77My recent growth spurt was outgrowing my current label as the school's ugly duckling. So how do I change 15 years worth of people's ironclad impression of me? To me, the obvious solution was to become Tumblr's new scene king and show the uninformed that I, Cloud Sun Gray, (the parents were going through their hippie phase when they named me), can make it as the internet's new itchild even if I sucked in real life.
Now the naïve might think me vain and pompous, and my plans perhaps a bit delusional or retarded, but I assure you that the serious maturity of my teenage mind was justified in its thought process. It was all for the greater good of the people. Really. After all, if I continued to suppress my awesomeness by conforming to my misplaced label of un-friendable, then I would inevitably shoot up all the assholes at school one of these days. I must slowly build a foundation of awesome in the virtual sphere before I am ready to premiere my new fantastic self in the flesh world. There was absolutely nothing wrong with seeking praise on the internet so that I can foster my fragile ego and blossom into the beautiful butterfly I was meant to be.
Step one of operation Scene King was getting myself some Tumblr shots. The kind where my eyes bugger out of my head and my legs are the commas of an afterthought. I wasn't smiling in most of these pictures because smiling made my cheek bones disappear. Of course these pictures must be self-taken to satisfy rule number one- being a camwhore.
It was no easy feat. My camera had to be pointed down above my head at that exact angle so that every strand of my meticulously teased hair and glamorously mascara'd eyelashes could be clearly caught by flash. My California tan contrasted unphotogenically, so I would have to Photoshop myself vampiric white later. Of course I was stripped down to my bare chest to show off the sexiness of my taut muscles stretched over my collar and hip bones. And for added kicks I stole my big sister's lip liner and drew some emo cut marks on the inside crook of my elbows.
What's that you say? I'm the epitome of every goddamn stereotype that represents the insensitivity and deceitfulness of teenagers nowadays? Fuck off then. I want to be popular and there ain't nothing you can say to dissuade me from otherwise.
Now you might be wondering what my obsession with being popular is. Well, considering how hot I sounded in my glorified self description, it might come as a surprise that I'm not the most popular kid in school. Something to do with how I'm too shy and awkward and always saying the wrong things and etc.
It also doesn't help that I was Sophomore year's shortest and fattest kid till recently when my body decided to grow a foot in the vertical orientation and shrink a foot in the horizontal orientation. You see, people are vain fuckers and they associate surface beauty for inner perfection. Teeny boppers scream their heads off for their favorite pop idol because they think a pretty face equates a soulful psyche.
Me, having been unfortunately blessed with the face of Garfield for the past fifteen years, obviously could not have had a very fascinating soul according to this theory, so I was kindly ignored and made fun of for my entire middle school and current high school career. Some months ago, I finally realized this epiphany and decided that I must do something constructive to change the disparaging fate that destiny has dealt me.
Doing weights and running five miles every morning might have helped move my body along a bit. But truth is Karma must have taken pity on me with the daily dishwashing I've been doing all these years, because She sprinkled some magical growth powder on me and voila, I started growing like my life depended on it. With the stretching of limbs came the surfacing of sexy cheek bones and diminishing of adipose tissue in all the appropriate places.
Earlier this week, I helped my body's evolving beautification process along by Googling all the tips to dressing up to the nines, or twenties. All of my efforts must have been paying off a little bit because instead of averted eyes filled with disgust, I was actually getting a few glances my way at school. Whether those glances were filled with intrigue, confusion, or repulsion was another story. Either way my subconscious was still relentlessly nagging at me for more recognition. Since I knew it would take epic effort to gain it at school, I thought the smart thing to do was to start out with the internet first, where compliments were easily doled out and criticism could be easily ignored.
It was Saturday night. All two of my friends ditched me to watch some shitty vampire movie. I begged off because I just used up all my money on my new haircut. I was comfortably settled into my cushy gaming bean chair, all alone in my awesome bedroom with my awesome matte black walls and surfing away on my awesome black desktop that I built. I had all my shit on the floor because I didn't own a desk. Not a person could disturb the meditative nature with which I proceeded to take over the world via my awesomeness via the internet via Tumblr via the world. Except maybe my older sister who was cooking up a ruckus with her shitty little pseudo band downstairs. I turned up my ipod dock speakers and countered her cacophony by blasting Zemfira on full stereo.
My Photoshop was running, I patiently loaded all 322 shots I've taken in the past hour on to my cute external harddrive that has shiny pokemon stickers stuck all over it. The program was running a batch process on all the photos; balance, tone, contrast, sharpen, gaussian, gamma, alpha, beta, theta, you name it, it was running it. Meanwhile, I proceeded to step two of operation scene king, setting up a Tumblr account.
I actually had an account already, but that one was filled with unattractive pictures of the old fat me. I was always wearing the same dingy walmart tshirt and had some ugly mossy colored dorky bowl haircut. My only friends on that account were the two I have in real life and some guy named Tom.
After school yesterday afternoon, I finally got my hairstyle updated so that it was bleached silver. In addition, I was now decked out in, like, totally awesome accessories from, like, omg hottopics. Which, disclaimer here, were gifted from my big sister because I would never be caught dead in there. My new account will have a spiffy black layout to match my new sexy emo self and a playlist of awesome indies pop to up my cool factor.
Twenty minutes later, I've got my layout and music set, and was moving on to describing myself.
What were my interests? "Getting laid" I typed.
Then I thought that people might be turned off by it, so I expanded it a bit:
"I'm a virgin and I'd like to get laid." I typed, chuckling to myself. That ought to get someone's attention; after all didn't all the dating guides online say that girls dig honesty? If not honesty, then it still made for good humor, and I'm sure people liked humor. I amsosmooth; I patted myself on the back mentally. Satisfied, I began looking through some Tumblr queen's page for artists that would make me sound like an indies music connoisseur.
Just as I was happily proceeding with my plans—
My door slammed open and a flood of searing light flooded my dark abode. I jumped up from my gaming bean chair, my hands flew up to my man nipples to preserve my gentile modesty. Thank god I was wearing my sweatpants.
"Get out!" I screeched at the invader, who turned out to be my sister.
"Oh eww, my little brother is naked." My sister cringed and made a motion to close the door. Except her friend pushed it back open.
"Hi Cloud!" Said friend chirped, bright as the morning bloody sun. I winced as my legs turn into jelly and I sunk back into my bean chair.
"Hi Alana," I managed to wheeze out. Yes people, meet the hottest girl in our highschool. This blond bombshell of a goddess is the fair object of my wet dreams. She must have got D cups and legs the length of a goal post. The only imperfect thing about her is that she is best friends with my sister. That, and she likes older men. Really old, like her boyfriend's dad old, so I've overheard over a phone conversation when I was trying to make a call.
"What are you up to?" She grinned in a way that would put shame to Julia Roberts. "Why don't you come down and listen to us play? We are covering a Radiohead song. Oh-M-G, what are you listening to? It sounds so weird."
"Come on Alana, let's ditch the loser." My sister proceeded to drag blond goddess away from my mysterious mancave but couldn't get a hold as Alana bounced in to inspect my Ipod stand thing. My sister made a gesture as though to give up. She shot me a vile look. "Mom called and wants you to make a copy of the DVD on her desk."
"Why don't you do it, loser?" I retorted back.
Sis rolled her eyes, "You are the school nerd, you do it."
"Amy, don't say that about your kid brother. He's totally not a nerd anymore." Alana turned to me. "Cloud you look, like, so cute. I mean who knew there was such a cute kid under all that weird hair and O-M-G you are, like, totally my new inspiration for losing weight."
"Thanks?" I think…
"Oh totally, you know Macy in your AP English class? She is so into you right now. She was all like, 'can I come see you guys play today?' and I thought it was so creepy how she wants to stalk you through us now." Alana chattered on.
"Alana! Let's leave the dork." My Sister stood akimbo in the doorway.
"Oh hey, is that your Tumblr?" Alana turned to my computer screen, paying no attention to my sister's pleading. "You should add me. I'm hot X space girl 17 with the girl spelled g-u-r-l."
Alana plopped herself next to me on my bean chair and, whoa, she smelled like girly flower perfume. She flipped her hair as she leaned forward to read what I have been typing. I nearly popped a boner.
""I'm a virgin and I'd like to get laid."" Alana squinted at the screen and read slowly before I could stop her. She shot a nervous glance at me, and then turned her head to my sister. I groaned inwardly.
My sister's face was blank at first, then her mouth dropped open and she was half falling to the floor and half bent over with spasm. For a moment I thought she might be having a stroke. Except her silent body spasm turns into silent roaring laughter and she's crying as she collapses to the floor, where she rolls to her side. I turn my attention to Alana, who is suppressing a smile. But when she saw my face, she also burst into full fledged laughter.
For the first time, I thought Alana was a little bit unattractive. Little boys should never get their egos bruised like that. I wished I was using my laptop so I could slam down the lid and hide under my bed. My face felt like it's been rubbed in jalapeños and I looked down at my hands to find my blush extending to the bed of my nails.
"Oh my gosh Cloud, what the hell are you writing?" My sister choked out between dying fits of laughter.
"Shut up." I shrugged and tried to act like I didn't care.
"Oh my god, too funny." She laughed on, paying no heed to my shrinking self-esteem. "My little virgin brother wants to get laid."
"Shut up Amy. It's a joke and I can write whatever I want." I wished I wasn't in my room because now would be a good time to walk out the door with my head held high. But since I had no other bedroom to retreat to, I grabbed my pillow and threw it at my sister. It landed in front of her with a soft 'plop'.
She paid my attack no heed and joined Alana on my bean chair, which was really only made for one person. I never thought I'd say this, but being in a sandwich between two girls is not all it is cracked up to be.
""I'm a virgin and I'd like to get laid."" My sister read in painful clarity. I wished the ceiling would cave in on me. "Oh my God Cloud, were you going to keep it like this?"
"Shut up Amy, and stop using God's name in vain, you are atheist."
"So are you, dumbass." My sister fired back, then turned back to my computer and scrolled up with the mouse.
I heaved myself up and the two immature jerks sunk towards the middle. I stepped over my sister to sit on my bed, hoping that they would see my annoyance and get the fuck out of my room. They didn't.
"Dammit, just get out already and leave my shit alone." I whined. Alana was fighting for the mouse with my sister while pointing to the folder in the taskbar where all my processed pictures were saved. Oh shit, it was time to beg. "Dammit, can you guys just leave? Please?"
"Oh my god Cloud, these pictures are so cute." Alana glanced over at me with a pretty smile.
Have I told you how beautiful Alana is? What? I said she was ugly a moment ago? I take that back. She's perfect again. Flattery could get you very far with me.
"They aren't bad, you look really skinny though. I don't think I'm used to your weight loss." My sister shrugged. Dear readers, if you don't have siblings, let me relate to you that it is really discomforting to have your sister look at your cam-whoring glamour shots and comment on them in a nonchalant manner. I tried to process a plan to get her off my computer and out of my room, but hit speed bumpers whenever I recalled her ruthless when doesn't get her way. I whimpered and suppressed my sufferings to a dull stomachache.
She zoomed in on my arm. "What the fuck's on your arm Cloud?"
"Eyeliner." I said truthfully, better to tell the truth than have my family think I'm a cutter.
"Why?" the girls asked me at the same time.
I looked away. "I thought it'd be funny."
"How's that funny?" Alana asked and glanced at my arm to make sure I was telling the truth. The liner marks were long gone; my sister buys cheap makeup.
I shrugged. They were clicking through all my pictures and I felt every hair on my neck rise. Seriously, you try having your sister and her friend browse through your half naked pictures and not mind. I fumbled around the floor for a dirty tshirt, found one, sniffed it, and put it on despite it smelling like it could be harvesting mold.
"So, like are you serious?" My sister asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Are you like trying to get laid on Tumblr or something?" She asked again.
"Whatever, can't you take a joke?" I rolled my eyes and pretended I didn't just spend the past five hours trying to take over the Tumblr world with my awesomeness.
"Well, if it's a joke, can I help?" Alana's was grinning at me like she was the newly appointed Cheshire cat.
"Durrr…" I stuttered. My mind failed to interpret what she means.
"Like, can I finish your profile?" She finished.
"I guess." I said. When a hot girl like Alana pleaded with you, you simply do not refuse. Besides, I was too fed up with my situation to put up a protest anyway.
"Okay!" She was already attacking the keyboard with her nails, I noted blandly. My sister was whispering things to her that I couldn't hear over my Russian music.
"So do you like foreign music?" Alana asked.
"I guess." I said. Fuck, I loved me some Russian pop like nobody's business, but I didn't know if that was cool at all. And you know, my recent concerns were all about trying to become cooler.
"Okay! So like who's playing right now?"
"Sergey Zverev" I answered without a hitch. She typed something quickly.
"Oh, but you like MPHO too?" Alana looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
I tried to recall if that was one of the groups I found on a list of popular indies music and decided to go with the safest answer. "I guess."
"And Cobra Starship?" She read.
"Sure?"
"No you don't" My sister frowned.
"How do you know?"
"Because you whine every time I'm playing them."
"Oh." At least I wouldn't have to guess who they were then.
"Why would you list them?" My sister interrogated.
"Whatever." I answered smartly.
"I thought you were in to that Japanese Mud band." Sis prods.
"They are called MUCC."
"Yeah, the mud band." My sisters nods and deleted something Alana wrote. They giggled. I felt like I should be doing something to defend my manly pride, but then I remembered that she was the domineering big sister and that I was only the sad little wimpy brother. I had no urge to play role reversal just then, so I settled for clutching my hair and clawing at my scalp to keep a brewing headache at bay. Finally, admitting defeat, I got up and headed out the door.
"Where are you going?" My sister asked before I could make it to the hallway. Alana stopped typing and clicking to look up at me too.
"Getting a sandwich and making a copy of mom's DVD thing." It would make sense to man up and kick them out of my room, but it was hard to act tough when Alana's looking at you with innocent puppy eyes.
"Oh, okay. So we can do whatever with this?" My sister didn't request so much as demand, and added offhandedly, "not that we care, but we are taking a break from playing music."
"Yeah, whatever." I pretended to be beyond caring about my spoiled plans. Maybe I could have another go at it tomorrow, I comforted myself. I was hindered but not discouraged.
I headed downstairs into the kitchen. The fridge was stocked year-round with salami and turkey because mom was always out of town for conferences and ever since our dad remarried a year ago; he never bothered getting food with or for us anymore. I found some spongy white bread, mayo, ketchup, Tobasco, mustard, pickles and put together a nice tower of delicious—complete with a toothpick in the middle.
My love for food trumped my desire to take over the world by far, I reflected as I took a large bite out of my masterpiece. While getting popular online might seem like a brilliant idea to me right now, I chided myself, the truth was that it wouldn't get me anything substantial anyway. Sure, some hot chick might land on my profile and decide that she just had to have me for her boyfriend and try to seduce me by humping me, or maybe some kids at school will hear about me and decide I'm worth friending after all, or maybe a talent agent might spot me and decide that I'll be the perfect contestant on some weird reality TV show and then someone will hand me an acting contract and I'll end up earning tons of money and buy an awesome house in Malibu and have tons of sexy strippers at my disposal… Wait, where was I? Oh right, the lack of incentive to make it as a scene king.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and continued to obsess about my account as I chewed and swallowed. Sure, the girls were messing it up right now, but I could always fix it back to its original glory when they leave my sleeping chamber. Which meant that I had better start planning how to make it glorious in my head because it was almost midnight and I would only have a few hours left before I have to go to bed. Obviously the next step should be making some Youtube videos of me playing bass and linking it to my profile. That would add some extra street-cred to my musical genius. And I would also have to write some bad poetry about roses and shattering glass and falling from great heights. I nodded to myself. Yes, that would definitely be essential.
Two hours later, I was dozing off in front of the television to some Cartoon Networks reruns when the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs woke me up. I glanced up to find the girls grinning down at me. My sister snagged an uneaten pickle off of my plate and munched with exaggerated giddiness.
"Your profile is now complete. You may proceed to thank us for our greatness." She announced grandly. I looked at Alana who was also smiling like the world was her oyster.
"Thanks. So I can have my room back?" Sometimes I wished that I were born first so I had a little more oomph to my personality.
"Sure babe" Alana piped in sweetly.
I threw off the blanket I had snuggled under and run up the stairs before they could change their minds. This time I made sure to prop a chair underneath the doorknob as substitute for a lock. I could hear the imaginary laughter of Alana and my sister as they gossiped about how dorky I was but I paid them no mind. The internet needs a new scene king and I was determined to fulfill that role. I got on my computer and click onto Tumblr. I've been logged out so I logged myself back in.
Except that I couldn't. I try again to make sure that my password was spelled correctly. Wrong again. I frowned and told Tumblr to send me an email to reset my password. I logged into my email.
Except that I couldn't, again. Fucking cock blocked from my own email. I seethed as my minded hunted down the possible culprit: my sister and Alana. I scrambled out of my room at lightening speed and was halfway down the stairs before I started screaming for my sister.
"Amy, what the fuck did you do to my passwords?" I was screaming only because—well, have you had your email account hacked?
I heard some ominous girly giggles and I nearly trip into the kitchen. There were no traces of them. The door to the garage slammed shut and I heard the engines revving.
"Fuck," I cursed aloud.
Now would usually be the time to curse my sister's existence and swear unholy revenge on her when she comes home. Unfortunately, Amy has got her way of exploiting my every weakness and making sure I hurt thrice the amount for any discomfort I dare inflict upon her, so I had to swallow my anger and just suck it.
"Fuck," I muttered again to myself. I tried to remember how the hell she would know my passwords before remembering that Firefox keeps all the passwords in the Tools, Security, Saved Passwords cache. I made a mental note to clear my cache for ever after, as I trudged my way back up my room.
My Tumblr tab was still up so I browsed it a bit to see what my sister and Alana did to it. Surprisingly, my layout was not pink but still its sexy black self. My profile picture was set to image , a very sexy three quarter shot of my scrumptious new self. My hair looked spiked and ironed to perfection. My complexion looked professionally Photoshop, even the red lip liner on my arm was gone. I scrolled down to read my profile: Cloud, Male, 15, California, Bisexual. I cringed.
Alright, you've got me; I admit that I am bisexual. But I haven't come out to anyone yet. It isn't that my family is homophobic, but I thought that since I was attracted to both sexes I should just take the easy route and stick to chicks. What did they call it in the military? Don't ask don't tell? I had no desire to draw unnecessary negative attention to myself. Besides, having been blessed with my old self's body and face for the past fifteen years, I thought that I would never get any action anyway. I didn't want to complicate my personal and social life further by emphasizing how much I deserved to be the school's weirdo by being bisexual too. I was attracted to girls well enough: their softness, their airy laugh, their cherry lipgloss, their short skirts… In fact, I was attracted to Alana, to Lacy, to Cindy, to Grace, to Joanna, to Rosemary. Though my affections have never been reciprocated, I was definitely attracted enough to girls. Boys were cute, sure, but my social life was pathetic enough that I have long since convinced myself to just give it up and root for chicks.
It was beyond my comprehension why my sister would list me as Bi. Did something about my personality or dress give it away? I always looked innocuous enough as an invisible wallflower for anyone to scrutinize too closely at, or so I had thought. I would have to question her later. Did Mom know? I suddenly wondered. And, Holy shit,maybe the entire school's always known and that was why everyone ignored me.
I groaned.
My heart was churning in my guts as I clicked on my photos. That, only caused the acid chyme to gnaw away at what was left of my intestines. My sister had uploaded all my pictures from the last few months as well. There were pictures from my birthday party from five month ago, during which I still had my moppy hair and tattered clothes. The only redeeming thing was that it was after the weight was gone.
The Videos link also had some random footage of me running through the sprinklers like a gay puppy. I felt the color drain from my face. Please, please, don't let anyone see this account until I could get my password back and delete everything. I pleaded with my atheist God.
With no small amount of dread, I read the rest of my profile. My description was relievingly poetically written. It was manly enough but also sensitive in a way that made even me want to do me. I scrolled down to the messages to see that, bile in throat, Amy and Alana had already friended a few people for me. I didn't recognize any of the names so that was a sigh of relief, at least no one in school have seen this yet, I think. There were three messages on my profile already, all of them thankfully devoid of malice: 'I'm in love with your hair *heart*' 'Cute name, is it real?' and 'thanks for the add *happy face*'
I glanced at the clock on the screen. It was nearly 2am. Resigned to the fact that I couldn't even check my email and that my plans were properly ruined for the day, I shut off my computer and dragged myself to the bathroom to wash the gel out of my hair. As I was being cleansed by a fine mist of soapy suds, I reflected on the sad progression of Operation Scene King and wondered with a groan, why is it so hard to be cool?