Slowly Going Bald

A Conversation With My Roommate, Who Also Attended ACU, After Watching Accepted
Me: I wish I'd gone to South Harmon.
Him: I think we kinda did.

I will be in Texas between Dec. 21 and Jan. 2. If you're a resident of the Lone Star State and you want to get in touch with me to hang out or to buy me a drink (or if you just want me, you know, like that), leave a comment or email me by clicking on the link on the top of the right-hand column. For the lazy or easily confused, it's danielwcarlson (at) gmail (dot) com.

Sis: i was telling co-workers about our pancake diner
they think it's cool
and that we should open it here
but i said the chances of getting you to come back to abilene are slim
me: tell them the chances of me moving to abilene are slim to none, and none just punched slim in the nuts
me: if i won the lottery and my wife heidi klum wanted to move to abilene just so we could have sex beneath the tower of light during watermelons at GSP pledging — i would probably not go
Sis: hahahahaha
holy crap
so that's settled then
it'll be in cali
or austin
me: austin works
just not abilene
Sis: right
me: if my wife kristen bell wanted to move to abilene so she could wear a sandwich-board everyday that said "i will bear all of dan carlson's children, for his love is my sustenance and his body my joy," and if i was given a job as president of acu and allowed to turn the admin building into a house/fort/waterslide — i would probably not go

Sis: Grandy's: It's soul food, not heart food.
Grandy's: While clogging your arteries, it unclogs your soul.
me: are you making new slogans for grandy's?
Sis: haha, a co-worker did. i'm just really full
me: man, i haven't eaten there in years
since school
Sis: yeah, me neither
me: all i can remember is cinnamon rolls
Sis: it was empty
yeah
me: "grandy's: the tastiest way to kill yourself"
Sis: nice one
me: "grandy's: when you stop trying"
"grandy's: fried chicken won't judge you like she does"
Sis: hahahaha

It seems that many, if not most, of my youth group memories involve a trip of some kind, usually to one of the weeklong summer camps that are so prevalent throughout the South and Midwest. They're often held on the campuses of Christian colleges/universities, presumably because even a secular campus can have corrosive effects on the spiritual development of impressionable teenagers, but the location is often secondary to the fact that anywhere you put young men and women together and lecture them about moral propriety as the girls idly pick at the frayed hems of their summer shorts and the boys stare at the girls' legs and try not to fall over dead in wonder — well, the situation takes on a life of its own.

My youth group attended several camps each summer, but the main attraction was a camp in a tiny town in Nebraska, which took a usually brutal 15-hour ride in one of those big white Ford passenger vans to reach. (Regular readers of this feature will remember that this series actually started with my fuzzy memories of one of my youth group colleagues regaling a small group of us guys with the sketchy details of the brief fellatio he'd received on the van, but since apparently he was lying a little back then or my memory was way off [and it's probably a combination of the two], I should here point out that no one went down on anyone, at least on that particular trip up to Nebraska. Besides, the logistics are mind-boggling; those benches are close together.) But though the van trips were often fun, they were mostly filled with dead time, and we usually entertained ourselves by playing cards, reading, or listening to music.

One summer toward the end of my time in the youth group, the youth minister, operating under the same kind of misguided hypocrisy that had previously led him to swear off R-rated movies but continue to view them on his own, declared that while we the teens would still be allowed to bring our personal CD players on the trip¹, we would be prohibited from listening to any artists that weren't Christian. I had a big problem with this, as the only Christian artist I enjoyed at that time was Caedmon's Call, since they had the honesty to sing about doubt and boredom. But at 17, I was a painfully big fan of Dave Matthews Band, and the thought of sitting in a van for 15 hours without being able to listen to "Rapunzel" whenever I wanted to was intolerable. The youth minister even checked our luggage as we set off on the trip. I'd like to believe that the vague anti-authoritarian stance and general dickheadedness, as well as a desire to flaunt this man's stupid rules, that defined my personality at that age meant that I managed to sneak a wallet or two of my secular, hellbound music onto the van, and I really think that's a possibility. But the truth is I don't even remember.

The youth intern was responsible for enforcing the rules, too; he was a frenetic, almost jolly kid of 21 who had already gotten on the youth minister's bad side by (a) befriending me, since the youth minister didn't like me all that much, and (b) organizing the night when some of us TP'd the youth minister's house and scattered pickle chunks in his garden, the smell of which did not sit well with his pregnant and occasionally bitchy wife. The intern inspected one young girl's music and told her that the James Taylor CD she was packing was unacceptable; when he refused to yield, the girl complained to the youth minister, who then told the intern that the JT was fine. "I don't care if it's not Christian, I just don't want the loud stuff," he told the intern. That guy. You know? Just ... man.

The camps themselves were sweaty, confusing affairs built around spending a week in a group of 25 or so kids, most of whom were from other churches or other states, so you could experience all your emotional growth and breakdowns in front of total strangers. The Nebraska camp had a lot of ups and downs, especially when it came to sex. Most teens are already boiling in their own confusion when it comes to relationships — or at any rate, the guys are — but church camp adds another level of guilt by adding the fate of your immortal soul to the mix; touch that girl, and you could be lost forever. So of course, in an environment that scolds its young for expressing the frightening changes they're going through, you wind up playing a lot of sexually charged (for kids, at least) games, the most notorious of which was Kiss and Tackle. Everyone stands in a circle and is assigned either a number or letter by gender, and the ensuing game is a mashup of Duck Duck Goose that gives kids an excuse to run around after each other and attempt to kiss someone. This is intimidating for any geek worth his salt at age 15, but against the women of Grapevine it could be downright terrifying. It was as if every horrible dream you never admitted to yourself you had was being acted out before you in a grassy field in the Nebraska sun, and was condoned by grownups.

That's what the camps were: A heady amalgamation of sexual wonderings and spiritual longing, where genuine change went hand in hand with the desire to score, or at least get some NCMO. Getting the non-commitment makeout, a mugging session with no strings attached, was the holy grail of these trips; my roommate got some all the time, so I guess wearing those Rollerblades everywhere really worked for him. One year, returning from camp, riding in a Suburban that had been brought for luggage, I held forth on the girl with whom I'd crossed the magical Rubicon, a brunette with long hair and a nice smile from somewhere I can't remember. My NCMO story was total bullshit, since all I'd done was hold her hand and walk her back to her dorm, but I felt somehow obliged to confess something big, as if we'd been busted by the youth ministers while she was giving me a lapdance or something. I don't even remember her name now, or what she looked like, just the shape of her shadow on the concrete. Those camps were something else.

<sup>1. Ah, life before the iPod.
2. She was a classic '90s Kojie: Kind of hot, wicked mean streak.</sup>

• There won't be a cute girl sitting next to you on the flight. Either of them. But really, is that so bad? Would you really have done anything? You're better off sitting next to an empty chair or the guy in his 40s who keeps pulling out a journal-ish looking book and writing in it. It's just easier.

• Houston afternoons are impossibly muggy, weighed down by the kind of oppressive heat that rubs your face raw like a pillow and ruins your clothes. And yes, the high heels would suck, as well as the constant makeup and having to live slightly underweight in order to be appreciated by an increasingly skewed society, but women also get to wear skirts to things like weddings, and I can only imagine the holy wonder of having a breeze constantly blowing up your legs and keeping you a little cooler. I'd put up with a stomach-restraining magic elastic waistband for the sheer joy of feeling air circulate around my thighs.

• Houston is the biggest city in Texas. That's probably the only redeeming thing to be said about it, and even that trait doesn't get you very far. I spent 72 hours in the city and saw nothing aside from endless acres of car dealerships, strip malls, and franchises, franchises, franchises. It's like Starbucks and Chili's got together and had a hellacious orgy and spewed their little baby restaurants across the coastal plain. I'm not saying there's nothing interesting in Houston, just that I covered a lot of ground and didn't see it.

• Going home to the place you used to live is always weird; what you once took for granted becomes foreign and surprising. The abundance of quality and affordable Mexican food, for instance. A lunch that would have run me $11-$12 in L.A. was $7.50 in Houston, and that's a wonderful thing to keep rediscovering on successive trips. Of course, it also works the other way: I'm always floored by the amount of pickups on the road and the sheer open space of everything.

• Seriously, Houston is hot.

• It's also always inherently weird to travel from a place where marriage is viewed as a risky option to be entered into cautiously to a place and culture where it's much more encouraged, especially among younger people, especially especially especially among younger people who grew up in some kind of church. Being 25 and single in L.A. makes you pretty much a normal face in the crowd; in some parts of Texas it makes you stand out. And it also makes your grandmother wonder if you're gay. Marriage is a good thing, but it's disorienting to pass from one realm into another with nothing but a plane ride. I think you should have to have a passport, or at least sit through an obligatory briefing on board your aircraft, before entering Texas or California. Just as a reminder.

• But there's a funny thing about that heat. In early summer, Texas nights are as warm as Los Angeles days, which makes for another in the long line of geographical disconnects, but Texas summer nights are damn beautiful things. The heat's burned off but the air is still warm, and while SoCal nights can be chilly or downright cold near the ocean, Texas midnights under the bruised but smog-free sky are never anything short of transcendant, with the countryside opening up and actual stars coming out for a few hours and everything generally feeling full of the possibilities that only punch-drunk twentysomethings can feel when the moon's out, and which will be clumsily erased by morning. Texas summer nights are easily one of the best things about the place, along with Rudy's Barbecue and the lack of a state sales tax. An old buddy of mine used to call it lawn time; grabbing some lawn time at dusk or late night is key to keeping your wits about you in Texas, to remembering that there are good things there that not even the heat and the humidity and the rednecks can take away. If you can make it through the day, the night is always waiting, and it is always worth it.

RozieD sent this my way. It's a disturbing glimpse into a frightening but all too real side of Texas. Enjoy, if you can:

Sis: there was a body found in a field here. the big country is falling apart

me: ...whoa

wow

murder?

suicide?

Sis: i have no idea

just a body

me: wow

"just a body"

were any fingers missing or anything?

Sis: haha, i don't know

[...]

brb

Sis: back

me: did you go out to see the body?

Sis: haha, no

i moved my car

me: ah

did avoid seeing the body because you're actually the killer?

it's ok. you can tell me

Sis: ...

me: ...crap, sarah

not again

not the murders AGAIN

Sis: :-/

me: way to let down mom and dad

and the state of texas correctional system

Sis: sorry

me: ah well

just don't do it again

now go out and play, you rascal

Sis: ok!

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