Green Candy Apples

Day five? I’m not sure if this will be my most passionate blog – we won our rewards challenge this morning and all we’re doing now is playing karaoke on PS2. There were, however, some dynamic sentences today (assuming that this contest is a chapter in my life). Everything started cool today – the remaining six were getting along as best we can considering the consistent tension of “ok so we’re all living within feet from one another for who knows how long, so we should get along and have deep conversations, but maybe next week I’ll stab you in the back?” It is an extremely new feeling for me and I’m sure everyone else in the house. Like a culmination of the most extreme emotions from all separate points of the spectrum. Impossible to describe.
Perhaps comparable to going on a dream vacation with the love of your life, but knowing at the end of the vacation, you had to part ways because maybe you wanted to pursue your dreams of becoming a starving artist in Europe, and your significant other had to go to a third world country to fulfill their calling to build houses for the homeless.
Or maybe a better analogy would be like, Last Student Standing is Russian roulette with candy apples – we’re just enjoying the sprinkles and caramel, but sooner or later, one of us will bite into toothpaste-flavored shrapnel. I don’t know.
On the morning rush I cleared up some points about my blog/late night explanation to my roommates. It’s interesting to think about how large of a component this transition is to my life, and yet how much I still struggle to explain to people what it entails. Of course, whether or not someone understands, it all boils down to respect and tolerance. I’ve been shown a good amount of each – which I’m grateful for, but there have also been some moments where I feel expendable.
Kids who don’t yet understand can use me as a scapegoat for maybe their personal struggles, and as a tool to get their friends to laugh – so maybe they can be accepted. There is nothing I can do about it but stare at them from behind the glass walls and maybe fiddle with the pool table and distract myself, shaking everything off with a laugh. I can feel my self-control grow. If you’ve seen the new Hulk movie – I’m him trying to control my heart. And I’m green because I see the other guys in the house and even though everyone’s been through struggles, I feel as though I’m just taking off from the starting line with everyone else getting a head start. I’m trying to catch up, and win this competition. (Essentially defending my masculinity and play roulette with fruits?)
Anyways, Jilted John was welcomed into the house today. He is quite the character. I was at least content to find how open he was to our craziness (asking inappropriate questions, etc). And I decided in order to spare myself embarrassment, and salvage a trust, to explain to him about my transition. He was surprised, which I took as a compliment, but open to it just like everyone else in the house. It is 2008 after all.
So we have a lot of new things going on in the house and I’m not exactly sure how things will unfold with him around. For now I’m singing some Sting, going platinum.