On the first day of eighth grade in 2002, I was a changed girl.

I was sporting contact lenses after wearing glasses for years, and I had a new favorite actress that changed my life over the summer: Doris Day.

I excitedly asked my friends as we walked through the halls if they had seen “Pillow Talk” (1959). Only one friend, Chelsey, had but most hadn’t. I think this is when I started to realize I was different from the other middle school kids … but I didn’t care.

Doris continued to affect my day-to-day life. I sought out her movies, and I saw the majority of them when she was the Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month in January 2003. “Romance on the High Seas,” “It Happened to Jane” and “On Moonlight Bay” became some of my favorite films. I listened to her music and tried to sing like her, and checked her autobiography out from the library. I even tried to mimic her behavior in films, such as wanting to learn how to play the ukulele like she does in “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” (1960).

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