Live Blog: Group Project

Group projects are the pits, you know? Someone is always doing the majority of the work, while at least two other people are sitting around not doing anything. One person is begrudgingly holding back the desire to kill the one proactive person and the two bodies of dead weight, and well, it's just gets complicated. Teamwork is apparently one of the cornerstones to life, and if that's any signification of how the rest of life is going to go, then... well... we're all screwed.
Graduate school is especially hard because you think you're smarter than everyone else, including the people that you have class with. The Georgetown air doesn't help because that makes you feel even more elitist. It's tough. So, that makes group projects harder than they've ever been before. The first week we collaborated together, one girl felt entirely left out, and the entire group got frigid cold with akwardness. Yikes! The second week, I felt like everyone ignored my ideas, and then I left class without speaking to anyone. Double Yikes! Now, as a class, we're discussing the final idea that we will present as a class, and it's getting heated. I'm coming to you live:

9:20pm: Emerald Mini Dress talked to me before class about how she felt shunned from her group and bullied out of the idea she actually created--she just started speaking, and I was pretty sure she was going to go Sarah Palin rogue on us. Crisis averted.

9:23pm: Sophisticated Blue Pea Coat looks like she might be constipated. We have officially found the bully in question.

9:26pm: I have officially started transforming my scribbled notes into this blog. You're welcome.

9:32pm: The professor and I are in a throat clearing battle. If I'm being honest, he's wiping the floor with me.

9:33pm: I'm seeing an alliance forming among Emerald Mini Dress, The Pastel Aryan, and Established Coffee Drinker.

9:35pm: Everyone agrees that "life in motion" is cliche and worthless. I think someone is escorting the girl who mentioned it out of the class room. This is a classroom of distinguished public relations professionals--no room here for cliche.

9:37pm: Millenial zing! 3 people laugh. I come up with a formidable idea and no one likes it. No one really knows what's going on, but everyone feels like they're right... how very Washington D.C. The professor seems potentially unimpressed with all ideas that are being given. Or maybe he just wants to go home. I understand your feels, bro.

9:41pm: My classroom crush just gave me props. #swoon #SMITTENBARF

9:43pm: The Pastel Aryan is going into something about maps and stuff, but all I want to see is Emerald Mini Dress and Sophisticated Blue Pea Coat engage in fisticuffs in front of the class. I, personally, would put money on Emerald Mini Dress based on her audacity to wear an emerald mini dress alone. Only one chair separates them... God, the tension is unreal, y'all.

9:45pm: Established Coffee Drinker/classroom crush just explained why we should never support Comcast, even though they're kind of great. Whatever you say, Established Coffee Drinker. #PRKISSES

9:48pm: Photosesh.

9:49pm: UPDATE: It appears that Sophisticated Blue Pea Coat is drumming up an alliance against Emerald Mini Dress. It's becoming less and less like Survivor and potentially like West Side Story. I'm eating it up.

9:50pm: Beth Jarvis has a fantastic new haircut! Snaps for Beth Jarvis y'all!

9:52pm: I came up with a cool idea, and The Pastel Aryan was NOT having it, so I came up with a new slogan for the car company we're representing, "If you don't have a car, you don't deserve a car." It got moderate to high laughter. I feel accomplished. In other news, if a real West Side Story type rumble breaks out, I'm going to push him in the middle. #GangViolence

9:55pm: Kob's Moving Castle is speaking. No, seriously. That's his Facebook name.

10:00pm When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Becky comes to me.

10:02pm: So, I just dropped a truth bomb and said that I didn't understand what anyone was saying or where we were headed, which in my mind, sounded elitist and powerful, but it actually translated into something more like, "I'm not paying attention--will someone give me a recap?" So, they did, and I guess I lost. Touché, class.

10:05pm: Krystal has literally turned her back to the class. She's looking for snacks, I believe, but in the process, she's really giving off that "screw you guys, I'm going home" vibe. I suppose that happens sometimes.

10:07pm: Sophisticated Blue Pea Coat has officially fallen into her Resting Bitch Face (RBF). She's over it, and you know what? Maybe I'm over it, too. If I were a Survivor swing vote or the one wielding the knife in this rumble, I'm not sure who I would side with. OOOH GIRL, I was wrong. This is not Survivor or West Side Story. There are notes being passed with intermittent giggles. This is Mean Girls. Sophisticated Blue Pea Coat will here on forward simply be referred to as Regina.

10:11pm: Somehow, we've turned from conversation about cars to ping pong, particularly beating your boss at ping pong. I think it's kind of like revenge porn, except less illegal. #RevengePong

10:14pm: The Pastel Aryan totes just blasted Emerald Mini Dress. Though she doesn't have many supporters, I don't think we would vote her out first. She's playing a solid social game of not talking when people interrupt her.

10:16pm: EMERALD GREEN DRESS JUST TOOK ONE OF THE TWO POSITIONS TO LEAD THE CLASS PRESENTATION ON ALL THESE IDEAS!! TOLD YOU GUYS!! #SURVIVOR

10:17pm: Regina looks like she is literally about to plant a picture of herself in The Burn Book, make copies, throw it around the school, and get Coach Carr suspended.

10:20pm: Class is over. I just referenced Sophisticated Coffee Drinker aloud without knowing I was only 2 feet away. #SMITTENBARF and NOT in the good way.

So, there you have it. That's the quick and dirty of what happens when you put 20-40 somethings in a room and tell them to be collaborative and creative. We all get buck nasty, and then I take notes on it and decide to turn it into blog form. Maybe we should all work on our social skills a bit more. Maybe Emerald Mini Dress just needs to realize that hoop earrings were Regina's thing after all and let her take all the glory whether she deserves it or not. Or maybe... just maybe, I need to start taking notes in class over pertinent topics instead of you know, the sociology of Georgetown students.

Bleeding Out On The Table

I woke up in a pool of my own blood this morning. Okay, maybe not a pool, but at least a dignified puddle or a dampened semi-circle. Regardless, this morning there was blood and me and a bed. My stomach had been hurting the night before, but I wasn't too concerned, so I took a shower and went to bed and woke up to what could have been a crime scene. It was like my own little Halloween week nightmare, and I ran through all the horror movie plots that could have happened to me in the six hours since I had fallen asleep: first and foremost I checked for a horse head. Not The Godfather. Maybe Jason had come or Freddy Krueger. Most scary of all, I thought for a moment that it was the plot of Carrie... the menstruation scene or the post-pig blood scene... either one, really. And then it hit me. I checked my belly button, and bam; I found the source. I was bleeding out of my belly button. It was happening... again.

***

Two years ago, I was sitting in the student center of my college listening to all the rules and regulations of being a third year resident assistant. By the time you're a third year RA, you understand all the ins and out of what RA training week means. You talk about rules and how to hold a fire extinguisher and what weed smells like. On the heavier days, you learn about sexual assault and emergent situations and what to do if someone tries to kill themselves, which we were promised rarely ever happens. (In my three years, I had three... so that's a big lie). My favorite part was when the dean of students told us how important we are because I like validation, but at the end of the day, third year RAs just hoped that whatever room they were in had enough signal that you could get on Facebook on your phone. 

We were on day 4 of 6, so at that point the veterans had all but given up. I was particularly exhausted after watching a video of a man getting hit by a car and no one doing anything about it. I thought maybe that's why I was feeling light headed, but I put my hands down in my lap, and I felt something wet. I opened up my jacket and the bottom of my shirt and the top of my pants were covered in blood. I'm still not entirely sure how you accumulate that much blood on your clothes without knowing it, but sometimes blood happens and you're not really concerned with the details.

After zipping my jacket back up, I walked up to my boss before our next session and said, "Ben, I think I need to leave." He quickly responded, "I told you, you're not going to leave. Go sit down," and I said, "No, I really think I need to go," I opened up my jacket and stood there like a nonchalant horror film victim. Apparently, if you make it appear that you've been stabbed, you get what you want. On the way out, I ran into my friend who drove me to the hospital. I called my mom and said, 

"So, I don't want to worry you, but I think I've started bleeding out of my belly button, and it's not stopping." 

"You think you're bleeding out of your belly button?"

"Okay, I'm definitely bleeding out of my belly button. I'm going to Blount Memorial."

Considering the general blood flow coming out of my navel, in addition to the morbidity/mortality rates of Blount Memorial Hospital, my chances of living until the end of the day was about 43%. I waited in the dank waiting area attached to the emergency room filling out papers, which was extremely easy considering that I don't have health insurance. Eventually, my friend had to leave me, and I laid on the hard plastic table lined with butcher paper. I was hoping that if I laid on my back that the blood would just kind of drain itself back in. That, unfortunately, did not work. My mom busted in and held my hand, watching me essentially die on the table, and her absolute panic made me think... Is this how I'm going out? Am I going to die via uncontrollable bleeding from the belly button? It was kind of devastating and hilarious at the same time.

After nine hours at the hospital, a CAT scan, an x-ray, and at least 492 q-tips driven into my belly button, the doctors had come to a conclusion: they didn't know. By this time the bleeding had stopped because even my body's will to kill me had become exhausted. No one knew what was happening, so I took antibiotics for two days, forgot to take the rest, and then I thought it was over.

***

That is, until I woke up covered in blood this morning. I called my mom to let her know that the whole scenario was happening again, but in the course of two years, I wasn't so much concerned with dying as much as I was upset about having to wash my sheets when I get home at 11pm tonight. There was much more blood than before, and I have white carpet. I had woken up to give myself twenty-five minutes to get ready. Cleaning up a mess like this was going to take at least fifteen. I had been down the bleeding-out-of-your-belly-button-and-can't-get-it-to-stop-road before. There was no way I was going to the hospital. Quite the opposite: I took a Kleenex, folded it twice, taped it to my stomach and went to work. If waking up bloody wasn't enough of an indication that it was going to be a tough Monday, on the way to work I also hit two squirrels playing in the street. RIP Carl and Demetrius.

Most of the morning, I was lightheaded--not sure if that was about Carl and Demetrius or the lack of blood. Regardless, I was going down. After toying with the idea of seeing if I was going to actually bleed out, I decided that I should probably just go to the doctor. I still don't have insurance, I still don't know what caused me to start bleeding out, and I still am taking antibiotics that I will probably forget to take after about two days.

In short, life is a horror story, y'all, but as you get older, the scary parts change. Once you've nearly bled to death out of your stomach twice, the thrill of dying is kind of shot. Real horror begins to set in when you think of how pissed your roommates will be if you leave a stomach blood stain on the eggshell carpet or how ironic it is that you need health insurance when you've been trying to log on to healthcare.gov to sign up for health insurance for the past four days. Worrying about whether or not my purple gingham shirt is going to get bloodstained throughout the day gave me an all too real insight into what it must feel like to be a teenage girl. And that's one thing that never changes--no one ever wants to hear, "They're all going to laugh at you! They're all going to laugh at you!"

I Took Your Hair Gel, Bro

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

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

Pumpkin Spice, Miley, and the Trouble with White People

White people must have lost their minds today. It's been so hot outside and now, out of no where (or rather the residual effects of the underwhelming Hurrican Karen), the temperature has suddenly dropped. This anti-spike in temperature is surely going to signal a turn toward fall. The leaves will be falling soon and hoards of Caucasians will be heading to the pumpkin farm or the corn maze, adorned with scarves (though it's not cold enough) and pumpkin spiced lattes (though they're overpriced), and mmmmm, it will just be wonderful. It's what we do every year around this time, because, well we're a predictable race. Similar to bears, fall time is the last hoorah before white people go inside for the winter, only to emerge again to Instagram everything about spring. We run to craft stores and collect as many holiday-themed collectibles that we can and then we craft our asses of. Hobby Lobbys and Michael's across the nation feel our wrath as we leave their stores in shambles to craft and craft and craft, and that's where the problem comes in.
As of late, there has been some public conversation surrounding cultural misappropriation: let me explain what that is. It's when one race (white people) take something from another race and then claim it as their own without actually claiming it as their own. I first started noticing the term when white people in office spaces across America would simultaneously burst into Grand mal seizures while "The Harlem Shake" would play in the background. Black people responded by going on MSNBC and instructing white people how to actually do the Harlem Shake, which for the record, requires you to keep the Grand mal seizure specifically in your legs. A couple months later, white people misappropriated "twerking," a la Miley Cyrus. Again, we were doing it wrong. I'm still not exactly sure what twerking is... I believe the jury is still out on that one.
But let me clarify: saying that white people are stealing the Harlem Shake or twerking is like watching a thief rob a bank and then drop all the money before they get out the door. White people aren't stealing anything. And I would hardly say it's cultural misappropriation. I took a lot of creative writing classes in college and people would come in all the time with terrible strings of words that they would call poetry. I guess I could say that they were misappropriating poetry, but instead, I just liked to tell them in workshop that they were doing it wrong. Misappropriation is not where we should be focusing our efforts, guys. Focusing on things like that is like when Congress was freaking out about gay marriage as our economy was going down the drain. Bigger fish, y'all. Bigger fish.
I'm guilty of it, too. I'm sitting here on my eggshell colored couch, watching The Walking Dead, while working on a blog. The whiteness is getting out of control. There's a pumpkin sitting on the island in my kitchen that I plan on carving tomorrow. I'm a 23 year old man. The answer does not lie in making sure that cultural traditions are kept separate from one another... it comes in stamping out all this whiteness everywhere. I come from a home full of guns and deer heads and camouflage, so obviously my journey away from whitehood has been quite a process. However, I like to believe that I move toward becoming less and less white every day. I've always had the privilege of having a "racially aware sensei" for most of my life, guiding me through the ups and downs of what it means to be fighting a life of whiteness. It started in middle school with my friend Kierra, continued along into college where Sean took over, and finally led to post-grad where Krystal has graciously taken care of me... and that's where the story leads to: Krystal, me, and a racially charged glass of alcohol.
For my 23rd birthday, I invited all of the friends I had made in DC at the time (approximately 2.7) out for dinner and drinks. Only 1.7 of them showed up, but that wouldn't stop me from celebrating my 23rd year of life. The only issue with this birthday is that I had never been "out for my birthday" before, and I was pleasantly surprised that people tend to buy you drinks on your birthdays. My drink of choice has turned out to be a long island tea, which was apparently my dad's drink of choice when he was trollin for honeys at Buster Mugg's back in the 80s. Like father... sort of like son. Anyway, that's what people kept bringing me all night. Eventually, I was right at the point of not being able to keep any more drinks down (because birthdays are hard, get off my back), and I was sitting with Krystal and her boyfriend, Skip. My old roommate, Andrew, came over with another long island tea and offered it to me... and it was at that point that all my feelings about whiteness came bubbling over. You could say that the spirit of black America had entered my body, but that is probably a little bit presumptuous and a lotta bit racist. I'll just tell you what was said:
"I told you no," said Justin.
"But it's your birthday drinking," said Andrew
"Why are you trying to keep us down? You're always trying to keep us down," said Justin
"Who?" said Andrew
"Us," motioning to himself, Krystal, and Skip, "Us black people," said Justin
To Krystal, "You know I'm not racist, right?" said Andrew
Krystal gave the side eye.
The conversation did not stop there, as I spent at least another ten minutes explaining how Andrew was constantly trying to bring down the African American race, while calling on no other specific example other than the fact that he tried to bring me what must have been my tenth long island tea of the night, but inside, I felt like I was finally conquering the issue we've all been facing. It's not that he was taking anything from me, self-appointed representative of the African Americans. It's that he was trying to force his whiteness on me... and overall, on us. That's when it hit me. The problem with race in America does not exist because of lack of integration... the problem exists because white people are just trying to cross too many lines.
It came to my attention even more as I was checking out at Trader Joes with an organic pumpkin, some cranberry apple butter, pumpkin ravioli, and a bouquet of marigolds. I was the problem. Look at me whiting up Arlington even more than it already is. For those of you who don't know, Arlington is one of the whitest places in America. It's full of bicycles, mom and pop shops, people who are excited to take public transportation, and mostly coffee. What we need is to invite a couple of diverse friends over... no strike that. First, we need to make our traditionally white places seem less unsafe to our diverse friends, then invite them into our world. So white people, I leave you with this: leave your carts in the aisle. The organic food will be waiting when you get back. Walk out of that Trader Joe's and go wade in the water. Wade in the water, children.

Murder in the Burbs

I'm living in the suburbs now, and in turn, life has become quite suburban-like. I moved in about a month ago. About two days in that I was living with all Mormons: a revelation that would catch most off guard, but I'm never one to turn down a good cultural experience... I have a whole fleet of Mormons back home, and in the case that Joseph Smith really does have it right, I would like to believe they will come to my defense. I made the Mormon discovery over delivery pizza, the most sacred of all meals. Ever since, it's been a bit of a Desperate Housewives situation, as little issues and secrets from the suburbs have bubbled to the surface between casseroles and freshly made cupcakes. It's not like anyone has been killed or anything, well, yet... but there's always room for those kind of things to happen. But, again, that's not to say that the first month hasn't been eventful or at least taken some getting used to.

Back home in Tennessee, my neighborhood was hardly suburban. Most of the scandals that occurred involved my neighbor sneaking up behind our house and shooting a turkey, which then followed with my dad physically attacking him... so on and so forth, no big deal. Our neighbors up the street had two German Shepherds named Hydro and Codone, which my dad convinced me were the names of two 70s sitcom characters. But more on them later. At my last apartment, we lived in the Arlington "hood" which, considering the overall archetype of Arlington County, is more like where most of working class America lives. There were a lot of quinceaneras that happened at the park up the road, and my roommate got his window busted in once... but we decided that was because no one in the neighborhood liked him. But the suburbs... that's uncharted territory for me. Imagine my surprise as a family biking down the street stared me down as I was rapping Holy Grail quite loudly in my parked car. In the suburbs, people expect better things out of you, namely... not singing Jay-Z songs with your windows down.
My first run-in happened just days after I moved in. I was smoking in my front yard, all Ryan Atwood-style as the local Marissa Coopers watched from their windows. I didn't think it was a big deal, until I realized that there was no where to put my cigarette butts. I would finish off one, and then lay it in the gutter so that it could... I don't know... disappear or something. Unfortunately, that didn't work. A couple days later, my roommate came to me and said, Um, I don't know if you smoke or something, but the lady next door stopped me and said that someone was smoking in our yard, and it didn't make the neighborhood look good... so I just wanted to let you know. Ostracized. I was Hester Prynn-ed right out of the neighborhood before I could even start.
But I've tried my best to fit into the mold the best that I can. Tonight for instance, we had a little dinner party on the back porch, I fixed pumpkin cupcakes, and I spent the majority of the night doing laundry and watching Pitch Perfect in the background. Everything seems so simple in this world because on the surface... it is. But as we learned from Desperate Housewives' 9 year tenure on ABC, life is not always as it seems. Before I left for Knoxville a little over two weeks ago, life was going pretty well. I'd gotten the anti-smoking neighbor off my back, and I was getting settled in to the normalcy of quaint-Arlington-life. I was dating someone. Sometimes, my roommates would sit down and watch Big Brother or some other show with me, and I had even gotten comfortable enough to whip out the ol' bottle of wine every once in a while, but when I returned... everything got more complicated. The dating was over, my friends were busy, Big Brother had ended for the season, and everything was just amiss.
My dating life, per the usual, is a bit of a sham. I was sitting at home on a Tuesday night in gym shorts and a t-shirt, watching my DVR-ed Dancing with the Stars. I was sipping on some wine, and of course as most young boys do whilst watching Dancing with the Stars, I got lonely. I turned to my tried and true method of meeting people... online dating... because it's been so very successful in the past. I sent a cutie a little message, and I put my phone down, content with myself for the valiant effort that I had made in the dating world. Because our generation is a really freaky,l nearly voyeuristic one, obsessed with knowing as much information as possible, this site tells you how far you are from one another. Originally, it said 2 miles away, but after it refreshed, it said 1 mile. I thought that was kind of strange, but sometimes the GPS is off a bit. I looked back down and it said .5 miles away... it started to feel eerie. At this point, I picked up my phone and held it, waiting to see if my interest-turned-stalker was getting any closer. After refreshing again, the distance had updated to 300 feet away--guys, that's a football field. At this point, I was convinced that my killer could see me. I wasn't sure what to do because the only thing around me to kill someone was a remote, a large potted plant, and a stack of bills. In short, I was the black guy in every slasher movie. I was the opposite of Jennifer Lopez in Enough. All I had done was send a message to someone on a dating website, and in the course of 15 minutes, I was convinced that I was staring death in the face.
The phone refreshed one more time: 17 feet. This was it. My front door opened and my roommate walked through and behind him was a familiar face. The same face that I was looking at and refreshing just seconds before. He said, "Hey man! Glad you're down here... I have a friend I want you to meet." I didn't catch a name because at that point, I started laughing... and not in the, "laugh along with me kind of way," but in the, "I'm sorry I laughed at your cat's elaborate funeral" kind of way. I introduced myself and then put together what I was wearing: white gym shorts with a hot sauce stain on them from dinner and a t-shirt with a hole in the armpit. At this point, I was out of control. I was laughing to the point that I was occasionally snorting as they looked on at me like I had some kind of social disorder (which, in all honesty, I may... but that's neither here nor there). Eventually, they went upstairs and didn't come back down for the rest of the night. When I went upstairs, the door was closed and the light was off, but in all of my laughter, I didn't put together what that meant; it wasn't until the next day that I realized that I had lost my online venture before it even started. But, for now at least, I had my life.
So, there may not be any dogs down the street named after prescription pain killers, and no one has gotten their windows busted in, but that's not to say that nothing happens in the suburbs. The lease has barely started, and I'm not convinced that the woman next door isn't housing someone in her basement or something. But in the mean time, I'll just sit on the couch with my pumpkin muffins and DVR shows that I would prefer the rest of the world didn't know I watched... and when I get lonely, I'll sift through the pictures on online dating sites considering which ones are secretly dating my roommate, which ones might be available, and which ones may actually show up at my door in an attempt to kill me.

Dear Justin: The Worst Dating Advice Column Ever

This morning as I was coming into work, I noticed someone as I was walking inside--all the hormones starting raging, and like a chimpanzee, I immediately pushed my chest out, raised my head a little bit, and fixed my posture. It was like an unconscious thing, but at the moment, everything seemed so promising and exciting that I wanted to put my best foot forward. DC is full of people that are attractive, intelligent, and well-put together, so I tend to spend a lot of time acting like a metrosexual chimpanzee. Dating is complicated. If you don't find the love of your life in college, you might as well buy a cat, sharpen up on your needlepoint, and buckle down for all the Roseanne marathons your heart can handle. But there are those of us who persist on. In a metro area of nearly 6 million people, I believe that two self-centered, entitled, policy-driven individuals can still find love because, well... Bill and Hillary.
So in pursuit of my own Billary, I held the elevator door this morning for my potential mate outside, and when I say that I held the elevator, I mean I held it for like fifteen seconds practically growling at anyone else who dared to enter the elevator. Eventually, we were both in the elevator: I had done it. So, in response, I got, "Thanks for holding the door for me. You didn't have to do that (audible smile)." And then like a trashy Seth McFarlane character, I said, "Heh, you're welcome." And then I got off the elevator. I had forgotten one major part of flirting and human attraction: proper communication... actually, any communication at all. A couple of weeks ago, I asked people to send me their questions on dating, and in response, I got really vague questions in addition to really, really specific situations. I feel like I've made enough dating errors at this point that I could give all kinds of neat advice, so here goes it.

Justin, where do you meet people?
Well, I think it depends on who you are. Find the place you feel most comfortable. For some people, that's college, and if you've missed your boat, then I'm sorry about the rest of your life. For others, it's church. For some, it's bathhouses; it's really up to you. I learned a long time ago that I'm not going to meet people in bars because I'm just not a bar person. I don't have pick up lines. I do best in smaller situations, and if it's a stranger, I'm more likely to drop my scalding hot coffee on someone and talk my way into a date at a Starbucks than I would be trying to buy someone a drink at a bar.

Justin, how do you feel about online dating?
Listen, Meg Ryan, things have gotten a whole lot more complicated since You've Got Mail. I think it speaks a lot to our generation because we've stopped knowing how to communicate with people face to face. Online dating allows you to practically stalk people before meeting them, and in short, you are really drying the well of things to talk about before you meet them. I know it works for some people, and that's great. I online date sometimes, and it's hilarious. One person I talked to asked to come over, and when I said no, threatened to kill themselves, so that's cool. If you're in a bigger place, don't take the online thing too seriously because no one else really is, and be aware of where you're doing your online dating. If you're on something you have to pay for, people are probably really gunning to seal the deal. You don't buy a shirt if you don't intend on wearing it. If you're on something free like OKCupid, you probably care enough, as long as it doesn't cost you. If you're on an app like Tinder, well... you're only looking at pictures then clicking a heart or an X. I know it sounds crazy, but if it's shallow enough to only give you 2 options following looking at someone's picture, the relationship will probably reflect the outlet.

Justin, if a guys says he is paying for your date in advance, and then you offer to pay to be nice while you're actually out and he agrees, does that make him a douchebag?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: I've always had a really bad habit of offering to do things that I didn't want to in hopes of trying to be nice, and then people actually wanted me to do it. I would complain and complain, but in reality, I asked if I could, unprompted. I think something you have to learn, in all aspects of life, is that you should not offer to do something for someone unless you really want to do it. I've learned that the hard way with additional projects at work, picking people up from the airport, and offering sexual favors. Also, in terms of the whole "guy pays" thing, that gets complicated in my world. I'm a full blown feminist who believes that people are just people, so there's no obligation here. Equality for all, so... women are just as capable of paying as guys are. Towanda, ya know?

Justin, I think a guy likes me, but I can't figure it out. I've tried talking to his friends to see where he stands, but I'm still not sure.
Well, stop that, because that's just annoying. You're not trying to find an answer to your question, you're looking for a green light. If you want an answer, ask him. Pulling others into situations like this never, ever helps.

Justin, if she says she likes me, but she wants to take it slow, how slow should I take it?
Well, this is a two part question, really. According to Robin Thicke, everybody hates these blurred lines, so in essence the answer is: as slow as she says to take it. I just recently watched an episode of Parenthood (aka, the most underrated show on television), and this 17 year old guy was all, "Let's make sex!" and the girl was like, "I thought this was a picnic!?" and then they didn't have sex, and she broke up with him. I stood up and high-fived that imaginary 15 year old girl in my room and went on about my day. If you don't let time run its course, you risk a very real possibility of being a douchebag. On the other side of that, if you're someone who likes to keep a Dale Earnhardt pace in a Jeff Gordon kind of world (you're so very welcome for the heavily-biased NASCAR reference), then maybe you should reevaluate the person you're with. Just like you shouldn't expect anything too fast out of her, she should understand if you're looking for a faster pace. Neither way is the wrong way--just two equally effective ways that don't work together.

How fast is too fast to get married?
Always. Always is too fast to get married.

Justin, I met the perfect guy at a bar. He's from England and will be traveling around the US for the next three weeks. We flirt via text every day, but he's not stopping in DC again before heading back home. Should we keep in touch?
Anecdote: My roommate from college came to visit me this year. He's from Scotland. We went out to the bar, and I had five drinks, and I didn't have to pay for any of them because they were his surplus from all the drinks girls were buying him. It was a magnificent evening. Unless you're headed over to visit the royal baby, Bridget Jones, I would give him an additional three weeks and see if he contacts you... AMIRITE?

Justin, how should I treat a girl's friends that I've never met before?
Nicely.

Justin, I went to my boyfriend's (now ex-boyfriend's) house for the first time. He showed me a "poker room" with girl's bras everywhere and porn on the wall. What would you have done in the situation?
First and foremost, I would have set a reminder in my phone to put in a prayer request for him because gambling, pornography, and fornication are three of the devil's strongest tools in luring sinners to Hell. Secondly, I would have giggled because I didn't know people like that actually existed in real life. Third, I would have broken up with him, which seems to be a non-issue at this point. Lastly, I would have taken the bras back upstairs to his mom; I'm assuming that they probably belonged to her because I stand by the fact that someone who would commingle bras and porn for home decor probably did not come upon the bras in an organic way.

Justin, I just broke up with someone, but some of my stuff is still over at their place... what should I do?
A simple cost benefit analysis will answer this question pretty easily. If it were me, I would figure out in a concrete way how much I don't want to be around this person. If the items in question are important enough, you'll deal with it, no matter the issue. All it takes is going over to that place and asking for your business back. If you don't get an answer, then... that's really weird and that person has some growing up to do. In extreme cases, like if the stuff I left over there was the second or seventh seasons of Grey's Anatomy, I would bust the door down, go in spinning around with a brick in my hand to take out whomever I needed to, get my DVDs, and leave. But, I'm also a very passionate person.

Looking to stay single for a while? Send your dating and life questions to Justin at justinkirkland4@gmail.com!

An Open Letter to Miley Cyrus

Hey girl,

So, I missed your original live performance on the VMA awards tonight because I was at a Fantasy Football draft party--I know, I don't know what I was doing either. But I saw Twitter blowing up over everything you did tonight... the tongue, the bears, the foam finger, so I stayed up to see the encore performance. I want you to know I'm not mad. I, too, have had some questionable nights with a foam finger; I think that all of us can say that we've been there before. But to quote you, it's about "the climb." I'm not sure where exactly, or what exactly, you're climbing up, but I think it's time that we had a conversation that's been coming for a while. Let's rewind for a second.
We're not so different, Miley. I know what it's like to follow in the footsteps of a man who once wore very large cowboy boots. There's a bit of a shadow that you have to escape, and it's not the easiest in the world. We hail from Tennessee, a land full of talk drinks of water. But look at where you've come from! Look at what you've done! At 12 years old, you were already breaking away. You became Hannah Montana. Do you know what I was doing at 12 years old? Hiding from people in the locker room because I was scared of athletic activities and the prospect of "teabagging." But you weren't. You owned that wig and that painfully caricatured accent because it's what Disney wanted you to do. You knew who you needed to please, and you did, and good at you for it. In the midst of it all, I don't feel like you ever lost sight of who you were. Hannah was a moment, but Miley... well, she's a lifetime. Plenty of other Disney stars have ended up in much worse positions than you are at now. As you would say, "We run things [Disney], things don't run we." At the height of it all, you broke free. Remember that, Miley?
People critiqued you for that... for wanting to be your own person. You wanted to be something outside of Hannah. And even with the haters screaming about how you were rising above your means, you stuck to your guns. Your best friend Leslie said it best, "She's just being Miley." That's why I come to you today, stripped of all the bear onesies and the blonde wigs. Are you still just being Miley or are you a girl who forgot what's waiting on the other side? You have inspired a nation with your lyrical genius. You acted in a Nicholas Sparks movie that made over four times its budget, and guess what? You were nominated for stuff because of it. Granted, one of those was for Worst Actress, but like we've discussed before: off with the haters. You had hair for days, and people LOVED that about you. You were the common girl's girl, and every night as those young girls went to bed, they thought to themselves, Maybe, just maybe, I too could be Miley.

I think where things have always been a little shaky is that you repeatedly keep telling us that you're not Hannah. Listen, pumpkin. We haven't thought of you as Hannah for years. The first outburst was a little uncomfortable, but nothing we couldn't shake off. You screamed at us and told us that you couldn't be tamed, but what I think you were missing is that none of us were trying to tame you. I'm going to get a little harsh with you right now, but you came out of that bird nest in "Can't Be Tamed" like a possessed Natalie Portman with a chip on your shoulder. We didn't want that. We wanted you to release that mane of hair and do you. You do you, Miley. There's no need for you to get angry; plenty of female stars have come before you and shed the skin of their past lives. I know that I never expected you to be stagnant. You're Miley for God's sake.

But you persisted onward and now look where we're at. You've lost all sense of fashion, you have this odd fascination with teddy bears, and you cut all of your hair off. My sophomore year of college, I got really mad at my parents and cut my hair into a mohawk, but you know what? I let it grow back because that's what you do when you're an adult. You tame yourself because sometimes, that's what it takes to remember exactly who you are. As I watched you caress Robin Thicke's penis tonight with a foam finger and then stick that foam finger in your mouth, I saw a piece of myself. Well, not exactly. Actually, on a strictly literal basis, I didn't see any of myself in you, but that's probably because I have an unprecedented fear of sexually transmitted diseases, but that's neither here nor there. What I'm trying to say, Miley, is that we've all been troubled. We've all been lost at one time or another in our lives. Hearts have been broken before and identities put into question, but most of us do something like get a small tattoo or make the unfortunate decision of posting poetry on Facebook. Granted, we don't have a national stage, but I dare to say that we would do anything like you did tonight. It was a lot, babe. Watching you motorboat that woman's tiger printed bottom filled me with concern and worry. I've never been mad at you. All of this concern is coming from a place of love.
You used to be this force--a young woman who exemplified what it meant to come into her own. You provided enough angst for us to fight through our issues, but not so much that we would get grounded. It was you who helped us come into our own, and now we, collectively as a nation, want to do the same for you. I'm not sure where you're headed tonight after the VMAs; I'm assuming you'll be going to some swanky party with a lot of alcohol, sexual tension, and possibly some molly, or "Miley" to your younger audiences. But I think after that, you need to go home for a bit. Let that hair grow out. Again, not to be mean, but you looked like Cynthia from The Rugrats tonight. Go hang out with Billy Ray and do more songs in your backyard. That was nice. And when you get back on a plane to LAX, take your dream and your cardigan and keep them close. As my mother would say to some of my more adventurous friends, "Leave a little bit to the imagination." Whatever you're going through right now, whatever might be troubling you heart, is not bigger than you, Miley. This is just a hiccup: an instance where making out with a doll in a pool seemed like the perfect idea at the time, but may be a little weird to look at in five years or so. We believe in you and everything you do. Now it's time for you to believe in yourself. Let all those butterflies fly away.

With love,
America