Popingay

Bonjour Bitches: The gayest cowboy since Brokeback Mountain

Being born and raised in a city whose main source of pride is the annual largest rodeo in the world, you can say that being a cowboy is in my blood. If by being a cowboy you mean putting on a pink cowboy hat, getting wasted, and making out with guys. I am determined to bring more gay to cowboys than the release of Brokeback Mountain.

Which is why, when our Montreal school-sanctioned activity for the evening promised a trip to Rodeo Rock’n’Bull, I felt compelled to go there and defend my cowboy honour. Only hours before I had another one of my, I suppose you could say, “episodes”. Thankfully I wouldn’t be alone in defending my redneck roots as the all-fabulous Kaitlin in my program hailed from Northern Alberta, and was further into redneck territory than I could ever go. She’s the Patsy Montana to my Dolly Parton (or whatever the hell analogy fits in here—I assume since country music doesn’t qualify as legitimate music, my thirty-second Google search was enough).

What we would find out is that a Quebecois rodeo was kind of like the Epcotting of our Western roots in that it’s a close approximation that was completely hilarious to us. (If you want a similar experience, visit your country’s pavilion in Disney World; seriously, you won’t stop laughing).

If you wanted, you could proudly take a photo of you riding a cow. On a saddle. Like a horse. Because apparently there was a shortage of horses, and cows were the next best thing. And the food proudly featured Quebec staples of beaver tails and poutine, which had as much relevance to country-western cuisine as fois gras.

I was, however, really excited to show off my near-mastery of the Cadillac Ranch line dance that was driven into my brain in childhood gym classes, only to find that the open and exhibition line-dance areas were actually people doing the Electric Slide to Ricky Martin. I don’t even have a witty comment on that, I’m just as confused as you are.

Perhaps the highlight of the night, though, had everything to do with the prominent, centrally-located mechanical bull that was open for riding and gave me the chance to satisfy my every Coyote Ugly dream (that’s a country-esque reference, right? Wow I’m bad at this). Because this got to happen:

 Making the world’s worst o-face, and, for the first time, not riding a penis.

I’d like to believe I successfully defended my cowboy heritage by not being thrown off a bucking mechanical bull immediately, and I lasted long enough to go up a couple levels of crotch-smashing delight.

But at the end of the day, my inability to string together even the most basic of country-western jokes proves that I am much better suited to riding cowboys than being one.

Bonjour Bitches: Mute, drunk, & disorderly conduct; or, public unconsciousness

Within two days of arriving in Montreal I lost my voice. It remains to be determined whether it was the result of simple laryngitis or oral gonorrhoea (I put it at a 50-50 chance of either). However, embarking on a five-week adventure to learn and practice French seems a little ridiculous when you are barely capable of speech and sound somewhere between a 14-year-old boy going through puberty and a diner waitress who chain-smoked for the greater part of 50 years and refers to everyone as “sug”. It was quite pathetic actually. I had a squeak of a voice, and oral activities in class became me gesticulating wildly while making French-like whispers.

I did end up harbouring a secret fantasy of going around Montreal pretending to be a deaf-mute and thereby no longer obligated to practice French as much as possible since my French knowledge at the start of the program amounted to being able to ask for a drink and telling people to go fuck themselves—which in actuality are my two most commonly spoken phrases anyway.

I soon came to the compromise of writing a text in French (being a good little student and all) on my phone, and showing it to people to communicate. It was highly ineffective, and I briefly considered investing in a chalkboard strung around my neck.

Our first weekend after a school-sanctioned activity, our new Quebec buddies were up for some night-on-town madness and took a few of us to a Quebecois bar in the Old Town with an amazing cover band who seriously covered The Black Eyed Peas while making them sound good. There was a considerable amount of beer downed while we danced around in front of the stage, joined in a giant conga-line that stretched around the entire bar started by our little Quebec guide and her roommate, and watched while the two of them threw popcorn at each other on the dance floor. Basically the most fun I’ve had while unable to talk and listening to music that, 50% of the time, I could only partially understand the lyrics to.

However it would all go so horribly, horribly wrong.

There are several major milestones when drinking:

1. When you first feel the buzz.
2. When you’re past driving and basic inhibition limits.
3. When you’ve decided to fuck everything and just get wasted.
4. When you’ve crossed an invisible line and nothing will be right again.

While downstairs in the washroom I crossed that fourth line. The whole room spun around in a whir of colours, terrifying dizziness, and near-fainting, and I knew that I had to go. Not in a little bit, not after the next song. I had to fucking go right now because I had totally lost my shit.

As an experienced heavy drinker I was surprised I’d hit this line (I’m usually quite resilient), but in Quebec beer is the drink du jour and I was (at the beginning of the trip) an inexperienced beer drinker and severely misjudged my limits.

I ran upstairs and wrote a text that I had to go this second, I was fine, and I would find my way home. Amazingly I had the wherewithal to write a sensible French message (part of my theory that drinking vastly improves my French ability—more on this another time), and showed it to everyone. They were a bit concerned, but I waved it off and stumbled out the bar and into a cab.

In the cab I felt a familiar rumbling and knew that I would be sick. At this point the cab driver kicked me out of the cab after five minutes of driving to my residence (because he was a jackass and because I had lost the ability to see anything but desperate paths to vomit) and I stumbled out of the cab directly into traffic before finding my way to the sidewalk and getting my bearings. (If you think I may have an alcohol problem, this moment may end up in a letter you read to me while sitting around a circle with my loved ones—I actually didn’t end up vomiting when out of the cab, but I may vomit if you try that intervention bullshit on my ass.)

Now I knew two things:

1. I had no fucking idea where in the hell I was.
2. I was terrified I’d be picked up by the cops for being ridiculously drunk in public, unable to defend myself because my French is awful, and I had no voice even if I wanted to try.

My thought process went something like: “shit, fuck, motherfucking son of a bitch fuck what the hell do I—aaah!” as I noticed a couple of cop cars driving by. In retrospect their sirens were on and they probably had better things to do (like fight crime) than notice me, but I was scared nonetheless, and I had a sudden bolt of brilliance. I knew how to solve both my problems at once.

Because in front of me was a large city map that you find scattered about Montreal on the sidewalks. I could simultaneously find out where I was and how to get home, and hide behind it from the police (for some, still inexplicable to me, reason I thought the police were watching me).

The problem was that I couldn’t see straight for the life of me, and I was still paranoid about getting arrested in my first week in Montreal. So I did what any sensible person would do:

I smashed my face right up against the map.

With one eye closed I could make out details of the map, and as I rubbed my face around to figure out where I was, I finally put together both my current location, and how to get home, which, thankfully, was only about a 7-minute walk. After figuring that out, I seemed to have exhausted what little brain-power I had left, and I then woke up a few minutes later with my face against the map. Let me repeat that:

I passed out standing with my face mashed into a tourist map on the street.

Thankfully it was only for a few minutes, and thankfully I was not robbed, raped, or arrested. I stumbled home learning a valuable lesson about misjudging your limits with an alcohol you’re not overly familiar with.

I would end up going out the next night with reckless abandon (a story for another time), but by the end of the trip I learned to handle beer as well as I did any of my usual liquors, and I knew that I could bounce back from absolutely everything because fuck you alcohol, that’s why. You may have won this battle, but I most definitely won the war.

The 10 Stages of My Nervous Breakdowns

I have a problem. No, not my drinking problem, or promiscuity problem, or my addiction to… you know what? Let’s forget about the other problems and focus on this one. I take on way too much in my life; I’m the kind of person who wants to do everything all at once. Inevitably that takes my already fragile emotional stability to its breaking point, and means that I live my life full of crazy ups and downs punctuated by the occasional nervous breakdown. Okay, regular nervous breakdowns.

Stage 1: Denial (I am inhumanly awesome and can do everything)
I blame the lessons taught to me as a child for this one. Fuck you, child-rearing philosophies inspired by Disney and cartoons that told me that “you can do anything if you put your mind to it”. My raging narcissism took this to mean “you can do absolutely everything, because you’re awesome”. Lies. It’s this attitude that leads me to take on full-time school, two part-time jobs, running a student club, and everything else. It inspires me to list off all of my goals with an action plan consisting of: “Do it all. Right now.” I hope you can see where this is going.

Stage 2: More Denial (It’s not really that bad—there’s always more time)
Here’s the deal: there is not fucking more time. No matter what I tell myself (oh, I’ll just sleep two hours less on Thursdays, and I can dedicate my mornings to curing AIDS), I just can’t make this elaborate hallucination a reality. I also have to stop comparing myself to Helen Keller: “if she can learn to communicate whilst being blind, deaf, and mute, then it should be no problem to accept more work hours for me with all my mighty senses”.

Stage 3: Anger (Goddamn Motherfucking Work!)
At this point my lack of time, and inability to fit 40 hours into one day, is really getting on my nerves. I channel this frustration into blaming the work itself, and never my own proclivity for overreaching. It’s a problem with the world. Not me. And I’m going to She-Hulk my way through this rough time. KRIS SMASH!

Stage 4: Bargaining (If I just borrow an hour here to do this, and just be late for that…)
This is kind of like paying off one credit card with another. It never really solves the problem, but gives you the illusion of progress (speaking of which, my approach to credit cards follows this model very closely). By borrowing time from one activity to feed another, I’ve created a time-Ponzi-scheme that will fall apart the second anything shakes its already-shaky foundation. Or, you know, I reach the end of the week and have no more time to borrow.

Stage 5: Depression (I give up. I’m going to sleep 40 hours a day and eat Arby’s.)
There’s a point when I’m so overwhelmed that I am completely paralyzed by anxiety over what I have to do. I never actually get around to doing any of it, because I spend the whole time crying over how it’s pointless, and will never get done. At this stage I spend a lot of time in bed ignoring the world, and eat a lot of junk food. I call this my Crying Snorlax Phase.

Stage 6: Denial (I’m fine. Seriously. Hunky dory. What do you mean you saw me crying in the bathroom?)
Never underestimate the power of denial. At this stage I’m still insisting with absolute conviction that I’m okay. And most of the time I believe myself. If I could somehow turn my ability to lie to myself into lying to others, I would be an unstoppable salesperson. But I’m fine. Okay?

Stage 7: Denial/Avoidance (Pass the vodka and condoms. Deadline? This sounds like more fun.)
At this point I’ve decided to deal with it by completely ignoring the problem. Instead I’ll drink a lot, and have sex with anything that moves. Which really isn’t all that different from an average Tuesday afternoon for me, but this time I’m escaping from thinking about all the stuff I have to do.

Stage 8: Acceptance (Goddamned intervention banner)
At this point, someone’s going to throw me an intervention, or something will make me realise that what I’m doing isn’t healthy (whether it’s the stress ulcer, or the fact that my mouth is half full of penis and half of gin). Something shatters the illusory denial-based fantasy I’d elaborately constructed, and I realise what’s really going on, and accept that I need to fix it.

Stage 9: Gettin’ Shit Done (Laser-like, panic-induced focus)
With my newfound clarity (and 12-step booklet), I st out to get all the stuff hanging over my head done, and done quickly. I burn through tasks faster than a Japanese bullet train pre-tsunami—what? Too soon?—and everything gets done down to the wire, but it’s done! I wrote those three papers in three days, and I even got an A. Woo! Which means…

Stage 10: Back To Denial (I’m awesome, and nothing can stop me)
Well, obviously it wasn’t that big a deal anyways. I’m invincible, and I can do absolutely everything. See? Last time worked out, so this time must too. Sign me up for one of everything! What could possibly go wrong?

The Cover Letter In My Head

Dear Employer/HR Recruiter/Person With A Job,

Where do you get one of those? I’ve seen them around, and they seem like fun; I’ve checked the malls, but they only called security on me. I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell me where to find one of these job things.

Really, there’s nothing quite like the looming end of 6 years of university to tell you that you have no useful or marketable skills. I mean, what can a person with business and English degrees actually do? Well, beside write a kick-ass paper on how the romantic male leads in Twilight are actually in love with one another, or write a blistering review of a company’s corporate strategy, not that much. But I have six years, and two degrees, under my belt, and I was promised something would come of that other than extensive bills, stretch marks from stress eating, and a profound appreciation of literary theory.

About a month ago I began my job search, and after being told that I didn’t have enough qualification to manage a retail coffee shop, I’d like to rebut that by highlighting just why I’d be such an amazing addition to your team.

1. I’ve spent the last year starting, developing, and running a brand new queer resource centre. This is beyond management experience. Have you tried to organize gays? It’s like herding cats. If cats were a seething mess of bitchy, back-handed comments. Better people would have cried at least twice as much as I did.
2. I’ve worked at a bank for 5 years, and I have yet to be institutionalized. I’d like to think I’ve become pretty good at it. In fact, between dodging screaming people who throw things at me (true story), I’ve learned the value of being needlessly paranoid about every little thing. Also, more about how to read financial statements than all my business classes put together taught me.

It’d be easy enough for me to say that you should hire me out of my sheer awesomeness, or because I’d be happy to sleep (or drug mule) my way into a real career, but that’s not why you should hire me. You should hire me because I’ve proven that I’m smart, determined, and apparently impervious to that little voice in the back of your head that tells you that you should probably give up.

Because I can take all the intellectual and emotional abuse and punishment you can throw at me, and get back up and ask for more. My life is a testament to never knowing when to stop. And I’ll admit that it sometimes ends with me climbing onto a first-storey balcony barefoot and with my underwear in my pocket, but it also means I can power my way through a seemingly never-ending pile of crap with minimal nervous breakdowns.

Also, I’m sort of funny. That’s got to count for something.

I look forward to hearing from you soon,

Kris Schmidt

P.S. This is a work of humour, and should be taken as such, and not evidence of my actual hireability. Though it arguably illustrates a creative mind, and excellent sense of humour. Unless it actually makes you want to hire me, in which case that was totally the plan.

P.P.S. And yes, I’m including solicitation for prostitution as “hiring me”.

Coming Out: A Multifarious Affair [A Monologue]

[This past Thursday and Friday, my university put on a production of The Coming Out Monologues, which is like The Vagina Monologues, but with either more or less vagina depending on whose monologue you’re listening to. My queer resource centre, the school’s student success centre, and a local queer resource centre organized the performance. I wrote the monologue below, and performed it. There’s video out there of me making an ass of myself on stage. I’ll track it down for public consumption.]

For me, coming out was like multiple orgasms. Only not at all. So why would I, as a guy who likes guys, liken my coming out experience to an arguably enviable lady phenomenon? Well, for two reasons:

1. The process of coming out was as confusing to me as the concept of lady-orgasms.
2. It happened over, and over, and over again.

The first time I came out to my mother, she came to me. I was sitting upstairs in a robe, wrapped up in my sister’s fluffy pink Barbie blanket, watching the Oscars. Really, if you saw me, you’d be hard-pressed to have any reason not to assume I was a raging homosexual. She was holding a letter that authorized me as an executive member of the queer club at the university. She asked me point-blank if I was gay, and I said nothing. It was unexpected, and I think the award for best actress was playing, so I was torn between my need to deal with this, and the pressing issue of who won the academy award. So I told her. And then she cried, and I cried, and she cried some more, and there was more crying than that god-awful Halle Berry acceptance speech a few years back. My mom said she needed more time to sort things out, and I said I did too, since I wasn’t really ready to deal with coming out to my family yet. The next few days were really awkward, but we generally avoided the topic, and it all kind of blew over.

But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here. I started coming out by degrees starting back in high school. The first time I came out, I didn’t even come out; I was told I was gay. One of my best friends, [name redacted—I totally said it in my performance. Whoops. Heh.], had asked me out on multiple occasions, and told me that I must be gay. According to her, “I’m [redacted]! No one says ‘no’ to [redacted]!”. When I finally gathered up the courage to tell her, “Aha! I knew it!” wasn’t really the sort of heart-warming supportive response I was going for.

Now, the second time I came out to my mother, it was as awkward as the first time, and she again came to me with some damning evidence. I really had to learn to hide my things better. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a certain DVD. Now it’s been some time since this happened, and I can’t quite remember if it was Ass Bangers 47, or Cum Guzzlers 23, but it was the kind of DVD that was awkward, and really made it hard to deny everything. So I told her again. And this time, there were the questions. Some of my favourites included:

1. Does this mean you want to be a girl?
2. I can’t accept this. There’s no proof that you’re that way. Is there some sort of blood test?

She refused to accept the fact, and has told me that she rejects both the idea and me for being what I am. But she insists that I’ve never told her, and her denial means that I keep having to come out.

You see, I’m from your standard, good upper-upper-middle-class family, and our given response to familial woes is to repress, to repress, and to repress. If we don’t talk about it, it isn’t true. And that means that I have to come out over and over each time something flies in the face of her heterosexual fantasy world.

But, you know, it gets easier with all the practice I’ve had coming out. And I’ve realised that I’m going to have to come out again, and again, throughout my life. I’m going to have to come out to coworkers, friends, and acquaintances. I’m going to have to tell them, “no, I don’t have a girlfriend, I have a boyfriend”. Or, “no, I’m single. And I like penis.”

And I’m okay with that. Because, in the end, I’m okay with me.