Digital, Digital Get Down

My friend Alex and I were talking over a nice dose of Fro Yo the other day and reflecting on our youth. Of course, when you're coming of age, you're bound to make mistakes. Bobby, of The Brady Bunch, learned the hard way why he shouldn't play ball in the house. Frankie Muniz found out why you shouldn't kick your dog during a baseball game in My Dog Skip. And I'm not saying that my generation had it any harder than the next, but if you weren't careful, coming of age could be really, really dangerous for someone our age. As we were thinking back to what it was like growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, I think we might have weirded ourselves out just by looking at the prospects. It was after that conversation that I decided that my children would not have access to the internet until they are least sixteen years old. Why did we not listen to NSYNC when they warned us about these "digital get downs?" Nothing safe happens online.
I had no business on the internet as a child, and if you think back, you probably didn't either. I remember when we got our first computer back in fifth grade--yes, it had CompuServe dial-up internet which allowed you to make a sandwich, walk the dog, and finish a Melville novel between page loading times, but it was the internet, and that was pretty friggin' cool back in 2000. My brother and I would take turns getting on it, and it's not like we could do too much damage because it was stationed in our parents' room. We lived in a very old single wide at the time, so even if my parents were on the other end of the house, if we had something naughty up that made noise, they could hear it without a problem. We never wanted to abuse having a computer... hell, we were just jazzed that we could play Minesweeper any time we wanted to, though neither of us having any idea to this day what that game is about, nor how to play it.
But it wasn't long until we messed everything up. We had grown tired of 50states.com, which apparently is no longer a website (sigh), so we decided to look up facts about Washington D.C. before I took my trip there with safety patrol. Casey and I gathered around the computer to look up whitehouse.com, and there it was for the world to see... naked. women. We were equal parts embarrassed, intrigued, and filled-with-sin. This friend we had known for such a short amount of time had become our enemy so quickly, and from there, it was clear that the internet was going to be the kind of friend that you just don't tell your parents about.
But the inadvertent porn via what we thought was a government website was not the problem. Alex and I decided that the problem really started once we got into middle school. Looking back, we were all over the internet in ways that we, nor our parents, really had any idea about. I remember back to my AIM days when I would sit on the computer changing my background and my layout and coming up with my screenname, and it all seemed so harmless... but then I think about all the chatrooms that I would go into and all of the "friends" that I would make on there. And when I talk to people my age about it, it really was not an uncommon thing for people to make friends and exchange screennames with people that we had no idea who they actually were. I had one friend who was 13 and lived in Ohio named Brittany, and we would ask each other all kinds of personal questions, and 12 year old me was on the other side of the computer screen throughly convinced that I had found my soulmate over the internet. In reality, there's a solid chance that I was not talking to Brittany, or possibly even a child. How we were not all captured by a man named Carl who had an affinity for Mogen David wine and My Little Pony, I will never know.

Honestly, if I were speaking with a predator, I'd probably
also ask for some M&Ms.

All of the conversations would start out the same: ASL? Just think about it for a minute--why in the hell did a 13 year old need to be telling another 13 year old his or her age/sex/location? Hi, my name is Justin, I'm 13/Boy/Knoxville, TN. Here's my address... now come grab me so that I can end up being another story told by John Walsh. We giggle at Chris Hansen because he's always doing the intercept between the pedophile and the decoy on To Catch a Predator, but I have no idea why I'm laughing and judging the idea that these kids' parents weren't paying enough attention because my parents totally let me do the same thing. And the one time that I did connect with a stranger online (on MySpace, may it rest in the shadow of Facebook), I suppose that I was lucky enough that the person I was meeting was an actual fifteen year old girl and not some strange predator because when I asked my mom to drop me off at the movies to meet her, my mom just agreed to it, like that's a normal thing. All I had to protect me was an absurdly loud voice, a twenty dollar bill, and a Nokia phone that was missing the * key and was really only useful to play Snake. I was one of the lucky few whose online ventures led to his first kiss, then friend, then girlfriend, then back to friend, now life coach... but everyone else doesn't always end up so lucky.
The problem with the internet being available to our generation is that we like to hope for the good in people, which is probably why it takes so long for us to learn lessons. Here I am, typing up a brief history of the dangers of the internet with my online dating profile open in the separate tab thinking to myself Hm. I wonder why I haven't met anyone of substance or sanity on here? Well, it's because the internet is where crazies go to hibernate. And then it's the ding of a Facebook chat, or the pong of a new message that wakes them up, and then we all go into full blown creeper mode. And it's something we learned from an early age... well, at least those of us who survived. But that's the scary thing, the chat rooms and the AIM and the time we spent searching the internet for the next weird thing to get ourselves into was just the beginning. Now we use it to keep tabs on our exes and people we don't like and to look up pictures and videos of cats doing human things. (Oh, you haven't seen Kittens Inspired by Kittens? Do it now.) I don't think that the weird dial-up noise that used to come on as the internet loaded was a lack of technology... I think it was more of a warning sign that none of us never listened to, and after some reflection, it's my very own mistakes that will keep future Kirkland children from accessing the internet until at least after puberty. Maybe longer.

Most Likely to Succeed

In life there are three categories of aspirations we have: what we want, what we need, and what we don't really say out loud because it's silly. For some of us, learning how to approach the latter one is more difficult than it is for others. For instance, in elementary school, there was a group that would meet at lunch once a week called "The Banana Splits." Because of my early-onset fascination with exclusivity, I insisted in my seven-year-old mind that I should be in The Banana Splits. I mean, these kids got to talk about themselves once a week, on a Wednesday I believe, while... wait for it... EATING ICE CREAM. As far as I was concerned, I met all the qualifications: I loved to talk about myself, almost as much as I loved eating ice cream. So, one day, with all the courage in my curiously malnourished looking body, I approached our guidance counselor and asked for membership.
I'm sorry, Justin, but this is a group you can't be a part of. This would be the first of a laundry list of groups that I would be excluded from, including, but not limited to: the Girl Scouts, Black Student Association, any baseball team, people who can afford to attend "Restaurant Weeks," the New Hopewell Baptist Church youth group, varsity-level soccer teams, the sorority at my college, and people who qualify for food stamps in the state of Virginia. Completely abhorred at the idea of not being included, I sternly asked, Well, why not? Ms. Cruz went on to explain, Well, Justin. The reason we get together is because their parents are divorced. Divorce is a hard thing for someone your age to go through. You should consider yourself lucky that your parents are still together. She finished with a warm smile on her face. I did not. I was not lucky. I was not getting ice cream. My parents didn't give me ice cream. They gave me hominy, which is arguably the most disgusting food that God created. I don't know what kind of crazy world this woman was living in, but I was most certainly not lucky, and I let my mom know as soon as I got home.
Mom, I need you and Dad to get a divorce. My mom was stunned by it. I went on to explain how they were holding me back from ice cream, and how the only real solution to this horrible discrimination was for them to get divorced. I'm sure if I were older, I could have pulled together some statistics, a chart perhaps, but after my main argument of "ice cream is really good" had quickly become tiresome, I decided to give up. It was the first time in my life that I had truly come to the idea that sometimes, people were going to get things that you wanted, and there's nothing you can really do about it.
Fast forward a few years, and I was in high school. Middle and high school were not particularly fun places for me. I wore wind breakers most of the time and I had these thick glasses and people casually called me all kinds of slang terms for homosexual: most of which I had to go home and Google, which really led to some awkward Google search results. To this day, I thank God my parents don't really know how to use the Internet, otherwise I would have had a lot of explaining to do. But then toward the end of high school, I began wearing real pants and I got contacts and all that bullying had equipped me with a really edgy personality that often resulted in me saying awkward/mean things that other people thought were funny. I like to refer to that point in my life as "coming into my Tina Fey." There's really only so many times that you can try to persuade people that you're not gay before you just kind of decide to focus your energies elsewhere, so I began honing in on my storytelling and the commentary of all those pregnant girls we went to school with, and I haven't stopped since.
But my senior year, superlatives nominations came out. For all of you who live under a giant rock, superlatives is a popularity contest where you choose people that didn't really speak to you through high school and assigned them to glorified labels. Then, they would live in the back of your yearbook as a reminder that you're really jazzed that high school is something that only lasted four years. In the midst of the nominations, I rallied for my brother to be nominated as "Friendliest," because Casey really is the friendliest person I've ever met. He's much nicer than I will ever be, and it's not even in a fake way. If we could get Casey on the ballot, he would win because not voting Casey friendliest is like watching a cat video on YouTube and saying, Eh, I guess it's funny. Eventually, Casey would not only appear on the ballot, but also go on to win Friendliest. To my surprise, my name appeared on the ballot twice: once for Most Likely to Succeed, and once for Mr. South-Doyle (with or without the hyphen, which is a point of contention in the South Knoxville community). I had always assumed that Josh Wesley would take the coveted third spot; after all, he was one of the most attractive guys in our class with one of the most dashing personalities. He beat me for the coveted role of Othello in our AP Senior English class, and I don't even think it had to do with him being black. Josh Wesley didn't need affirmative action. Josh Wesley was affirmative action.
But even Josh was not competition for the two other nominees. In essence, I was just the wild card vote that happened to slide in a solid performance of quirky commentary and self-deprecating humor in the final hour. Competitor one, Ryan, threw all the great parties at his house. I had never been to one, but rumor had it that there was alcohol there sometimes. I had, sadly, never been around alcohol up to this point. Even at 18 years old, I became slightly paranoid when I swallowed some of the mouthwash while brushing my teeth. I once saw an episode of Dr. Phil where teenagers would drink mouthwash to get drunk, and then they started doing other stuff like crystal meth and watching porn. I admired Ryan from afar, but I knew that I could never be Ryan... not in high school, at least. Competitor two was Jonathan, who was Ryan's best friend. I never remember him playing football before, but he was the quarterback of our football team senior year. He broke his leg or did something really bad to it, the details escape me, but he managed to return for the final game. That year, he led the team to its best record in five years. In addition, they had been quite popular for some time. They were a part of the popular-Christian circle, which goes a long way in East Tennessee. I could never break into that circle because my opinion of Passion of the Christ learned more toward a horror movie as opposed to "an unbridled cinematic depiction of Christ's love." (I threw up afterward.) Obviously, in this equation, I was going up against Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain for the Oscar. I, of course, was Quevenzhane Wallis. It was really more of an honor than anything to be considered for the prized role.

I would go on to win the category of Most Likely to Succeed, which is the equivalent of a BAFTA in the high school superlative circuit. And as I'm sitting here working on this in Washington D.C., three cigarettes, two Cokes, and a piece of cake in, I'm kind of wondering if the voters got it right. Sure, I made it to D.C. and I'm working on my Master's, but the biggest accomplishment of my day was getting everything I needed from the grocery store after three attempts in six hours. That doesn't quite scream "Excellence in Life." I'm working on solidifying a job for after my internship ends that doesn't require me to take food from one location to another. I give myself a high five when I remember to pay my utility bill before they send the late notice, and I purposefully schedule my work and academic duties around new episodes of Grey's Anatomy. I don't know if that's what would qualify me as "successful," but I guess in the grand scheme of things, I've done most of it kind of right.
But I guess after 99 blog posts and 22 years of life and multiple successes and failures, I have learned one of the Rolling Stones' most important life lessons: You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need. And as for the things that we want, but we don't talk about them because they seem silly... well, I think it's kind of silly to not talk about them. No, not everyone can be a singer or an actor or an astronaut or a writer, but if no one ever took the time to say the silly thing that they wanted, then no one would ever become any of those things. I didn't get my banana split, and I've lost a decent number of popularity contests in my day, but that doesn't stop me from announcing to the world what I want anyway. If it means enough to you, you'll figure out a way to make it happen. (Unless it involves you scheming to get your parents divorced. Don't do that.)

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?

Unmaking Plans

I'd finally had enough of chasing after a ghost who did not want to be seen.- Looking for Alaska

As a freshman in high school, I told my college counselor that I wanted to go to seminary at Duke University. My plans, because I was so entangled in the web of Evangelicism and after-church dinners, was to join the ranks of the religious right and eventually become a youth pastor in a local church in Knoxville. But as I was sitting on my couch in Arlington last night as a graduate student in PR at Georgetown University, it hit me for the first time in my life that seminary at Duke was never going to happen. At some point in my life, those plans had changed, and no matter the age, I don't think that's something we're ever really prepared for... the changing of plans, that is.
But even though the Baptist church beat the desire to bring the message of Christ to pre-pubsecent children, the core of my plan remained the same: I loved the idea of communicating good news to people, and it's ultimately what prevailed when I chose public relations--but everything else, well... that didn't happen. It didn't change what I said to people up until my senior year of high school though. I continued to tell people that I would become a youth minister because that's what I had set out to do, and similarly, I told people in college that I would be a lawyer up until my senior year, when I affirmed for once that I was actually going into public relations instead. There's something commendable about sticking to your plan, even if your plan isn't what you originally intended. I have a habit of choosing a goal and refusing to back away from it, no matter how bad of an idea it ends up being.
But I recently had a friend tell me, If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans, which I'm sure comes from another source before that. And as I was sitting on my couch, considering how painfully obvious that it was that I had not gone to Duke for seminary, I found myself talking to Rebecca Neely on Facebook chat; for those of you unfamiliar with our background, Rebecca is a girl who took out a restraining order on me my sophomore year. The details are too long to explain in a paragraph, so I'll promise it as a blog, as I have before. But the important part of the story is that the restraining order did not go through, and Rebecca and I silently vowed never to talk to each other again. It was our plan, because that's what you do when you take out a restraining order/have a restraining order taken out against you. However, there she was asking me about how to overcome the fact that the guy she was talking to a guy liked Nickelback... and three years later, I was talking to her as if it had all never happened.
All of these seemingly unrelated anecdotes all dial back to one common denominator: at one point, I had a plan for my life, and even though I love my life and most of the details that help make it mine, very little of what I had planned out for myself ten years, or even five years, ago ever came close to being true. In having to realize that, I've also tried to become a little more relaxed in how life goes. I like to tell people I'm spontaneous, but at the end of the day, I'm not. It's similar to the way that I tell people that I really like hummus, then leave it in the fridge for three months or like when I tell people that I love to go out to the club, and then I stand near the bar taking visual inventory on who is going to eventually end their night with their head in the trash can. I'm a planner, and it's painful because life is not something that you plan. People and events and goals: they're not plan-able things, and when you attempt to put them in a box, I feel like the results are similar to putting my cat in a car carrier for an 9 hour car ride. You hear a lot of weird noises, and eventually, you just have to let the cat out.
And of that list of things, the most difficult part of life is making life work with other people. We are not a species that is easy to get along with, and we do not happen to come together that often. That's why I've always been so fascinated, and yes, jealous, of people my age who have managed to get married and possibly even reproduced by now. Somehow, in this crazy world, they've managed to come together, at least for the time being, and plan their lives together. They've agreed to this insane compromise of "we're going to make our lives work with each other." How could you ever know? We're constantly changing and becoming new people, and you're taking this giant risk investing in someone who could readily become a new person in the course of your lifetime or even a couple of years. But still, we choose to do it because the only thing we fear more than the chaos of life is having to face that chaos alone.
It wasn't until just this past year that I had to actually consider the idea of what it would mean to plan my life with someone, and when I was forced to choose between a relationship or the plans I had made for graduate school, I chose my plans. And I had to let it go, and when you really have to let something go, I think it kind of startles you.  You find yourself in a position when you've had to choose and you've had to change plans and you go down a road that you never thought you'd be going down, and after a while, you begin to change a little, too. And in such a big place with plans changing all of the time, I've considered what it would be like to take the power away from life--if you eliminate the variables out of life... the people, the places, the decisions that ultimately affect you the most, it could be easier. The details out of my control make me more frustrated than my own errors because I never had a chance to control them.
But it's selfish. Yes, people like me like to believe that life is something concrete and constructible. If I could know the exact date I would die, I would want to. But, that's a selfish thing to do because with all the time that you're spending on planning and hoping and getting things correct, you're taking away from the most valuable asset you have in the world. We define ourselves by what we've painted in our future and not how we've reacted to the moments of the past. And as I was riding the escalator up from the metro today, I was considering this topic and this blog, and I thought about two people. I bitch and complain about the people I've invested in who have disappointed me, and the plans of my past that have gone awry, and the simple everyday losses that I face... when in reality, I haven't had too much to complain about.
The first person I thought about was the man I pulled out of a river a couple years ago. By the time we pulled him out, he had drowned; in the course of five minutes, he had changed at least two people's plans: his and mine. Because of how unpredictable the world is, his life was over. As for me, I was presented with the chance to save a life, and ultimately I couldn't. No change-of-plan has ever hurt more. And when you see something like that: the life literally drained from someone's face--someone your age lying in front of you, not breathing... well, it kind of makes you wonder what's the point? These people and places are all fleeting. You can't depend on anyone, and even when you can, everyone eventually dies. Obviously, I was not too happy halfway up the escalator.
But I had enough time to think of someone else because escalators in DC are long. The second person I thought of was my mom. Over the course of two years, she became pregnant twice. She carried both babies, little girls, to seven and eight months, respectively, before she miscarried. And when I talked to her about it, she told me that she never asked God why it happened because that's not fair.  She told me to never question God because I didn't have the authority to do so. And then there's me: going around barely invoking the presence of God because I still feel like I have some kind of say-so in how my life goes, when in reality, the role I play in how the world works is minute. I can't control the people around me, how they treat me, and the extraneous circumstances that may change my route in life.
But as the escalator neared the top, I realized that I had something that a lot of people don't. Yes, my plan has changed quite a lot and in turn, I've changed a lot as a person. But I was moving toward this light, as overcast and dim as it may be, and at the crest of that escalator, I could continue to live. I would live amongst the mess and the assholes and the roadblocks, but the operative word is: live. And as I neared the top and quickly reflected on all that I had contemplated on a morning metro ride, it seemed apparent to me that maybe I didn't need to go to seminary after all.
People go and change and grow away from one another. Circumstances cause us to have to head in a different direction than we ever anticipated, but I like to believe that maybe the plans we are forced to take are better than the ones we had in mind for ourselves to begin with.

All The Pretty Girls

Today, about thirty minutes before I was supposed to go on a date, I got a text message from the girl saying that she was going to have to cancel, for an unprecedented second time... in three days. The first time that she cancelled, she said that she was too hungover from the night before to be able to meet up with me, and then after asking her on a second date, she accepted and then backed out in a frame of only 18 hours... a personal best for me. Ironically, I did not go into the thankful nature that I probably should have... as far as I know, I could have avoided a tumultuous relationship of flakiness and alcoholism. She could have been one of those girls who visits the club a little too often, which is a high possibility considering that in the week we've been texting, most of the texts have been exchanged in a drunken state. But that's not what crossed my mind. What crossed my mind is that she was trying to escape a date with me; it became all about looks and insecurity, and I was transported back to sixth grade... back to Courtney.
Courtney Everett was the first girl that I ever cared more about than her Fruit Roll-ups. She poked be in the back with a pencil during homeroom, and in the most He's Just Not That Into You kind of way, I was confident that meant that she liked me. I used to imagine, as a 12 year old, what our life would be like together in the future, and eventually I wanted to ask her out. After weeks and weeks, I mustered up the courage to ask her to be mine forever, and she told me that she didn't want a boyfriend. A week later, she was dating Jonathan Mitchell. I was devastated.
I was always kind of surprised how part of sexual education, which was more of a course in abstinence and scary pictures of chlamydia, was geared toward (a) telling girls that they were important and attractive and they should defend their bodies and (b) telling boys to not stick it in whatever is walking by. I'm not suggesting that boys should do that, but I can't tell you how many times I stood in front of the mirror as a thirteen year old, inspecting my body, evaluating my lips and nose and eyes, trying to figure out why it was that I found myself so unattractive. That insecurity is a problem that has continued forward, and even though the thought of it was one of the most emasculating things a boy could speak of, I felt like I couldn't be the only person feeling that way.  And even if I was the only guy in the world that had ever felt that way, surely the person I was inside could offset the way I felt about myself on the outside.
I held on to that thought, while realizing that attraction played a huge part in the dating world. I began to watch the attractive people I was around to try and understand how they worked and who they really were... without the skin and the hair and the facial symmetry. As we were rounding out junior year, one girl in my class began talking about the kind of people that graduated from our high school. She's pretty in that obvious kind of way. She went on to say, The problem with our community is that there are so many poor people. How can you expect them to have children that succeed, when they don't even care if they succeed themselves? I was nervous because you don't want to take on the beautiful, but I turned around and said, You know, Lindsay. You're pretty. You're probably going to marry a gorgeous guy and have gorgeous children and live in a gorgeous house... but you have an ugly heart. And your kids will hate you, and your husband will cheat on you, and while you're rich and successful, you'll be asking why you hate your life so much. She was stunned, and it was the first moment in my life that I had genuinely considered that maybe attractiveness is not what rules the world.

Flash forward six years, and I'm graduated from college and living in this brand new city and hadn't been so shaken by looks in some time. I had grown into my skin (and my weight) to some extent and had a better grasp on who I am as a person, but when you're thrown into this new world with new people, you can't help to be nervous and doubtful. It had never resurfaced me until everyone in my apartment had started this online dating stint, a venture I had been apart of for months before either of them, and then all of a sudden you feel like you're in this weird competition measuring yourself against the people you're living with. And no matter how shallow it may be, you want to win. You want to be the Regina.
One of my roommates began receiving visits to his profile and emails from the website telling him that since he has been rated so highly by so many users, he was considered one of the most attractive people on the site. Eventually, he started asking us how many profile views we had gotten, and it became evident that there was this invisible hierarchy in the apartment. I began to feel like less of a person, and all that I could see in the mirror were the blemishes--the same ones I identified at thirteen years old. In the course of a week or so, I had forgotten everything I had come to believe about intrinsic value. At best, the numbers told me that I was unattractive and undesirable. I wasn't getting those stats, so I began a new account, answering questions and inputting information from scratch.
I talked with my friend Jane, an absolutely beautiful girl, about how I had been feeling. She told me that she understood, and I couldn't help but be confused. How could someone that looks like she does ever not feel good enough? She showed me her friends, and it looked like a catalogue of Barbie and Ken dolls, each with perfect hair and the perfect feminine features and/or a jawline that could cut a diamond. I didn't know that people like that existed, and as she scanned through the pictures, I wondered who they were--is that all that they are, or is there something else inside of those people?
Today, the attractive roommate went out with a girl that I had sent a message that eventually went ignored. She resembles a Taylor Swift wannabe with the standard online dating profile interests: loves to travel, sarcastic, and really loves Bon Iver. At the end of this horrible day of rejection and dejection and all the other -ections, I was completely exhausted. I was tried of being lied to and put off and ignored by people that I had very shallowly deemed "better than me:" the girls online, my roommate, Jane's friend who I had never met. Their worth had become greater than mine just because someone else, or them in some circumstances, had decided that attractiveness meant more than personality and intrinsic value. That's not to say that an attractive person can't be a wholesome individual as well, but at the end of the day, it was me that allowed myself to feel like less of a person because I had come to value attraction more than honesty, humor, and compassion less than someone's appearance.
At the end of the conversation, he told me how much that girl and I actually had in common, and that he thought we'd get along really well. I was too mad to even consider the possibility. She ignored my message, so why even entertain the idea? And then I stepped inside my apartment and my phone buzzed because I got an email. It was the dating website, telling me that my new profile had been rated so highly by so many people that I was considered one of the most attractive people on the website... in four days. Everything kind of hit me all at once, and I was reminded of everything I had started learning way back in high school. Honestly, there's no way in four days that the website had assessed I was one of the most attractive members on the site. But once I saw that email and put the pieces together, it didn't matter... because even if you are one of the most attractive people out there, does it matter if you're missing something greater on the inside?

Testify!

The week after I was saved, the Southern Baptist obligation was to become baptized, so I duly scheduled for my sins to be washed away the following Sunday because... these things have to be scheduled, you know. A lot of church was like that: you came in fifteen minutes early to shake every ones hands, then you sit and doodle on your bulletin. If you're between the ages of 15 and 24 or what those below the Mason Dixon line like to call "Small Group Age," then you raise your hand above your head while older-church-goers stumble through the words of a Steven Curtis Chapman song that has come to replace the songs within the hymnals that have merely become a sturdy surface to write your offering check on.
Eventually, you wade your way through a sermon and get to the invitation where three teenagers from the youth group mosey to the front to rededicate their lives to the Lord for the third time this year as everyone nervously shuffles waiting on some unknown face to approach the alter to potentially, sincerely give their lives to the Lord. I always loved the girls that would rededicate their lives because we would always give them obligatory congratulations afterward to which they would respond, I just really wanted to give my soul back to the Lord, as if you can just petty theft from Jesus. And then afterward, we would go downstairs and have lunch. Being Southern Baptist for the first sixteen years of my life was one of the most methodically inspiring things I could have ever been apart of.
The first couple years were the best, but it's funny because the Baptism is where things started to go downhill. As I prepared to be dunked in the holy water that could burn your sins off with its chlorine content alone, the pathway to the baptismal pool was cluttered with too much Jesus. On the way to the bleach pit of Heaven, I climbed over discarded crosses and boxes of pageant pamphlets. All of these things promoting Jesus were actually blocking me from getting to my baptism, and even as a 13 year old, the whole thing seemed kind of ironic. Once I had been cleansed, I joined the youth group and said prayer requests for all the people we were worried about. Prayer requests were our chance to gossip about the people in our lives while also hanging out in the circle of God. If our lives became too uneventful, we would just say "unspoken," which alluded that we knew something that was just too juicy to say to the group.
Eventually after bouncing around three churches, I decided that maybe church just wasn't the right place for me to find God. I had decided that men (or at least the Baptists) couldn't be trusted with the power of God because all of the community softball teams and youth retreats and van rides on the way to youth retreats touched on a number of things (pun intended) but none of those were Christianity. I had been on church-hiatus for about two years, cleansing myself of all those MercyMe and tobyMac lyrics when a woman my mom works with invited me to go to church with her. At first I was kind of surprised that my mom relayed the message to me because momma didn't really trust me to be around any other adults. That might have been because our neighborhood was dotted with meth houses, or Surprise Fireworks as I like to call them. Either way, there was a very short list of people I was allowed to go out with, and apparently, fellow-telemarketer and fierce-black-woman Teresa was one of them.
Teresa had found the Lord sometime during and/or after her stay in prison. I worked as a telemarketer with them both and heard Teresa break down a remix version of "Jesus Loves Me" multiple times before. She attended a Church of Zion, and after weighing the pros and cons, I decided that it couldn't be any more misdirected than any other church I had been to. I got up early on Sunday, and mom drove me to the Weigels in East Knoxville--the same Weigels that had been on the news a week earlier because of a neighborhood shoot out. For the record, East Knoxville is not where you go to have a picnic, let alone worship the Lord... or so I thought. Either way, I took solace that the police station was just a football field's length away.
I turned to Mom and asked, Are you sure this isn't going to be awkward? Mom looked back at me and said, Don't worry. I'm sure you'll have fun. Thanks, girl. I wasn't really asking if I'd have fun or not, but that's a super consolation prize. I was obviously not dressed appropriately for what we had simply deemed "black church" in my neck of the woods. Teresa spun into the parking lot and emerged in a bright purple dress, and there I was... standing there in a white short-sleeved button up, light khaki pants, and my semi-translucent skin... just like Oh hey. I'm not a klansman. She was having trouble getting her giant purple hat out of the car, so she hollered out, Aw, shit on it-- language I'm confident that she never brings into the house of God. I was quickly ushered into her Cadillac, and we were off to meet the Lord, one way or another.

This is Black Jesus, which can be used interchangeably
with White Jesus. The interesting part of this is that
Black Jesus wears a puka shell necklace, and White Jesus
does not. Even though Black Jesus is light-skinned,
we still like him. #irony

As we entered, I felt like the entire congregation must have greeted me--it was obvious that I was the standout guest. I searched the room and found one familiar face in the back. I don't know what inspired me to say it, but I leaned over to Teresa and said, Oh, look! There's a white woman sitting back there! Not only did I look like a completely insecure racist, but an ignorant racist at that. Teresa brushed it off and responded, Oh, no baby. She's just... 'light skinned.' Her eyebrows rose above her rolled eyes. Got it. So far I had learned two things that I still hold close to my heart: you don't know what it's like to be the minority until you are the minority and we don't like light skinned black girls. But back to the story, it seemed that black church wasn't too different on the surface, but there was something obviously different. I know it sounds crazy, but it seemed like these people genuinely wanted to say hello to each other.
The service began with a string of hymns that we don’t sing at the Baptist church. We’re a very call and respond kind of people. I sing a line; you sing a line.  We sing approximately a quarter of a song, sit down, and pass notes back and forth about how slutty everyone in the youth looks that morning. In this church however, the congregation would add in makeshift lines about how God had transformed their lives. I decided to call upon my mentors at the Baptist church and clap along enthusiastically. I looked around and people were on the ground, crying. I wondered if there was call for an exorcism or if God was throwing people to the ground for shits and giggles. I kept thinking to myself why are all these people crying?
Theresa chimed in with her personal story of finding God, in verse of course, then my biggest nightmare happened. The reverend found me; just a poor whitewashed Caucasian boy sitting somewhere in the middle of the congregation.

Do you love the Lord?!, he screamed.

I bit my lip, scanning around me for hope that maybe, his inquisition was not directed at me.
You, in the white shirt! Do you love the Lord?!
After realizing that I had been passed the metaphorical crown of thorns like a hot potato, I nodded vigorously.

Then say it!
At a volume just a decibel louder than a dog whistle, I mouthed, I love Jesus!
Say it louder!
I smiled extra big, convinced that would make my whisper that much louder, I love Jesus!

He screamed back at me, in the volume that I probably should have vocally embraced Jesus, AMEN!!!

I determined that I had passed the test, but then... it happened. All of a sudden, I felt like I was the ringleader for the Circus of Christ. I was all torn up about Jesus, and I felt something that I had never felt in all of the youth groups and Baptist luncheons. Then, like magic, I felt something... something wet. I reached up and there they were: the tears. Why am I CRYING?
Somehow, in all of the mix and the quiet white judgement, followed soon after by white guilt, I had stumbled upon something I had never found in the walls of a church before: true inspiration from being in the company of Jesus. Even crazier, I had found people that seemed to be there for the reason of being close to God. I walked out of the church, still wiping tears from my eyes, and I noticed that their parking lot had not been redone in years. The mission trips they spoke of were in their community, speaking to the same people they passed on the street daily. No one was going to a Guatemalan beach to bring the Lord to local tourists--what little money placed in the Church of Zion's offering plate was money given to do something greater. It was to actually benefit the people that needed God.
I haven't been back to church since that day because I'm afraid of what might happen if I do. I don't want to jinx church because I went out on a good note, kind of like how Shania Twain ended her career. Instead, I just pray to God pretty regularly. I hold on to that feeling I had at that church, and I remember the people that so graciously welcomed me into their congregation. No one rededicated their lives to the Lord because they understood that everyday was a constant struggle to stay close to Him.
I don't think that religion exists within a church because if you're doing it right, all of your love for God shouldn't be able to fit into a church... that's why everyone was crying--not enough room. Instead, I think that the time you spend in church and the time you spend posting Facebook Bible verses could probably be better spent actually, you know, being nice to people. Even to the light skinned black girls.

How To Do Sex

In my personal experience, I've come to learn that I am apparently one of the least sexual creatures that has ever walked the planet. I don't go up and hit on anyone at bars. I don't talk about my penis, mostly because the concept of genitalia in general makes me laugh. When it comes to sex, I'm just not the person that should ever be consulted for advice, opinions, or general knowledge. To give you a brief background of my anatomical expertise concerning boys and girls, at about seven years old, my dad told me that the reasons that all men wear pants is because their penises grow down to their ankles, thus forcing men into slacks for the rest of their lives. I believed that until I was probably twelve years old.
This knowledge conflicted with my basic childhood belief that both men and women were sporting around penises, which probably explains a lot about my life now... but that's neither here nor there. Apparently, no one ever took me aside to explain what a vagina is, what it looks like, or what its function is. But around fourth grade, all of that began to change. It was obvious that my peers were becoming concerned about me, so they took me aside and told me about... it. Considering that as an adolescent, I became woozy at the thought of sexual intercourse, I only have three distinct times in my life that anyone has talked to me about sex successfully, and because of that, that's pretty much the only sexual knowledge I have in my repertoire.
The first time, the preacher's daughter of my church took me aside at lunch and started telling me about how sex worked. She skipped the basics, assuming that I understood that there were two kinds of sexual organs. She started telling me about the basic details of intercourse. Apparently, as told by Emily, what happens is that people start kissing, and you do that for a while. Then, you stop kissing and take all of your clothes off. Then, the daddy stabs the mommy over and over until someone screams. Then you're done. Being the early feminist that I was, I immediately became concerned because in my mind (since both parties at the time had a penis in my mind) it didn't seem fair that daddy did all the stabbing all the time... then the second question arose... where do they stab each other? I went home and inspected my own body, trying to determine where it was on a body that someone could get stabbed. Eventually, I settled on the idea that all sex, as defined in the tradition sense, involved the anus.
The next day, unsure of my current hypothesis, I decided to consult my teacher, Mrs. Adamson. Like most of my teachers, mentors, and professors, I felt closer to Mrs. Adamson than pretty much everyone else in the class, so it wasn't a big deal for fourth grade Justin to walk up and say, Mrs. Adamson... Dawn... I need you to explain this crime of assault to me that people call sex... or something like that. She approached the situation very carefully, though it was apparent that I had really put her in a position. She began to explain to me how sex actually worked and how it was between a man and a woman when they were truly in love and married. All of a sudden, sex didn't seem so scary. Maybe it could even be a kind exchange.
Luckily, I didn't have to discuss sex again until I was a seventh grader... but right there in the middle of Mrs. Holtzclaw' geometry lesson, Nicole (who had quite the reputation herself of knowing how to do sex) decided to verse me on all of the other things that can be done during sex that didn't get you pregnant. The whole thing made me ill... mouths and all these other organs in wrong places; the whole thing seemed like a really angry person trying to jam a puzzle together. None of the things she was talking about made any sense. If people were just supposed to do sex when they're in love and married and wanting to have a child, then why were all these other methods even relevant? And even as a twenty-two year old, I still sometimes struggle to realize what it is that appeals to people in regard to all the things that Nicole told me about.
Because I'm a distrusting people, I went home and asked my dad about all the things she had told me about, and if memory serves me correctly, he just kind of ignored the whole thing. Not in that "father doesn't want to be apart of your life, get me another beer" kind of way. More in the "I'm just going to let you ride this one out on your own, little buddy" way. Eventually, I just concluded on the fact that since Nicole was already getting around so much as a seventh grader, it probably was best not to take any of her lessons as fact. I liked the idea (and still do) that people just go into a bedroom, close their eyes, have traditional sex, and then it's over. And when it's over, you hug or shake hands or go catch up on the past week's television. Yeah, that's what people do.
Sadly, my introduction to sex was a three part series, and the final installment was as a junior in high school. I had been dating this girl named Ally for about two weeks, and considering that most teenage boys' hormones resulted in hand towels that were stiff as a board, my dad decided it was time for us to have the talk. I vaguely remember the exchange on our back porch, but honestly, I've worked to block out most of it. I do specifically remember that it was at night and we did not have the back porch light on. Essentially, I think that was to keep either one of us from having to look the other one in the eye. The speech went approximately as so:

So, you know a guy has a... goober. (Author's note: I have NO IDEA why our family ever found it permissible to substitute the word penis for "goober," but even as what most people would consider a full blown man, you will still here the word "goober" used on occasion at my house) And girls... well, the don't. Well, a guy takes his, um, and then the girl has her... well, you guys get into a rhythm and sometimes you'll work together, or she'll do the work, or you'll do the work... and then you're done. Do you have any questions?

Negatory. I wanted to say something like "BREAK!" and then run back inside or something, but I just kind of sat there for a while... giggling. It may have been because we were talking about sex, or because it was the most nondescript conversation about sex that I had ever had, or maybe it was just the recurrence of the word "goober" in conversation, but all I could do was laugh.
And as I've gotten older, I suppose I've gotten a better grasp on the concept of sex, why people enjoy some of the less essential parts, and how the whole thing works. My personal sex life is about as active as Mandy Moore's in A Walk to Remember, but that's partially because I don't search for random sexual activities like most lonesome and wayward twenty-somethings. I'm not saying I'm an angel... okay, I am. But in terms of learning anymore intricacies about why and how people do sex, I'm not really interested. Thanks to Emily, Nicole, and that really awkward blackout sesh on the back porch with my dad, I'm pretty sure I have the details of sex nailed down at this point... no pun intended.

Turkey and Dressing (Up in Drag)

Southern Etiquette (which is a magazine that I completely made up for writing purposes) clearly states: "If there's something that you would like to say to someone or a conflict that you would like to resolve, it's best to not address it until that person is out of the room. At that point, you can talk as freely as you want without the person actually hearing it. Eventually, you will have told enough people that you feel like you have an army of people in your corner, obviously proving your validity in feeling the way you do, and then you don't have to talk about it anymore." And I suppose, when it comes to my extended family, there's a lot of quiet time at family gatherings.
In looking at the statistical breakdown of my family, there are thirteen cousins on either side: 4 of us graduated high school, 1 of us went to college, 7 of us have either been pregnant or aided in the gestation process, 5 of us have done jail time, and 1 of us left our baby on the side of the road (hashtag faux pas). And when I say "us" in that exhaustive list of familial accomplishments, I am not included in that "us" after the college stat. I keep tabs on this information in case I'd like to ever kill someone or needed to come out as gay to my family. These facts and figures are my ace in the hole... yes, I stabbed that man fourteen times, but I didn't have a baby out of wedlock! You remember that next time you say you're disappointed in me. I remember my freshman and sophomore years of high school as all the Kirkland kids were heading/dropping out; I did my best to salvage the name--with mine and Casey's work combined, we did what we could.
But with all those numbers, there's some things that are terribly difficult to dodge. Like, if I legitimately killed someone, I think that my crime would override all the out-of-wedlock babies produced, even the ones named after Disney princess characters (i.e. Belle, Jasmine, etc). As for the "gay bomb," if I ever needed to tackle it, I believe that would be one that I could probably maneuver around given the amount of ammunition my family has given me. I mean, the odds would definitely be in my favor, but I would imagine that a meeting with a bomb that size would be very calculated. For instance, I would probably wear a cardigan and some nice jeans... possibly my dark-rimmed glasses. I would bring laminated copies detailing all the things that my generation of family members had done, and I would follow with a finely printed thesis statement containing the heavy news at the very bottom of the page. I would remove all sharp and/or explosive objects, and I would make sure that all hot liquids were out of reach: coffee, boiling water... or gravy, which is why I was so surprised when cousin Matt/Demitrya decided to make his drag debut to our family on Thanksgiving.
And looking back at our family history, this never should have been a giant surprise to anyone. Matt was easily my favorite cousin growing up, taking the number one spot with ease from 1994 all the way to 2007. There was really nothing that he could have told me about himself growing up that would have made him any less in my eyes, but in retrospect, I should have picked up on the tell tale signs that would eventually lead to that plot twist of a Thanksgiving in 2007.
Matt/Demitrya would watch us in the summer when we were younger, probably to make sure we didn't burn the house down (or more accurately because I proved myself unworthy of staying at home because I would repeatedly try and make Casey think I had died by laying the floor and acting unconscious). At times, he would stay with us for an entire week without going home, and it was amazing because it was like having an extra older brother at my disposal. Despite Dad's attempt to involve Matt/Demitrya in other activities like hunting or fishing, our summer activities always returned to watching Spice World at least 25 times or doing an uncomfortable amount of research on Cher. And don't get me wrong, I personally hold strong to the philosophy Every boy, ever girl, spice up your life! but more than anything, I wanted to hang out with him. If he had suggested we go steal a car and go drive off a cliff, I would have emphatically tagged along. After several months of summer research on Cher, we decided that the "piece de resistance" would be seeing her in the last of a string of farewell tours.
If you go back and ask my Dad, who accompanied Matt/Demitrya and I to the concert, his opinion of the affair, he would most likely respond, Cher was sexy as hell, but those women around us sure did have big feet. It took me about three years after the concert to realize that all those women were actually men: men with green tinted hair and giant high heels. Apparently, sans a gay pride parade, there is no larger central location for drag queens than a Cher concert. But with all those subtle nuances, it shouldn't have surprised us when Matt showed up as Demitrya (known to her closest fans as the shortened Demi) for Thanksgiving. Mom had taken me into her bedroom and prepped me on the situation, obviously detecting that one day I would be going into public relations and would probably need to pull out as much charm and fluid communication as possible so that our doublewide didn't explode off the top of Evans Road. So, I waited nervously by the door for his arrival, trying to guess what kind of outfit he would be wearing. Throughout most of high school, Matt was known for fitting into the "Goth" category; for anyone who is not a Generation Y member or an avid fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Goth subset of high school society lent itself to a collection of black clothing, paraphernalia from bands associated with popularized school shootings, and chains.
As the final trimmings were being put on the deviled eggs, Demitrya approached the door in a stunning, yet slightly predictable hybrid of lady's clothing and Goth fashion. A solid play for her first showing. I remember staring at the top, noticing the black wig and subtle (if you can legitimately call any drag make up subtle at a South Knoxville holiday gathering) make up first, then the black cami-style top, which led directly into the black skirt accompanied with fish net stockings. Oh yeah, and there were platform boots; I'm no Anna Wintour, but the outfit definitely made a statement... amateur in comparison to the complex stylings of Demitrya today, but enough to not only drain all the blood from my dad's face only to send even more surging back five minutes later. And the most fantastically awkward part about it was that it was treated with the same social decorum as if someone had farted in the room. And in my world, where I treat everything as if it is a television show... there really couldn't have been a stronger November Sweeps episode that season.
I scoped the immediate location for weapons, and it made me more nervous than if I had closed my eyes and guessed. As my family is a firm believer in second amendment rights, there were at least five guns readily available, as well as all the steak knives, numerous hot liquids for Thanksgiving purposes (namely, the gravy... I kept imagining my dad impulsively grabbing the gravy and just throwing it across the room), and last but not least, an assortment of deer and duck calls on small ropes. My concern for the animal calls was less to do with the call itself and more the durability of the small ropes that could be used for strangling purposes. I was sitting in the middle of the most fabulous game of Clue I had ever seen, and my main suspect was my dad (who bears a striking resemblance to Colonel Mustard). Though we all had taken the advice of the fictional, but still appropriate, Southern Etiquette, it could go down as one of the most awkward Thanksgiving feasts that has ever transpired.
As the years have gone on, Demitrya's talents have become less taboo in the family than they were five years ago. More children have been produced out of wedlock; more people have gone to jail. But like any public relations practitioner, I have my opinion inside the office and outside the office. On that Thanksgiving, all I wanted to do was keep the peace. The last thing I wanted was someone to non-chalantly bring up fish nets, whether it was to do with clothing or the actual art of fishing. However, throughout my college career, I would coerce my friends to go to gay clubs around the area, in hopes that I could spot Demitrya in action... it was like some mystery that I had to solve. I would go to one once a semester looking for him as if he were a rare Pokemon, like a Chancey or a Mew. And like all my pursuits of Pokemon Blue, Green, and Silver, my pursuits came up empty-handed.
Luckily, I've never been compelled to wear women's clothing; actually, considering the Birkenstock Trend Disaster of 2001 when my dad's repeatedly questioned by sexuality based on my desire to fit in and wear the slip on sandal that is probably one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen, I've tried to stay away from any unisexual clothing I can. But, if for any reason I ever did, I appreciate Demitrya taking the inaugural heat on that lone Thanksgiving back when. Luckily, I haven't had to drop any bombs like that yet, but with the cushion that my family has placed under me, the landing is ready in case I ever need to take the fall.

Mean Girls Don't Live in Singlewides

The day that it was announced that I would be valedictorian of my high school graduating class, along with Sarah, I specifically remember Lindsay looking around in astonishment and whispering to the girl next to her But his dad didn't even graduate high school. The secret was announced loudly enough that it seemed to echo across our nearly silent AP English class, and I started watching people turn to me waiting for my reaction. Unsure of what to do, I just kind of sat there... familiar with these kind of statements. I had heard them since I had met Lindsay all the way back in elementary school. Senior year was almost over, and there really wasn't much left to say to anyone in the class: my best friend who transferred in from D.C. wrote in my yearbook, Thank you for making this school bearable and showing me that even in this cesspool of ignorance and inbreeding there is hope of intelligence and kindness. What he didn't understand is that for years on end, I was considered one of the weird sources of ignorance and inbreeding that somehow managed to knife my way in or bought off some of the teachers with some meth we made at home the night before. After all, my dad didn't graduate from high school, and without a high school degree, the only skill you can could lend yourself to is mixing bathroom chemicals together for human consumption. But of course, that would have required my dad to have made meth, or even know where to start. Instead, he just did construction, which seemed a lot safer on the up and up.

Chillin' in the singlewide.

In reality, I had been subjected to Lindsay's snide, yet somehow almost sympathetic, comments for years. When I wasn't throwing up as an elementary school student, I was usually conversing with the teachers. I had some kind of weird connection to adults, and I really liked having conversations with them more than anyone else. In second grade, I was trying desperately to explain to one of the teachers that I was getting ready to move. She asked where I was moving to. No, we're not leaving where I live; we're just changing houses. All of the kids around us seemed to stop; it didn't make sense to them. When my teacher told me that if you don't leave your house, you're not really moving, I knew that I had to explain it all better. No! I am moving. They're taking the house that we have now, the one on wheels, and they're going to roll it into our back yard. Then they're going to bring the new house and put it where the old one was. Then we're going to take our stuff and put it in the new house, then that house will be gone! I was so pleased with myself; I had articulated it perfectly, so there was no reason that they wouldn't accept me. Everyone loved the guy that moved, kind of like how you were guaranteed popularity if you had a cast or got braces. But I was wrong; I immediately became trailer boy, and the one person who would never forget that was Lindsay.

After a while, most people had seemed to forgotten. I attempted to make my way up the ranks of high school, and eventually I found myself in the honors and Advanced Placement classes. In a surprise turn of events, I became a contender for valedictorian. The AP class was comprised mainly of kids from the subdivisions; however, in every class there seemed to be a couple ambassadors of sorts that represented the country side of South Knoxville and the city side. Considering I practically lived in Seymour, I would be the country representative, and Josh Wesley would be the city rep. I'm actually pretty confident Josh lived in a subdivision area, but he was black, so it's only logical to consider him the city representative, right? No one dared draw attention to Josh's race, partly because that kind of language at our high school was asking for a lot of issues we all hoped to keep at bay, and partly because Josh was literally one of the nicest human beings I've ever met in my life. So instead, it made more sense to draw attention to the lesser known prejudice of socio-economic status. While on yearbook staff, my friend Alex told me that I should go and check my GPA with the principal. It seemed really unnecessary, but I knew that the yearbook staff was privy to information the rest of us were not, so I obliged.

There's Wendell. Even with his lack of high school diploma, the
obvious prerequisite for having children, he managed to raise
me without dropping me, beating me, or blowing me up in a meth
lab fire.

After I asked about my GPA, it was noted that one of my AP classes didn't count. After doing the math by hand, I convinced my principal and assistant principal that my GPA that had been sent off to colleges was actually wrong. I would later find out that one of the other girl's contending for valedictorian had her mom call in and demand that AP art not be given the additional credit value. Suddenly, Lindsay's remarks kind of made sense. I'm not saying that Lindsay was the one that requested the class depreciation because most of the girls I was going up against thought with one singular mind; it honestly could have been any of them. But the evidence was clear: having me be valedictorian was akin to having Sarah Palin become our country's president or having Michael Vick represent the ASPCA. There was no room on the graduation stage for such trash, and all Lindsay was guilty of was being a social custodian.

I find it ironic that as I'm writing this, Mean Girls is playing in the background on ABC Family... and not just because there's actual quality programming on ABC Family for once. It's ironic because in retrospect, those kind of people really do exist. On our graduation day, Sarah gave a speech about something... maybe, stars? I couldn't really focus because I was about to give my own speech in front of what seemed like a gajillion people, and I couldn't get past the fact that I looked like a really sketchy looking lamp shade in my graduation gown. After Sarah, I gave my speech to a surprisingly receptive crowd. Lindsay, our salutatorian, would follow. Regardless of what people say or do, I really have no desire to see them fail. Sure, she had said a lot of mean things, but I didn't want to see her go through what happened next. I'll paraphrase:

You know, the next step of our life is going to be more complicated than ever. Decisions aren't just whether you should have Lucky Charms or Cocoa Puffs...

Silence. Come on girl, pull it together.

...Cocoa Puffs... she shuffled her papers. ...and Cocoa Puffs... She was frozen. The girl that had attempted to socially dominate our entire class for years on end had frozen before us; it was my "Regina-gets-hit-by-a-bus-moment," but I couldn't seem to enjoy it. We were all hanging on Cocoa Puffs and years of elitism, and she wasn't giving us any more. After a thirty or forty second Cocoa Puff cliff hanger, she returned and gave what I still believe was an abbreviated version of her speech. We all crossed the stage and eventually threw our hats into the air. Mine landed in the flower arrangement in front of Lindsay and our principal scoffed at her, believing that she was the one that threw up. Afterwards, I quickly picked it up and haven't spoken to Lindsay since.

A lot of my friends are still initially surprised when they come and visit my house because it is in fact, still, a doublewide. Even now, sometimes I try to explain that it doesn't move anymore and if we do in fact want it gone, we'll have to tear it down. I'm not sure what it is that makes people believe that I would live elsewhere, but I've never minded the house I live in or that my dad didn't graduate from high school. Actually, sometimes I miss it because it used to make me feel like I had to overcome an image and work harder than everyone else. As for Lindsay, I imagine that she's somewhere in the world inflicting some kind of hellish elitism over some other trailer kid, and for that kid, I apologize on her behalf. She doesn't mean any harm; her designer clothes are impervious to any kind of sincerity or sympathy and that's simply not her fault. In the end, those kind of things don't matter. I will continue on in search of further education and success, and she will have all the money in the world to buy as many Cocoa Puffs... and Cocoa Puffs... as her heart desires.

Grocery Store Social Hour

Growing up, we had enough to get by, but like most families that lived outside of the subdivisions of South Knoxville, we didn't have a whole lot more than that. It never bothered me growing up because I didn't know any better. We'd make the occasional trip to the movies if we had it extra or maybe a trip to the mall, but I didn't know those things as a regular occurrence until I was older, once Dad stopped working construction and started his own business. In the meantime, our family would fill our Friday nights going to the grocery store or Walmart and mingling with the other families that would frequent the Chapman Highway superstores.
Most nights were pretty basic; Dad would get lost in sporting goods and find some hunting buddy from way back when or just some random guy who seemed to be buying the same box of shotgun shells as he was. Somehow, a conversation about a Remington 12 gauge turned into a two hour conversation, and we weren't sure what time we would get out of Walmart. Momma would get lost in the grocery aisles, and Casey and I would wonder aimlessly around the CDs looking at all the pop artists even though we were only allowed to listen to country for the longest time. The visits were pretty methodic; well, most of them.
I was about fifteen when we walked into the Walmart superstore; I was desperately seeking my way into the popular crowd and was making headway as a freshman, which was quite an accomplishment considering my wardrobe and the thickness of my wire-rimmed glasses. I was riding on a self-deprecating sense of humor and a dashing personality, and all of that had me barely holding on by a thread. Regardless, I was on my way to hanging out with the superior Christians of the high school crowd, and there was nothing that screamed success like hanging out with the elitist Christian crowd. I had met a couple of them from the soccer team I was on; the progress I had made without a pinch of athletic ability was nearly unheard of.
All was going well until that visit. I was never ashamed of my family, but I had heard the kind of conversations my dad would have with the people he met in Walmart. It was essentially like bar talk; nothing was sacred in the aisles of Tide and Nabisco cookies. If there was something to be said, my dad would state it as bluntly as possible, no matter the neighborhood the conversationalist hailed from. So when I saw Elizabeth, a very influential but B-list popular girl, round the corner, I knew that we had to get away as quickly as possible. I made up a crush that I had on Elizabeth so that we could try and avoid her family, but that only fueled by dad's flame. Momma knew the ramifications that could come from such an interaction, but I was too late.
My parents had known Elizabeth's from soccer practice. The discussions there usually revolved around us, or about the team, or who was bringing the Capri Suns for Saturday's game. There was never much concern of any personal details because at that time, they weren't really close enough to disclose that kind of information. It had been a while since soccer season, and Southern white folk like to discuss personal things with people they haven't seen in a while... even if they weren't that close beforehand. I stood there looking at Elizabeth and her family as everyone started to talk. I wasn't sure what was going to come, but I felt in my bones that something terrible was about to happen.
Elizabeth's mom always had something noteworthy going on in her life, and most of the time, it was something absurd. Someone she knew had driven their car into their pool or she witnessed a fight at work and was almost strangled. From the kind of stories she told, it sounded more like she belonged in our neck of the woods instead of the upscale subdivision they lived in. Nothing would top the story she told that day; the story that eventually led to my downfall from the elitist Christians.
When a mishap like this happens, it's hard to blame one individual party. My initial anger stormed toward my dad. He couldn't have turned the candor off for just a second, but eventually, I chocked it up to fate and elitism. It was as if Elizabeth's mom knew that I was gunning for a place in the elitist Christian circle, and as most people know, it's much more difficult to move up in rank than it is to move down. High school was not the place to move upward, and I should have known better. After a little bit of small talk, Elizabeth's mom started,
Well, things have been really difficult lately. I've been having colon problems, and I was actually hospitalized for a couple days. One day I was sitting at the house and then it happened. I felt something weird, and then I started... defecating... out of my mouth. It just backed up, and then I defecated out of my mouth.
There was nothing that could save us. Save her. Save anyone. I looked at my mom, and she gave me these eyes as if she were already apologizing to me. We knew that what come next couldn't be good, so we just waited until my dad responded through broken laughter. I'm sorry, did you just say that you... shit... out your mouth? Mom gently closed her eyes and squeezed my hand as tightly as she could. Elizabeth's mom turned to us, staring blankly as ever, Yes, that's what I said.
As if that wasn't enough, Dad needed clarification, So let me get this straight. You're telling me that you shit... out of your face. Startled, as if Dad had just made some inappropriate joke about cancer or a dead baby, she composed herself and responded, Well, yes. I guess you could put it that way. Dad couldn't stop laughing at everything that had just happened, and if I hadn't had so much shallow hope riding on the situation, I probably would have, too. It's not very often that our Friday nights were so spiced up with fecal stories, so it was an occasion to be had. Of course, Dad didn't think too much of the situation, but I was devastated. I looked at Elizabeth as if it were the last time I would ever see her again, and if I remember correctly, it wasn't long after that I was excommunicated to the other side of the classroom. My chair was gone in class and it was all at the hand of Elizabeth's mommy's potty mouth.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to those Friday nights and remind myself that the people I saw on Friday nights were probably much less important than I ever thought they were. Most of them are married with children now, living just a couple blocks down from the houses they grew up in. When I get lonely in the summers, looking for something to do, I find myself on the Chapman Highway Walmart looking around for another story that could rival some of the golden nuggets that I stumbled upon as a youngster. And in the end, I'm thankful that I never made it in to elitist Christian circle because if I had, I would be a husband, a father, and voting for Mitt Romney, and I'm not ready for any of those things.

A Series of Unfortunate Sleepovers

I've never been good at sleepovers. When all the boys my age were going over to each other's houses on Friday nights playing boy games and talking about girls, I was finishing up my weekly 10 piece buffalo wings from Domino's whilst watching a rerun of Reba on the WB. I had no worry about my life. I loved Reba. I loved hot wings, and I loved the plastic blue blow up chair beside my bed that I would eat them in. However, my parents always thought that I needed to have more of a social life. Sixth graders were supposed to get messy and disgusting. I always used a wet nap after finishing my finger foods. I wasn't normal enough for a boy my age; it was time for a sleepover.
The only truly athletic thing I've ever attempted was being apart of the nationwide soccer rec league, AYSO. That's where I would find my first victim, Matt. He was easily the most athletic guy on our team and was a hit with all of the girls. Eventually, we would become friends and as far as I was concerned... best friends. I was ready to use the title, whether he was or not. The only next step was the sleepover. To my surprise, Matt accepted. I had the whole evening planned out. I wasn't quite sure what happened at these events, but I knew if anyone could pull one together, it was me. I had watched Boy Meets World and Saved by the Bell on TGIF for countless lonely Friday nights. I imagined I would just copy all of the stuff that Cory and Shawn and Zack and Slater would do. Maybe a little rendition of "Barbara Anne" to keep things fresh, but it didn't seem to go that way at all. After shooting some BB guns and watching Nick at Nite all the way until an unbelievable one in the morning, we crashed in the middle of the living room. It all seemed to be pretty stock-sleepover until I woke up at four in the morning. At some point in the night I had rolled a good three feet across the living room and was lying directly on top of Matt. Being the rotund sixth grader I was, I had no idea how he hadn't awoken, but I was literally so close to his face that I could feel his breath on my cheek. What the hell had happened. I quickly rolled back over, placed all my pillows as a barricade between us and attempted to go back to sleep. It was no use. I had broken rule number one of bro code and sleepover etiquette: do not roll over on your bro and wake up face to face with him. I couldn't make eye contact with him the next day; Matt didn't understand, and I swore off all sleepovers as far as I was concerned. God help me if the other sixth graders found out, or even worse, the other guys on the team. This wasn't a risk worth taking twice.
I wouldn't sleep over with another person for six years. I was too terrified of my rolling condition. Finally, the summer of my senior year, I went over to my best friend's house. At eighteen years old, I had never tasted alcohol, let alone been drunk. Upon persuasion, I called my mom and asked if I could stay over for the night for a "sleepover." Years after the first catastrophe, I admitted the Matt scenario to her in a blind rage of guilt, as if I had molested him in the middle of the night. She was shocked to hear my request to stay at someone else's house and after some hesitation, she let me stay. Once I took my first shot of some offbrand of Wild Turkey... inappropriately named "Fighting Cock," I knew that I was in for the long haul. After an intense duet of "Killing Me Softly" and playing some weird abbreviated game of strip poker, everyone decided it was time to sleep. Lying in my somewhat drunken stupor, I laid there and my guilt overtook me. I carefully inched my way down the stairs from my designated room and found Zak cleaning up beer cans in his boxers. I asked if we could sit and talk. I began to cry and asked, "How mad is Jesus going to be mad at me for drinking?" I was devastated. I had sipped the blood of Christ outside of church, except this was in excess and not wine... it was whiskey, which I could only assume was the blood of Judas. After some time, Zak and his girlfriend calmed me down and eventually began "reading my aura" under the influence. For the record, I was blue. Look it up, it will blow your mind.
I didn't want to cry or roll over on anyone else, so I haven't attended a sleepover since. If I have, I've stayed awake until dawn and then went home and slept as soon as I could leave. Even in my first pesudo-sexual encounter, I asked my part-time lover if she would like to go home after the act. In retrospect, it probably seemed a little harsher than I had wanted it to come across, but I don't trust myself mid-sleep. My sleep dangers are just one of the reasons that I use to explain my lack of a successful relationship. I was actually astounded that in my last relationship I was able to sleep double and not end up rolling over smothering my significant other. I guess I would consider myself in sleepover remission.
When sitting with one of my pledges, Dave, during my senior year, he told me that he missed having sleepovers with his high school buddies. I kind of found the idea of having actual planned sleepovers in high school a little awry, but I wasn't going to ask. When I announced that I didn't have sleepovers, he was shocked. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was because I was fearful of a developing habit of rolling over on people, especially considering that he pleaded to me not to fall in love with him when he was drunk once. Rolling over on boys probably wouldn't help with that repressed fear. I sometimes wonder how different I would be now if I had successfully achieved sleepover status as a child. Boys made me nervous and my own social absurdities made me more nervous than that. All I wanted was to be like the other sixth graders; I just wanted to sleep among among the boys and not wake up on top of one of them the next morning.