together.”
Gay.
“I don’t think I have the strength to shower right now, because I am so incredibly hungry, so let’s eat.” There was no way I was going to shower with a bunch of guys. What would happen if I got excited? Then all the boys would know I was a homo. However, none of the other boys rolled into camp with a bottle of
Melrose Place
cologne, which would have clearly tipped anyone off, but that was safely put away, with my
Soap Opera Digest
in the bottom of my suitcase. I was going to have to change my ways in order to fit in. I felt like Demi Moore in
G.I. Jane
. She had to change her ways to fit in with the boys in the army. However, shaving my head was out of the question.
Jeremy took me down to the cafeteria and we ate a healthy breakfast of soggy oatmeal and bananas. Day one and I hated it already. But Jeremy was lovely. He was super cute and super fit. He was an “after,” meaning he had already lost weight and came back because he actually liked it and wanted to keep the weight off. When he was telling me all of this I felt as if he was speaking Mandarin, because everything he said made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. But he was a funny kid. He would try to tell jokes and fuck up the ending, so every jokeended with: “Oh, no, what I meant to say was … and that’s why that joke is supposed to be funny.”
“Jeremy, honey,” I said, as if I were Joan Collins on
Dynasty
, though I would have been smoking a candy cigarette instead of a real one, “a joke isn’t funny if you say ‘and that’s why the joke is supposed to be funny.’ It’s just supposed to be funny. And that wasn’t.” They never were, but Jeremy gave me the lay of the land and showed me where everything was.
That afternoon was water sports afternoon where everyone would team up with a buddy and do an activity on the lake. I had asked if there was a swimming pool to lounge around by and possibly get some sun, but was informed there was no pool, just a crib, a roped-off section, in a dirty lake to swim in. In my usual fashion of being a lazy fat-ass, I had already befriended the nurse, who was the only woman on the campus, and told her my story. Her name was Leslie and we bonded over a mutual love of
One Life to Live
. She had a TV in her nurse’s office, so I figured I would be seeing a lot of her that summer. Having read
Soap Opera Digest
earlier in the week, I knew Carlo Hesser was strolling back into Llanview that Friday, so I had to plan some sort of ailment to take place around two in the afternoon, one central time, later that week. But that day, with storm clouds looming, I thought about faking an illness to get out of doing any sort of physical activity. It was past three in the afternoon, enough time to catch the tail end of
General Hospital
if I left then, but I figured it may be best to stick this one out and save the dramatics of faking an ailment for a more important time, such as having to run track or something ridiculous like that. Jeremy suggested that we get into a canoe and row around the lake. I had never been in a canoe before, but he assured me he would spearhead the operation.
We both got into the canoe but the water was looking a bit choppy. We swayed back and forth as we entered and sat on the wooden slabs inside. God love Jeremy for knowing what the hell was going on, because immediately I almost tipped us over. I wasn’t the best of swimmers because when I was in the water I looked more like a piece of muffin floating in a cup of coffee. I would just float around and embrace my fatness. This canoe was a foreign object to me and the two of us did not get along. How had I come to this? All I wanted to do that summer was grow bangs and lovingly sing “Something’s Coming” to a white girl pretending to be Puerto Rican. What the hell happened?
As we began canoeing around the lake, a man in a speedboat approached us. He had a few kids in his boat with him and at first I thought he might
Gay.
“I don’t think I have the strength to shower right now, because I am so incredibly hungry, so let’s eat.” There was no way I was going to shower with a bunch of guys. What would happen if I got excited? Then all the boys would know I was a homo. However, none of the other boys rolled into camp with a bottle of
Melrose Place
cologne, which would have clearly tipped anyone off, but that was safely put away, with my
Soap Opera Digest
in the bottom of my suitcase. I was going to have to change my ways in order to fit in. I felt like Demi Moore in
G.I. Jane
. She had to change her ways to fit in with the boys in the army. However, shaving my head was out of the question.
Jeremy took me down to the cafeteria and we ate a healthy breakfast of soggy oatmeal and bananas. Day one and I hated it already. But Jeremy was lovely. He was super cute and super fit. He was an “after,” meaning he had already lost weight and came back because he actually liked it and wanted to keep the weight off. When he was telling me all of this I felt as if he was speaking Mandarin, because everything he said made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. But he was a funny kid. He would try to tell jokes and fuck up the ending, so every jokeended with: “Oh, no, what I meant to say was … and that’s why that joke is supposed to be funny.”
“Jeremy, honey,” I said, as if I were Joan Collins on
Dynasty
, though I would have been smoking a candy cigarette instead of a real one, “a joke isn’t funny if you say ‘and that’s why the joke is supposed to be funny.’ It’s just supposed to be funny. And that wasn’t.” They never were, but Jeremy gave me the lay of the land and showed me where everything was.
That afternoon was water sports afternoon where everyone would team up with a buddy and do an activity on the lake. I had asked if there was a swimming pool to lounge around by and possibly get some sun, but was informed there was no pool, just a crib, a roped-off section, in a dirty lake to swim in. In my usual fashion of being a lazy fat-ass, I had already befriended the nurse, who was the only woman on the campus, and told her my story. Her name was Leslie and we bonded over a mutual love of
One Life to Live
. She had a TV in her nurse’s office, so I figured I would be seeing a lot of her that summer. Having read
Soap Opera Digest
earlier in the week, I knew Carlo Hesser was strolling back into Llanview that Friday, so I had to plan some sort of ailment to take place around two in the afternoon, one central time, later that week. But that day, with storm clouds looming, I thought about faking an illness to get out of doing any sort of physical activity. It was past three in the afternoon, enough time to catch the tail end of
General Hospital
if I left then, but I figured it may be best to stick this one out and save the dramatics of faking an ailment for a more important time, such as having to run track or something ridiculous like that. Jeremy suggested that we get into a canoe and row around the lake. I had never been in a canoe before, but he assured me he would spearhead the operation.
We both got into the canoe but the water was looking a bit choppy. We swayed back and forth as we entered and sat on the wooden slabs inside. God love Jeremy for knowing what the hell was going on, because immediately I almost tipped us over. I wasn’t the best of swimmers because when I was in the water I looked more like a piece of muffin floating in a cup of coffee. I would just float around and embrace my fatness. This canoe was a foreign object to me and the two of us did not get along. How had I come to this? All I wanted to do that summer was grow bangs and lovingly sing “Something’s Coming” to a white girl pretending to be Puerto Rican. What the hell happened?
As we began canoeing around the lake, a man in a speedboat approached us. He had a few kids in his boat with him and at first I thought he might
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