The Rings

Originally posted in a fan group for Amanda Palmer. It's a community full of giving, listening people, and I feel very safe there. So I share things I'm not always comfortable sharing publicly, like mental health issues and things like that. Someone started a thread about being grateful for the Things we have around us, not just art and music but posessions that make us happy. This was my contribution.  I've added footnotes for clarity, but you don't need to be familiar with Amanda or her music to grasp the main points of this.

TW: Death, Cancer, Self harm.

I wrote this in response to the thread of things. For some reason it wouldn't post, so I wanted to share it here.

My grandmother and I have always been very close. She was an angel. She was small and round and full of sass and sweetness. She was so loving. Everything I posted to Facebook, she found worthy of a response. She just made me so happy. She passed on her face to my mom, who passed it on to me. I have always been grateful to see history when I look in the mirror.

When she was diagnosed with cancer, I was so glad. Because she had thought she was having a heart attack. And that's how my mom found her tumor. And my mom was fine.

I quit my job to go and visit her at the end of her chemo. My mom had been down in Texas for months and I had been running the house. We stayed for weeks. My then boyfriend flew out. It was just a family visit because of our love for her. Because she was sick and she needed us. I spent a lot of time with her, and I read. I discovered this woman named Amanda Palmer. I read her blog posts about Anthony passing, and I felt them.*

My last day in Texas, she threw up on herself. It was very sudden. But it was a fluke, because she wasn't that sick. She just wasn't feeling well. But it troubled me. I froze up. Then I pulled together. I gave her many hugs and told her I loved her so much. And we drove 18 hours home to Denver.

After we got home, my mom told me the cancer was still inoperable. Chemo hadn't shrunk it enough, or shrunk it right. If they tried to remove it, she would bleed out. The doctor recommended hospice care. I withdrew. I shrunk. I cut my leg. I cut my long, long hair to a 3inch pompadour. I prayed for miracles.

Then, my boyfriend's grandfather passed. It was a long time coming. We were sad, but we had been expecting it for years. He and I drove from Denver to rapid city and attended my first Catholic funeral. We cried at the 21 gun salute at the military cemetery. We went back to his grandmother's house. I told my boyfriend that the service was comforting to me, in terms of letting my grandmother go. Not that she was dying any time soon. But it gave me peace about when the time would come.

Then my mom texted me that she was flying back to Texas that night. Grammie was throwing up blood.

Rapid city does not have a big airport like DIA. Tickets are expensive. I didn't have anyone in Dallas to pick me up. Besides, I needed to stay and be with the people I had come to see.

I frantically texted my dad. My mom and I had made the drive back from Texas in a straight shot and he and I could do it again. I could be home tonight and take a power nap in the car and be ready to take a shift.

He wasn't that worried. He said to stay in Rapid for now. An hour later he called me, as I was driving between the various homes of my boyfriend's relatives.

"There's no easy way to say this. She's gone"

It had been one week to the day since I had hugged her, painter her toenails, seen her full of love.

Gone.

I sobbed. I pulled myself together. We went inside to tell a grieving widow that we couldn't stay, we would be leaving in the morning. I drove 8 hours home. Switched some of my dirty clothes for clean clothes in my suitcase. Drove 18 hours to Texas. Listened to Theater Is Evil and Soul Punk on repeat.** No one's ever lost forever, you know.***

My boyfriend and I had been together for several years. Everyone knew he was looking at rings. I had always adored her rings. But she was going to be at my wedding, of course.

Except she wasn't.

When my grandfather handed me her rings, it felt holy. I had never held something so important. So valuable.

Her rings held her marriage. 30 years of her life. They were on her hand when I was born, as she knit me so many sweaters and booties.

I took a while to give them to my boyfriend. I kept them in my wallet, slipping them on to a finger when I needed to feel her with me. After I gave them to him, he couldn't propose fast enough. I needed to have that connection to her. She was so important to me.

From the time of her diagnosis to the time of her death was less than six months. It was brutally fast. And I maintained hope. I knew miracles happened. And then when they didn't, I was so angry. I made lists of people who I would have traded for her. But she was gone. Gone. Lost.

But not forever.

Her love raised my mom. Her love clothed me in sweet sweaters and excited Facebook comments. Her face is mine. Her spunk is mine. She is so mirrored in my mother who is so mirrored in me.

It's been a year and a half. I've been married for 4 months.

There are days when I am still devastated, when all I can see in my mind is her laid out before a cremation retort. Did anyone notice that I had just painted her toenails? Did they know she wasn't just anyone, she was my world?

But those days are fewer. Most of the time I can touch my rings. Wear a sweater she made. And deeply thank her for sharing herself with me.

* Anthony - Amanda Palmer's father figure and best friend, who passed from cancer right about the time I was visiting Texas

** Theater is Evil is an Amanda Palmer album (soul punk is by patrick stump but that's irrelevant)

*** "No one's ever lost forever

       When they die they go away

       But they will visit you occasionally 

       Do not be afraid

       No one's ever lost forever

       They are caught inside your heart

       If you garden them and water them

       They make you what you are" - Lost, Amanda Palmer, Theater is Evil.

Splendid Isolation

Pop quiz. What is my favorite animal?

Cow. Dog. Blue Whale.

All of these are accurate. The blue whale is the most correct answer, although I'm really into all sorts of whales. And I also love every animal that isn't a reptile (turtles and tortoises being a notable exception).

But I have a confession.

I am terrified of blue whales.

I have nightmares about blue whales.

They are so big.

I am small.

I dream that I go into the ocean. Once I dreamed that I was in antarctica. Sometimes it's a huge aquarium. But it's a regular occurence. I go to San Diego again and Karin and I see a blue whale. And its bigness scares me and stays with me for days.

I feel the same way about the entire ocean, actually. Sometimes I get very nervous when swimming in the ocean.

I don't like feeling small. I don't like knowing that I am a speck in the void.

I feel this way about space, and sometimes I get really tripped up because I can opt out of the ocean (easily, by living in Colorado). But I can't opt out of space. I am hurtling on this rock, incomprehensibly fast, to places unknown.

I am not in control.

I think that's the root of it.

I like to live a life where I control my schedule, I control my decor, I control myself.

I'm uncomfortable with the idea of sinkholes and stray airplanes and bridge collapses and ISIS.

I want to choose to live safely and live forever.

But my heart could stop at any moment. Or I could have cancer and fight as hard as possible, and succumb in a hospital room, jaundiced and miserable.

Best case scenario, Dan and I live until we are very old. And then we die.

I once heard "we avoid taking risks, so we can make it safely to death."

But I like to pretend that death is only a thing which happens to other people. Not me. I am making safe choices.

But I'm not in control.

Which is terrifying.

Things I love about my life

I opened my computer with the intent of writing about all the things on my mind. And I turned on spotify, clicked on mood, and while trying to find a playlist for being sad and pensive, I saw a mood booster playlist. And I'm listening to one direction. And I'm feeling better. So this is a post about happy things. For me.

Dan makes me laugh so hard. He is the funniest person I have ever met. Maybe. I know a lot of funny people, and I am personally a riot. But he cracks me up. Sometimes he gets on my nerves, but I feel that way about everyone. He just sometimes puts on the weird and I find myself going from angry to hysterically wheezing. I love that guy. He is a ball of sunshine. He is emotionally supportive. He is there day in and day out with me and all my issues. Sometimes I romanticize memories of talking to other friends and how they used to be there for me. But life changes, and that's ok. I am happier being able to get burgers and laugh with Jack than staying up all night texting him. It's healthy and wonderful to have a fiancé who supports me like that, a couple of solid girl friends when I need to talk, and friends who are just chill bros.

I love music. Just before christmas I hung out with one of my favorite people on this earth and played guitar very awkwardly and poorly. But she made it seem easy and fun. And I stopped being afraid of it. I learned Zombie by the Cranberries. And then I learned more chords. And now my song book is literally running out of room. I love to play guitar. I love that I can sing these songs I love and be my own accompainiment. I love feeling and seeing myself improve at something, by myself, for me. I love making music. I love feeling like I am a musician, rather than someone who can sing. I have a really delightful laptop, and sometimes I flip it into tablet mode, put it on the music stand, and pull up the chords for whatever song is on my mind. And just play whatever. It's so wonderful. Sometimes I play for my sister, but usually I play for myself. And I'll just pick up my guitar, and play for an hour and a half, and it feels like no time at all. It's like therapy. It's like when I was in choir. Words cannot describe.


I love my friends. I am so blessed by these people. Sometime last year, I decided to make a group chat and invite a few key people out. Just a group of people I was comfortable spending time with at my worst. People I didn't have to be "On" around. And somehow that turned into a wonderful, supportive, tight-knit friend group. It's wonderful. I have many friends and it's special having people at different levels of closeness. There are so many people I would be overjoyed to run into at Costco, and there are a few people who get to know my deep stuff. That's just what it is. But I am surprised at who those special people have turned out to be. It's just really tight to have friends I can cry about art in front of, and then wow with my white girl rap skills. I used to have friends who beat each other up emotionally, and none of us do that. We intently love each other even when we feel bad. It's very very beautiful.

I love the person that I am. I love that I am friendly and funny and encouraging. I used to pick fights. I used to hurt people. I used to worm my way into the center of attention.

I love that I can make the choice to be happy. I love that I can decide I'd rather listen to Nicki Minaj and talk about the things that make me smile than listen to Sufjan Stevens and talk about the things that make me hurt.

I hope you missed my stream-of-consciousness blogging. I am happy.

You're only free when you're asleep, baby.

In the wake of what feels like my world crumbling around me, I am faced with a very difficult question.

What do I want to be?

I thought I had figured this out.

I never much worried about the meaning of life when I was young. It was always a non-issue to me. It's funny, looking back. How often I saw things like that.

At the age of 12 I thought I had my life figured out. I guess we all do.

I thought I understood things. I thought that things like songs and books that didn't resonate me were because I was above them, but they were above me.

"Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage" is a lyric I have heard since my youth. But it never spoke to me until I was an extremely angry young adult realizing that my anger could never itself change my circumstances.

I never understood so many songs. I never understood what it was like to be so angry at an unfair system. To be in love. To be lost. To feel trapped and not by school, or curfew, or lack of a car.

I could get in my focus right now and drive. But where would I go?

California. Chicago. New Orleans.

And then I would be somewhere on the road. Penniless. Unemployed. Lost.

Alone.

I never anticipated I'd be at a point in my life where I had a boyfriend. And we loved each other. And were adults. And still couldn't just get married on a whim.

He asks me what I want to do. Kids, right? But what about before then? What am I going to do before and during and after motherhood? Who am I?

And I don't know.

Anyone who knows me is going to say CAKES. CAKES, IDIOT.

And I like cake.

But I also hate cake.

I am good at cake decorating. Not incredible. Better than you, probably. But it is not my passion. And sometimes it makes me a little angry that people assume that about me. You know me so vaguely that you think all I am, all I can be is a cake decorator.

But how can I blame you? What am I without it? Who are we without our vocations?

I made $11.38 an hour as a decorator. For a full shift I consistently worked 9:30-6. Occasionally 7-3:30. Never closed. Never stayed later than 8pm (except for one very strange overnight shift where I worked from 5pm-1:30am, but we don't talk about that. It was exceptional.). And I got to be creative. And I got to make about $800 a month, part time, after taxes.

I also used to have panic attacks in the morning before work. And those went away, mostly. But sometimes I ran late despite living down the street, because I couldn't get my emotional shit together and be normal. And I had constant anxiety over the inconsistent schedule. Because while 9:30-6 is a constant, I had to come in on unscheduled days regularly. They paid me. I'm not saying I was exploited. It was fine. But it was overwhelming, and since we were only scheduled a week at a time anyway, it was very very stressful to receive a schedule I couldn't trust. On top of that, I highly prioritize having Sundays off of work. If you don't, that's fine, but that's one thing that is very important to me for a number of reasons. And weekends are the busiest time for food. And as a decorator I needed Full Flexibility, which basically meant I had to cross my fingers and trust my boss every week.

I haven't had a full-fledged panic attack since I quit my job a few months ago. I have come close. I have gotten overwhelmed, and I have felt anxious. But I have not had a huge meltdown in a shockingly long time for me.

I loved my job. But I also hated my job. And you need to understand that. It's not that I worked with bad people - I really loved all of my co-workers and enjoyed our time together. And I was patient with customers. And I made beautiful cakes and had a great time. But for a few reasons, it was really hard on me. So I am hesitant to go back, regardless of my mental state.

I have a wedding to pay for, and I am in no shape to work. And i feel helpless. And I feel trapped. And I feel lost.

I have $800 saved up. Even the cheapest weddings in the world are more expensive than that. And certainly the cheapest apartments.

And I used to trust God. Because God has a plan. And God works miracles.

But I trusted God. And I trusted his miracles. And death won anyway. And my faith lost against cancer.

I am in the midst of the biggest depressive episode of my life since I was hospitalized at 15. Which is fairly normal, given the circumstances. But every day is a fight, and so far I am winning, and yet I still feel like a loser. Because people ask me what I do, and I don't know what to tell them.

I don't know how to make money. I don't know how to feel better. I don't know what that thing is going to be that gives me purpose. I always put love in that space, I guess. And now I have it and it's not enough. And when I am married, I will have a lot of time by myself. And I don't know what I'm going to do with it.

And if you tell me to decorate more cakes I am going to snap.

I don't really want to talk about it. But I am continually discouraged by people assuming all is well when I feel like I am drowning.

I love music. But nobody is going to pay me to sing fall out boy in my bedroom. And I love travel. But nobody is going to pay me to go on road trips. I am a flighty, fickle, artistic person. And I feel trapped in a world that measures my worth quantitatively, by the tangible. But I'm not tangible. I am a great mess of feeling and confusion. And maybe this is what it means to be almost 21. Maybe this is what it means to be me. But I am exhausted and discouraged and I have no answers, only fear.

7/24/2015

I am so fatigued, I don't know how to put it into words. I feel like I'm living a dishonest life. I try to deal with so many surface issues. And then they are gone. And I'm still unhappy. So i focus on the next one. But fundamentally i still struggle. Because fundamentally there is something wrong. I don't think i'm good enough. I don't like myself.

I try really hard. And i can say a lot of true things. I truly believe my body is beautiful and valuable just as it is. I also know that i am funny, that i'm a good singer, that i have a way with words, and makeup. But all of those things pale in comparison to the fears that tower over them. The fear. That I'm not good enough, and never will be. That people don't actually like me but are very polite. That people have a better time when i'm not there or talk shit or don't miss me the way that i miss them.

It permeates every relationship i have. Even with dan, lately i am asking him every few minutes if he's upset at me. Because he's sleepy or quiet or i'm just feeling sensitive. And if he were upset with me, it would shatter me.

People get upset sometimes. And people certainly get upset when they are being pestered about their state of mind. And it wouldn't mean he loves me any less. It would just be a feeling, but i can't handle it. Sometimes i get bitter because i feel like i'm always the one apologizing. In reality we always talk things through and meet in the middle. But it is true that the second he or anyone on earth is unhappy with me or in anyway related to me, I am falling over myself to apologize because i want to fix it. I am SUCH a big believer in bandaids, you guys. I have stock in the emotional bandaid business, and I'm set to make a fortune.

If I'm not apologizing, I'm trying to make people laugh. I am funny. I have a sense, I feel the energy of a room in a tangible way, and i can feel their interest wax and wane, and i feel the exact moment to strike, the exact pace at which to tell a story. I started telling a story at work once, and as soon as I started she was smiling, and I felt that timer start and I could feel that i only had 30 seconds to finish that story and have her enjoy it. And I didn't get nervous, but I had to make a conscious effort in that moment to cut and drag pieces of my story so i could tell it just right. Maybe everyone has that sense, I have no idea. I'm not trying to win the special snowflake olympics. I'm just trying to say, I am incredibly good at being funny and engaging. It is a gift of mine. And i abuse the hell out of it.

It's great being able to make people laugh and have a good time. But i use it as a mask, like, 100% of the time. Or, maybe mask is the wrong word. I use it as a crutch. If everyone is laughing, I am okay. I am valuable and I am appreciated and I am worthwhile and people like me.

If you're new at making friends, I highly reccomend being funny and engaging. It's a great way to enhance interactions and make friends with people. It's what I did, but somehow my social skills basically grew in that direction. Exclusively. And it's so great as a socially awkward teen to feel that sense that those people are on your side, that you made them laugh. It's so reassuring, it's almost addictive. And that's the problem I have now. I am a people pleaser, and I want to please the people endlessly. I don't think there's anything wrong with joking as much as I do or close to it, but I don't think I do it for the right reasons.

In between those times of laughter and feeling like everything is okay, I often wrestle with a lot of feelings internally. I'm not good enough, I shouldn't have cut that person off. I didn't mean to... Especially right after something got away from me. I got riled up about something and it stopped being funny, because I was showing too much emotion, or because I was being mean.

Some of the wrestling is not even with words but with feelings. That anxious doom cloud that sometimes hangs around no matter how much fun I'm having and makes the line between mental illness and social fear become so blurry. Some of the feelings do have words, or images. I tell a joke, or I tell a story that I thought was interesting, and I notice that maybe i have told too many stories that day because the interest is more polite than genuine, and so I think profoundly about my darkest temptations, or I just think about and feel that gloomy doom cloud for a while.

I try to listen while others are talking, and normally it comes easily. I genuinely care about what people have to say, and how they feel, and what they think. But I care so much about what they think of me that sometimes I barge in with a story or I am always responding and not giving anyone else any room. I want to share and be validated because I need external affirmation to function.

There comes a point at any party where I start to withdraw, and there are people who think this makes me an introvert, but i'm not sick of people. The thoughts in my head are getting too loud and too frequent and I'm sick of lying. I would love to engage in a real way, but I have this funny mask on and it's only fun for me for so long. But I can't stop it, so I want to leave the interaction. An introvert would crave solitude, but all I want is Dan. Because I can stop with him. And I can tell him I've been super anxious all day and I said this thing and it was so embarrassing, or I almost cried, or whatever i need to get off my chest. And he tells me I was fine and sometimes i believe him.

I don't know if i would love to sit down over a sandwich and tell a friend how i feel lonely and inadequate and want to hurt myself. But i would love for them to care, and i guess i'm afraid that they don't. And i'm afraid that i don't know how to interact that way. I can listen to people and give them pompous empty advice so i feel valuable in the interaction. But i dismiss my own emotions and to have a friend look at me with concern instead of amusement is horrifying. I want it and yet it would confirm in my mind that i am weak.

I am so willing to share about past experiences and even some current experiences, but only as long as i can share my words from on high with the wisdom of my great age and experience, to help others and tell them to be more open. Not to be vulnerable myself.

For ALL have sinned

I have something to tell you all. I have tried to keep the boat from rocking but I'm drowning and I can't do this anymore. Every time I think about the fact that I haven't done this yet, I feel like I am suffocating, and it's killing me.


I am not heterosexual. Full stop.

I am equally attracted to men and women.

I am also a Christian.


I have bent myself into every shape you can imagine over very many years in denial, trying to make who I am sync up with what other people told me my faith had to look like. The standard, as far as I was told, is that experiencing attraction itself is sin, and also SOOOO GROSS and wouldn't it be weird if one of us liked girls???

So I was faced with a choice. Either I was a good Christian who was going to heaven who had a lot of intrusive thoughts but totally didn't like girls at all, or i was one of the rampaging homosexuals who was going to lead this country to hell in a handbasket.

It took me so long to come to terms with myself.

No one taught me a third option. No one said there's a way to look at yourself truly, not squinting between your open fingers in fear, and not embrace every piece. A way to say, that girl is fine, and I am not going to think about her any further.

I feel I was dealt a double-blow growing up in the church. I was bi, and I was sexual. And as a girl, the Lust Talk was not for me. I was once given a very gentle warning about The Dangers Of Erotica, but most of the time we talked about high school musical or something. The boys talked about porn and how to avoid it and what it means to you. The girls talked about boys.

I don't think I was the only 15 year old girl in my church who had a sex drive, but I certainly felt like it. Mix that together with people saying in what they felt was a safe space things about how gay people are so gross and need to die, and you may begin to see why there was a little closet in my soul that was boarded up, day by day, every time I went to church.

But I grew. And I learned. And I researched. And I realized that women are allowed to want and enjoy sex. That it's okay for me to not think masturbation is sinful. That I really did like girls, and I really did love God, and I had to look at both of those things in daylight and figure out what they meant to each other. I couldn't live two lives. I couldn't put God in the closet while I thought about girls, only to act like it was this sudden deviation that never happened before or since.

The issue I have come across the most in my heart is whether or not homosexual desire is itself sinful. And I have a concise, well thought out answer for that.


I'm just kidding. You should know me better than that.


I'm still sort of searching about that. I've wanted to share this for months, but held off because I don't have easy answers. I've come to realize I may never have them. But here's what I do know. A pornhub search for James Deen is not a less sinful search than one for Sasha Grey (If you know who either of those people are, you are just as much of a dirty dirty sinner as me. I'll pray for you.). Lust is lust. Me being attracted to women is no less sinful than you getting white girl wasted at your stupid christian college. Me being bisexual is no more damaging and misses the mark of perfection no more than my lifelong battle with food and self-image.


Sin means to miss the mark. It means that God hit a bulls-eye and I am somewhere off in the weeds. I am off in the weeds in every way! If only you knew. This is just one of my many ways, yet for some reason people like to act like it makes me less valuable,  one of "those people".


I am dating a wonderful, Godly, supportive man. I love him intensely. I am going to marry the crap out of him, and we are going to procreate. I don't think my attraction to women is going anywhere, but I am going to live the life, at least as far as anyone can see, of a heterosexual, God-fearing woman, in a fruitful marriage as the good lord intended. So if you're outraged at my very existence, please understand that I do the best I can, my plans for my life happen to coincide with how you think I should live, and there's not much more than you can ask for. If you desire perfection from me, I will turn right back and ask it of you. Neither of us will ever measure up. Thank God for grace.






OK. So now the weight has been lifted, but I'm not done. I have something else to share.

I have been in your churches all my life. When you spewed bile about "THE GAYS", I heard every word, and every one made a mark on my heart. I have forgiven you, but the scars are still there. I have given you grace as God gave me grace and as I am asking you to give me now.

But I'm sure I wasn't the only not-straight kid in the room. And I might be the only forgiving one. And I might be the only bisexual christian who was fortunate enough to find a soulmate of the opposite sex, relatively early in life. It has been an impossibly hard journey for me, and yet compared to others I know, it has been a walk in the park.

It's a sticky issue. It has been for me. And when I imagine what it would be like to not be attracted to men at all, and grow up in that environment, it hurts my heart. I can't imagine what it would have done to me to be condemned all the time, to have no one talking about a middle ground between heterosexual perfection and homosexual trash.

If you gain nothing from this, I pray that you guard your tongues. I pray more than anything that your hearts become tender to people who are not like you, because your anger doesn't help. Your condemnation is not novel. It is one of a thousand words of pain and hate in an endless pile on some poor kid's back.

Sin is sin. But grace is grace. And grace can cover my sexuality, and it can cover your alcoholism, and it can cover her divorce, and it can cover my road rage. By putting one sin on a pedestal and throwing stones at THOSE PEOPLE, you are doing so much more damage than you realize. Because the effigy of a deviant that you are talking about with such anger might not feel it. But the quiet kid in the room hears you, and knows they are not welcome.

I wish you could see the damage this can cause. I wish I could show you the scars on my heart, but maybe you should look at the scars on my arm instead. I think that if you were to take some time and actually cross the metaphorical tracks, and have an actual conversation with someone who is gay, you would learn a lot. I think you would be surprised by their humanity. I think you would find that they, like you, are just doing their best to navigate this world.

I'm not interested in fighting. I never am. I don't have all the right answers. I never do. But in light of the recent SCOTUS decision, I had to speak up. I have been here for years, listening, suffocating, pretending to understand why you hate THOSE PEOPLE so much. If I were to condense everything I am trying to say into a neat couple of sentences, they would be these:

I am bisexual, and I am here. I love Jesus, and he forgives me for all my sin - sexual and otherwirse. You have hurt me, and I forgive you. Please have compassion in the future. I love you. I hope this doesn't change your love for me.

Response Paper: Deviance

This is my favorite paper that I wrote in college. I wrote it for my sociology class, and after taking the final, my teacher stopped me and told me that this paper was one of the funniest things he's ever read, and that he and his wife read it over and over with tears in their eyes. He said "You're a great writer. Genuinely." Not to oversell myself, but that was a very encouraging experience for me and it's why I care to share a random piece of writing from several years ago. I still think the conclusion is weak, but I wasn't trying very hard to write this, I just had a minimum page requirement to meet. So the fact that it was so well received was even more thrilling.

I am a goody-two-shoes. There's a part of me that feels very rebellious, but the rest of me knows better. My “rebellion” extends to listening to 90's punk bands and thinking about doing things. If I break a rule, it's because I think that a) I have a good reason to, and/or b) I won't upset an authority figure. I have always been that kid. I feel that if I get less than the highest possible grade on any assignment I have personally failed my teachers. They are authority figures, I did something bad, and I should feel bad. I also feel incapable of being deviant. If I have no respect for someone in authority, I will argue with and possibly disobey them, but that is the exception to who I am. I am not deviant. I have difficulty believing that a car can move without my seatbelt being buckled. It's kind of a strange kink of who I am. I will talk about doing rebellious things, but unless I am given the green light by someone in authority, I will rarely do those things. My kind of thrilling deviancy is walking on the grass. You aren't supposed to do that, you know.

When I got this assignment, I actually gasped. Out loud. I would never dream of taking anyone's seat, and I knew that I was having ankle surgery during the time we would be working on these papers, which complicates tall building escapades. This left me with imagining it, or using my hands to eat something. I chose the latter. I found it so devilishly exciting, because I am so profoundly vanilla. It is worth noting that I hate having things on my hands. I love me some french fries, but eating them means rubbing my fingers on my jeans to get the salt off. It drives me crazy. When I was very young I would tentatively play in the mud, and then run inside, frowning, to my mom, hold my hands out, say “dirty!”, and wait for her to clean them. All this added to my excitement to eat something with my hands. Most people don't do that, you know.

The night before I had talked to my sister about my plans, “I'm going to eat pancakes or something with my HANDS! Isn't that crazy?” as I grinned and told her of my planned deviancy, I started to realize how silly it was to get worked up about eating with my hands. How silly it is that someone my age considers syrupy fingers deviant and exciting.

So Easter Sunday, post-surgery, I wheeled into an IHOP with some devilish smirk on my face. Everyone was looking at me, because I was in a wheelchair. Some people kept looking as I very excitedly discussed Portal 2. But slowly, most of them started to look away, onto their own breakfasts or a child making noise. After our food arrived, I almost immediately had to explain myself to my breakfast date. I am completely transparent when I'm up to something. “Ok! So, I....nevermind.” I wanted to keep it a secret and get his response, but of course I suck at that. Some skeptical prodding led to me finally admitting that I had to be deviant for a class and was going to eat my french toast with my hands and wasn't that so crazy? The official response from my companion was a laugh and an eye roll. I tore my french toast into small pieces and dipped them into syrup. The whipped cream and berries caused me wide eyes and giggles because I had to directly touch things that were “messy”. Again, I received smirks from the other side of the table.

We continued talking as we ate, and I tried to surreptitiously observe anyone's reactions to me. Before I did this experiment, I assumed that everyone in the entire world would stare at me. Because who does something so crazy? Eating with your hands. Ridiculous. I looked around for evidence of that, and found the woman seated at the booth next to our table was giving me a disgusted look. Because I have poor impulse control, I loudly and immediately said, “I think that chick hates me.” in order to freak her out and/or make her stop looking. However, further investigation proved that that was just her face, and she was probably looking at me because I kept looking at her.

At the time, our server also seemed a little off-put by my shenanigans. However, looking back on it, I think I was just projecting my own feelings of doing something strange and being afraid of people confronting me.

Other than the wheelchair, I did one other thing that got me many more strange looks than eating without utensils. I stared out the window for a couple of minutes. People started to glare at me. No one was even sitting where I was looking. Why they cared about this, and not my attempt to be deviant, I will never know.

I had expected this assignment to be a great lesson in human behavior, and why innocuous things are considered deviant. For example, there is no law enforcing silverware use, but it is extremely strange for an adult to eat many food items with their hands. I was quite surprised that no one cared, but I think that had a lot to do with the fact that out at an IHOP on Easter Sunday, everyone had bigger things on their mind. Another thing that is frowned upon in society is staring at people who are behaving oddly, and so it is possible that some people noticed and discussed my behavior, but were just stealthy about it. I think that this would have turned out to be a little bit more enlightening if I hadn't told people beforehand that I would be doing this. But in my defense, I assumed everyone on earth would care, judge, and give me things to write about. I was also super excited about being “bad”, if only for an hour or so.

Despite the lack of response by my my fellow restaurant patrons, I did find this very eye-opening. Talking in elevators and eating without “proper” utensils are not inherently bad. They aren't wrong. They're just different. This means that the fact that my sister's boyfriend eats pizza with a knife and fork isn't bad, just different. I think it's weird. But why? It can be a messy food. I have just been socialized differently, and that isn't bad. Another implication of this assignment that I found was that I have no reason to not do some things. So why not talk to cashiers, or change seats? Being deviant is not always the same as being “bad”. If I'm not breaking any laws or moral code, then it is only my self-conscious, goody-two-shoes attitude that is stopping me from walking on grass and climbing trees and having adventures. Because when you are that strange way that I am, adventures can be found in things like french toast.