Wooly Bully

I watched a documentary called Bully a little over a week ago--if you're ever looking for a solid reason not to have kids, you should watch it. Essentially what it boils down to is that kids are freaking terrible little creatures. And apparently, they're getting smarter, or adults are getting dumber, or something. Either way, it's getting completely out of control. Apparently, kids take to Twitter and Facebook now, and hell, I'm assuming they probably use Snapchat to send little messages like, "Go kill yourself," and then afterward, it just kind of goes away. And what was worst about it is that these parents have no idea what to do. I'm not saying there's a clear cut answer--God knows that having children is one area that I am not an expert in.
But the difference between these kids' experiences and mine is that their parents seemed lost as to how to fix it. And I guess there's not really a sure fire way that works when it comes to your kids and what happens to them at school--I'm sure if there were, a lot of girls I went to high school with wouldn't have ended up so pregnant by senior year. But my dad had a way of dealing with things--whether I liked it or not.
But I didn't always go home and report my bullying because that would have been all that I talked about, and I really liked to talk, so I had to ration out my topics. Most of the time I only reported general, blatant hate crimes--kind of like when Lindsay used to shake me in first grade or when Andrew tried to give me a haircut by cornering me with scissors. Ironically, the scissors were never going toward my hair, but rather my cheekbones... I like to think it was less about malintent and more about poor execution. But those were the good ol' days when bullying was pretty basic, and if your kid did things like that to other kids, it basically meant you were just raising a little asshole.
But later on, the basics were the least of you worries. hardly on my mind at that point.
I found myself in the crux of bullying--that awkward transition between making fun and full blown Internet warfare. Most everything pre-middle school was physically based. No one went out of their way to put me in a category--it was just kids being terrible on the playground. But it was in sixth grade that the big guns were revealed. Sitting in gym class, I was there rocking out my windbreaker pant/jacket combo when Megan Johnson came up and told me, "Josh Davis said you want to give all the boys in the sixth grade a blow job." At the time, I had no idea what a blow job was--actually, because someone in my house dropped the ball on anatomy, I thought everyone had a penis so any form of sex was
Being an inquisitive child, I pretty much went straight to the teacher to ask what a blow job was. Unfortunately, no one would answer my question because, well, it is not on the curriculum to explain those kinds of things to a sixth grader. So eventually I had to take it home and ask my parents, and in doing so, I had to explain why it was that I needed to know. And that was the first of many bully-related blow ups that happened in my house. I think I caught the gist of what a "BJ" was, but it was completely overshadowed by my dad's reaction to what had happened. Obviously, I didn't want to go around doing that to anyone in the sixth grade. I wanted enough lunch money to get pizza and corn from the cafeteria on Friday, and I wanted to always be picked to answer questions in Social Studies. Basic--I knew what it meant, and I was good.
After my dad left to calm down, my mom tried to explain to me the basics of sex, but she gets just as nervous about intercourse as I do, so eventually she gave up and just decided to give me double mashed potatoes at dinner to compensate for the rest of the sex talk. My dad came back into the room and told me, "Tomorrow, you're going to go to school and knock the shit out of him." Negative, Wendell. Contrary to the rest of my family, I'm not a fighter. I don't think it's because I ever feared what the pain might feel like or how much trouble I would get into--I think I was primarily concerned about my face. And I was right to think like that because I have a pretty symmetrical face. Later on, I would go to find out that a very small percentage of the world has perfect facial symmetry, so I think I ultimately made the right call.

A nice little sketch picture we got at the mall once
when I was in middle school.

But that wasn't enough for Dad because how can you just sit back and let some other kid at school hand out sexual favors on behalf of your son? In retrospect, if one of my dad's coworkers promised fellatio to all the other gu
ys on the construction crew on behalf of my dad, I wouldn't be too cool with it, either. But with limited options, there wasn't much to be done. I refused to fight, and I pleaded and pleaded with my parents not to take it to any of the teachers. The teachers couldn't do anything, or at least that's what I though.
So the next couple years were filled with stories like Josh's and mine. And they would all lead back to the same conclusion--no intervention: no fighting, no teachers, no nothing. Instead, I would go home and take a sheet of notebook paper and list random people from school: sixteen to be exact. And then I would sit for hours and decide how they would be voted out. That's right--I madSurvivor charts back home, and every challenge I would win immunity, and then I would be voted winner at the end of every game. By the time I was done with middle school I had about 247 million hypothetical dollars.
e fantasy
But eventually, the bullying didn't stop at school. Public access to the Internet was still pretty fresh out of the gate, and one of its earliest contributions to society was AOL Instant Messenger (AIM, lolz). Anyone who was anyone had an AIM screenname (rocketdog485--you're welcome) and a totally jazzed out away message to accompany it. It didn't take too long for the guys at school to get ahold of it, and eventually, they started sending me messages over that. They would call me fag and tell me how no one liked me, and eventually, they told me to kill myself. Yikes!
And that is where the buck stopped. I made the fatal error of telling my mom about the situation, who then told my dad, who then let everyone in a three mile radius know via uncontrollable yelling, and then it was settled. We were going to have to take a trip over to this kid's house. Somehow, in my mind, the only thing that seemed worse than being made fun of and having people tell me to kill myself was my dad going over to Matt's house to have a conversation about it... with him and his dad. And my dad wasn't really the type to ask for a cup of coffee and sit down in the den and "talk things through." No, my dad was more the type to show up with a cup of his own coffee, and then throw it in someone's face. I imagined what would happen--how the cops might be called. And God, what would the people at school say?
So, my dad loaded me up in the truck and drove down to this kid's house. I remember looking over at him--he hadn't even changed from work. Grease on his jeans and a tee shirt from the work day. Dad's always been a really hairy guy, so he had this monster sized beard, and his back hair was creeping up the collar of his shirt. At a glance, he kind of looked like an animal--especially when you took his words into consideration on the way there. He was pretty much silent, which is a sure fire sign that he's about to have a total meltdown. Occasionally, he would nod to himself and mutter something like, "Yep. This is going to get fixed. Tonight." I was 74% sure that I had shit in the passenger seat, but I didn't want to say anything because, honestly... who wanted to throw any more gasoline on that flame?
We pulled up to Matt's house and my dad started walking to the door. I stayed in the truck, partially because I had little to no feeling in my legs, partially because I couldn't stand to see what was going to happen. He stopped about halfway to the door and turned around and stared at me. I knew what he wanted, but I wasn't going to do it until he told me I had to. "Get out of the truck, you're coming with me."
Mortified, I made my way to the door--my dad opted to not use the doorbell, but instead just went straight for the full blown bang on the door. Not a little "shave and a haircut" knock, but more like a "YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY GET OUT" knock. Eventually, this scrawny looking man in glasses comes to the door--the adult version of what I imagine his kid would have looked like once he stopped pantsing people in the locker room and using the term "fag" so freely in public. He asked if he could help us, and my dad cut right to the chase, "Well, your son has been picking on my son, and it needs to stop." Of course, his dad very calmly suggested that we go back to the beginning, but there was no time for that. We were here on a mission--a Kirkland mission--and that mission didn't need to take any more than five or ten really, really terrifying minutes.
Eventually, the man called Matt to the door, and there he stood--looking angelic as ever, as if he had just got done brushing the dog or doing homework or something completely unlike himself at school. His dad asked him if he knew who I was. "Yeah, that's Justin. We're friends at school." And that's when I got angry. Friends at school? Hardly. My friends were the acquaintances that I put on my Survivor alliance at 4:30 when I got home from school. This kid was not my friend.
Then his dad asked him one of the stupidest questions that you can ask a kid, "Son, are you making fun of Justin at school and on the Internet?" Oh yes, father. I call him all sorts of names. Names you might not have even heard of! Isn't it grand? "No, I would never do that." And that's when Wendell, formerly known as my dad, took over the conversation. "Don't stand here and lie to me, you little son of a bitch." Apparently, in most common suburban neighborhoods, calling a child an SOB is not a readily accepted term of endearment. Then again, SOB is not a term I heard very often back home either--it was usually reserved for our neighbor who would shoot turkeys behind our house and our pet rabbits whenever they would scratch Dad. The kid's dad looked back at us and said, "I don't think it's appropriate to say that," and then Wendell responded, "Well, I don't think it's appropriate for him to tell my son to kill himself online." And then, because my dad knows how to prepare for a situation, Wendell pulled out a stack of papers--printed out AIM conversation between myself and Matt. The jig was up--Matt had officially been busted.
His dad looked at the papers and then down to Matt, and said, "We're going to have a serious conversation about this, and you're probably going to be grounded from the computer for a while." Solid parenting, if I say so myself. But the conversation was not over, because Wendell did not find this a suitable enough warning. I could see those backhairs raising up, like a mountain lion about to pounce. He pointed his finger at Matt and said, "If this ever happens again, I'm going to come back here, and I'm going to beat his ass. And then I'm going to beat your ass for raising him." And then, he pulled out one of my favorite Wendell Kirkland moves, which I like to call the "Why Haven't You Said Anything Yet?" After he's said something like, "I'm going to kick your entire house's ass," he gives you about two seconds to process it, then raises his eyebrows and slightly shakes his head, as if you were already supposed to come up with something to say in response. It's his final way of saying, "I've won this battle. You can leave now." As a teenager, I was the victim of a couple of these responses when I did things like not get up in time for school, or a blatant disregard for cleaning the pool.

And this is what he's turned into today.

We got back in the truck and he looked over at me and said, "I think we got that taken care of," and then Matt never spoke to me again. Before I was out of middle school, we repeated this routine two other times with two other kids. Those kids don't speak to me either. I think by the time I was a junior in high school, most everyone knew that if you really went after me, my dad would show up at your house and essentially threaten to burn it to the ground. People always said things--bullies never really go away. They just knew when to stop.
Looking back on it, Dad's approach might have saved me from something really bad down the road. Sure, it was pretty ridiculous that your dad would go to your schoolmate's house and reenact an episode of Maury to get the point across, but every parent has their own way of getting the job done. Eventually, bullying pretty much came to a stop--somewhere near the end of high school. But to this day, if something bad happens at work or if I pass a jerk on the street, I think twice about whether or not I should tell my dad about it, because the last thing I need at this point is for my dad to show up at work to let my boss know who the boss really is.

Our Favorite Sins

My friend Anna and I were in her bed watching Grey's Anatomy one night during my junior year. Callie's mother told her that she would not be attending her wedding to Arizona because she couldn't stand the thought of her daughter marrying a woman--she couldn't stand the thought of her daughter, who she loved, spending the rest of her life in Hell. I immediately became disgusted, while Anna literally cheered the mother on. Immediately, I turned around and looked at Anna as if she had slapped me across the face. Anna is one of my best friends, but there she sat, cheering on a fictional mother as she told her fictional daughter that she would be spending her eternity in Hell for... marrying a woman. Anna and I immediately got into discourse with Anna's greatest defense being the morality of the Christian religion, her upbringing, the book of Leviticus, and the very limited references made in the New Testament (let it be noted, none were said by Jesus). I, in response, quoted a theme that occurs repeatedly over the course of both the Old and New Testaments: judgement. We'll discuss the aftermath of that conversation later.

This week, Jason Collins of the Wizards, formerly the Celtics, made the very bold announcement that he is gay--the first athlete of America's four biggest professional sports. I wasn't going to put much commentary in the conversation because I had already tried to state my position last year during the whole Chick-Fil-A debacle (oh, you didn't read What a Waste of Waffle Fries?!). I actually defended the idea of purchasing food from Chick-Fil-A. But what inspires me to address this Jason Collins issue is the comparisons that have been drawn throughout this week. I hear about how Tim Tebow has been persecuted for being a Christian and how terribly he has been bashed as a Christian player, while Collins is being revered for being an openly gay athlete--and that's where my issue comes up. Tebow, a Christian, has been bashed? As a child, I used to try and make the case about what it was like to be white or to be a boy or to even be a Christian. There's a lot of prejudice in the world, and I'm not saying that there's not prejudice against white people or men or Christians, because there is. There truly is. But in my twenty-three years of life, I can say that I've never been told that being any of those things was wrong, and I was surely never told that I would go to Hell for them. My eternal damnation was never on the line because of my race or gender or religion. And I dare say, this is not the Crusades anymore. Christians are not blamed for blowing up buildings; Christians were not gassed or burned in small confined spaces. If the Christian religion's biggest current hurdle is being criticized on MSNBC, then I think we're doing okay.

Posted the morning after the Collins
announcement

And I say we because I, myself, am a Christian. I find my religion to be immensely personal and not the topic of frequent conversation. My prayers are mine and God's, my beliefs are only applicable to me because I don't think it's my place to determine the rights and wrongs of others. I struggle enough doing right on my own. But I find it hard to explain to agnostics, atheists, non-believers what our message is and who we want to be when in the midst of our own "persecution," we use announcements like Collins as a "general reminder" that homosexuality is a damning sin. 
I don't write this to defend the followers of my religion or to convince others whether homosexuality is a sin or not. And I definitely don't write this because I'm a lover of sports. I'm an atypical cookie cutter man--I find very little interest in sports. I recently joined a volleyball league in DC, and it's practically a miracle that I did that because sports were the source of my unhappiness for the longest time. When I tried the whole sports thing in elementary school, that was the first time someone called me a girl. Toward the end of elementary school, when I wasn't coordinated enough, that was the first time I was called gay. When I moved to middle school, that changed to faggot. I wanted nothing to do with sports because when you weren't good enough, that's the kind of thing you became: a joke, a mockery, what others observed as a second rate human--and then after getting called that long enough in the sports setting, it began to stick. I was called those things outside of the game, and then it was my eternity that was in question. I went from not being good at sports to being eternally damned.
So when I saw the story of Jason Collins this week, I nearly cried reading it. He spoke of why he kept his sexuality a secret for so very long. He talked about how no one had done this in a major sport before him. He brought up the way that gay people have been viewed in the sports community, and then just for a paragraph or so, he talked about his faith. He spoke about his religious roots and how he still holds on to those things he learned, and he spoke about judgement. But when I think about Collins' proclamation to the world, I don't see it as some giant thing for the professional sports world--though it is. I don't expect a string of players to come forth and announce their homosexuality. I do, however, anticipate that this is the beginning of a new normal--where it's no longer okay to call someone a faggot on the playground because he doesn't know how to properly throw a football. Because calling someone  gay should not be an insult. And for the gay kid that does know how to throw a football (please teach me--I can't throw a spiral to save my life), I imagine that this is the beginning of a time when we'll evaluate his skills and not his personal life.
So, back to Anna. I left Anna's room that night out of frustration. We didn't go back to discuss the conversation because there was no way I could convince her and no way she could convince me. We didn't even mention the topic for months. And then one night, she sat with me on the porch of our dorm and she began to cry. She told me that everything she had ever known had been turned upside down. She explained to me the gay people that she had met and how great of people they are. She told me, If you ever told me you were gay, I just couldn't believe that alone would send you to Hell forever. I just can't believe that, and it doesn't make sense to me anymore. I don't look at that conversation as a victory--like I had beaten her or something. I did, however, look at it as a victory because her world had been challenged and for once, the idea that one sin could damn someone to Hell forever became incomprehensible to her.
And that's what I urge the world to do--to quit putting weight on your favorite sin, or any sin for that matter. Worry about yourself and quit trying to interpret what God views as okay or not okay in other people. Do not use the triumph of humanity as a crutch for an unrelated agenda. We did not tell the world this week whether or not it's moral to be gay--that's honestly not a question that anyone should be discussing in a public forum. But with it being such a point of contention, ask yourself if you are moral--in every sense of the word. Ask yourself if you've sinned, and then cite James 2:10. I do not see homosexuality as a sin, but I do see the persecution of others in the vanity of your own beliefs to be. We moved forward this week--we're one step closer to eradicating the terrible stigma that comes with "being different." And I don't think Jesus could be happier about it--his words in The Bible are meant to push our humanity forward. It's surely not meant to be used as a roadblock to keep us further separated.

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.

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.

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?

Kissing is a Stranger's Game

I used to imagine that my first kiss would be a magical experience that should be cherished and remembered. To thirteen year old me, I imagined that kissing someone was nearly as important as full blown coital, and even as my friends were getting their first kisses and much, much more, I waited patiently--most of the time at my house on Saturday night watching reruns of Boy Meets World, wondering if I would ever have a simple love like Cory and Topanga. I wasn't sure what it would be like, so I asked my friends. Sadly, it was more like a giant secret, so eventually I went on to study movies and television. I wanted to understand what this kissing business entailed; I continued my search until I ran into the movie Man in the Moon. For those unaware, it's Reese Witherspoon's first role ever and the ending will leave you wanting to kill yourself out of depression. But to no surprise, young Reese and I had something in common: we both wanted the answer to this kissing dilemma. Her sister in the movie advised her to practice by kissing her closed fist.

Logic told me that if that was good enough for Reese, then it was good enough for me. So for a couple weeks, I went around practicing on my fist, hoping that I would gain some kind of insight as to what I was supposed to be doing, but after my dad caught me making out with my hand and told me that it looked like I was attempting to kiss a butthole, I decided to wait for the real thing. The only thing worse than being thirteen years old and not being kissed is being thirteen years old and have your dad accusing you of fake kissing a butthole.
The next few years, I lived vicariously through my slutty friends who got kissed on the regular. I used to pray for them and envy them at the same time, as any true Christian understands. I wanted them to be washed of their sin, but I also wanted what they had more than anything. Eventually, my day would come, but we've already discussed that. The first kiss is always the most dangerous because it reveals that kissing doesn't kill you... actually, the first kiss opens up the door to so much more kissing, and if you time it correctly like I did, you don't end up being called slutty like all of your early blooming middle school friends.
I stayed pretty monogamous with my kissing throughout high school, only kissing people that I was in a stable, healthy relationship with... which usually consisted of talking for 1-2 weeks, never going on a date, then deciding that you're boyfriend and girlfriend. But in the summer before my senior year, I made a fatal error and kissed someone I wasn't dating. At first, I imagined that God was scowling down at me from above, citing multiple verses of Leviticus that I hadn't reviewed in years, which made me feel even more guilty for not knowing which verses of Leviticus I had infracted. With time, the guilt subsided, and I realized the world I had stumbled onto: the world of casual kissing.
I began to realize that I had just been a victim of American prudishness--countries around the world had been kissing each other for years. Hell, depending on what part of France you're in, sometimes men kiss other men. In comparison to the rest of the world, America is nearly a celibate country. I began coming more and more open to the idea of sharing kisses with the masses, and soon, I began implementing my plan. College started out slow, but the more comfortable I got with the idea, the more people I kissed. I kissed future Broadway stars and people who would eventually drop out, but no matter the person, as long as they were open to the idea (and didn't have cold sores... ew), then I would offer up a friendly kiss at least. I found it to be my gift, or calling, perhaps.
But with every good intention comes an equally important responsibility. I soon found that the amicable, mouth hugging ideal that I had in my head was fading. I found myself in competitions, particularly with my friend Patrice, going around and trying to kiss as many people as we could in an hour. At the time, it seemed like harmless fun, but in retrospect, I had become everything I had envied and prayed for--I had become skanky. I had started kissing so many people that it didn't feel like anything anymore. It had become sport for me, so I decided to stop. College was college, but in the real world... things had to be different.

But when I was younger and wanting to be kissed more than Drew Berrymore in a 90s cult classic, my mom explained to me that people matured at different times and that we all go through things at our own pace. So when my roommate and I went over to a friend's apartment and starting drinking flavored vodka, I could feel myself being catapulted back into my sophomore year of college. My super-post-grad-maturity kicked in, and I realized that my company had never had those slutty college years that Rita from Bridesmaids warned Ellie Kemper's character about. I knew that for one night, I had to take a hiatus from my life of purity--I needed to be their Rita.
So after spending about fifteen minutes convincing one roommate that I was indeed not gay, I kissed her on the balcony, while to my surprise, my roommate was inside making out with the other roommate. Later that night, my makeout friend was throwing up in the toilet while my roommate was dancing alone to the Backstreet Boys smash record Millenium. I knew that was when the night needed to be over. Yes, it seems extremely immature, but these moments are necessary. We promised as a group that we wouldn't let it affect our friendship, and much like sophomore year, we didn't talk to them for a month. I was confused why we kept apologizing for kissing each other, as if we had taken turns punching each other in the face. I was quickly reminded that, even as a 22 year old, kissing is just something that no one really seems to embrace like the Europeans and me.
I find myself apologizing for a lot in my life because I'm naturally a guilty and nervous person, but one thing that I refuse to apologize for is kissing another person. Yes, I like to believe that I use a little more discretion these days than I have in the past, but when you come from a position where you've made out with your hand, you don't take any kisses for granted. Kissing is nothing to be ashamed of, but my new friends helped me to realize something. Casual kissing is best done with people that you don't know because casual kissing among friends leads to awkward silences and a laundry list of questions that never needed to be questions to begin with. Kissing, much like conversations about politics and watching sports, is best done with perfect strangers.

Falling in Love Outside of Your Race (Or, Mother Do I Have a Milkshake?)

I think my parents always expected me to bring a nice white, Christian girl home one day and announce, This is the woman that I'm going to make my wife... or at least that's what they hoped for. In reality, I've brought home just about every variation of that equation except for that one. Casey and i never left a lot of room open for prejudice in our house because we were apparently really bad at following direction. And in started early for both of us. Casey's first major crush was on Amber Logan, a girl in our eighth grade class, and while Amber was extremely nice and extremely Christian, she wasn't by any stretch white, and once they had lost Casey, my parents began to reevaluate the characteristics they would hope for in our future mates. To come from the extended-Kirkland-clan (who made racist jokes into sport over Christmas dinner), my parents taught Casey and I how to love a little more freely than even they expected. We didn't see color or religion or any of that stuff, and there's no way that Kathy and Wendell could have prepared for that.
But being the trailblazer that I am, I opened up the door for Casey when I fell madly in love late into seventh grade. It was a process because you don't just jump from an incidentally all-white elementary school (with the exception of John Kearney and his biracial brother) into a melting pot such as South-Doyle Middle School. But once I had acclimated as a sixth grader and moved into seventh grade, I realized that the myths were untrue: black people are actually not only safe, but friendly. As a seventh grader, I was allowed to apply for and join Cherokee Television (CTV), which was the morning broadcast put on by middle schoolers to inform the school what was going on. If you were accepted into the small ranks, you were essentially a school-wide celebrity. Originally, I was placed in charge of the soundboard, but because of my inability to keep from pressing random buttons, I was quickly moved to an on-screen position. At the tender age of 12, I was placed as co-host of Homeroom Feud with Sydney Cross, my first black friend. We were quite a duo and groundbreaking in terms of CTV history. Never had South-Doyle had a multiracial duo hosting Homeroom Feud.

"And they're like, it's better than yours."

It took weeks to get over the fact that I wasn't selected as the primary host of CTV, or "the Katie Couric," as I would come to call it. But I made the best out of my position... that is until Sydney and I started having communication issues. I was always a precocious child, but in the purest ways possible. I could have a conversation with an adult like it was my job, but when it came to people my own age, sometimes I fell behind. Up until this point in my life, I had only listened to country music, so when Sydney walked in singing My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, I was a little taken aback. I asked Sydney who this song was by and what a milkshake was, but she denied me an answer. I was very obviously out of the loop, and it was upsetting to know that this milkshake double entendre was like a special club that I couldn't be apart of.
I went around asking people Will you tell me what a milkshake is? I asked my regular information sources: teachers, cafeteria workers, anyone with the slightest bit of authority. No one seemed to understand this "milkshake" either. I went home and asked my parents, but they didn't understand what was going on. So, in desperation, I turned to Google. I had prepared a list of preliminary questions, just in case I found out the answer:
--What is a milkshake?
--Do I have a milkshake?
--Is this the kind of milkshake you can drink?
--Why does this milkshake bring all the boys to the yard?
--How do you compare milkshakes?
Sadly, I don't think my query was specific enough, so for months, I was left stranded with the cliffhanger: what is a milkshake? I had decided that without Sydney's help, I was essentially out of luck. That was (and I didn't realize how mildly racist this was until now) until I met my second black friend, Kierra. She was everything that I had hoped my second black friend would be, and she was much less crass than Sydney. From the time that I started CTV to the end of eighth grade, I had been through three co-hosts, but no surefire fit. I was just a Kathy Lee looking for my Hoda, and there she was. Naturally, the first thing I did was ask Kierra what a milkshake was, and she quickly obliged and educated me on Kelis' ways. It wasn't long after that I started having the deep, raw emotional love that only seventh graders can feel, and then it happened: I had fallen in love with a black girl. I had no idea how I would ever tell my parents, but I knew that I had to. Kierra, for all intensive purposes, was supposed to be the love of my life. No matter the race, when you find a woman who willingly tells you what a milkshake is and compliments you perfectly as co-host of a low budget middle school television program, you love that woman with all of your heart.
I promised myself that I wouldn't kill my parents' dreams of snow white Aryan babies until I had to, but when I told Kierra that I liked her, she told me that she didn't "like me-like me." Little did she know, she set off a chain reaction in which I would spend the majority of middle and high school without any physical or emotional contact with anyone, followed by my college years when I would scandalously make out with just about anyone... regardless of race, religion, etc. The pain has died down since, but it just recently hit me: Kierra, my second black friend in the world, used her milkshake to bring 12 year old Justin to the yard, and then denied me. The personal alienation that followed, the scandalous/somewhat loose college years, my inability to commit to people: it all dials back to one thing... the milkshake.
But in time, all wounds eventually heal and time has a way of changing things. Kelis would go on to release much more provocative music before finally fading out into oblivion; I like to believe that her and Macy Gray share an apartment somewhere in inner-city New York. Kierra is off at college finishing up her undergrad; I like to think she's made friends that aren't nearly as ignorantly racist as I was as a twelve year old. Me on the other hand, I wander the streets of DC without any regard to any defining quality of a person. I just want someone to love--someone who will use their milkshake to bring me to the yard, teach me, but not have to charge.
And in the long run, I don't think my parents even care if I bring home a nice, white, Christian girl home anymore because I did that once, and that was the one girlfriend that I've had that both Kathy and Wendell didn't really like at all. In reality I think Wendell, who at one point could have arguably been classified as racist himself, dislikes white people more than he does any other race. Our Thanksgivings are void of color requirement (and religion and sexuality, for that matter) at this point. Raising Casey and me opened their eyes to a new world, and they've learned that there are much more important things in the world than a small defining quality.

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.

Fat Like Me or... Writing on Girls With Markers

I've always had a theory that skinny people were just people that shouldn't be trusted. And then I get soft, and I start letting skinny people into my life because they seem nice enough. Yes, they have their downfalls: they run and can't fit in small places, but ultimately they're people, too. It's hard for me to overcome my ultimate distrustful nature of skinny people because I know if it came down to a natural disaster like a tornado, they would never have my back. Yes, thick boys like myself have a better chance of staying grounded in a funnel cloud situation, but I can just imagine a Helen Hunt F5 size tornado coming towards me, and all my friends are playing a life and death version of sardines just staring at me from a tight space right before I get pulled into the sky. I'll never be able to fully give my heart to a skinny person because I know that all they'll do is steal it and hide it in a place that I'm too large to get into... most likely a crawl space or an inconveniently narrow alleyway.
But knowing all those facts about skinny people doesn't stop me from wanting to reach out to them anyway. After meeting a girl in my class, an obviously natural-born-skinny, I decided that even though she had her moments in class, she was worth giving a chance. She tends to dominate conversation, but I thought that it was maybe because she had a Rachel Berry/Lea Michele personality--I didn't want to blame it on her being skinny until I had to. But tonight, we were talking about the footage that broadcast journalists use as anchors and reporters do the voice overs... the particular one we watched had a flurry of obese people walking around, but the camera cut off their heads, probably to hide their identity. I asked how ethical it was to use stock footage of obese people who probably didn't know they were filmed as the image of obesity in America. That soon followed with a woman in my class, Sunset, talking about how her daughter was measured for her BMI in front of her classmates and went home and told her mom that she was... ugly.
I automatically went into mommy mode and shared my absolute disgust with Sunset. It was as if my imaginary daughter had been called fat, too. Then, out of the silence, Skinny chimed in. She stated, You know, if a seven year old is obese then someone needs to tell her that she is. Someone needs to explain that she is going to get diabetes and that her weight is a problem. I know it's not related, but when I was in a sorority, we did the same thing. Then the guys from the fraternity came in with markers and marked on our bodies where we needed to lose weight, and it was embarrassing, but it was also motivating. I've tried really hard to be a mature adult in grad school; I mean, for God's sake, I wear sweaters vests and cardigans. But I couldn't help myself; I could feel that chunky middle schooler fighting from the inside as I yelled/laughed/cried Oh... oh no. Yes, Skinny is a grown woman and can allow whomever she wants to draw on her with a Sharpie, but you can't impose that kind of behavior on to an impressionable seven year old. If I ever found out that someone had called my child's BMI out in front of class, let alone drew on them with a sharpie, I would find a special place for that sharpie that even the skinniest person couldn't get to.
I started having flashbacks to sixth grade when we were forced to run a mile in under sixteen minutes. Everyone had finished, and there I was jogging (or walking, I can't remember because after the second laugh, my vision started to go) on my second lap just hoping to finish before the time was up. Middle school was not a time that we cheered for each other; middle school was a time to mock Anna G and I for not being able to carry our body weight for a mile. The whole thing was mortifying, and I promised myself that if I could just finish that mile, I would convince my parents to buy me a Hoveround, and I would never walk again. I hated all those skinny people because even when they finished, they continued to walk around like standing up wasn't even a big deal. They didn't understand what it was like to be like me, and they sure weren't open to the idea of trying to picture it.
And I suppose that anger has subsided a bit since I've gotten older. I came to terms that I would never be one of those tinys, but as I got older, I've pretty much maintained the same weight... it just distributed itself better the taller I got. Even now, as I continue to lose weight via my diet of cigarettes and cubes of cheese, I still understand the struggles of those that have a little more to love. I identify with people who understand what it's like to fluctuate between "beautiful" and "beautiful plus some." I'm inspired by people like Kirstie Alley, Josh from Drake and Josh, and the ongoing weight mystery that is Oprah Winfrey. People who are naturally large have to actually work at being skinny, which is frustrating when you're around people who can eat like fourteen hot dogs, a honey bun, a five gallon bucket of 7-11 Slurpee and then say, Wow I feel so fat today while sporting what looks like a premature food baby at best. When I meet people like that, they don't make me want to lose weight... they make me want to eat them.
So, if you're skinny... first and foremost, shame on you. Okay, maybe not shame on you... more so, consider what it's like to walk around feeling less. On top of all the comments you get throughout your day, you're the first person that sees you in the morning. You already know what people are going to say because you say it to yourself first. If you're a little bigger, remember that no matter what size you are, you are important. You should never feel like less of a person because you're a bit larger than the rest. And if you're a bigger person moving toward a skinny life based on nicotine and a couple bites of bread a day, don't do it because you want to be skinny... do it because you don't have money or because you forget to eat, like me. And if you do achieve that point of skinny-sin, then I hope you remember all the people that stared at you because you were fat. Don't forget how it felt to be stared at as you bounced much more than everyone else as you ran laps on the track. And for God's sake, don't justify telling a seven-year-old that she's going to have diabetes one day in front of her peers. If what motivates you is having a man tell you what's wrong with your body by drawing on you with a marker, maybe you need a different kind of mirror to assess what might need some work.

Rich Girls Go To Party City

Tonight, I'm sitting in my apartment as the people I've met in DC (not so much the woman who asked me to put money in her shoe) go out for something called "Restaurant Week." For those of you unfamiliar to what "Restaurant Week" is (because I was), it's this thing when overly priced food is sold for a cheaper, but still overly priced, rate. So if you are one to drop ninety dollars on a meal (which is approximately seventeen five dollar footlongs from Subway), you can have that same meal for a discounted forty. Sadly, I've never been one to drop more than twenty-five dollars for a single dinner outing, and that meal better sing the praises of Jesus Christ and be dusted with tiny gold flakes. Instead, I've opted for what is sure to be a delivery from Dominos and whatever is coming on television tonight. Sigh.
And to be honest, I would love to say that I'm just some middle class kid that's griping about not being able to spring for goat cheese salad with Serena and all the other Gossip Girls, but this could possibly be the most destitute point in my life. I've spent the last week refreshing the "Free Stuff" on DC's Craig's List page hoping to happen upon a bed frame or something else of use for my apartment. It's the first time in my life that I've ever sincerely asked myself the question Are you just a trashy bitch? It's a difficult time because you don't ever want to be perceived as the guy who would rather spend more money of Natty Light than you would on furniture, and I never would have thought that had I not been mocked for my motley collection of furniture. It's hard feeling like you're a bum, and it's hard feeling like you can prove yourself otherwise.

"After all that we've been through, I know we're cool."

But the whole situation helps me reflect on my life; the many times that I've been the poor girl in a rich girl's world. Gwen Stefani said it best, If I were rich girl... na na na na na na na na na na na na na... Okay, so maybe Gwen didn't say it best, but I'm sure you get the point. My life has been plagued by rich girl moments; times when people were going to places or doing things that were simply out of my price range. It's unfair, but that's life (or the Republican party) for you. But of all the rich girl moments that I've ever experienced (including, but not limited to, anything that involved the planning of one Brad Finney), none have been as deviant or complex as the seventh grade love triangle that love and money thrust me into.
Middle school is scandalous. If you were caught making out with someone in any location on the face of the planet, you could be deemed hero or whore in a matter of three text messages. There was a hierarchy, and that pyramid was not one to be tampered with. I've never personally believed in a glass ceiling, but I also knew what my place was in the grand scheme of middle school politics. I would go to class and do my business, make as many A's as possible, and go home. Never did I believe that it would be so easy to find myself wrapped up in the middle of the drama of South-Doyle's [arguably] richest student.
Mr. Ambrose invited any member of the seventh grade chorus to audition for the winter concert solo for "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Considering that such an invaluable Judy Garland classic was up for grabs, there was no question; I was going for it. Sure, I understood that kids like me who were chided by his classmates for his tie that "looked like a sock" were not supposed to attain such prestigious honors, but I mean... seriously--nothing could stand between Judy and me. After a preliminary audition in front of the audience, most of the auditions were met with obligatory claps and an occasional yay! or way to go!, but as I lit into what was later compared to "just like Justin Timberlake from N'Sync" (which in case you didn't know, is the equivalent to being knighted by the Queen as a thirteen year old), the chorus erupted in a thunderous roar. I. Had. Arrived. The only true competition I had was Sarah Campbell, a seventh grade songbird in her own right. I knew that to beat Justin Guarini... I mean, Sarah Campbell... I would have to really bust out something spectacular on our second audition. There was no room for pitch issues; there was no place for error. I had to really make these people believe that I wanted them to have a merry little Christmas.

This is a picture of me getting the solo. To quote Kelly,
I can't believe it's happening to me.

As we approached the front of the room, Mr. Ambrose's wife Linda (who never admitted it, but was totally rooting for me the entire time) accompanied me. Crescendo after decrescendo, countless trills and vibratos... I had done it again. It was my "A Moment Like This." And with all her might, there was nothing that Sarah could do to change the outcome. I had won. When Mr. Ambrose made the official announcement, I made my fatal error. Like all the seasons of American Idol I had watched, none of the winners turned around and said Suck on that! They made their way over to the runner up and gave a meaningful, heartfelt hug. I was only following protocol, so as I made my way over to the front row to give my condolences and respect, I broke one of the biggest rules of middle school: You never hug another man's girlfriend.
Sarah, at the time, was dating Brian Daley. Earlier that month, Brian had been dating Sarah's friend, Emily, and without being able to remember the specifics, let's just go ahead and say that Brian dated a lot of people in middle school. The engagements never lasted too long, but it was something to be revered if you had a little bit of time dating Brian. And I don't want this to seem like I was the complete victim of this story; if I'm being honest, I had had a crush on Sarah on and off for years. She, at one point, was my dream girl. My Kelly Kapowski. But in the world of middle school dating, the odds were not in my favor. His dad owned a Party City; my dad owned two deer heads and the VHS boxset of Lonesome Dove. I mean, there's really no comparison. But in essence, I really didn't think there was anything too heinous to my actions. All I wanted to do was offer some competitor love, even if there was some hormonal drive in doing so.
I wasn't prepared for how quickly the news would spread. The next day, I was greeted in homerooms with ambiguous threats from people about how Brian Daley was going to kick my ass. I wasn't sure how to respond because I sure wasn't going to say ass. I mean, I had only been saying "stupid" for two years... I wasn't prepared for this kind of coarse language, let alone the actions that these statements yielded. All I wanted was to make Judy Garland proud, and look where that had gotten me: on the chopping block of the heir of two Party Citys, and let me tell you, that's not the place where you want to be. In essence, we had a West Side Story situation on our hands; I was just a lonely Jet meandering through the hallways waiting for a Shark to come behind and stab me when I wasn't looking. What I remember most from the whole situation was the fear, less about the outcome... even though, if memory serves me correctly, I'm pretty sure that the whole thing coming to a head when Sarah's friends felt like Sarah was being objectified by not being able to hug other boys, then Emily Golden slapped Brian Daley in the breezeway outside the lunchroom. Oh, Emily, always tried and true to take the heat off of someone else and direct it on herself, but I suppose her efforts were made in good conscious. All the women, who independent, throw your hands up at me.
I suppose that you become more comfortable with the socioeconomic divide as you get older. I still don't believe in those glass ceilings, and that's probably the reason I'm in the mess I'm in right now... sitting in a Target butterfly chair with my feet propped up on a coffee table that was in someone else's house about two days ago. And though I still have a budget that does not allow me to currently attend "Restaurant Week" and a father who does not own two Party Citys, I don't think that should disqualify someone from getting the solo or the life they want. Being a successful adult, I'm learning, is something that cannot be put in a bottle or on a list. It's not about how you look or what you own, or who in Brian's case, but rather it's about knowing what your budget is and using the proper grammar to elucidate exactly why it is you hug people. And as you climb that ladder, someone might jab at you or bring your down or worse, they may just offer to kick your... butt... and that's just a risk you have to be willing to take.

Jesus Loves You, Charlotte Howard

Sometimes, I look back on my time as a child and ask myself, How the hell did you get to this point in your life without being murderer for being such a little jerk? In my defense, I was the butt of a lot of jokes, a lot of which have been covered in previous stories, but like most stories, there's always another side to the coin. There are a lot of responses that a kid can have to being bullied, but one of the more ridiculous ones was one that I once gave a shot: bullying other people back. However, as the communication savvy young man I've always been, I made sure that I had a getaway, and what better getaway can you have other than the word of Jesus Christ? I mean, people have used him for years to do super shiesty things: all the way from the Crusades to Chick-Fil-A investments. And how am I to judge any of those people, when I, myself, have used the Lord as a weapon of destruction.

Eighth grade is hard; I was at the peak of my wind breaker phase, and my self-esteem was at an all time low. Other than having an exceptionally close relationship with my teachers, a weekly appointment with the guidance counselor to talk about my acute depression, and an anchor role on "Cherokee Television," I didn't really have a lot going for me. I didn't have a claim to fame for anything other than being the face for "Homeroom Feud" and having exceptionally thick lensed glasses.

When asked if I could go back to any point in my life, which part would it be, I responded, "I don't know, but it wouldn't be middle school." Middle schoolers are mean, mean people that have just started to understand some of the diversities and differences of the world. We've graduated into the internet and the dangerous things we can do with instant messaging and Myspace, and we loved nothing more than tearing each other down, so when presented with the opportunity to do the tearing, as opposed to being the one torn upon, I jumped on it. I wasn't apart of any of the official planning, but when approached in the hallway by the local preacher's daughter, who was also one of the more popular girls, I followed. That's just what you do as a middle schooler: you follow the "powerful." She pointed out our [literal] target: Charlotte Howard.

I had known Charlotte Howard since kindergarten. She had always been the straight laced girl pressed upon way to heavily by her parents. No Rugrats because Angelica was mean; she was allowed to watch Veggie Tales and Wishbone for their religious and intellectual potential, respectively. Looking back on the situation as a twenty-two year old, I probably would have thrown up a middle finger to everything I had known, too. Middle school welcomed a whole new lifestyle for Charlotte: to quote one, Jay-Z, she had "black cards, black cars, all black everything." She had denounced God and befriended our school's token Atheist from California. Yeah, California. Essentially, Charlotte had seemingly overnight become the middle school bully's dream. And in an attempt to alleviate a little pressure off my overweight, nerdy, completely uncool self, I joined in.

Emily handed me a pencil, a light blue piece of unsharpened wood adorned with a Bible verse I can't seem to recall, and told me the plan. Once she walked out of class, we would set it all into action, and we would end it by taking our weapons and pummeling the demons right out of her. She came around the corner, and I looked down at the pencil, and it was as if future Justin was speaking to pathetic, tiny 8th grade Justin, Dude, look at what you're doing. Are you seriously going to d-- It was too late. The pencil went flying, and we followed with a total mockery of the very thing we were supposedly representing, Jesus, loves you Charlotte! What. had. I. done.

The next day, we were all called to the principal, completely ignorant that we would be called in for something other than an award or accomplishment... especially considering that we were all called in together. So it was quite the surprise that we were all up for pending sanctions for religious harassment, which fell under the Zero Tolerance policy. If it hadn't been for Charlotte, we would have all been suspended. And the irony of it all, is that her "attackers" are now a bisexual, two known lesbians, a college drop out, and a retail worker. God, the actual merciful one... not the one that we supposedly represented, only knows what kind of hell we were all going through at the time that we decided to do it, because I will stand by the idea that we only exhibit hate toward others because of the insecurities and doubts that we have in ourselves.

When thinking back on the whole charade, I'm sure that it reads as something with a little bit of humor, and even to Charlotte, the story tends to bring a smile to her face, but for me, it's probably one of the most embarrassing things I've ever done. After eighth grade, I never went back to another youth group, and I found the God that I worship on my own terms. Charlotte and I just graduated from college together, and somehow along the way, we kind of met in the middle of the Christian/Satanic continuum, if you will. But to quote Saved!, "The Bible is not a weapon!" I just wish that more young, enthusiastic Christians had been sent into Sherry Hensely's office to shed a little light on the differences between witnessing and full blown alienation.