Parisian Pills and Bags of Tea

So, I'm a generally nervous person with a lot of feelings. I believe Kelly Clarkson wrote a song about me once in which she said for her gentleman friend to keep his hand in her hand, his heart on his sleeve. That line... that's me. It's always nice to be the sensitive guy because lady friends naturally gravitate toward you and think that you're keen without being intimidating. Can I bench press you over my head? Probably not, but damn it, I'll remember your middle name and the kind of Chinese take out you like, and I think that probably counts for something. But the issue is that it ultimately does not translate well in boy world, and that's unfortunate. It's hard translating all of those feelings into short, declarative sentences, and then just leaving it there--so I eat a lot of those feelings and show up at high school trust falls.
And I'm sure that this topic seems tired: we get it, Justin. You don't jive well with your own gender. The horse is dead, put the stick down. No, no children. This is not your typical social awkwardness story. This is the story about how I used pills to make friends, in Paris nonetheless.
The whole thing started in high school when we were presented with the opportunity to go to Paris with the rich high school about an hour away. Us poor South Knoxville kids were like, Yeah, we've been to Paris, Tennessee. It's not as great as it sounds, but apparently this was the real thing... like, Paris, France. So I asked my parents that if I could somehow manage to foot half of the 2,000 bill, could I go. They agreed, and naturally, as a really undisciplined fifteen year old, I think I managed to save up about 600 dollars. Because I'm adorable, we managed to come up with most of the rest, and in a last minute attempt, my dad decided to throw a charity fishing tournament to help all of us make the rest of the money. The fishing tournament only got us about seventeen dollars each, but whatevs. At the end of the day, we all managed getting our money in on time, and we were really going... to Paris.
So we were all excited until I found out the rooming situation. There were only three boys going, so we would automatically be rooming together... in a room... with two beds. Yes, the idea made me uncomfortable, but I could handle it. It wasn't until one of the guys that I was rooming with started to talk about it that I got truly nervous. He told me that we were purposefully going to sleep in the same bed and that he was going to sleep naked and one night, he was going to tea bag me. Oh, you don't know what that means? Go look it up on Urban Dictionary. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you might throw up a little in your mouth. I know I did. I kept all the taunts to myself, too embarrassed to bring it up in fear of what people might say. There were too many things that could result from it... too many ramifications. I couldn't sleep for weeks; there were too many things worrying my mind:
a) Leviticus
b) my general distaste for the human form
c) the fear of suffocation
d) or any combination of the above
So I went around terrified of Andrew, trying to figure out a way to not find myself naked in bed with him... or dare I say, teabagged. My parents essentially told me that they didn't care if I could possibly get teabagged. We already paid for the trip, so I pretty much had to go. I didn't want to tell the teacher because that was too predicable. Everyone would expect it, and it would put an even bigger damper on the trip before it began, so I just tried to keep my composure. I practiced sleeping on my face in hopes that maybe I could avoid the teabagging and/or smother myself at my own hand. The time finally came, and I boarded the plan with nude Andrew and my only hope for salvation: my other roommate, Scott.

Before then, I had never really been away from home, and on top of the pending sexual assault I was facing, I wasn't sure how to handle the idea of being away for an extended period of time. So as the plane was taking off, I took a couple of Dramamine to help me fall asleep. Ironically, the entire situation flipped when we got to Europe. Knowing that I was missing home, Andrew became my go to, and in the worst moments he would talk me down. After a couple of days, I began to let my guard down, and the threats of tea bagging (no, seriously, if you don't know what it is, you need to look it up) decreased with each day.
But with one threat gone, another one arose. Because of my regular anxious nature, in addition to my homesickness, I decided to ration my Dramamine out so that I had enough for each night. After our third night in France, Scott asked Andrew and I if we would sit down with him for a talk. He seemed pretty intense about the situation, so we obliged. After stumbling around his topic of conversation, he finally said, Justin, you really need to stop taking those pills. This could get out of hand quickly. He began to tell us a story about his friend who got addicted to pain killers and eventually was hospitalized with his addiction to prescription meds. The room fell silent, and Andrew and I exchanged glances... not really knowing what to say. After a while I looked at Scott, with pills still in hand, and said, Scott, I'm so sorry. I picked up the bottle and opened it. I didn't know, I won't do it, and I started to slide the pills back in the bottle... and then I slammed them into my mouth and swallowed them, screaming out, I CAN'T STOP MYSELF!!
And Scott and I haven't really talked to each other since. But the important part of this story is that I learned something that I have to remind myself of often: when in a room full of boys, it's always best to make fun of the person with the most emotions... wait, no. That's probably bad. In reality, I think what it boils down to is that when in Rome, sometimes you just have to do as the Romans do. Apparently it is (or was in high school) fun to threaten people of your own gender with sexual advances while they're sleeping. I never really understood it, nor did I attempt to joke about it, but I did learn other things, I guess. Like "when in Paris, pop low doses of sleeping pills." At least one person will laugh for an hour, and that's what we're going for in the end, right?

A Dusting on New Year's

Well, congratulations, we did it. Unless you did something really bad, really fast, you've made it to 2013. It's a feat that we all kind of considered unlikely in the back of our heads (oh you tricky, Mayans), but in the face of apocalyptic threats and the other unfortunate things we've done up to this year, we've happened upon a year that wasn't supposed to be. For those of us who never really worried about the future, this New Year's doesn't mean that much, but for those of us who did things in the face of a potential world ending, you're responsible for correcting those boo boos and actually planning for a long term future.

New Year's has always had this vague importance in the back of my head because I love the idea of a fresh start. After you graduate, you don't get "new semesters" anymore, so you're left reaching for as many fresh starts as life will allow you. You can make these resolutions that probably will not be fulfilled, but it's cool because at least you took the time to realize there is something that can be improved upon. In my case, I always made big goals that ultimately went completely ignored about 17 hours into New Year's: massive weight loss, the dismissal of red meat, no sexual interaction with anyone at all. That is until recently when I decided to tackle resolutions that were more attainable, which includes but is not limited to: learning the Nicki Minaj part to "Bottoms Up," and watching every episode of Will and Grace.
But my greatest superstition surrounding New Year's is that the way you spend your New Year's Eve is representative of how the following year will play out. In my case, the superstition has always proven to be somewhat true, especially in the last couple of years. Last year, for instance, I spent the better part of my New Year's Eve at a fraternity party watching a freshman down an entire bottle of Jaegermeister, while I casually sipped on a couple of beers. In the final thirty minutes, I rushed home with a friend so that I watch the New Year's ball drop on television with my family. In return, I watched a decent number of people, including myself at times, party senior year away. Then, I entered the chaos of post-grad life, and just in the final moments of 2012, I have settled down enough to catch my breath.
But New Year's Eve has not always been so docile, and it's usually reflected in the year that followed it. My sophomore year of college, I went to a party at my friend's house; it was my first year I had ever spent New Year's away from my parents and brother. I was intoxicated with the idea of running into a cute girl, talking by the beer cooler, and possibly... just maybe... getting that New Year's kiss that I had so desperately longed for ever since I found out that was what people do. My friend's attendees were not people that I was used to though considering that I was apt to get tipsy off the small amount of mouthwash I didn't spit out after brushing my teeth. I was the valedictorian of my graduating class and not well-versed on social decorum, so I immediately felt out of the loop. In between moments of Zak introducing me to his cohorts, I sat on the couch, channeling Dick Clark (may he rest in peace) and trying to hear the musical performances. I remember partially making a breakthrough after accidentally making a joke about Natty Light. When someone pulled it out of the cooler, I casually announced, Hey! That's what my Mamaw drinks all the time. It wasn't until I joined a fraternity that I understood the humor in the joke. Other than that, the night seemed to drag on.
Zak would always introduce me to his friends as "our valedictorian," then go on to tell people how smart I was and how I would go on one day to be a lawyer, which in essence was a complete lie, but whatevs. People seemed to be impressed until a stronger alcohol or cute girl came by, so I embraced it. By eleven o'clock, I had met just about everyone at the party, and I needed to go to the bathroom. I walked in and two people were in there... I know what you're thinking... you thought they were having sex, right?? Nah, just cocaine. The guy turned around from the bathroom counter and asked me if I wanted to do some blow, and without having the educational lyrics of Kesha (or Ke$ha, if you prefer the stylized version), I had no idea what to say. I quickly backed out of the door, falling over a bucket on my way out.
Soon after, I found Zak and told him that I was leaving without trying to explain my run-in with Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz in the bathroom. I just wanted to escape quickly before the cops came and busted the snort-sesh happening just a couple rooms away. My dear acquaintance/pusher who really seemed to like me about ten minutes before came out of the bathroom, and I told him that I was leaving. Apparently, what you're not supposed to do is act sketchy or deny people who offer you cocaine. When I told him goodbye, he flipped out saying "Dude, you come up in here thinking your f*$&ing better than us?!" Then he lunged at me as if he were going to hit me. Zak immediately dove between us, and all I could think about was that I had somehow stumbled into a scene from The O.C. I had always considered myself the Marissa-type, but I just wasn't jiving with the idea of doing cocaine, or fighting someone who was doing it, for that matter. Eventually I escaped, but the year that followed proved to be as tumultuous as the night that ended the year before.
The night did teach me a lot. One time, my roommate in college did cocaine, and I remember what would happen if I tried to fight him on it, so when he came in rubbing his gums and announced that he had done coke in the back of a club in the Old City of Knoxville, I just kind of high fived him and told him it was cool. I Wikipedia-ed cocaine to make sure he wasn't going to die, then I made him watch Blow the next day as I spread pixie sticks all over our coffee table. But moreover, I learned that sometimes New Year's is best spent in doors.
People asked me what I would do with my first New Year's in DC, and what eventually happened is that I stayed in with my roommate, watched Carson Daly (oh how the times have changed), called my mom at midnight, then forced a neck nuzzle upon Andrew at midnight because I still haven't gotten that New Year's kiss. Eventually, I dominated an entire bottle of champagne, then I went to bed. No, I didn't party it up in DC, and I don't know what that night spells out for the rest of my year. From the sounds of it, it sounds like I'm just going to be chillin with one dude for the year, occasionally making trips to the gas station, and end the year drinking a lot by myself... but then again, the final night of the year has never been a literal translation, so there's still hope. No matter what, it's nice to know that this year contained a little less illicit drugs and a little more of my norm: friendship and wine.

Drug Searched at the Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn

This past year, all of my friends went to this cultural phenomenon called "Dayglow." I don't know if you've heard of it, but essentially the gist is that a whole bunch of meandering twenty year olds end up in a collective area. They play this thing called "house music." I am still not sure what that means or what it sounds like, but whatever. Then, everyone wears white (which in my neighborhood, that was not something that you did in a public forum) and bumps into each other a lot. Throughout the night, the ceiling spews paint down on top of you, and from what I hear, it's pretty awesome. As I've stated in the past, I don't like bodily fluids, my contacts tend to dry out rather quickly, and I spend enough time bumping into people I don't want to see--this obviously was not the event for me.

Ecstasy is like a mix of those little
tablets you use to dye Easter eggs and
Smarties.

But my friends bought their tickets weeks in advance, waiting for the day that they would go play in paint and experience "young adulthood." Maybe I'm missing the point of young adulthood, but I was on RA duty that night so I just went back to my room and watched Enough with Jennifer Lopez. Apparently the only way the night of paint and sweat could be any more amazing is if you took this little substance called "Molly." If you're a hood-ass gansta like myself, you may know it by it's other aliases: Mandy, ecstasy, X, or MDMA (and yes, I had to wikipedia half of those). After talking to a friend who explained how it released all this dopamine and serotonin, it really didn't sound all that bad. But then she told me about this phenomenon called "Suicide Tuesday" that happens after, which is this depressed, hopeless state you fall into because your body has literally had all the happiness sucked out of it. As a fairly emotional person anyway, it didn't make much sense to purposefully send myself into euphoria and/or depression. I did that on a daily basis anyway. At the end of the day, I stuck with my dad's tried and true saying, Don't take that shit if it didn't come straight out of the ground. Affirmative, Wendell.
So needless to say, I don't dabble in drugs; if I were to ever appear on COPS, it may be for gang violence or domestic assault, but definitely not drugs. After watching cousin after cousin dip their toes in the (heroin, LSD, hydrocodone) water, it just didn't seem like a logical route to take. Call me a hipster, but drugs seemed so mainstream to me. That didn't keep me from straying off the tracks a bit though. After my sophomore year, I took one summer to be a wild child. I made out with a lot of girls, called into work sick sometimes, and occasionally stole meat that was left in an abandoned cooler outside of a restaurant next to campus. Needless to say, I was pretty out of control. I ended the summer by taking the stereotypical step to rebellion: I got a mohawk.

An unfortunate time for everyone.

After I got the mohawk, it was pretty much over. I didn't care about doing anything crazy anymore because A) where do you go once you've hit the top and B) I was bored with it. But speaking on a first hand basis, leaving the scandalous lifestyle I was leading is kind of like quitting a gang: you don't do it. A couple weeks into my junior year, a group of us decided to go to the fraternity party happening off campus. There were too many of us for one car, so we split up: four in mine, two in the other. I'm a bit of an aggressive driver, so I was setting the pace for the rest of the traffic when an officer shot in behind me and turned on his lights. I'm not sure about everyone else, but the two minutes it takes me to get pulled over when a cop gets in behind me is seriously the worst two minutes of driving I will ever do in my life. Naturally, I was in the fast lane, so there's that awkward struggle of getting pulled over and then knowing where the right place is to stop: on this night, it happened to be at the Holiday Inn.
The officer shined a light in my car and asked for everyone's identification and then asked me why I was drag racing with the truck next to me. First and foremost, if it were a drag race, I would have won. Secondly, I wasn't even aware that I was drag racing him, but I suppose it made sense because the truck pulled over with us had a "piss on Ford" sticker and a proud, valiant Dale Earnhardt number 3 in his back window. Dale (three to the sky) and Teresa would have given him mad props. After sticking his head halfway in my window, the officer asked if he could search my vehicle. To my knowledge, all that was in there was at least three Zaxby's bags, enough aluminum Coke cans to power a third world country, and a half dumped container of powder laundry detergent that could have been misconstrued as cocaine if it weren't for the revitalizing blue crystals that make your clothes smell fantastic. Without knowledge that you have the right to decline a drug search of your car, I just accepted it.
All of that rebellion was soon out the window. At first, it all seemed to be just a routine procedure, but three cop cars, half the Texas Roadhouse, a solid number of occupants at the Holiday Inn, and a drug dog later, everything was starting to get out of control. We had all been removed from the car, and the truck we were drag racing with was gone. It wasn't until I was straddled with my hands placed on the hood of the cop car that I really started to fall apart. I looked over at the officer who had just got done frisking me and said, I was valedictorian of my high school. He looked at me half-puzzled, half-knowingly as I continued, I've been on Dean's List every semester... I mean, I'm Vice-President of the Student Body... people like me don't get drug searched. I don't even do drugs. He did his best to ignore my comments, but I continued, and there are people over there taking pictures... and they're only getting me from the side. I look horrible. He knew it. I knew it. Justin was broken. The officer was quite a portly man himself, and what I said must have hit home because he immediately responded, Ah, you don't look bad. You're not even that big! We had a moment, right there in the joint Holiday Inn/Texas Roadhouse parking lot. As the girl in the backseat was being threatened with jail time for having migraine medicine on her person without a prescription, I turned to the officer and said, Really? and he said, Really. I understand.

The german shepherd that arrived on scene was digging through my backseat, which was so messy that it was reminiscent of the final challenge on Double Dare 2000, and all I could do was stand there and talk to my new officer friend until the whole charade was over. The entire escapade lasted about an hour and a half... during which the officer never found in necessary to turn off his flashing lights. If I had been there five more minutes, I probably would have gone into an epileptic seizure. Other than some prescription migraine medicine (which is obviously what all the kids are getting off on these days), there was nothing in my car. By the time we were able to get going to the party, we were sure that freshmen had already crashed the event, which means the more pedophilic upperclassmen were grinding about in a cramped living room while everyone else had vacated. We just decided to go to a friend's house.
But from every situation, there is some kind of takeaway lesson, even if it is a really shitty one: in this case, trying to emulate Nancy Reagan and "just saying no" doesn't always work because the only justification that the officer had for searching my car was that it smelled wanky. Because he was from Alcoa, I decided that the best place to find the definition of wanky was on UrbanDictionary.

Wanky (wah-aye-enn-key): adj. Word used to describe moments of great sexual attraction and sexual tension.

It didn't seem to fit the description that I had in mind. But I think the bigger take away here is that drugs are everywhere, even in places that their not. On this Halloween, I'm reminded of all the times my parents would take my Halloween candy and spread it out on the table inspecting it for drugs, and as a candy-giver-outter myself these days, I suppose that it's very possible. I still suspect that it was no coincidence that all the drug-laden candy just happened to be the Butterfingers and Reeses, but parents that actually love their children and respect the hard door to door plight that is trick or treating probably should search their kid's candy for drugs because you never know when a Smartie will turn up to be a hard hit of ecstasy.