakewalk compared to Catholic school. It was like one big party! You could dress and wear your hair just like you wanted. I didn’t have to wear a school uniform, and I decided that this was going to be a blast! I welcomed the change of wearing bright colors, short skirts, and platform shoes. Wanana! Surfers rule!
In one of my classes, I met a girl named Gina who would quickly become my running mate. Gina and I were like two peas in a pod . . . or, rather, two Valley girls in the valley. We were like clones. We both had long blond hair and green eyes, we were the same exact height, and we dressed alike. We loved to listen to the same music. We even spoke the same: “Like, oh my God, gag me with a spoon!” (Yeah, Valley girls actually said stuff like that.) We also both liked cutting class and watching the cute surfers in Malibu instead of going to fourth period. It didn’t take long for me to forget all the rules!
On the weekends during high school, we’d go out at night to twenty-one and older dance clubs. Gina had a fake ID, and I scored one, too. Mine was from my friend’s sister who didn’t look anything like me, and her name was Leslie. One night, I walked into a club and when the bouncer looked at my ID, I think he knew it wasn’t me in the photo. “Leslie, do you mind signing our guest book?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. Then, I signed it as Linda.
“Okay, Linda,” he said looking down at the book. “I thought your name was Leslie?”
“Ah . . . yeah, well, sometimes people call me Linda and other times Leslie,” I responded nervously, trying to win him over with my Pepsodent smile.
“By the way,” the bouncer said, “I really love the name necklace you’re wearing that says ‘Linda’ on it.”
Busted! I totally forgot about my necklace. That was really stupid.
Back then, I was certainly developing into a young woman. I grew up with a beautiful mother, which made an impression on me and my style forever. When my mom would go out with my dad, she would get dressed up just like a movie star. She looked hot! If you thought the ’80s had big hair, the ’60s had even bigger hair. And my mom was the queen of the big hair! I learned a lot by watching my mother get ready. She would put on black eyeliner to create cat eyes. Then, she’d apply some fiery red lipstick and put on a cute little dress. Look out! To this day I try to make an impact with my style as well.
I never had naturally big breasts growing up (at that time I was just a size B). Having babies and nursing them changed everything. After I was done breast-feeding Brooke, my boobs looked like two zucchinis! And, as if you couldn’t tell, I had my boobs done. It was the age of Pamela Anderson, and big boobs were a huge fad. Then, after breast-feeding Nick, I decided to have them done again for the same reason. Eventually, the scar tissue in one of my implants got hard, so I needed to do them yet again. You see, girls, you never know what you’re in for! My mother tells me to get them reduced, but I never heard a guy complain that they were too big. So I’m leaving them as is. (Quick tip: Don’t fix it if it’s not broken!)
I realized at Chatsworth that I actually had a pretty good set of legs on me, probably from cheerleading at Chaminade for three years. You would have never noticed my legs under the plaid skirt of the Catholic school uniform. Going to Chatsworth High and showing off my muscular tan legs with the miniskirts with the cute shoes was really fun. I was digging it and noticed it was getting the attention of the boys.
A tall, handsome PE coach who worked at my brother and sister’s school definitely caught my eye. He had nice legs, bulging biceps, long, brown surfer hair, and a thick mustache. Actually, come to think of it, he looked more like a ’70s porn star than a PE teacher. But I know what I like!
When I would pick up my brother and sister at school, he would usually greet me by coming over to my car window. We chatted for a bit and pretty soon he asked me out on a date. Sure he was a bit older, but he was really hot! We went out a few times and eventually we went back to his apartment. After he did some convincing, we ended up in bed. Was the sex good or bad? I had no clue. Was his big or small? I had no idea. I was a virgin. When it was all said and done and he rolled off me, I noticed that something was missing.
“Where’s the condom?” I asked, looking down at his uncovered member.
“I don’t know,” he replied, confused.
“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?! You were the one wearing it!”
I began freaking out. Even though it was my first time having sex, I didn’t think a condom could just fly off! Or could it? I jumped up and frantically searched the bed, the floor, and under the bed. There was no condom in sight. Then, it hit me. “Oh my God. Maybe it’s in here,” I said, pulling it out from you know where.
I’m screwed, I thought. Just my luck, the first time I go and have sex I’ll probably get pregnant.
I sweated bullets every day for the next three weeks until my period came. Phew! I quickly realized that no sexual protection is foolproof. Eventually, I got over the condom crisis, and between the surfers in Malibu, the hot guys on the dance floor, and the PE teacher I still saw every now and then, my life had definitely changed.