covering Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, maybe more morose than you’d picture for Jenn, “Black Hole Sun” and “Jeremy” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” She was in elementary or middle school when these songs came out, but they all feel like the soundtrack for a high-schooler who spent his days draped in blacks and chains and world-doesn’t-understand-me sadness. It doesn’t seem very Jenn Outlook, but still, Jenn doesn’t miss these nights. The best ‘90s Grunge Nights start with DJ request and move on to some featured cover band, the best of which has always been the Presidents of the United States of America Cover Band Cover Band, so bizarre because the Presidents of the United States of America weren’t really grunge, and probably weren’t ever deserving of one cover band, let alone another cover band to cover the cover band (?). For all you know, the old guys on the stage are the original band itself. They don’t even restrict themselves to the Presidents of the United States of America, sometimes going off on wild tangents of hip-hop and early-‘90s dance, but who can resist the wackiness of “Peaches” morphing into “Garden Grove” morphing into “Gin ‘N Juice” morphing into “All That She Wants” morphing into “Lump.” It makes no sense, but Jenn stands at the front of the room when the band takes the stage and she is a smile and an exclamation point in a bar that is mostly scowls and tortured ellipses.
She dances in these two worlds, happy-proper-girlie vs. dark-grunge-whacky, strange though the juxtaposition may seem, but she is honesty personified. Jenn is Jenn is Jenn, and somehow she makes you feel like you should be proud to be Charles Washington even when you’re not sure who that is.
*
At some point over the past year, Jenn and I moved beyond the superficial quirks and platitudes of a college relationship’s early days. We moved beyond sitcom discussions, and drove straight into full-speed-ahead discussions about family and future.
And n o one else knew, but on the night of the Senior Send-Off, I was planning to give Jenn my fraternity letters.
It was called the “ lavalier ceremony,” and the act itself was simple. I bought the silver charm online, the letters NKE dangling straight down, and I’d get down on one knee and clasp the charm to her current necklace. Simple. But it was universally acknowledged at our campus: the lavalier was a promise of engagement (no one got engaged in college, of course), forever merging your girlfriend with your brotherhood, and even though NKE tradition mandated that the chapter was supposed to physically destroy any member who gave up his letters to a woman—they’d mob me, beat me, rip off my clothes, tie me to a street light on Greek Row, and dump sour milk and raw eggs and shaving cream and beer and toilet water all over me, good clean fun, just like Jerry O’Connell in Scream 2 except without the unfortunate kill scene afterward—I wanted my parents to see that, too. To know how dedicated I was to taking such a step in my life. What I was willing to endure to do the right thing.
I’d be leaving for a full year on the road, but my parents loved her, and we already knew everything we needed to know about one another, Jenn and I. We knew the good and the bad, the nitty-gritty and the nitty-grittier, and we were still excited by everything we saw. There was no reason to delay the inevitable: when you know, you know.
She’d be at the Senior Send-Off, probably standing there with my parents, and then moments later she’d be wearing my letters.
*
“Charles, I’ve got something to say,” Jenn told me as we arranged the final stack of napkins on one of the long fold-out tables in the dining room. We’d booked a caterer for the Senior Send-Off, just a local barbecue joint, but we’d gone to great lengths to make this as classy as BBQ could be: we wouldn’t simply have plastic condiment packets,
She dances in these two worlds, happy-proper-girlie vs. dark-grunge-whacky, strange though the juxtaposition may seem, but she is honesty personified. Jenn is Jenn is Jenn, and somehow she makes you feel like you should be proud to be Charles Washington even when you’re not sure who that is.
*
At some point over the past year, Jenn and I moved beyond the superficial quirks and platitudes of a college relationship’s early days. We moved beyond sitcom discussions, and drove straight into full-speed-ahead discussions about family and future.
And n o one else knew, but on the night of the Senior Send-Off, I was planning to give Jenn my fraternity letters.
It was called the “ lavalier ceremony,” and the act itself was simple. I bought the silver charm online, the letters NKE dangling straight down, and I’d get down on one knee and clasp the charm to her current necklace. Simple. But it was universally acknowledged at our campus: the lavalier was a promise of engagement (no one got engaged in college, of course), forever merging your girlfriend with your brotherhood, and even though NKE tradition mandated that the chapter was supposed to physically destroy any member who gave up his letters to a woman—they’d mob me, beat me, rip off my clothes, tie me to a street light on Greek Row, and dump sour milk and raw eggs and shaving cream and beer and toilet water all over me, good clean fun, just like Jerry O’Connell in Scream 2 except without the unfortunate kill scene afterward—I wanted my parents to see that, too. To know how dedicated I was to taking such a step in my life. What I was willing to endure to do the right thing.
I’d be leaving for a full year on the road, but my parents loved her, and we already knew everything we needed to know about one another, Jenn and I. We knew the good and the bad, the nitty-gritty and the nitty-grittier, and we were still excited by everything we saw. There was no reason to delay the inevitable: when you know, you know.
She’d be at the Senior Send-Off, probably standing there with my parents, and then moments later she’d be wearing my letters.
*
“Charles, I’ve got something to say,” Jenn told me as we arranged the final stack of napkins on one of the long fold-out tables in the dining room. We’d booked a caterer for the Senior Send-Off, just a local barbecue joint, but we’d gone to great lengths to make this as classy as BBQ could be: we wouldn’t simply have plastic condiment packets,
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