At Kim's we've covered the counter with construction paper "Employee Picks" lists: lists of our favorite celebrity hotties. I'm really into reading everyone's lists and seeing emerging patterns of tastes (Andie MacDowell? Really?) and what it reveals about the list's creator. Mine's pretty obvious (Zan called the rough draft "Comedians And Others"), but it made me start to think about who the hotties would be if I had written the lists in eighth grade, or in elementary school. Not the hottest, but the ones who make me who I am today.

So here it is: five formative hotties. What can I say, they're embarrassing.

1. Bill Pullman

When I saw Casper, I fell for Bill Pullman rather than Devon Sawa. There was a time where my sister and I were obsessed with Star Wars, and seeing Bill as a "funny" "handsome" lead in Spaceballs - a realistic Harrison Ford substitute for the thinking girl - solidified it, and While You Were Sleeping sealed the deal.

2. Anthony Rapp

From seventh to ninth grade, Rent was it for me. I listened to the soundtrack when I went to sleep every night, drew the characters on my binders, wrote the lyrics on my backpack (in White-Out Pen!), and recited the lyrics to myself when I was bored on the bus. One thing's for sure: I'm so glad my parents never let me get the "La Vie Boheme" back tattoo I wanted. Anthony Rapp as Mark was the hero of Rent, because he was a familiar, more accessible version of "bohemia" (his character wore glasses, was from Westchester, and never got any). I also loved Anthony Rapp from Adventures in Babysitting as the super-horny troublemaker Daryl. How bohemian is that? Very.

3. Skywise

I got into Elfquest because my 4-H friends liked it, and from fourth to sixth grade I did what they told me to. Elfquest was the story of - what else? - magical elves and their misadventures battling humans and beasts and other elves. Skywise, the hero of the Elfquest comic book series, was the ladies' man of the elf jungle. If you look at the picture, he's pretty womanly looking. My legitimacy to make fun of anime fans is officially revoked.

4. John Proctor

For a while (overlapping and after the Elfquest years) I was obsessed with accumulating Salem Witch Trials trivia. Imagine how excited I was to learn there was a whole play about one of the victims, and that he was a hunk in it! I'm not sure how I feel about the Daniel Day-Lewis portrayal, so I put an image of the book's cover, so that every woman on the internet can imagine her own John Proctor (metaphor alert).

5. Dave Foley

The first comedian I ever had a crush on: coming home from high school at two thirty, watching Kids in the Hall, sighing. Dave is by no means the funniest (that would be Kevin McDonald, who I should have had a crush on, because that's far more important than blue eyes), but he's definitely the dreamiest, peaking in the season five-News Radio period. I'll never forget my disappointment realizing that Kids in the Hall episodes are re-runs, and today he's an alcoholic with a bleached blond beard who showed his ass in Monkeybone.

Thanks for the memories, men.