To Be Young, Fabulous, and Mormon

I've never been too much of a party guy. I like to go out approximately once a month to remind myself that I'm still in my twenties and because my gym shorts have gotten too dirty to wear around the house. It's a nice reminder that I have other clothes not meant for sleeping or work. But all in all, bars and clubs are not where I thrive because in DC, it's a whole bunch of overworked twenty somethings that like to dance along to a sped up version of Sam Smith's "Stay With Me," while buying copious amount of overpriced drinks. They're sad and tired and horny, and that makes me uncomfortable. I pray for them every night I get home from going out.
However, I do love a good house party. It's nice because rarely ever is it too loud and you can bring your own libations and drink directly out of the wine bottle. It gives you an opportunity to actually speak to the people around you, which is a lost art with my generation (which probably explains why bars and clubs are so popular). In college, I was in a fraternity, and I tried desperately to turn our parties into classier affairs with themes and decorations, but the closest we ever got was a theme called "Mythical Creatures and Substitute Teachers," which devolved into college students grinding about each other wearing thick rimmed glasses and fairy wings. Before DC, a house party ultimately meant that there would be a lot of Bassnectar and tequila shots. I just turned on a Bassnectar song to refresh my memory, and I literally got alcohol poisoning.

Literally a picture taken at my house last year. Or
from Brothers and Sisters. Whatever.

So last year, when I moved in with Mormons (long story, short: Craigslist is a sneaky bitch), I considered the idea of the house party obsolete. They were older, and I had long forgotten my hopes of a refined, well-planned soiree. I would live with the Mormons, and from time to time, I hoped that maybe we would gather to watch a rerun of Seinfeld and talk about how crazy those Jews in New York are. But it turned out to be more isolating than I could ever imagine. In the first couple weeks, I was invited to a small dinner party on our back porch, and it was gorgeous with white Christmas lights strewn about the tree that hung over the patio. There was conversation and laughs and it was incredible. It was like sitting on the set of Brothers and Sisters, except everyone was painfully conservative and the closest we came to even mentioning sex was when I accidentally grazed my friend's boob reaching for the green beans.
After that lone dinner party, I was essentially banished to live a life of solitude. I will always wonder if it's because they saw that infamous boob graze. After a couple of months went by though, I slowly began to befriend the other guy who lived upstairs. He, too, was Mormon, but he liked to bend the rules a bit--I found this out after I discovered that he lifted by wine glasses for a date that he went on. After I discovered his secret about drinking and presumably fornicating, he slowly brought me into the Mormon fold. I mean, I would scarcely be allowed to enter a Temple or do anything that involved the Mormon religion, but he did watch Survivor with me on occasion, and he spoke to me when he came in the house, and that was enough for me, ya know?
Another month went by, and suddenly an event invite popped up on Facebook. My roommate David had invited me to "AN AUTUMN AFFAIR." It was handily the most elegant event title that I had ever received an as I opened up the event page, there was a slew of information about a baking competition and musical acts and a "rustic fall dinner." There was even a hashtag for the event--I died. When I came back to life, I called my friend Liz and said, "We officially have an in to fancy DC life. Come to this party with me." She immediately agreed and we spent the next two weeks coordinating outfits. A couple days after I accepted the event, the host of the party "liked" that I was going, and like a high school girl, I called Liz and said, "He liked that we're going! God, we're so in, I can't even handle it."
But as the day of the event came closer, I began to wonder if we should even be going to the party. It was at someone's house we had never met, and it was way above my social class. It was clear that there would be no Bassnectar or grinding to be had. This was everything that I dreamed of, but everything I feared at the same time. And for the event to be so high scale, it also said that it was "BYOB friendly," which opened up a whole plethora of questions about the evening. Should I bring wine or liquor? Definitely not liquor because that requires some kind of mixer, unless you want to come off as a full-fledged alcoholic. Beer? Maybe, but nothing that comes from the low-class end of the beer aisle. It would have to be something craft, or seasonal at least. Eventually I settled on wine because, duh.

What in the world even is this?

David offered to drive Liz and me to the party with him, which is good, because we probably would have not been able to find the place otherwise. We parked on the street and walked around the back of a gorgeous two story house, and there it was in all its glory. Paper lanterns filled with candles lined the sidewalk that led up to a huge burlap banner that had "AN AUTUMN AFFAIR" written in cursive with fall-colored accents. Liz leaned over to me and whispered, "What is this even?" and we scampered inside. It was every white girl's fantasy--as if Serena van der Woodsen literally vomited out perfection into someone's backyard. There were pumpkins and corn stalks and a HAND BUILT STAGE made out of distressed barn wood. In the back were pots of chili and soup and pans full of fall-themed desserts. It was everything that I had read about in books and seen in television shows, but nothing I thought actually existed in real life. At the beverage station (because that's a thing that people do, I guess), we were told we could put our drinks down. That's the moment when I started to doubt the party that we were at. There was a small ice bucket tucked neatly under the table with two bottles of wine and a bottle of apple schnapps and about four beers. As for the table itself, it had water and Diet Coke for days, but not a drop of alcohol out in the open. I shrugged it off and figured more people would bring libations as the party got more full.
I didn't notice the table for a while though because Liz and I were making our way through the party--around the bonfire to the table of chili and fancy cheeses and baked goods. Everything matched and had name cards, in case you weren't sure exactly what kind of upper-middle class cuisine you were about to eat. The disposable flatware and plates were the nice kind--the type of stuff that my family might have tried to wash and reuse if no one were looking. It was a world that I didn't quite understand, but I wanted to be part of it. We were careful about what we said and who we spoke to, already hoping that if we were on our best behavior, we might be considered for next year's invitation list, but there were simply things we weren't prepared for. Liz and I stopped to talk to a couple and they seemed to like us. I told them about my job in marketing and Liz talked about working in public relations, and then they asked,

Oh, are you two married?
Oh.. no, we're not married.
So, you're dating?
Nope. We're just really good friends.

They stopped for a minute and just kind of looked at us, "Oh, well that's nice, too," and then the conversation was over. I looked over at Liz, confused as to what we had done. We live in DC, so everyone is all "all the women, who independent, throw ya hands up at me," but this time, it was almost like... not being married to Liz was somehow wrong. I was about three glasses of wine in, and Liz wasn't far behind, and that's when we noticed. The party seemed to be split into parties of two, all of the commingling with other duos, and the biggest difference was that not a single person had anything other than a Diet Coke in their hand...

Hand. Built. Stage.

My second family back home is Mormon, so this wasn't my first rodeo. I started putting all of the pieces together. The elaborate spread of food that an entire army couldn't eat, a party theme that emphasized the accents of the season, party favors that had an especially strong reliance on DIY projects, background music that leaned heavily toward the folk and indie genres, and most of all... Diet Coke. Diet Coke all over the damn place. This was not a regular party. This was a Mormon festival, and I hated myself for not being able to tell sooner. I mean... there were candles in MASON JARS. Everything screamed that this was put together by a Millennial Latter-Day Saint follower, but I was too encapsulated by the presentation. It was more over the top than anything I had seen before, and as soon as I told Liz, we ran in search for David. We needed shelter. We needed direction! We were lost lambs in a pack of... well, lambs.
But as we ran up to the porch, he appeared. Not David, but the host of the party. We hadn't been introduced yet, but it was clear that he had planned it. He was a vision in plaid and thick-rimmed glasses, encapsulated in a ray of light making him appear as Joseph Smith, Martha Stewart, and Carson from Queer Eye from the Straight Guy, simultaneously. Yes, that is correct--my suspicions were correct: this was more than just a Mormon party. This party was designed by the most powerful of creative forces--a gay Mormon. He welcomed us and asked us if we had a drink. It seemed like a trick question, so we just kind of stared at him. There were no right answers anymore. He just kind of looked at us and said, "Well, the beverage table is over there." I looked back over and there was no more alcohol than before. There might have been more Diet Coke, but definitely no more alcohol. Diet soda everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
Seeing that we were confused by the notion that we could continue to drink, he ushered us over to the beverage table and made us a drink that we later named "fallmosas." He mixed apple cider with champagne and said, "I have some people you might like hanging out with." He walked us back over to the porch, and then around a corner tucked away from the rest of the party. There stood three gay guys and a woman who clearly loved Merlot. It was obvious that we had been relegated to the sinner's corner of the party, but it was okay, because these people seemed to understand the importance of "the sauce." We exchanged notes on how we had come to arrive there. One of the guys had found the host of the party on Grindr and then invited a couple other friends along. The wine lady knew him through some kind of Romney campaign effort. I told them the story of how I was living in the Mormons, and they all waited with bated breath, wondering what interesting facts I would reveal.
But the truth is, there wasn't a lot to reveal at that point. I was only a month in or so, and nothing about my roommates was interesting because they were Mormon. The best stories I had about them were simply because they were just really strange people in general. Liz and I watched the rest of the party unfold from afar, tucked safely in our corner of shame. We both knew that this would be the last time we'd ever be invited to a party this nice, unless one of us threw one ourselves... which essentially meant if Liz threw it, because there's no way I could stay invested in an event long enough to pull off all of the stops this party had.
For the rest of fall, we reminisced about the party and attempted to recreate the fallmosas well into November. We admired the domesticity needed to put together such an event and would sometimes wonder how someone could have enough time to plan something like that out. While there are hardworking gay Mormons out there building distressed barnwood stages and planning out elaborate fall meals, I'm blogging about them and/or eating Nutella directly out of the jar while watching The Help. I suppose we all have our place in this world.
I have long sense moved out of the Mormon house. David moved to Colorado and has been spotted exploring the mountains of Brazil (no, seriously. He just posted a picture next to Christ the Redeemer, like it wasn't a big deal. If you ever read this, you're one of my favorite people I've ever met--you are missed). After that, I was banished away to live three months in my upstairs room alone with only a Roku and a bottle of hot sauce. I eventually received a text explaining that I would not be invited back once the lease was up. But that party will live in infamy. As for my own party planning aspirations, I will just leave that to the experts. Some people are meant to construct a party that balances the seemingly complex combination of gingham and burlap, and some people are meant to just admire it.

Rabbits, Death, Etc.

I've never really liked dead things. One time, I had a rabbit named Grace because, of course I had a rabbit named Grace. Anyway, she died. I was about eight years old when I found her chillin in her rabbit pin, stiff as a board. We got her from the flea market near our house where most things are half dead to begin with, so it was kind of a miracle that she lived as long as she did. Anyway, when I found Grace, I grabbed her and attempted to shake her into life again, but it was pointless. Grace was dead, and I was breaking down. To be fair, I had a pretty ugly road with death at a young age because my mom's parents were 46 and 60 when she was born, so a huge portion of my family starting dying before I could really understand what that meant. That, and I had watched Titanic pretty recently, and that whole Rose lives to be really old and then dies thing really got to me as well.
Because death happened so often, I didn't really understand why it happened--to me, death was kind of like getting a cold. People got death, and then you just kind of died. The whole thing was really unfortunate, but it happened, and in my mind, it was only a matter of time before I caught it myself. I carried Grace to resting place that my parents dug for her, and I said a prayer over her tiny rabbit body, and then I placed her in the grave. I wiped the tears from my face, and then I realized: I just wiped DEATH all over my face. Great.
As soon as it hit me, I lost it--like full blown 8-year-old panic attack. My mom grabbed me and tried to explain that my rabbit was with mamaw and papaw and all the other half-dead animals they had gotten me at the flea market, included but not limited to: my dog Sable, my dog Roxie, my cat Tiger, both of my turtles Jo Jo and Urkle, my dad's old dog Amos, and a gerbil that I had once named Conway that died because he got a penis infection. I'm not kidding. But I wasn't worried about Grace's eternal soul, because her name was Grace for God's sake. I was worried about my fragile mortal body that had been exposed to death--not just exposed really, but slathered in it. I wiped my face with dead rabbit hands, and clearly, if that wasn't terminal then I don't really know what could be.
My parents spent the next 16 years trying to persuade me that people don't die by being exposed to death, but I'm not entirely sure that they're right. Regardless, I'm still here, fighting the good fight and trying to stay away from death and all his friends. I actually became kind of numb to the whole death situation. It's been years since I had been to a funeral because a whole generation of my family passed away before I was 16 years old. Instead, I just focus on the random diseases that could kill me instead of actually catching death itself. I call my mom weekly or so to check in because I've convinced myself that I have anemia or a tumor on a lymph node. For a while it had gotten out of hand, and then she eventually called me a hypochondriac. Now, I've blocked WebMD on my browser, and my fear of sickness and death has gotten easier.
Funerals, at this point, are just hurdles. Very sad hurdles, but hurdles, and as my generation has grown up, we've all also grown apart. I haven't seen my entire family together in one place in a long time, let alone the super-extended family. We never did a great job of keeping up with one another because people were having babies or going to jail or in my weird case, relocating to a new location entirely. But I was able to make a stop home after work trip out to California, and when I arrived my mom asked me the dreaded question. "My nephew Stanley died. Will you go to the funeral with me?" I mean, of course I would go to the funeral with her, but the first words out of my mouth were, "I had a cousin named Stanley?" That's the tricky part of being separated from some of your cousins by 30-40 years--sometimes you don't know they exist until they've passed away or in the newspaper for doing something really absurd.
As I pulled what I imagine was probably an illegal U-turn in the middle of the funeral home parking lot, my mom said, "Oh look. There's Roger Dale. I wonder how life's treating him now that he's out of prison." I wasn't sure if she was being sincere or just being a smart ass. Either way, I chose not to recognize it as I attempted to pull my dad's giant truck into a parking spot made for a smart car.  That, and for some reason, I kind of wanted to be friends with Roger Dale. He's one of the few people in my family that's around my age--and even though he was supposedly an accessory to an attempted murder, it's nice having friends, ya know? I finally got the truck parked, and my mom looked at me and said, "No more than 20 minutes. I'm serious. 20 minutes--in and out. Let's go. Oh, and your aunt Wanda got you a souvenir from her trip to the Amish country, so don't forget to grab it before we leave."
I wasn't expecting to go to a funeral while I was in town, but then again, I don't think anyone ever expects to go to a funeral. It's not something you etch into your planner months ahead of time. Stanley was 55 when he died, which is really complicated to explain because that makes him older than my mom. But in short, my mom had siblings that were legitimately having children before she was even born, so she was an aunt baby.
As we walked up to the funeral home, a whole bunch of people sat on the porch in white rocking chairs that overlooked the parking lot/duck pond combo below. I didn't recognize anyone on the porch, but I didn't really expect to recognize anyone anyway--kind of like when you go to a party with a friend. So, as we walked up the steps, I nodded to them and said hello, but they just kind of gave me a really annoyed look--kind of like when you go to a party with a friend... and you try too hard. Come to find out, there were two funerals going on, and I was trying to speak to people that actually weren't in my family (which at funerals, is poor form).
But once someone directed me to the sign in the lobby, I had things a little more under control. I walked into a long chapel, and everyone seemed to be gather toward the front. I inspected the front of the room, but I didn't see a casket. Luckily, they had decided to forego that part of the funeral process, and even though I was well aware that you couldn't catch death, the 8-year-old inside of me was a little bit relieved. But in its place was something terrifying in a completely different way--family that I hadn't seen in years. I was out of practice when it came to this kind of thing. I barely know what to tell my friends when they lose a family member, but it's so much harder when it's your own family. I tried to survey the room, but I couldn't place any of the faces with names, so I just kept walking forward until I reached the cork board at the front of the room.
There were pictures of Stanley and his entire family, made up of people that I may or may not have met throughout the years. I followed the pictures from the bottom to the top until something else caught my eye--a giant flatscreen TV posted up on the wall with a single candle burning. The background was totally black, and the only thing on the screen was a white candle with a single flame. I'm sure it's supposed to represent something, but for some reason, all I could think was, "I mean, could we have just not put like... a real candle or something in here? And who captured this looping video of this candle... like, how do you get that job?" I spun around and stepped on a tiny little old lady who said, "Hi there. I'm Herman's sister. You know Herman," I have no idea who Herman is. "You know there's nine of us, right? Six boys and three girls. Can you even imagine?" I still had no idea who Herman was, and for a second, I thought that she might have made the same mistake that I did earlier, except she didn't see the sign in the front directing her to the correct funeral parlor.
I didn't know what to do, so I told her that I would be right back, but when I turned around again, there was Roger Dale. I immediately felt startled, but I was also really excited because in my mind, I kept thinking, This is my chance at a friend! We shook hands, and he had a really strong handshake, and as much as I hated it, all I could think was, "This is the perfect place for him to kill me because they wouldn't even need to call an ambulance. They'd just embalm me and call it a day." I froze, and I didn't know what to say, and before I knew it, I had lost my opportunity. My mom called me over to say hello to my aunt Connie who made a grand entrance from the back of the parlor. I watched her hug my mom and dad and brother with big tears in her eyes, thanking them for coming. Then my mom said, "Connie, here's Justin." She immediately stopped crying and said, "You're grown." She pulled me in really tight, put her face against the side of my head, and then it happened. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but she just blew... blew her nose with all of her might, directly in my ear.
I pulled back with a flattened smile and touched her shoulder and said, "I'm going to head over here for a second." I felt like people were watching me, waiting to see how I would react to this whole situation. I sat down in a pew behind my mom and pulled a kleenex out of the box sitting in the pew. I shoved it in my ear and leaned forward, quietly whispering to my mom, "Aunt Connie may or may not have just blew her nose in my ear. So, that happened."
My mom couldn't stop laughing, so I had to take my family outside where we congregated with my aunt and uncle that I'm closest to. By the time I got outside to join them, my mom had already lit in on the story about Aunt Connie blowing her nose in my ear, and on the other side of the circle Was Roger Dale, whose much closer to Connie than I am. I wanted to dive on my mom and tell her to stop or to cut the story short, but it was too late. I was making no headway with Roger Dale, and if he didn't smell the fear on me earlier in the parlor, then he definitely smelled it on me now. I felt like I needed to chime in, so I said, "You know, I'm wasn't upset at Aunt Connie for blowing her nose in my ear. I was just... surprised, which I feel like is the logical response when someone blows their nose in your ear." Roger Dale stared at me with the blankest expression and said, "Yeah, that doesn't happen," and then walked away. I knew that the funeral wasn't about me, nor was it supposed to be, but I wanted to fight back. I wanted to explain how brave I was for enduring getting a snot rocket lodged in my ear. I wanted to tell everyone how I was a survivor. But my mom interrupted and said, "Can we smoke on this porch, or do we need to go somewhere?"
Standing off the porch waiting on everyone to finish up their cigarettes, I looked back on the porch, still unable to recognize if any of the people hanging outside were actually related to me. It's almost comical because at one point, every death felt like the world was ending--whether it was a person or a rabbit. And then somewhere along the way, I wasn't able to even tell the difference between who was part of my family's and who was part of someone else's.
I still miss Grace. She was a pretty cool rabbit, but in retrospect, sometimes I wonder if I might have accidentally killed her myself. As an 8 year old, I wasn't really great at feeding things, nor taking care of them. In reality, my parents probably should have gotten me a goldfish, or like... one of those crabs you can get from the beach that legitimately never comes out of its shell. But no matter how mortified I was by Grace's death or the lethal rabbit death disease that she carried, it wasn't so much that I actually, you know, tried taking care of her while she was alive. And maybe that's the whole point of why rabbits and dogs and cousins named Stanley die. Maybe it's about reminding you of what's still in front of you--what you could be taking care of. Or maybe it's just a solid reminder of how many germs you carry on your face. We may never know.