Author's Note: Finally. This story is setting itself in motion. My first female perspective piece. Enjoy. April 16, 2008.

One

So I tend to do things on a whim. Like, one day I'll want to buy a puppy and I'll walk to the pet store and get a betta fish instead because I don't have enough money to buy a puppy. Then I'll go to the grocery store and get food for the betta fish and put the food down because Lindsay Lohan is on the cover of Cosmopolitan: Girl! (a.k.a. Teen Screw Ups With Fantastic Hair). Then I will buy the magazine, head home, and stare at my betta fish while I read my Cosmo, and I'll think, Oh, shit. I forgot the food.

But Willy (the fish) will die because, really, I think I have ADHD.

This afternoon, I got this brilliant idea. I just suddenly thought it would be cool if I dyed my hair a shitload of colors. I went to Walgreens and got three kits - Monster Green, Rowdy Red, and Envy Blue - and altogether, I had six pairs of gloves sitting in front of me, three bottles of peroxide, three packets of bleach (actually, two, because one packet was empty - completely sue-worthy, if you ask me), one bottle of green, one bottle of blue, and one bottle of red. And all the instructions were En Espanol and Frances but not in English for whatever reason. Easy enough to figure out, I thought. And it was. If you want to look cool, you just gotta pour all this bleach in your hair and burn your scalp until your awesomely unmanageable black hair turns sick orange, and then you start working through strands to get that cool streak-like effect. I figured I was going to alternate colors, or whatever. Halfway through, I decided I wanted individual streaks of hair to have all three colors on them, in some sort of blend, or whatever.

By the time I finished, it looked like a rainbow leopard had attacked my scalp and left pieces of fur on my head. I missed spots and looked like a complete loony. But honestly, I thought it turned out pretty well. I came out of the bathroom three hours later.

My older brother yawned. "Irene. You look like a total moron."

"You're just jealous. Bad hairstyles are so in."

"Whoever's got the Guinness for biggest loser better make way."

"Oh, your face."

"Move, fatass," Art said as he nudged me out of the way. "After I take a shit, I'm gonna tell ma you finally lost it."

"Oh, yeah? While you're at it, why don't you tell her you found a note I wrote about me being too good for the world, and that in any event that I die, all my possessions go to Willy."

Before he closed the door, he looked at me. "I think he already died."

"Shit. You serious?"

"You moron," he said, and slammed the door in my face. Then I heard, "The tub looks like hippies tie-dyed their shirts in here, what the fuck is this?"

I walked downstairs, plopped on the couch, and commenced watching television instead of doing my homework. I kicked my feet up on the coffee table; Willy's bowl shook. I craned my neck forward and looked for Willy. "Where are ya, boy?"

Couldn't find him for a while because he had floated to the top and turned on his side. We all know it's a fish's specialty and favorite pass time to play dead.

Obviously, you can tell I'm extremely well-adjusted and full of common sense and all that. But, I mean, really. Do you expect any less from someone whose hair looks like God shat on it?

I went to school the next morning with this hair. I strutted this hair. I sported it. I fucking endorsed it. I came up to this cute kid a grade above me and said, "Hey, don't you think my hair looks badass?"

"Crazy," he laughed and nodded a few times.

"Crazy is right. Crazy is the new black," I told him even though I didn't know who the hell he was.

"Cool, cool," he said.

I strutted with my fucked up hair and made sure to toss it like I was in a commercial. When I got to my locker, my friend Cutty stared.

"What the hell happened to your hair?"

"Went out on a date with a bag of Skittles. It was a wild night."

"Dude, we're so close to graduating. How can you fuck up your hair this bad?"

I shut my locker. "Shouldn't you be playing basketball, or something?"

"No time for your racist remarks. Your hair really looks like shit, Irene."

"Your face looks like shit."

He smiled his brilliant smile. "You're fucked up. Irene, wear a hat."

As he walked off, I yelled after him: "Go get a singing career!"

And Cutty was off with his East side friends or whothefuckever, and coming out from behind the corner like a school of fish was the Caruso swarm.

You have to see it to believe it. The swarm. There's Jesse Caruso, walking by with truckloads of women. Okay, maybe not truckloads. Five at most. But five is a lot. Five can't fit in a conventional booth at Bubba Burger Butt's. Five can't fit in a Toyota Camry on its way to the beach. Five is four prom dates too many. There's five girls, all pretty candidates - actually, the fifth, not so pretty.

There isn't a specific order, but I call her the fifth anyway because she's yuck compared to the other four.

There's five girls, and Jesse Caruso's best friend. His wingman. His prop. The eternal shadow. Rowen La Cerva.

Between the two, Rowen is the ugly duckling. Longish nose, thick, long eyebrows, lanky figure, almost beady eyes. Untrustworthy eyes. Dirty Jew eyes. Rowen eyes. Acne. No charisma. Half of the time, not even on planet earth. An all-around asshole if you ever saw one. I had a class with him last year, and I dropped a pencil and he saw me drop a pencil. He was within arm's reach of the pencil. He stared at it, and then at me, and then he went back to reading whatever he was reading, and I had to scoot my ass all the way out of my chair, walk all the way around, and pick up the pencil myself, and go through the trouble of sitting back down again. I mean, really, who does that to a girl?

He's nothing like the generous, immaculate, talented, godly Jesse Caruso. Jesse Caruso of Volleyball, Track and Field, and Basketball. Jesse Caruso of Spanish Honors Society. Jesse Caruso of the softly-let-down-but-calloused scorned girls of Piedmont High. Jesse Caruso of The Perpetual Five. Jesse Caruso who helped me pass Geometry class in Sophomore year. I could go on, but really, I shouldn't.

Jesse Caruso of my fucking life.

"Heya, Jesse. Doesn't my hair look awesome?"

"It looks quite stunning, Irene," he smiled graciously.

I wiggled my eyebrows. "Yeah, all for you, baby."

Caruso looked at La Cerva and the Perpetual Five before he bowed slightly. "Well, I'm flattered."

Rowen narrowed his eyes.

I beamed. "You should be flattered. See you in class later!"

"In U.S. History then," Jesse said, and locked arms with the two girls closest to him, and graciously departed like always.

What a dream boat.

Rowen lingered to stare at my hair.

"Gotta problem, La Cervical Cancer?"

"No," he said with a confused smile, and walked off as well.

"Yeah, you'd better not have a problem," I muttered. "Asshole."

Some might say I'm off my rocker. That I'm delusional. But seriously, sometimes I forget that I'm a little soft around the edges or that my eyebrows are weird, or that I walk funny and dress like everything I own is from Ross (everything I own is from Ross, but shut the hell up anyway). Sometimes I really think I'm too good for people. No, I know I am too good for people. Even Jesse Caruso. Even all of France, New Guinea, and the rest of the Indies.

I'm like this world chicken - not World Chicken down on Carlie and Garver street. Like, a philosophical world chicken. Instead of everything tasting like me, I taste like everything. I am babies, air, huts, trees, Capitalism, tractors, and guns. I cannibalize the world and it cannibalizes me. I own everything. I am everything. It's when I get to feeling like this that I'm crazy, invincible, worthy, ready - intoxicated, impulsive, even greedy about wanting all the good things in Life.

It's this feeling I get that pushes me to buy betta fish and dye my hair. It's this feeling that's telling me to date Jesse Caruso, the most popular kid in school. And you know what? I can do it. I can snag him in this beautiful spring time air just as good as any girl, even if she's smarter than me, better looking, or more sensible. I'll best her because I am a world chicken, and I taste like everything, and not even the god of Piedmont High can resist me. I can do it and will do it. I'll snatch him up faster than clothes off a clearance sale rack. He'll only be an afterthought. Because, really.

It's just that easy.