Love and Pokemon

My friend Mark started playing Pokemon again; I think Red--one of the originals. For everyone who missed the late 90s/early 2000s, it's a game where you start out by choosing one of three Pokemon: a Squirtle, a Charmander, or a Bulbasaur. Choose the wrong Pokemon, restart the Gameboy and play again. Ultimately, the goal is to catch all of the Pokemon and defeat all of the Masters with the best team that you can assemble. But it all falls back to that first Pokemon--even if you don't use your first choice in the final battle, you always start the game believing that you will. Most people, the naive people, always choose a Charmander. If you do it right, you end up with a Charizard. But most people don't wait around long enough for that, and even if they do, you don't know what to do with a Charizard. That's okay, too. Not everyone is meant for a Charizard and what it means to have a Charizard. You don't always have to end up with what you started with.
Pokemon is an experience that you have--you don't really think of it that way as a kid. Actually, you don't think of it that way pretty much anytime. People who say that Pokemon is an experience is the kind of person who cries at the end of The Breakfast Club and totally ruins Lost for you because they talk about how the plot was all about the relationships between everyday people. But Pokemon is an experience, particularly similar to dating. Think about it: it takes nothing to catch a Weedle.
We've all dated Weedles. Occasionally, you run across someone cool like a Growlithe or a Vulpix--fiery and interesting. You want to date a coffee barista? That's a Lapras. You know where to find one, and as zen and urbane as he or she may seem, nothing ever really changes with them. And God forbid you ever run into a Chancey because much like the game, you're completely unprepared. Chanceys come around when you're approximately 6 shots in at the bar and you're dancing alone in the corner to "We Can't Stop." You're fresh out of Masterballs, and then you spend the next five days thinking about how you totally missed your shot at a Chancey. But whether it be a Chancey or a Lapras or a Growlithe, it really doesn't matter what you have if it doesn't make sense to your game plan, your experience.
To keep from completely ruining everything you've come to love and appreciate about Pokemon, the whole notion that dating and life and Pokemon are essentially interchangeable is because all three things boil down to one thing: the anatomy of a noun. Back in first or second grade, we're taught that a noun is a person, place, or thing. The noun is essentially the most basic of the language building blocks, second to spelling the words themselves. Nouns have such a simple function that we practically forget just how important they are. Because what everything depends on, ultimately, is a person, a place, or a thing--sometimes all three.
Sitting outside of my college dorm a couple years ago, I was dealing with a break up. Like most people after a break up, you go over everything you could have done differently in your mind--each argument or cancelled plan. You think about all the things you had considered doing and that you hadn't. And then you consider all of the things you did do and whether or not you should have done them. Lather, rinse, repeat. Sometimes, you'll drive yourself crazy with the notion, and unlike the Gameboy, you can't go back and restart it. You're stuck with the Pokemon you started out with, and even though you've logged it back into the Pokedex, it doesn't mean that it's not still there.
But that's where my friend Nam found me--out perched up on the side steps of Carnegie Hall puffing on a Camel Crush or something equally disgusting. She had known what I was going through, understanding that I had chosen to move away for grad school instead of trying at whatever assimilation of a relationship that I had. She plopped down beside me and asked me for a cigarette and began to explain how everything in life works--or at least everything to do with making a relationship work. She talked about how a relationship is a special kind of noun: it requires all three noun components--the right person, the right place, and the right thing... most usually, time.

Deal. I'm going to go eat an entire pizza and
watch American Horror Story.

It's a great little litmus test, if you're being honest with yourself. People in their 20s are obsessed with being in relationships--almost as much as they are about going to brunch or being purposefully ironic. But at the end of the day, when people stop coming to your single's brunch, and your friends don't want to go ice skating with you because it might appear that y'all are gay (Side note: I still completely stand by the notion that two men can go ice skating and it's totally platonic, but whatever. Not here, Justin. Not here.), we aggressively turn our minds toward a relationship because a relationship will be the thing that will fix us. And in your 20s, if you think there's a way that will fix everything, you immediately jump at the offer. That's why so many people do P90X, let's be honest. (Side note 2: You're never going to find me doing P90X. I tried it once. That's stupid and it hurts.)
I'm not against relationships. I think they can be amazing, and ultimately, as disgusting as it sounds--life is so much more fulfilling when you have someone to share it with. But to go back to Nam's theory, it requires everything that a perfect noun entails: the right place, the right time, and most importantly the right person. The right place is usually the easiest. Unless you're just a really avid eHarmony user who searches miles and miles outside of your own city, the person you might want to date is most likely going to be around you. The place is only complicated if you've just gotten there or you're just about to leave. But overall, the place is easy.
The time kind of meshes with the place. It's all about being settled and how busy you are. Oftentimes, we underestimate just how important the time part is because we always think we're ready for the next step. Either we're bored or we're swamped or we're somewhere in between, and we convince ourselves that we're ready for whatever we might find. The eternally monogamous don't understand what the world would be like single, and the eternally single are just positive that it's time to take a turn for the more serious. But in reality, time is complicated because it's not a state that can be determined by how long you've been single or what you've done before. It's a matter of knowing when the clock inside of you is ticking at the exact right speed with the right person.
And the person is the worst part of all because it's almost entirely out of your control. Even when the clock is ticking steady in the right place, it has to be ticking in sync with the right person. And that's terrible and magical at the same time because waiting for it to work is a nightmare, but when it does, it's this thing that makes you believe in things like fate and luck. Because as frustrating as catching all of the Pokemon may seem, sometimes, you do have a Masterball when a Chancey appears. And you have room in your belt for another Pokemon, and when you throw it and watch the ball wiggle, and wiggle again, and wiggle again, sometimes it just closes and there it is--it happened. You caught it.

Lapras, the smug Pokemon equivalent to
a coffee shop barista.

So you might not end up with the first Pokemon you started with (the high school or college sweetheart) because that rarely ever happens for anyone. That's tricky, and God help you if you end up with a Venasaur, because that just means someone is hanging around and eating all your shit. In the end, all of the pieces have to match up because anything else is just forced, and you really should reconsider metaphorically restarting that Gameboy. Life is too short to go around pretending to love someone for the sake of saying you're in love. Take that time and go live. Catch a Lapras to catch a Lapras and then store it away. Go explore all the different areas that you want to explore. And in the midst of all the Pokemon references, take a little time to find yourself because even in the moments when it may seem like the right time and the right place and the right person, you have to be content with who you are, when the Gameboy is shut off and you're lying alone at night. If you can't live with who you are, no one else is going to be able to live with you either.
Nam didn't include anything about Pokemon, but I know she probably would have if she thought of it. Instead, she finished up by snuffing out the end of her cigarette on the concrete step and brought it all home by saying, "That's it. If it's not the right person, the right place, and the right time, then it's not right for you. And in the meantime, you just have to wait." Nam's not really one to tell you that it comes when you least expect it or that love is just around the corner. She's kind of brutal with the truth, and she's not one that will tell you how close you are to love. Because what if it's the wrong place? You're not going to catch a Starmie in Viridian Forest.
And you're not going to find love or a relationship until all the right pieces match up.

Tina, Tina, Tina

In fifth grade, my family moved for the first time. It wasn't your classic kind of move, mostly because a big truck came along and pulled our first house off the foundation, put it in our back yard, then moved our bigger house back in. Ah yes, the classic trailer switch. For some reason, our family decided to make the switch in the middle of the winter, but because of the complicated nature of assembling the two pieces of a doublewide, we had to live out of the singlewide for a week. Most children would be concerned about not being directly hooked up to water or heat, but for me, the only issue that existed for me was--we were going to miss the premiere of Survivor: Australian Outback.
I was obsessed with Survivor, mostly because I would sit in class and contemplate how I could vote all of my classmates out but somehow manage to make them all still like me afterward. The year before, I watched Kelly Wigglesworth be completely undermined by the nakedness/baldness of Richard Hatch. It was both disgusting and enthralling to watch--but this season was going to be different: I could feel it. I demanded that we were fully moved into the new house before the premiere happened--there's not a lot of things that I demanded as a 5th grader, other than a full size recreation of Zordon from the Power Rangers and the premiere of Survivor. In reality, only one of those things were possible, and I didn't know at the time how important it would be for my development as a young man.
Once we got the all clear, we began to move furniture in--logically, I suppose we should have started with the couch or the bed, but we went straight for the television. Just by the skin of our teeth, we made the move just in time for premiere night. At the beginning of every reality show season, my dad and I pick favorites to win. The battle goes back to classic battles such as Clay and Reuben, as well as Carrie Underwood and Anthony Federov (which wasn't really classic at all, as much as it was just a really terrible decision on my part). But as the didgeridoo sounded from our old television speakers, I immediately knew who my pick would be. As the faces flicked across the screen, I saw her. No, she wasn't an Alecia, nor was she a Kel (obviously, because she would never be accused of stealing beef jerky. Hello), but I knew in my hear that she would win the game. Her name? Tina Wesson. She was from Knoxville, my hometown, and to me, if she came from Rocky Top, she was surely going to win. My dad told me that I was crazy right after he chose Colby. I wouldn't be moved though--I didn't care what happened because I knew that Tina was going to win.

Tina Wesson/Justin Kirkland, 2001

Looking back, as a fifth grader I was entirely too invested in the lives of people I didn't know. I would huddle the family around the television every Thursday night, hushing any company that might be over for dinner or to pick up a gun/bow/dead animal from dad. I was amazed by what I saw because as much as I love Tina, she wasn't that great at winning things. But still, at every tribal council, no one cared. Everyone just kept voting for other people and Tina lived on week to week all the way to the final three. I think maybe that's why Tina resonated with me so much--I wasn't good at winning things either, but people liked having me around. I imagined that if 2001 Tina and fifth grade Justin played Survivor together, we would probably make it to the final three as well.
Finale night came--I was a nervous wreck for a number of reasons. I was leaving for my first major trip ever the next day: a four day trip Washington D.C. I had never been away from home that long, and on top of my completely irrational anxiety over Tina's potential winning moment, I was on 24 hour nervous vomit alert. Colby won the final immunity and my dad immediately when into celebration mode. Colby was surely going to win against Kei... no. He took Tina. At the final tribal, Tina smoothly talked her way into the prize with a million-dollar-brand of Southern charm.  I cried that night--still not exactly sure if that was because of Tina's win or the pending trip, but either way, it was a lot of emotions. I boarded the coach bus the next morning with my special edition Survivor Entertainment Weekly, and I channeled that Tina Wesson power to make it through the trip. Mind you, I didn't eat and lost seven pounds in four days because of it, but I liked believing that was part of the whole "Survivor" mentality.
Throughout that summer, I begged my friends to play Survivor with me, which probably explains why I had such a tough transition into middle school the next year. You see, when you invite your friends over to play games that you've designed and made the rules for, then win every challenge, then vote each of them out of the game, sometimes you end up alone. Didn't matter to me though--I wanted to keep up that Knoxville Legacy. Eventually, my friend Lindsay told me that Tina was coming to speak at her church and that she would get me an autograph. With very few friends left and fewer and fewer people interested in playing Survivor with me, I decided that I needed to let this "Tina-hero-glory" go. I put the autograph on the back of a blue church flyer in my scrapbook and tried to let Tina go. My love for her was alienating. Everyone else's hero reports were on their grandpas or presidents or movie stars. Mine were about the 42 year old woman who once played Survivor. It was time to move on.

***

Skip forward four years: Tina was going to to be on Survivor: All Stars. She was voted out first. I choose to not recognize that it ever happened.

***

By the time I was a junior in college, Tina was a fond memory of my childhood--I had found other heroes, but like an old teddy bear, she had this place in my heart even if I didn't force my friends to play Survivor with me anymore.  Down the road from our college, the local Chili's would host a special night a couple times a year that part of the proceeds would go toward St. Jude's Hospital research. We would always try to make it down to grab dinner, and like usual, I had ordered a margarita and some kind of entree. 

My friends and I sat around the table trading stories from the day when it happened: out of no where, Tina Wesson walked in the door. I suppose the entire thing should have been simple. It had been ten years since the show premiered, and no one else seemed to make a big deal out of her being there, but I was frozen. Imagine if Superman walked in the door while you're casually sipping on margaritas... then you spit up that margarita on yourself and then go into a state of catatonic shock.

My friends had heard about my previous love of Tina Wesson at one point or another, most of the time after I had drank a number of margaritas and went back to those tender memories of elementary school. They kept telling me to go over, but I couldn't get up. It all seemed too crazy to be true. No matter who it ends up being, your childhood hero is kind of invincible. But the idea that mine was sitting about twenty feet away presumably weighing the benefits of fajitas over steak with her husband just seemed unreal to me. Eventually I asked the waitress to do a little investigation for me--she had confirmed it: Tina Wesson was in the restaurant.

I finished my margarita and mustered up as much courage as I could. After getting up from the table, I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to approach the situation. It's not every day that you meet your hero. Somehow, I decided on some kind of walk that resembled a mix between a serious limp and a grapevine dance step. I spent so much time deciding on how I should walk that by the time I actually got to the table, I had nothing to say. Tina and her husband looked up at me and waited for me to say something. I couldn't look her in the eyes, and then all of that nervousness from that pre-Washington D.C. night/Australia finale came flooding back. All I could think was, "Please don't cry or throw up on Tina Wesson's table at Chili's." Eventually, words just came flooding out in this weird whisper-grumble, "Hello Tina Wesson. My name is Justin Kirkland. I saw you sitting over here, and I wanted to say thank you because you're my hero and I watched you when I was younger and I thought you did great."

Justin Kirkland/Tina Wesson, 2013

She looked nervous, and I probably would have been too, honestly. I don't like being interrupted when I eat, and though it's never happened, I'm assuming my unsteady, borderline creepy vibe didn't really help my case. Of all the responses I thought she was going to say, she said, "How old were you when that came on?!" I told her about fifth grade, strategically leaving out the details about voting out my friends and the haphazard hero reports I did based on less than reliable information from Survivor fansites. I don't remember much more from the conversation because I think I started to faint or something.

***

Tina finished fourth last night in her third season of Survivor. I was still an embarrassing fan girl sitting on the couch screaming at the television, unable to eat my pizza because that fifth grade Survivor anxiety was back all over again. Every couple of seasons, I apply to be on Survivor hoping to be the next Knoxville rockstar on the island. People have asked me why Tina--there's been more impressive winners or sneakier players, or hell... people like presidents and celebrities to write hero reports on. But for me, it wasn't about Tina changing the world... it was more about Tina changing my world. She wasn't just a woman on a television show to me, as much as she is proof that you can do whatever you want, even if you're from down in South Knoxville. As long as you're not walking over to meet her at Chili's, that is.

Scared of The Moon

Author's note: Originally written for my Journalism final.

Author's note 2.0: The weekend before Thanksgiving, a friend and I took money that we had raised (with a lot of your help) and randomly selected Jacquelyn Lewis-Tolbert-Robertson for a one day shopping spree, including new clothes, a hotel room for two nights, and a dinner of her choosing—this is her story.

Jacquelyn puffed on a Marlboro Smooth. For a while, she had been relatively quiet, but after an exhale of smoke and warm breath into the cold air outside the Outback Steakhouse on Highway 50, she looked up at the moon and said, “I never liked the stars. And I was scared of the moon, too. Always thought it was following me.” She spent the next five minutes explaining how she had found a nemesis in the moon since she was a young girl. Before she started again, she tended to the cigarette’s ember. “But one night, I couldn’t sleep. I was always looking down to not look at the moon. I was homeless, and I wanted to give up, but I looked up at that moon, and I knew it was God. That was God watching out for me.”

She looked down from the moon and back to her cigarette. Carefully, she snuffed out the end of the half-smoked butt, inspecting it to make sure that all the fire was gone, and quickly placed it in the pocket of her brand new jacket. Why put trash in the pocket of a new jacket? One man’s trash might be the only cigarette Jacquelyn comes across this week.

Photo courtesy of Ciara Ungar

Jacquelyn Lewis-Robertson-Tolbert (she prefers all three) calls the grated vent outside the Metro Center metro station home. From across the street, you can see her in a tattered leather jacket, black beanie, and dirty yellow pants folding up her large wool blankets. The fact that Jacquelyn stood out is a mystery because ultimately, the Washington D.C. metro area is full of people just like Jacquelyn.

Actually, the metro area comprises the fifth highest homeless population in the country according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Unfortunately, the homeless population in Washington D.C. is on the rise, despite the national average dropping. Over 13,000 people are homeless in the D.C. metro area, but as winter moves into its coldest month, Jacquelyn is alone on the street for the fifteenth year in a row. She doesn’t beg for change or cigarettes—she simply makes a home out of what circumstance has given her: next to nothing.

At 56-years old, Jacquelyn is a veteran to Washington D.C. She grew up in the area and is one of the few District residents who can call the city their hometown. Upon meeting her, Jacquelyn foiled most of the stereotypes that often haunt the homeless population—the aggressor or the beggar or the ungrateful. She gathered all of her belongings, stuffing them into a tattered, plastic Ikea bag along with an old pair of pink flats and a bag of floss picks. “Taking care of my teeth means a lot to me,” she said with a smile.

Walking to the car, she talked about what it meant to live in the streets and how life had ended up heading that way. She refused to focus on the past, and continuing to press about it seemed pointless. A string of relationships gone awry, a begrudging battle with alcoholism, and a lack of opportunity placed Jacquelyn on the streets in 1998. But interestingly enough, Jacquelyn is not without family. She talked about the metro area and how it’s dotted with Lewises and Tolberts and Robertsons. Family members dot the eastern side of D.C., and her two sons, D’Angelo and Greg, live in Arlington and Fairfax.

None of her family was available for contact, but Jacquelyn spoke of them with love, “Oh, I love my boys. They’re in their twenties now.” She talked about their children and the lives they have started on the outskirts of the metro area, but she also hinted at the distance she kept from them while adjusting the tarnished gold ringer on her middle finger—a token she has refused to give up with a symbol engraved in it that represents emancipation.

On the drive to the first stop of the day, Jacquelyn listens as the radio scans for a station and quietly announces, “I love jazz. Especially free form jazz.” Outside the window, the early evidence of Christmas decorations pass as she adds, “and Christmas music. I love Christmas.” The radio stops on a station playing “Carol of the Bells,” as Jacquelyn launches into a recounting of Christmas as a girl. “We would make it last as long as we could,” she said. She always hoped for books—particularly on history and science. She began to explain how she hoped to be a scientist as a child until suddenly she grew quiet again. Driving through the area around Capital Hill, she noted, “I used to stay at a shelter around here, but it closed down.”

The closing of homeless shelters in the Washington area is an unfortunate truth. When searching for “Washington D.C. homeless shelter closed,” a slew of results turn up on Google, all within the past five years—one article reporting that 50% of shelters accommodating families in the D.C. area were closed due to budget cuts back in 2011. Jacquelyn’s last tenure at a shelter was back in the late 90s. She referenced the clean and sober shelter that has since been shut down. Last year, she had the opportunity to get into a shelter located a bit closer to Downtown, but she gave up her spot for one of the two women she had spent the better half of last winter with. When asked why, she said, “They are older than I am. I know I can survive.

And that’s exactly what she’s expected to do. Jacquelyn has spent the last few years working with The Perry School, an institute dedicated to helping those in need find the proper avenues to getting back into the work force. Their mission states their goal to “alleviate the conditions of poverty in order to help ensure positive outcomes for youth, adults and families within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area,” but the key word is “alleviate.” Though the school has helped Jacquelyn establish a resume and identify a skill set, the classes that Jacquelyn must take to populate that resume do not come without a cost.

Jacquelyn currently gets her financial support by preparing and packaging lunches for homeless youth. The little money she makes doing that goes toward feeding herself, her basic living needs, and the classes she needs to take to become certified in food preparation, CPR, and other skills. The registration for those classes happens at the beginning of each month, and as she says, “If you miss the deadline, well, you just have to wait until next time.” Opportunity doesn’t strike Jacquelyn that often, so when given the opportunity to get new clothes and other personal belongings, she quickly accepted.

Walking along in Target, it wasn’t hard to see why Jacquelyn’s resources were relatively limited. For a quick lunch, Jacquelyn decided on the Pizza Hut kiosk inside Target. After getting her personal pan cheese pizza, she sat down at the table and took a moment that most people take for granted. She opened the box and brought the pizza close to her face. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, smelling the pizza, as if someone had just presented her with some kind of delicacy.

Target is hardly Jacquelyn’s normal environment, especially the one set in the newly gentrified Columbia Heights neighborhood. She walked around the women’s section, shifting from moments of total excitement and worried caution. On multiple occasions, Jacquelyn would find a sweater or jacket she admired, only to be met with sidelong glances just a couple of clothing displays over. Jacquelyn stood out with her eclectic, slightly dingy ensemble, and the women in Target took notice. And Jacquelyn did too, especially as she caught the women glaring at her while thumbing through a stack of red and black poly-blend sweaters. No words were necessary—it was obvious that she was not welcomed. Each time, Jacquelyn would replace whatever she was looking at and move on to another rack, as if to apologize for even being in the store.

Their reactions are a reflection of a society that has become so comfortable with sympathizing with the homeless population of America without actually having to empathize with them. Once Jacquelyn had infiltrated their territory, perception of the homeless had changed. With very few options available for housing, stores with customers who express visible distaste toward homeless customers, and on overarching stereotype attached to homelessness, how exactly does a woman like Jacquelyn further herself in an already economically pessimistic world? Through the rarity of human kindness.

As the day came to an end, Jacquelyn checked into the room rented under her name at the George Washington Inn. An upscale hotel in the heart of Foggy Bottom, the front desk receptionist finished her paperwork, handed her the keys to her room and asked, “Is there anything else we can do for you, Ms. Tolbert?” She looked at him with a shocked expression and abruptly announced, “I don’t think I can remember the last time someone called me Ms. Tolbert.” She smiled and said no, taking all the bags from the day up to her room. Once checked in, she pulled everything out of the bags, arranging it neatly on the bed with special attention to the jacket she had picked up at Ross. She pulled it close to her chest and said, “It’s a windbreaker. That help cuts the cold, and the inside is lined with fur.” She hugged it tighter and said, “There’s nothing better than a warm jacket.”

To finish off the day, she asked to go to Outback Steakhouse, only knowing it as Outback before the day. “I thought it was a shoe store for some reason,” she said. Once seated, Jacquelyn ordered baby back ribs. She looked around the table and then turned back to the waitress with a big grin and said, “The full rack, please.”

Every bite seemed to mean more and more until she couldn’t eat anymore. For the night, she looked no different than the Outback patrons around her. It was a day where shelters at capacity or enrollment fees or finding a place to shower didn’t immediately matter.

After a couple of days, the hotel manager called to say that Jacquelyn had checked out, “She wasn’t an issue at all. She was courteous and like any other guest.” No surprise because that’s simply who Jacquelyn is—just another guest to the city of D.C.

Outside of the Outback Steakhouse, Jacquelyn waited for the car to be pulled around. She patted her pocket to make sure the half-smoked cigarette was still in place, and she looked up again to see where the moon was—though no longer scared, she still likes to “keep tabs” on where it’s at. She assumes a lot of responsibility that most people don’t. While most will read this article on a Sunday over a cup of coffee in the sunroom, the paper this is printed on may be the makeshift shelter from wind or rain or what have you.

And when finished reading, there’s someone who will notice you—be it a family member or friend of coworker. But right before getting in the car, Jacquelyn turned and said, “A lot of people pass me on the street. They never say anything. You spend a lot of time wondering if people can see you, and I never thought anyone saw me… but today, you saw me.”

She opened the door and got into the back seat to go back to the hotel for a couple of nights—off the streets, safe from the cold, and protected from the moon.