Sunday, Sept 15th, 3:02 pm

Okay.

Teenagers are completely deranged.

We'll start with Ugly pants boy. He spends half an hour every weekday striving to make your life more miserable and then, out of sheer evilness, asks you to dance right after your first ski race. And then he starts doing a polka. During "a whole new world". No, seriously. I'm not talking any ordinary sort of polka-ing, either-- this was the masochistic polka of death wherein my weak, trembling knees were made to skirt the room at approximately thirty miles per hour, apparently with the goal of bumping into the largest possible number of people.

And trying to carry on a conversation at the same time. I mean-- imagine it for a second. Not that you'll ever be in these completely twisted circumstances, or anything, but--

UGP(ugly pants boy) So, moll. How did your race go.

ME: *Pant pant* tripped *pant* britney *pant* stilleto...

UGP: I heard Ella beat you.

ME: (giving him as evil a glance as I can muster) this time, maybe.

UGP: Ouch. You kicked me.

ME: Oops. Sorry *pant*, I have no *pant* control over my lower limbs right now.

UGP: (looking at me suspiciously)

Music: Don't you dare closer your eyes, hold your breath it gets better...


Right. And then there was Ella. She comes up to me and is all pally-pally again, complimenting me on my shoes (which I happen to know are really nerdy-- neon orange and hot pink tennis shoes. Mom picked them out. What am I, five?).

Then she proceeds to grill me on Ugly Pants Boy and what he said to me. I just give her a look and tell her she should go ask him herself-- he sure seems to be interested enough to pay attention to the random scoring of the cross country skiing team, so he'd probably love it if she deigned to sidelong glance at him, much less ask him an actual question.

no, I didn't say that. I just said that he asked how I did in the race today. Which really isn't a lie, when you think about it.

And then there's Marcie. For some odd reason, Mark Stevensen showed up tonight-- I guess he had nothing to do, too, now that our families canceled their plans. Anyway, it was sort of nice because he asked me to dance a couple of times, and he's not a half bad dancer-- actually does fun things like flip you around and stuff.

But he also requested completely wierd funk music that had completely undanceable beats-- everyone just stood around and gyrated uncertainly because they weren't sure if it was a fast song where you're expected to pummel the air and do robot and kickboxing impressions, or if it was a slow song and they ought to find someone to make dizzy with endless circling.

Anyway, Marcie is head over heels. I have never seen someone so smitten-- and I never imagined it happening to Marcie. I mean, she's never paid much attention to anything except her Math homework. And her rabbits. I know, that may sound kind of wierd to you, but really it's not. She breeds rabbits and gets tons of money for them-- she's famous in the rabbit world. She's already got practically her whole college education paid for.

Anyway, she's swooning. And it's so obvious-- he can totally tell. He asked her to dance once, and then she asked him.

Hoooly cow. Marcie. I mean, it took her until this year to start shaving her legs. And she refused to wear nail polish or even lip gloss in junior high. It's like her pituitary just kicked in suddenly and now it's going haywire. She didn't talk about anything else during young womens and she giggled when the teacher looked at her reprovingly. Giggled!

Last week, she would have run out of the room crying.

Oy.

I need a nap.