Any Which Way But Home

To be completely honest, I didn't really care that much to come home, and as I watch the Washington Memorial start to disappear out the window, I still have my doubts. It's not that I didn't want to see my family... I want to see them every day. If I could have them there with me, I would, but in all honesty, I'm exhausted. The prospect of getting on a bus at eleven o'clock at night and hoping that maybe there weren't any children or nine hour marathons of Golden Girls was too much for me. Before I had even approached the bus, I unloaded two Benadryl from my bag and bought an outrageously priced 2.00 Cherry Coke. The plan was to drug myself into an allergy medicine coma until I reached the daylight of Knoxville's downtown bus station.
But then what do I do? I get picked up and then I pretend like my life hasn't changed for four days, and then I get back on a bus to do it all over again? The closer it got, the more the concept of going back home troubled me. I kind of feel like I was forced out of Knoxville being my home. I haven't seen anything Knoxville related in over two months now, and I started noticing that when it came to people from home, my phone had a lot of outgoing calls, but not many that were incoming. So after a period of mourning a life that really wasn't mine, I was determined to let it die. I would write about my past in this blog, but as far as I was concerned, the future belonged to D.C.
I have started putting this life together up here, choosing family members with their own stories. I like the idea that after a day or so, people might even miss me. The thing about DC is that most people come alone, and no one really knows what's going on... and I'm not even talking about the political side. So, in a weird, mismatched, completely non-methodical way, I chose these people to share my life with, and I became okay with the idea that they could replace what I've come from. I didn't need what I left because people either didn't understand why I left, didn't believe I could, or simply forgot to remember me once I had gone. Or at least that's the way I saw it.
But as I walked up to the bus stop, I decided to take a seat and check my Facebook, Twitter, blog, and all three of my email accounts. A man next to me was obviously talking to his spouse, telling them how much he couldn't wait to see them. He loved them. He'd talk to them soon. I couldn't tell if he was coming or going, but I knew that wherever he was going, there was very distinctly a home that he had in his mind. I thought to myself, I wish I had that certainty. That assurance that he has in his voice to call one thing home over anything else. In recent weeks, I had no idea what I would call home because I wasn't sure myself anymore.
And then there was this woman. If I had to guess, I would say it's in the upper 50s in Washington, but she walked up in a full blown coat, scarf, and toboggan. She was obviously ready for an elderly installment of Cool Runnings. Naturally, she decided to sit down next to me, as all the most interesting people do. She tried to talk to the man who was on the phone, but he was quite obviously not entertained by what she had to say. So she turned to me. Look at our bus driver. Well doesn't she look fresh as a daisy. We quickly deduced that we would be on the same bus going home to Tennessee. Then, surprisingly enough, we found out that we've both lived off of Chapman Highway. We started exchanging stories about our lives, but I really didn't have anything in comparison. Somehow, in the span of thirty minutes, we covered topics from politics to health care to religion, to which she had to say, My daughter married a Pentecostal. I don't think I have to say anymore... she came up to me one day and said, "Mama, I'm so sorry, but I think you're going to hell." The Pentecostals are like that... and I said, "Well, I'm more worried about you going around and judging people like that." And I remember the conversation so well because I was literally writing down her words verbatim as she sat in front of me.
She began to tell me that none of us were all that different from one another, even when it came to religion. We all worship something greater than us, and none of us have ever been able to prove it, but it's human nature to want something that you can't understand. At times, I wondered if maybe she was just bat shit crazy, or if maybe, there was a slight possibility that she knew something I didn't. She did however say that anybody who studies philosophy and takes it seriously as a subject is a "plain out waste of time," and I couldn't help but giggle. People who study philosophy can't tell you nearly as much about life as I can. While they were studying life, I was living it.
But then she went back to Tennessee, telling me how she had lived there for 7 years, but then she had moved to Florida. Later, she would move to Ohio, then Syracuse (which was her least favorite), then New Hampshire, and finally settle in at her current location of Boston. I started asking her just how many places she had lived, and she responded, I've lived too many places to count. I call them all home, whether I liked them or not. Of course, I would find myself sitting next to the seemingly whack job bag lady capable of offering up wise life lessons that I couldn't even fathom. She spoke of life and death like it was a science... not one that she had studied, but rather lived first hand, having lost her daughter to cancer five years ago on her birthday. Soon after, I asked her if maybe we should get in line and then the sneaky old skank said that she put her bags at the front of the line early on, but if I wanted to get on the bus, I better go take my place... about thirty people back.
I nodded to the man sitting next to us, the one who was on his phone, and it all kind of hit me suddenly. The man didn't have a particular place in mind when he was thinking about home. Home was whoever was on the other side of that phone call. Yeah, they may live in a house in a specific city, but it was obvious that the phone call being made was not because of a house or some patch of property. That love and definite feeling of home belonged to a person, which kind of explains my debacle. I want to go home, but I don't want to leave... because I'm lucky enough to call two places home. And I suppose that maybe the reason no one ever called to make sure I was doing okay is because I didn't really give anyone the opportunity to be unsure of my situation. I talk to people everyday, letting them know about walking across the street or blowing my nose or about a new television show. So, I would still say the situation is hard... leaving to go back to Tennessee, but it's not because I don't know what home is; it's because I have to leave home to go home.
So after a ten hour day at work and a dinner alone and four hours of sleep to make that all happen on, I'm going to pop the safety Benadryl and go pass out, and when I wake up, I imagine I will be seeing the sunlight shine across a different home than I went to sleep to.

Update: I kept running into Evelyn, or Meggie as she introduced herself. In between medicinal comatose, we'd stop at rest stops. At our most recent 5:00am stop somewhere in Southern Virginia, she offered to buy me a coffee, seeing that in reality... she was much more weather-appropriately dressed. She is easily one of the most caring, thoughtful people I've ever met, and I hope that one day, I can be a fraction of the human that she has become.

Eight Reasons That I Don't Want To Get Married Right Now

I love marriage. It's precious and beautiful and all those other really sweet words that people like to put in their vows. I look forward to the day that I find someone to spend the rest of my life with because isn't that all what we're looking for in the long run? We want that person that will stick with us through everything because the idea itself is a marvel, and I don't mean that sarcastically. There are days that I wake up and don't like myself, so to know that there could be someone out there that wakes up beside me and regularly sees something inside of me that I don't even see myself... that's amazing.
But, for now, I'd just like that in the "living in sin" sense. Give me someone to wake up with, sure, but I'm not interested in making it official quite yet. This past summer was full of marriages, and let me tell you... the horse is dead. You all killed it; you beat it with a stick, stuck it in a photo booth with a fedora, fake mustache, and glasses with no lenses, pulled it out, made it do the cha cha slide for an unprecedented four times, shoved red velvet cake in its face, then turned it to glue so that you could finish your latest Pinterest project. That poor, poor horse.

8. None of my friends can afford to get me the wedding presents I want.
I've seen you people. Everybody wants to go out, but no one wants to drive because we don't have any gas. And I can see it... I'll be asking for a flatscreen TV or something equally awesome, and your ass is going to roll up at my wedding with a set of coasters. I don't want your coasters right now because you'll be able to say Oh, well. You know things are tight for me right now. I want to wait until you have a good job with a lot of moneys... then I want to hear your excuses. The longer I wait, the nicer the presents I will get. In my opinion, weddings are not about solidifying my love for someone in front of all of my friends. If I haven't done that on a daily basis, then I have no business getting married. Weddings are for presents. The end.

7. I don't have any neat ideas for hipster wedding pictures.
I'm just going to go ahead and get it out there: I'm not on Pinterest. I like the idea of being super crafty, but I'm still cleaning up a glue gun mess from when I was seven. So for the safety of everyone in my life, it's really best if I don't try getting creative at my own hand. But that leaves me with everyone else's ideas. Cropped pictures in sepia of a girl walking around in casual clothing inside of a barn or pastoral setting. That's pretty much where I grew up, and to me, there's not really any unique, quaint sentiment that comes along with it. So, I'm going to wait until something else becomes popular... preferably painted family portraits. Put that in the newspaper and on your save the date. Paint me acrylic or paint me single.

6. You don't have to be married to have babies.
As many of you probably saw on Facebook, I'm expecting. It's true. After giving it some thought and realizing that I've become pretty good at feeding myself, Andrew and I have decided to bring another animal besides Ben into our home. If I have my way, it will be a little boy named Chico. He's four months old, and he's been caged for about a week now. I will walk around with him and refer to myself as "the man." If I can take care of a cat for at least a year without killing it, then maybe I'll entertain the idea of welcoming a human into my home. From what I hear, people that get married get bored after awhile... and when the sex gets predictable, they have kids. Even if I get bored in my twenties, I'm assuming that it's pretty easy to get a baby. People leave them at the park down the road from my apartment all the time. You don't need a spouse to have a baby when you have a nursery next to the basketball court.

5. I haven't had a successful relationship in... oh yeah. Awkward.
My longest relationship that I've had last six years, and now she's married, so that's over. Thanks, Kasi. But even when we were Bo and Hope from Days of Our Lives, our entire relationship was a roller coaster and a half. The last relationship I was in was nursed by too many indie record songs to count. I'm just not too good at making these things last too long, and that's frustrating, so I'm going to assume that without some further practice, I'm probably going to crash and burn... but with a license and a family attorney. I don't have a super athletic-like day then sign up for a 5K... the same theory applies.

4. I haven't met anyone with a super cool last name.
I know, I know. I'm a boy. But listen to me for a minute. You should never pass up an opportunity to upgrade if given the opportunity to, so I'm going to keep my options open. I have a pretty hard last name to beat. Not only is Kirkland a pretty strong name, but it also is the name of a pretty cool furniture store, and it allows me to have my initials be JK. I have a pretty sweet deal, but that doesn't mean there isn't a sweeter deal out there. Don't waste what really conservative folks say is the only marriage you'll ever have by getting a shitty last name or keeping the shitty last name you have. Don't waste an excellent opportunity to improve your drivers license by careless 20-something mistakes.

3. In 44 states, I'm limited to only a 50% selection of who I can marry.
I like my options. If I go to Burger King, I expect to be able to get chicken or a burger. And yeah, it's nice that I have the option, but what happens when someone who can't eat beef shows up and all the chicken is gone. It's stupid and wrong and an ugly, ugly idea to even consider. So, if everyone isn't allowed to get married, then I don't really care to get married either. Getting married seems like purposefully overdressing for a party...  I get it. You have nice clothes, but there's people here who don't. I guess for me, marriage doesn't make a lot of sense if it's only available for a certain group of people. And it's not like it's a crazy assertion to let two consenting adults pay their taxes together and have power of attorney... it's not like I'm trying to marry Chico (which would be a double hit, because he's a cat and a dude). If I find a dude and hit it off, and he doesn't want to watch sports when Grey's Anatomy is one then (gay)me on.

2. Even if it's without consent, I have someone to snuggle with anytime I want.
I forgot to put that I do this in my online roommate profile, but Andrew has quickly found out that more times than not, I'm going to corner him and then nuzzle against him for about thirty seconds or so until I get my physical-interaction-fix. I agree that it's important to have a physical interaction with someone, but I'm going to get a little liberal and say... you don't need a ring on your finger to do that. And I'm lucky because he doesn't try and escape me that often. And when I'm done, he listens to me complain and celebrate my life. Maybe it's a little too I Love You, Man for your taste, but I don't think it's particularly important to solidify a spouse early on as a source of love and support. Call me lucky, but I have a pretty great support system that I never have feel obligated to buy dinner for, and having him around is practice so that I can see what drives people so crazy that they don't want to be around me anymore.

1. I just recently realized that I have no idea who the $&#^ I am.
I mean, yes, there's a base. All of the stories I've written on this blog are evidence of that. But when you're 22 years old and move away from home and know not a single person, you really start having to look really hard at yourself. I came out of eighteen years of living with my parents followed by four years of living on a college campus. Then, you're thrust out into the world and you start proving to yourself who you really can be. And I guess you could argue that you're going to be changing forever, and I suppose you're right. I'm going to maybe be self-absorbed in saying this, but I think that right now is our time. This is your chance to figure out why you are you. And people say, we can grow together, but I want to share my life with someone... not forge it into one. My biggest fear is to look at someone that I love one day and realize that I didn't give them the time to become their own person and know that we have grown apart.

The Art of Being Livid

I knew when I woke up this morning that it was going to be a bad day. You just get that feeling when you roll over and realize that your apartment is the temperature of your standard winter tundra. I stared at my phone knowing that even contemplating resetting my alarm was just postponing the inevitable: Tuesday, or Hell as I have come to affectionately call it… but I’ll explain that pet name later. I got out of bed, cut off the parts of my leg deadened by frostbite, and got into the car.

On the way to work, I subconsciously decided to take a route that I’ve never taken before, twenty minutes away from the metro stop that I actually intended to drive toward. And when you take twenty minutes to drive in the opposite direction, it gives you a long time to consider all of the things that are really pissing you off in the world. I thought about how PBS might be cancelled by this time next year. I thought about how those Chinese girls in the Beijing Olympics were obviously too young to compete. I thought about how Glee is on hiatus until November. (Oh, you didn’t know? Welcome to my day.) By the time that I actually got to the metro, I was locked and loaded. I was the conductor of the train headed to Worst Day Everville.

As I stood on the metro searching for a glimmer of hope to grab on to, I was distracted by the man breathing heavily down my back… so close, that I could feel his breath condensate on my small neck hairs. And as I heard him wheeze, I asked the spirit of Helga Petacki from Hey Arnold! for forgiveness, because I mistook her violent actions toward Brainy as unnecessary lashing out. In reality, her rage was completely appropriate and justified.

And just like a narrative, a day is broken into paragraphs. Getting out of bed, driving to the metro, riding on the metro, going into work. Each event represents an ultimately separate event from the rest… however, all of those paragraphs make a story and one bad paragraph has the ability to make that story a tainted one. Call me a commitment lover, but as I got off the metro, I committed myself to a bad day. I actively chose to pursue the very worst parts of my day, and when you make a decision like that, it’s the beginning of a terrible chain of events. You commit to a bad day, then you victimize yourself in regard to all of those around you. You follow that with exclusivity to everyone else, and in your loneliness, you dredge up things from the past… and that’s the art to becoming livid.

One of the most important parts of becoming livid is choosing a single ally to have for the rest of the day: everyone else is garbage in your eyes. You can’t believe that they didn’t let you walk out of the elevator first, and if you had your way, you would have them spend an eternity in Hell for it. And luckily they will, because Tuesdays are what we like to call Hell. Mondays have such a bad reputation for being the worst day, when it reality, Monday is where hope dies.

Monday is still fresh enough out of the weekend that you remember what it was like getting hammered on Saturday and then making out with that girl in the bathroom… how did you even get in the bathroom? And that’s why Tuesday is Hell because all those sinful memories that died once you remember that the work week does in fact continue after Monday are banished to Tuesday Hell. Shame on you for being such a weekend heathen; you have been rewarded with the most hopeless day of the week, and its sky will be painted with the color of hopelessness. If Crayola made it a crayon, I imagine it would be called “Kill Myself Gray.”

Throughout the day, you find reasons that you could possibly find joy, but let’s be honest. You have a whole drawer full of “Kill Myself Gray” colored crayons, and you just aren’t ready to throw those out. So in my case, I equated everything that I had to do today to climbing Mount Everest, and when I messed it up, it was obviously not my fault because I was up against insurmountable circumstances.

And as the day goes on, there’s only one thing to do… capitalize. You start listing all the things that have gone wrong about your day, down to the most minute of circumstances. Sometimes, if you haven’t had enough go wrong, it’s completely permissible to draw on things from the past and pretend that they happened to you on the Tuesday in question. But today, I made a grave error in my execution of the horrible day. I had identified my ally, a fellow intern named Nicole. We shared our disgust for the day, down to how much of an injustice that it was that I didn’t wear my peacoat to work. And in vain, I made a selfish, careless error. I attempted to enlist a second ally.

So, when I came home, I turned to my roommate Andrew with too high of expectations. Some would argue that he had no dog in this fight (author’s note: I do not support Michael Vick or his preference for dog fighting), but in my world, he should have known everything. And we’ve been sentimental lately in true bromance fashion, so I could only assume that if there were a set of arms available to run into, it would surely be his. But the fact of the matter is that the whole evening was quite the opposite. Moments like these are your opportunity to implement “the livid.” Opportunities like these are like the devil’s cherry atop the Hell sundae that Tuesdays are.

Implementing the livid is a three-step process, and I will teach you through example. (1) I walked into my apartment looking as disheveled as I could, as if I had planned it when I woke up that morning.  The look on my face reflected a possible death of a pet or a recent viewing of Hotel Rwanda. And to finish, I cavalierly threw my bag onto the couch and announced I had a horrible day. For added effect, I gave a bulleted list of everything that had gone wrong. His response was I watched Avengers today. An ignorant, yet perfect, response if I’ve heard one. This is the classic error that lends itself perfectly to building on the next two steps. Responses like this allow you to assert the feeling that you’ve been devalued.

Don’t let yourself stop there. This is the moment that you have to bring the spotlight back to… you guessed it… yourself. (2) Knowing that we were obviously not going to discuss, let alone exchange empathy, about the terrible day, I decided that I wanted to voice another, more solvable issue. I’m tired of just coming home from work and not doing anything. What are you doing later this week? He responds, I’m going out on Thursday, and then I’m going to Happy Hour on Friday. And only a writer or a very hormonal woman (I'm arguably both) would pick up on the underlying issue of that sentence: pronoun use. And with that, you have all the ammunition you need because you have just been offered what society likes to call “the pity invite.” I immediately responded, Oh, I think we were going to Happ… am I not invited? And like magic, he provided me with another perfect response. You are now! Don’t stop yet… you haven’t justified yourself in a completely self-deprecating way… I responded, No, I’m not going to crash something I wasn’t invited to. At that point, you’ve positioned yourself perfectly for one of my favorite life roles: the victim.

I excused myself for an impromptu trip outside without saying a word, and I smoked a cigarette in my socks in the same tundra like weather that was in my room that morning. And when I came back in, I finished strong. (3) As I walked in, he asked me Hey! How ya doing? And if you are so lucky to have such an opportunity, you respond like I did: I’m fine. That’s all you need to say, and if you’re ambitious like me, you go to a remote location, and you wait for someone to come to you. Fine is a terribly loaded word full of hate and anger and desperation. And the only thing that can trigger “fine” into full-blown livid is when it’s the end of your story. I waited in my room for thirty minutes for someone to come ask what was wrong, and I heard our front door close twice. And once I walked into the living room to confirm my suspicion, the livid was allowed to rear its ugly head.

Everyone had left, and that’s when I went “ape shit.” I quickly announced Oh hell no! and from there, I decided to run into things, throw things, slam things… akin to a seven year old, or a dog with rabies. You see, livid has no boundaries. Livid is allowed to do whatever the hell it wants because you… yes, you. You have committed an entire day to get to this point, and you deserve to do whatever your irrationally enraged heart desires. And as I walked out the door, I slammed it so hard that it echoed up the stairwell, and there’s a 72% chance that it broke. I didn’t really go back to check because that’s not what livid does. Livid takes no prisoners, at least when the victim is something that you don’t have to say goodnight to.

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.

Fire in the Hole

Today, as I returned from my lunch break, I quickly put out my cigarette and throw it in the trash, but I paused... life experience does that to you. Instead, I brushed the ashes against the pavement until the residual tobacco started to fall out. I didn't stop until I made it all the way down to the filter. Then, after inspecting the cigarette for anything resembling a dying ember, I brushed it against my shoe once more, threw it in the trash can and stared at it for thirty seconds.
Since I started smoking my sophomore year of college, people have given me a slew of reasons why I should stop. There's a risk of cancer and it turns your teeth and fingernails yellow. You always go around smelling like smoke and nobody wants to kiss an ashtray. Little do people know that the reason that I smoke is to deal with the moments when they preach to me about how bad smoking is... and if I stopped smoking, they would preach to me about something else, and then I would take my abandoned lighter and set them on fire because the lack of nicotine in my system would cause me to lash out and act irrationally, but I suppose that the idea of catching something on fire is not a joke I should be making... not this close to the disaster.
Yesterday was, simply put, a shit show. I was late to work because I got stuck in the worst traffic I've seen since I watched a Bristol NASCAR race, and then when I finally got to the metro, I got on the wrong train a grand total of three times. I'm not sure how someone boards the wrong train three times, but let me tell you, it's not an easy feat. You seriously have to try and be that much of a metro area failure. Finally, after I rode the train back to my starting location, I got the hang of the system and made it to work. I was assigned work that I completely butchered and had to redo from scratch, so as the day went on, my annoyance with myself and those around me only continued to increase. Because I had carpooled into work, I was supposed to meet up with my roommate Ben so that he would pick me up at the Clarendon metro.
I had beaten him to our predetermined location, and after the intense struggle that I had with the traffic and the trains and the public relations, I decided that I deserved a cigarette. I lit up, and in about six minutes, the cigarette was gone. I casually brushed off the embers and tossed it into the trashcan. A bus had pulled up and let off people at the corner I was standing at, and a man got off and looked at me and said, "Hey." Naturally, I responded back, but as he walked away, he kept glancing back at me... or at least, around me. About thirty seconds later, I looked back, and there it was... the trash can was smoking.

Being the logical, level-headed person I am, I started blowing on the smoke, like a birthday candle or a stray eyelash on your hand. With the extra wind power, the smoke caught ahold of some paper and the trash can was literally on fire. The next step I took is one that seemed like the natural choice in my mind: I spit on it, because I obviously can generate enough saliva to put out a trash fire. As the fire continues to grow larger and larger, actual logic began to sit in, and I came to the conclusion that if I continued to put my head inside of this burning trash can, I was going to pass out and fall in, which would not only kill me, but essentially provide more material for the trash can to burn. I turned to the small Asian woman sitting at the bus stop beside the trash can and calmly explained the situation by saying, Oh crap. Oh crap. It's on fire. I caught the trash can on fire. Her response was to not say anything, grab her belongings, and walk away.
By this time, the smoke and fire was entertaining enough to start drawing in a crowd. I've never really understood what it is about disaster that attracts people to come in closer to it, but then again, I guess I'm not really allowed to talk, considering that my solution to extinguishing a fire consisted of spitting on it. I ran across the street into a restaurant and interrupted a man at the front desk, I'm really sorry. I don't mean to bother you, but I just set a trash can on fire. Can I get some water? And because apparently no one was on their A game, he said, What? What did you do? I thought that my explanation was pretty crystal clear. I caught a trash can on fire, and I needed water to put it out. There really was no time to explain it any further, I just need some water. Now. He came back with a glass, and I shot back across the streets in slacks and a dress shirt, strategically dousing the fire with an unusually large glass of water.
In a really strange turn of events, no one actually saw me smoke or throw the cigarette into the trash can, including the officer sitting across the street who had been there since I lit the cigarette in the first place. People were coming up to me and saying things like, Way to be thinking on your feet! and Thank you for being on top of it today! but my personal favorite was Wow, way to go. Did someone throw a lit cigarette into the trash can? to which I responded, Yeah, I think so. People are so stupid. The officer who had been sitting in his car the entire time, leaned out the window and said, Hey, you. Shit, I was busted. Was that trash can on fire? I responded, yes sir. Did you get it put out? I responded, yes sir. Thank you for being a good citizen. You're a good man. So, somehow I managed to be the village hero for the day by putting out a fire... that I started.
And I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I really am scared of cancer, and even more scared of smelling like smoke or having yellow teeth, but the one thing that people have never told me about smoking is that cigarettes can catch things on fire. I go back to all the safety videos that we were made to watch as children (when smoking was allowed in restaurants... what?!), and I remember seeing videos about old women who would smoke in bed and then end up catching themselves and everything else on fire. If you're an advocate of people stopping smoking, that's what I encourage you to tell people about. The cancer thing, the appearance thing, the wrinkles thing... that horse is dead, and not from second hand smoke inhalation. Start going around and telling people that if they don't stop smoking they're going to catch some shit on fire. As I was having a cigarette today, I crossed my eyes and looked down at the end of the butt and saw the embers glowing bright orange. All I could think about is that I could be next... yesterday was the trash can, but with one wrong move, tomorrow... I could go up in flames.

Nobody Said It Was Easy

There were a lot of things that people told me about growing up. It's hard paying taxes. It's hard making rent or a mortgage every month. It's hard to have children and get them to school on time and still have enough time to make it into work yourself. Those are things that I get. You don't pay your taxes, and you are arrested. You don't pay your rent, and you're evicted. You don't get to work on time, and there is some kind of repercussion. Those things are black and white. It's math. And I was always so amused when people in college would tell me how hard biology and math majors had it because it was a discipline that was complicated and complex, but I never saw it that way. Yes, math and science can be very hard, but it's so determinable. One wrong number, and the equation is just... wrong. It's English that I always found to be the most complicated, and ironically, English was always my worst subject. I never made less than an A in any math or science course that I was in because I know how to get things right. I pay attention to detail and error.
English is where things become complicated because there are grades in between an A and an F. Your analysis is only as good as the clarification that you bring behind it. Does Mrs. Dalloway lend itself to a feminist interpretation? Prove it. It's not as simple as you would think. So, as someone who excels as the supposedly "difficult" parts of life: the math and the taxes and the time management, it's disappointing to me that the easy part is what I find to be the most complicated. Everyone told me how expensive Washington D.C. would be, but no one ever told me how hard it is to be... lonely. No one ever told me what it's like to go to sleep holding a pillow, imagining that it is a person beside you because you can't remember the last time that you fell asleep with someone in your arms. No one ever explained to me what it would be like to love someone with everything inside of you, and then have that person who at one point felt the same about you... cease to feel that way anymore.
And that brings me to tonight. After what seemed like a hopeless journey for employment, I decided to start serving. About a month later, I was hired on as a public relations intern for an absolutely amazing company. I didn't want to abandon the work I had been doing as a graduate assistant, so I turned in my notice for the serving job. And then, for my final weekend, I was scheduled for a double shift on Saturday, and the 6 hour morning shift on Sunday, after I had asked for only one shift this weekend. And after working five days and developing what I have believed to be a new string of some deadly flu, I decided that I just couldn't pull it off. I'm exhausted and frustrated and homesick and lonely and all the aforementioned things that no one tells you about as a child. Suddenly, all of the numbers and taxes seem relatively simple.
And because I'm naturally Catholic, I turn the decision of whether to call in or not as revolutionary as Sophie's Choice. In true Justin fashion, I consulted those that I'm closest to in hopes of assurance.
And that's something else about life. We find ourselves in these predicaments and these situations where we know that there's really no right or wrong answer because there's going to be a consequence either way. Someone is always going to be upset, so when you look over and you see your friend/Jennifer Grey/Baby in a corner, the best thing you can do is just support that person, and maybe even thank God that for a moment, you're not in that position. You're lucky enough to have to deal with the Math and not the English for once, and even if you get it wrong, you know that you've really gotten it wrong. So, maybe I'm overreaching, but I think we have an obligation to have sympathy for those who get put in a tight spot, no matter how big or little it may seem.
And I'm sure as you're reading this, you're thinking Justin, this isn't some pivotal decision that is going to have a catastrophic effect one way or the other, and to that I would say... you're right. It's just a serving job, and if I hadn't of called in tonight and just decided to skip tomorrow, the worst that could happen is that I get fired from a job that I've already put in a notice for. But that's not the issue here. The issue is that life is simply not an easy road to navigate. When you're sick and there's no one around to take care of you, it adds on pressure. And when you come home at 6:30 after an eleven hour day (once you add commute time in) and the only thing to really hold on to is a pillow, that adds some pressure as well. When everything you know is 500 miles away, and you struggle to fully trust anyone you meet in this new world, that adds pressure, too. And I'm sure that all of those details seem oddly specific to my life, and in essence, this post may sound entirely self-absorbed (I'm winking at you, Dana), but I urge you to look at your own life. Reflect back on the decisions that you made, and then five times as much time reflecting back on why you made that decision. Very few decisions in life are made based strictly on the details directly influencing the question at hand.
So, as I've been bargaining my way through the past two days between spouts of blowing my nose on countless Kleenex, I've desperately tried to justify my want need (yes, need) to not go into work this weekend. And what I've left out is all the other reasons why it's just not in the cards. I think that it's something that we don't often think about. If you were to ask a logical person, a scientist perhaps, what a human needs to survive, he or she would respond: water, food, and shelter. A very clear-minded, correct choice. Ultimately, all that we need is water, food, and shelter (and possibly some NyQuil, in my case). But if you were to ask me what we need, I would say a combination of love, hope, and support. Maybe that's a little too frilly for you, but think back on a time when you were in a corner.
Yes, you may be an introvert and a bit of a logically-minded person. No, you may have not needed a hug, but what was it that you needed? I'm sorry that you're struggling with this thing in your life, but it all seems pretty evident to me. Morality and logic and evidence support that you just need to do this... but since you're having a hard time, here's some water and shelter. Was it space that you longed for? Did you want to be alone and mull over all of these complications resting inside of your head? Life is more than just a series of yes and no answers, and when I think back to all of the things that people told me about life, I think I know why no one ever said anything about these moments. It's because we can figure out the complicated, complex stuff... the stuff with numbers and charts. It's these moments of seemingly insignificant decisions that get us down because resting on top of it is the stockpile of issues that we bottle up and don't know how to confront. Nobody said it was easy, but nobody said it would be so hard.

Note: As cliche and predictable as it is that I used a Coldplay lyric as the title of this post, I would also like to draw attention to the irony that the title of the song is called "The Scientist."

Wendell Shot My Friends

I am surprised that PETA didn't storm my house as a child, and if some of the photos from my childhood ever leak into the public eye (which considering my eventual run for presidency, they might), then I'm sure they will appear sooner than you can say that's not faux fur. Last night, Andrew and I were sitting on the couch watching Call of the Wildman, which is about a man who goes and grabs a lot of wild animals with his bare hands. He usually gets compensated for his services in small amounts of money, pieces of food, or the occasional first born. Anyway, as we were watching him eliminate a covey (just go with it) of raccoons from a family's house, I started telling Andrew the story of living in a single wide trailer with my family as a young boy.
Essentially, we would have the occasional mouse or perhaps on the right day, a small litter of opossums scurry through the living room or the kitchen. My dad kept a blowgun around the house and eventually mastered the art of shooting the little buggars with darts which would pin them to the floor. From there, they were available for removal. Andrew kind of looked at me with a fascinated, yet terrified, stare. Apparently his dad had never pinned any small rodents to the floor by use of a dart and a stiff gust of wind. I forget that other people didn't grow up the same way I did, and the concept to me is foreign. Of course, the dynamic changed when we moved from the single wide to the double wide. That didn't eliminate the presence of dead animals in our house... we just brought them in dead, as opposed to killing them on location.
Some of my favorite childhood portraits that are only seen by people legally bound to the Kirkland name are pictures of me hanging out with a flock of dead geese. The composition is almost ironic in that "postmodernist art that nobody gets but everyone wants to understand kind of way." There's me, kneeling next to these dead geese with a smile on my face petting their little head feathers with blood stains trailing from them. And I mean, I guess it was never a big deal for me, but even as I write this, I wonder how people will respond to phrases like petting their little head feathers with blood stains trailing from them. I get it. I see you. Something is wrong about the whole situation.
But there's also some merit in growing up around things that are kind of morbid. Instead of being afraid of everything under the sun like horror movies or snakes, I was just kind of emotionally vulnerable... but not when it came to animals. Nine year old Justin was an absolute wreck when Rose died on Titanic, but when Bambi's mom got shot, I was like Neat! Dinner! The thing is that while I may or may not have utilized the deer's body itself as a personal swing set, I knew that the deer died for a reason... and not just for a play place for my friends and me. The ultimate reason that my dad went around killing everything is because we needed to eat. Yes, holding a beating turtle heart in my hand was kind of awesome, but it's not like Wendell went all Hannibal Lectar and just killed things for the joy of killing. He's a lot of things, but he's no Dexter.

Wendell, why you killin all the animals?

But it did take me a long time to understand exactly why all these things were ending up dead on our porch. To be the academic that I've always claimed to be, I'm really not the brightest person when it came to common sense. There was something that didn't quite click with me from the time that these animals showed up at the house to the time they ended up on the table. But I will go through the step by step process of what was going through my child mind as this timeline of animal death happened around me.
First and foremost, there was the initial victim in question: the kill. Most of the time, it would just be laying there and because most of the kids in my neighborhood lived in houses that also concocted drugs and/or were dangerous to play with themselves, these animals were my friends. I think I consciously decided to ignore that they were dead entirely because if I did that, then I could just have pets for awhile. I can't count how many pictures of me there are carrying around dead rabbits and quail, and if I remember correctly, I had conversations with them... probably because no one else wanted to talk to me anymore.
Then, in true parental wisdom, I was ushered away so that I wouldn't see the animal skinned and cut up. Actually, I don't think I saw the actual animal be taken apart until I was at least ten, which is obviously a suitable age for an introduction to animal dismemberment. Anyways, the next time that I would see the animal was all cut up in the bath tub. Yes, looking back on the whole mess, it was kind of weird to imagine that I took baths in the same place that we would leave our fresh meat to soak, but whatever. I would spend hours leaned up against the side of the bathtub just poking at the meat. I'm not sure if I didn't understand what raw meat looked like or if I thought it was going to come back to life, but there was something about it that was fascinating.
And then, for the finish I guess what it boils down to is that... I ate my friends. I suppose I should maybe go back and apologize to all of my fallen comrades, but at the end of the day, I wasn't so emotionally attached that I couldn't enjoy a Southern-fried version of venison filet mignon or stuffed wild turkey breast. And even with the mice, it's not like I had a Michael Jackson thing going on. I wasn't so much interested in naming the little guy "Ben," but more concerned about where exactly I was going to stumble upon a mouse bound to the ground by a small metal dart with a bright green cap. Call it what you want, but my childhood was kind of awesome. While everyone else was going over to friends' houses for dinner, I was having my friends over... then eating them.