Swimming Upstream

All my life I had to be the one who went the different way. OK, not ALL my life. I distinctly remember owning more Polo shirts than anyone else in my junior high. But I digress. I like to be different. I don't crush on movie stars or have a LIST or fall for musicians. I like to discover the undiscovered, like Steve Burns, for instance.

I think it stems from the knowledge that I'm too short, too solid (read: large) and too plain. Oh, I clean up good sometimes, but in essence I am this and that is what I am. So if Seventeen was never going to bang down my door to ask me to model, and Vogue would rather pass on my fashion sense and makeup tips, I would go another way.

I've been this way about men, too. The hot guys? Who needs 'em? I was afraid of rejection, because of course, it had happened once too often. So I learned to look at the guys the way I wanted them to see me; aside from all the outer trappings. Which brought me to B.

B was a guy I'd known forever but never had classes with. He was tall, blonde with large lips and acne and a side part his mother should have been ashamed of. He was also funny, and sweet and smart and an excellent trombone player, for a junior high kid. I liked him okay. In eighth grade he played football, and wore a cropped mesh jersey at practice one day. I saw those abs. Oh my gosh, at thirteen I was definitely awakened to possibilities.

Short story; we "went together," I fell for someone else "hotter" (read: a jerk) and lost B. And guess who was drum major and all around school hottie our senior year? Oh yes, it was B. Who's happily married at last report to a doctor and, well, you know...

B was just part of the pattern though. All the guys I liked were um,... undiscovered. Like S who was excessively smart and shy in weird ways; best friend in senior year and hasn't spoken to me since (his stock went up after being seen to be admired). Like BD, chunky awkward fifth-grade skate date who much later married my singles director. Like Just Joe, the late late bloomer who when I met him was, well, admittedly (even by him) a little geeky. Since I married him he has bloomed incredibly. All the girls who snubbed him in his past just left more for me. And when he goes home for reunions I bet they think that too now.

So what brought all this on? Drake and Josh.

Oh, stop that; pick yourself up off the floor and read on.

Drake got into a car wreck this month, so news was everywhere on the internet. I happen to like the show even when the LC isn't watching it, so I was googling Drake and found his site. An album, a message board, tours; the dude's stock is so high right now. And he's all of nineteen, I think. I peeked into the message board and into the minds of a hundred fourteen-year-old girls typing away on their little computers in their bedrooms way past their bedtime.

Oh, I am so glad they didn't have the internet when I was fourteen. But again, I digress.

Do you know what my first reaction was to reading this board? What, given the above-described history would I be BOUND to think?

Where's JOSH's page?

If there is one, I haven't found it. And I love that guy. He's the one I'D have been drooling over in high school. He's the one I would have sent the fan mail to. He's the one I would have dated in high school while all the girls chased Drake around. Do you know what it is? It's that damned Jerry O'Connell Syndrome. It's that fat strange kid who somehow turns out later to be the hottest thing going. I predict that for Josh Peck.

And I think I'll start development tomorrow on JoshPeckIsAHottie.com.