I Took Your Hair Gel, Bro

Today was hard, guys. I knew it was going to be a Monday--like, Monday was going to come at me like a large white woman yearning for a Furby on Black Friday circa 1998. Admittedly, I wasn't prepared. I wanted to believe that it was going to be okay, but it all came crashing down around noon o'clock. My roommate texted me to let me know that the estimate for his Lexus that I backed into was going to be approximately 2 to 3 million dollars. Fortunately, our insurance is about to run out or doesn't cover white on white damage or is just really terrible, so there was this big question of "am I going to be paying for the 500 dollar deductible that I can't afford, or will I be paying the 2 to 3 million dollar damage that I... still can't afford?" The past weekend was long and this news was not how I wanted to start out my week, so I pulled my signature 23 year old man move: I cried in the bathroom. Twice.
I returned to my desk defeated, pre-reminscing over times where I had money in my bank account when I saw it: this New Yorker article from David Sedaris. He talked about his sister's suicide and the impact it had on his family over the past six months or so. David Sedaris' writing is always funny, but now all of a sudden, the guy I usually look to for laughs was making me reflect on my own life. Maybe I couldn't afford life right now, and maybe I wouldn't be able to pay rent, but it wasn't this. At least everyone was alive--at least I was alive. We all have these issues that come up in our lives--these moments that make us just kind of want to give up, and we selfishly forget what other people may be facing. I don't know what to do in my situation, but at least I have my life and my pseudo-health, and a roof over my head (for now). But most of all, thank God I have my hair gel. It's not something that all of us can say.
Tragedies like death and loss of hair gel can take a while to recover from, so I've kept this story concealed for a while, close to my heart, where the worst of tragedies should remain. Upon moving to DC, or "The District," I know that I tried my best to just be friends with everyone. I didn't know anyone, and I couldn't afford to make an enemy. So essentially, if I got invited to a party I went. There was too much at stake to lose. So one night, my roommates and I went over to some kind of theme party. Ultimately, it was a whole bunch of young professionals trying to encompass the ideal of what it means to be a young professionals. In reality, we all just really like cheap wine, and we didn't know what to do at a social gathering without playing a drinking game. After a little while, we had given up on the yo-pro lifestyle and we were all just back to junior year of college, slapping cups off table and drinking wine out of the bottle (okay, I was drinking wine out of the bottle. so what. who cares).
The night was growing sillier and sillier, and suddenly I found myself in the middle of gossip: one of my favorite things to find myself in the middle of. Our party's host had arguably drank way more than she should have, and the guy who lived next door had as well. They had disappeared into the night (or his apartment, whatever), and a small section of the party was just abuzz about it. His roommate, a spritely young fellow with particularly manicured hair, seemed most concerned, "I know I should step in and say something, but I don't want to be a cockblock." Cockblock: the bro-iest of bro terms. As a Brother of a fraternity for three years in college, I was no stranger to the bro terms, nor was I a stranger to being the guy who inevitably was the "cockblock" for the greater good. I immediately volunteered because I care about women's rights and walking in on other people having sexy time is particularly hilarious.
We formulated a plan: I would go use the bathroom because the one in the partypartment was taken. Flawless. I knew it wouldn't take much work to stop the activity because they hadn't been in there for very long. There was no way they were in mid-coitus yet, and even if they were, I would just do what my dad did when two of our dogs got "caught up" while reproducing: pour warm water on them until it loosened up. And yes, dogs DO get "caught up" sometimes. It's a thing: watch here. Anyway, they were just making out on the couch, so I pulled the classic Justin move and said, "Oh gosh, I'm sorry. I'm so embarrassed. I'm going to go to the bathroom!" I stepped into the bathroom and gave them the appropriate amount of time to separate. In that thirty seconds, I got bored. I was wearing a big black hoodie that night (#Justice4Trayvon), and because I was such a good citizen, I felt like I deserved a prize. I decided to heist some hair gel that I saw on the counter... Garnier Fructis to be exact. Nothing too fancy--your standard mid-shelf styling product, apparently designed for surfers, though there's no legitimate waves anywhere near Washington D.C. I didn't think what I had done was a big deal, and yes, I bragged about it a little because, well, wine. But I was wrong. Just like that, I had spat on the alter of bro culture. I had stolen the hair gel, the paste if you will, and in the process... stolen a piece of the same spritely bro who I originally was helping out.
A couple of days went by before news had hit. But, as we all know, you can't thieve hair gel/paste without it eventually bubbling to the surface. The next week, the party's host revealed to me that she had tattled: bro knows. And bro was pissed. I wasn't sure when I would see him again, so I assumed the fire would eventually die. Sometimes, I forget when someone screws me over like ten minutes after it happened, but I was so wrong. A couple weeks later, he deleted me from Facebook, and when he decided to have a birthday bash, he invited all of my friends except for me. Nothing felt okay anymore, and I had never been purposefully not invited to a party. People loved having me at parties, and it's not like I stole a television or anything. I mean, if it would fit in my hoodie pocket, maybe, but that's an absurd thought. A television would obviously not fit in my hoodie pocket. Regardless, I found no legitimate reason to not go to the party, so... I invited myself. I'm from the South though, and if I learned anything about etiquette, you never go to a party without a gift. A couple hours before the rager/soiree, I decided to go to CVS and buy some, you guessed it, Garnier Fructis. I wanted to use the mid-grade paste to patch up the split ends of what was once a respectable acquaintanceship. I wanted to be loved again.
Once we got to the party, I noticed that he avoided me. I heard through the grapevine he never wanted to see my face again, which... I repeat, is over a canister of hair gel. But I've always had naturally tame, luscious hair, so maybe I'm just really underselling the importance of hair care products. Finally, I had him cornered. The only thing he could hit me with was his fists, a bag of Goldfish, and a half empty bowl of stale Tostitos (I knew they were stale because I singlehandedly ate the rest of the chips in the bowl). I nervously approached him and said, "Hey, so, I know that you know that I know that you know about me taking your hair gel. I had a lot of wine, and that was a really bad mistake, soooo... I brought you this." I brought the hair gel around from my back like a proud second grader presenting some macaroni art to his mother. He said, "Oh cool," took the hair gel, tossed it on the table, and walked away. Not cool, bro. Not cool. Throughout the rest of the night, I drank Milwaukee's Best from a keg, ate stale chips, and called it a day. I had lost the social struggle, and when I lose, I stress eat.
Unfortunately, I never salvaged what we kind of once had, you know, when we were at parties with mutual friends. Sometimes my friends bring it up to me, and I get really defensive about it and talk about how it wasn't even that great. Sometimes his friends bring it up to him, and apparently he reference how I didn't even get the right brand to repay him with. As my boss sometimes tells me, the devil's in the details. Damn it. But in the end, these moments are learning moments: the losing of a sibling means that you should appreciate your family and show them love every single day without a pause. The hitting the car... pay attention more often, particularly at the end of your driveway. The stealing of the hair gel? Be conscious of your decisions whether you're tipsy or sober.

As for having your hair gel stolen? I guess that means you need to hide your shit, bro.

Are You There, Judy? It's Me, Justin

In most of my undergrad classes, I always prided myself on being the most prepared, or at least the one with the best ability to come up with things off the top of my head. In most of my classes, I made A's, so within my department, professors had come to expect a lot out of me. So, it really makes no sense why out of all of the classes that I decided to take within the English major that it was Children's Literature that I apparently decided to throw the towel, or the novel, in on. The class was unlike most in my major because most of my classes revolved around having to fight for a chance to speak--English majors, regardless of what may happen to use after graduation--like to believe that we are of the elite. We speak in metaphors and approach everything from a feminist of Freudian perspective. The author never means what he or she says, and there's always something more that needs to be evaluated. The job of a real English major is to challenge everything that is being said until the last minute of class, usually with a sexual connotation.
This class was different though; we shared the room with Child Development majors, people who would one day wade the depths of vomit (from kids like me), tears, and feces to teach the small children of the world what they need to progress into the future. But when you put us in class, things start to become messy. On the first day, we wanted to take Charlotte's Web and dissect it for its literary value and characterization and plot progression, while the other group wanted to use it as a segue to discuss the anatomy of a spider. We looked around at each other with disgusted looks, eye questioning each other with some pompous, philosophical question like, But what does the spider mean? It was at that point that I decided that I wasn't going to be able to take the class seriously, and I began to spiral through three major phases: the elitist, the absurdist, and the ignorant.
After Charlotte's Web, we jumped into The Giver, a book I read for the first time in fifth grade. Looking back, even though I was in the Talented and Gifted program, I wasn't talented or gifted enough to understand that book, nor the heavy themes that are within it... actually, I'm still probably not talented or gifted enough for it. But as we began discussion, our professor asked what we thought about the end when one Child Development major said, (spoiler alert), Well, I think he and his brother got on a sled and then they rode down to that house with the lights on and they adopted them and then they celebrated Christmas! And being the optimist that I am, I responded, Well, I'm pretty sure they died. Those lights were the end of their lives. They couldn't live in the world they were in, but they were capable of living in any other world either. You could hear a pin drop. The entire room fell silent.
The girl rebuked, Well, at least they went to Heaven. And being the Christian I am, I responded, No, they didn't. There was no Heaven. There was no afterlife. There was no God. They just died. And that's it. At this point, the professor was even looking at me as if I was some kind of ridiculously cold-hearted human. No one really had anything to say, but then through broken words, she asked one final question: Are you an Atheist? I didn't respond because I felt like maybe I had gone a little too far--I had turned a young adult novel into some kind of institution that puts all Christianity into question, even though I didn't do any of it seriously. I would expect if you checked any of those now-teacher's syllabi, The Giver probably did not make the cut.
I was upset with myself for what I had done--some kind of faux-Atheist persona had come out, beaten the Christian majority of myself to death, and released a very cynical view of what that red sled may or may not have meant. I ruined a book for people, and as a half-lit major, that was a giant no-no. I had to win them back because unlike the other English majors, I didn't look down at these people with disgust or contempt. I just looked at them as people that I could mess around with. So, I spent a good chunk of time figuring out what I could do to get them back on my side, and the day that our professor announced a special guest, I knew exactly how I could do it. As we were leaving class, I pulled some of the Child Development majors aside as they were wondering who the special guest is, and I said:

It's Judy Blume.

Lie.

I actually know her. I met her a while back.

Bigger lie.

My mom actually did some work for her at one point, so she's coming in to our class as a favor.

Biggest lie.

I couldn't stop myself because with every word I said, they got more and more excited. This was the woman who taught us that it's okay to have your period and talk to God about it. She was perfect--I, however, was not. I actually got the idea from Chelsea Handler, who once told her classmates that she knew Goldie Hawn and had worked with her at one point. But the difference is, Chelsea Handler was like... seven at the time. I was 19. I had no way of getting out of this, but I also had no way of producing Judy Blume. So, I pretty quickly came to terms with the fact that Judy Blume was definitely not going to show up, and I just hoped that everyone would forget.
But they didn't. They didn't forget at all. In fact, our class size doubled from the time I told the... not truth... to the time that Judy was supposed to show. Once I saw the class size, I took my professor aside and said, So, I may or may not have told the class that the special guest was Judy Blume. I also may or may not have told me that I knew Judy Blume, personally. The look she gave me will be one that remains engrained in my mind forever. She simply looked back at me and said, Do you actually know Judy Blume? I quickly responded, No. She looked like she was 50% confused, 40% disgusted, and 10% impressed, and she said, I'll handle it. She went in front of the class and announced,  I know you guys were expecting Judy Blume today, but she was unable to make it. She wanted to me to send her apologies, and maybe in the future, she could stop by. Why my professor came to my rescue, I'll never know, but now there was a class full of people who had been disappointed in Judy, and that wasn't right.

Correspondence between Ms. Blume and myself.

I didn't mean to do that Judy... I didn't mean to do that to anyone. So, naturally, I emailed her and came clean. I apologized for what I had done, without her having any knowledge of it, and explained that maybe it was the influence of Superfudge or Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? that championed such a lie into reality. I needed to confess though because it's a staple of us Christians, especially us Southern Christians, to be up front and tell people the bad things that we did in some desperate attempt to become clean again. To my surprise, Judy emailed me back. She's a sprite woman to be her age and apparently still very involved in the literary world, if you were curious. And in the end, she phrased the email in a way that I could pretty much take it into class and back up mine and Professor Coning's story about her absence. In short, Judy is a hoss, and I think that she saw that my absolute, boldface lie was told with good intentions. I won the other side of the class back, and for insurance, I used my final presentation to show how you can use literature to teach about diversity within the classroom.
But in the end, the lessons I learned in Children's Lit are probably lessons that I could have learned in elementary school if I hadn't been talking so much. Don't disrespect people because it might make them upset and call you and Atheist. Don't tell people lies, especially about celebrities or about events that are obviously not going to happen. But most of all, when you tell those lies, telling the truth to the right people might actually help perpetuate your lie in a different direction so that you don't get blamed for it nearly as much as you thought you would when you told it. Judy Blume, thank you for never giving up on teaching me things. Superfudge still is, and always will be, a treasure on my book shelf.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Cat Toy

Yesterday, when I was sitting in class, two girls were up in front of the class giving a presentation. Meanwhile, I was on Facebook, Twitter, my email, my school email, and by chance... the same website that the girls presenting were on in front of class. All of a sudden, the girl's computer died and she was stranded. The military guy sitting next to me looked over and saw the similar website and volunteered me, or rather my computer, to be the proxy in the middle of their crisis. Immediately, I started minimizing tabs, but not so many that it would uncover the up close shot of Jennifer Lawrence that is my wallpaper. Right as the girl got to my computer, I had an unreasonable number of windows minimized, and then it hit me. Dear God. What if they get on Google?
These people weren't my roommates or a best friend... this was a giant class of people looking at my computer screen, which by this time, was reflected on a giant projection screen. And of course, they didn't just need it for that website--they needed it for two or three websites. So, they opened up tab after tab revealing my most visited pages, which happened to be much less revealing than I had anticipated. But it wasn't the most visited pages that I was worried about... it was what happened when you type that first letter into the search bar. There were safe letters and... well... not safe letters. And I sat there going through the alphabet in my mind, saying a silent prayer that they didn't need the letters G or O or P or L or F or K or N or Y or S or T in particular. What if they found my Neopets account, or the one time I searched "How to Make Meth?" There were too many Google searches I worried about, and not a damn thing I could do about it. My life was on display and the only thing worse than typing one of those letters was the sinking feeling in my stomach that those letters might get pressed.

I'm sorry, Skeeter. I'm just... sorry.

And it reminded me that I've always been that way... the guilty one. That was my computer, and it didn't matter what came up... But the embarrassment of what happens if people find out my personal details is something that has always haunted. And one of the first occurrences of it happened when I was 11 years old.
As an 11 year old, I was pretty much pure of heart. I attended church every week, and it was actually my preacher that gave me my cat, Skeeter. Middle school was rough, so Skeeter was my best friend. We would hang out together all the time and do cool stuff like watch television and walk around the house. Skeeter's favorite toy was a small mouse that cost about 1.99 from Wal-Mart. The way it worked is that you would pull out the toy mouse's tail and it would vibrate around the room, and Skeeter would chase after it. One day, Skeeter and I were doing our thing, hanging out in my room, and tossing the vibrating mouse. He would chase after it and then carry it back to me, like a dog. I'd pull it's tail again, and we'd repeat the cycle.
But on this day, everything changed. I pulled the mouse's tail out, but because of my fantastic coordination, I dropped it. In my lap. And all of a sudden, I felt something. I started to pick up the mouse, but then, well, you know... I just kind of left it there. The mouse stopped vibrating, and I stared down at my lap, then I looked at Skeeter. He didn't need to be there for this--actually, I'm pretty sure that I didn't need to be there either. Skeeter waited there in front of me to throw it again, but I wasn't sure what to do because I wasn't really sure what was going on either. I picked Skeeter up and put him out of my room because even at a young age, I really wasn't feeling the whole voyeurism thing. I sat back down in the butterfly chair in my room (because we all had butterfly chairs... don't lie) and held the mouse in my hand. As an 11 year old, I think that was my first insight as to what it might be like to do cocaine, or heroin maybe.
I went and listened at the door to make sure everyone, including Skeeter, was away from the premises. With no one in ear shot, I pulled the mouse's tail again and "accidentally" dropped it again in my lap. And this is the point in the story where I move on to more pertinent things...
So, two weeks later, no one in the house knew where Skeeter's favorite toy had gone. We had searched and searched, and when they asked if I had seen it, I remember becoming really defensive, Why would I have seen his stupid toy? I don't know where it's at. It's no where that I could find it. My skills and persuasion and lying had obviously not began to fully develop at this point, so I might have well said, Hey guys, go check in the pocket in my butterfly chair--it's there. Promise. But other than that, I kept my mouth shut. We all have our secrets, mine just happened to vibrate in ten second intervals at the pull of a tail. But even with all the secrecy and, um, other stuff, there was this sinking feeling that what I was doing was wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Nothing was making sense anymore because I had been introduced to this new, shaky world of happiness and confusion. But with all the positives, the negatives seemed to always outweigh the positive. I couldn't look at Skeeter because I took something that he thought was innocent and made it into... whatever I made it into. So after the longest time, I broke.

I don't think the brand name is a coincidence.

One night as I was going to bed, I called my mom into my room. She turned the light on, and I sat up in bed--already crying, because that's what I do--and she asked me what was wrong. I broke into confession mode: Skeeter can't play with that cat toy anymore. I did something to it, or with it. I can't let Skeeter play with it anymore. My mom wasn't quite sure what to say because from the way it seemed, I was just really irrationally upset about this cat toy. I continued. Mom, I took the cat toy, and I put it on my lap. And then I kept putting it there, and then "something" happened. And then my mom pressed her lips together--at the time, I thought she was going to kill me in the same way that I imagined God was going to. Looking back, I'm pretty sure she was trying not to laugh. And God's mad at me too because I'm pretty sure this is a sin. I shouldn't be doing this. I know I shouldn't, but I can't stop, momma. And then I burst into the dramatic tears, and she hugged me.
After I calmed down, she asked for a little more of a thorough explanation of what was going on with the cat toy, and then she calmly tried to explain that all little boys eventually did what I did--albeit not with a cat toy, but that's neither here nor there. I wasn't quite sure how you happened upon the same effect without a cat toy, but that's not what concerned me at the moment; I was more concerned about my eternal damnation via cat toy. My mom had to explain that God doesn't send 11 year olds to Hell for assaulting their torsos, and even after the fact, it took months for me to be okay with it all. My mom ended our conversation with, Just be careful and don't bruise yourself, which is advice that I hold near to my heart to this day. I never gave Skeeter back the cat toy, mostly because that just seemed like a really weird thing to do. I threw it away soon after the conversation I had with momma.
So zoom forward. The presentation ended yesterday and no critical letter was pressed. A sense of relief flooded my body, but a small part of me still felt guilty that there could ever be anything on my computer that I would restrict the world from seeing. But when I think back to the conversations I had with my mom about the numerous acts I thought would send me to Hell over the years, I think we both came to the conclusion that sometimes secrets are best kept secrets. And with that revelation, I closed my computer and left class.

Questionable Parenting

I've thought about what my children will be like in the future, and I anticipate... well... that they will be little assholes. And I love it. I've imagined that I will train them like little animals to do things and say things that will make them irresistible to the public. I'll pull them out at parties and make them tell jokes to guests before ushering them back to their room to stay until I need them again. At least they'll know that they have a purpose, which I think is important to children. I can't begin to explain how important those first years of life are, especially now that I'm older because the things that my parents told and did to me really helped shape me into the driven, anxious, neurotic person that I am today. Actually, I think my parents did a lot of stuff just for entertainment sake, and now I'm hands down one of the most complex, potentially screwed up people that I know.
That's not to say they didn't love me though--I could be one of those kids who didn't get hugged as a child, and let's be honest, that's the not fun kind of screwed up. I'm not afraid of affectionate touch or base-level commitment. I'm just generally afraid of any kind of sexual interaction, the concept of aging, and a general distrust of doing favors for other people. Other than that, I'm pretty solid on the up and up, which considering what kind of money my friends are going to make for future therapists, I consider that a success. But that doesn't change the fact that my parents lied to me: actually, my parents lied to me a lot... and Wendell and Kathy, if you're reading this, I want you to know I know. I also want you to know that I know you know I know. This isn't for us: this is so everyone else knows.
I'm sure it all started with the best of intentions, as most habits do. When my mamaw died when I was six, I was terrified of death and the prospect of people whom I loved meeting their maker. I also really excelled at English as a child, not so much math. So when my mom's birthday came around, she told me that she was 32. And then the next year, she told me that she was 32 again. She continued to tell me she was 32 until I was eleven years old; eventually, I put the pieces together and come to realize that I had ultimately been lied to over and over. My mom instantly went from being 32 to 38, and though I guess I understood the sentiment behind it, all of a sudden, I had missed out on six years of my mom's life. Kathy had been steadily aging after all, and it was devastating because I wasn't really there for any of it. I was living all "my mom is consistently 32," when in actuality, she was getting older and older just like me.
But most of my mom's lies were to protect me, and in the grand scheme of things, I guess that makes sense. Mothers are supposed to do that, especially with their sons. Fathers, on the other hand, I have no idea what the hell they're supposed to be doing. No lie that my dad ever told me was anything but some kind of weird thing that he had made up in his head to terrify me. From the time I was little, he would pick up animals that he had killed and told me they had come back to life, and if the animal was small enough, he'd pick the entire thing up and come after me with it. And in all fairness, it's not like no one got enjoyment out of it--he loved it. But then there's me, thinking that all of these animals were just chilling out underneath my bed gunning for me in the middle of the night. That's why I started trying to make friends with all the animals, as written about in: Wendell Shot All My Friends.
As scarring as all the lies may have been, I think the problem was that my parents never teamed up to discuss what lies they were telling me. My dad sat me down one day as just a wee little child and explained to me about what puberty was. He told me that eventually, my penis would begin to grow and it would grow all the way down to my ankle; that's the reason that all men wear pants. Being the cunning child I was, I asked him about the men I had seen wearing shorts before, and he told me, "That's when you have to wrap it around your leg, and it hurts. A lot." And his logic had me for a while. I would go and check my penis every day to make sure the process hadn't started. I liked shorts. I didn't want to give them up. But a couple months later, my mom told me that if I ever had sex before I was forty, my penis would actually fall off. Again, I think she did that to scare me/protect me, but what she didn't realize is that she had given me a solution--not a threat. All I had to do was figure out what sex was, do it once, then boom: I could wear shorts all the time.
Eventually, I found out that both of my parents were lying: sex didn't make it fall off and as much as my guy friends like to believe that their... stuff... may be down to their ankle, I haven't met anyone who can prove such a claim. The lies continued for most of my childhood, and I began to be able to distinguish what the truth was, what things my parents would say just to protect me, and what my dad just wanted me to believe so that he could be entertained. But the one thing I never really got the hang of is the idea of lying by omission. One day when I was visiting from college, my mom was walking out the door, and I asked her where she was going. She said, "Oh, just down to the gas station. Be right back." I chased her out the door and said, "I'll go with you! I'll grab my keys." She responded, "Don't worry about it! I'll be right back." It didn't make sense because my mom hates being alone as much as I do, so something wasn't adding up. After a little more banter, I forced myself into the situation, and we were heading down the road.
My mom told me to turn behind this sketchy bar, and I said, "This isn't the gas station." She said, "Yeah, I know. I didn't want to tell you. We're picking up your dad's moonshine." Sweet. Illegal alcohol transactions are my favorite. So I pulled into this gravel driveway leading to this yellow painted cinderblock wall with a very shady looking back porch. A woman came out of the back with cutoff jean shorts and not a single tooth in her head. She said, "Pahp ya trunk," and placed a cardboard box into the back. She came up to my window and said, "Ya daddy's already paid," and smiled a toothless grin that closed her eyes. At this point, I felt like all decorum was out the window, so I turned to my mom and said, "Why the hell did you not tell me we were coming to pick up moonshine? I feel like that's something you tell someone before I pull into Popcorn Sutton's house." She said, "That's why I was trying to get out of there by myself. Some things are just better left unsaid, Justin."
And I guess she's right. The older I've gotten, I've come to terms with the fact that some things are better left unsaid, and sure... my parents did some weird stuff to me and Casey as kids. The lies were absolutely absurd sometimes, but in the end, I think they were trying to protect us from a lot of the potential negatives of life... kind of like when we asked why our neighbors had named their German Shepherds Hydro and Codone and my dad said, "Oh that's a seventies band." I guess that we got away from childhood pretty clean and relatively unharmed, especially in comparison to some of our other peers. And you know, I'm not going to act like I'm not excited about doing the same things to my kids.

Lies on Lies on Lies

I have always prided myself on being an excellent liar; it's something that I worked on for years and years, and some would even say that it came innately. To an extent, I feel like I owe it to genealogy or maybe even my trusting blue eyes. People love to believe what I say because I guess I just appear to be someone that you can trust. It started pretty early on, and the first lie I can remember is when I almost killed my brother via glass light cover. We were sitting in our joint bedroom (in my defense, the bedroom that he kicked me out of when we were nine because he felt like he deserved his own room... I'm not bitter) playing the "throw the Play-Doh and make it hit the ceiling" game. Eventually, my obvious lack of athletic ability reared its ugly head and I smashed a giant wad of purple Play-Doh into the glass light cover. Thanks to my cat-like reflexes, I dodged the shards of glass as they rained down from above, but Casey wasn't so lucky. I'm still reminded of my indiscretions every time I see the vertical scar on his right shoulder. When my parents first stormed the room, I wanted nothing more than to tell them the truth, but like most proclamations I tried to make as a six year old, no one listened... even after the excitement was over. So in my six year old mind, I crafted a genius story: Casey threw the Play-Doh up and it hit the ceiling beside the light cover, and it must have shaken the roof enough that it knocked the light cover down... why no one ever questioned that story is still beyond me, but it wasn't until about 8 years later that the truth came out, and as Ashley Judd taught us, you can't be tried for the same crime twice.
I lied my way through most of my public school career, creating all of these elaborate yarns that I would convince people were actual [events, people, etc] in my life. I would make sure that they were interesting enough that people would listen to them, but realistic enough that people wouldn't think I was making them up. For the most part, people loved everything I had to say, and that's all that mattered. Yes, of course I have a horse. I actually have three. They live on a farm about 20 miles away, and my family goes and rides them on the weekends. Did I mention that my dad knows how to lasso? No. He can't show you. All of the lies made sense in my mind, and at times, I think I may have believed them all myself. I think that could actually be a psychological disorder, but I'm not going to take the time to look it up. I'm pretty sure I have a laundry list of other psychological disorders much more relevant to my life.
The older I got, my ability to lie became less focused on myself and more on the common good of others. My first official night as a resident assistant, two other RAs invited me to go out into the college woods with them. They had a six pack of Red Stripe, and it seemed like the most rebellious thing I could have ever done in my life. I mean, I was just a young, impressionable 19 year old, lured by the temptation of pseudo-import beer. Sadly, I was confined to the walls of my dorm because it was my "duty night." I watched them lurk into the woods with a satchel full of beer. Looking back on it, I don't know what was so charming about the situation. Like most beers, I didn't care so much to drink the Red Stripe or even be in the woods. I used a string of lies between the ages of 10-16 to avoid staying out of the woods as much as I could. I just wanted to be included in the scandalous activity of drinking two beers in the woods.
About two hours later, I got a phone call from Ellison. It was all Blair Witch Style; he was breathing heavily through the phone: Justin, we're caught. We're going to get caught. I had no idea what was going on, partly because it had the making of a cult classic that I still don't understand, partly because I had just woken up. We're trying to get back to Copeland. The dogs are coming. I have to go. Click. That was it. I sprung out of bed, contemplating what my next move would be. Eventually they escaped the dogs and made it back, sans satchel and beer. They immediately began to panic because John had left his ID in the bag. "Lie Justin" wiped the sleep from his eyes and focused up. My ultimate plan was genius: Ellison was to go back to Gamble, and John back to his room. Once the bag was found, the story was that John had left his door unlocked and bag by the door. Freshmen had broken in and stole the bag, which contained objects that we would later dispose of. Yes, John's ID was in the bag, but when he woke up, the bag was missing. Simple.
They decided instead to tell the truth, and in a surprising turn of events, Maryville PD and campus police let the entire situation go. John and Ellison went to Waffle House to celebrate their near brush with a county misdemeanor, and I just... went back to sleep. Soon after, I began to see that my desire to lie had waned. I didn't seem to be gaining much from a life of compulsive lying, no matter how airtight the lies were.
And all that leads me to now. Looking back on the past 10 months of 2012, I think this might have been my most truthful year to date... kind of. It's easy to tell the truth when you're leaving a place because you don't have to deal with the repercussions of what may happen if you stuck around. So, as I left Maryville, I came clean about a giant heap of information that I had kept quiet about for months or even years. A good deal of those things can be found within this blog. The issue that makes me question the validity of this year is "lying by omission." A decent portion of my life has consisted of lies by omission because... well, I'm a sneaky kid. Namely, I think of all the times that I skipped class in high school and just kind of drove places because I was able to check myself out when I was "sick." I think about the duty night my junior year of college that I just kind of blew off so I could go get the new Taylor Swift CD. But the lies that bother me most are the quiet lies that I've kept to myself to protect other people. As I sit in my ethics class, I find that public relations is a hard place to find a definite set of morals because you wouldn't tell a company's secrets if there's no absolute reason that you have to... but you have to wonder, what exactly would happen if you just told everything about your life without any regard for who it may affect or what repercussions may follow.
The exemptions we make for ourselves are interesting. I can't remember the last blatant lie I told, but I can't count how many lies by omission I've told. I mean, I have binders full of them. The question is: can you really say that it's a lie if you're the only one who knows it's not true?

In Regard to Bullshit

As I was leaving work today after my serving test, I was absolutely exhausted. Jumping from one job then making it to the next one can be quite trying. I spent the morning working on some last minute PR work for the first job, then I had to pass the final serving test for the restaurant I work at so I can legitimately begin serving. I apparently passed about halfway through with my only critiques being: 1) Be more confident when you approach the table, and 2) When you don't know the answer to a question, don't try to bullshit people. Personality will only take you so far. Psh. Personality runs the world.
Just in case that wasn't a proven fact, as I was walking back to my car completely relieved that the day was over, there was a small man with an electronic notepad in his hand. I saw him walking around my car when it hit me. I didn't pay my meter. I ran in my serving uniform up to my car and announced, I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! The officer, completely unamused turned around and said, I'm here, too. I knew that I had to do one of two things... convince this man that I had never done anything wrong in my life or talk to him so much that getting away was more desirable than actually giving me this ticket. On impulse, I channeled every bone of bullshitting skills in my body and began, Listen, you look like a nice man. You have kind eyes. You "can" do this, but you don't want to do this. He looked at me and said, You didn't pay for the fare, I have to give you a ticket. I responded, But you don't. If you let me get in my car, I will pay every meter I ever park at. Maybe even extra! We can all forget about this.
He looked me up and down and said, Get in your car. At that point, you don't say thank you or God bless you; you just get in your car and thank the deities of sarcasm that you somehow managed to get out of a fifty dollar ticket. And on my way home, I realized that even though most would say that I'm personable and intelligent, the majority of my life I've ridden on having strikingly blue eyes, an infectious smile, and the ability to tell people things that they want to hear. I have navigated through life on one slippery slope of bullshit, and for that, I will be forever thankful.
That's not to say that I'm not sincere; I'm usually always sincere to some extent... like, I fully intend to pay every meter that I park at, not to appease the parking gods, but rather because that's a nice civic thing to do. However, when the cards are all out on the table, and I need to put on my poker face, it's kind of a no holds barred situation, which is what happened to me at the end of my sophomore year when I inadvertently came out to a dorm party in college. I had been away at my fraternity initiation the weekend I came back and was informed about how one of my fellow RAs had gotten wasted at a campus party and apparently announced that I was a homosexual. Sweet.
So when I came back to campus, I naturally confronted her about the issue because that's not something you go an announce at a party. In comparison to some of my other adverse reactions, specifically the ones paired with some bottle shelf tequila, I like to imagine that my distaste for her announcement was quite mild. However, the story about my addressing of the issue quickly escalated from me being angry, to me being angry and threatening her, to the eventual resting place of "Justin got over me in my bed, threatened my life, and yelled at me." Most people would akin my normal demeanor to that of a bear, or possibly a labrador retriever. Never had I been referred to as an "attacker" or "defendant," so it was all pretty new territory to have an order of protection placed upon me.
As I met the officer in the parking lot of the Chapman Highway Wal-Mart to get my "papers," he told that if I wanted to, I should definitely try and fight it. I could feel his hopeful vibes coming my way; if accurately executed, I could bullshit my way back into the light of justice. It would have to take some finesse, but if I could pull it off it would easily go down as my best performance in history. After considering the several angles I could use, I decided one completely stereotypical, but beneficial ideology: you can be gay, or you can be Chris Brown, but you can't be both. My plan for the morning of the trial was to do the opposite of everything I had been prepped to do my entire life. It was time to channel every gay bone in my body, and when I was called in front of the judge, I needed to work that courtroom like a runway, and it better be fabulous.
That morning, I wore my dark rimmed glasses and my subtle, yet plaid, pants. I put as much product in my hair as the follicles would allow and found the tie with the most feminine pattern I could on it. Everything had to match, but it all had to say, Hey guys, the reason this matches so well is because I'm a stereotypical gay man, which is ironic. I had spent years perfecting the kind of mannerisms and clothing that would convince someone that I was not gay. I hadn't made any clear cut decision about who or what I wanted to be, but I was sure that up until that day, if there was one thing I never wanted anyone to think I was (joking or not) it was gay. And that's a travesty, the idea that anyone would spend their life hiding from something because they've been convinced that the world hated them.

The day I walked into the courtroom, I was obviously nervous, but I had spent hours upon hours rehearsing what I wanted to say. I mean, for God's sake, I wanted to run for office one day... I already had Rebecca's ousting to deal with as well as all the deer heads back on the walls at home, the last thing I needed on my political platform was a one-time order of protection. It wasn't worth explaining at the Democratic National Convention, so it had to be extinguished now. I walked up to give my testimony, which is apparently not very conventional in an order of protection hearing as one or both parties usually lacks the ability to speak coherent English, and answered every question asked with grace and poise. For all intensive purposes, I was essentially a contestant in the Miss American competition. I decided to defend myself, partly because that's what an A class actor would do in a big budget Hollywood movie... but mostly because my family had absolutely no money. My closing argument was I don't think we should worry about whether I'm going to hurt this girl; I think we should be worried about this girl hurting herself. Beautiful finish, and the judge and what people were randomly strewn across the courtroom had nothing to do but sympathize with this eloquently-spoken, outstandingly-matched homosexual boy who just ended up getting outed at a vulnerable time in his life. The charge was eventually dropped, and my reputation slowly returned to the sparkling clean image it had always been.
But if I learned anything from the situation, it's that bullshit, if properly utilized, is the strongest drug of all. We're talking Schedule 1 kind of addicting.
And essentially, I owe a great deal of my life to bullshit because as I've learned in recent months, hard work and dedication... even intelligence... just puts you in a category or somewhat upstanding people. I've sent out 15 resumes and only heard back from one job, and that was to tell me that my experience wasn't relevant enough for the position. I was only able to score one PR job, and that's for 10 hours a week. The whole thing is a little devastating because you want to believe that determination will send you shooting to the top, but sadly, that's not always the case. However, the one characteristic that has never let me down is the ability to bullshit, and when you pair that with all the other qualities, you really can't go wrong.

Six Miles Up, Six Miles Down

I think it's human nature for people to say things about themselves that make them sound more refined or perfect than we really are. It's the reason that we stand in line at Starbucks, muttering venti bold Columbian espresso no whip over and over, so when we actually get to the counter, we're able to say it as if we actually order something so complicated every day. Then we turn around and tell the person behind us who is whispering their own semi-Italian phrases in practice, that we opted out of the whipped cream because you read in some magazine that it is bad for you. No we didn't. We heard that from the last person standing in front of us at Starbucks. We're a crazy population of people that love to come across as something that we really want to be, and dare I say, sometimes think we are. But there's always an issue--a pothole that stops us dead in our tracks. Some people turn to money or status, but for me, I would say that my weakness is trying to come off as healthier or more active than I really am.

Wine: A hobby worth having.

And it's so funny because when I tell people the things that I'm interested in, there's a part of me that actually believes that I'm into "cross country running," but the only time that I've ever been anything close to cross country running was on the way out of the woods from a hunting trip with my dad because I knew we were going to stop at Subway on the way back. My real hobbies include: writing, drinking wine, quoting obscure moments from popular culture, talking to people, doing stuff related to public relations or writing, reading, drinking wine, driving places, canoeing, and drinking wine.
My most recent error was telling my roommate that I really "wanted to start running again." The most successful venture I ever had with running is when I was borderline obese and kind of accidentally started working out. I somehow block out the times when my vision would start to waver and I would use three paper towels to get rid of all the sweat on my head alone... I just remember that, for a time, I think I might have enjoyed running. So, it's always a giant surprise to me when I try to run recreationally how much I actually hate it, and what I hate even more than running is when people stop and wait for me to catch up. I want them to leave me so that I can wallow in my own misery. I want to power walk without the athletic pressure of those around me, and if I get lucky enough, I'll drown in my own body fluid and never have to run again. To prove to myself that I wasn't ever going to make the mistake of recommending a run again, I had us walk down the big hill next to my house so that I would have to run up it. I listened to a song that reminds me of someone I loathe from my senior year of college just so that I could muster enough energy to haul ass up the hill. I wanted to associate as many bad things with running as possible so that I'll never forget that the ramifications of acting active will always outweigh the image boost that comes with it.
But there's never been a more devastating error that I've made than the dangerous, dangerous phrase: Oh you like hiking? I LOVE hiking. No you don't, Justin. You like that you got Chacos on sale, and you love snacks. You like the things that come with hiking. You do not like hiking. And the reason that I don't like hiking always becomes apparent pretty early into the hike. You have to climb up things, and not only that, there are all these things in your way... like rocks or roots or children. The whole thing is such a burden, and you're never prepared for it.
But when Dixie asked me to go hike Mt. LeConte (as if that's just a normal thing to do), it must have been a couple years since I had hiked. But I loved Dixie and I thought I loved hiking, so I agreed. We woke up at a totally unreasonable hour and met to adventure up this mountainside. And as always, when I go packing, I pack the most ridiculous assortment of things: a camera, a complete inadequately sized water bottle, nothing to eat at all, and a jacket that I am sure that I will never use. I'm terrible at hiking, but I'm even worse at preparing for it.

This is obviously very early into the trip, as
I am still smiling and am not totally drenched
in sweat.

Another common factor is the mood that comes with hiking Justin. I always start out feeling fantastic, usually setting an unrealistic pace and then I talk about how I always go that fast; I guess it's just my thing. Then, much like my running style, about a mile in I slow to the pace of an elephant taking sips of my water every seven feet. And by the time that we get about a third of the way into the hike, I begin asking how close we are... would it be okay if I stopped to tie my shoe... let's just sit for a minute and take in the scenery... pretty much anything that would keep us from having to go any farther. Dixie told me the night before we were to hike Mt. LeConte that the hike was "six miles," and as great of a person as I think Dixie is, if we were to have a conversation about it right now, I would call her a liar to her face. I know exactly what she did: she very inquisitively asked me things on the way up the mountain, like: wow, don't you think we should be near the top? haven't you seen this before?... but I know what she was doing... she was making some wiggle room for herself when I realized at about mile four up the mountain that it was six miles up, six miles down. I looked up toward the top of the mountain and turned around to Dixie, one of the nicest and most moral people I've ever met and pointed to the top of the mountain, announcing Dixie, what the hell is that? Why the hell is the mountain up there? She looked at me with a worried face, as if I might actually throw her off the ledge we were on. The truth was out there now: Justin is obviously not a hiker. She turned her map upside down, then right side up, look inquisitively as if there might be some kind of error, but Dixie knows how to read a map. Dixie knew exactly what she had done... she had me trapped in God's country, and as much as I love me some Jesus, I think God and I both know that's not where I belong.
I eventually convinced Dixie that a mile from the top of the mountain was a pretty stellar personal best for me, as long as I would eventually go back to hike Mt. LeConte one day. And one day, I would love nothing more than to stand at the top of Mt. LeConte with her, providing there's a trolley service to the top, or that winking business from I Dream of Jeanie becomes an actual human function. When we finally reached the car, I had developed two giant blisters on each foot and had somehow burst them in the process of getting down. I was frazzled and nasty and tired and even so disoriented that I offered a hitch hiker named "Leaf" a ride down the road, but I believe that's probably a different story for a different day.
But it's these stories that remind me to stick with what I'm good at and just try to capitalize on those experiences the most. Canoeing is like water hiking, and arguably even better because you get to sit down the whole time. Actually, all of my favorite hobbies involve sitting down, which might be an indicator of a common goal I try to aim for... do as much as possible without getting up. And you know what, if you can't dig what I'm doing when I'm sitting down, then I'll just have to see you when you get off the mountain.

Contraband.

We all thought it was going to be thrown away, and by we, I mean Andrew and I. We never thought it would turn into... this. On a nightly combination McDonalds/Target/Seven-Eleven run, we came across it: a giant brown something sitting on the side of the road. Like most things sitting on the side of the road, we assumed it was free. So in the middle of the night, we meandered across the street, lifted the large wardrobe off the ground and hauled it into our apartment. Done and done. It was supposed to end there, but it didn't. It had only begun.
Proudly, we sat it inside of the apartment, taking in all that it had to offer. The slightly lopsided door, the obscure coat hanger inside, the used tissue neatly stuffed in the corner, and the small baggy that very possibly once had cocaine stored inside of it. Sure, it wasn't the nicest thing in the world, but it was ours. It was our somewhat infectious, possibly diseased bureau. We carried it around, placing it in multiple locations deciding that something so reminiscent of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe obviously belonged in the living room. It wasn't until the next day when I was leaving for work that I noticed a man outside that apartment cleaning the rest of the furniture that we had deemed "unworthy" of our living space. This man was obviously not giving this bureau away... he was just cleaning all the old hankies and dime bags out of it. I ran back into the apartment to tell Andrew what was going on and all that he could say, with a spaced out look on his face was Contraband. What had we done? Once upon a time, we were just these grad students going to one of the most prestigious universities in the country and then, we had become this form of Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah in Set it Off. He didn't look the same to me. Andrew had assumed this look about him... this F--- the man kind of face, and I knew that I wasn't living with the same person anymore. I mean, shoot... I guess that I wasn't the same person anymore either.
The days dragged on, and we did what we could to ignore our wrong doings, but it was no use. It was haunting us... an uncleaned reminder of our sins just lying there in the middle of the room like a dead body or a leopard print snuggie: something you couldn't miss if you wanted to. We had learned to live with it, no matter how shameful we had become, but it all came to a head when Ray, the Comcast guy came. Ray, upon entering our apartment, announced, F---, how big is this place? This shit is nice. We obviously realized that we had entered into a life of thug-like company. Ray inspected our apartment, dropping words that should never come out of a Comcast man's mouth. When faced with the challenge of actually connecting our cable, he became weary. He didn't want to drill into the wall and asked us to get the apartment manager. When directed toward his office, I realized where exactly the apartment manager lived... at the homesite of the contraband. I ran back into the apartment and immediately enlisted Andrew's help in moving the stolen good elsewhere. We agreed on our roommate's room that hadn't moved in yet. An excellently developed plan if I had ever heard one. As I pushed it down the hallway, I began to reevaluate: who had I become? Would I even recognize this hoodlum if I looked at him in the mirror?
Soon, our apartment was full of people: some woman named Janet, her unnamed Hispanic friend, our apartment manager George, and Ray. After some initial confusion about the drilling, the healthy conversation turned into a trilingual death match: some odd combination of ebonics, slurred English, and Spanish. Andrew and I had no idea what was going on, and the last thing Ray said before leaving was This shit is shady, and when shit gets shady, I get out. A good life philosophy if I've ever heard one. I stood in the doorway, one leg propped behind the other as George announced to himself Surely, there's a cable hook up. Peter, the guy who lived here before was Asian... and he had all them Asian channels, and I know that shit doesn't come through on basic cable. I wondered to myself if this is what city life is like. Maybe, somewhere along the way, we had made the transformation. We were no longer wholesome boys from Tennessee and Wisconsin. We were hood rats, and we liked doing hood rat stuff with our friends, like that little boy who stole the car on YouTube. We had become just like Latarian; just boys caught in the magic of what the big city could have been, had we not been so foolish to get wrapped up in theft, which would inevitably lead to robbery, gang violence, and homemade tattoos.
As I finish this, Andrew is dropping some gangsta remix of "Just the Two of Us," and I know he's changed; I suppose we all have, and I remember the vague memory of who I used to be so long ago... or a week... whatever. And as I'm washing the dishes tonight and reaching behind the feta cheese to get one last glass of Sauvignon Blanc before I got to bed tonight, I'll remember the time I had a chance to be a productive member of society. It changes too fast; I'm sorry Momma.

Nam: A Virgin's Apology

The life of a virgin is difficult and complicated, and the older that you get, the harder it is to explain to people why you have in fact still not had sexual intercourse. I'm not really sure what explanation there is for the whole debacle. You don't want to be the virgin that goes around and tells people oh yeah, I've had the opportunity, but I've just decided not to because then everyone will just think that you're the guy that makes up stuff to carry on an image. In contrast, you don't want to be the guy that says that you've never had the opportunity because that's just... unfortunate. No one finds religious reasons nearly as charming as they used to be unless you're Mormon or Catholic, and I was raised Baptist; as everyone knows, Baptists do it in the youth group room at an early age, so I really have no backing here. In response, I just tried my best never to draw attention to the subject. However, sometimes, you just get cornered.
My dad has regularly asked me if I'm still a virgin since I was probably sixteen years old. At times, the question has been a little more than intimidating. For years, I would proudly say yes and use my moral background as a guidepost for my answer, but as the years progressed, I began to feel less comfortable about telling him that I was a virgin. Like most families, when the situation becomes uncomfortable you either avoid it completely, or lie. In this case, I chose the latter. My freshman year, I decided that it was time to lose my fake virginity. Sometimes I wonder if losing my real virginity will be as heartbreaking and emotionally trying as losing my fake virginity. Telling my dad about my not-so-real sexual encounter was nothing like I'd hoped it would be. The story didn't have candles or soft music, and we definitely were not in love. I always though it would be special, losing my fake virginity, but it wasn't. I'm pretty sure it happened in my dorm room, and when he finally asked who it was with, I froze.

Nam Dang. I had sex with Nam Dang.


Dad had met Nam before, and honestly, I don't think he believed me from the moment I said it. Nam is one of my very best friends and kind of hot to top it off. She was a solid choice, but possibly an unrealistic one. Nevertheless, I lost my virginity to Nam, and it was quite a story to tell. I promised myself that he would be the only person I would tell that Nam and I had sex, but like most of the promises I make in my head (I will go to the gym 4 days a week, I will never eat sushi again, I will never drink again; I will not call that person just to make out), I kind of lied.
I never expected to be in a fraternity in college, and when I say that, I'm not talking about the all too infamous Jappa Kappa mentioned in "The Juicy Details of Being in a Greek Organization." No, in contrast, I'm talking about my decision to join Delta Kappa Epsilon. I entered into this Greek collegiate contract knowing that it was against school rules and that I would have to live in stark secrecy, which wasn't too far of a stretch from the lie I had told about Nam. Most people would say that the most difficult part of being in a fraternity is joining it, or "the pledge process." In contrast, I found that the most difficult part of being in a fraternity is by far keeping the conversation going. During one of our cabin retreats, I was out on the deck enjoying a nice cup of whatever mixture of gatorade and grain alcohol was sitting in the kitchen when one of the brothers asked me, So, dude. If you could f--k any girl at school, would would it be. What a tricky, tricky question I had literally never given any specific thought to. The answer given could have major ramifications. Abby Ogle was always who I considered the prettiest girl I had met in college, but for some reason, Abby and this young man's coarse terminology didn't match up in my head.
More brothers began to gather, begging for my answer, and I began to feel cornered. It was just like middle school all over when it just came out. "Nam. Nam Dang." I would get a deck-full of approving head nods as they all exchanged glances with one another, acknowledging my fine taste in Asian women. He responded So, you ever get that p--sy? Let's make a bulleted list. I like those.

• A) That's a nasty, nasty word. I hate that word.
• B) I really thought people only talked like that in movies. Movies that starred Jonah Hill that I would never purposefully see.
• C) Just in case I didn't say it explicitly enough, I'm sorry, Nam.

So there it was. The moment of truth. Actually, I'd just rather not talk about it. The approving head nods were gone. I was just stuck there in fraternal judgment. Kirkland, are you a virgin, bro? I could hear the snide remarks under the breath, the giggles. I had to say it; I had no choice. Well, in fact, I lost my virginity to Nam. There was a roaring sound of "ohhhhhhhhh" across the back deck of the cabin, and then someone went and fetched me a beer. They were proud; I think. I would later stand on a toilet in the bathroom holding my phone up in a corner just long enough to get signal and explain to Nam via text what had happened. I was out of control. It was all so out of control.
Much like the conversation with my dad, I'm fairly confident no one believed the story once the alcohol had subsided. We've all graduated now, and too many people have gotten pregnant or married to have any inkling of the one (or several) times that I alluded (or boldly stated) that Nam and I had pseudo (or just fake) intercourse. In terms of my impending virginity, I don't think it's really something to worry about. I've chosen the graduated step plan, just like the one I've chosen to pay off my student loans. The way it works is that you start with the lower payment and work your way up to the really intense payments that will screw you hard one day. See what I did there? I compared student loans to sex; isn't that grand?
It's been a while since I've used Nam as my proxy sex partner or anything close to it. The only time it's come up lately is when the people at my country diner job asked me if I had a girlfriend. I immediately mentioned Nam's name and all my virgin guilt came rising to the surface again. You see though, in Seymour if you don't have a girlfriend or wife, you're either worthless, homosexual, or a worthless homosexual. Nam has always been my defender against the ways of narrow minded or overly horny people. I hope one day to return that favor even though I have absolutely no idea how to do so. I look forward to the days when there actually is a legitimate name to throw down when people ask me who I've had sex with; that special someone hasn't quite surfaced yet. But, if anyone asks, just tell them Nam... even if she does get mad, I have a solid two hour jump on her to get the hell out of dodge.

Standing in the Broom Closet, or "The Beginning"

I'm moving to Washington D.C. in the fall, actually, more like August. As my parents cannot afford a 4,000 dollar a month apartment in North Carolina (cough, cough, Lindsay... we'll discuss you later), I have to make my dollars elsewhere. As I was determining how I would apply my double major of Communications and English Literature, I narrowed my options down to three potential employers: Pilot Gas Station, Jack Flap's Country Cooking, or Big Mike's Cafe. Sadly, I found out that Jack Flap's closed its business down today; as I told a friend earlier, "When God closes one sketchy pancake joint, he opens another." There was no need to fear. I was working as the new cook/waiter/bus boy/mascot/sign maker at Big Mike's Cafe, and by working, I mean that in the loosest way possible.

In this economic crisis, Big Mike's doesn't seem to be benefiting from too many customers. I want to work. I would like to believe that I'm helpful, but I know that I'm the tallest obstruction in a kitchen area made for .75 of me. So instead of casually leaning against the grill area, I've found the broom closet. I spend a good majority of my three to four hour shifts standing in the there, counting aprons in the dark or turning all of the disinfectant bottles "label-forward." When someone eventually finds me and asks what I'm doing, I always respond with, "Oh, you know, looking for rags." No one ever seems to question it because I'm pretty sure they know I'm lying. I think it's a little game we play, probably titled "How Long Does It Take To Realize Justin's In The Closet?" or HLDITTRJITC from here on out.

It's similar to the game I play with them called "Making Up Personal Details About My Life." I wouldn't say that I'm a compulsive liar... just more of an experienced fabricator. I think it probably dates back to middle school when my brother and I were allowed to stay home alone for the first time. Occasionally, I would lay in the floor and pretend that I had passed out or fallen to see if Casey would call an ambulance; he never did, but it did freak him out a lot. Eventually, it led to more elaborate lies, or yarns as I like to call them, including but not limited to the time that I told my entire Children's Literature class that I personally knew Judy Blume and that she would be coming to speak to our class. Attached is the email correspondence between Ms. Blume and myself, detailing the situation. It wasn't my best moment, but it was a moment.

But the important part was the closet; let's get back to that. I was standing in the closet, running out of things to inflict my clinical OCD on, and I began to think. How is it that I ended up in this closet? How is it that I always seem to end up in these weird places with these weird stories that seem to happen to no one else?

That's me, in the dashing blue and gray sweater.

In this installment of HLDITTRJITC, the employees of Big Mike's Cafe were losing especially hard because I must have been in there for a good twenty minutes backtracking my life and evaluating all of the weird things that have happened to me over the years. The first really weird place I could remember was the first stall of the boy's restroom at New Hopewell Elementary School. Actually, a lot of weird stuff happened in that bathroom, but we don't have time for all of that. On this day, I was in there with Momma because I had just thrown up all of the rainbow line in the hallway. No one was surprised; this was practically a daily occurrence. My early-onset separation issues, paired with my mom's desire for me to pursue education, eventually led to me crying so much that I would vomit in the hallway on cue, between 7:30 and 7:48 in the morning. Because of this, I was Amy-Winehouse-skinny up until about the 4th grade. On this particular day, I had vommed so hard that my eyes were bloodshot and I was dangerously close to what I had hoped would happen for months and months: Momma was going to take me home. But it didn't happen. As we stood there in the boy's bathroom, my mom took a brown paper towel and wiped off the remains of french toast and regret and looked me in the eyes and said, "Justin, you are special..." there was a really long pause that followed, "...but this has got to stop." Ultimately, I didn't stop regularly throwing up in elementary school until around 2nd grade, but there was something about her words that stuck with me. Being in the boy's bathroom with Momma made me special, or at least that's how I understood it.

As I left the broom closet today, claiming yet another victory in HLDITTRJITC, I kind of wanted to throw up again... probably out of habit... but I didn't. I had realized that I had a whole collection of special stories, and some of them even included me not throwing up. I was in that closet for a reason.

I don't know if I'll even make it in D.C. It's honestly a crap shoot. Somehow, I was admitted to Georgetown to study public relations, but if they're willing to have me, then it's a risk I'm willing to take.  Regardless of what degrees I obtain [or attempt to obtain], I will always be that boy that throws up on himself after breakfast. That little boy used to be embarrassed by his faults, but as an adult, I carry that throw up around proudly because that vomit makes me special. Today, I vowed to never stop going into the closet and to never, ever stop proudly throwing up on myself. That's adulthood: maturity personified, even.