The Late Teens Diet

      Like any age bracket past infancy, there can be no sole dietary pattern to associate with people in their late teens.  We are coming of age in an interesting time in history.  A time where it’s popular to go green or eat organic but it is not convenient or economical.  We love our parent’s cooking, we love our fast food, we hate our cafeteria food.  There are some exceptions to this basic rule, but is does resonate with most of our population.  We have no set schedule throughout the year or we have so many conflicting schedules (school, work, parties, etc) which makes it a novelty to eat appropriate food at the appropriate time.  Some of us eat three square meals a day with a glass of milk at each one and some of us are lucky if we squeeze in a cup of noodles between class and a nap.

My own diet is erratic.  On average i consume three diet sodas a day.  On a good day I consume more.  My limited cooking skills ensure that most of my meals are instant or microwavable.  There are days when I don’t eat between eight AM and eight PM.  There are days when I eat every eight minutes.  I like salad very much but eating fruits and vegetables as snacks doesn’t tickle my fancy.  If I am desperate enough I will east something off the floor or out of the trash, but I believe it is making my immune system stronger by teaching it how to man up.  All in all I wouldn’t call my diet healthy, but I am in no way on my way to an untimely death because of it.  We’ll leave that to the rest of my habits.

Despite my questionable eating habits, when I got to college and started eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner with several other seventeen and eighteen year olds I observed things that I thought were strange.  Out of the four girls I eat dinner with, three of them drink soda.  The one who does drink soda drinks as much as I do but hers isn’t diet.  One of the girls is a vegan and incorporates salad or cereal into every meal, which makes the glutton inside me cry tears of longing for her.  Two of them are extremely picky and will complain about the food we are served and sometimes refuse to eat it.  Not only does this baffle me (it’s free and it’s hot) but I feel like making a scene because the potatoes are too lumpy is childish and unnecessary.  One out of the five of us can be labeled as a healthy eater (the vegan), one is healthy until she gets the munchies, and the other two don’t discriminate when it comes to carbs or calories (although they are the picky ones).

So when the easy mac has been devoured or the celery finally gets out from in between ones teeth, there is no safe bet what an adolescent will put on his or her meal plan at the end of high school.  It is a time of transition, a time of change.  These changes and transitions may make us too nervous to eat more than a few bites of pork chop but they could also make us eat our nerves and then some.  We don’t eat out all the time and hardly cook full-fledged courses for ourselves, leaving a lot of variety for snacks, half-assed dinners, and free-for-all dinners with our parents.  Our diets, like our sleep schedules and means of entertainment are something that will hopefully be fine tuned and advanced as we eat our way into adulthood.

Dating Guide

The dating process for me has always been a game of cat and mouse.  I like to think of myself as the mouse, just prancing around adorably and minding my own business until a sexy cat comes along and decides to chase me.  I don’t do the chasing for two reasons; one being that I’m too cute, and two being that it’s too much effort.  Also, stepping back from the pursuing process allows you to focus on other, more important parts of your life such as school, friends, or family, until you are pleasantly surprised by a suitor.  If your bait hasn’t gotten a bite in over three months I would choose a different strategy, but the waiting game has always worked for me.

The first step is meeting the guy.  It is a tad harder to meet a guy for the average homosexual, so the key is to look in places where you know they congregate.  Boston Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth dances, pride parades, clubs, gay-straight alliances in school or Diesel Cafe are all adequate places for young gay men to meet other gay men.  If you know you’re going to be in the vicinity of a potential suitor, you should make an effort to look good.  Something tight never hurts, as well as something that accentuates the arms or butt.  Smelling good is key too for attracting a mate with your scent, unless you have a natural musk.

When a guy approaches me my first priority is to make them laugh.  As Marilyn Monroe once said, “If you can make a girl laugh you can make her do anything”.  Well the same sentiment definitely applies to men.  Being myself and not being afraid to be goofy always seems to turn on the charm.  Even if you’re not Joan Rivers, when a guy sees that you are trying to make a joke they will instantly like you a little bit more.  After a connection is made you give them your name and your number.  Give your name so they can add you on Facebook and your number so that if they’re really interested they can get at you and not the other way around.  Make them prove that they like you while you’re doing something better with your time.

This is where the internet plays a vital role because you and your suitor can learn more about each other before the first date, hangout session, or sleazy hookup.  Scoping out you man, or “creeping” will tell you enough you need to know about him until he asks you out.  Flirty texts and chats help your case, but don’t reply too soon or else you’ll seem desperate.  On the first date don’t mention sex or hooking up, unless that is purely what you’re there for, and even so just hint at it casually.  When exchanging stories, likes, dislikes, and any other information, don’t give too much away.  That way you can remain a creature of mystery and have more to talk about if you’re lucky enough to have a second date with him.

Page 347: Try Your Hand

I am eighteen years old and my gender is male.  By definition, I am a man.  By straight society’s definition, however I am not.  I don’t watch sports, in fact I loathe them.  Competing on baseball and soccer teams as a child were about as appealing to me as having a Doberman chew my face off.  I enjoyed Batman only because of my fascination with the mystique of Catwoman.  Instead of reading the instructions and putting legos together step by step I made my father do it for me.  I can’t change a tire or repair an engine to save my life, let alone pump gas.  Sitting through Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or The Godfather would simply put me to sleep, as I’d much rather curl up with some popcorn and watch The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.  I’ve never been “one of the guys”.  Meat never really did it for me, especially beef jerky which makes me want to vomit.  I’m not cocky or competitive like my macho peers, although I can’t make it past any kind of reflective surface without stopping for a self-assessment.  The man I am is not the Marlboro Man or the Orkin Man, but I am a man nonetheless.

Page 345: Try Your Hand

At age seven Sal played baseball and I played barbies.  He wanted to ride bikes and I wanted to write poems.

5 influences/5 challenged

Influences

1. My English professor
2. Eden Bellow
3. My painting teacher
4. Haley (my CA)
5. Carla (my advisor)

Challenges

1. My history professor
2. Uptight Girl
3. Campus Security
4. My math professor
5. Crush Boy

My English teacher is eloquent and allows our class to indulge in discussion that may stray from the short story or assignment at hand.  She runs Lesley’s literary magazine and has a beautiful poem about the memory of her father in last years issue.  Eden Bellow hails from Manhattan and is one of my closest friends here.  We spend time together almost every day and tell each other intimate secrets that we would never dream of telling anyone else on campus.  With my sass and her street-savvy we compliment each other very well.  My painting teacher was annoying to me at first, but I soon grew fond of him and now I enjoy his comments and easy-going vibe.  Haley is my CA and the nicest person I’ve met here so far.  She takes her duty seriously but treats us more like friends than kids she has to watch.  Carla is my advisor and her no-nonsense attitude helps me to think about school more seriously.

My history teacher bores me and the rest of the class to tears with her incessant lecturing.  I constantly catch myself falling asleep in her class that seems to go on for days.  A girl in my circle that we’ll call Uptight Girl has a control issue.  Whenever I am in her room I am literally afraid to touch or spill on anything because I know I’ll face her wrath.  She wants me to walk to math with her at a time that is disgustingly early and hasn’t eaten a trans fat in God knows how long.  Campus Security wasn’t a challenge for me until I started locking myself out of my room.  Every time this misfortune occurs I am greeted by them with the same hostility.  I know their job isn’t a bucket of giggles, but I really don’t appreciate them adding insult to my injury every time.  My math professor is too wordy and often makes us take notes on topics that we are not quizzed on.  Crush boy could be any boy I’m crushing on at any given moment, making it hard for me to relax or think straight (not that I could anyway).  It seems I always look like  mess when I see him and I can’t say anything that isn’t terrifically awkward.

People that are influential to me are people that give me no choice but to like something about them.  Whether its their personality, their good deeds, their humor or their body of work I find a quality of theirs that I aspire to fulfill in myself.  People that are challenging give me reason to like them, but not always respect them or understand where they are coming from.  They unknowingly provide obstacles for me such as a boring lecture or OCD rant.

Online Identity

Like countless other teenagers in the twenty-first century, I am not who I am online.  I am not the awkward, clumsy, introverted boy who spends nights listening to Fiona Apple alone in his room.  I am not flawed and I don’t let anything inhibit me.  I am a better version of me, a boy who doesn’t know the Harrison that lives and breathes.  The internet allows dweebs like myself to pick away at scabs of imperfection and give themselves a persona to feel comfortable with, even if it isn’t their own.  These people we create for ourselves can be comforting, but becoming too fond of them can be dangerous for the psyche.  The key to maintaining reality is knowing who you are online differs from the real you, a line that is easily crossed by the best of us.

Visuals are the primary component of the online persona.  My Facebook pictures cannot contain boils or blemishes.  They don’t show any pudgy parts or unflattering areas of my body.  I am the physical appearance of what I want to be, and I make sure everyone appreciates it too.  I am not gay on Facebook, I am asexual.  My religious views are “Jesus can suck it” and I quote The Great Gatsby, even though I barely read the book in eleventh grade English.  I upload whimsical, eccentric pictures from my webcam that are totally contrived, but somehow manage to appear effortless.  I don’t keep posts up for very long if nobody responds to them.  I feed off of the attention, something I rarely do in real life.

People that see the person I am online could have several impressions of me.  They could possibly see me as a charming, sexually ambiguous, free-spirited boy from a teen novel.  They could see me as a boy with too much time on his hands and not enough focus on school or anything else that matters.  They could also see me as a desperate, attention craved loser who lives on the internet.  Whatever they see I hope it’s cute, and I hope that they don’t read as much into my online persona as I do.  In real life I don’t take myself too seriously.  I am level-headed and always willing to help a friend in need.  Those who know the real me are the ones that matter, and my superficial Facebook friends will never measure up.  Even if they do validate my existence, sort of.

My 10 Year Old Self

At the age of ten I was skinny and tan, with eyes that turned to slits when I smiled.  Sweatpants were a a wardrobe necessity, especially the ones with the buttons on the sides that I could play with, delighting at the snap! sound I made when I pulled them apart.  Along with those button down gems I rocked the adidas classics until they turned yellow.  My face had not yet become infected by little red mountains, but I knew I was reaching puberty when I couldn’t stand the smell of my own armpits.  Other than the occasional body odor I was a cute little boy.  I excelled in creative writing and absolutely detested polygons.

Like most of my peers, my home was the Nickelodeon channel.  Hours were spent in front of the TV taking the subway with Arnold and wondering how Angelica could speak to both the babies and the adults on Rugrats.  MTV and VH1 were also favorites of mine, back in the day when they actually played videos.  My taste in music, however spanned from The Beatles to Christina Aguilera.  Riding in the backseat with Yellow Submarine or Stripped in my walkman took my mind to places the car couldn’t.  Ten was also the age when my parents took me to see the movie Chicago and fell in love.  To this day I can remember all the words to “Cell Block Tango”, except for the part when they lapse into Russian.

As a child still young enough to be forced into playing a sport, I decided to venture away from the traditional football and join the Wavemakers competitive swim team at the Watertown Boys and Girls Club.  Unlike every other team sport I had played in my child-athlete career, I felt as if swimming was something I actually had a passion for.  Putting up with the spandex bathing suit and latex bathing cap was a small price to pay for the adrenaline rush I got racing up and down the pool.  Making friends was easy as well, seeing as most of the Wavemakers were girls.

Looking back on my fifth grade journal, I deduct that at the tender age of ten I was finding my voice, though it may seem silly and premature now.  I wrote vivid stories about countries far away, some on the map and some from my head.  I even found a biography of Cher that I had written after watching a Behind The Music special on VH1.  Drawing came naturally with my writing, filling sketchbooks and notebooks with pictures of pretty girls I copied from what I saw on TV.  The attitude I carried at the age of ten was that of someone who knows it all, much like the attitude I have now, and thankfully some minor changes have taken place since then.