Go Get 'Em, Champ.

I’ve never seen a girl eat nachos like Amber Champion.

She’s sitting across from me at a bar on Magazine Street. The place with the beer tap fountain in the courtyard and the fat girl in floral print short shorts on the bar stool. Amber and I are on our second pitcher of Purple Haze and our first and only order of $18 nachos with everything on them. I’ve excused myself to the restroom three times now because I don’t want her to know that I’m texting. Actually, I’m not really texting at all. I’m hastily jotting down notes from our conversation. I’m feeling the grip of my beloved beer buzz, so I want to get this all down while I’m still lucid. Plus, I’m trying to be polite by not texting in front of her. She’s eating nachos like it’s the end of days and we’re talking and it would be rude of me to put my phone between us. And that’s when I realize that I’ve never done this before.

The first time I met her, I thought she was lying to me. Amber Champion isn’t a real name I told her. It’s a stripper’s name. And it might actually be the fakest-sounding stripper’s name of all time. But she was able to convince me without ever pulling out her ID. She can convince anyone of anything. One of her many talents.

Amber wipes her lips with a napkin and tussles her mane of perfect, auburn hair. We’re discussing the reasons why anyone would be nice to their ex — a topic of which I’m a motherfucking sensei. I slap my hands on the table when I tell her that one of my exes would call me when he [rightfully] suspected that his new boyfriend was cheating on him. He would ask me to come over and he would cry and we would have sex and then I would leave and check on him later to see how he was feeling. Other times, he would call me when he was having trouble with his marketing homework. And I would drop what I was doing and write his entire marketing report from thin air. And that was my mistake. Because he didn’t care. When I would leave his apartment, he would immediately go back to screwing his other exes and saying weird, passive aggressive things to me whenever I saw him out. And no one went off to live in Narnia. And he’ll always be an ass. And being a good friend to him will never change that.

Now I’m all wound up and my face is redder than usual. I shotgun my beer and pour myself another, which I drink half of. Amber’s thinking. She says that if her exboyfriend called her and needed something, she’d still be there for him. Because he’s a person. And you should be there for people. Because they’re people. And it’s just that easy.

I want to tell her that what she’s describing is a rabbit hole, but I can’t. She’s gone through the ringer and come out on the other side of a long, painstaking relationship to say nice things like that. But who the fuck am I to correct her? She’s probably right. Maybe it’s just that easy.

The thing about Amber is that I don’t have to look hard to see the best in her. She inspires me to care more about the people in my life. And even though she’s sitting across from me with her cheeks full of tortilla chips and cheese, she’s still one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen in person. And it’s impossible not to feel good when I’m around her. And if there’s one thing I want to tell her, it’s this:

I don’t know what to say when you hold up two dresses and ask me to choose. Because I’m always going to pick the sluttier one. Because that’s the one I would wear if I were you. Because a sluttier dress improves your chances of getting layed. And how else are you going to know if someone likes you unless they’re having sex with you? I have no idea what women want and you’re making me feel like I’m not being a very good gay when you put me in this position.

I'd say this and she'd smile. And that's all I'd need from her.

A. Champ & a champ.

32 Gay Things That Give Me Anxiety

24. Kelly Clarkson's pot roast arms

1. Being asked by a girl to go shopping with her
2. Any sort of "pride event" where I might run into someone I know
3. Southern Decadence Festival
4. The Logo network and its programming
5. The pressure to buy designer underwear
6. Foam parties
7. That vulgar "p-word" for female genitals. The genitals give me anxiety as well, but strangely not as much as someone saying the "p-word" in company
8. Pray The Gay Away camps
9. The reality that one day Oprah will die
10. Memoirs
11. Cooking demonstrations
12. Second tier opinion leading status behind Japanese girls
13. Halloween
14. Being asked if I like the musical Rent
15. The gym
16. Scarves
17. The way that all drag queens are bossy and rude
18. Drag bingo
19. Drag anything
20. RuPaul's three decades of fame
21. The pressure to have an opinion on Chik-fil-A
22. Tank top tan lines [or severe burns in my case]
23. Manscaping
24. Kelly Clarkson's giant pot roast arms and her relentless mission to show them off with sleeveless JC Penney tops
25. Christina Aguilera's questionable taste [in everything]
26. Debra Messing's career
27. Chaz Bono
28. Chit chat before/after tricking
29. Diet pills
30. Tying a bow tie
31. Butt stuff
32. Bieber Fever

Instagramming My Way To Hell

I'm no Tammy Trendsetter, but when it comes to certain things, I'm way ahead of the curve. And when I say "certain," I mean oddly specific. Movie posters for instance. As of three minutes ago, I've seen every international one sheet that's been created for a current or upcoming major motion picture. Boom.

I'm also creepily into singles that are destined for future ubiquity ("No Lie" by 2 Chainz will be a summer 2012 anthem), and impending women's fashion trends (keep an eye out for batshit Louboutin shoes this fall).

That's all you, Viola Davis.

However, I do feel extremely 2000-and-late on the whole Instagramdemic. I fought it and fought it until I finally gave in and drank the Tool-Aid. Even though I knew I was far behind, I embraced it with the fire of a Alabama book burnin'.

If you're not familiar, Instagram is an app that allows you capture images and then add filters and effects before sharing them with your friends, followers, and contacts. Simple, yes. Prudent, not exactly. The thing about Instagram is that the rules for censorship aren't as tight defined as Facebook. I've actually seen someone's ladybusiness (tastefully overlaid with a Kelvin filter and a water drop), but still.

Shortly after witnessing full-on underpants hamster, I felt myself begin to loosen up about what I posted. And although I wasn't sharing shots of m'junk, I posted things that a FB audience might deem inappropriate. And for the sake of credibility, here are my last three Instagrams.

Caption: "My glass calls it likes he sees it."

Caption: "Possible side effects."

Caption: "Conquered & claimed."

My point: I don't always fairly represent myself. I looked back after testing the lax boundaries and "intimate" audience of Instagram and didn't see any pictures of me holding puppies or teaching dyslexic kids how to read without fucking up. Just me, booze, and home incarceration ankle bracelets. If you only knew me through Instagram, you might assume that was just some drunk trollop; running around town like a cat in heat.

I was going to close this out with a smart quip about "not seeing the whole picture," but I decided that I would be lying to you. That's me. It's all me. In really classy filters that highlight my best features. So instead, I'm going to close with the most valuable takeaway from this whole thing: Ladybusiness.

*Drops mic. Walks away.*

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.