I was reminded of my heterosexuality.
As of yesterday, I am no longer a resident of Robie-Andrews Hall at the Gorham Campus of the University of Southern Maine. I've relocated to a discreet inconspicuous farmhouse hidden away in the hills of Waterford, ME. And frankly, it makes me sad. I miss my floor incredibly. My home is there, not here. Here, a desolate area where great distances must be travelled to take part in adventures (and gas prices suck assballs hard), but there, adventure could be found at every turn of the hallways. So many different people, teenagers and young adults, all living and thriving within the same walls. Like an ant-farm almost, except that is a depressing metaphor, and Robie-Andrews is/was a very happy place. For me, at least. Anyways, I am home now, and in need of some adventure to make this day worth something to me.
BUT I had an adventure yesterday. And, ofcourse, I'm sharing it:
After quickly packing and exiting my beloved haven, myself and the three compadres of mine that came to fetch me, Ben, Chris, and Travis (Trav #2, for I am Trav #1), and I headed to the Maine Mall. We had plans to meet someone there and had time to kill.
At the mall, we did some typical wandering and stopped by some routinely visited stores, such as Spencer's Gifts, Brookstone, KB Toys, Electronics Boutique, etc. I was feeling in quite a good mood, and enjoying myself immensly, to the amusement of my friends. The euphoric effect on my brain wore off while eating some McDonald's in the food court and conversing with some adolescents who were going to their high school prom later that evening.
At this point, I'd like to reveal that the reason we were at the mall was to meet several people I went to high school with, who, with us, were all going to attend the Outright Gay Prom at the Holiday Inn in Portland. Outright is a social community that puts on events for the Gay/Straight/Bisexual/Transexual/Etc. kids in Maine. It's pretty cool. I'm 100% heterosexual and 0% homophobic and 100% comfortable going to this event, as were my friends. Except Nate, who was taking his boyfriend.
But first, we ate.
We went to Bangkok, Thai foods. At least, I believe it was called that. We had to take our shoes off to sit down and Nate knew everything on the menu. Naturally, I was poor-ass broke. So were my comrades. Kaitlynn was nice enough to order some Fried Calamari, which she kindly shared with me. I met Nate's boyfriend, Nate, (ha), who talked to me about the reasons for his dress. Societal boundaries created comfort zones for people, where in their own seperate groups they felt more accepted. Some people rejected these boundaries and would dress however they wanted, but for people like Nate & Nate, they felt more accepted and comfortable dressing in typical "gay fashion", just as how not all African Americans dressed "ghetto" but most did, because they felt more comfortable that way. People feel most comfortable when they feel understood. Ofcourse, no one's understoof. My personal example in this case would be that I think my appearance gives off the "college student hipster" look, so I think people define me as that upon seeing me. I don't know that for certain, but it's my best guess. I'm comfortable being categorized as that. Okay, stupid tangent, back to story.
After dining, we walked through the Portland streets to the Holiday Inn. I had only one dollar to donate to the Outright representatives at the door, but I gave them my name and address (you had to sign in for them to mark your hands) and told them I supported their group and appreciated their postive influence on our local Maine community. Not quite in those words though. The room where it was being held looked frighteningly like the venue for both my prom experiences from high school. The dance floor, the lights, the dining tables, the refreshments. The only difference was instead all of the clique-y ignorant airheads of my graduating class dancing and milling about, there were a multitude of people who you would feel guilty about staring at if you saw them on the street. Overweight girls making out. Guys in flamboyant dresses. Piercings, tattoos, crazy "punk rock" hairstyles. Kids who were definitely treated differently then the other kids they went to high school with.
The first thing I immediately noticed was how comfortable everyone was. No one felt awkward or insecure at all about their image or appearance, possibly due to the fact there were people there taking the same image to the extreme. I saw some people who were still going to my high school and we sat down. I was introduced to a pre-op M2F transexual named Matthew or Sarah "whichever you are most comfortable with" he informed me. I, in jest, referred to him as "Sarathew" but I don't think it amused him, so I apologized. He said it was fine, since he still had a penis and predominantly male features it was understandable for people to think his desire to be a female as half-hearted or shallow.
I was quickly swept to the dance floor then by Kaitlynn, who demanded a "straight boy" to dance with. I'm not always comfortable about dancing around people, especially to hip-hop, but considering the crowd I decided to squelch my inhibitions. I like to dance. I had fun. Ben and Chris and Travis joined and I remarked to myself about how this prom was so much cooler than the one my school had put on. A couple of outrightly homosexual fellows began to dance with Chris and Ben, but they were cool about it and the fellows got the picture that they were straight soon enough. I noticed and eyed some pretty girls I saw all dancing with each other, but their sexual stance was up in the air, since they were at Gay Prom.
The DJ, a stocky woman with short bleached hair, then announced this next song as her graduating classes prom theme from way back, and the music switched from popular hip-hip/rap/r'n'b, to Limp Bizkit's "It's Just One of those Days". The crowd appreciated this. While I hold Fred Durst no higher than most leeches and ticks, I still promptly banged my head, threw up the horns, and jumped up and down like a lunatic. One of the girls I had been eyeing joined in. A mosh pit formed on the dance floor. This was to be expected of nu-metal-heads and normally I don't approve, but I considered this event an exception and jumped in. I played air guitar, did the "running man" and made several comical poses, as the group of fat girls with spiked hair and tall dudes with long hair all jumped up and down around me pushing each other. After the song, the pretty girl approached me and shook my hand without saying anything. I shook, but then began to perform an elaborate secret handshake of mine I only keep with certain people. She liked it, we practiced a few times, without saying anything, then resumed dancing with our seperate groups of friends.
Now usually, I am not the most forward guy in the world. Actually, I will never ever be the most forward guy in the world. I wouldn't even be more than half-way between the most forward guy in the world and the least forward guy in the world, I am so not forward at all. But tonight, I decided to raise my rank. A slow song began, and I searched for the pretty girl. I approached her, still not saying anything, and offered my hand. We did the secret handshake. I asked her name, which was "Averil" and then asked if she were here with another girl. She laughed and said she and her friends were straight, but here with their homosexual friends. "Same here. Awesome. Would you like to dance?" I asked. She warmly accepted the proposal.
I introduced my friends to her friends, and she introduced her friends to my friends. We all danced to together and laughed and acted generally silly. Then she dropped the proverbial bomb. We were discussing musical tastes, and so far all we had covered was that we had both seen Saves the Day in concert. Then she asked:
"Hey, do you like Against Me!?"
My jaw dropped. I fell to my knees. My eyes widened to an unbelievable stare. Angels sang. Fireworks went off. I'm pretty sure I flat-lined for a little bit too.
Averil could have told me she murdered and ate children after telling that, and I still would have proposed to marry her. Luckily, I didn't propose. That would have been weird.
Averil and I danced and talked some more, and my buddies could definitely see the interest blossoming like a flower. Ah, springtime is great. After the dance ended, we asked what they were doing after. They had no plans. Denny's? Yes. We drove them to Denny's. The car was kind of full from all of my belongings, but we made two trips.
Ladies and Gentlemen, my friends and I picked up chicks at Gay Prom. Straight chicks.
Denny's went well, I got a free meal because the silly people working thought it was my birthday and I'm a bad person. Chris drove the girls home but his car broke down on the way back, so we waited around for Trav2's dad to show and drive us back. I got all my stuff out and home luckily. It was an interesting night. Averil seems like a really neat girl, but shes lives faraways and I'm not entirely sure she's interested in me at all. Mais c'est la vie, oui? Well...more c'est ma vie.
I like ma vie though, especially when neat stuff like this happens.
BUT I had an adventure yesterday. And, ofcourse, I'm sharing it:
After quickly packing and exiting my beloved haven, myself and the three compadres of mine that came to fetch me, Ben, Chris, and Travis (Trav #2, for I am Trav #1), and I headed to the Maine Mall. We had plans to meet someone there and had time to kill.
(Sidenote: on leaving my hall, a fellow on the floor called Pont presented me with a Nalgene bottle as a going-away present. The contents of the bottle, only filled a quarter of the way up, where what he said to be "Ice 101 mixed with orange something". "Ice 101", for those who are not alcoholics or college students, is 101-proof Peppermint Schnapps. I've never had it before, but it did not taste very strong. It, in fact, tasted delicious. I wasn't going to be driving at any point on my journey and would not actually arrive home until the next day. I made the executive decision to drink it all on the way to the mall.)
At the mall, we did some typical wandering and stopped by some routinely visited stores, such as Spencer's Gifts, Brookstone, KB Toys, Electronics Boutique, etc. I was feeling in quite a good mood, and enjoying myself immensly, to the amusement of my friends. The euphoric effect on my brain wore off while eating some McDonald's in the food court and conversing with some adolescents who were going to their high school prom later that evening.
At this point, I'd like to reveal that the reason we were at the mall was to meet several people I went to high school with, who, with us, were all going to attend the Outright Gay Prom at the Holiday Inn in Portland. Outright is a social community that puts on events for the Gay/Straight/Bisexual/Transexual/Etc. kids in Maine. It's pretty cool. I'm 100% heterosexual and 0% homophobic and 100% comfortable going to this event, as were my friends. Except Nate, who was taking his boyfriend.
But first, we ate.
We went to Bangkok, Thai foods. At least, I believe it was called that. We had to take our shoes off to sit down and Nate knew everything on the menu. Naturally, I was poor-ass broke. So were my comrades. Kaitlynn was nice enough to order some Fried Calamari, which she kindly shared with me. I met Nate's boyfriend, Nate, (ha), who talked to me about the reasons for his dress. Societal boundaries created comfort zones for people, where in their own seperate groups they felt more accepted. Some people rejected these boundaries and would dress however they wanted, but for people like Nate & Nate, they felt more accepted and comfortable dressing in typical "gay fashion", just as how not all African Americans dressed "ghetto" but most did, because they felt more comfortable that way. People feel most comfortable when they feel understood. Ofcourse, no one's understoof. My personal example in this case would be that I think my appearance gives off the "college student hipster" look, so I think people define me as that upon seeing me. I don't know that for certain, but it's my best guess. I'm comfortable being categorized as that. Okay, stupid tangent, back to story.
After dining, we walked through the Portland streets to the Holiday Inn. I had only one dollar to donate to the Outright representatives at the door, but I gave them my name and address (you had to sign in for them to mark your hands) and told them I supported their group and appreciated their postive influence on our local Maine community. Not quite in those words though. The room where it was being held looked frighteningly like the venue for both my prom experiences from high school. The dance floor, the lights, the dining tables, the refreshments. The only difference was instead all of the clique-y ignorant airheads of my graduating class dancing and milling about, there were a multitude of people who you would feel guilty about staring at if you saw them on the street. Overweight girls making out. Guys in flamboyant dresses. Piercings, tattoos, crazy "punk rock" hairstyles. Kids who were definitely treated differently then the other kids they went to high school with.
The first thing I immediately noticed was how comfortable everyone was. No one felt awkward or insecure at all about their image or appearance, possibly due to the fact there were people there taking the same image to the extreme. I saw some people who were still going to my high school and we sat down. I was introduced to a pre-op M2F transexual named Matthew or Sarah "whichever you are most comfortable with" he informed me. I, in jest, referred to him as "Sarathew" but I don't think it amused him, so I apologized. He said it was fine, since he still had a penis and predominantly male features it was understandable for people to think his desire to be a female as half-hearted or shallow.
I was quickly swept to the dance floor then by Kaitlynn, who demanded a "straight boy" to dance with. I'm not always comfortable about dancing around people, especially to hip-hop, but considering the crowd I decided to squelch my inhibitions. I like to dance. I had fun. Ben and Chris and Travis joined and I remarked to myself about how this prom was so much cooler than the one my school had put on. A couple of outrightly homosexual fellows began to dance with Chris and Ben, but they were cool about it and the fellows got the picture that they were straight soon enough. I noticed and eyed some pretty girls I saw all dancing with each other, but their sexual stance was up in the air, since they were at Gay Prom.
The DJ, a stocky woman with short bleached hair, then announced this next song as her graduating classes prom theme from way back, and the music switched from popular hip-hip/rap/r'n'b, to Limp Bizkit's "It's Just One of those Days". The crowd appreciated this. While I hold Fred Durst no higher than most leeches and ticks, I still promptly banged my head, threw up the horns, and jumped up and down like a lunatic. One of the girls I had been eyeing joined in. A mosh pit formed on the dance floor. This was to be expected of nu-metal-heads and normally I don't approve, but I considered this event an exception and jumped in. I played air guitar, did the "running man" and made several comical poses, as the group of fat girls with spiked hair and tall dudes with long hair all jumped up and down around me pushing each other. After the song, the pretty girl approached me and shook my hand without saying anything. I shook, but then began to perform an elaborate secret handshake of mine I only keep with certain people. She liked it, we practiced a few times, without saying anything, then resumed dancing with our seperate groups of friends.
Now usually, I am not the most forward guy in the world. Actually, I will never ever be the most forward guy in the world. I wouldn't even be more than half-way between the most forward guy in the world and the least forward guy in the world, I am so not forward at all. But tonight, I decided to raise my rank. A slow song began, and I searched for the pretty girl. I approached her, still not saying anything, and offered my hand. We did the secret handshake. I asked her name, which was "Averil" and then asked if she were here with another girl. She laughed and said she and her friends were straight, but here with their homosexual friends. "Same here. Awesome. Would you like to dance?" I asked. She warmly accepted the proposal.
I introduced my friends to her friends, and she introduced her friends to my friends. We all danced to together and laughed and acted generally silly. Then she dropped the proverbial bomb. We were discussing musical tastes, and so far all we had covered was that we had both seen Saves the Day in concert. Then she asked:
"Hey, do you like Against Me!?"
My jaw dropped. I fell to my knees. My eyes widened to an unbelievable stare. Angels sang. Fireworks went off. I'm pretty sure I flat-lined for a little bit too.
(Sidenote: Against Me! is a self-proclaimed "anarcho folk-punk" abnd out of Florida. Think Dropkick Murphies, except not Irish and more raw. I've loved this group since my junior year of high school when I read Nothing Nice to Say and Mitch Clem gave them his highest review. Their first album "Reinventing Axl Rose" has changed punk rock for me forever. I saw them in concert at the Avalon Ballroom in Boston. They opened for Anti-Flag. In my opinion, Anti-Flag had nothing on them. All-in-all, Against Me! has never dropped from my top-five favorite bands of all time.)
Averil could have told me she murdered and ate children after telling that, and I still would have proposed to marry her. Luckily, I didn't propose. That would have been weird.
Averil and I danced and talked some more, and my buddies could definitely see the interest blossoming like a flower. Ah, springtime is great. After the dance ended, we asked what they were doing after. They had no plans. Denny's? Yes. We drove them to Denny's. The car was kind of full from all of my belongings, but we made two trips.
Ladies and Gentlemen, my friends and I picked up chicks at Gay Prom. Straight chicks.
Denny's went well, I got a free meal because the silly people working thought it was my birthday and I'm a bad person. Chris drove the girls home but his car broke down on the way back, so we waited around for Trav2's dad to show and drive us back. I got all my stuff out and home luckily. It was an interesting night. Averil seems like a really neat girl, but shes lives faraways and I'm not entirely sure she's interested in me at all. Mais c'est la vie, oui? Well...more c'est ma vie.
I like ma vie though, especially when neat stuff like this happens.
posted by Travis H. Curran at 5/14/2005 04:12:00 PM
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