Everything Is Awful Read online

  Luckily, just as hope seemed all but lost and I’d kissed all of my prized belongings away, including, most important, my stack of laminated résumés and, less important, my six-year-old laptop computer, a man on the platform—the man with the clipboard no less, at whom I’d scoffed minutes earlier—noticed my bag, and my wildly frightened face in the window, and he started waving his arms wildly at the conductor, and another person closer to the front of the train started waving their arms, and together they managed to get his attention. And just as the train was getting ready to lurch forward, it calmed to a halt and the doors opened.

  I’m already prone to sweating, but I’m especially prone to sweating in humid summer heat, and I’m especially prone to sweating when I just got pinned against a train door. When I was in high school, I’d apply two coats of clinical-strength deodorant every morning before school and two again after gym class, and every morning, I’d wear an extra T-shirt underneath my clothes as a sort of buffer cloth to catch the excess moisture. There’s a paradox in a buffer sweat shirt, considering that the extra sweat-catching layer adds another piece of cloth to trap heat, but I did what had to be done to minimize the amount of visible leakage.

  When I finally made it downtown, took a bus, and got off at the stop closest to the law school, some four blocks away from the building I was interviewing in, I walked through the humid Chicago heat in blaring sunlight. By the time I reached the building, I’d already sweat through the entirety of my buffer shirt and it was starting to leak through the outer layers. I flicked some water on my face from a water fountain on the first floor and stood with my legs and arms spread apart for a few minutes in an attempt to will away as much of the moisture as I could. But I was already running late.

  And to make matters even fucking worse, there was no elevator and the office was on the fourth fucking floor. That’s the thing about these old university buildings. They tell you, “Oh, we’re such a great university, we’ve been teaching law to smart-asses since 1851, but also, our buildings were built before elevators existed so have fun walking up three thousand steps in the blistering heat because also air conditioners didn’t exist when this building was built either.”

  When I made it up those four flights of stairs, my legs were shaking, my chest was heaving, and my body was spraying sweat clear across the room every time I turned my head. Call it a combination of nerves, stress, and utter weakness, but I was having some kind of attack, possibly of the heart variety or more likely the panic variety, and it wasn’t pretty.

  Jackie, the head of the department I was interviewing for, found me leaning against the wall trying to catch my breath, and offered me a towel—not just a tissue, but a towel—and I said, “No thank you, I brought my own towel,” and eventually we went into her office, and I sat in front of a fan, and everything went just wonderfully after that.

  I got the job, obviously—Jackie was no idiot—but I did have to walk up those stairs every morning, and it took a full two months before my entire body stopped convulsing after the entire process. Although the actual office wasn’t any better than the staircase. The only air-conditioning in the reception room where I worked was a spitting window unit that took approximately seventeen hours to start breathing. My first week, there was a wasp nest outside the window, so we couldn’t even open it for relief. And somehow, the wasps would find their way in, and obviously, because I was the biggest and youngest and manliest (i.e., the only man), it was my responsibility to kill them.

  But I worked in that shitty jungle office for three entire summers. And it wasn’t in a basement. And there were no goddamn customers. So I’d say I’d moved sufficiently far up in life.

  ON MY TROUBLED HISTORY WITH FASHION

  I have no idea what to wear. And I don’t mean right now, because right now I’m wearing gym shorts, socks, and a T-shirt, and I’m perfectly comfortable with rocking this whole look, but eventually, I’m gonna have to get out of bed, and I’ll have to put on something that is generally acceptable to wear in public. And I have no idea what to wear.

  Everybody expects gays to have a sense of style, but I blame the ladies on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the preppy couple from Glee for that one. Thanks to them, society expects me to flawlessly execute a fitted blazer, bow tie, suspenders, skinny pants, and a thong at any given moment, and I can barely put on two of the same socks in the morning, let alone an on-theme ensemble.

  For one, being fat kinda hinders one’s ability to pull off a good look. And yes, I know, there’s a whole bunch of blogs for plus-sized fashion for women and men, and they all say I just have to close my eyes and believe in myself and also maybe wear vertical stripes, but the truth is, when the mannequin at J. Crew has a rippling six-pack, it’s kinda hard to muster the confidence to rock the same getup.

  Walking into a dressing room always goes a little something like this:

  I enter, confident, with an armful of button-down shirts and blue jeans. I take off my current clothes and pile them in a heap in the corner. I start with a shirt, because that should be the easy thing to do, and also I don’t have to take off my undershirt for this and can spare myself my own grotesque reflection, but of course, I can only button the first few buttons before things start to strain and I can hear the tiny sweatshop children who sewed these seams together start to cry. I give up on the entire pile of shirts, because if one doesn’t fit, they all probably don’t fit, and nothing matters anymore. I start putting on a pair of pants in the same size I bought my last pants in only a few months earlier, but my bulbous calves barely fit past the part that should hold my entire thigh. I’m hopping on one foot and grasping at the curtains, because that’s what dressing rooms are these days, curtains instead of walls so you have nothing solid to hold on to when you need to lean against something and cry. At this point, I’m stuck inside the pants, my entire leg is sweating from ankle to crotch, my back is dripping, and my glasses are falling from my face. I can hear the sales associate shuffling uncomfortably on the other side of the curtain, because that’s the thing about curtains instead of doors, they don’t really muffle your screams, especially since they always leave a gap sizable enough for a little girl standing nearby to witness you bouncing haplessly in your underwear. “Is everything OK in there?” the sales associate is asking. “Do you need any help?” Which is not a question you want someone asking when you’re trying on pants. “NO, I GOT IT,” I shout back at her. “YOUR CLOTHES ARE JUST THE DEVIL.” And then I finally break free, ripping the pants at the seam and coughing as loud as I can to cover the sound of the fabric tearing in distress. When I finally open the curtain and step outside, back in the potato sack I walked in wearing, I look like I’ve just taken a shower, and the sales associate asks if I’d like to sit down for a minute and drink a bottle of water, or perhaps dab myself with a beach towel. I politely decline, and before they have a chance to convince me that I didn’t try squeezing hard enough, I run out of the store, knocking down a stack of T-shirts on the way out.

  It should go without saying that none of this is hypothetical. Which is why I not only avoid dressing rooms, but avoid purchasing new clothes altogether.

  Besides, when you’re a little chunky, and you’ve always been a little chunky, you tend not to fall in love with any one item of clothing, because chances are, you won’t fit into it in a few months anyway. (Except, of course, shoes, although there are those moments in life when you discover you’ve somehow gotten too fat for those, too, and you’ll want to die more than ever. I mean, really? How much weight do you have to gain to get too fat for your shoes?)

  Worst of all, clothes are expensive as fuck. Especially good clothes that are flattering and look nice and don’t immediately fall apart the second you put them on. Why spend eighty dollars on a quality shirt when that same money could buy four and a half chicken-alfredo dinners with a side of garlic knots from the Olive Garden? Looking like shit is just economical.

  All the same, there comes a time in every youn
g gay’s life when he must contend with the clothes on his back, and I’ve made my choices. I’ve finally settled on a uniform of plaid button-downs, blue jeans, and sneakers—a simple outfit that looks like I’ve put in at least minimal effort without having to think about it. But it took years to perfect this image, and plenty of trial and error (mostly error) to get the perfect look. I present to you: fashion through the ages, or my troubled history with clothing.

  THE ATHLETICA AGE: Like all homosexual children, I was a victim of circumstances, and by circumstances, I mean my parents’ terrible choices. Dissatisfied to wallow in their own shoulder-padded misery alone, they imprisoned me in all manner of sports-themed onesies, overalls, and jumpers, full of baseballs, footballs, and tennis rackets, striped to look like a referee or, God forbid, an actual athlete, all before I could even walk or speak. I don’t mean to overexaggerate, but this, plain and simple, was textbook heterosexual indoctrination, and I blame it for everything wrong in my childhood, including the brief stint I spent in basketball camp, where I was forced to learn such propaganda terms as “free throw,” “layup,” and “dribble.” Even worse, almost every portrait of me from the first year of my life is staged with an actual, real-life football that they made me touch, cuddle, and smile beside. It was horrifying.

  And I know some of you are thinking, “THEY’RE BABY CLOTHES! THEY’RE CUTE! WHAT DO YOU WANT INSTEAD? GENDERLESS PILLOW SACKS WITH LIMB HOLES?” And the answer is yes. I would prefer genderless pillow sacks with limb holes. Perhaps babies of the future will be spared the indignity of having to look back and see their infant selves cradling sports equipment.

  THE PINK AGE: When I was old enough to dress myself, my favorite item of clothing became a bright pink T-shirt, which the manlier members of my family considered suspicious. This was the nineties, after all, when liking pink things as a young boy was still considered a misdemeanor in most states. But I loved pink—all the best things in life were pink: Kirby the Nintendo blob, bubble gum, donut frosting, piggy banks, cotton candy, and the only flavor of Starburst that actually matters. That shirt represented my entire worldview before society tore me down.

  Of course, that shirt soon got buried beneath the piles and piles of hand-me-downs my mother transferred from my brother’s closet to mine. We were a frugal family, and my parents never wasted an opportunity to save a penny, especially if it meant embarrassing my brother or me. Case in point: on more than one occasion, my mother forced me to snatch a piece of old furniture from a neighbor’s garbage. We’d be driving home from school and she’d spot some old desk or flea-ridden armchair and demand that I run out and grab it. “You’re the one who wants it,” I’d yell. “You get it!” But I was small and weak, and she was the boss, and inevitably, I’d be pilfering from the trash while she kept the getaway car running two driveways ahead. The same general philosophy applied to clothes: you get what you get, especially if it comes from the trash. And sure, maybe it wasn’t from the literal trash, maybe it was just from my brother’s collection of old shit, but still. My brother was always taller and ganglier than me, so I spent most of my grade-school years in chunky sweaters and loose jeans that were always just a bit off, constantly reminded that clothing was something that wore me, rather than the other way around.

  THE AMERICANA AGE: One day, when I was finally becoming old enough to care, my mother came home with a sackful of T-shirts she’d found on sale at Kohl’s and plopped them on the kitchen table. Kohl’s being Kohl’s, they’d cost only a couple of dollars each, and she bought every design they had on the shelf, nearly twenty in total, which would last me the entire year. Yes, this is all well and good, and children in starving countries would be blessed to have parents who brought them home sackfuls of T-shirts they’d bought on sale from Kohl’s. But here’s the thing. This particular sale happened to be in honor of the Fourth of July, so every shirt in my mother’s bountiful Kohl’s sack was a deep shade of either red, white, or blue, all with gaudy American decals on the front—a majestic eagle, an American flag, or some other horrific flourish. And sure, this was midwestern suburbia, where patriotism was plentiful. But there’s a limit to the amount of Americana a thirteen-year-old can display in public before it starts to look like he’s on some type of special government scholarship that requires a constant display of fealty to the state. Fortunately, with puberty’s ascendance, my sweat glands went into overdrive and nearly disintegrated all the armpits. So the joke, really, was on Kohl’s and their cheap T-shirts.

  THE CARGO JORTS AGE: I remain convinced that cargo shorts are one of the least flattering, most unbearable items of clothing ever invented. I mean, surely there are better places to keep your fish hooks and tackle gear than a lower thigh pocket. Like a fishing box. Or a garbage can. The point is, cargo shorts are basically just the straight man’s response to purses. Women carry everything they need in a purse, but because masculinity says your penis is too small if you carry your stuff in a bag, some man in medieval times was like, “How about we just build purses right onto these shorts?” And now we have cargo shorts. And the world is terrible because of them.

  Of course, I didn’t know this until I found the light some years later in life. And so, I spent most of my high school years on the wrong side of history, wearing cargo shorts almost daily. And not just any cargo shorts. Jean cargo shorts. Cargo jorts. And what did I keep in them? Definitely not my dignity.

  I’m proud to say those cargo jorts have been burned alongside everything I ever attempted to buy from Abercrombie & Fitch. I hope they’re burning in hell.

  THE RALPH LAUREN AGE: When I started college, I still had little idea of what constituted acceptable fashion, but at the age of eighteen—far later than some of my more astute, non-cargo-jort-wearing classmates—I finally started to realize that clothes weren’t just functional. In fact, clothes were the opposite of functional. They existed only to make you uncomfortable and to signal to the world that you had money or taste, or that you cared enough to make people think you had either. Oblivious to fashion beyond what I saw directly before me, I did the best I could and mimicked college bro culture: I replaced all of my T-shirts with Ralph Lauren polos, my cargo jorts with pocketless khaki shorts, and my raggedy sneakers with boat shoes. I’m not proud of this time in my life. Mostly because it was the first time I had to take full ownership and responsibility for what I put on my body. Honestly, if I had come across me in 2008, I would’ve happily drowned myself in a lake and left the boat shoes to drift away as a symbol of the sins I committed that year. It was a dark time.

  THE PURPLE UNDERWEAR AGE: When I finally came out in my later college years, I hadn’t brought any fashion knowledge out with me. But I was determined to show my pride in my own little way. I was interning in Chicago, and on my lunch break, I would wander over to Macy’s and browse the underwear aisle, finally deciding to buy a flashy pair of purple undies with white trim that cost me something like fifty dollars because for some reason, something that grazes your butthole all day costs an entire fifty dollars when it’s a fancy color. But I was a newly minted gay, and owning a pair of purple underwear felt like an appropriate first step toward my new life as a homosexual. Of course, the underwear didn’t come close to fitting my enormous thighs; it was like trying to fit a rubber band around a pork roast. But still, that underwear represented my new foray into the fashion world, one where I made choices for me, even if they cut off all circulation to my lower extremities.

  THE PLAID AGE: You would think I’d feel pressure, living in New York City, to care more about my fashion choices, but honestly, I feel like I’m doing everybody here a favor. How else would you spot the GQ models of the world if you didn’t have a mangy schlub like me to compare them to? You’re welcome, David Beckham. Without me, nobody would know how hot and well dressed you are. And I’m perfectly fine with that. Because I don’t really have to look at me.

  That being said, I have finally landed on what I consider a basic daily costume, a look that’s normally
reserved for divorced dads but somehow works for me. It’s comforting not to think about what I wear every day. All I have to do is pick a shirt from the pile on the ground and hope that the Starbucks barista doesn’t notice the multiple yogurt stains on the front before I return to my apartment, take the shirt off, and toss it back onto the pile. It’s a system that works. And it only took me three decades to figure out.

  ON BEING IN THE CLOSET, OR WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR STRAIGHT BEST FRIEND

  I discovered I was gay like most young boys in America: by dry-heaving through the men’s underwear aisle at JCPenney. That’s right, conservatives. Capitalism made me gay. If the ad executives at Hanes weren’t so worried about selling insecure guys tighty whities by modeling them on oiled, headless hunks, then maybe I’d be married to someone named Beth right now and we’d have two and a half children in Bible school and also Mitt Romney would be president. But you just had to go and show my impressionable, pubescent brain ten-foot-tall posters of bare abs and vague, shapeless bulges, and now I’m a full-blown homosexual who reads the New Yorker and drinks iced green tea. You have nobody but yourselves to blame. Though, to be fair, it was the nineties, and men’s underwear back then covered the belly button and most of the nipple. But the important thing here is that my brain took the signal and raised the rainbow flags.