Wooly Bully

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

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

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

And this is what he's turned into today.

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

Love and Pokemon

My friend Mark started playing Pokemon again; I think Red--one of the originals. For everyone who missed the late 90s/early 2000s, it's a game where you start out by choosing one of three Pokemon: a Squirtle, a Charmander, or a Bulbasaur. Choose the wrong Pokemon, restart the Gameboy and play again. Ultimately, the goal is to catch all of the Pokemon and defeat all of the Masters with the best team that you can assemble. But it all falls back to that first Pokemon--even if you don't use your first choice in the final battle, you always start the game believing that you will. Most people, the naive people, always choose a Charmander. If you do it right, you end up with a Charizard. But most people don't wait around long enough for that, and even if they do, you don't know what to do with a Charizard. That's okay, too. Not everyone is meant for a Charizard and what it means to have a Charizard. You don't always have to end up with what you started with.
Pokemon is an experience that you have--you don't really think of it that way as a kid. Actually, you don't think of it that way pretty much anytime. People who say that Pokemon is an experience is the kind of person who cries at the end of The Breakfast Club and totally ruins Lost for you because they talk about how the plot was all about the relationships between everyday people. But Pokemon is an experience, particularly similar to dating. Think about it: it takes nothing to catch a Weedle.
We've all dated Weedles. Occasionally, you run across someone cool like a Growlithe or a Vulpix--fiery and interesting. You want to date a coffee barista? That's a Lapras. You know where to find one, and as zen and urbane as he or she may seem, nothing ever really changes with them. And God forbid you ever run into a Chancey because much like the game, you're completely unprepared. Chanceys come around when you're approximately 6 shots in at the bar and you're dancing alone in the corner to "We Can't Stop." You're fresh out of Masterballs, and then you spend the next five days thinking about how you totally missed your shot at a Chancey. But whether it be a Chancey or a Lapras or a Growlithe, it really doesn't matter what you have if it doesn't make sense to your game plan, your experience.
To keep from completely ruining everything you've come to love and appreciate about Pokemon, the whole notion that dating and life and Pokemon are essentially interchangeable is because all three things boil down to one thing: the anatomy of a noun. Back in first or second grade, we're taught that a noun is a person, place, or thing. The noun is essentially the most basic of the language building blocks, second to spelling the words themselves. Nouns have such a simple function that we practically forget just how important they are. Because what everything depends on, ultimately, is a person, a place, or a thing--sometimes all three.
Sitting outside of my college dorm a couple years ago, I was dealing with a break up. Like most people after a break up, you go over everything you could have done differently in your mind--each argument or cancelled plan. You think about all the things you had considered doing and that you hadn't. And then you consider all of the things you did do and whether or not you should have done them. Lather, rinse, repeat. Sometimes, you'll drive yourself crazy with the notion, and unlike the Gameboy, you can't go back and restart it. You're stuck with the Pokemon you started out with, and even though you've logged it back into the Pokedex, it doesn't mean that it's not still there.
But that's where my friend Nam found me--out perched up on the side steps of Carnegie Hall puffing on a Camel Crush or something equally disgusting. She had known what I was going through, understanding that I had chosen to move away for grad school instead of trying at whatever assimilation of a relationship that I had. She plopped down beside me and asked me for a cigarette and began to explain how everything in life works--or at least everything to do with making a relationship work. She talked about how a relationship is a special kind of noun: it requires all three noun components--the right person, the right place, and the right thing... most usually, time.

Deal. I'm going to go eat an entire pizza and
watch American Horror Story.

It's a great little litmus test, if you're being honest with yourself. People in their 20s are obsessed with being in relationships--almost as much as they are about going to brunch or being purposefully ironic. But at the end of the day, when people stop coming to your single's brunch, and your friends don't want to go ice skating with you because it might appear that y'all are gay (Side note: I still completely stand by the notion that two men can go ice skating and it's totally platonic, but whatever. Not here, Justin. Not here.), we aggressively turn our minds toward a relationship because a relationship will be the thing that will fix us. And in your 20s, if you think there's a way that will fix everything, you immediately jump at the offer. That's why so many people do P90X, let's be honest. (Side note 2: You're never going to find me doing P90X. I tried it once. That's stupid and it hurts.)
I'm not against relationships. I think they can be amazing, and ultimately, as disgusting as it sounds--life is so much more fulfilling when you have someone to share it with. But to go back to Nam's theory, it requires everything that a perfect noun entails: the right place, the right time, and most importantly the right person. The right place is usually the easiest. Unless you're just a really avid eHarmony user who searches miles and miles outside of your own city, the person you might want to date is most likely going to be around you. The place is only complicated if you've just gotten there or you're just about to leave. But overall, the place is easy.
The time kind of meshes with the place. It's all about being settled and how busy you are. Oftentimes, we underestimate just how important the time part is because we always think we're ready for the next step. Either we're bored or we're swamped or we're somewhere in between, and we convince ourselves that we're ready for whatever we might find. The eternally monogamous don't understand what the world would be like single, and the eternally single are just positive that it's time to take a turn for the more serious. But in reality, time is complicated because it's not a state that can be determined by how long you've been single or what you've done before. It's a matter of knowing when the clock inside of you is ticking at the exact right speed with the right person.
And the person is the worst part of all because it's almost entirely out of your control. Even when the clock is ticking steady in the right place, it has to be ticking in sync with the right person. And that's terrible and magical at the same time because waiting for it to work is a nightmare, but when it does, it's this thing that makes you believe in things like fate and luck. Because as frustrating as catching all of the Pokemon may seem, sometimes, you do have a Masterball when a Chancey appears. And you have room in your belt for another Pokemon, and when you throw it and watch the ball wiggle, and wiggle again, and wiggle again, sometimes it just closes and there it is--it happened. You caught it.

Lapras, the smug Pokemon equivalent to
a coffee shop barista.

So you might not end up with the first Pokemon you started with (the high school or college sweetheart) because that rarely ever happens for anyone. That's tricky, and God help you if you end up with a Venasaur, because that just means someone is hanging around and eating all your shit. In the end, all of the pieces have to match up because anything else is just forced, and you really should reconsider metaphorically restarting that Gameboy. Life is too short to go around pretending to love someone for the sake of saying you're in love. Take that time and go live. Catch a Lapras to catch a Lapras and then store it away. Go explore all the different areas that you want to explore. And in the midst of all the Pokemon references, take a little time to find yourself because even in the moments when it may seem like the right time and the right place and the right person, you have to be content with who you are, when the Gameboy is shut off and you're lying alone at night. If you can't live with who you are, no one else is going to be able to live with you either.
Nam didn't include anything about Pokemon, but I know she probably would have if she thought of it. Instead, she finished up by snuffing out the end of her cigarette on the concrete step and brought it all home by saying, "That's it. If it's not the right person, the right place, and the right time, then it's not right for you. And in the meantime, you just have to wait." Nam's not really one to tell you that it comes when you least expect it or that love is just around the corner. She's kind of brutal with the truth, and she's not one that will tell you how close you are to love. Because what if it's the wrong place? You're not going to catch a Starmie in Viridian Forest.
And you're not going to find love or a relationship until all the right pieces match up.

Tina, Tina, Tina

In fifth grade, my family moved for the first time. It wasn't your classic kind of move, mostly because a big truck came along and pulled our first house off the foundation, put it in our back yard, then moved our bigger house back in. Ah yes, the classic trailer switch. For some reason, our family decided to make the switch in the middle of the winter, but because of the complicated nature of assembling the two pieces of a doublewide, we had to live out of the singlewide for a week. Most children would be concerned about not being directly hooked up to water or heat, but for me, the only issue that existed for me was--we were going to miss the premiere of Survivor: Australian Outback.
I was obsessed with Survivor, mostly because I would sit in class and contemplate how I could vote all of my classmates out but somehow manage to make them all still like me afterward. The year before, I watched Kelly Wigglesworth be completely undermined by the nakedness/baldness of Richard Hatch. It was both disgusting and enthralling to watch--but this season was going to be different: I could feel it. I demanded that we were fully moved into the new house before the premiere happened--there's not a lot of things that I demanded as a 5th grader, other than a full size recreation of Zordon from the Power Rangers and the premiere of Survivor. In reality, only one of those things were possible, and I didn't know at the time how important it would be for my development as a young man.
Once we got the all clear, we began to move furniture in--logically, I suppose we should have started with the couch or the bed, but we went straight for the television. Just by the skin of our teeth, we made the move just in time for premiere night. At the beginning of every reality show season, my dad and I pick favorites to win. The battle goes back to classic battles such as Clay and Reuben, as well as Carrie Underwood and Anthony Federov (which wasn't really classic at all, as much as it was just a really terrible decision on my part). But as the didgeridoo sounded from our old television speakers, I immediately knew who my pick would be. As the faces flicked across the screen, I saw her. No, she wasn't an Alecia, nor was she a Kel (obviously, because she would never be accused of stealing beef jerky. Hello), but I knew in my hear that she would win the game. Her name? Tina Wesson. She was from Knoxville, my hometown, and to me, if she came from Rocky Top, she was surely going to win. My dad told me that I was crazy right after he chose Colby. I wouldn't be moved though--I didn't care what happened because I knew that Tina was going to win.

Tina Wesson/Justin Kirkland, 2001

Looking back, as a fifth grader I was entirely too invested in the lives of people I didn't know. I would huddle the family around the television every Thursday night, hushing any company that might be over for dinner or to pick up a gun/bow/dead animal from dad. I was amazed by what I saw because as much as I love Tina, she wasn't that great at winning things. But still, at every tribal council, no one cared. Everyone just kept voting for other people and Tina lived on week to week all the way to the final three. I think maybe that's why Tina resonated with me so much--I wasn't good at winning things either, but people liked having me around. I imagined that if 2001 Tina and fifth grade Justin played Survivor together, we would probably make it to the final three as well.
Finale night came--I was a nervous wreck for a number of reasons. I was leaving for my first major trip ever the next day: a four day trip Washington D.C. I had never been away from home that long, and on top of my completely irrational anxiety over Tina's potential winning moment, I was on 24 hour nervous vomit alert. Colby won the final immunity and my dad immediately when into celebration mode. Colby was surely going to win against Kei... no. He took Tina. At the final tribal, Tina smoothly talked her way into the prize with a million-dollar-brand of Southern charm.  I cried that night--still not exactly sure if that was because of Tina's win or the pending trip, but either way, it was a lot of emotions. I boarded the coach bus the next morning with my special edition Survivor Entertainment Weekly, and I channeled that Tina Wesson power to make it through the trip. Mind you, I didn't eat and lost seven pounds in four days because of it, but I liked believing that was part of the whole "Survivor" mentality.
Throughout that summer, I begged my friends to play Survivor with me, which probably explains why I had such a tough transition into middle school the next year. You see, when you invite your friends over to play games that you've designed and made the rules for, then win every challenge, then vote each of them out of the game, sometimes you end up alone. Didn't matter to me though--I wanted to keep up that Knoxville Legacy. Eventually, my friend Lindsay told me that Tina was coming to speak at her church and that she would get me an autograph. With very few friends left and fewer and fewer people interested in playing Survivor with me, I decided that I needed to let this "Tina-hero-glory" go. I put the autograph on the back of a blue church flyer in my scrapbook and tried to let Tina go. My love for her was alienating. Everyone else's hero reports were on their grandpas or presidents or movie stars. Mine were about the 42 year old woman who once played Survivor. It was time to move on.

***

Skip forward four years: Tina was going to to be on Survivor: All Stars. She was voted out first. I choose to not recognize that it ever happened.

***

By the time I was a junior in college, Tina was a fond memory of my childhood--I had found other heroes, but like an old teddy bear, she had this place in my heart even if I didn't force my friends to play Survivor with me anymore.  Down the road from our college, the local Chili's would host a special night a couple times a year that part of the proceeds would go toward St. Jude's Hospital research. We would always try to make it down to grab dinner, and like usual, I had ordered a margarita and some kind of entree. 

My friends and I sat around the table trading stories from the day when it happened: out of no where, Tina Wesson walked in the door. I suppose the entire thing should have been simple. It had been ten years since the show premiered, and no one else seemed to make a big deal out of her being there, but I was frozen. Imagine if Superman walked in the door while you're casually sipping on margaritas... then you spit up that margarita on yourself and then go into a state of catatonic shock.

My friends had heard about my previous love of Tina Wesson at one point or another, most of the time after I had drank a number of margaritas and went back to those tender memories of elementary school. They kept telling me to go over, but I couldn't get up. It all seemed too crazy to be true. No matter who it ends up being, your childhood hero is kind of invincible. But the idea that mine was sitting about twenty feet away presumably weighing the benefits of fajitas over steak with her husband just seemed unreal to me. Eventually I asked the waitress to do a little investigation for me--she had confirmed it: Tina Wesson was in the restaurant.

I finished my margarita and mustered up as much courage as I could. After getting up from the table, I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to approach the situation. It's not every day that you meet your hero. Somehow, I decided on some kind of walk that resembled a mix between a serious limp and a grapevine dance step. I spent so much time deciding on how I should walk that by the time I actually got to the table, I had nothing to say. Tina and her husband looked up at me and waited for me to say something. I couldn't look her in the eyes, and then all of that nervousness from that pre-Washington D.C. night/Australia finale came flooding back. All I could think was, "Please don't cry or throw up on Tina Wesson's table at Chili's." Eventually, words just came flooding out in this weird whisper-grumble, "Hello Tina Wesson. My name is Justin Kirkland. I saw you sitting over here, and I wanted to say thank you because you're my hero and I watched you when I was younger and I thought you did great."

Justin Kirkland/Tina Wesson, 2013

She looked nervous, and I probably would have been too, honestly. I don't like being interrupted when I eat, and though it's never happened, I'm assuming my unsteady, borderline creepy vibe didn't really help my case. Of all the responses I thought she was going to say, she said, "How old were you when that came on?!" I told her about fifth grade, strategically leaving out the details about voting out my friends and the haphazard hero reports I did based on less than reliable information from Survivor fansites. I don't remember much more from the conversation because I think I started to faint or something.

***

Tina finished fourth last night in her third season of Survivor. I was still an embarrassing fan girl sitting on the couch screaming at the television, unable to eat my pizza because that fifth grade Survivor anxiety was back all over again. Every couple of seasons, I apply to be on Survivor hoping to be the next Knoxville rockstar on the island. People have asked me why Tina--there's been more impressive winners or sneakier players, or hell... people like presidents and celebrities to write hero reports on. But for me, it wasn't about Tina changing the world... it was more about Tina changing my world. She wasn't just a woman on a television show to me, as much as she is proof that you can do whatever you want, even if you're from down in South Knoxville. As long as you're not walking over to meet her at Chili's, that is.

Scared of The Moon

Author's note: Originally written for my Journalism final.

Author's note 2.0: The weekend before Thanksgiving, a friend and I took money that we had raised (with a lot of your help) and randomly selected Jacquelyn Lewis-Tolbert-Robertson for a one day shopping spree, including new clothes, a hotel room for two nights, and a dinner of her choosing—this is her story.

Jacquelyn puffed on a Marlboro Smooth. For a while, she had been relatively quiet, but after an exhale of smoke and warm breath into the cold air outside the Outback Steakhouse on Highway 50, she looked up at the moon and said, “I never liked the stars. And I was scared of the moon, too. Always thought it was following me.” She spent the next five minutes explaining how she had found a nemesis in the moon since she was a young girl. Before she started again, she tended to the cigarette’s ember. “But one night, I couldn’t sleep. I was always looking down to not look at the moon. I was homeless, and I wanted to give up, but I looked up at that moon, and I knew it was God. That was God watching out for me.”

She looked down from the moon and back to her cigarette. Carefully, she snuffed out the end of the half-smoked butt, inspecting it to make sure that all the fire was gone, and quickly placed it in the pocket of her brand new jacket. Why put trash in the pocket of a new jacket? One man’s trash might be the only cigarette Jacquelyn comes across this week.

Photo courtesy of Ciara Ungar

Jacquelyn Lewis-Robertson-Tolbert (she prefers all three) calls the grated vent outside the Metro Center metro station home. From across the street, you can see her in a tattered leather jacket, black beanie, and dirty yellow pants folding up her large wool blankets. The fact that Jacquelyn stood out is a mystery because ultimately, the Washington D.C. metro area is full of people just like Jacquelyn.

Actually, the metro area comprises the fifth highest homeless population in the country according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Unfortunately, the homeless population in Washington D.C. is on the rise, despite the national average dropping. Over 13,000 people are homeless in the D.C. metro area, but as winter moves into its coldest month, Jacquelyn is alone on the street for the fifteenth year in a row. She doesn’t beg for change or cigarettes—she simply makes a home out of what circumstance has given her: next to nothing.

At 56-years old, Jacquelyn is a veteran to Washington D.C. She grew up in the area and is one of the few District residents who can call the city their hometown. Upon meeting her, Jacquelyn foiled most of the stereotypes that often haunt the homeless population—the aggressor or the beggar or the ungrateful. She gathered all of her belongings, stuffing them into a tattered, plastic Ikea bag along with an old pair of pink flats and a bag of floss picks. “Taking care of my teeth means a lot to me,” she said with a smile.

Walking to the car, she talked about what it meant to live in the streets and how life had ended up heading that way. She refused to focus on the past, and continuing to press about it seemed pointless. A string of relationships gone awry, a begrudging battle with alcoholism, and a lack of opportunity placed Jacquelyn on the streets in 1998. But interestingly enough, Jacquelyn is not without family. She talked about the metro area and how it’s dotted with Lewises and Tolberts and Robertsons. Family members dot the eastern side of D.C., and her two sons, D’Angelo and Greg, live in Arlington and Fairfax.

None of her family was available for contact, but Jacquelyn spoke of them with love, “Oh, I love my boys. They’re in their twenties now.” She talked about their children and the lives they have started on the outskirts of the metro area, but she also hinted at the distance she kept from them while adjusting the tarnished gold ringer on her middle finger—a token she has refused to give up with a symbol engraved in it that represents emancipation.

On the drive to the first stop of the day, Jacquelyn listens as the radio scans for a station and quietly announces, “I love jazz. Especially free form jazz.” Outside the window, the early evidence of Christmas decorations pass as she adds, “and Christmas music. I love Christmas.” The radio stops on a station playing “Carol of the Bells,” as Jacquelyn launches into a recounting of Christmas as a girl. “We would make it last as long as we could,” she said. She always hoped for books—particularly on history and science. She began to explain how she hoped to be a scientist as a child until suddenly she grew quiet again. Driving through the area around Capital Hill, she noted, “I used to stay at a shelter around here, but it closed down.”

The closing of homeless shelters in the Washington area is an unfortunate truth. When searching for “Washington D.C. homeless shelter closed,” a slew of results turn up on Google, all within the past five years—one article reporting that 50% of shelters accommodating families in the D.C. area were closed due to budget cuts back in 2011. Jacquelyn’s last tenure at a shelter was back in the late 90s. She referenced the clean and sober shelter that has since been shut down. Last year, she had the opportunity to get into a shelter located a bit closer to Downtown, but she gave up her spot for one of the two women she had spent the better half of last winter with. When asked why, she said, “They are older than I am. I know I can survive.

And that’s exactly what she’s expected to do. Jacquelyn has spent the last few years working with The Perry School, an institute dedicated to helping those in need find the proper avenues to getting back into the work force. Their mission states their goal to “alleviate the conditions of poverty in order to help ensure positive outcomes for youth, adults and families within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area,” but the key word is “alleviate.” Though the school has helped Jacquelyn establish a resume and identify a skill set, the classes that Jacquelyn must take to populate that resume do not come without a cost.

Jacquelyn currently gets her financial support by preparing and packaging lunches for homeless youth. The little money she makes doing that goes toward feeding herself, her basic living needs, and the classes she needs to take to become certified in food preparation, CPR, and other skills. The registration for those classes happens at the beginning of each month, and as she says, “If you miss the deadline, well, you just have to wait until next time.” Opportunity doesn’t strike Jacquelyn that often, so when given the opportunity to get new clothes and other personal belongings, she quickly accepted.

Walking along in Target, it wasn’t hard to see why Jacquelyn’s resources were relatively limited. For a quick lunch, Jacquelyn decided on the Pizza Hut kiosk inside Target. After getting her personal pan cheese pizza, she sat down at the table and took a moment that most people take for granted. She opened the box and brought the pizza close to her face. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, smelling the pizza, as if someone had just presented her with some kind of delicacy.

Target is hardly Jacquelyn’s normal environment, especially the one set in the newly gentrified Columbia Heights neighborhood. She walked around the women’s section, shifting from moments of total excitement and worried caution. On multiple occasions, Jacquelyn would find a sweater or jacket she admired, only to be met with sidelong glances just a couple of clothing displays over. Jacquelyn stood out with her eclectic, slightly dingy ensemble, and the women in Target took notice. And Jacquelyn did too, especially as she caught the women glaring at her while thumbing through a stack of red and black poly-blend sweaters. No words were necessary—it was obvious that she was not welcomed. Each time, Jacquelyn would replace whatever she was looking at and move on to another rack, as if to apologize for even being in the store.

Their reactions are a reflection of a society that has become so comfortable with sympathizing with the homeless population of America without actually having to empathize with them. Once Jacquelyn had infiltrated their territory, perception of the homeless had changed. With very few options available for housing, stores with customers who express visible distaste toward homeless customers, and on overarching stereotype attached to homelessness, how exactly does a woman like Jacquelyn further herself in an already economically pessimistic world? Through the rarity of human kindness.

As the day came to an end, Jacquelyn checked into the room rented under her name at the George Washington Inn. An upscale hotel in the heart of Foggy Bottom, the front desk receptionist finished her paperwork, handed her the keys to her room and asked, “Is there anything else we can do for you, Ms. Tolbert?” She looked at him with a shocked expression and abruptly announced, “I don’t think I can remember the last time someone called me Ms. Tolbert.” She smiled and said no, taking all the bags from the day up to her room. Once checked in, she pulled everything out of the bags, arranging it neatly on the bed with special attention to the jacket she had picked up at Ross. She pulled it close to her chest and said, “It’s a windbreaker. That help cuts the cold, and the inside is lined with fur.” She hugged it tighter and said, “There’s nothing better than a warm jacket.”

To finish off the day, she asked to go to Outback Steakhouse, only knowing it as Outback before the day. “I thought it was a shoe store for some reason,” she said. Once seated, Jacquelyn ordered baby back ribs. She looked around the table and then turned back to the waitress with a big grin and said, “The full rack, please.”

Every bite seemed to mean more and more until she couldn’t eat anymore. For the night, she looked no different than the Outback patrons around her. It was a day where shelters at capacity or enrollment fees or finding a place to shower didn’t immediately matter.

After a couple of days, the hotel manager called to say that Jacquelyn had checked out, “She wasn’t an issue at all. She was courteous and like any other guest.” No surprise because that’s simply who Jacquelyn is—just another guest to the city of D.C.

Outside of the Outback Steakhouse, Jacquelyn waited for the car to be pulled around. She patted her pocket to make sure the half-smoked cigarette was still in place, and she looked up again to see where the moon was—though no longer scared, she still likes to “keep tabs” on where it’s at. She assumes a lot of responsibility that most people don’t. While most will read this article on a Sunday over a cup of coffee in the sunroom, the paper this is printed on may be the makeshift shelter from wind or rain or what have you.

And when finished reading, there’s someone who will notice you—be it a family member or friend of coworker. But right before getting in the car, Jacquelyn turned and said, “A lot of people pass me on the street. They never say anything. You spend a lot of time wondering if people can see you, and I never thought anyone saw me… but today, you saw me.”

She opened the door and got into the back seat to go back to the hotel for a couple of nights—off the streets, safe from the cold, and protected from the moon.

Shit Happens

A little over a month ago, I had something happen to me that I never thought could happen to me; something I like to believe happens to more people than you would think. I contemplated on whether or not I should come forward and tell my story, and after a lot of reflection and inner-turmoil, I've decided that it is time. I do not tell this story to make you laugh and/or chuckle--though I'm assuming that some of you will. I tell this story so that others with the same story will feel comfortable coming forth and telling theirs.

There's a lot of difficult things that come with adulthood: bills, work, household duties, increased responsibility across the board, relationships--especially relationships. The bonds you share with friends and family and significant others (you know, if you're into that whole sister wives kind of situation), become more complex with the strain on your time and attention. Inevitably, complications arise and your relationships become more and more taxing. You start to feel resentment for those around you because they're not coming through for you in the ways they used to--you're essentially left with just yourself. It's bad enough when your friends shit on you--but it's even worse when you shit on yourself.
After an exciting episode of Grey's Anatomy, I decided to step outside and give my mom a call, because that's what my life has turned into--watching my shows, then giving my mom a call to do a thirty minute recap of an hour long program. I noticed that I was starting to get off track about this season's constant turmoil between Meredith and Cristina, so I told my mom, in my standard candid fashion, that I needed to get off the phone, go inside, and take a poop. In her standard fashion, she said, "Thank you for that overshare," and then I went inside.

As I stepped in the doorway, I thought to myself, Oh gosh, I really have to go to the bathroom, and then a couple steps later, standing in the living room right there in front of Kerry Washington and the entire cast of Scandal it happened: I pooped on myself. It was as if my body had just completely abandoned all communication with my mind. My body had gone full-Sarah-Palin-rogue, and all I could do was stand there and take it all in. You always imagine what it might be like if you pooped on yourself, but from personal experience, you really have no idea what it's actually like until, well, it happens.
I shuffled (because full fledged running seemed like a terrible idea) to the downstairs bathroom so that I could assess the damage and do as much ground zero clean up as possible. I looked over and saw the most terrifying thing that you can see post-tragedy: no toilet paper. At this point, I was completely out of options other than relocation. However, that meant going upstairs--the downstairs is so much safer because everything is hardwood, but everything upstairs is carpeted, and that just seemed like I was asking for a disaster. Plus, no one was downstairs, and if I trudged up the stairs, I ran the risk of running into someone and potentially having to explain what happened--I wasn't ready for that, not then. Without any other solution, I opened the door and started to leave and there stood my roommate, David. Where the hell did he come from? Feeling like I needed to explain why I was in the downstairs bathroom, I quickly said, "No toilet paper." I'm not really sure why I said it because he never asked why I was in there or why I was leaving, but it felt right at the time. Then he reached over to the counter and said, "Wanna try out the paper towels?" Um, no David. I don't want to try the paper towels. I want to go back in time seven minutes and undo all of this. That's what I want. I laughed and started to walk away and he said, "Dude, you okay? You're walking like you have a stick up your ass." Ironically, that was the complete opposite of the situation.
I made it to the upstairs bathroom, but the damage was worse now. The only surefire way to deal with this was just to evacuate the situation entirely and dispose of any evidence that it ever happened. I got into the shower to try and wash away all of the shame, but no matter how hard I scrubbed, the disappointment was there for good. I imagine that anyone who defecates in their pants is never quite the person they were before the incident. Something inside of you, not outside, changes... maybe it's that you're incredibly humbled by the unpredictability of bodily functions. Either way, I finished showering and stepped onto the bathroom mat and realized there was a whole other situation at my feet... literally. The jeans I was wearing escaped any damage, but it's faithful friend on the inside was not so lucky. They were the Bubba of this Forrest Gump story, and much like Bubba, we had to tell the skivvies goodbye.
So I ran to my room and grabbed an extra bag from 7-11 that I had laying around. I placed our faithful friend in the bag and decided that once everyone had gone to bed, I would take them away and dispose of them--because no self-respecting man can put his dirty business in his own trash can. I sat down to get on my laptop, and I felt them sitting over there in the corner... staring at me or something, so I went downstairs back to the living room. I couldn't bear the guilt of having them right there in front of me, whilst Facebook-ing. They would be fine on their own until later when I would run them off to a public dumpster or something.
I stayed up and watched Carrie that night, and at 1:00am, I knew it was time. The deed had to be carried out. I called my mom again, because it only seemed appropriate as she was the first person I called when it happened. She got all the laughs in that she needed to, so she was going to stay up and be my phone accomplice as I put an end to the horror story that was my fateful Thursday evening. I had pre-decided upon 7-11, since I already had the evidence in the appropriate bag. As I started to pull in, a cop pulled in behind me really close and followed me into the parking lot. He pulled up beside of me and sat there, staring. It was as if an officer had been watching me all night, and as I got in my car, he radio-ed in and said, Um, we have a number 2 on our hands. Follow the suspect to see if he disposes on his messy drawers. Copy? 
Under pressure, especially from cops, I do what most Americans do and act suspiciously as possible. Suddenly, I started using overly-active hand gestures and laughing for no apparent reason to try and look "natural," but in retrospect, I just looked crazy. The cop was not leaving. After talking on the phone for about five minutes, I decided I had to go in and buy something. After I got back out to my car, he just sat there looking at me, and I realized--I'm going to have to bear this burden for a few more hours. I drove home and put the evidence in my trunk, simply because there was no other place to put it. Eventually, I did dispose of what needed to be taken care of nearly 24 hours after the original incident took place.
In short, shitting your pants is actually a lot more complex, humiliating, and difficult than you would think. I hear my friends talk about scary situations or really intense movies and respond with, "I almost shit my pants." But to me, it's not a joke. It's not something you laugh at, and it's not something you can relate to. Shitting your pants is a unique experience like fighting in the Vietnam War or watching the Lifetime remake of Steel Magnolias in one continuous sitting. Shitting your pants is not something that you ever truly come back from, and it's definitely not something that you joke about. But like a lot of the hardships that I've overcome in my life, I'm a better person for it. If you've pooped on yourself, be brave and remember that you're not alone. Be strong enough to tell your story, because like most things in life, we can only move forward by moving together.

What Happens to Italy, Stays in Los Angeles

The night I got to Los Angeles, Italy stopped me and asked me for a cigarette. Not the country, the fashion designer.

***

Today, I hopped on a plane to LAX with a dream and a cardigan, and from there, that's pretty much where the similarities between Miley Cyrus' experience and mine stops. I was placed in a middle seat, which is not equipped for a man my size to sit in, and then I became best friends with a young man who sat beside me on the plane. He touched my leg a lot and since Prop 8 was overturned, I'm fairly certain that means that we're married, so that's exciting. After I got off the plane, my friend Kara asked about how the trip went, and I was so delirious from the time difference and the journey and being in the land of Jennifer Lawrence that all I could say was, "He looked like a young Frankie Muniz, and he smelled like dreams."

Los Angeles is the closest thing I've seen to Panem from The Hunger Games. It's full of tall buildings and the city is surrounded by mountains, which absolutely blows my mind because I somehow feel like mountains only belong to the East coast. In short, I'm actually in The Hunger Games. Beyond the skyscrapers and the mountains though, my favorite part of the city is the people. They dress oddly, yet professionally at the same time. Though I feel like at any moment I might have to fight someone to my death, at the same time, I feel like the people of L.A. would be sad that I died. They may be kind of crazy, but the plasticky, tanned people of L.A. stole my heart, and that's probably why when Italy asked me for a cigarette, I didn't think twice about stopping.
She was sitting outside of the only 7-11 I could find in the downtown area, and I was jonesing for a Coke so there was really no avoiding her. She was in a skirt, but that didn't stop her from sitting open legged, with no inhibitions about showing off her lady business to the world. I'm not saying I endorse that kind of behavior, but I do have a certain amount of respect for someone when they say, "You might be able to see my bits and pieces, but that doesn't define me as a person." Anyway, Italy stopped me as I was walking down the sidewalk and said, "Baby, do you have a cigarette?" Anyone who calls me baby, particularly women in the 35-60 age range, automatically get whatever they want from me. I gave her a cigarette, and she said that I looked Irish, which is a nice way of saying, I'm sorry you were born without pigment.
After I spoke back to her, she asked where I was from and what I did, and it was on. I told her that I was in town for an event and that I helped plan it, and that's when she told me about her big plan--or rather, her big comeback. Some background: Italy was once one of the biggest fashion designers in the world. She told me to look her up, but unfortunately when you Google "Italy fashion designer," the results are not very narrowed. Unfortunately, a while back, Italy's luck had changed. At this point in the conversation, I had moved from standing in front of her to leaning against the brick wall beside her to eventually taking a seat next to her on the pavement outside of 7-11. As she was lighting up the second cigarette I gave her, she said, "You want to listen to my story because if you walk away, you'll see me on TV in a year and say to yourself, Goddamn, that bitch knew what she was talking about." Little did she know, I had no intention of walking away. Like that little girl in the AT&T commercials, I wanted more. I wanted more. I want it now.
She told me about her downfall: one night, a gang came to her house and pulled her out of it. They beat her and beat her and then told her she could never go back into her house. So, naturally, when a gang tells you what to do, you do it. She didn't go back into her house. With strict orders from the game, Italy didn't get any of her stuff so she took to the streets. When she returned to check on her house, it had been burned down. With no other leads, she assumed it was the gang. I guess I would have thought it was the gang, too, but I also probably would not have left my house to begin with. That's neither here nor there. Since the initial gang attack, Italy's house was burned down nine more times. Again, I'm unsure how your house gets burned down an additional nine times, but it did.
I pulled out my phone to start taking notes because there was a lot of information being thrown my way, and I was too deep in the game at this point to walk away. Occasionally, Italy would reach into her bag which was full of files and papers, most of the time not pulling anything out... just doing collateral to make sure everything was there, I guess. Except one time she did completely divert away from the story and told me how she was going to sue the subway system for emotional damages, which actually makes a lot of sense. If she's successful, I am probably going to sue my local metro system for emotional damages as well.
I truly felt sympathy for Italy because I hate the idea of anyone getting beaten up for no reason. I hated that she had it all and it was taken away from her so quickly. I hated that her sister lives with Bon Jovi now (oh, I didn't mention that before? Yeah, apparently that's a thing, too) and that she's making no moves to bring Italy  into her Livin on a Prayer life. I hated it all.
But that's when the story took a turn. I'm sitting there on pins and needles (considering that it was the streets of Downtown LA, I might have actually been sitting on a needle. God only knows), waiting for what happens next when Italy says, verbatim, "But it wasn't the gang who burned my house down 9 times. You see, there's a mysterious incinerator under my house, and every couple of months, it sets itself on fire and burns the house down again." Classic pit-of-Hell-plot-device. I was eating it up. It took me back to my preteen days of watching the short-lived soap opera Passions on NBC, when Charity was sent to the fires of Hell conveniently located in someone's basement. At that point, I think Italy realized that she had told me enough, and that I was pretty much hooked, so she launched into her plan.
She asked me if I would help her promote her comeback (duh) where she would walk from LA to Virginia (what?!) where her mother lives, and she wanted to market it in the same style that Oprah publicized her and Gayle's road trip across America (signed, sealed, delivered). All that she wanted was someone to tell her story on Twitter because that's how everyone communicates these days. I really don't know exactly what she needed my help with because it sounded like she had everything planned out. I wanted on board though because by the time the conversation was over, I wondered for a moment myself if this woman might actually end up on television. Because I lack any professional credentials, I gave her my email and Twitter handle (as if she has access to the Internet). I wished her the best, and I almost shook her hand, but I remembered that at one point mid-conversation that she reached up inside of her skirt... and I don't play that game.
It's been almost two weeks now, and I haven't heard from Italy. I imagine she's still out there, hustlin' the streets looking for people to listen to her story whilst stifling her rage toward Bon Jovi. She might be back at her house, if it's burned itself down again that is. Wherever she is, a piece of her is lingering with me, and one day when I turn on the news and see that large woman in her puffy jacket and mini skirt on the television, I can say that I knew Italy back when: in that awkward interim between her first rise to stardom and her second.

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.