Songs That Remind Me of You

A few weeks ago, I ran the Crescent City Classic 10k in 55 minutes. That's not exactly Kenyan time, but in my mind, I ran like fucking Maurice Greene.* It was one of the proudest moments of my life and true vindication for my adolescence as the asthmatic fat kid. And even though I've been a runner since I was 19, I owe much of my recent success to the Pub Running Club.

The club serves as my weekly opportunity to impersonate a sleek, graceful gazelle – sprinting and darting around downtown pedestrians with the herd. And then, at every mile, I take a shot. The shots feed my violent alcoholism and the club itself feeds my ego. I run seven days a week, but the Running Club lets me show off. I've been getting faster and faster and didn't think anyone noticed until another runner said something.

Guy In My Running Club: "How the shit did you get your pace down to 7.2 minutes?!"
Me: "Well, I'm listening to a playlist of like 30 songs that remind me of people I've dated. It gives me something to run away from."
[Pause.]
Guy: "I really like your shoes, man."

I weirded him out, but I wasn't joking. One of the first things I did after setting up my Spotify account last November was create a Songs That Remind Me of You playlist. Because it combines my two favorite things: romanticized memories about people that I used to like and now fucking detest and fun mixtapes. The playlist walks the line between sentimental testament to my love life and self-mutilation, but I love it and I listen to it all the time – especially when I'm running.

Linger – The Cranberries

Wonderwall – Oasis

Somewhere Only We Know – Keane

Come Pick Me Up – Ryan Adams

Nothing Left To Lose – Mat Kearney

Listen – Beyonce

Naive Orleans – Anberlin

I Wanna Dance With Somebody – Whitney Houston

When You're Gone – Avril Lavigne

A-Punk – Vampire Weekend

At The Stars – Better Than Ezra

Lolli Lolli – Three 6 Mafia

I Love My Bitch – Busta Rhymes

At Last – Etta James

Crush – David Archuleta

The Promise – Tracy Chapman

Sullivan Street – Counting Crows 

I Heard Love Is Blind – Amy Winehouse

My Friends Over You – New Found Glory

Hey, Soul Sister – Train

Bulletproof – La Roux

Mine – Taylor Swift

Whatever It Is – Zac Brown Band

Collide – Rachael Yamagata

Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not – Thompson Square

Xxxo – M.I.A.

I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend – Discovery

Crown On The Ground – Sleigh Bells

Tongue Tied – Grouplove 

True Affection – The Blow

Cosmic Love – Florence + The Machine

Don't Stop (Color On The Wall) – Foster The People

The tracks are listed chronologically, beginning with my first girlfriend. But in terms of being inclusive, the playlist is slim. That isn't to say that only legitimate boyfriends and girlfriends are honored. Quite the contrary. I Heard Love Is Blind  reminds me of a trick who looked exactly like another guy I was dating at the time (See Why I'm Awesome/An Asshole). And Don't Stop (Color On The Wall) is a recent addition thanks to a peachy fellow named Walker from Athens, Georgia.

Also, some of the songs carry more weight than others. Linger was literally playing in the background when I lost my virginity, while Lolli Lolli was McBougie's ringtone when we met back in 2008. Come Pick Me Up was on the radio when my first boyfriend dropped me off after our last fight, and I'll always remember laying by the pool and listening to Collide the day that Wit's End moved back to Houston.

So why even create something like this? Because sometimes I feel like a callous prick when it comes to dealing with [most] of my exes, and this keeps me in check. It's kind of hard to feel like a badass when a David Archuleta song can make you flustered and semi.

But I'll just run with it.

*In 2000, my dad hung a poster in our garage from the 1999 World Championships in Athletics that featured Maurice Greene, Marion Jones, and some other black guy. And it still hangs there today. Which is why I can easily pull Greene's name out of my ass and appear interesting and well-versed on historical American athletics. Psych ya.

A Beginner's Guide to Prospect Rejection Protocol

Everyone needs something to believe in. And I believe in keeping my options open.

And with that responsibility, I have to be realistic about how my spreadaround attention is going to come back to me. Which forces me to be open to things just not working out. Having more than one prospect in rotation is an art mastered by such great leaders as Ryan Gosling. But even "The Goss" knows that having many irons in the fire leads to scorched fingers. So one must develop a system for handling burns.

In fact, I have my own protocol for dealing with prospect rejection. I call it my Prospect Rejection Protocol. And it goes a little something like this: 

Prospect Rejection Protocol (PRP)

When a guy that I'm casually talking to ends things with me, the first thing I do is turn red and lose my breathe for a second. I then give my head a quick shake and acknowledge that I am both red and short of breath. Then I close my eyes and say to myself, "It's ok. You've been getting too comfortable anyway." And then I respond with something vague and/or passive aggressive. Finally, I move on. It sounds bleak in back and white, but it's proven to be the most effective way for me to deal with getting brushed off. 

Here's PRP in action:

1. Get dumped. Turn red. Possibly faint. 

2. Shake it out. Breathe. 

3. Say something like, "It's cool" or "Sweet. I'm banging your friends now!"

4. On to the next one.

PRP is an advanced procedure for individuals who have dealt with sticky, heartbreaking, and life-altering break-ups. It's for the jaded and the bitter and the awesomely badass. It's for those who've built up a thick skin and aren't afraid of change. And If you're like me, it's for those who have trouble keeping all of your appendages eggs in one basket. And if you fall into any of these categories, some might call you:

A. A player
B. A C-Unit

or
C. Optimistic, but open to things just not working out

But being a player requires organization and grace – neither with which I was blessed. And although I might play the part of an icy bitch on TV, I'm generally sensitive when it comes to managing affection.

I'm just kidding. I'm a mean, obnoxious, pain in the dick boots. 

Also, I just discovered the cross-out tool, so I'll be using lots of that in the future.

Grindr 'Til You Findr

I tried my damnedest to put this elegantly, but I can't. So here it is:

When I was out of town a few weeks ago, I downloaded Grindr. And then hilarity ensued. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with Grindr, Google it. Because I don't have the language to explain it. I would would inevitably make it seem like something it's not. Plus, I'd just end up sounding like A.) a desperate pincushion of a man-tramp or B.) a hypocritical closet ho. There's no option C. because horny and fake are pretty much the only pigeonholes for me to fall into here and I'm already dealing with both labels (I'm horny and fake if you didn't catch that). 

The mark of the beast.

For those of you on my level, please congratulate yourselves. You're just as gross as me. High-five. 

Like most users, I have weird love-hate relationship with Grindr. In fact, I was Grindr-free from last November until my recent foreign excursion. It’s not that I’m too good to use it while I’m at home in Lafayette. It’s that I’m WAYYY [with three Ys] too FUCKING [and then the F word] good to use it while I’m at home in Lafayette. 

I’m not a very ostentatious person, but when it comes to certain things (like getting a haircut at the mall or eating at The Golden Corral Buffet), I have a limit of what I’m willing to put myself through – Grinding in my city of residence being one of them. There’s too much potential for something dicey to happen. But as you’ve probably figured out by now, my abstinence from The Daily Grind is suspended when I cross state or country lines. Which serves as the backdrop to my last trip to San Antonio. 

The trip itself was pretty phenomenal and yielded the following stand-out Grindr moments:

1. My friends and I got lost on our way to a Mexican restaurant, so I asked a dude on Grindr for help with directions. You know. Because he’s a local. Turns out, the little bastard led us further from our destination and then asked me if I was free to hang out later. Some people’s children, right?
2. It’s night No. 2 and my brain is practically floating in High Life. I’d been talking to a certain guy throughout the day, and I have zero intention of anything actually happening. But I’ve just given away my location, and luckily for me, he’s right across the street at another bar. So on my way to the car, I message him back and say, “Hey, run outside and I’ll catch you on our way to the hotel.” I intentionally used the phrase “catch you” because I wanted to leave things open-ended depending on what he looked like in person. “Catch you” could either mean wave to you from a moving vehicle or physically drag you back home with me because you were so incredibly good-looking that I could not live without you. And as we slowly careered to a stop in front of his bar, I saw him walk out onto the sidewalk. And that’s when I screeched, “Gun it!” and frantically waved out the window. The last message I received from him read: “I told you the wrong bar. Have you left yet?”
3. I’d started talking to a guy within the first few hours of my arrival, and continued the conversation for the following three days. On the fourth morning, I was sitting at a table with three of my friends, enjoying the delicious waffle sandwiches with which the Hampton Inn had provided the instruments to create, and this guy walks up to the table. I look up. He looks at me. And he says, "Ryan? My name's C.J. It's nice to finally meet you in person." And then, I felt like I was going to have diarrhea. The two girls at the table looked absolutely bewildered, and the other gay guys were visibly fighting the urge to explode. I, on the other had, was mortified. So I stood up, shook his hand, and walked him away from the table and down the hall. We made plans to hang out in the evening, which I regrettably had to break a few hours later, and I hugged him goodbye. Then we meandered in separate directions and I never saw C.J. again. Upon my return to the table, I was met with looks of confusion and hysteria. So I did the sensible thing and shoved half of my waffle sandwich into my mouth to buy a few more seconds before anyone could ask questions.

I hadn’t been to San Antonio since 2008 when The Dean took me to the wedding of some graduate school colleagues. I was ready to make this city my bitch again, one trick at a time. And with Grindr in hand, I made my way through the most audacious and annoying state in the union. This was a great plan and it probably would've worked if I hadn't been shithoused the entire time. To clarify: even though my Grindr self-restrictions had been disbanded, I never did a single sexual anything the entire trip.

Let's see M. Night Shimmynomanom write a twist ending like that.

Damn Irish I Was Your Lover

If you see what I look like or talk to me for five minutes, you'll notice that I'm a textbook Irish-American 'mo with one missing component. Let's take a look and see if we can get to the bottom of this:

Reckless decision-making skills. Check.
Family history of alcoholism. Check.

History of alcoholism. Check.

Endurance for relentless pestilence. Check.

Red hair, fair skin, & freckles. Check, check, check.

Ability to repress emotion. Nope. None of that. 

Mmmmm. Pasty.

By the grace of God, I was created without the capacity to keep any sign of human sentiment off of my face or out of my mouth. To say that I "wear my heart on my sleeve," or that I'm "an open book" is a laughable understatement. I'm too starved for attention to keep things bottled up. My point being that sometimes I'm less like an Irish man and more like a Jewish woman.

Self-repression also helps with one's ability to keep a secret – which I cannot. I annually find the opportunity to blurt out what I bought everyone for Christmas while I'm carrying bags up the stairs. Saturday, I ran into an exboyfriend at Patty in the Park, Lafayette's St. Patrick's Day celebration, and was practically sprinting home to tell everyone about what happened. In short, I mistook him for a full-blown lesbian (thanks to the Tilda Swinton haircut and studded woman's t-shirt) then drunkenly stammered through small talk while trying to understand what I was looking at. The whole episode was a fuckmess and ended with a mortifying case of word vomit when I mentioned seeing his other exboyfriend that very morning (See Jewish Woman Syndrome). Fortunately, I can't remember specifics of our discussion because I'd broken my Lenten alcohol fast and was completely shithoused.

The worst part about having free-flowing emotions is dealing with the uncontainable eruptions that can take over – regardless of where I am or who's around. And as the double-edged sword of emotional autonomy works, I burst into tears on my walk home from Patty. It might have been the case of High Life, but seeing my ex made my belly hurt. I wasn't prepared to run into him and I felt betrayed that he'd lost a little weight  since I'd seen him last. So I did the sensible thing for a 23-year-old, hormonal gay to do: call his mama. 

My mom's an amazing person, but she's nearly broken from having three kids that refuse to let her be happy. On the plus side, this makes her undaunted by most things – like phone calls from her oldest son about his gay insecurities. Her maiden name is O'Reilly and she lives up to it by being an emotional cinder block. Unlike myself, she's a virtual locksmith of feelings – the ideal person to verbally bitch slap sense into me. And after an hour of her idioms that nearly always revolve around how temporary everything is, I stop sobbing and start cleaning up the living room. 

In the interest of peace of mind, I accept my Irish inheritance of flammable skin, sky-high alcohol tolerance, and Nathan Lane's emotional threshold. It's sexy for a guy to want to talk everything out. And fortunately, you never have to guess what I'm thinking. In fact, I've got a blog where I say every hostile, passive aggressive thing that crosses my mind.

My Walk of Shame Hall of Fame

I don't know about you, but for me, Sunday morning is the most wonderful time of the week. You overeat at brunch, get shitfaced to cope with your hangover, and best of all, you get to make new friends. Like the ones who you wake up next to.

And to top it all off, there's exercise! That brisk, staggered strut to your car where you smile to yourself and text your bestie to let him know that you won. If walking in shame were an Olympic sport, I'd be a gold medalist. But what I really want to compete in is WoS apparel. I live by the rule that one can never walk in shame if he or she is wearing cowboy boots. I also believe in other nonsensical rules that allow me get away with wearing dumb shit to Blue Dog Cafe on Sunday. And here are the top four worst/best of my WoS moments caught on film:

4. Leaving an exboyfriend's apartment the morning after a P. Diddy party, circa 2008. Notice the unhealthy bleached hair and self-loathing. I'm pissed that I spent the night with my actual boyfriend. How's that even fun?
What I was going for: Country Club Escort.

$4.99 French Market shades, child's size 18 Ralph Lauren polo, J. Crew shorts, sweater, bleached hair to match shorts.

3. The morning after I spent the night with a guy who's last name is Dudley, but who's first name I can't remember. This is the ensemble I threw on before hopping in the car and getting FourLoco hammered with Nick and Joey at 9:00AM.
What I was going for: Samantha Ronson Meets A Gay Jack-O-Lantern.

Wayfarers, tank top, infinity scarf, cut-off shorts, Nick Rodriguez, FourLoco.

2. I bailed on the trick in my best friend's apartment so that I could go to Shoney's breakfast buffet and abuse my body even further. From 2006-2009, this is an outfit that I would deem appropriate for any outing, including church or class.
What I was going for: General Studies Major.

Camouflage Ragin' Cajuns hat, African American Culture Committee t-shirt, modified Hollister sweat pants, glittery women's flip flops from an exboyfriend.

1. November 1, 2010: The Day After Halloween. With eyeliner still caked on, I grabbed half of my costume off of the floor and headed out the door. Some friends and I were late for a pool part at John's house and apparently my goal was to hijack the spotlight. This picture represents my favorite Walk of Shame moment because of how much shame isn't evident. You see, I was dressed as Ke$ha for Halloween (wig and all), and was still able to find a new friend that my mom would never meet. I groggily put this outfit together in front of him while he was still waking up and couldn't have been more proud of myself. No shame, no gain.
What I was going for: Rihanna Goes to Rehab.

Blue wayfarers that I borrowed from Joey, assorted necklaces from Charming Charlie and Hot Topic, modified shirt from Hot Topic, and my little brother's skinny jeans.

Hear Me Out

Contrary to many gay stereotypes, I generally love my body. In fact, here a list of the top 5 things that I'm thankful for:

1. My skin
2. My frame and build
3. The way my facial features are arranged
4. My inability to grow body hair
5. My butt

Don't get me wrong, I've got wild insecurities – like my weight and my silly, feminine arms – but I'm pretty much on board with the hypothetical concept of having sex with myself based on my appearance. 

What worries me, though, is that the one thing that I would change about my physical presence is the one thing that I can't change. Because if there’s one thing that I hate about myself, it’s my voice. I cannot stand to hear the sound of it. When I speak, I sound like a young, female chihuahua. In person, it’s bad. But on the telephone or on tape, I sound like Kim Cattrall with a mouth full of balls.

In terms of anatomy, my tongue is too big for my mouth – not lengthwise, but widthwise. So it's harder for me to execute most fricatives and dental sounds. Plus I'm a big 'mo, so that doesn't help anything. Long ago, I'd forsaken my heirloom Westbank accent for a gay one. I'm not particularly observant, but even at a very young age, I recognized that gay men spoke with an authority that sounded worldly and educated, whereas the people that I grew up around in Gretna, Louisiana spoke like Gambit from X-Men. So I jumped ship, which meant annunciating "-er" and being conscious about not running words together. I learned to transition from "Imma beet cha'ass," into "I'm going to beat your asssstttt." I saw it as a different kind of tribute to my New Orleans heritage – less Marrero and more Mid-City. 

You would think that someone who runs out of the room screaming when he hears a 1992 home movie of himself singing “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid would hate his voice in all forms, but I don’t. I’m actually a really loud and mean person, and when I get Kwanzaa drunk, I ruin everyone’s night with my talking. My booze confidence makes me believe that I sound like Alec Fucking Baldwin. And everyone needs to hear how melodious I sound. So I sing, and I rant, and relentlessly hit on strange men. That last one is the worst, because watching a grown man mistake his shrill, annoying voice with something that's sultry and alluring can be like watching a penguin try to fly. It's sad because it's true.

But I accept the fact that my voice is grating and forces people out of windows. I can't change it. I also want to go back in time and save Aaliyah from getting on that plane – but it's not going to happen. Like voice augmentation, it's a pipe dream. So I'll just have to rely on other physical characteristics to trick guys into dating me.

I mean, who needs a personality when you've got kissable, pasty skin like this?

Dear John

I would love to write a long, thoughtful narrative about John Fournier and how he became one of my closest friends, but I can't. Because John Fournier reads this shit. And he will make relentless fun of me for romanticizing our story. Because he's exactly like me – an asshole.

So instead, I'll write about the early milestones in our friendship and chalk it up as a deposition for why I needed to instill all of my bad habits and great ambitions into another human. So here I go.

In the beginning, I was just a graduate student who was starting his first and only semester of work on a Master of Science degree. But on my first day of student-teaching, I walked into my Communication 330 class and saw him sitting in the front row. And when he looked up at me, I knew that I was in trouble.

John was my student for that entire semester before our relationship drifted into bedroom territory. To be fair, though, we were never fully naked together because he refused to take off his socks when it went down – an act that secretly earned him points for originality. I can speak for him now and confidently say that neither one of us ever enjoyed it. It felt forced and hasty, and eventually just became an after effect of buddy binge drinking. But the sex was minimal and seemed like a simple vehicle for us to hang out more. And eventually, it went away, and became something for us to hold against one another when we were hard-up for ammo.

Over time, we discovered that we had almost everything in common, and I declared to my coven of gays that I would "take John Fournier under my wing." I saw a lot of potential in him to be a remarkable copywriter and I wanted him to do great things and follow my lead. Instead, John picked up all of my bad habits and became my soundboard for perpetuating dumb choices. He learned to drink vodka on the rocks and I learned to always keep an extra trick on standby.

John introduced me to a stocky, blonde SAE pledge on the back porch of The Keg one night in early September. He'd recently hooked up with this gorgeous, steamy pile of fratboy, and this was his way of showing off. But at that point in our relationship, John still had a lot to learn about me. Because I slipped the guy my number when John went to piss. And I banged him seven days later.

When John confronted me about it, I fessed up and he left me on my bar stool, shithoused and frustrated. So I did the rational thing: scribbled a note on a bar napkin, forced it into John's hand, and walked away. The note said,

"I'm sorry if I made you think that I was anything but interested in you. The last thing I want you to think is that I don't seriously like talking to you. Have a good night. Be safe. Xoxo. –Ryan"

To this day, he still teases me about the napkin – and rightly so. When I look back on it, it was my desperate attempt to cover my breech of The Bro Code with a Freddie Prinze, Jr. move. But thankfully, he Rachael Leigh Cooked, and stuck around.

He is no longer my project, but my best friend. And if I could choose anyone to mine the dark side with, it would be John Fournier. Because he was able to do something for me that I could never do for him.

He knocked my socks off.