TWENTY TWENTY HINDSIGHT

My twin sister and I are similar like Miss California and Elton John are similar: we’re both flaming queens but only one of us is smart.  People are continually shocked to find out B—* and I slipped out of the same slide.  It’s not just in brain power and ambition that we differ: we look alike the way pets and their owners look alike.  A stranger once asked if my ex-girlfriend and I were twins while we were standing beside my actual twin.  Also, B— was born in the First World stir-ups of Memorial Mission Hospital and I was born in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant.  Because of this, I not only have a trace of brain damage, the top of my skull is also pancake flat.  My sister’s head, however, is round as a silicon teet.  I was also born with an extra middle finger.  And there is, of course, the obvious gay/not gay thing.  As the only girl in Little League, it was pretty clear that I’d never be the type to get high off the smell of Old Spice.  When my sister talks about dudes I’m like, “Um, you know dudes?  Will you ask one when its balls dropped?”  B—, however, lives in a town that is 80% broken chromosome.  And likes it.  I suspect that if she ever breeds, there will be no turkey baster involved.

The archives of various gChats between my twin and I reinforce that we have some serious interpersonal issues and also that she’s a huge bitch.  Take this example from five minutes ago:

me: can i have a loan?
B: no. dont mix twinz n loanz.
me: m i ur bst frin?
B: duh
me: wuld u like me if we wernt twinz?
i dont think we’d really be friends
cause the time differnce
plus i don’t think we would have ever met
cause you are younger than me
B: different generations
me: tru dat
B: ur too old to be my friend
me: tru dat
plus i dont join runing clubs
or book club
B: we would be facebook friends but that’s all

I recently decided to get “brunch” tattooed on the inside of my lip.  I told my sister this on our birthday and she said, “As my birthday present, can you not do something stupid today?  What if brunch goes out of fashion?  What if next year is all about the mid-morning snack???”  I understand her concern, but I figure I’ll get both and if eating in general goes out of style, I’ll just turn them into “munch” and “mid-morning snatch.”

*My sister insists that I call her “B—” on this because a.) she doesn’t want to be associated with me, and b.) she thinks it makes her seem like a character in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

After the recent death rattle of my early twenties, four of my homies convinced me that a weekend in Stumpy Point, North Carolina was the necessary panacea for the most metaphysical of physical hangovers: birthdays. Not that the end of youth didn’t make for a good party. The highlight of my 26th birthday was getting a tumble-down-table-dance from a new friend/future lover. My two dominant alleles—gayism and exhibitionism—where satisfied by this loving act, but the best part came when the DJ yelled: Lesbians in the house!!! into the mic. The reaction of the fags on the dance floor—twirling and clapping and piercing eardrums as only a gaggle of twinks can do—convinced me that all the tales you hear about gangs of fags and faggettes roaming Vaseline Alleys across the country flagging pink and camo and cutting each other with sharpened dildos is just more wash hogging by the heterosexist lobby, Straights for the Impediment of Same Sex Sex (SISSS). I’ve never loved gay boys as much as I did that night.

However, as much as I love (WANT. NEED.) table dances and ministration of all circles and squares, the birthday/birth week/birth month celebration thing is too many hand claps for me. There’s the day of, the weekend before and/or after, the dinner with friends, the dinner with family, and the 475 Facebook wall posts (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!) that clog your in-box. Not that I’m bitter—in fact, after the tumble-down-table-dance, the second bday highlight was the highly competitive Facebook wall war with my twin sister, which I won by a narrow six HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! testimonials (109 to 103), despite her friends posting multiple times, which is obviously in poor taste and antithetical to the whole spirit of the Happy Birthday Wall War. The Five Girls, One Pup: Stumpy Point Edition trip came at just the right time.

The special blend of five mostly-adult ladies and one non-adult French Bulldog in a single-serving vehicle for four hours seems like a great opportunity to pass on destruction and distress.  And it was! Kidding. The drive to Stumpy Point, NC was smooth enough despite getting out of Orange County a predictable three hours after our Decided Upon Departure Time. And there was a small incident at a Kangaroo Station.

Here’s what happened: we pre-payed $25 in regular unleaded petrol, but when we tried to pump said $25 of regular unleaded petrol, the bitch didn’t work. Erin and I went inside the Kangaroo pouch to be like, “WTF, Kanagroo Counter Man?,” at which point it was discovered that he alloted our $25 to another pump. We may or may not have given him the wrong pump number, but, shit, we all make mistakes The point is, “GIMME MY GAS, COUNTER MAN!!!.” The Kangaroo Counter Man and Manageress, however, weren’t so much of the diplomatic elk.  As we’ve seen from recent and ancient history, disputes over money and/or petrol can be hot as Tejas football season. In this instance, we were America and the Kangaroo was Iran. We were like, “We want our motherfucking pertrol, and, no, we’re not giving you any Got Damn dollar bills.” Kanagroo was all, “Bish, plz. You’re gonna have to bomb my ass before we give up this black gold.” The sitch escalated when Erin pulled her phone out of her pocket to call the po-lice and the well-meaning but blond co-ed behind us said, “Don’t call the cops. They’re probably illegal.” At this point, Kangarro Manageress kicked us out. Thankfully, at least one of the troupe (not me) has good sense and a calming demeanor and she managed to pacify all. I don’t know who had to sacrifice job and/or money to get rid of us, but we left with our gas and our money. Four nationalities were represented in this conflict, and, as always, white won in the end. Unfortunate metaphor, yes, but we all know that until Kim Jong Ill steals our buying power and/or heavy arms, America is Sarah Palin before she opens her mouth.

The rest of the weekend was nice and peace-ridden. We sat on the wine and drank the beach. Cell service was limited so when we finally left the island I was greeted by a dozen texts from Mazog (e.g. “whr r u? y u no txt bk? u ok? ♥ “), but wi-fi at the house was hot and fast so we didn’t have to neglect Facebook (“STATUS UPDATES, YA’LL!!! GET IN LINE!!!”). Also, the shower had not one but NINE shower heads, which made me alternately thrilled and junk-hurt that, besides the unfortunate thing in the county jail last fall, I haven’t showered duo-style since Spring Break 2005.  I also learned a valuable lesson: before you bidet, adjust the water temp.  Hot water is only hotter when it’s sailing into your digestive system. Believe.

*All photos by people other than me whose names may or maybe not rhyme with Lady Mantranny, Barren Cashews, and Felony Cupboard.  I’d give them proper credit but I doubt anyone wants this blog to pop up when potential employers/bail bondsmen Goodle them.

So long 25. What an interesting year you’ve been.

Election Night
Now that was a party. We danced, we cried, we waited in the cold to get into the bar for most of it. Months of hard work—all the witty jokes about Palin’s Eskimo pie, marching with the Obama contingent at North Carolina Pride to better peep potential life partners on the sidelines—it all paid off. There was the time we skipped work to watch Arcade Fire play for free in the Town Commons while brown-bagging Sparks and congratulating ourselves for living here, not just America, but Carrboro, a place even Canadians love. After the show we all went to the bar to drink domestic beer and congratulate ourselves again over what just happened, what we had just seen, what we had just done for Him, not for Jesus, but for Obama. Later we went to the afterparty, just a few of us, drinking more cold beer and asking Regine questions, important questions, questions no one else has probably asked her, like where did you get those boots? It was worth all the the bumper stickers that January morning when snow fleeced the East Coast and people flooded into the capital to see Aretha’s hat on the jumbo tron while blowing on their hands and wishing they had stayed in Connecticut and watched it on the couch. This was an especially important day for my family, immediate and extended. My mother may be a little disappointed that the Bash Bush Bashes she hosted for the last eight years are no more, but she’s pretty sure the renewal of civil liberties are worth it. My grandmother, an octogenarian fireball who spends her time gambling in Jersey City, signing petitions, and sending the findings of her closets to her children and grandchildren (e..g half-dead pens, rosary beads, decade-old postcards), couldn’t make it to DC, but she sent a contribution to my aunt who did attend: a box of Depends. Yes, that was one exciting snow day. We got to the bar at 11 in the morning, left when Erin M. got cut off at two in the afternoon, and went back late for a fancy dance party. On the way home, I slipped on some ice or maybe on my liver and smashed my face open and spit my front tooth on the sidewalk. I couldn’t eat, drink, or brush my teeth for a couple days, but I would sacrifice a tooth for our handsome new president anytime.

Equal Rights
The tide seems to be tiding toward gaydom. California denied the fags and faggettes the right to marry, but a bunch of other less important states realized that gay marriage will fix the economy. Who has more money than gays? Republicans, but gays still have a lot. Look at how many records Barbara Streisand has sold. The gays have waited forever to get hitched. When you’ve patienced this long, you’re not going to shotgun that shit. You want it all—the wedding planner, the tux(es), the destination, the hyphenated last name. Fuck the stimulus package. It’s all about samsie sex marriage. And while I’m theoretically glad to the whole gays-are-human thing is catching faster then Swine Flu, I’m actually a little disappointed. I like being oppressed. I like telling people that I’m a lesbian seperatist, which isn’t actually true but makes me feel like it’s okay if I forget to shave my legs every once in a while. And as much as I appreciate that my mom gets pleasure out of texting me with gay marriage updates (e.g. “gehys kn mrry n main! kl!”), it makes me feel kind of guilty when she says things like “I’ve got big plans for the garden. Maybe you can get married at home one day.” How does one say, “Mom. I’m never getting married. I’m never gestating. Any girl willing to marry me probably needs a green card. You want to talk gay marriage, I want to talk gay boobs.” I’m also afraid this is going to encourage straights to refer to their legally sanctioned husbands and wives as their “partners.” You people have everything. Do you need our oppression too?

Athletics
As dear Jenny W. used to chant over the bar, I finally became One Of Us. I caught Tar Heel flu pretty hard, although I pretty much talk through the first 43 minutes of the basketball games and pay attention only long enough to holler at the end. I did listen to the last quarter of the Villanova game on the radio, which is basically devotion to the max. But even though Tyler Hansbrough is the cutest special giant in the NCAA and I love nothing better than watching drunken co-eds set bonfires in street, I was maybe the sole resident of Orange County, NC who woke up without a hangover after the ball dropped because I stayed home to Tweet about Gossip Girl. It was a decision not based on a of lack of desire, but a fear of leaving my house due to previous Bad Decisions and Terrible Mistakes that finally caught up to me like a bad case of herpes. That shit was not good for my Fear of Missing Something Syndrome. I get weepy just thinking about it.

Romance
The best part of my 25 year was a gift from Craig’s List. I was the recipient of two Missed Connections, neither of which I responded to, but was, none the less, a little flattered and a little creeped. The second Missed Connection, said something about the Ramona Quimby tattoo on my arm, and inspired the following response from an anonymous w4w: The girl with the Ramon Quimbley tattoo is everywhere and she’s shady. Don’t bother. Now shady I get, but “Ramon Quimbley?” Seriously? Did your parents not read to you as a child? That’s just sad. Speaking of Craig’s List, no LTR this year. When I moved to Carrboro two years ago, I thought that all I would have to do is say, “Yeah, I just came from Portland,” and the girls would jump my shit like fruit flies on a nanner. Wrong. My chance of finding a boo here—or maybe anywhere–decrease every time I write this blog, but the comments are worth it.

But it’s all over now. As Kirk R. said, I am now looking down the barrel to my 30s. And even though my liver looks forward to the year my birthday involves a quiet dinner at home and maybe some mommy/mommy time instead of a lap dance and a WUI, I realized yesterday that if my friends in their 30s and 40s are any example, sometimes maturity just doesn’t take.

I’m emotionally and mentally peach fuzz and cannot make decisions for myself beyond who to hit on, so it’s helpful to have a twin sister willing to advise me on such matters as What To Have For Lunch, Should I Wear My White Vee Or My Blue Vee, and Is It Cool To Lie On My Resume?  I’m generally willing to listen to her, but the resume thing, which she recommends against, just isn’t possible.  As I mentioned in a previous post, my resume is long and thin, like Tyra in 1996, but without a rib cage.  I’ve had 26 jobs since entering the work force ten years ago, which averages to 2.6 a year, and although this may be slightly higher than average, I don’t think it’s wholly unacceptable.

Unfortunately, the 23 jobs don’t account for the long periods of unemployment in between.  In Portland, for instance, I was hired to “manage” a coffee shack.—which actually was a shack, but a Range Rover and surgeon’s salary shack, with maple counters and track lighting and a $10,000 espresso machine.  The first sign that this might not have been the most busty business plan was that I wrecked my bike on the way to the interview and showed up with elbows and knees painted in fresh blood.  And they still hired me.  Also, the company was called Java Sutra and the main selling point was that the coffee was infused with an Andean aphrodisiac called maca, which, according to God-like Wikipedia, “was eaten by Inca imperial warriors before battles. Their legendary strength was allegedly imparted by the preparatory consumption of copious amounts of maca, fueling formidable warriors. After a city was conquered, the women had to be protected from the Inca warriors, as they became ambitiously virile from eating such quantities of maca.”  Good in theory, right?  But do you really want blue balls with your morning hotdish?  We were in business for three months.

Getting laid off didn’t really bother me both because I’d been fired from so many jobs already that it seemed like a backhanded compliment, and unemployment insurance left me time to do whatever I pleased.  What I pleased was ride my bike and do crosswords and invest the dole in liver damage.  At the end of happy hour, I would run home to shower off the smell of booze and smoke, clean my house like an Ecudorian line cook, and pull out job applications or my GRE study guide so it looked like I had a productive day when my girlfriend got home from actually having a productive day.

I eventually found a job scooping gelato for wailing, syrupy seven-year-olds and their attractive but totally un-fantasystic mothers, but this only lasted for a month or so before I some Real Bad Shit happened, which I’m not going to get into cause it’ll take the time I’d like to spend catching up on LiLo and Sam, but I will tell you that as soon as you are punched in the face by a partner, you become a victim, which is sort of like Catholics and their We’ll Forget About The Condoms For A Small Donation rule: convenient.

This isn’t to say that my entire life in Portland was full of booze and memory loss (although most of it was).  I also interned at a gay rights non-profit, where I spent most of my time taking walks along with river with the bear accountant with the rocket ship tattoo and testing my gaydar on the bike messengers who worked in the building.  The one time I went to Friday happy hour with the staff, I got so drunk that I told the outreach coordinator’s husband that he should get a manicure cause his hands were seriously calloused before realizing he was in a wheelchair and his hands were constantly pushing rubber.  Actually, I already knew he was in a wheelchair, but I said it anyway.  And when my girlfriend came to pick me up, I was like, “Babe.  You’re tired.  Just go home. I’ll get a ride in time for dinner. I love you.,” so I could smoke cigarettes without judgment.  I later rode home with my boss, who started crying in the car because she had gotten divorced approximately six minutes before, and I was all, “Hey, let’s party! I’ve got Adderall in my bag!”  The non-profit and I went our separate ways soon after—they to make political strides and me to another four internships, seven jobs, and zero references.

Thanks peeps!

Katie, I read your blog for the first time today.  The part about your hometown being the “archive of the many small humiliations of your youth,” resonates with me.  I am contemplating a move back to Jackson, MS.  Among other things, I’m trying to figure out how I will address Mrs. Cannada when we run into each other at the grocery store.  Four years ago, I “accidentally” pissed on her daughter’s calves at an Ole Miss football game and then skipped her wedding the following year.  To make matters more degrading, my parents have said that they don’t have enough room for me to live with them, despite the fact that they live in the same house that my brother and I grew up in.  They kindly offered me a spot at my grandmother’s house.  Nana seconded the notion on a voice message that said, “Daaan, if you do live with me you can have Mexicans, Blacks, Arabs and Chinese visit the house whenever you like.”

—Dan W.

True story: My dad and I were watching Name of the Rose (Christian Slater’s first movie, a quaint little period piece about the Inquisition) in about 1986. When it was obvious that Christian, the apprentice monk, was going to lift his gowns of brown and climb atop the hot disheveled nonverbal feral trashgirl in the hay in the monastery barn, my dad stood up and approached the tv—leaving the sound on, mind you—and just stood facing it, pressed up against the screen. I dont think that he even said anything! Or maybe he did, but in my mind, it was just horrifyingly embarrassing: animal-like sex noises and my dad with his lower torso and hips pressed against the TV to block the visual assault of lusty unprotected coitus on my virgin eyes. Then he sat back down when the scene was over and we watched the rest of the movie like nothing had happened. Jesus, that was sooooooo horrible. I am blushing about it right now.

—Amy C.

Amy C. mentioned that she’d like to hear other mind-searing tales of youthful embarrassment at the hands of our elders, which will not just entertain but maybe even be a sort of therapy for you. Hmmm. Therapy. I’ve never really considered myself the most empathetic person, but therapy sounds like a potential career path. I do like secrets. Want to share your humiliation? Lay it down in the comments or email krherzog@gmail.com

Dear Katie,

Recently I have fallen into a slump.  I sit on my fallen love-seat because my house does not have room for a sofa, and I think, What Would Katie Say? [enter Nylon Bracelet Here]

I have fallen into the depths of alchoholism.  Now, in my attempts to sober up, to say, tonight i Will ONLY have six Beers, and then finish the last of the liquor bottles i have from here and there,  i wonder what would Katie think?!

I am sad. I have been for along time.  i smoke my cigarettes with my windows open or closed depending on the season, and I think, why on earth would I ever go back to the alumni event at my fraternity

life is hard. I realize this.  at this moment, alexis meade is making [her] way.  i am gay, though i do not idenitify as such.

I have gained fifteen pounds since march, and lve watching urine flow thorough my penis.

my life is sad, and i need help.  what sort of advice can you give to me?

—Charles

———-

Dear Charles,

I’m sorry to hear you’re wallowing in shit, but I’m glad to hear you’ve purchased the limited edition WWKD? bracelet, which is not actually a bracelet, but a noose for your wrist.

I want you to close your eyes, Chuck, and imagine this: you’re in a treehouse shotgunning non-GMO smoke into Drew Barrymore’s open mouth.  The two of you are 74 feet above the cilantro and mica carpeted ground, sitting in a perfect square of sunlight that’s coming in through a heart-shaped hole in the ceiling.  The floor is so worn and smooth that you wouldn’t get a splinter even if Drew used your naked body as a mop, which she would not do because she is a lady and no longer drinks.  It’s just you and Drew in that tree house, watching Lisa Frank dolphins cha cha in the ocean below.  This particular ocean is like what the Pacific ocean would be if it were the temperature of warm breath on a January morning while you wait for the bus because your mom stopped driving you to school after of the DUI and the thing with the horse.  This Pacific is warm and oxygenated and filled with puppies and gay marriage.

But, wait.  You hear something over the next chocolate hill.  Something unpleasant.  Something bacterial.  Is it an organ grinder coming to steal your movie star?  Is it the Fannie Mae looking for her interest?  Oh, right.  It’s your girlfriend divorcing her stomach contents five feet from your head after waking up and discovering that the bathroom floor is covered in human waste.  And by waste, Chuck, I mean shit.  Shit and piss.  Your girlfriend is not happy, Chuck, not happy at all.  Her first thought is that the waste-filled bathroom is somehow connected to you and your late night out with your co-workers, co-workers she doesn’t particularly trust after the Christmas party last year when you may or may not have made out with your boss in the bathroom of the karaoke bar.  Drew fades as your girlfriend pulls you out of your cloud pillow and into the bathroom to see what happens when the plumping fails and your bathroom becomes the entire building’s bathroom as their shit is forced out your drains.  And is this your fault, Chuck?  Are you the one who didn’t update the septic system when you should have ten years ago?  No, no you are not, but it is you who has to call the landlord and describe the Dante circle in your bathroom, and you who has to stay home from work to wait for the plumber, and you who has to drink beer outside all day because your apartment smells like Bradford Pears if Bradford Pears smelled like shit instead of rotten vagine.  And then after the plumber has taken the toilet off of the floor and pulled out the shit-entombed pet hamster that the dude across the hall was too lazy to bury after accidentally sitting on it last weekend, it’s you who has to mop your neighbor’s shit from your bathroom floor.

Did this happen to you, Chuck?  No, no it did not, because it happened to me.  So when I say I’m sorry that you’re “wallowing in shit,” what I mean is, you have no idea what it is like to really Wallow In Shit.  I’ll listen to your bitching when you can’t look at your neighbors without seeing corn kernels and mustard greens.

Put down the bottle and open your fucking windows, Chuck. Lose some goddamn weight and donate to your alumni association.  You’re making America look bad.

Love,

Katie

Dear Friends and Lovers,

I know I said I’d spew more sluice here on the regular, but I’m exhaustified and back in Carrboro, USA after a grueling FIVE HOUR drive that should have taken FOUR HOURS AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES.  Fucking East Asian monsoons are infiltrating our fucking weather.  GO BACK TO THAILAND, THUNDERBITCH!!!

Vajacay with Fireball and Pazog was what one would expect.  Like every 25-year-old, I turned into a teenager immediately upon crossing the county line (“But Maaaaaaaaaahm, I don’t waaaaaaaana do the dishes.  I’m biiiiiiiizzzzeeeey.”), and spent the week trolling Craig’s List for a job and/or girlfriend.  Oh, and this is an actual quote from my actual mother: “Did you know ‘box’ is a sexual term?”

Anyway, I’ma sharpen my knives and leave you with this. You’re welcome.

During my semi-annual car bathing today, I balanced my wet Hooter’s tee shirt and short shorts with a little NPR.  Terry Gross was interviewing a novelist named Ayelet Waldman, who just published a memoir called Bad Mother, a title that refers to some pretty unchristian criticism she received after publishing an essay in the New York Times with the following statement:

If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.

Whoa.  Lady Waldman may be the only mom since Mary-Mother-of-Jesus to admit that sort of Hallmark-kiling sacriledge, and she was married to God.  My mother, however, loves me more than anyone else in the world, which I know because she sends me texts like, i <3 u bestst 4 eva., so Lady Waldman’s discount mothering isn’t really something I can relate too, nor what I really want to talk about.

But Mz Waldman’s memoir isn’t just about hating her spawn.  It’s also about sex.  Specifically, the anticipation of her children reaching that parent-dreaded period of early sexuality.  At 14, her oldest daughter is precisely the same age the author was when she dropped her pimento.  Ignoring that slightly disturbing fact—disturbing, at least, to a late bloomer still waiting for those buds to bud—Mother Of The Year Waldman has a good 21st century attitude about sex and discussing it with her young’uns.  When relating the unfortunate tale of her unfortunate hymen-breakage to her daughter, her advice was to not go into a room with a 21-year-old Israeli soldier with a drinking problem and a boner, which seems like a good idea to me. (Apologies for the anti-semetic implications here.  I’m not anti-semetic but I do have a fear of the awkward hand gestures used to bridge language barriers.  And boners.)

After the interview ended and NPR returned to the usual communist/botanist/astronomist propaganda, I cleaned my cigarette lighter with a Q Tip and Windex and pondered that thorniest of horniest issues: sex and kiddie….

My parents told my sister and I about the whole bio-ween/vagine thing when we were relatively young.  And when I say “told,” I mean they gave us a book called Where Do I Come From? after B– said “stop sexing me” after our mom gave hugged her.  The book was cute.  Sperm were dapper in top hats and tuxes, eggs matronly and welcoming in aprons and bonnnets—the kind of cells you would want to catch lightning bugs with.  Where Do I Come From included such insight as, “If sex is so much fun, why don’t we do it all the time?  Well, because sex takes a lot of work.  Jumping rope is fun but you couldn’t do it all day, could you?”  This particular statement was proved problematic after I told my gym teacher that I didn’t want to jump rope because I was tired and you can’t have sex all day.

Sex wasn’t really something I discussed with anyone in my family, which is sort of surprising considering that my father taught Human Sexuality and regularly enlisted my siblings and I to help him grade quizzes on autoeroticism and self-flaggelation.  He is also the proud owner of a New Guinea penis sheath, a vibrator from the ’20s, and a penis pump once reportedly owned by Rodney Dangerfield.  Even though we are progressive folk, the kind of folk who are more likely to get a letter of recommendation from Sinead O’Connor than the Pope, sex in my younger years was only discussed when promient God-fearing d-bags got busted for some man-of-the-cloth/altar boy action in the confessional at the local diocese.

I haven’t gotten any more comfortable talking about sex with my folks, no matter my age.  I think it’s great that some mothers advise their daughters on keeping the maritial bed busy when the kids are asleep, but that will never be me.  At this very moment, for instance, I’m sitting in my parents’ living room while they’re watching Law & Order.  The victim of this particular drama is a high school sophomore who’s into sending photos of her naked self to her mans via cell phone.  And even though I’m 25 and I’m in graduate school and I live alone and I got my oil changed and my car inspected today, my mom just leaned over to ask if I’ve ever heard of “sexting,” and I am now fighting the urge to flee from the room as fast as a tween to a Jonas.  The mere acknowledgment that sex exists when I am in the same air space as my parents makes me feel like I’m ten years old and Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze are doing that thing with the clay and the wheel and I am so embarrassed that I would rather tell my third grade teacher Mrs. Sheapard that I love her (which I do) than sit here for another goddamn second.

Yes, I am perfectly happy to tell the Internet that I have only a vague idea of how many people I’ve slept with because my definition of sex changes to suit my needs at any given time, but the idea that my parents realize that I have been and may currently be a sexually active person induces the sort of panic other people feel when stuck between Rick Warren and a Twinkie.  Ignoring the things that make me uncomfortable (swine flu, for instance, and Ohio) is one of my more refined attributes, so it’s easy enough for me to maintain the illusion of my parents’ ignorance.  That is, until my mom discretely places a dozen Gardisil pamphlets in my bathroom.

But it’s not just talking about sex with ma and pa that makes me feel like a Mexican jumping bean.  It’s also the gay thing, and this is especially weird because the vast majority of my tongue kalestenics come via the discussion of gay people, gay music, gay jobs, and gay hair.  But every time my mom asks if I’ve been keeping up with the WNBA, I hate that little gay gene and it’s blonde tips inside of me as much as Larry Craig hates the foot-rubbing bottom inside him.  It’s not like my parents even give a fuck that I’m homo.  In fact, I bet they prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that at least one of the twins would be either black or gay.  I mean, what’s better than having a gay daughter to a couple of left-wingers?  A gay son, of course, but a dyke will do as long as there are a couple of Asian babies in a Prius somewhere in my future.  Shit, I didn’t even come out to my parents—they came out to me.  When I asked who told them, my mother said, “No one.  Your father has gaydar.”  And yet, every time my mom suggests we watch Boys On the Side, my gay ass knows the hometown reprieve has come to an end.

Oh, fuck.  Lil Kim is on Dancing With The Stars. I gotta get out of here.

I’m spending the next few days at an “artist retreat” in the mountains (AKA my parents’ house). Even though I like my hometown about as much as I like waking up in a stranger’s bed covered in stale DNA and realizing that I don’t remember a) said stranger’s name, or b) where I left my car, this is a necessary sabbatical now that school is over. Because my six hour work week isn’t quite enough structure and there’s a direct correlation betwixt free time and reputation erosion, I have to retreat to a dry county to preserve my good name every once in a while. Cullowhee, North Carolina is pretty like Shiloh, Vivi, and Knox are pretty, but I have no lust for the place that is the archive of the many small humiliations of my youth. There was the time, for instance, that I was pissing behind my car after a high school football game—something, by the way, I seriously did not belong at—when my sister pulled away from the curb, exposing my expelling lower half for all to see. And by “all,” I mean my English teacher and her family, including the two preteen boys I often babysat until that very night. Also, people used to call me gay.

Because no one in my hometown understands that my mullet is ironic, I don’t plan on leaving my parents’ property and therefore anticipate plenty of shit-done-getting. I’m going to spend the week browning my opalescent skin and working on my resume, both of which are difficult like the Jew’s harp is difficult. I know this is shocking, but my work history is a little, um, marbled. I’ve had a lot of jobs, but the longest was for just a year and a half—a job, by the way, that I did not get fired from, though I probably should have considering that I took smoke breaks at the bar across the street, g&t in hand. My first job, besides selling hemp necklaces and nickel bags stolen from my friend’s parents, was Taco Bell when I was 16. The shirt was to big for me and the rubber gloves made my palms sweat, so I left on my lunch break and returned to pick up my one and only paycheck the next week. I somehow convinced my parents not to make me apply across the street (Wendy’s) because my athletic training was more important than learning self-sufficiency and work-ethic. The sports thing is actually factually. For most of my teenage years, I was a serious athlete, which seems about as likely as that time five minutes ago when I smoked a bowl with Drew Barrymore, but it actually is true. I wasn’t a ribbon girl or anything, but I was a semi-professional freestyle kayaker, which basically means that I wore a lot of Patagonia and had swimmer’s ear from 12 to 20. My athletic career didn’t work out in the end, maybe because I was surrounded by dudes all the time and I’m not really socialized to enjoy that sort of thing. Months traveling around the country with eight dudes might seem like an opportunity for ass-getting/cloud-surfing to the heterosexual among us, but for me, this was about as fun as taking out your contacts after cutting jalapenos. I also wasn’t much of an athlete.

Anyway, my checkered work history is problematic because, of the 24 jobs and five internships I’ve had in the past nine years, my only references are people I’ve never actually worked with but who have professional-sounding outgoing messages and don’t mind lying for me. My sister’s resume, however, is well-stocked with fancy titles and the only things I have to alter are the letters b, s, and y, and poof! Job offers aplenty.

In addition to resume-stealing, I plan to spend the next few days writing letters to President O in support of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which I think is the best thing that’s ever happened to the fagotry and cannot understand why the gays don’t realize this. It’s not bigotry if it keeps your well-toned ass out of fire fights and combat boots. Believe.

In addition to the aforementioned noble pursuits, I’m going to choose my new name. I just don’t think that Katie is appropriate for either my appearance or personality, and, as hard as I’ve tried to convince people to call me Ajax, I won’t feel complete until I’ve paid the government, gotten the certificate, and seriously offended my parents. The problem is that I can’t actually think of a name that embodies the characteristics I want to project and masks the ones I don’t want you to know about. Considering that I spent the majority of yesterday being referred to alternately as Hotdog and Ding Dong, I’m kind of stuck on one of those. I could really use your help on this. Email suggestions to krherzog@gmail.com or post in the comments if you’re feeling creative and your boss isn’t looking over your shoulder.

You are not the most well-behaved Crayola in the box. On the good people palette, you’re maybe a cerulean blue or a burnt umber or one of those grays nobody ever talks about. Most of your bad behavior has been the easy, good-in-nature brand. Lots of skinny-dipping and peeing in sinks and being towed on a skateboard behind a 1984 12-beer-brown Ford 150 by a drunk with a rope. Easy, right? No harm done.

But not all of your bad behavior has been quite so innocent. The one person who was fool enough to be in a real girlfriend/girlfriend romance with you—the kind in which you hold hands not just at night when you’ve somehow convinced her to go home with you, but during the day when sidewalkers can easily peep you and your gay hands; the kind of relationship where the two of you have your own words, like, for instance, refering to breakfast as food pile,—was treated to several massive lies and maybe even a sort of double life. There were, of course, the standard girlfriend/girlfriend lies, like still being an actual smoker two years after your quit date and even switching from Bali Shag to Camel Lights because that’s what your housemate smoked and it’s a lot easier to hide if there’s only one brand in the ashtray. And there was, of course, the hypocrisy, particularly in regards to smoking, like your tsk tsk on the rare occasion she bummed a fag at a smoky bar where even if you’re not smoking you’re smoking, which made your heart shiver, not just because you were contracting osmosistic cancer but also because you loved her so much that you sometimes had thoughts like, “if a pig with a taser made me choose between my mother and my girlfriend, who would I choose?,” and then felt sorry for your mother.

Bad behavior may also have involved petty theft, academic dishonesty, and manipulating kind and good-hearted gayelles and sometimes straights into thinking that you are also kind and good-hearted, when actually you’re going to pretend to be asleep when they leave in the morning so you don’t have to face the truth, your truth, that you are an asshole and threw away the only girlfriend who was fool enough to be your girlfriend, and for what? For this? For not having had sober sex since you left two years ago because you wanted to be free?

Do you believe that you are fundamentally golden despite the evidence? That all it takes to be good is growing patio tomatoes and shopping at the co-op and riding your bike to work? That the bad behavior has all just been kid stuff, life lessons, learning experience? Maybe so. Maybe you think that you are still good despite it all, despite the friendships dead and the letters returned and the universe-shaped scar on your shoulder from the time you fell off your bike and onto your head and then lied to the EMTs and the nurses and the doctors who were just trying to make sure you didn’t die of head trauma and/or stupidity. You lied, you told them that your name wasn’t your name but that is was, in fact, the name, the only name, the name of the only girlfriend who was fool enough to be your girlfriend and who you tossed away like that bottle you could have recycled but didn’t because the trash can was right there.

And then maybe late one night a month or three weeks ago you are slapped with the evidence. You wake up in the middle of the night to a loud and insistent banging first on your door and then on your bedroom window, at which point you stop breathing and hide under you covers because the door-banger could be any of three possible candidates, two of whom deserve to restructure your guilty face. And then when the banging stops and the breathing starts you literally crawl from you bed to your living room to get your phone, the same phone that you turned off a week before because you could no longer deal with the calls and the texts from people who know that you are an asshole. And then you are awake, very awake, at 3 o’clock on Friday night/Saturday morning and are kharma-slapped again when your neighbor upstairs starts having the kind of sex that isn’t just about speaking springs but also about sounds, human sounds, the very the thing you hate to hear above all other things you hate to hear, more even than the saxophone.

The next day as you muse the events of the night before, you suddenly have the aha realization that the door-banging and sex-hearing were punishment from that Santa-like god you don’t actually believe in, punishment for being an asshole. At this point you not only feel sorry for yourself, you also feel sorry for everyone else, everyone you have tossed and everyone you would have tossed. And this is maybe when you start to reconsider the of-course-I’m-good way of thinking and realize that it’s time to actually be good.

You mop your kitchen floor and clean your fridge and contribute to the NPR fund drive. You get library books and re-pot your basil and buy running shoes. And you stop drinking. And this is where the bad behavior starts to maybe dissipate a little bit. Yes, you are a little bored of Netflix, but when you wake up you feel good, very good. You look at your plants and you are happy. You start to resemble Nick Jonas more than ever. It’s not just the mouth and the chin anymore. It’s the virginity, a virginity he has and which you, a non-drinker, are re-growing. Will it last through summer? Maybe, although your will power is small and your thirst great and sangria at the pool makes adulthood, makes buying gas and setting your alarm, almost worth it. But before you lose your virginity once again, you hope that the memories you lost, the little things, the girlfriend/girlfriend language, knowing someone else’s life lines and thumbnails, remembering if she liked sweet tea, which you think she probably did because she is Southern and good, but which you cannot remember—maybe it will all come back as you and Nick Jonas fade into each each other. You, you and Nick Jonas, you will one and you will be good.