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Right Side Up, Upside Down

We’re all in Monday mode. Some of us just need coffee to snap out of it. Or something stronger. Really, though, most just need a wake up call.

And I got mine this morning, when I read this article about the anniversary of a horrific event I had no knowledge of.

Forty years ago today, the UpStairs Lounge fire in New Orleans claimed the lives of 32 people who gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

Thirty-two people.

Each of whom died brutally and, in death, was a punchline of bigoted disc jokey jokes. Out of hatred and embarrassment, some of their bodies were never claimed. Their lives were relegated to historical obscurity, their charred bodies to a potter’s field.

***

The murder of a single person is horrific, yet there’s the promise of justice, of some promise for balance–that the guilty party will be made to answer for their crime. But the “otherness” of those who perished in the UpStairs Lounge didn’t justify a thorough investigation. Their lives, their stories, their families, their friends, their contributions meant nothing to the law enforcement personnel who waded through the wreckage, who left the body of Rev. Bill Larson fused to iron window bars overnight.

Very little separates people who view those different from themselves in such a casual, dismissive way from people in swastika-adorned uniforms surveying a barbed wire enclosed camp. In the same disturbing ways, they justify their behavior. Because there has to be a scapegoat, right? And it can’t be us. So it has to be them.

But the alarming point is that many people choose to think this way–whether it’s some perverse malignancy of thought or contorted survival mechanism, they embrace it. They don’t ever think that the microscope can ever be turned on them–that they will one day find themselves the target, not the eye through the scope. Regardless of upbringing and education, nationality or creed, there’s always a tipping-point at which a person has to take a deep, hard look in the mirror and either register their reflection as that monster lurking within their consciousness, or an empathetic advocate.

And if you’re brave enough to become an advocate, to speak your mind, to defend those who ask for help, then you’re stronger than any adversary. Because strength isn’t measured by how many Molotov cocktails one can throw from afar, but by how many people you can help, to whom you can lend a hand.

By the number of people you can educate.

Because what can be said of us when we can go about our days unfazed by such horrific images? How can we buy clothes from retailers whose problematic, unethical employment practices force Bangladeshi garment factory workers to choose between their safety and their paychecks? Why has our moral compass become so terribly confused by cheap polyester and the “more is better” mentality?

Where has our goodness gone?

Goodness resides in education. It’s there, waiting to be unlocked and shared.

And has been, and will continue to be.

By Inez Warren, the mother of Eddie and Jim Warren–two gay brothers–who died in the blaze with her sons.

By pastors of the Metropolitan Community Church, one of whom died trying to rescue his partner, their bodies found clinging to one another.

By Rev. William Richardson, who held a prayer service for the dead and received a formal rebuke from the Episcopalian bishop and a flood of hate mail.

By my parents, whose strides to build and support an LGBT ministry with other advocates in the heart of the Deep South are awe-inspiring.

By my sister, who has always been my fiercest advocate.

By my friends and chosen family at the LGBT Center of Raleigh and across the country.

***

So as manifold reforms hinge upon the Supreme Court’s decisions this week, I cannot help but cast a retrospective glance, acknowledging the inherent strength and power that we possess to effect change.

Regardless of the outcome, let’s not couch our efforts in whether we “win” or “lose.” Because the world is a topsy-turvy place.

And, right side up or upside down, we’ll always have to clear a hurdle or two.

But it’s always easier when you have a team cheering for you.

A team you can count on.

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My South

It’s odd what little things claim the last bit of wherewithal I have not to crumple and cry over the shattered remains of a former life.

After all, it’s a doughnut shop, a cheap convenience store. But among the strewn cream-filled dough and dollar store merchandise, crafting supplies and thrift store clothes, is a bit of me–the late teen-early twenty-something me. So amid the wreckage I see a broken reflection, something alien and somehow familiar; something that raises the hairs on the back of my neck and whispers, “Remember me?”

And much more: places where lifelong friendships were born and nurtured from nascent beginnings, full of awkwardness and immaturity and fun; the long walks through neighborhoods and energy-fueled conversations etched into a historic landscape. Everything comfortably familiar I took for granted.

But I can only grasp at former landmarks–the pawn shop where I bought my first TV, the restaurant with the best hangover cure, the picturesque neighborhood of forties- and fifties- era cottages. All now reduced to splinters, pieces of broken lives–friends’ lives changed in moments, their voices echoing across static-laden telephone lines.

But then I have cause to breathe a sigh of relief–a luxury, really: Though drained and wrenched, they’ve made it. They’re not red X’s.

The landscape will always change. But I need friends to watch with me as it reforms, springs from its leveled state, and rises again–just like we did all those years ago: looking to the horizon of an unknown future, hoping for answers in the sunrise.

***

The Tuscaloosa tornado only took a few minutes to raze so much of what had been my home for four years–some of the most formative of my life. And I became acutely aware of how quickly so much could be ripped away to a soundtrack of reverberating tornado sirens, and the subsequent stale silence.

Evil is often guised as a fiery deity, a slithering reptile. But that evening, as I watched part of my past being obliterated, and wondering who among my friends was witnessing it firsthand, I felt that the vortex–an all-consuming monster–was close enough to evil incarnate. And when I was able to exhale, I became immensely protective of all that I identify as my South.

***

But my South isn’t as many things as it is. The Civil War never consumed front porch conversations, and Confederate flags didn’t wave from front yards dotted with rusted-out Fords. And the local ABC Store wasn’t the nexus for the incestuous relationships in which all southerners allegedly engage.

My South is a string of recollections and experiences–and each may be a little ahead or a little behind the curve, but still mine. And they all have the same base: the Alabama I experienced before I finally went through puberty; before I came out; before I knew anything of consequence; before I left it all. The Alabama between the bygone and the here and now.

The Opelika with the Walmart-Western Sizzlin’ hub near the interstate, before Opal knocked the “Western” clean off and it became “The Sizzlin’.” An Opelika with its intact mill village. The railroad town where O.B. Ennis and A&P were the go-to grocery stores before Kroger and Winn-Dixie got popular. The feed-and-seed store with the back room incubator that filled the warm air with newly-hatched chicks’ cheeps. Gorging on Tyler’s hamburgers, fries, and apple pies the first year we spent making a home out of the old clapboard house in the derelict historic district.

The old Mirarchi homestead.

It’s when we got too tired and covered in lead paint dust, and ventured downtown with ten dollars to entertain ourselves, starting with egg salad sandwiches and pickles at Haynies–a genuine soda fountain. How we’d let our feet dangle from the red vinyl swivel stools as we munched on the toasted bread slathered with silky egg salad. With the only noise being the buzz of a radio and the fans swirling overhead, watching the dills float around in the huge glass jar on the countertop.

Walking, contentedly full, to Southern Video–with its worn, velvet-lined floor–and renting the reliable standbys: The Witches or a Tell-Faire Peak Theatre rendition of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale, and our favorite Nintendo game, Jackal. And then walk back–our parents unconcerned about a seven or eight block walk, unlike today. It was just a blink, not that long ago.

Hearing in sixth grade about Windows, and wondering what the hubbub could be about. Being part of a generation to play outside–using our imaginations like remote controls: a mud hole as a sea; plywood and blown-out tires as a fort in an azalea bush. Fourth of July, and the neighbors: young families with big dreams for the big houses falling apart around them–gathering in the graveled alley next to our house and setting up card-tables to feast on fried chicken, ambrosia salad, macaroni and cheese, paprika-laced deviled eggs, collard greens, potato salad, pies and cobblers.

The front porch–the columns, the cold floor beneath my feet, the balustrades salvaged from a demolished house, the porch swing and fan; how I’d curl up in the wicker settee with a bowl of ice-cream and glass of sweet tea just as the cicadas started screaming their heat songs.

Coming home after band practice to a Royal Doulton bowl full of lukewarm venison meatballs. The food, an Italian-Deep South blend: pigeons and polenta; collards and fried chicken; the discount bakery’s tandy cakes and apple pies; pasta fagioli and chipped beef; Mrs. Story’s hot dogs and The Dairy Barn’s milkshakes and Thomas Pharmacy’s peppermint sticks; pecan tassies and butter cookies; cornbread and pinto beans; venison and wild turkey; pizzelles and coffee.

The landscape: azaleas and spider lilies; irises and hydrangeas; pecans and oaks where old elms used to root; kudzu and English ivy; acubas and iron weed and camellias. The people: Miss Ruby watering her mint plants; childhood friends maiming bugs with magnifying glasses; Laura and me flipping through World Book encyclopedias–stopping on colorful images of dogs and horses–and watching Bonanza and American Gladiators while gorging on pigs-in-blankets and Kid Cuisines.

Everything else: antique shops and flea markets; turkey feathers and deer antlers; squirrel traps and garden snakes; a rattler’s warning in waist-high grass; wildflowers and mischief.

At the property.

Tracking time with hunting photographs: from when I’m just shy of antler tines, to shoulder-high; to a face smeared with blood, holding the deer myself. Felling trees and planting them, burning underbrush and pissing outside.

It’s the comforting sepia curling around the edges of these memories, creating a warmth I associate with home.

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Raptor Rehab

On my first trip to rehab, I knew I wouldn’t see the likes of Courtney Love or Lindsey Lohan.

But surely Tiger, the university’s Golden Eagle mascot, would be careening up and down the central hallway, all while attempting to hide the white powder beneath his beak, screeching, “What? I’M IN CONTROL!”

Instead, Dad, Laura, and I step down into a modestly-sized concrete-block building with a low ceiling.

Squawks, hoots, and screeches bellow from the surrounding rooms, filling the narrow hallway with an ear-splitting ruckus.

I cover my ears.

Dad disappears into a side room.

A nearby door flies open, and all I can see is an enormous Bald Eagle with one wing outstretched.

I stare, slack-jawed.

Its gloved keeper thwarts its escape, and it gives a gut-wrenching squawk, like those I’ve heard in the backgrounds of Dad’s westerns.

“It’s just like the eagle in The Rescuers Down Under!”

No one hears me. Nerd bullet dodged.

The keeper folds in the eagle’s free wing, enclosing its body with one arm, and holding closed its sharp beak with a thickly-gloved right hand.

Dad reappears with a tall, thin man whose head nearly touches the ceiling. Dad introduces him as Jeff, the center’s manager.

“So, whaddya think of that?” Jeff asks, pointing to the cantankerous eagle.

“It’s loud.”

“Yup. They can get pretty cranky. Y’all want to see more in the back?”

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

“You mean we’re going back there?” I ask, incredulous, pointing to the darkened end of the hallway.

“Sure are,” Dad responds. “That’s where I’m banding.”

My mental image of a cocaine-using Tiger is immediately replaced with one of a head-banging Screech Owl twirling a pair of drumsticks.

Laura and I walk after them.

But then my curiosity gets the better of me, and I start looking into the side rooms, each of which contains disfigured hawks, eagles, and owls.

I press my face against one of the viewing windows.

“She’s a permanent resident, can’t make it on her own,” Jeff says over my shoulder, noticing my detour.

We press on, turn a corner, and enter a large room lined with expansive cages containing all sorts of scaring looking creatures perched on wooden platforms. My stomach knots up the same way it does when I walk into a pet shop’s reptile room. And the evolutionarily-inculcated, visceral, creepy-crawly feeling that screams I shouldn’t be here washes over me.

My eyes dart from hooked beaks to razor-sharp talons. And I’m immediately disappointed with the lack of instrument-wielding raptor accompanists.

“Are you sure we’re safe? We’re not going to get attacked by these birds?”

“Raptors. And, no, of course not. We’ve got all these folks to help us.” Dad motions to a few graduate students.

With that, Dad unpacks his case of metallic bands and Jeff tells us some of the residents’ back-stories: a Bald Eagle hit by a landing airplane; a Red-tailed Hawk that’d rammed into a truck’s windshield; a Screech Owl that’d wrapped itself around a power line.

But the raptors around us have been mending from gunshot wounds, and most of them are going to be released at the university’s fisheries this weekend.

Jeff asks if we’d like to come.

We look expectantly to Dad, who’s banding a rather unwieldy Sharp-shinned Hawk.

“Yeah, sure, that sounds good.”

A few more banded owls and hawks later, and we’re heading to lunch.

***

Munching on deliciously unhealthy chili dogs and spicy French fries, Dad gives us a little advice.

“When we go out to this release on Saturday, remember to listen to the raptor rehab folks, okay? You don’t want to mishandle a really pissed eagle and end up in hand-to-talon combat.”

I shift uneasily. This sounds a lot more dangerous than Jeff made it seem.

And here I’d envisioned pulling open a metal door on some transport cage and watching the eagle take off, just like the squirrels we’d trap in our yard and release into the woods.

Clearly, Dad doesn’t think this is such a big deal, seeing as how he and my mom rehabilitated an owl named Boobo, who’d lived with them in their trailer during graduate school.

Mom & Boobo the Owl

“So, we’re going to be holding those birds, er, raptors at the release?”

Laura rolls her eyes. “Get over it. Gah!”

I wipe chili off my face and glare at her. I can’t understand her blasé attitude about possibly being defaced by a surly Bald Eagle. Didn’t she see the damage wrought by sparrows in The Birds? And they didn’t even have talons!

Our parrot-sibling Scooby is the closest we’ve come to any creature of this magnitude. And he’s as angry as they come.

We both have scars to prove it.

***

Saturday arrives.

I’ve steeled my nerves to grapple with a feisty owl if the situation calls for it. But I won’t be crestfallen if I get an old, lethargic, tiny one.

We pull up to the fisheries and greet Jeff and a number of graduate students.

“Y’all ready for this?!” Jeff asks excitedly.

“Sure are!” Laura: calm and collected. Me: fronting and frantic.

Jeff briefly describes how to handle the raptors—how to throw them up, out, and away from us.

“You can’t be fearful.”

Right, I’m handling a huge descendant of something that tore people apart in Jurassic Park and I’m supposed to be fearless. Girl, please.

But then we start. A few graduate students release some hawks and a Golden Eagle. Then Mom and Dad each release an owl. Laura gets a hawk.

I’m up.

Jeff hands me a large, upside-down Barred Owl that resembles Archimedes from The Sword and the Stone. Even though she’ll only be in my life for a minute, I name her Barbara.

But instead of reciting some magical incantation or bestowing sagacious advice, Barbara swivels her head around, stares up at me, and lets out guttural clicks like the alien in Predator.

You can’t be fearful.

“But what if Bar- she falls into the pond and drowns?”

“Oh, don’t worry! In the ten years we’ve been doing this, nothing like that’s ever happened!”

Phew.

I shift Barbara into the release position, and throw her up and away from me.

“There she goes!” Jeff exclaims.

I burst with pride as she soars over the fisheries’ ponds.

Everyone smiles.

A few people clap.

But then she starts a rapid, downward glide.

No one says anything.

We just watch as if nothing’s changed. She descends closer and closer to the surface of the largest pond.

Maybe she’s going to catch a fish.

Two seconds later, I shatter the center’s impeccable release record.

She splashes into the middle of the pond, sending up a spray of greenish-brown water.

The crowd gasps.

Pandemonium ensues.

Goddammit, Barbara.

Trailed by my parents, the graduate students and Jeff dive in after the owl–keeping herself afloat with her outstretched wings, watching the frantic humans approach.

Laura and I stand on the bank, and I try to figure out how this happened.

Every other release has been fine. We’ve released dozens of squirrels. Nothing’s gone wrong. Well, except that squirrel that did a 180-degree turn, hurtling itself down a hill and into highway traffic. 

I guess every record gets broken.

Five minutes later, Jeff totes a soaked, dazed Barbara out of the water and sets her on a low-hanging pine tree branch. With her head completely dry and body slicked and dripping, she looks like a cartoon. But none of the sopping wet rescuers share my comical vision.

“Well, that was, uh, something,” Jeff says politely, wringing out his shirt.

He and Dad step aside and talk for a minute, and I get in the car with Mom and Laura.

***

When we get home, I go open Scooby’s cage.

He growls and charges, spraying kitty litter everywhere.

I snap. Literally.

Scooby stops mid-run. I lower my face to his, and peer into his little dinosaur eyes. He ruffles his feathers and shrieks.

“Bird, you don’t even know what I’m capable of.”

Just ask Barbara.

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Those Times I Left to Find Myself

We’ve all had moments where we’ve channeled Thelma & Louise.

Hit the road.

Left it all behind. (Except that Brad Pitt hitchhiker.)

Explored.

***

For years, I’d get into my car and drive for hours, taking along the only companion I’d wanted: a reliable, standard point-and-shoot camera.

We’d stop and go, stop and go. All the while poking my head and its lens into forgotten places in the hopes that I’d find a bit of myself reflected in what I’d captured with the press of a button.

And I did.

At first, I thought that the shots were just of buildings.

But years after they languished in an external hard drive, I saw them for what they truly were: self portraits.

Broken, Beautiful.

I wasn’t so much looking for old buildings, but part of myself. Something that may have been hanging on by a thread, or left to molder in darkness.

Bits and pieces from my past lives, all united by a common theme: decay, with a touch of sophistication, and plenty of room for improvement.

The conditioned traits I’d embodied but never really embraced.

Religion.

Absolution.

Balance.

Sideways.

The parts of myself that I tried to express and frame, but found extinguished and skewed at one time or another.

Warmth.

Fireplace Eyes.

Perspective.

Rotting Ionic.

Vitality.

Green Light.

***

Something about these broken, beautiful places drew me in, filled a void I’d let grow inside me. Perhaps, like puzzle pieces, random fragments of others’ experiences completed me.

Whether it was a gutted living room, or a little floral bouquet–last respects paid, left on a soon-to-be demolished window sill–I felt less like a disembodied part and more of a whole.

Shattered.

Last Respects.

It’s always odd to pinpoint what exactly inspires us to push forward and grow.

Sometimes it’s adrenaline pumping through our veins, or a slight, reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.

Sometimes, though, it’s just us.

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Seasoning

Hunched over the cast iron skillet like a vulture over carrion, I deem Operation Frittata a success. Then slice off a slab of the eggy mixture, tossing it back and forth between my hands before demolishing it without the slightest degree of civility.

Operation Frittata is a success!

Once cooled, I carefully remove the rest of the impromptu dinner to the fridge, leaving the sturdy skillet caked with the browned, cheesy leavings. Still, the skillet exudes a bit of rude refinement–an oddly contradictory, apropos description that captures everything I love about cast iron.

And about most things in general.

Without allowing my analogy-oriented mind to deconstruct every little kitchen tool we have, I’ll just write that, like people, it takes a lot of work to season cast iron to perfection. And even then, constant maintenance to ensure it’s utility.

***

Whether it’s the pervasiveness of hipster trends, or the recession reminding us of the economic hurdles our country has had to clear, it seems that many of us–not just twenty- and thirty-somethings–are looking back a lot these days.

Some with nostalgia, some with hope.

It’s odd that we’d look back to decades filled with Depression-era hardship and Cold War-inspired paranoia and get all glazy-eyed and hopeful for the future. But it’s not that I have friends who long to build bomb shelters in their backyards, or collect twine for resale. It’s that so many of us are searching for comfort in things that have withstood the test of time, and have aged like a fine wine–the old, the worn, the refined.

A little wear gives us character.

Maybe even the ethics and morals some of us gleaned from our grandparents.

Perhaps we hope that, through osmosis, the Fiestaware teapot will pour out a few of life’s secrets with the Celestial Seasonings. (Not that I’m projecting.)

Pouring out dreams.

The vintage leather chair will cushion the blow of a failed interview, and its cracked arms will remind you, at exactly the perfect moment, that wear and tear is part of the process. (Really, I’m not projecting.)

Sit a spell.The Vornado fan won’t blow the proverbial shit your way, but will keep the breeze blowing, the air beneath your wings flowing. (Okay, I’m projecting.)

Don't blow the shi* it my way!

And sure, we don’t need things to remind us to harness our in-built tenacity, the drive to keep going.

Because that’s what movies are for! You know, those tried-and-true go-to flicks that remind you to put down the fork, step away from the frittata, and channel your inner innovator.

Julie & Julia is one of mine, even though I have to constantly remind myself that Amy Adams is a good actress–she just always gets cast as the woe-is-me-I-have-low-self-esteem character. (The real-life equivalent of me! Kidding. Sort of.). Plus, anything with Meryl (we’re on a first-name basis) lifts me up.

It’s not that the film leaves me in an ohmygawd, slack-jawed state. It’s that it makes attaining my writerly dreams seem possible. I know. I shouldn’t need a movie to remind me of that. But I think the reason why it resonates is because it’s illustrative of starting over later in life–both for Julie and Julia: two people who let life sidetrack them, but got back on course through sheer determination and lots of butter.

So maybe the root of why folks drowning in this economic cesspool are valuing vintage, antiquey things and historic spaces from our grandparents’ days is that we’re trying to channel that resolute drive, that entrenched stubbornness to not yield, to stay the course. To layer our lives and experiences with that same sense of accomplishment despite the country’s tenuous economic state and hyper-divisive political landscape.

Maybe my perspective’s skewed since several people, after chatting with me a bit, have told me I’m an “old soul.” That I frame things in a way that nods to the past. Regardless, I think there’s something more. Which shows that my inner-anthropologist will always be there–dissecting every experience, trying to distill out the greater meaning.

***

Coarse sea salt trickles out of the Fiestaware shaker and quietly ricochets inside the skillet, across its well-worn, carefully-curated sheen.

It makes me think of Norman. The phone rings.

It’s Norman.

“You know, I was just looking through my old recipes for cast iron cooking. And I figured he’d packed the pans and whatnot up in storage, or would dine out and not have need of such things.”

I smile, and laugh.

“Actually, I’m just prepping dinner now, using that big skillet you gave us. So they’re definitely not in storage. I love’em too much.”

Maybe it’s just the longevity of the things that make me appreciate them. Or their heft.

But I think it’s the stories they tell.

The lessons they embody.

The inner strengths they elicit from us, reminding us that we’re more than capable.

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As the Tank Turns

Days before Junior’s flight from justice, I sensed he and Wynnona weren’t on the best of terms. But never did I think he’d stoop this low.

Not until that fateful morning.

***

Incredulous, Laura and I stare at Junior’s empty cell, knowing his tiny, semi-gelatinous body is scurrying around the house.

“It’s only a matter of time before Tex finds him,” I mutter, redirecting my focus to the scene of the crime.

One cell over, Wynnona lingers.

Well, in a sense.

While crafting Junior’s escape narrative, I realize how much of a sadistic bastard he really is–how effectively he’d disguised his disturbing tendencies, even though we could, quite literally, see right through him.

“He must’ve scaled the wall somehow,” I mumble, stroking the nonexistent chin hair I won’t sprout until senior year of high school. “And then…this.”

I still can’t quite get over the sight.

Wynnona’s stumpy body drifts and thumps against her cell walls, ricocheting back and forth like a cadaverous Pong ball. What’s worse is that she knows she’s a Pong ball.

He’d left her alive, but snacked off her legs and remaining claw.

“That’s gross.” Laura scoffs, then turns and walks away.

I move closer, stooping and peering into the cloudy cell.

Bless your tiny heart.

Mercifully, Wynnona dies shortly thereafter.

And I escalate the charges against Junior from assault and cannibalism, to lobsterslaughter.

The hunt is on.

***

Two weeks prior, an eccentric great aunt had sent us our very own Freshwater Lobster Rehabilitation Kit.

My eyes stopped on the word “rehabilitation.”

Because the only “rehabilitation” I knew about involved Dad taking battered wild birds from neighbors who’d bring them up to the porch. And after he’d wave on the diligent do-gooders, more often than not, he’d perform a quick examination, sigh, put on his “fixing gloves,” and walk out to the backyard.

Our pet cemetery was enormous.

***

We’d ripped through the box, pulling out small plexiglass squares, a water pump, and a container generically labeled “Lobster Pellets”–feed that looked just like cockroach crap, and smelled like fish. Assured by the box’s instructions that we’d soon be receiving the actual lobsters, we’d set to task and completed the tri-level plexiglass structure with compartmentalized cells, the “Lobster Apartment Complex.”

Much to our parents’ chagrin, we’d placed it prominently on the kitchen counter, right in front of the prescription medications. I’m sure more than a few conversations between them ended with “The decongestant’s behind the damn lobster tower thing. Don’t mistake it for the Lobster Pellets again!”

Judging from each cell’s size, I’d assumed the lobsters had to be tiny. But a little part of me envisioned a thin, wary postal carrier wrestling a violently-shaking, hole-pocked package from the back of their USPS van up to our front door.

We’d open up the box and the lobsters would be large, unwieldy miscreants until we’d woo them with fishy pellets. And then I’d be able to use the yarn leashes I’d made to walk them up and down the sidewalk, answering passersby with a jaded, “Why, yes, this is one of my nine, yes, nine, lobsters. Oh, you don’t have one? Well, that’s unfortunate.”

Yes, the lobsters would be my key to stardom–to me ascending middle school’s social ladder. I could feel everyone’s envious gazes already.

But then, the package came: a plain, taped, run-of-the-mill brown box. No claws boring through the sides, no antennae swaying in the breeze. Laura and I unpacked the large Ziploc bag that had smaller, water-filled bags nested within it, each of which contained the half-inch lobsters.

Firmly stuck in a country music phase, we named them immediately: Junior, Wynnona, Teensie, Dot, Bessie, Flip, Dead-Head, Buzz, and Mischief.

***

Much to my dismay, the crustacean crew seemed innocuous enough—not the raucous bunch I’d hoped they’d be.

Little by little, though, we glimpsed their sordid dealings.

Like how Teensie, the runt, had become the others’ in-flight snack: her back half and one claw completely devoured. I’d guessed the culprits were those nearest a small cloud of stringy excrement.

But being the tenacious little crustacean she was, Teensie lasted through the night, almost as if she had something to prove to the others–no doubt raising her remaining claw in a show of defiance. We tore off a napkin corner, wrapped up her little body, poked a hole in ground, and raised a toothpick over the in-filled grave, with a white tape banner and Sharpie epitaph reading “Teensie.”

To say our hopes were undercut a bit by Teensie’s death the first night wouldn’t be too far from the truth. But we held fast to our shared goal of raising the rest to adulthood.

And, for a while, it seemed like they’d make it.

But then Bessie and Dot started acting lethargic; I tried to reason away their malaise–rationalize it as normal behavior. Because, compared to Flip, they were all lethargic.

Flip provided more entertainment than all the others combined. For most of the day, he’d crawl to the left side of his cell, touch his front legs to the side, flip backward twice, and land on the opposite side. Again. And again. And again.

Whenever I’d walk into the kitchen, I’d channel my best sitcom star voice and laugh, “Oh, that Flip,” expecting sudden, hysterical laughter from an unseen viewing audience.

After the first week, though, entries in our Lobster Log became increasingly macabre:

Feb. 28, 1994: Wynnona and Junior lost one pincher each. They haven’t grown a new pincher yet.

March 4, 1994: Mischief died today. We don’t know why.

March 7, 1994: We are sending the dead ones back to where they came from. And we are getting two more lobsters in place of the dead ones.

March 10, 1994: Today, Dot died.

March 19, 1994: Junior got into Wynnona’s cage and ate her pinchers and legs. After that, Junior got out of Wynnona’s cage, fell onto the floor, and our dog ate him.

Soon enough, we realized our goal of releasing fully-grown lobsters into a moss-lined, freshwater stream would never come to fruition.

But what devastated me more was that I’d never get to make anyone jealous of my lobsters–no walks down the street, no hushed, awestruck silences from my classmates as I walked into my science class, leashes in hand and lobsters in tow, slopping along the classroom carpeting.

***

With the lobster search eating away a precious Saturday, Laura and I give up early. By now, Junior’s either been surreptitiously destroyed by Tex or Scooby, or is gliding away in one of my Matchbox cars.

Weeks later, Mom finds Junior’s dried, desiccated corpse behind Tex’s bowl. With little fanfare, she sweeps him up with a whisk broom, dumping his dusty remains into the garbage can.

As I watch, a smile creeps across my face.

Wynnona would’ve appreciated that.

***

In the end, no stream is glutted with lobsters. No awards are given for lobster husbandry. No one achieves “popular prep” status.

Instead, our pet cemetery grows by nine small graves.

But that’s something, right?

We may not have ensured the lobsters’ survival, but we’ve still helped out in nine small ways.

A failed exercise? Methinks not.

Because, everything grows out of something. And we all need a little fertilizer to flourish.

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Into the Den of Inequity

Retracing your employment history can be an emboldening exercise–reminding you of where you’ve been and what you’ve accomplished, and all of the experiences that have brought you to this moment.

A moment that quickly devolves into you defending your rationale for wanting Job X, and why you really don’t care that you have an advanced degree, because, well, the economy has been in the shitter and you’d just like a paycheck, please.

Eyebrows raise.

Uncomfortable, stilted chuckles punctuate the awkward silences.

But you keep smiling, if for no other reason than to prevent yourself from screaming and throwing the tragically upholstered chair you’re sitting in out the window.

After all, it’s not the chair’s fault.

You knew this was going to happen.

***

We’ve all experienced Battered Employee Syndrome–the sense that a work experience or situation isn’t the fault of our crazed employer, but our own.

We apologize.

Run back.

Hide the emotional damage they’ve wrought with plenty of smiles and “yes, your right”‘s.

Sometimes, though, we need an intervention. Like the one I had several years ago at the dismal conclusion of my graduate school experience.

And yet, yesterday I found myself walking onto an academic institution’s campus, feeling that same sense of dread creeping up inside me, crushing the breath out of me like ten cats eating the face off of their dying cat lady owner.

But as I waited outside prior to my interview, I chided myself.

They’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. It’s nothing like Chapel Hill. That was four years ago! Snap out of it, already! Plus, this is on the other side of the fucking country!

Deep down, I knew better.

Because, as much as I hate making gross generalizations, there’s always been a thematic thread stitching together every academic institution that’s become a part of my personal history.

And that lone thread makes the whole sweater itchy and uncomfortable and stifling.

***

I put on my best poker face, walk through the door, and immediately feel uneasy. And not just because I have to ask a David Bowie doppelganger for directions while navigating through the labyrinthine auditorium to the office.

Soon enough, I’m in the lioness’s den. And her cubs pull and tug and twist my resume and experiences as much as they can–tenderizing everything before she goes for the jugular.

Still, as I sit there bleeding out like a disfigured antelope, I defend her–try to rationalize away her repeated bites. Which keep coming as my head spins.

“So, I mean, you know this isn’t, like, an education role. You’ll be doing really low-level stuff.”

She motions toward the administrative assistant at her desk.

“I understand the role and its components, and I’m fully prepared to take it on, regardless of the level of work required.”

“But, you have an advanced degree. And why in Anthropology?”

Hon, I ask myself that every single day.

“Well, I believe the positions I’ve held, whether in a volunteer or employed capacity, are thematically tied through public interfacing and outreach. Connecting with people and facilitating their needs through a variety of channels. And I believe, taken collectively, my experiences align with the skills required to perform the tripartite functions of this role.”

A quizzical, dismissive look and wry smile.

“I see.”

I long for a vodka cran.

***

One more interview later, I’m confined to a cubicle-like office to complete a few “exercises” to test my abilities. I look from the computer screen to the stack of exercise prompts, then my watch.

I’ve been here for two hours. I’ve interviewed with five people. And now I have four multi-component exercises to complete by 6:30 PM? Girl, please.

And I stare at the prompts, flummoxed. While I’m perfectly capable of learning Excel formulas in a short amount of time, I certainly don’t have them filed away in rote memory. The same can be said for performing some convoluted mail-merge exercise.

I try to open the Internet to search for the “how-to” functions, but access is routed through the institution’s portal.

Foiled!

So I complete the most difficult tasks–the ones that I feel speak more to my web-based capabilities than Excel functions that I can glean from an Excel for Dummies book.

Straighten my coat and tie. Get up. And let her know I’m done.

“Alright. You should be getting a call from me by the end of next week.”

I smile.

Shake hands.

And want to scream.

***

After Andy reassures me that I’m not nuts, that the process as I relayed it to him was really bizarre and not transparent, I hang up and drive home.

But all I can think about is the whole process.

How completely unprepared most of the interviewers were with their questions.

The accusatory tones of the senior staff’s fragmented questions.

The holier-than-thou academia-laden drivel they used to try and veil their social ineptitude.

And the kicker, from the lioness herself: “Well, your experiences are sort of all over the place. So what makes you think you are a good fit for this position?”

Y’all. The lioness poked the bear.

Because some of us haven’t been able to retreat within the confining walls of academia our entire professional lives. We haven’t been stunted socially, only able to interact with other socially-inept academics who have very little sense of self, and a high opinion of everything they’ve ever written. We’ve actually waded into the murky depths of the depressed job market, rather than orbit–like soon-to-be-retired planets–around the same dying star that academia has become. We learn from every new role. We do what we can to make ends meet. We do not quibble over job deviations from our former profession. We embrace change and do what’s necessary to make it in today’s world. We diversify our skill sets. Unlike you.

“This institution is built upon a diverse experience of the world, and I believe my diversified skill set is complemented and bolstered by my experiences in corporate, non-profit, and federal contexts, allowing me to exercise sound judgment and fulfill job expectations through informed, socially aware tacks.”

***

The vodka is ice cold. The ice cream is a little melted. The chocolate is dark and rich. Dinner is ready.

And Andy’s hugs are tight.

This, the present, is all that matters.

Not the battered past.

Not a skewed future blighted with malignancies.

Just this.

And that’s all the incentive I need to succeed.

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Death and Chinese Food

Grit and dirt and noxious smells are part and parcel of city life.

A little imperfect, and left behind.

And Andy and I are reminded of that every morning when we walk to his car in a nearby parking deck.

“This place always smells like death.”

“And Chinese food.”

***

Experiencing life within city blocks nested within neighborhoods nested within metropolises is like an endless sorting of matryoshka dolls. Each shell is hiding something new and amazing, or amazingly disturbing.

And within each shell are countless people that’re systematically blurred out–whether by too many mimosas that morning, or the conditional cleansing of our social lenses.

Because everyone learns to see the city their own way, and figures out how best to cope with the overwhelming stimuli firing off around them.

Some choose to ignore the person asking for money, the man thumbing through the garbage, the old woman pushing an overloaded shopping cart to an underpass–the invisible, the overlooked, the under-served.

Others engage everyone, strike up conversations–all with a smile, as if remembering the punchline of some past joke.

***

Whether a carryover from our species’s first foray on two legs, a survival instinct more pungent than overstuffed dumpsters seems to permeate and mix with the hive’s low, buzzing din–propelling us forward with heads up, eyes ahead, blinders on to all distractions. As if the slightest stumble–a glimpse of your imperfect self–will elicit an attack from passersby. Or find you in the gutter with those whom you’ve objectified as amalgams of your worst fears.

Fronting your way through a crowd, hardening that soft, fleshy exterior almost seems requisite for some reason. But it’s just another trait I’ve wrongly assumed to be shared by most big city people.

Because the key to connection is simply being open. Showing those around you that you’re not frightened at the prospect of them ignoring you. Or saying hello back.

***

Last weekend at LA Pride, I was reminded of the importance of connection. Of just being yourself, and how that can trigger a conversation or connection that redefines your trajectory and helps surround you with friends. (Like these!)

Being open.

And while I was always taught to be polite to everyone–minus the guy in the serial killer van–it’s frightening how quickly the herd mentality can buck civility to the back of the manners line.

Because it’s so easy to lose yourself within these nested layers, to forget what and who make you your own person–make the place you call home a home.

So many can turn a blind eye to that part of their personal history, and actively seek to forget the difficulties and triumphs that brought them to this very moment of being, and never attempt to acknowledge the same reflected in the eyes of those buzzing around them.

And while I don’t have the best eyesight, I hope I can always catch the slightest glimpse.

And never forget what a gift it is to cherish.

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Inked

It’s late December and my second year of graduate school is halfway over.

It’s a good feeling.

Even better, I’m not preoccupied with the upcoming semester and its associated stressors, because I’m too busy trying to find constellations in this popcorn ceiling.

“Lint-licker!”

Laying prone on the countertop, I crane my head to see the woman who’d walked in thirty minutes before yelling this rather odd, seemingly derisive moniker at the man with the shaved head.

Unfazed, the man continues to watch the massive television opposite the overstuffed sofa.

“Bastard,” the woman mutters before chatting up the chef preparing hamburger on the stove top, mere inches from my torso.

“So I said to him, ‘Mother-fucker you can’t have it both ways.’”

I close my eyes and imagine myself in a tropical paradise, away from this loud woman and her mindless drivel.

“You doin’ okay up there?” Kelli asks from her bar stool perch.

“Oh, yeah. I’m fine,” I respond, clenching my eyes closed.

Like a T-Rex orienting its reptilian senses to the slightest stimulus, our brief exchange draws the loud woman’s attention.

I can feel her eyes.

“Ooooh. I like how that’s lookin’,” she oozes. “You got anymore?”

“Just one.”

“Where’s it at?”

“The interior of my right hip.”

“What’s it of?”

Sensing my growing irritation, Kelli butts in.

“It’s two rings intertwined,” she chirps, lifting her right foot and displaying hers.

“Oh. For what?”

“Friendship.”

“Y’all must be close.”

“Best friends.”

The woman grows silent.

And I melt into the surrounding noise–the hamburger sizzling below my ear, the chef humming to herself.

***

Months before I end up on a bar in Hartford, Alabama, Kelli and I are planning our brief three-day visit over Christmas break. We’ve settled on the dates, but Kelli hasn’t yet wrangled her brother’s friend’s friend and tattoo artist, Derrick, into doing our tattoos.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get it figured out,” Kelli assures. “Derrick’s supposedly a nice guy and should be in town around then.”

Seeing as how Kelli is the Grace to my Will, her words placate my anxiety-prone mind and I assume everything will fall into place. I hang up the phone and tweak the graphite sketch, and decide on the right spot.

Seeing as how I’m an academic masochist–read, graduate student–I figure it’s apropos to site the tattoo just below my ribs, in one of the most painful spots possible.

***

The day after Christmas, I drive down to Kelli’s mom’s house with my overnight bag in tow. I haven’t seen Kelli for about a year—not since we’d left for our respective graduate schools.

Driving with the tattered directions I’d jotted down in one hand and maintaining control of the car become mutually exclusive once I pass a swamp and turn onto a pothole-dotted gravel road. My car shudders and bucks down the narrow stretch. But even at a snail’s pace, I pass the house.

Backtracking, I pull into the leaf-covered driveway, park in the backyard, and make my way to the door.

“Watch it!”

I freeze. And a mound of moldy shingles crashes onto the patio a few feet ahead. I look up to the two burly men shoveling off shingle clusters from the roof, and side-step to the door between their off-loading.

Soon enough, Kelli and I are hugging and shrieking like sorority sisters getting morning-after pills. And Kelli introduces me to Arvind, her boyfriend of a year. We exchange pleasantries, and Arvind excuses himself outside to smoke with Kelli’s brother, Jeff. While Kelli’s mom, Marie, shuffles around the house listening to her Walkman, Kelli and I catch up.

I bitch about graduate school and she glows about hers, how great her adviser has been, and how perfectly her school fits her personality. Burning with envy on every count, I change the subject to tattoos.

“So, Jeff said that Bobby said that Derrick will be able to do our tattoos Friday evening. But Derrick’s kinda hard to get in touch with, so we’ll have to call ahead to make sure.”

This is sounding too Telephone Game-like for my taste.

“But we will be able to get tattoos while I’m here, right?”

“Of course! Don’t worry!”

Again, Kelli’s overwhelming optimism allays my fears. So we get drunk, and I doze off by the fire we’ve been feeding with wood Arvind and Jeff have been chopping all day.

***

The next morning, my sinuses are blocked and it’s raining.

“Looks like a fine day for tattoos,” I snuffle, staggering into the living room.

Honing in on the closest fluffy chair, I plop down and sigh.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get’em today,” Kelli assures. “Now, let’s eat.”

Plates-full of biscuits, gravy, bacon, and eggs later, Kelli and I retreat to the living room and watch the King Kong remake.

“You know, my sister never knew how this movie ended.”

“Really? Isn’t this a classic?”

But it’s true. In the darkened theatre, right as the planes began circling the Empire State Building, Laura had leaned over.

“He’s going to make it, right?” her voice wavering, eyes big as saucers.

“Well…”

As I watch the great ape plummet to his death, another load of shingles thuds outside. The rain has let up, and the roofers are back. Kelli’s phone rings, and I nearly jumped out of my non-tattooed skin.

“Is it Derrick?”

“I dunno who this is.”

She answers and I mouth “Well?” She shakes her head; not Derrick.

Damn. Even though time is crawling by, it’s going somewhere.

“Do you think we should call Bobby?”

“Just a little while longer, and then I’ll call.”

Before I know it, and after a few drinks, we’ve watched another movie and drained a few drinks. It’s evening, and we’ve yet to get any response to Kelli’s multiple voicemails to Bobby.

We call it a night, drink our dinners, and drowse off to sleep.

***

Saturday morning finds me pacing the living room. Kelli is on the phone with Bobby. A few minutes later, we’re crafting the day’s plans around our tattoos.

I follow Kelli and Arvind into town and pass a number of ramshackle homesteads, longing for my camera the whole way. Soon, the landscape changes from quaint to commercial, and we pull up to a bowling alley. I pile into Kelli’s backseat, and we head to the movie theatre.

Where we realize the newspaper times got it wrong, and we’ve missed the showing.

“Just as well,” Arvind says from the front seat. “They all looked pretty dumb.”

We opt for an early lunch before deciding to kill time in a nearby mall. Arvind disappears while Kelli and I peruse hideous discounted Christmas décor and wait by her cell phone like crack fiends.

My stomach starts feeling a bit uneasy. But it’s not my black bean burger making a reprisal. During lunch, a thought kept resurfacing: What if the tattoo-artist or the friends he’s staying with are queer-hatin’ Bubbas?

I’d voiced my concern to Kelli, and Kelli had called Bobby and left him a message to call her back.

With an hour to go, the window of opportunity to gracefully bow out is closing fast. But just as we pass a jewelry display, Kelli’s phone rings. It’s Bobby. She talks a few minutes before dropping the question.

“So, Bobby, Matt’s gay. Is that gonna be a problem with these folks?”

I grip a nearby Rudolf doll and brace for the bad news.

“Oh, okay. Thanks.”

Kelli hangs up and turns to me.

“He said they’re all laid back. Don’t sweat it.”

“Good. I didn’t feel like being the hate crime of the year.”

I look at my watch.

“We better get going.”

***

Within fifteen minutes, we’re rolling through a neighborhood of small 1950’s cottages that’ve seen better days.

Faded rental signs cling halfheartedly to massive oaks, and chained-up dogs bark at Kelli’s teal Jetta, as if saying, “What in the fuck are y’all doin’ here?”

“There it is!” I yell, pointing to a small house next to a gravel lot.

We park and walk toward the front door.

“What a minute,” I stammer, taking a second glance at the house’s paint-peeled address numbers. “This isn’t the right house. It’s 271, not 221.”

Just as we about-face, the door creaks open horror movie style. But I’m not about to suggest we investigate, gang!

A tall, thick man with intensely dark sideburns ventures out and lights a cigarette.

“Y’all here for the tattoos?” he asks. “I’m Derrick.”

“Oh, er, yeah. But we thought it was 221,” Kelli calls.

Derrick cocks his head and looks up at the house numbers. Now closer, I can see that the second 2’s tail has fallen off. What a fortuitous mistake I made! Or is it?

We step under the front overhang and walk inside.

“I’ll be in there in justa sec,” Derrick calls after us, “Just have to finish my cig.”

***

Right after crossing the threshold, something slams into my crotch and doubles me over–a pit-bull whose head and testicles approximate a bull’s.

“Whoa, Baxter!” a man with a shaved head calls after the well-endowed dog. “Sorry ’bout that. He’s just friendly.”

After cheerful Baxter is pulled away and I discreetly readjust myself, the three of us stand awkwardly in the middle of the living room. Like we’re here to pick up our prom dates, and are anticipating the run-down from Dad.

Introducing himself as Mark, the man with the shaved head invites us to sit down. Mark’s wife, Debra, blows in behind us, tossing her work uniform as she does. Between exchanging pleasantries and discovering Debra works as a professional wedding cake maker, Debra asks if we like hamburger.

“Oh, we just ate dinner. Thanks, though!” we chime enthusiastically.

“Well, there’s going to be plenty, so y’all feel free to it.”

Derrick comes in a few minutes later, and it’s then that I realize his sideburns are actually black-and-gray Koi fish. Immediately entranced, I can’t peel my eyes from them. He disappears to the back of the house and reemerges with his portfolio for us to leaf through.

“So, y’all know what you want to get, right?”

“We sure do. I want this dove outline on the side of my left foot,” Kelli says, pointing to a line drawing she’d made the day before.

“And I’d like to get this on my torso, beneath my ribs,” I say, holding my sketch.

He looks them over and tells us to give him a few minutes to trace and tweak them. Kelli and I scrunch together on the couch and peruse his portfolio while Arvind takes a recliner.

Derrick’s work is good, and has found a place almost everywhere on the human body. And as we turn the page to a single set of tattooed testicles, Mark passes behind us.

“Ha! Those’re mine!” he crows.

Now we know what Mark’s testicles look like.

Before I can further contemplate why Mark chose to get a skull forever inked into his nutsack, Derrick grunts from his illuminated drawing table on the other side of the room.

“Done.”

Smiling like I do in the presence of chocolate, Mark hands us his sketches. He’s made a few augmentations and waits for our respective green-lights.

“You’re the artist, and it looks good to me,” I say. “I trust you.”

He smiles again, and my heart beats a little faster.

But Kelli isn’t quite as enthusiastic.

“Can the wings be rounded on the ends?”

Derrick says it’ll be no problem, that he’ll alter the sketch after I’m done. He turns back to me, then looks at the low kitchen table.

“Here, why don’t you hop onto the bar?”

“I don’t want to break it,” I say nervously, eyeing the bar.

“Honey, you look like you weigh next to nothin’,” Debra calls from the kitchen. “You sure you don’t wanna sandwich or something?”

So I ease onto the bar and lay down. Derrick preps his equipment, shows us how he cleans it, explains what he plans to do, and asks if I have any questions.

I shake my head and he positions me a little lower. His touch is electric, and I nearly melt into the bar top.

“So, what do you do?” he asks, dipping the needle tip into a black ink well.

“I’m a grad student.”

Buzzing fills the air. My skin begins to sting. And I start finding constellations in the ceiling.

***

“Lint-licker!”

Swirling a bottle of Bud Light like a Riedel glass, the loud woman is accosting Mark again. But this time, Mark’s had it.

“Cassandra, will you please shut the fuck up?! The game’s on!” Mark barks, keeping his gaze locked on the large television.

“Eh, fuck off, you lint-licker!”

I realize “lint-licker” is some euphemism she’d used while relating a story to Debra. But I really don’t care enough to think about it anymore than I have.

All I care about is seeing my tattoo and getting out of here. Because now that the initial excitement of getting my new tattoo has worn off, the reality of the situation is hitting me: I’m in some strangers’ house, half-naked on their kitchen counter, getting tattooed; an imposing, friendly dog is circling underfoot; and an AK-47 is casually propped against a bookshelf.

And a man with fish sideburns is leaving an indelible mark on my torso. I turn and open my eyes. Kelli looks up at me.

“It looks really good,” she says. Derrick switches from black to red.

“That’s bad-ass, man,” Cassandra howls from her seat in the living room.

I muster a Thanks, and roll my eyes closed.

Except for her bad highlights, Cassandra reminds me of a pathetic man who’d followed me and Kelli around a tattoo shop in Alberta City, Alabama– where we’d gotten our friendship tattoos. The guy had several mediocre tattoos dotting his arms and legs, and had repeatedly insisted that, if he could, he’d get a tattoo every day.

“I mean, if some dude came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, dude, can I scrawl some ink into you?’ I’d totally be in,” he’d quipped.

And while I’d said I shared his enthusiasm for body art, he’d sounded slightly insane. Our tattoo artist had shooed him away repeatedly, but he always reemerged spouting, “Just scrawl it in, man. Scrawl. It. In.”

“Sorry, he’s kind of a fixture around here,” our tattoo artist had groaned as the tattoo-obsessed man bothered another employee.

Soon, Derrick’s quick strokes subside, and my new tattoo is deemed complete. I get up, examine it, and can’t stop smiling.

Shine on!

“I absolutely love it!”

Derrick has exceeded my expectations. A much higher-quality tattoo, especially given our environs, at a ridiculously low price, I tip Derrick exceedingly well, and trade places with Kelli.

After a few back-and-forth’s with Kelli about the roundness of the dove’s wings, Derrick dives in. Between holding Kelli’s hand and playing with Baxter, I stave-off questions from Cassandra.

But before I know it, Kelli hops down from her stool and pays Derrick.

We thank Derrick profusely, thank Mark and Debra for their hospitality, and bid a wasted Cassandra goodbye.

“Bye, lint-lickers!” she laughs, closing the door behind us.

“That woman was weird,” Arvind mutters, undoubtedly reeling from the whole odd ordeal.

Back at the bowling alley, we say our goodbyes.

“Another successful tattoo experience,” I laugh, hugging Kelli.

“Except this time our artist wasn’t high,” she adds.

***

As usual, that night I dreamed my tattoo came off in the shower. And I sighed with relief when I woke up and found it right where it was supposed to be.

I headed downstairs, and followed my parents’ voices to the kitchen. After a few minutes, I couldn’t hold it in.

“Morning! Y’all wanna see my new tattoo?!”

The color drains from Dad’s face. Mom rolls her eyes.

“Not really,” he sighs.

“Let’s see it,” she groans.

I lift up my shirt, and they both gasp.

“It’s a bit big, isn’t it?” Mom asks anxiously.

“I guess. Relative to the first one.”

“Well, what’s it mean?” Dad inquires.

Huh.

Derrick had asked me the same thing, and I’d rattled off something I’d rehearsed.

“Well, I told myself that I’d get a commemoration tattoo for surviving my first year of graduate school.”

Like Derrick, my parents wanted more of an explanation.

“The subject-matter’s derived from a painting I’d done the summer after my first year. It’s almost like, no matter how crappy or hard life gets, no matter how much it tears you open and makes you bleed, you can still shine.”

Dad rolls his eyes. Mom’s well with tears.

Bingo.

But even though I’d laughed a little after I’d explained my soon-to-be tattoo’s significance to Derrick, I’d meant what I said.

Sure, it’s a bit trite and slightly saccharine. But it’s true.

So, after I pull my shirt back down and leave my parents to their now-spoiled breakfast, I hum Cyndi Lauper’s “Shine.”

And resolve to do just that in the coming years.

Even if I get a bit bloodied in the process.

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A Real Job? What’s That?

I couldn’t quite pinpoint why I’d been feeling so off, especially since I’d just returned from what I felt was a solid job interview.

After all, I’d cobbled together a decent outfit.

Scuffed the bottoms of my new shoes to decrease the chance I’d slip and topple head-over-ass down the lobby stairs.

Acted professionally throughout the interview, fully answering 25 or so questions and providing ample examples for each.

And never once blurted out, “I CAN’T TRUST YOU!”

So, what was my deal?

Even in his post-work exhaustion following a day trip to San Diego to interview candidates, Andy weighed in.

“Well, you’ve never really had a good work experience. So you’re probably just reacting to getting back into employee mode, and feeling the only thing you associate with it: dread.”

Hot damn.

Reason #4,578 to couple with a Human Resources professional.

He was right.

Because when I tried to counter with the proverbial “But,” nothing followed.

***

Now, it’s not as though the two non-academic jobs I’ve had haven’t had good qualities. I’ve learned plenty in the past five years navigating through the job market.

Every lesson hasn’t exactly been glutted with rainbows and butterfly kisses, but I’ve been able to distill out enough goodness to keep the wheels turning.

But when I really stop to think about my time in the job market, I realize how many obstacles so many of us have (had) to overcome.

For starters, I entered the job market a month before The Great Recession (TGR) tore into the US economy, gutting it like bad Thai.

And while I was insanely lucky to snag a job at such a critical moment, it came with a string of conditions.

Condition 1: No social life. Performing physically rigorous archaeological fieldwork in random parts of the state left me isolated and exhausted. The day and a half I had for downtime before returning to far-flung field sites afforded me just enough time to take a shower in my crappy apartment, do laundry, and get some quality sleep.

Condition 2: No benefits. Despite the fact that there were employees at this particular office that did not have any anthropological education, they were still entitled to company benefits that were not extended to me, an MA-holding anthropologist. Combined with absolutely no paid leave, the job’s only attractive quality was a paycheck.

Condition 3: No certainty in compensation. When I would tell my parents “I don’t know what I’ll make this paycheck,” I wasn’t being purposefully vague. In the context of an economic downward spiral, management was doing its best to shuffle monies around to compensate everyone. But that meant that each paycheck was a crapshoot–an amalgam of billed projects, each of which had its own payment rate for differently-tiered employees. Which meant my paycheck would vary by hundreds of dollars each month. Which made budgeting nearly impossible. Which made having fun and spending money financially imprudent. (Refer to Condition 1.)

Soon enough, TGR’s all-consuming waters lapped at our office’s door. But right as most of the staffers got pink slips, I was able to jump ship.

But as I’ve written before, I jumped from the Lusitania to the Titanic. Because not only was my rescue ship doomed too, but it came with plenty of other conditions.

Condition 1: Paid time off, but no other benefits. Sure, I was given a slight step up from where I’d been, but having no benefits still put me at a disadvantage. Having experienced a bout of skin cancer immediately after graduate school, when I had no health insurance through my job, I realized the importance of some measure of insurance. So while I had health insurance, it was one more out-of-pocket expense.

Condition 2: Crazy-ass commute. Now, I didn’t have to have this commute. But living in a conservative area compounds the social isolation LGBT’s feel, and I wasn’t about to go down that road again. So, it was a nearly three-hour round trip commute every single day. (Which was still less than what Andy had to drive.)

Condition 3: Quarterly taxes. Because the educational institution through which my “fellowship” was directed refused to deduct taxes from my paychecks, I had to pay quarterly taxes. Now, that might seem like a deal. But it’s a trap. Not only did I have to pay out over a thousand dollars every quarter and still pay my bills, but I also got whacked with my income taxes because the tax code changed and no one bothered to inform quarterly taxpayers. So if, say, your car shit the bed and you had to use part of your lump-sum paycheck to cover it, you may not be able to pay quarterly taxes on time. Which would lead to penalties and debt. Or, to obviate late quarterly taxes, you pay for unexpected expenses with a credit card. Either way, you rack up debt quickly.

Condition 4. Crazy-ass coworkers. I love fun, crazy people. I do not love insane, hostile people. And after dealing with a slew of nuts, I couldn’t take anymore.

In the end, it came down to balancing emotional health and financial feasibility.

Was it easy? Hell no.

Because it meant that Andy had to keep going in a job that was equally as draining.

Most folks don’t have the luxury of having a partner whose income can float two people, and must continue on in jobs where they’re underemployed. Or they have to wait in the unemployment line.

Still, we kept going, working toward a larger goal while cutting our expenses tremendously.

And it’s paid off.

***

Now, though, I’m starting to realize how far I’d sunk into the dregs of the employment market. Just reading job descriptions, and getting callbacks from jobs that offer real benefits–that I’d actually have the chance at contributing to that elusive 401k thing I’ve heard so much about–gives me chills.

In many ways, TGR has reminded people what’s important–not riches or snagging a high-paying job that sucks the life out of you: it’s the things and people that make you happy. It’s that passion you’ve always had for cooking or sewing or writing making a resurgence and becoming something you’ve always wanted it to be.

And we feel less lost because of it.

Because it helps propel us forward, energizes us to take a chance and venture outside our comfort zones.

Apply for jobs we don’t think we’re qualified for.

Make contacts outside of our chosen fields.

Hone the skills that we possess, and shop them around as best as we can.

Not beat ourselves up over not getting that job we thought we’d be perfect for–because, in the end, it clearly wasn’t a good fit and we’re better off without it.

Because the only person who can land a real, fulfilling job–or at least one that’ll help make your life what you want it to be–is you.

And you can do it.