I have mouse-brown cowlick-y hair, glasses that are about an inch thick and braces that look like I tried to swallow a train wreck.

And that's the problem: The kid follows me around like I'm Elvis or something.

On that tragic day, I came home, said hi to Mom, glugged down some milk, and headed down to the basement to practice.

Just then, Renee Albert stopped right next to us to congratulate her boyfriend (we'll just call him Biff), a sophomore guitarist with an alarmingly perfect complexion and muscles like Barry Bonds.

Then two things happened at once: He started to scream like a banshee, and the drop of blood turned into a torrent.

It wasn't the first time I noticed this-- how Renee kind of swished around in a cloud of perfume, and Annette just popped up like some spastic hand puppet.

I always think of it this way: "Here comes Steven, bursting into his Big Solo. Watch those hands-- they're too quick to follow. Holy cow, this kid is a magician!" Like there's a Monday Night Football commentator standing over my left shoulder.

At the same time, the trumpets were blasting like a herd of elephants, with Dizzy's horn flying high above everything else.

The thing I couldn't believe was how this cancer thing turned the whole planet upside down in one day.

Steven, I look like a raccoon

Fortunately, my dad has a Stone Age stereo system in the basement with an actual turntable, so I was playing along with at least one whole Latin record each night.

Well, my journal was starting to look like some kind of weird origami factory, with page after page folded on different angles and edges sticking out all over the place.