October 29, 2005

Well, Shit.

I know that Rob loves to watch football, but I almost hope that he's not been allowed into the dayroom today in time to see the first quarter of the Georgia-Florida game. Bejus! It may be the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, but my Dawgs took a beating early - and if I know anything about their psych-out issues, it'll be a long, hard row for them to hoe if they're to get back on top of this game. I, for one, am skeptical. I love my Dawgs, but they've got a predisposition to lose this particular game every year, even this year, during an undefeated season. Maybe especially this year, with starting quarterback DJ Shockley out and injured.

I wrote about the genesis of my hatred for Florida Gators a few weeks ago, on my own site. If you don't mind, I'll share that tale with you now. It seems appropriate...

***

Gator Pride

Up until my sad, dull, gray adulthood, I had always been something of a performing arts nerd. I began to play piano when I was about six years old, and various and sundry other marching-band type instruments - like clarinet and flute and drums and tenor sax - soon followed. All throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school I sang in the choir, the chorus, wherever they would let me rear back and belt it out. Later, as a young-but-still-too-fucking-stupid-to-really-count adult, I played cello in a chamber group, sang and played rhythm guitar in a rock band, sang and played bass in a country band, and filled a too-brief year as a lounge singer, warbling sentimental old standards in a prom dress to a yuppie bar-crowd every Wednesday night.

Before all that, in high school, I had abandoned many of my pretensions to musicality and threw myself, whole hog, into being a Theater Geek. Lord, I loved the boards! Here was a chance for me to actually leave myself, be someone else on a lighted stage - and people clapped! Musicals, old Broadway chestnuts, Shakespeare...it mattered not. I threw myself into each and every character, sobbing prettily at the end of Hopelessly Devoted to You (Sandra Dee in Grease), snarling through the bathtub gin (Miss Hannigan, Annie), and I will say that I made an unnaturally excellent madwoman (Lady Macbeth). Go figure.

As a seventeen year-old, I was also feeling the first flush of womanly sexuality. I had, through my Drama Class, obtained my very first boyfriend and, by extension, my first experience of confusing righteous lust for love, a flaw in my sense of impulse-control that I struggle with to this day. God, how I adored him; tall, prematurely gray - hair like a fucking carpet, it was so thick - beautiful, supple body, slender like a piece of Greek sculpture. My father hated him, of course, but if he hadn't, I think he'd have been either blind, stupid or a Bad Daddy; Daddies are supposed to hate young, throbbing poet-boys who woo their little girls, especially Drama Fag ones who probably smoke dope. I had it bad, too: I hung on that boyfriend's every word, thought the moon rose and set in his deep green eyes. I didn't do anything by halves, back then. Still don't, really.

I was hot for him, hot like a rabid ferret, a blend of emotional and physical intensity I'd never felt before. During rehearsals at school we'd make out behind the backdrops, sneak off into stairwells, constantly on the look-out for the rare and coveted empty classroom. Our dates pushed the limits of my bodily endurance, as I struggled and struggled to keep that invisible dime between my knees. After all, before this relationship, I'd never so much as kissed a boy before, let alone allowed a boy to get all the way to - gasp - second base. I was young, this was new, this was novel. I couldn't get enough.

Toward the middle of my junior year, and about five months into this puppy relationship, my drama teacher began pimping out a one-act play group that I belonged to. We'd perfected An Actor's Nightmare, four or five of us switching up and playing every part in the thing. I was one of the leads, as was my yummy squeeze. We traveled from high school to high school, competing against other Drama Fags and their one-act gigs, kicking ass and taking names. We won everything we attempted; it was a golden time, a delicious moment of triumph for doing something I loved. Finally, the pinnacle: we were invited to perform at a state-level competition, to be held in distant Auburn, Alabama.

It was so exciting; our group, plus our drama teacher and a few theater-tech guys, signed out the school's van for the weekend and we wended our way into middle Alabama for the competition. We stayed at a Holiday Inn near Cusseta because, for some reason unbeknownst to us, every hotel in Auburn was booked. Hmm. Every hotel in Auburn booked? This podunk-holler? What the hell? What's in Auburn, anyway?

When we got there, we found out; Auburn University was playing The University of Florida in some Very Important Football Game or other. I was not a football fan at the time, so the whole thing was nebulous to my young mind - I could not understand what the frickin' big deal was. Well, honey, as you might imagine, I found out when I got there.

A veritable sea of orange and green, and our whole Holiday Inn filled with rabid, drunken Gator fans. They roamed the halls, heavily medicated, shouting "GATORS!" at everyone they passed. I had to ask my boyfriend what the fuck they were saying - to me it sounded like all these grown men were yelling "GAAAAYDURRRS!" at me, as they leered drunkenly at my meager cleavage. Our first night in the hotel, all night long. "GAAAAYDURRRRRS!". I'd try to sleep. "GAAAAAYDURRRRS!". At breakfast, "GAAAYDURRRRS!". On the way to the performance, "GAAAAAYDURRRRS!". Through my happy tears, as we placed and went on to the final round the next day, "GAAAAYDURRRS!".

That night, we had a little celebration of our own. My boyfriend and I snuck out to the parking lot and the school van, and said boyfriend, having purloined the keys from the drama teacher's oversized purse, moved the vehicle to the dark and shady recesses behind the building. We locked ourselves in and fired up a pin-joint that my thoughtful swain had brought along for just such an occasion, laughing and talking about the business of the day. Afterwards, we lay on the back seat entwined in each other's arms, kissing with tongues and petting to a degree that we'd never before enjoyed. For a while we had peace, and lucky boyfriend rounded third for the first time. I guess he felt that luck, because he finally gathered the courage - after stuttering about it for half an hour - to ask me if I could, um, I mean, well, what I'd really like is, well, would you put it in your mouth?

I was terrified when he brought out the actual member. I'd never seen a penis before, save on the little teensy babies that I'd cared for as a babysitter, whose diapers I had changed and whose bottoms I had powdered. In retrospect, I understand that lucky boyfriend was lucky indeed; a monster erect, roughly the size of my forearm, head the size of my clenched fist. I looked into his eyes, seeking some reassurance, some understanding that I had no idea what the fuck I was doing but I'd try it because I loooved him so much and please don't be upset if I do a bad job. (Ha!)

I knelt on the floorboards, and bent to the task. Just as my tongue touched the very tip of his uncircumcised cock, and excitement zinged through my whole body - "GAAAAAYDURRRRRS!". And again, "GAYYYYYDURRRRRRS!", as a stream of fucked-up gamegoers began to flood back in to the hotel. Florida had kicked Auburn's ass, and so my first sexual experience of any kind was punctuated. "GAAAAAYYYYDURRRRRS! WHOOO! MOTHERFUCKING GAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYDURRRRS RULE! YOW! SONOFABITCH! GAAAAYDURRRRRS!!!!"

As I clumsily fellated, feeling somewhat sick, I came to hate the University of Florida and everything it stood for. My boyfriend came too, all over my chin, sighing with relief as the chorus rang out, "GAAAAYDURRRRS!!"

We were surprised to win the competition the next day, me with rings around my eyes and Samsonite bags below them. What was not surprising - not to me, anyway - was that my boyfriend left at the end of that year, matriculating at...wait for it...Florida. I, of course, went on to graduate from an archrival school, and am still pissed at those assholes for fucking up my first blowjob ever. Is it any wonder that I hate those pricks? Gaydurs, that is. Not actual pricks.