Mon-OH!

Well, my attempts to live a normal teenage life in the last few months have paid off. Ladies and gentlemen, I have mono.

It’s not great – that’s for sure. But, you know, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. The only bad things about mono are the enlarged (and pus-covered!) tonsils, sore throat, fever, stuffiness and constant sweat. However, the positives are pretty nice, too. The doctor says that I should take it easy for the next few weeks.

I am now sitting on the couch, watching the big screen TV, computing, eating and drinking loads and loads of Gatorade. And after the last two IB exams tomorrow, this is all I’ll have to do for the next month.

Oh, woe is me.

Love is $.45/pound

Dear Produce Girl from Publix:

I’ve watched you stock tomatoes and bananas ever since I was in the 8th grade. You must have been in high school then. You had short reddish hair and wore thick-rimmed glasses. You were really, really good looking.

But a month ago, which was the last time I saw you, you had gotten contacts and bleached your hair. Im not saying that you didn’t look good, but I am saying that the Produce Girl of yesteryear had something that today’s Produce Girl doesn’t. And maybe I expressed this opinion a little too openly the last time I was buying a bag of potatoes, because I haven’t seen you since.

Produce Girl, I’m sorry if I offended you. Please, come back to your little corner of my neighborhood supermarket so I can fondle you with my eyes.

Love,
Casey

I can't wait until Vancouver 2010

I know I said that I hated Valentine’s Day. And I still do. But friends, I think I fell in love yesterday. With the US Olympic Women’s Curling Team.

Don’t get me wrong. I think (much to the chagrin of some of my eastern European counterparts at school) that the Olympics are a big waste of my time. It does nothing but interrupt my regularly scheduled week of new television shows and makes girls lust after gnarly snowboarder types.

But after watching the US fall short of beating the team from Japan in what appears to be some strange game of giant shuffleboard on ice, I came to appreciate the hotness that somehow comes from Bemidji, Minnesota.

And here’s a fun fact for you: Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox were from Bemidji. Not only can this little corner of northern Minnesota produce the hottest things to hit the ice since Emilio Estevez in The Mighty Ducks, but it can also captivate a nation with folk tales that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Thank you, Bemidji. You get the gold medal in my book.

The Caste System of Adolescence

Before I begin, you should know that this entire tirade is not a manifestation of my extreme bitterness toward, well, everything. In fact, things are on an upswing and this is just a collection of thoughts that only a small demographic of society will agree with. I’m certainly aware of this fact.

But, without further adieu, I give you the Peterson Male/Female Mutual Attraction Theory, authored on 28 October 2005:

At the point of conception, the male is placed at a certain disadvantage. Granted, the female obligations of childbirth and menstruation are definite points in the negative column for that particular group, males are given the arduous task of finding a mate.

The reasoning for this disadvantage is ultimately a manifestation of the competing standards for each respective group: females are generally attracted to physically attractive males, while men will generally do anything you put in front of them.

It should be noted that the female “standards” being investigated are those of a purely physical nature due to the fact that the years of life prime for reproduction are those during which females are fickle, maniacal creatures who show more discretion than is necessary while finding someone with whom to mate. (Read: High school girls are heartless, soulless individuals.) In contrast, male “standards” being investigated rely upon physical attraction in addition to such intangible qualities as sincerity, ability to hold conversation, and the like.

Now then, on to the thick of it. Let’s say, for example, that there are three levels of physical attractiveness: low, moderate, and high. Most men are starved for affection and will gladly mate with any female who is at least moderately attractive. It is not uncommon, either, for a man to be attracted to a female of low attractiveness. Shortcomings in these categories can be adequately balanced by other qualities that remain unseen by the female eye.

That being said, the female is an entirely different specimen. Females who are at the prime of their reproductive lives are, by their very nature, closed-minded and callous individuals who rely solely upon looks, and therefore, the only males who have a chance of mating with females are those who are highly attractive. Any other males stand little to no chance, because they cannot compensate for the lack of physical attraction with such qualities as good nature, niceness, or anything similar due to the teenage female’s inability to observe and appreciate such behavior.

Therefore, females hold a distinct advantage in that they have a large base from which to draw possible mates. That is, any given female is likely to be accepted by far more males than would males attempting to be accepted by females.

Consider the following matrix of attraction, where males are on the horizontal axis, females are on the vertical axis, L represents a low level of attractiveness, M represents a moderate level of attractiveness, and H represents a high level of attractiveness. Willingness to participate in a romantic relationship is be denoted by ? for males seeking females and by ? for females seeking males. Only mutual willingness should be considered as potential for a successful relationship, and these are highlighted yellow.

If one uses the same matrix and the same parameters for that matrix, however, it would appear differently in an ideal world, wherein nonphysical characteristics were nonexistent (that is, in a world wherein the men suddenly sprouted vaginas and became superficial jerks). Furthermore, if the variable of living beyond one’s means were eliminated by way of those members of each group mating with members of the opposite sex in that same group, the possible relationships would form a gradient across the scale, possibly incorporating far more individuals into relationships than in the prior model. Observe the ideal matrix:

As you can see, the variance between these two groups is alarming. But as it is, the first model is the true model of the inter-gender social framework. Because this is the sad, sad, reality of life, males born anywhere short of the high class of attractiveness are presented with a harsh difficulty: they must rise above the standards and locate that rare female with whom there will be mutual attraction.

I realize that with this theory, as there are with all other theories, the existence of certain anomalies is inevitable. Sure, there may be an occasional female who takes into account such items as intelligence and personality. And sure, there are many guys who are so into themselves that they judge solely upon looks. You have to understand that I write this as an outlyer on the male spectrum that is trying to find some insight into why things are the way they are.

Edit:
Now then, now that I’ve been privy to the extreme disgust of every girl I know, I’d like to point out that this entire thought process was as much a theory as it was a joke. Added hyperbole to make a point was employed, and there should be no offense taken as these thoughts do not reflect upon the actions of the majority of my comrades. I wouldn’t be friends with people if they were all mirror images of the soulless individuals portrayed here. This much is obvious.

I’m genuinely sorry for any bad feelings I may have caused. Really. Go ahead, comment away and make me look like the fool I am.

Can't live with 'em

Because I’m on the yearbook staff at school, I had the pleasure yesterday of observing teenage girls in their natural habitat at a time during which they are particularly vulnerable: school picture distribution day.

It’s funny how every girl responds in exactly the same oh-my-god-my-pictures-are-so-horrible-but-I-think-yours-are-so-pretty-oh-no-mine-suck manner. I’ll be sure to add this one to the list of peculiar girlisms that is already longer than _War and Peace_.

Chippy, Chippy

Having accepted my fate as a lonely little man for the rest of eternity, I decided last year to scope out chicks with whom I have no chance and watch them from afar. And don’t think that this was some sort of intricate system of hiding out in trash cans outside of girls’ houses and lowering myself into their bedrooms with rock climbing equipment – it’s just normal public girl watching, and the last time I checked, that’s pretty legal.

Anyhow, last year there was this girl at school who I only referred to as Chippy, half because I didn’t know her real name and half because she looked like a chipmunk. Of course, I’m no strange guy with a chipmunk fetish or anything; she was a genuinely hot human chipmunk girl. Anyhow, I digress. She was far less than 5 feet tall and walked around in her nose ring and hanging off of this intensely awkward looking boy who had a giant red bush atop his head, which was just scraping the 7 foot barrier. They were an interesting couple to watch, to say the least.

After a while, though, I realized that Chippy and I were just incompatible. I mean, if I ever brought a girl with a nose ring home to my dad, he’d have a cow. Heck, he’d have a whole herd. It just wouldn’t be pretty.

However, this year, I’ve noticed that Chippy no longer goes around with the Red-Headed Wonder. Maybe it’s because her legs were so much shorter than his that she couldn’t keep up and he’s long gone by now. Or maybe it’s because the mechanics of any sort of physical contact were largely inefficient and, therefore, she is in the market for someone more vertically challenged than Red. Or maybe it’s just because he went to college and left her behind. Either way, she’s roaming the campus unhitched.

Thus, my mind has begun to wander again. And while I am fully aware that she and I are most likely very incompatible, I can’t help but wonder what our babies would look like. And while I don’t ever plan on saying anything to her, I’m curious as to whether a conversation with her would be slightly interesting. And while I know that I really would rather not pursue any sort of relationship with her, I continually ask myself if her mother would like me.

Uh oh, I think this qualifies my life as the saddest existence ever known to man.

The one that got away

The other night, there was no milk in the house. This does not bode well for a certain pair of parents I know, as they enjoy a few cups of milked-up coffee every morning. So, they sent me out to the store with three dollars to pick up a quick gallon before I went to bed.

I traveled two blocks to the local Walgreen’s, whereupon I was able to find a gallon of whole milk on sale for less than two dollars. I took it from the freezer and made my way to the cashier.

She was a nice looking girl of about twenty two. Not too tall, and certainly not worthy of such a menial position as a cashier at a twenty four hour drugstore. Either way, I gave her my milk and proceeded to pay her. Thus began one of the sadder confrontations of my life.

She asked, “Do you want your milk in a bag?”

“No, it’s already…”

I was stumped. I didn’t want a bag. But I needed to justify my intentions somehow. So I ended my sentence in just about the stupidest way possible, hoping that she would either ignore my musings or be fooled into mistaking them for humor.

“No, it’s already in a carrying… uh… container.”

I knew it was over for me. My cover was blown, and it was obvious that I had been one quip short of success that night. She immediately and quite sarcastically shot back, “That was a really funny joke. No, really.”

Hoping that we could put the past behind us, I attempted to speed up and move on with the transaction, but to no avail. “No, really. That was _really_ good. You’re a funny guy. Really.”

I thanked her and then left, knowing well that there was yet another woman that would never take me seriously, all thanks to an ill-contrived one-liner.

But not a drop to drink

As I was walking out of school today, I got to thinking about how much I’ll miss going everyday during the upcoming summer months. It’s not the friends that I get to surround myself with; Lord knows it’s not the overly exigent educational experience that beats the life out of my mind day in and day out; and no, it’s not even the new chocolate milk that they came out with at lunch this year. So, if it’s not any one of these things that keeps me coming back, what could it be?

Dude, do you know how many good looking girls go to school in Palm Harbor? Everywhere you look, there is a fine example of a prime piece of beauty. I think it’s primarily a product of two things: the location of my school and my general teenage hormonal activity. The former means that chicks at my school can afford to pretty themselves up. The latter references my low, low standards – but you already knew that.

Anyhow, thus begins Summer of 2005: months without unlimited eye candy.

PDA

New on the list of things that upset me: public displays of affection. And no, I won’t cloak the fact that this entire tirade is a manifestation of my own jealousy.

Now, I don’t mean to say that running off into a corner and sucking someone’s face off until they look like Inside Out Boy from the days of Nickelodeon past is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, compared with the alternatives, this form of affection isn’t half bad.

What’s really annoying is when people try to act normal while they are talking to you. Here I am, trying to have a conversation with you sexually charged lovebirds and you’ve suddenly morphed into what the Power Rangers would look like if they banded together into a giant ball of flesh and limbs. You think I don’t notice? When people do that, it’s like trying to talk to the last desperate people on earth who must repopulate its lands before they themselves die. And I must admit, it irks me like no other; just be a normal person for once.

I get it: you have someone and I don’t. Now go find a corner, because you’re just reminding me of what I’m not and doing a pretty fine job of making me sick in the meantime.

The lowest possible point

Since they moved Oak Grove Middle School into a little city of a hundred portables in the field at Clearwater High last year, we’ve had to have crossing guards next to my house come dismissal time. This year, the guard has been driving a white minivan and parking in my front yard.

Recently, though, the vehicle has moved across the street to my drunken neighbor Steve’s house. Interestingly enough, that same van was over at the house on Saturday night. Late Saturday night.

It turns out Steve has a new girlfriend. My brother and I agreed (in all our bitter loneliness) that this mere notion is about the most depressing thing ever.