The Art of Rabbit Hunting

When I was younger, I used to go rabbit hunting with my dad. It was one of my favorite of all the hunting genres because it didn't require you to be quiet, and you got to walk around and do what you want for the most part. We would also bring along all of our hunting beagles (Andy, Alison, Gunner, Jimmy, Ed, and Coleen... the WIVK on-air staff) and they'd run around and bark and sniff things and when dad wasn't looking I would pet them or try to feed them leaves... you know... because it's funny to watch dogs eat leaves, especially when you're bored. But it wasn't until I got older that I realized how much I learned from going on these trips with my dad. Though I never got the itch for going out and shooting things, my love for stretching metaphors and meaningful life experiences ended up making the hunting trips way more applicable than I thought they would be.

The lessons would always come up in the most unpredictable of ways, and it was senior year of college that I realized exactly what it meant to be a good rabbit hunter. When it come to running around with a gun in the woods, I was always a little overly cautious--I always had a fear of shooting my dad in the face, or more likely, shooting one of the dogs. Once I actually shot a rabbit, I told my dad I was done; I kind of considered it more of a feat that I shot a rabbit and nothing else, and that's kind of the way that I went about the rest of my life. Get in, get out, call it a day.

And that's the exact approach that I took to my last Cinco de Mayo. My senior year was winding down quickly and after thesis and comprehensive exams were over, there wasn't really anything to do but show up to class and then celebrate with people in our spare time. The drink of choice at Maryville College is arguably a toss-up between boxed wine or margaritas at a local Mexican restaurant and considering that it was Cinco de Mayo (and a Saturday, mind you), margaritas were the obvious choice. I had decided that because it was too predictable for seniors to get drunk and make bad decisions, I would tread lightly in Margaritaville, but it didn't take too many margaritas for all of us to start reminiscing about the three years that had gone by. Then, someone inevitably said that we were all probably never going to be in the same place again at the same time, and that's when we all ordered more margaritas and ended up posing "Last Supper" style.

But after the initial margaritas, I had decided that tonight was the night: the night to go rabbit hunting. I was fresh out of a relationship and had been eyeing someone in particular for some time. I knew the follow up party that I needed to go to, and I knew that this would probably be my last chance to even solidify a decent conversation, let alone anything further than that, so I set off for the chase. Once the party had started, I wasn't sure how I would accomplish my goal, and like most of the hunts that I went on with my dad, I was pretty much ready to give up and go home after thirty unsuccessful minutes. Even as a senior, chasing after a freshman rabbit, I didn't have much confidence, and I didn't believe in my hunting skills. After all, this wasn't just a rabbit. This was a pretty rabbit who was transferring to a college in New York; everyone wanted to shoot this rabbit, metaphorically of course. (Disclaimer: I neither condone, nor encourage, anyone to shoot another person. Maybe I should lay off the metaphor for a bit.)

So as the night continued and the bottle of tequila grew less and less full, I committed to my cause. The funny part about guys is that we're stupid when we're interested in someone. We do things and say things that we would never have otherwise, so of course, I made sure that we were interested in all the same things. And I guess, in a way, the same logic applies to hunting. There's a specific way that you walk when you're in the woods, even if you're rabbit hunting. You tread lightly, and you try not to make yourself too obvious because you don't want the rabbits to run before you get within eyesight of them. And there's two types of hunting: the kind where you sit and wait, and the kind where you're constantly moving, and of course, last Cinco de Mayo, I was constantly moving.

After the conversation had run out, I was running around the party trying to entertain in any way possible to keep my rabbit's attention, but nothing seemed to be sealing the deal. When the rabbit suggested that we should jump into a pool with all of our clothes on, I went for it. And when the pool was only three feet deep and I scraped my knees on the concrete pool bottom, I just kept going because it seemed like that's what you're supposed to do. But then, toward the end of the night, I had noticed that the rabbit had disappeared, and there were only two explanations as to what could have happened: the rabbit had left the party or someone else had shot the rabbit.

Disappointed, I went from room to room looking/sulking for the rabbit when I knocked on one of my friend's doors. He barely opened the door and put his face in the crack and asked what I wanted. Don't get me wrong, everyone deserves to get with whomever they want, but there's an ethical code to every hunt, and my dad's words suddenly shot back into my head: Justin, you should never shoot a sitting rabbit: no matter what. There could be something wrong with it, like wobbles. (Just in case you don't know, "huntchat.com" explains that wobbles are actually warbles, and warbles are parasites that cause white lumps in squirrels and rabbits. If they have warbles, you can apparently die. Congrats, you learned something today.) So when he barely had the door open, I had this gut feeling, almost like a mother's intuition, to push the door open farther.

When I pushed the door, I saw a pair of feet laying on his bed; they didn't look like normal feet though--it was more like, Hey, I don't know the floor from the ceiling, I think I'm just going to pass out now feet. And when he gave me the "get out of here, I have a job to do eyes," I channeled my dad the best I knew how and said, You know, my dad told me you should never shoot a sitting rabbit. There could be something wrong with it. I decided not to include the part about the wobbles because it didn't seem applicable. My friend just kind of stared at me confused, and as he did, I forced myself a little farther into the room to see the girl passed out on the bed, and I repeated myself, It's not ethical for a hunter to shoot a sitting rabbit. It's unfair because something might be wrong with it. I looked back over at the girl, You just can't shoot a sitting rabbit. And just like that, it was like saying "rabbit" three times awoke her from the dead, and she awoke from her slumber and excused herself from the room. I could tell that my friend was about to kill me, so I decided to excuse myself as well, but in the midst of my own hunt, it meant more for me to stop and make sure that we weren't going around shooting rabbits with wobbles... sure, we were in college and we all know what's on everyone's minds, but there's always a moment when you have to pull back and ask yourself, At what cost am I doing this?

So, I had given up on my own plans for the night, and I was getting my stuff ready to leave when I looked up and saw the rabbit again... my rabbit, that is. I had spent the evening doing shots and taking pictures so that the rabbit could put them on Instagram and talking about things I didn't care about just so that I could impress someone who ultimately, was just another person. I had set myself up to believe that this was the moment, and after all of that, I didn't even get to have a truly meaningful conversation, so as I saw the rabbit go into a room alone, I walked in, and announced I've been following you around all night doing shots and talking about stupid shit, when all I wanted to do was kiss you. I had caught the rabbit off guard. Look at my knees. This is stupid. I'm going to have scabs on my knees. Why? Because I'm not the person that's just going to come up and kiss somebody. I jump in pools after people--shallow pools. And then the rabbit asked, So, why didn't you kiss me? All of a sudden, I began to feel like the rabbit instead, gun pointed at me and everything. 

My dad always used to ask me why I never shot at more rabbits, and in the end, it was because I was scared... scared of shooting him or the dogs or just missing all the way around. I thought that maybe if I didn't shoot at all then it wouldn't be a failure. If you don't shoot at anything, you can't miss. But in the same respect, you can't take anything home. So in one of the bravest moments of my life, I closed the door, and I went in for the kiss. I. Shot. The. Rabbit. And it was the best fifteen second ending to a hunt in the history of all the hunts I've made.

So, in the end, the rabbit ended up deleting me off of Facebook, I went to DC, and the rabbit went to New York. I don't think my dad's intended lesson was to draw metaphorical comparisons between shooting a 4x10 and trying to kiss people, but that's just kind of how life works out I guess. I doubt I'll ever see that rabbit again, and I'm kind of cool with that because that night of hunting can teach a person a lot. There's always a code to go by. You can't just go around chasing anyone you want, especially if they're unconscious, but on the other hand, for hunters like me... you have to be willing to take the shot. You may not hit the target every time, and even if you do, the target may delete you off of Facebook, but you can't be afraid of pulling the trigger. After all, you don't know exactly how many hunts you're going to have in your life.

Zero Poop Thirty or The Poopcident

If you've ever met a Resident Assistant, you know that his or her job is the most important job of anyone else's on campus... at least, that's how an RA would tell it. I had the fortune/burden/opportunity of being an RA for three years, and after a long string of pot smokers, people who enjoyed loud coitus, nineteen year olds who announce their beer bongs in the hallway before they attempt it, and the occasional roommate-from-hell, you find yourself being a senior RA, and you're just tired. No one knocks at your door because they want to see you, and sometimes, when someone would knock on my door, I would run and hide in my closet or the kitchen... kind of like when Jehovah's Witnesses come to your house.
But in all fairness, you are warned before you take the position about all of the complications that come along with it. We're trained to handle them, and after a while, you suppose that you've seen it all. My freshman year, a guy in my building pooped out his window because he was afraid he couldn't make it to the bathroom in time. Unfortunately, the guy who lived below him had his window propped open and was greeted with a special surprise that thumped his window like a brick. Sure, I laughed until I nearly passed out from lack of oxygen, but in the course of three years, I was prepared for such an incident. Pooping, after all, is some serious shit.
Second semester of my senior year, I was riddled with studying for my comprehensive exams, finishing grad school applications, and fulfilling all of the things that I had missed in the previous three years (multiple snap judgments, drinking in bars, hasty relationship choices, et al). But one night a week, I was assigned to duty (okay, seriously... the poop puns are out of control), and on that night, I was responsible for the livelihood of our building and the residents that lived there, or at least the ones that I liked. Most of my night consisted of me walking around and talking to people, taking a nap, fixing something to eat, walking around some more, and then going to bed earlier than I would on a night that I wasn't on duty. And it was always in those hours that things happened that would never happen if I had been awake. That's not to say that I could have stopped them, but for some reason, it wasn't until I had fallen asleep that a fire alarm would go off, or someone would get their arm caught in a window, or that someone got trapped in the trash chute after smoking too much marijuana.
But on one night in particular, late in the evening after all the other hoodlums had gone to bed, it happened: someone shit under the stairs. I suppose that in the grand scheme of things, the biggest issue should have been that someone defecated underneath the stairs and was probably too drunk to realize it, but the biggest problem in my mind is that the poop wasn't found for nearly 24 hours. I've had some pretty pristine pooping experiences in my time, but I can't imagine that any poop is so glorious that it should ever go unnoticed for nearly an entire day. The whole situation made me doubt my ability to be an RA--if I can't use my Snoopy skills to detect that someone has casually pooped in the building in a frequently trafficked place, then really... what am I good for? To add injury to insult, another RA found the feces, reported it, and got to put up a building notice.

If it's been a while since you've been in college, it's a known fact that there's nothing in the world that infuriates a college student more than getting charged for something they didn't do. People who originally thought that the under-the-stairs-poop was the funniest thing since Modern Family, were all of a sudden up in arms about the situation, angrily stating, I'm not going to be charged for someone else's shit. As an RA, the charge didn't apply to me. I could poop anywhere I wanted free of charge... not that I would or did, but I liked knowing the option was there. After seeing how angry everyone was, I knew that this was my opportunity: if I could solve the mystery of the phantom defecator, then I would not only win the affection of all my residents, but I could also redeem myself in the eyes of administration. This was my comeback. If I were Lindsay Lohan, this could be my Liz and Dick.
The next night I was on duty, I formed a small group in the parlor of our building. Knowing that I had not fulfilled my programming requirements for the month, I decided to make it a program because if there's anything that people in our generation get sheer enjoyment from, it's blaming other people for stuff. Soon, a group of fifteen or so of us gathered with the Irish exchange student leading the charge against every person who walked through the area we were sitting in. In her thick accent, she would berate people as they walked in, asking them when and where they were on the night of what became known as the "poopcident." After a while, we started forming a timeline and the only hours unaccounted for were the hours between 2:00 and 4:00am. We had narrowed down our suspects to three with a heavy suspicion on one of my fraternity brothers. Did I like the idea of going after one of my own in the face of justice? No. Did it make all the sense in the world that one of my fraternity brothers was the one who pooped under the stairs? Absolutely.
Eventually, the meeting became a witch hunt and none of the three were safe, one of which was a girl. People wanted justice--people wanted answers for the poopcident. From across the room, someone texted me and told me that they had information I'd be interested in. The number was blocked, which is something I'm still surprised you can do via text message. I met them in the prearranged place, hoping that when I stepped away that Rachel, the Irish student, wouldn't instigate a full on attack on the rooms of the suspected. The texter was an eye witness to the poopcident, and as I suspected, it was my fraternity brother who shat in the first floor stairwell.

And just like that, I imagine that I shared the same feeling that Jessica Chastain's character in Zero Dark Thirty felt. She had spent all this time looking for Osama bin Laden, and then... (spoiler alert) they killed him. It was all over except the paperwork (and just for the record, being an RA requires a stupid amount of paperwork). When you invest all of this time in working to figure out the crime and the hidden location of your suspect, you've come to realize that you have put a part of yourself into this shit. You come out a different person, and even when your "Osama bin Laden" ends up being one of your fraternity brothers, you've made a big enough stink about it that you have to report it. Your nation... or residents... whatever... depend on you to instill justice. So without being able to predict one of the biggest blockbuster hits to come in two years, I asked myself What Would Jessica Chastain Do? or WWJCD? and then I wrote up the report. Word didn't get out of who exactly pooped under the stairs, but for the select few that know, it paints a dark picture of what can happen to you when you decide to funnel liquor. And for me, well, that's the last RA mystery that I ever solved. Sometimes, when life gives you a load that big, you just have to call it quits once you're done.

I Have to Hate You First

I've sat here tonight and desperately tried to think of a blog topic, or some kind of funny anecdote from years passed to write on, and I can't do it because I'm thinking about how frustrated I've become with my reality, and the circumstances I've allowed myself to become a slave to, and most of all, I think of how much I've come to hate myself. But in the moment, I hate myself for what I've let my life become. I hate the people around me because I feel their judgment, and I patiently wait for them to walk away from me so that I can hate them even more for not waiting for me to not feel like this. They've made me doubt myself and question who I am as a person. At times, some of them have made me feel unattractive and lazy and ugly and worthless. And from day to day, I find myself resenting them more and more because it only contributes to the hate I feel inside for myself. And I'm sure that "hate" probably doesn't seem like the right word because it's awfully strong, but I was once told that you can't hate something that you don't care about--you can't hate something you're not willing to fight for.
And that doesn't make any sense, right? Surely, that's the most ridiculous logic that you've ever heard in your life, and if I hadn't spent the past two weeks contemplating this topic, I'd think I was crazy, too. But life, as of late, has been difficult. I work two jobs and go to school, and at the end of the day, it feels awfully thankless. I hear from someone that they're disappointed in something I've done, and if it didn't happen in some context at work, I feel it when I get home. There's this quietness that envelops you, and you just don't feel wanted. And at night, you look in the mirror, and you feel like you're becoming all of the things you don't want to--you've become bitter and angry and you've lost a part of yourself and all you want are the people that know you best. You want the people from home and the life that you've left behind to join the adult world.

This is a real outfit, that he thought was okay,
and wore out in public... like, for real.

If you haven't stopped reading after those two very self-deprecating paragraphs, you should get a gold star because I'm getting to a point, I swear. The point of all that being: this isn't the first time that I've hated myself or the people around me. Actually, some of the people that I love most in my life are people, at one point, that I have hated and/or hated me. They're the same people that I want now, and it didn't really hit me until I wrote on my last roommate's Facebook tonight about how much I missed him. Scotty John always had a terrible sense of fashion. See picture to the right. But regardless of that, we chose to be roommates. We had all of these plans and ideas for what my senior year would look like, but in the end, we didn't get to spend a lot of time together, and about half the time we did get to spend together, we were arguing: about who was going to do the dishes, or about him throwing out my feta cheese because it had "molded," or about the girl he was seeing, or about how I was trying to come in between him and the girl he was seeing. At times, the fighting became volatile with him going as far to curse at me via permanent marker on our refrigerator (which I subsequently spent about an hour and a half scrubbing off with alcohol), or it could be as quietly uncomfortable as a total freeze out on my end of the deal. By the end of the year, the small arguments had amassed to the point that I doubted we would even be friends after that. Two days before my graduation, he moved out, and we never really spoke much over the next couple months.
But when I went back for my first visit home in October, he was literally the first person I saw when I got back to campus. I had cleared busting into his public relations class via Facebook... actually, he was the one who gave me the idea, and then after class, we went and had breakfast together in the college cafe. And even though we never really addressed what had happened the year before or gone into any magical kind of explanation, we both kind of knew that there were wrongs on both sides of the fence and ultimately things that we didn't know about each other. At the end of the day, we were both going through big years in our lives: one of us dealing with one of the craziest relationships known to man, and the other one dealing with what it meant to be leaving home and everything he had known for his whole life. We were both in this transitory place that neither of us quite knew how to deal with, and oftentimes, it led to us standing in our kitchen with both of us holding our hands up looking at the other person and saying What do you want? And a lot of times, we didn't have the answers. But when someone is supposed to be in your life and you don't always have the answers... you don't always know what you should say to them, but you keep on going because you know in your heart that person is having to put up with as much shit from you as you are from them. You put up with one another because you care, and you believe in the good that could come of it.
And the frustration and the hating and the arguments... it made us real. The fact that we hated each other showed that we cared enough about each other in the first place to feel something for one another. I've never resented a single person in my life for hating me or being angry. I've only ever truly resented the people who walked away without a fight because that showed me they never cared about me in the first place. People are allowed to feel, and the tears and anger didn't make us less of men--it made us two guys who were trying to figure out our lives and just happened to have to figure out one another in the process.
Scotty is not the only one... the list goes on and on, and most of the people on that list are people that I have come to care about to varying extents, but when I look back on those people, we may have had a  time in the past that we couldn't stand one another, but we've never made each other feel like less of a person, and we've never gone out of our way to belittle one another. The arguments always varied and came from different places, but the reason I miss those people so much is because they almost always have encouraged me to be the person that I inherently am. And I suppose that's where the distinction comes in. One of the most important things you can ever know about a person is that you can't put them in a box--you can't apply your logic to their lives, and if you ever go into a relationship with another person with the hopes of changing them, you should know your attempts will be fruitless. We are all our own complicated, weird selves, and changing someone to fit the mold you'd hope they'd be... well, that's just selfish. In all of the hating, it's important to remember that there are people who are just going around blindly hurting others, and in a way, you have to be able to spot them pretty quickly after they spot you. You have to find the people who are going to challenge you and be able to distinguish them from the people who are just around to provide critique and look down at you.
And it's difficult because you have to sit down and literally take the time to think: who is it in this new experience who has my back, who's here to help me grow, and who is here to tear me down? It's a tricky triangle to place people into, especially when you're tired and frustrated with yourself.
So I try to remember that there are times when even the people I've come to care most about were people that pushed me to my greatest limits. And at this point in my life, I also try to remember that we're just a bunch of children who are trying hopelessly to identify what it means to be an adult. We want to go home. We don't want to have to try anymore because it's hard to remember when rent is due, and it's hard to balance life, and you get tired of assuming everyone else's stress on to you. You forget to make time for yourself and you start turning on the people around you; and when you feel like you've alienated them enough, you start turning on yourself.
I took the entire weekend and tried to collect my thoughts as best as possible, and I tried to ignore those around me because I know that to pull myself out of whatever I'm in right now, I need to take a moment to reflect. It wasn't until those days after Scotty had moved out that I started to consider what I could have done differently along the way to make the situation better, and at that point, it almost felt useless--my best friend and roommate was gone, and at the time, I didn't know when I would get the chance to make it better. But that's what the past is for, isn't it? We get lucky enough to have these people stick around--people we once believed we hated, just so that we can learn from the love we've given one another. You get the opportunity to make the present a little bit better than the past. And for now, I'm living in this moment and learning from the past and realizing that maybe in order to love other people... and to love yourself... you have to do a little hating first.