Don't Even Look at Me, Peyton Manning

Today, for the first time in my existence, I got invited to join a fantasy football league. Sure, it was a pretty glorious moment, but in the same breath, it was a moment filled with complete and utter anxiety because I do not follow professional sports at all. I keep up with the SEC because it's part of the contract I signed as a Tennessee resident 23 years ago, but other than that, I don't really dabble in the sports community. There's a whole lot of suppressed memories that remind me that's not the world that I belong in, and I'm okay with that--it's similar to how I feel about not being welcomed in Anacostia, or most restaurants with vegan options. When asked by my roommate about how competitive I was going to be about it, I explained that I really didn't care if I won or I lost because I was mostly in it because of a heightened sense of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and the prospect of delicious hot wings. But obviously, I was going to need some help getting started.
I asked my friend Mark who invited me if he could offer some assistance, and he pretty much told me that this is not an aspect of life where people help each other: this is a part of life where people win. I respect that, but I also respect my dad, Wendell's, advice that he gave to me a long time ago, "If at first you don't succeed, find something you're good at." So, I pretty much gave up on it immediately. I don't care enough to actually learn about the players... that would cut in to the amount of time I have looking up Jennifer Lawrence GIFs and inside information about the 10th season of Grey's Anatomy (speaking of, let's all take a moment of silence for Sandra Oh's departure in nine very short months). I had no interest in learning, let alone mastering, the art of fake football--if I were going to do that, I would have just played. People throughout my life always said, "I'm kind of surprised you didn't play football," which is a nice way of saying, "Hey, I think you're kind of fat, but in a useful way." In fact, I played a couple of sports growing up, but none ever panned out: too many yellow cards in soccer for running into people as hard as I could, never placed on the actual volleyball team because I threw volleyballs really hard at practice, and constant benching in softball because I got bored and sat down in the outfield. Some people would say that it all comes down to the fact that I'm not patient or disciplined enough to be an athlete, but I think what, or whom, it actually comes down to is Peyton Manning.
One day in first grade, it was announced that we would have a special guest coming to class... a friend of one of our classmate's families. Mrs. Ellis could barely get the name out without shuddering in his woven-knit UT orange teacher vest. Peyton Manning would be making an appearance, and most everyone in class continued to pick their noses or playing with their toys, but I remember being so excited. As someone who ingested as much culture as he could from an early age, I knew who Peyton was. So, I went home and told my parents--my dad said UT football was stupid, and the whole thing was rigged, which also reflected his opinion on every Presidential election leading back to Reagan, and the outcome of any given season of American Idol. But my mom understood where I was coming from, so we drove down to Wal-Mart so that I could pick myself up a disposable camera. There was going to be picture evidence of how good of friends Peyton and I would be. I imagined that he would teach me about football, give me piggy back rides, and eventually, we'd go hang out in Neyland Stadium... I could hardly sleep the night before, I was so excited.
But the day came, and naturally some overbearing parents who caught wind of the Peyton-sighting showed up to class. Finally, the time was approaching for me to meet Peyton, aka MAH BEST FRIEND, aka my future personal-Judas. I stepped up to the desk he was sitting at with shaky hands, unsure of what I should do with the camera and the piece of paper and all the emotion. He didn't look as big as I imagined, which is probably because I envisioned him to be a giant. He didn't say hi, he just reached and got my paper and signed it. I stood there nervously and asked if he would take a picture with me, and all I heard was "No." Mrs. Ellis, in her totally baffled state, ushered me away from the table.
I took the autograph to the back of the room by me and stood with a giant knot in my throat. Peyton, why had you forsaken me? I couldn't even bare to be in the same room, which should have been a tell tell sign that I would go on to have a lot of resentment and boundary issues in my life. I didn't want to look at him because he had betrayed me. We were supposed to be best friends. He was going to be like the big brother I never had, notwithstanding the older brother I already had. I looked down at the signature, which proved that he had taken absolutely NO time to practice cursive in elementary school, and I ripped it up. I threw it in the garbage, and I never looked back. I went home that night and threw the camera on the couch, and said I wanted nothing more to do with Peyton Manning or football, which was not too much of a stretch because I didn't have a lot to do with it before. I refused to root for him, and when they won the title in 1998, I made a conscious decision not to eat Tostitos for a solid chunk of time. (Okay, probably for like, two weeks, but I really love salsa. Get off my back).
Many-a-Peyton-fan along the way has tried to make excuses for him: he was probably just flustered or he wasn't allowed to take pictures or maybe I'm just telling the story wrong. Regardless, Kathy bought me a five dollar disposable camera, and he really didn't have to be such a twat waffle about the whole situation. I'm sure he has no recollection of me--though we may never know exactly how (other than reputable athletic ability and an unprecedented presence at the University of Tennessee), he's seemed to make a career out of the sport and has probably met too many people to count. But when people watch his Saturday Night Live skit of him working with United Way and a bunch of children, only to physically and verbally abuse them, people giggle because they think, Oh Peyton, you would never talk to children that way. Well guys... Peyton would... Peyton did.
So, I eventually decided to do the fantasy football league. My team's name is "Peyton Manning Sucks," and I plan on filling the necessary positions with people that have really cool names. But most of all, I want this fantasy league to be vindication. I do care about winning... not over the other participants, but over Peyton and the ghost of that seven year old who was totally screwed over by one of the most inflated egos to ever grace the beautiful green grass of Neyland Stadium. I wanted a hero, and I got Mr. Manning. I would have even taken that alcoholic, Tyler Bray as a class visitor before Peyton Manning. From that point on, I focused on heroes that exemplified the skills that I wanted to emulate, like Tina Wesson from Survivor (I will tell you the much more gracious, heartwarming story about meeting her later), or David Sedaris.

The Taking of WMATA 123

I just wanted to go home.

I could see them eyeing me from across the car, one of the most unfortunate times to be a bigger guy. I was a meal--a Thanksgiving feast to all these drunkards, and in the midst of all their McDonalds munchies, I looked like a combination Big Mac, Supersize Fry, 20 piece nugget, Diet Coke smorgasbord. The white people were, officially, out of control. I had always wondered what it would be like to be in this moment--the day that people reverted back to their animalistic ways. And all I could do was sit there and think, How did I get here? What led me to this moment? Let me tell you.

***

About six hours earlier, my roommate and I decided to go into the city for a Beerlympics competition. Sure, it seemed a little college-y, but I'm an addict for competition. Shortly after we arrived, we were sorted into teams, and the games began. After a handful of beers, we decided to go and meet some friends in another part of the city. After navigating the crowded floor of Cafe Citron via a combination of walking/salsa-ing to Jennifer Lopez hits, we finally found our group. As a classic group of 20-somethings, we danced awkwardly in a circle for approximately 20 minutes, fist pumped, and then decided to leave. No one was inebriated beyond help or anything, but it was obvious that we wouldn't be driving--there were only a couple options left and, sadly, one of those was taking the metro back toward home.

The Saturday night metro isn't really a place that you ever want to be because it's a completely mixed bag. Sometimes people throw up; sometimes people are making out; sometimes you don't even want to know what happens. So before we got on the metro, I called our other roommate, our last hope, before we got on the train headed toward our apartment. Normally, I would have given up after one call, but the mixture of competition and low-grade beer made me more optimistic than usual. Five calls later, there was finally an answer: a groggy roommate who was not going to pick us up. The moment had come to face what would be the most absurd and slightly dangerous Saturday night metro yet. Most of the time, if you just keep to yourself everything turns out fine. I mean, sure, you might get awkwardly approached by someone, but it's a relatively painless process because the metro runs on a timetable, or at least that's what we like to believe. We transferred over from the red line over to the orange, and it seemed as if the ride was going to be relatively patient, until the next to the last stop. On the way to the station we needed to get off at, the train came to a halt in the middle of the tunnel, and we were stranded in the car with a train full of people and a faulty speaker.

Whenever the train stops in the tunnel, I immediately imagine that we're under the Potomac, even if we're not. I imagine that the walls are going to cave in, and then I'm going to have to swim out of the tunnel Fear Factor style--and then I immediately regret smoking because I'm going to lose and then there's not going to be any trained swimmers to save me. And then something happened on the metro, as if everyone else was also thinking that the walls might cave in to. Essentially, everyone went bat shit crazy. It all started when two large women got up from their seats and addressed the young men who kept staring at them. They had green and purple tubes coming out of their hair, kind of like The Hunger Games, but without any regard to trying to look glamorous. This only caused the guys to egg them on more, which caused the one with green tubes and suspenders to get up and start grinding on the pole, which in turn caused everyone to pull out their cameras and start videoing the entire thing. I, too, pulled out my camera because I knew that if I made it out of that godforsaken train car, I wanted to write about it--our fear and our pain. 

My friend Samantha sat their, her eyes full of worry. We've gotten close, but none of us wanted to go out like this, and under the influence of alcohol, it seemed all too real that this could really be it. Suddenly, one of the guys next to us announced, "Maybe we need to start voting people out." This seemed like my moment, so I began working with the gay guy and his overbearing friend next to us. If I've learned anything this summer from watching Big Brother, it's that America LOVES the gays, so that's a good addition to my alliance. We also decided to include the girl who was passed out in the seat in front of them because, well, God only knows what would happen to her if we didn't... but it was at that moment that we heard screams from the other side of the metro, and we looked down  the car to see that the two large women were pulling away from each other and saying, "We'll give you something to take pictures of!!" and then they started making out again. The guy they were with who was wearing a Juggalo shirt stood propped up against the door nodding his head, and someone screamed, "Let's eat someone! Let's eat someone!"

It was at that moment that I realized that we weren't on Big Brother, nor were we in a metro car anymore... this was Lord of the Flies kind of stuff. Over the course of 20 minutes, we had progressed from a normal, semi-unstable Saturday night metro train to an island full of one-time-young-professionals contemplating who to kill for food. I worried first and foremost about the girl who was passed out. Being a young female passed out in an urban setting is already dangerous enough, but being in this urban setting only made the situation more pressing. I knew the obvious choice was probably the outlandish lesbians, but I couldn't help to feel paranoid: I was one of the meatiest options. I would provide the most nutrition--I could sustain at least half the car for at least thirty minutes. I thought about the future and what it could have been, and I began to actually wonder if that train car was where it would all end. In the mean time, everyone was screaming, begging the metro car to start moving, and the speaker would occasionally erupt into a loud noise that mostly sounded like, "Passengers...time...sorry...thanks."

And then the train surged forward. All the lesbians, alliances, and Juggalos couldn't keep me from the excitement I had in my heart. It was as if I had been saved, and once the doors opened, I hugged Samantha goodbye and ran out the doors with my roommate. One young man stopped to tell a metro worker that he was an "inbred piece of..." well, you get the idea, and in a last moment attempt to restore civility to the world, I yelled, "Everyone has lost their damn minds. Go home. Everyone go home," and people started moving toward the escalators. You never know what the future holds, but when you're stuck on a metro of potential-cannibals, you do learn to appreciate whatever is ahead. Again, I survived the Saturday night metro, but as for the next one... you can never be sure.

Suspension

On Friday, I didn't go to work--I wasn't feeling well, and I already woke up late, so I texted my boss to let her know that I would be about 30 minutes late, and then she told me that she thought it would be good if I took a day to myself. I just finished up finals for my summer class, and I've been relatively busy, so I took her up on it. I went over to our apartment's pool because I hadn't gone swimming all summer--there was always something more important to do. The lifeguard looked like he could care less about pool safety, and the kids at the pool were on the shallow side, so I took my shirt off, and I jumped. And down there in the deep end, I let out as much breath as I could, and I floated down toward the bottom... gently abandoning the air above for whatever was resting down there, but I couldn't completely hit the concrete. I could feel my stopping point just inches below me, but I couldn't quite get down there: I was suspended--stuck somewhere between the top and the bottom.

And outside of being in the water, being suspended is one of the worst places in the world to be. My favorite definition, according to The Free Dictionary, of suspension is: a postponement as of a judgment, opinion, or decision. See pause. It reminds me of one of the most humanizing days of my life. The first time I ever watched someone die was the first time that I really ever understood what the definition of suspension was. Because as my friend and I took turns diving in to the Little River looking for this man neither of us knew, I would take these moments to just exist in the middle of the water--mostly because I was afraid of what would happen if I found him. We were diving to the bottom, stirring up all of the silt and the algae, so the water was thicker than smoke. I would dive and search, mostly feeling around for a stray hand or perhaps a foot... maybe a head, but to keep my sanity about me, I would also just wait. I would stop in the midst of the silt and pray that the river might pull me away... to someplace where someone wasn't dead, I guess. I suspended myself from life, and for the few seconds I did, I didn't have to be apart of a world that I didn't want to. But the last time that I dove in, I paused for too long; I found myself at the bottom of the riverbed without a single breath of air left in me, and I looked up to the top of the water, and I could see the blurriness of the sky. I grabbed at my throat and pushed as hard as I could toward the top, unsure if I would make it or not, and inside the goggles I could feel tears start to scorch the corners of my eyes. I had paused too long. I was caught in a point of suspension. I began to feel my throat close, but I wouldn't open my mouth--I refused to be the second body we were searching for, and once I finally made it to the top, I pulled the goggles off, and I said that I couldn't search anymore.
Within a minute, we found the body, and once it was pulled to the surface, I was the one who pulled him out. And that's when I watched him die--suspension was over. I think we knew that he was going to be dead within the first couple minutes of searching, but it's nothing that anyone wanted to say. And even in the less extreme cases, it seems that's the way it goes. We find ourselves suspended in every stretch and aspect of life, but it's never something we want to admit because we would rather live in the comfortable hysteria of life instead of figuring out a way to potentially deal with it. But for me, the only place that I can comfortably be suspended is, in fact, in the water. I sat there in the middle of the pool, letting all of my air out and waiting for my body to respond to what it wasn't getting--and that sounds morbid. It's morbid, isn't it? I wouldn't dare tell that to someone outright because I'm sure it sounds like I'm trying to off myself or something, but I feel like it's the opposite. I think the reason I let myself float in the middle of the pool, as what little air in my lungs decreases and decreases, is because I want to remember what it's like to value life so much. I want to be reminded of how scared I was to stop living because, as of late, I've been stuck in that metaphorical suspension--I've forgotten what it's like to want to live for something bigger.
I suppose it's something that happens to all of us from time to time, but for some reason, I've become so self-aware of it. I'm not the most conventional Christian that's ever existed, but at one point, I went to church every Sunday, and the only sermon that I remember is one about being comfortable. Our pastor, Corey, told us about how dangerous it is to be comfortable, and whenever you become comfortable with your life, you should take a moment to enjoy it, and then find a way to make yourself uncomfortable again because nothing gets done when you're comfortable. And I'm going to take a moment to step away from the Millennial stereotype and respond to all the people who are saying, What do you have to complain about? You're in a giant city with a great education and a job. And to that I would say, you're absolutely correct. By all standards, I have nothing to complain about because there are people in the world that have barely any of their needs met.
But no matter where you're at in life, we all have needs: we need to feel like we're alive or that we're working toward something with greater meaning than we understand now. For most of my peers, that's a spouse... or at least someone to share their lives with. And I respect that, and I guess I want it too, but not now. That's what makes the feeling of suspension more terrifying. When you're suspended with company, you don't feel as compelled to move--we're a species who loves company. That's why we throw dinner parties and call our friends when we're drunk. But when you're suspended, as if you can't breathe with everyone else, and their oxygen comes in the form of intimate relationships, you feel even lonelier. You have to make a choice: acquiesce to what is normal, or rather, should be normal... or you rise above the suspension. You find the bottom of the river or the pool or what-have-you, and you push harder than you ever have before... because you want to find the happiness you're searching for within yourself. If you can get to the top, there's got to be some other people up there who feel the same. They want to be excited about life; they want to work to achieve something bigger than they had ever imagined. And what makes us so essential to each other is that we want something that everyone else seems to be desperately trying to escape from: most of us like people, but right now, in this body of water and confusion, we want to find the answers we want inside of ourselves.
As I semi-drowned myself in the pool, the lifeguard who didn't originally look that interested in saving lives started taking notice of me. He eventually asked me to come out of the pool to show him my pool pass, which I think was his way of saying, Listen, I'm really not up for pulling your body out of the pool, so I'm going to need you to cut the shit. I didn't try and explain what I was doing to him because I don't feel like he would really get it: I wasn't trying to kill myself; I was just trying to remember exactly what it was like to be alive. I think we need to be reminded what it's like to be alive sometimes because if we aren't, we're just going to waste it. And the light at the top of the water may be the only light we see--we can't be sure that there's anything bright and shiny on the other side, but in my final moments as my respiratory system starts to seize and my brain begins to shut down and I float into that place where your body calms itself to pass peacefully, I want to know that I was reaching for that light. I want to know that the person I share the rest of my life with was right there, pushing for something more as well. I want to go out fighting.

You're a Libra, Aren't Ya, Darlin?

As an Aries, I know that the common characteristics of my astrological sign are some of the boldest and most extroverted of any of the other signs. My horoscopes are always black or white. At my last internship, we would sit and read them to each other, and Aries would always have something like, Today is the day you will meet the love of your life. Everyone will love you, and you will somehow win an Emmy. Go, Aries. or Today you will butt heads with people--you will tell them how worthless they are and alienate everyone in the process. Apparently, when it comes to an Aries, things are pretty cut and dry. But that's assuming that you believe in the powers of astrology. My roommate went on a date with a girl who believed in earth signs and astrology more than any religion in the world, so it obviously means something to at least a few people, and even if you don't believe per se, it always leaves a little bit of something in the back of your head: the astrology, the Tarot cards, the palm readings... the results can be pretty tempting.
And though I don't particularly believe in astrology, I also can't help but to agree with the characteristics that are associated with my sign: eager, impulsive, enthusiastic, optimistic, and "doesn't like to be bored." So that's why when I started feeling lonely and bored at a party last night, I knew that I had to use my Aries-ness to turn the situation around in my favor. Better yet, I knew that I had to you astrology to bring the attention back to where it belonged: with Aries. But before we talk about last night...
I'm no stranger in the mysticism circuit. My parents told me to stay away from Ouija boards, and the like. My dad told me to never deal with Tarot cards or palm reading or any of it, and their cautious fear of fortune-telling only made me think of it as a bit of a hoax. My brother Casey and I would go around the house mimicking Miss Cleo, announcing You're a Libra, aren't ya, darlin?! at every chance we got, and when she was brought up on charges of fraud and deceptive advertising, Casey and I were a little sad. Later on, I got my "relationship Tarot card reading" with a friend, so it was only a matter of time before I had to take the cards into my own hands.
While sitting in my freshman dorm, I was waiting on all my friends to come back from their Friday night plans. My night had ended especially early, so all I had was my scarf and a bunch of leftover paper from someone's abandoned art project in the lobby. So with nothing else to do, I borrowed a marker and scissors from a resident and I took the stars into my own hands. In a matter of minutes, I had transformed: I was Swami Justin. I wrapped my scarf around my head and arranged the cards on a small table in the lobby. As people began to walk in, I'd startle them with my forced Mediterranean accent, Oh darlin, you want your cards read, don't ya? It may have been in boredom or possibly just that inkling of curiosity we talked about earlier, but very few people could resist getting their cards read by the Swami. For my first attempt at channeling the future, I kept it pretty basic, with most cards being more of a humor piece than an actual Tarot card symbol. People loved it, and after three hours of disparaging cards referencing people that lived in our building, I hung up my turban and Mediterranean accent and called it a day. Even with my faux cards and ridiculous readings, I knew that my power with the unknown... well, it was too strong.
The swami within had been hibernating for almost five years, and then last night, he reared his ugly, mystical head. My roommates and I decided to go to our friend's house for a birthday party. I had trepidations about going before the weekend even came. I can usually tell when I will be annoyed with a situation before it even happens--we'll just include it in my psychic powers. And it wasn't long into the party that exactly that happened. After a couple rounds of shots and two different renditions of Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl, everyone started to couple off. Being the self-indulgent person I am, by the time I realized that most everyone was missing, my pickings were slim. I eventually settled on someone who had adamantly protested, and failed, for everyone to go to "da club." After talking for a bit, mostly about her, I said I'd love to hang out with her sometime, and then she got really nervous and apologized a lot. Then as we walked downstairs, we had passed everyone who had been missing, and she told them about how awkward it felt for me to ask her out: a common obstacle that I imagine must be incredibly taxing for her.
I had lost control. The party was quickly spinning out of my social hands. Both of my roommates had disappeared into the night with their lady-friends, and that just left me, a pack of cigarettes, the girl who had become blatantly forlorn at the concept of us hanging out in the daylight, and a feeling... a feeling to change, or rather predict, the future.  I just had to wait. I knew that if I could bide my time, someone would come back downstairs, parched from all the necking and alcohol intake; they would need water, and I would pounce. So when someone walked onto the back porch with his lady friend, I knew I had found my target. Somehow, the conversation had turned to reading palms, and lady friend said, I've always wanted to get my palm read. I felt the Swami begin to take over, but I couldn't stop him. He announced, I can read palms.
After a couple minutes of reasoning as to why I read palms, including a story about how my dad's untimely death was predicted by a palm reader (for the record, I'm pretty sure my dad was sitting at home last night having a beer. I called him today, you know, to keep karma in check), I had finally convinced her that my powers were as real as any other psychic in the world. She asked me to read her palm, so I snatched her hand and held it in my own, softly caressing her palm while I tried to read her "energy." She watched attentively as I traced the wrinkles in her hand, only able to remember that the line from the base of the thumb to the pointer finger is called the "life line." I began to tell her about her life, coming up with the greatest generalizations that I could. I told her that she would have two marriages, one short, the other long, which was a line directly pulled from the book Eat, Pray, Love. Thanks, Ketut. Then, it happened. I traced her life line up and told her that it begins to fade toward the end, and the end of her life would be gradual, not sudden. Death obviously made Lady Friend nervous, and she said, Will I get sick? I responded, I don't know. And she followed with, Am I going to get Alzheimer's? And by this time, I was dizzy from all the power... I couldn't comprehend how this girl was hanging on my every word, so I simply responded, Yes. She jerked her hand away and started to become visibly upset... not with me, but with the damning future that her palm had given her. She looked at her hand as if it had just slapped her in the face. Damn the future! Damn that hand.
As she became more upset, I worried that the jig was up. Someone was going to do me in, I just knew it. Enough people had shown up at this point that someone was going to do me in, so I just got quiet and waited for my inevitable fall. When people asked her what was wrong, she said, He figured it out! He read my palm, and now I'm going to have Alzheimers! I closed my eyes, waiting on someone to put me in my place when a girl walked up and said, I can't believe you can do it! Read my palm! And then I began going to from hand to hand, tracing lines and making up names like, "The Relationship Line," and "The Future Line." I had done it--goal achieved. I may have not gotten my mouth on anyone else's last night, but before the night was over, almost everyone was waiting for the next reading from my lips. The light was mine. My roommate walked up and said, If you can read palms, read mine. I could see the look in his eye, twinkling with a maliciousness that the other party guests didn't have. So I jerked his hand into mine, quickly ran my finger across his palm and said, Looks like you're going to die. Probably at 60. Sorry. Nothing could bring me down--I was simply a psychic, floating among the constellations at that point.
To finish off my astrological high, I texted as many friends from home as I could remember to let them know that the Swami had been resurrected with greater force than ever before... but just as fast as he appeared, he went into hiding again. I don't know when he will appear again, or where... maybe in the tea leaves, or through some kind of new medium, hopefully having to do with food. I can't say exactly where the power comes from, but I know that it's strong, and most of all, it brings the room's attention back to me. But honestly, it didn't take a psychic to see that that's what the future held.

It Don't Matter If You're Black or White

I ran down to the bank in Chinatown so that I could grab my rent money for the month... nineteen days overdue, but what can you do? Living in DC has made me nearly blind, as people are nothing more than obstacles on the sidewalk that I'm trying to dodge while getting to my destination as quickly as possible. I rounded corner, passing under the Chinatown gate, and I always take a minute to look up at it: it's design is so ornate and colorful--nothing like the rest of the city. About a block down, I walked into the BB&T, wiping my face of the 99 degree sweat from outside.
As I stood in line, I was texting my roommate, begging him and his friend to come have lunch with me because no one came into work today, and then it happened. This man turned around and asked me, "What's it like to walk into the bank and not be profiled?" I looked up and there he stood, an African-American, about my height and approximately 300 pounds. I knew what he said, but I wanted to make sure. "Excuse me?" So, he repeated the question, and I couldn't come up with any kind of answer. I felt my stomach drop to my shoes. I looked to the teller ahead for some kind of answer, and she just shook her head at me. She, too, was African American. I looked around, and there wasn't a single other white person in the entire bank; it was as if the public statement of white America had suddenly been laid on my shoulders. As someone in the public relations industry, I assumed that I would be able to handle such a feat, but instead, I broke the most important rule of the trade. I had nothing to say, so I just stared.
He decided to continue without me, "I walk into this bank, and they act like I'm going to rob the place. Last week, I brought a 6,000 check in here, and they looked at me like I had stolen it. They act like they're scared of me." I glanced at the bank teller as she closed her eyes, "It's not right, man." I looked at him and felt my mouth drying out. The television in the corner was reporting on the Trayvon Martin case when I responded, "I agree. It's not right. I hope that one day we live in a world where it's not this way." He stared at me like what I had said was not enough, like there should be something else more qualifying in my words. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I know what racism looks like. I've seen women back home in Tennessee clutch their purses as a suited black man walks into a restaurant. I get it; I know that it's real. But for me, it's not how I live my life. I never thought he was going to rob the bank. I barely even noticed he was standing there. Before I proceeded to the next teller, I looked at him and said, "I'm so sorry," but I wasn't sure what for. Apologizing for the racism of white people when it didn't seem clear that there had been any racism exacted? Apologizing for privilege I never asked for?
And the privilege is complicated because it only carries over until something else takes precedence. Today, I'm wearing a bright purple polo, with matching Chuck Taylors. My voice opened up to the teller to reveal the slightly high-pitch tone that didn't quite fully mature through puberty. My usual demeanor, enthusiastic, is ever present, and on days like this: with the matching outfits and the voice and the demeanor, it's easy to assume the stereotype--he's a homosexual. It's a common assumption I've dealt with my whole life, and one that has, at times, had an effect on the way I was treated. But Abu at BB&T didn't seem to take offense, nor did he seem to offer support or condolences. He simply gave me my rent money, and I left on my way. But this morning, when I stopped to grab a pack of cigarettes, I walked up the counter smiling, and the cashier looked me up and down and pursed her lips together. Afterward, she barely made eye contact. Could I assume what she was thinking? Sure. Will I ever know for certain? No.
I turned on my computer once I had gotten back to my office, and Facebook was pulled up. A friend had posted an article entitled, "What Should Trayvon Martin Have Done?" And my retort to that would be, "what should any of us do?" It's complicated and complex and nearly depressing if you think about it too much. I had this unconscious flow of emotion as this man asked me about my privilege at the bank. It automatically began with guilt, though I had done nothing wrong. I wanted to offer some kind of resolution or apology, without proper evidence that an infraction had been committed. And then it turned to nervousness, similar to when an entire class gets in trouble for one student's actions. I know that there's wrong in the world, but it was me who was having to provide an answer for it. And then, it turned to a confusing mixture of sadness and anger. The anger stems from the fact that someone can look at me and see exactly what he or she wants to see; in this case, a tall, white man. It was assumed from those three identifiers that I had never been profiled. Not for my socioeconomic status or religion or sexuality. It was assumed that I was living the white man's fantasy. But the sadness is even worse because it's the startling realization that the progress we're making toward equality is incredibly slow. We spend so much of our time comparing our circumstances to one another that we get lost in the semantics. We fail to recognize that not a single one of us should take importance over the other.
I wish I had an answer for that man, because other than his painfully abrupt sociological discourse in line at the bank, he seemed like a very nice guy. I wish I had an answer for the Trayvon Martin case, a nauseatingly complex case full of details we've overlooked in pursuit of some kind of racial reasoning. I wish that we didn't judge people based on their race or gender or sexuality or religion or anything else. There's a lot of things I wish for the world because I believe we would better for it. Instead, I just do what I can. As I entered my building, I could feel someone behind me, so I walked in first, held the door for him or her, and closed my eyes. Why? Because it shouldn't matter who you were doing it for; it's a person, and that's reason enough.

One Year Out

Last night, I went on a date that I, honestly, had invested way too much in before it even happened. We had been talking via text for about three days, and--if I can be candid--I thought this was going to be one that I took home to the parents. Essentially, I was Ginnifer Goodwin in He's Just Not That Into You, and it played out exactly how the movie title reads: not. that. into. you. After the date, we had a brief discussion about how I wasn't relationship material, and then I came home and drank a bottle of wine... because that's how you handle rejection. I had never done this on a date before... putting that much pressure on a first meeting. I blame my recent trip home, where I met all my friends from home who are either married, engaged, or about to be engaged: going to Tennessee is essentially the equivalent of visiting a group of 16 year old traditional Indian girls... everyone is getting married off. But, as I was consuming my entire bottle of 3.99 wine on a Saturday night, I thought to myself, What is your life? Look at your decisions. And then I was hungover for work, and that's never cool.

It's been 14 months since I graduated undergrad, 13 months since I started this blog, 11 months since I moved to Washington D.C., and 12 minutes since I last ate an entire sleeve of Oreos. Not to be cliche, but time goes by incredibly fast. I'm not saying that I feel like the past year has aged me immensely, but I will say that I saw a guy in front of me at 7-11 the other day with a pint of Ben and Jerry's "Strawberry Shortcake" and a Coke Zero and thought to myself, "Damn. That looks like a good night. I wonder if he'd want to be friends." The past year has been exhausting, and I had a ton of people tell me that it would be the hardest year of my life that I've faced thus far, and it was.
But there's a caveat to that--it absolutely was the most trying 365 days I've faced in my life, and in the same breath, it was also the most amazing days that I've ever seen. I suppose in comparison to a lot of people I went to school with, the journey that I've taken has been a little bit different. I decided to move to a new place with new people, and with all of that being said--it hasn't gone half bad. On the outside, it looks pretty good, and by most standards, I'm doing okay for a 23 year old: good job, decent friends, solid school record... but below the surface, there's all these questions and issues that you can't know about--the things that we just don't talk about.
But this is not a place where we keep secrets: we established that a year ago. This is a place I come to share with the rest of the world all the things that make us nervous and scared and a little embarrassed. In public relations, we're told about the value of the infographic: a way of conveying data to people that makes them more receptive to actually taking it in. So after I found out that I would be alone at home tonight because my roommates had actual dates, I started an infographic at work. Even I need a picture to describe what's going on in my life. So I jumped in and reflected on 2013, because tackling the entire past year was just too hard for my heart to handle. This is what I found.

And what we can learn from this graph, other than the fact that I turn to pizza when I'm lonely, and that I am a raging chain smoker/wino, is that we shouldn't be ashamed of the things that make us a little less than perfect. The dates and the pizza and the singing and the wine: well, it makes us human. I once thought that I knew exactly what my life would look like once I was at this age, and it doesn't look like that at all. Life is a little bit of a complexity: it can be a tragedy or a comedy, all depending on the way that you look at it. A year ago, if you asked me how I would feel about living with three sports buffs, remaining single, and ordering approximately two Dominos pizzas a week... I probably would have been pretty sad about it. But when you put it in perspective, it's a pretty funny life--mostly because it's the last thing I would have planned.

I think we all try and prepare for things so that we can do our best at outsmarting life. We follow an unspoken syllabus because we think that's what will make us happy. I see it done every day: by people back home, by people in DC, by people everywhere really. But it's pointless because your life is yours, and if you want to go and get a pint of Ben and Jerry's with a Diet Coke... well then damn it, you should. And it shouldn't matter that it makes you feel old or lame or socially awkward because that's your life, and honestly... no one else has any more idea of what's going on than you do. So, for 

you seven year olds that read my blog, my advice is to plan your future very loosely. Know where you're going, but don't Google Maps the directions or anything... because inevitably, you're going to miss a turn or take the exit two before the one you were supposed to take. And for everyone else, myself included, we know the big secret to life: there's absolutely no controlling it, and even more than that, there's absolutely no stopping it. Because very similarly to my car, when you have it figured it out and fixed, something else is inevitably going to break down. And that's okay because we're a resilient species. We do what it takes to make things work.

So, since I've started this blog tonight, I'm about four beers deep, a couple cigarettes in, and about to pee on myself because I haven't taken a bathroom break. It's been almost a month since I submitted my last entry, and even though it's almost 3:00am, and I'm about to pee on myself--there's a satisfaction that comes with writing another post. It's an idea that's sat in my head for weeks, and originally, I anticipated that it would be filled with wisdom and insight, when in reality--it was more of a display of the embarrassing things I do on a daily and/or monthly basis. But that's the point: no one is wise. This world isn't particularly about being smart--it's partially about luck and partially about determination. You have to be at the right place at the right time, but most of all, you have to be determined enough to keep going so that you eventually hit that string of luck. And in the mean time, you can always run down to 7-11 for a bottle of wine.

Why Don't You Sleep, Child?

Lately, I've been walking around in a daze. After finding a lump a couple weeks ago, I had convinced myself that I had cancer, and I spent the entire week in a complete frenzy wondering exactly what stage it was going to be in... in case you didn't read the last posting, I didn't have cancer. But, since then, I've walked around completely lifeless, and at times, I get dizzy, and I'm always exhausted. Naturally, I've tried to self-diagnose and some of the potential culprits have included, but are not limited to: lupus, anemia, Kawasaki Disease (thanks, Grey's Anatomy), early onset dementia, and more. But after some consideration, I've decided that maybe it's not any of those things.
I keep a constant stress level of about a 7 out of 10, and most nights, I don't actually lay down to go to sleep until about three in the morning--the concept is foreign to me. My life has consisted of waking up, mulling about my day, finally catching my stride around 4pm, doing homework/housework/or workwork until about 10, then socializing after. When I spoke to my roommate, Andrew, and my life-coach, Kasi, they both recommended that I just needed to go to bed earlier, and I don't even know how. Maybe lay in bed and softly sing myself a lullaby? Something melodic, but topical like No Scrub by TLC? I'm not sure.
But all the best things happen once the sun goes down, and I'm not really sure what my life would look like if I chose to miss all of those things just so that I don't feel like passing out all day long. If I could take caffeine pills, I would, but I already worry enough--I don't want to be so excited, so excited, and then so scared. It just doesn't seem worth it. So, I have to make the choice: give up three of the most socially active hours of my day, or perhaps, try and go to bed before midnight every night. It really is quite the conundrum, especially when I go back and reflect on all the great things that have happened between the hours of 11:00pm and 3:00am. Last week, for instance, I avoided going to bed for some odd reason, so instead, I got on one of the three dating apps that I have on my phone (I'm lonely, okay? Just let me have this). I had been talking to someone for a couple weeks who seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint it. We talked a little more, and we realized that we had ran into each other at Einstein Bagels a couple weeks earlier--we flirted for a little bit, and then I didn't get charged for my cream cheese. Once we established that, we figured out that we live thirty seconds walking from each other, and we took a walk at 2:00am and kissed in the woods. If I don't stay up until 2:00am, then when am I supposed to have my Generation Y, rom-com-esque moments with people that I've met in Einstein Bagels/through online dating apps? It truly is a mystery.
But the problem with that lifestyle is that it comes with a price. While I was looking through pictures tonight from a year or two ago, I noticed that I looked so much more alive and fresh at 21 than I do now. I also shaved my translucent beard more often, which was also a plus. And now, as happy as I am in my pictures, I've started noticing the most difference in my eyes. They're not as open as they used to be, and they have these pockets around them, which either means that Zak Bednar farted on my pillow again (see Did You Fart on My Pillow?) or maybe, just maybe, all those hours I spent up and about during college are finally catching up to my still gorgeous, but feeble twenty-three year old body. I don't understand exactly when it happens to a person, but much like a baby or most of the kittens my mom wouldn't let me play with as a child, things need sleep.
College was a different story though--college was a time when no one slept, and looking back, that was always kind of our choice. We blamed exams and tests and papers and (a Maryville College student's favorite excuse) thesis, but in reality, we could have all been asleep by midnight every night if we had wanted to be. But instead, Nam and I would make our way down to the Carnegie parlor and take the community recliners and make small homework cots where we would spend hours on Facebook and Twitter, when we weren't talking to each other. And when that would become too monotonous, we would go outside and listen to sophomores and juniors talk about the superiority of Pokemon Red and Blue to Pokemon Silver (which, if you're asking me, nothing could trump Pokemon Yellow, but that's neither here nor there). Simply put, the nighttime was our time, and it was a moment that we could come together and share stories and stupid opinions and other aspects of life that didn't matter when the sun was up--things that the daylight deemed too trivial for its presence.
It was those nights that I saw some of my friends go through the greatest transformations that I've ever seen a person go through in his or her life. You don't sit down over lunch at 1:00pm and casually discuss what it means to lose one of your best friends to an untimely death or how it feels to question the message of God that you've been fed your entire life. Those kind of things happen when everything else in the world gets quiet, and you're left with the noise of the voice in your head, the crackle of your fourth cigarette smoldering, and the words of the person sitting next to you, if they choose to even speak at all. That's the power of the nighttime--it has the strength to break you down to the core of who you are while retaining the levity to bring you back up again, and you don't get that unless you've spent a good deal of your life living as much in the nighttime as you do in the day.
But in a way, that part of the nighttime is a chapter. Andrew is in bed, and so is our other roommate, Matt. The third roommate, Ben, is not coming home for the night, so that leaves me, up again past midnight typing all of the considerations I used to have in forum, into an appropriate-length blog post for the world to consider on its own. And I guess it's good to come to the realization that everyone, myself included, needs sleep. A year out of college does a lot--just a few Fridays ago, I was standing behind a young guy at 7-11 who had a pint of Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Cheesecake and a Coke Zero, and I thought to myself, Damn, that looks like a good night. I wonder if he'd want to be friends. Obviously, it wouldn't hurt to get some rest--so that's what I plan on doing, as soon as I'm done. But no matter how many nights I choose healthy sleep over the alternative, I will always look to the night with the deepest respect, and I'm sure that there will be plenty of evenings where that special presence of the night will resurface again. It will always be there waiting--holding all of the vulnerabilities and adventures that the daylight can only dream of.