Despertar

you left a cigarette on my nightstand

1. Tell me a song that you're ashamed to say you like?
"Queen Bitch," David Bowie. Ashamed not because of the song itself, but because I only like it because of the Milk trailer. I am always acutely self-conscious about finding my music in the "wrong" places. (See "Blue Ridge Mountains," from the Fleet Foxes' Saturday Night Live appearance.)

2. Okay, you don't look so good, what's on your mind?
I left the freezer ajar overnight and all the ice cream melted all over everything. My roommate, who had nothing to do with it and probably doesn't even know we own a freezer, kindly ran to the drugstore for emergency paper towels, not even an hour after I accused him of removing the lint collector from the dryer and inexplicably setting it down by the kitchen sink (which he denied, but which I know he did, because I never ever think to take that thing out for cleaning). And now I'm worried I'll get sick when I eat this shrimp stir fry that was in the afflicted freezer.

3. That's nice, now, what's REALLY on your mind?
About a zillion more important things I don't have the strength to deal with, or list, right now.

4. Tell me about that guy/girl(s) you like?
Six foot three, solid build, smarter than he looks, smarter than he sounds. (He stutters sometimes.) Fabulous sense of humor, fantastically unpretentious. His arms are his best below-the-neck physical feature. Above the neck, it's his eyes, which are very dark and turn down at the outer edges. Excellent in bed and getting better all the time, but he could be a better kisser.

5. Why do you like them? And be real this time.
In my Jessica Rabbit voice: "He makes me laugh." It's true!

6. Time to be true to yourself, are you REALLY over your ex?
In principle, yes, but I guess if I had really exorcised all traces of him by now, I wouldn't mind so much when he acts like a jackass anymore. At this point, because I've taken back some of the power in our relationship by not ostensibly caring about him anymore, I think the reason I keep hanging onto it is because I like talking to him without feeling I really have to talk to him. I like pretending to feel indifferent.

7. What did you REALLY go home thinking after he/she spoke to you last time?
We haven't spoken spoken in a few months, at least, since the night before I had to go to the emergency room the last time. In fact, I was on the phone with him when my jaw got stuck. I remember driving home in a Valium-induced haze thinking, I bet he is cosmically responsible for this. But that's silly. I don't believe in the cosmos.

8. Okay, be honest, are you attracted to people younger than you?
Romantically? No. No matter how old I am, I always think people younger than me are idiots. Except Tina. And I don't mean that negatively, I just mean, every new thing I learn, it strikes me how much I was missing before I learned it.

9. Cool, how about people who are older than you?
I mean, that's the only group left, right? And men who are a few years older than me, such as twenty-six-year-olds, are rarely, like, way more mature than I am, anyway.

10. Alright, ever had a crush on a teacher?
Before I got into boys, i.e. the Marcus era, I always had a crush on a teacher, at every age, at every school. Generally it was the teacher who hated me most for one reason or another. I never had one of those sniveling teacher's-pet relationships people go on about.

11. Which time of your life would you NEVER live again, and be honest?
Assuming I couldn't do anything differently the second time, I wouldn't willingly do any of it over. I like where I am now, right this minute, better than I have consistently liked any other period in my life. I certainly wouldn't redo college, which seems to be the most popular answer.

12. Do you ever wish that you had never met the guy/girl(s) you dated?
I wish that all the time about Marcus. I would be a completely different person now if I had never met him.

13. Honestly, have you ever thought about dating the opposite sex?
I just realized this survey is targeted toward gay teenagers. So I'll just be reversing the genders in the next few questions. And, yes, I have thought about same-sex dating, but only fleetingly, under the influence of one of my closest friends, who was dating a girl at the time. It was curiosity more than actual interest. Didn't last.

14. Boys, ever thought about doing anal? Girls, ever thought about giving BJs?
Now I'm confused.

15. Do you really know the difference between Satan and Santa?
Again, confused. As far as I know, they are two completely different imaginary entities: one representing evil and depravity; the other, generosity and the holiday spirit. Also, supposedly Satan is gay (one criterion by which we can recognize him in his second coming), and Santa is in a heterosexual marriage.

16. Are you REALLY as good of a Christian as your parents say you are?
My parents don't say I am. They aren't stupid. I try not to hurt my mom by denouncing religion completely, because making her feel like a failure is not worth standing up for my nonbeliefs, but I don't fake it well, either. What results is pretty obvious half-assing, and she despairs of me for it. She doesn't know where she went wrong, et cetera. And that's when I am trying. So I wouldn't not try. It would send her.

17. Really now, have you ever dabbled in The Craft?
I'm not sure how anyone could logically reject Christianity, or any other organized mainstream religion, but believe in witchcraft.

18. Like any oldies bands that people would laugh at you for liking?
Era is never a consideration when I start liking bands. If people are laughing at me for mostly liking older music, I must be tuning them out.

19. Honestly, now, what do you REALLY think about your body?
Right now, I love it. I weigh one-seventeen, right now, and I'm stopping here. I don't think I need to gain or lose anything else, and except for my thighs, with which Stacy London says I need to just form a detente, I like all the parts individually. Ask again in a week, when I've fallen off my routine of drinking a bottled water every two hours, and I'll probably tell you I'm fat and hippy and that I hate my life. But right now, it's good.

20. Have you ever dumped a girl or by, even though they just adored you?
Yes. Chris. And it wasn't "even though" he adored me, it was because he adored me so much, I felt suffocated. And undeserving. He never let me advertise myself to him; he was hooked from the start. That sucked.

21. Any stars you'd change your sexuality for?
No. People always say that about Angelina Jolie, but I wouldn't want to be in a lesbian relationship with Angelina Jolie. If anything, I'd go transgender and be her boyfriend.

22. Name those stars, please.
Why would you think I hadn't already done that?

23. Ever start listening to a band because all the kids talked about them?
If I hear the name thrown around a lot, I'll usually look into it just out of curiosity. But rarely do I actually find a good artist on the recommendations of others.

24. Ever bought something because somebody told you to?
Sure, probably a lot of somethings. I bought my fall coat because Tina said it looked good. I should have later bought a winter coat, but I'm still wearing the fall coat, because Tina said it looked good. I'm always cold.

25. Be honest, are you dressing the way you are because of others?
I dress the way I do specifically so that no one can criticize what I'm wearing. I have no hope of ever being the most fashion forward person in any group, but I know how to accentuate my best features, and I do so without drawing a lot of attention.

26. What stupid thing are you REALLY looking forward to?
Going to Boston this summer. More on that later.

27. Get jealous when people talk about hanging and don't invite you?
That doesn't happen much after high school. If people I like are talking about hanging out with present, I am generally implicitly invited. If I'm not invited, I assume they wait and talk about it once I'm gone. That kind of silliness of purposely trying to make someone feel excluded is kid stuff.

28. Are you REALLY satisfied with watching TV on a Friday night?
More than satisfied, my survival depends on my Friday night routine. I'm a night owl, anyway, so the night usually only gets better after What Not to Wear.

29. Be with ten guys who all didn't know each other, or girls?
Socially, you mean? Both scenarios are stomach-turningly awkward. Though the ten guys would be more likely to start talking sports, in which case my presence would be forgotten and I could just pretend to be someplace else, anyway.

30. Ever had a chance with a guy/girl that was sweet, but missed it?
Chris is the only one who springs to mind. I don't notice the eligibility of most guys outside my (very narrow) radar.

31. Do you REALLY mind your parents' rules?
They don't apply on a regular basis anymore, but I don't like the rule that says I have to behave like a high schooler any time I spend the night at my parents' house. Regardless of the fact that I can pretty much do whatever I want most of the time, that being one of the perks of living away from home, my dad goes psycho whenever I come home for a weekend, and starts insisting on ridiculous things, like that I call every hour if I'm going to be out past eleven.

32. Tell me the name of a boy/girl you like, but are too scared to ask out.
You must not have been reading carefully.

33. Speaking of which, are you afraid of rejection?
Yes. It hurts terribly.

34. What's an instrument you wish you rocked at?
I wish I had stuck with the violin. String ensembles take my breath away. I couldn't deal with it because of the positioning, the crazy way you have to hold the bow and the way the violin felt against my collarbone. I kick myself for that all the time.

I have to stop here. The rest of the questions are silly and my mom's coming by this afternoon, which means I am about to enter a cleaning frenzy.