The Only Constant in Life is Change

Today. Oh, today.

I have the week off work since my professor decided to take an unexpected trip to Belgium for, you know, a “research symposium.” So I slept in, neglected to study the ins-and-outs of the menstrual cycle (for the MCAT, I swear!), and instead went for an early afternoon workout @ Noyes with my sensuous Asian sensation.

There I was, strutting mah shtuff from collegetown to West Campus in my straight-boy workout garb, which I had more fun shopping for than actually wearing. Imagine me in swish-swash Adidas gym shorts, a tight *I<3NY* Tee (okay, so maybe I wasn’t looking 100% straight), New Balance tennis shoes, and one of those cute, elastic Nike armbands.

Laugh it up. I certainly was.

I arrived at Noyes, got my card swiped by Bryan, and proceeded to mount the elliptical, the one machine that always gets me up and going and burning.

Oh stop it, you’re gross!

I look to my right and see [what appeared to be] a beautiful blonde stallion running on the treadmill. His shaggy-but-not-too-shaggy hair (like Jesse McCartney pre-guido) cascaded up-and-down with perfect resiliency. He turned towards me and half-smiled. I should have smiled back. The face was, like, ew. …a total zero! What goes up, friends, must come down, and I’m not talking about hair. I forgot, for a slightest, scrawniest second that this is Ithaca. I’ve grown accustomed to my thick, hot-pink pair of Cornell goggles.

A-what-uh goggles? I’m not lying. Let me explain.

Cornell goggles eliminate the traditional 1-10 rating system with a simpler 0-1 system. Don’t give me that look; rating people is as natural as Ashlee’s vocals and is definitely not sexual harassment. You know “the 1-10 scale” as well as I do, where 1 = someone/thing heinous that would be dubbed illegal in a court of law to a 10, where 10 = you’re so gorgeous that you belong at a state school. With 70% of girls (and guys) falling on the left side of the “fuckability” bell-curve at Cornell, there must be a way to normalize this shiznat. Cornell goggles, in effect, do this. Here’s how: when you’re out partying with YOUR fabulous fifteen, simply rate a man or woman or fraternity boy (they’re another breed entirely) as a “0” or a “1,” where 0 = “fuck no” and 1 = “fuck me.”

For example: M.Hal is a 1!

(on the Cornell-goggles scale, duh)

Get it? Good. It’s as easy as *****.

[Don’t worry, we’ll play hangman later. Remember to guess vowels first! Those include A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y (but when has it EVER been Y, kindergarten teacher?)].

WTF? Sorry for that example, friends. After that boner-killing image of all of our kindergarten teachers, I looked over to my left and see my sensuous Asian sensation was starting to work up a sweat! I didn’t want to keep her waiting, so I check to make sure my polyester Nike armband was securely placed, put in my iPod earphones, click on the “shuffle” option, and prepare myself for a hard-core 45-minute workout with lots of Calabria-ing and trashy hip-hopping.

What comes on instead?

“Oooh, I see the way he treats you

I feel the tears you cry.

…and it makes me sad

…and it makes me mad

There’s nothin’ I can do ba-a-bay.”

*If I Was the One* – Ruff Endz

WHAT?! No! This would not do! I stopped my work-out and skipped ahead a couple of songs, hoping against hope that I didn’t…

Song #2: *I Wanna Be With You* – Mandy (if I were)Moore(straight I’d do you)

Song #3: *If You’re Not The One* – Daniel BED(me)ingfield

Song #4: *Take Your Time* – Lori Carson

Song #5: *Now You Know* – Hilary Duff

Song #6: *Baby Love* – Nicole Scherzinger

Song #7: *Realize* – Colbie Caillait

…Oh. Yes. I. Did. I had taken iPod #2, the one that currently had “My Super Gay Slow Song Break-Up Playlist,” a mix of 32 ultra-gay love songs.

TIME OUT: yes, I have 2 iPods. Yes, I have such a playlist (it’s worked for me and for many of my fifteen). Can we still be friends?

TIME IN: There was absolutely no way I could work-out while listening to a-that. I love Mandy, Colbie’s my bia, Lori’s my life, Hillary wants to be me…but I was in the mood for some hard-core, heteronormative *You can do it, put yo’ back into it / I can do it put yo’ P*SSY into it / don’t stop get it get it / don’t stop N***A hit it!” and instead I was hearing “Your breath on my face / Your warm gentle kiss / I taste the truth (x2)”

My timing was off. My legs couldn’t synch to the gears while my inner 12-year-old was dancing to Mandy’s 2000 smash hit. The end result? An usatisfactory up-and-down motion (I’m talking about the elliptical). I looked like Prince Harry on steroids.

Nothing personal, Mandy; and for the record, you’ve always brought me to my knees.

This is entirely new. Normally I’m not the one on my knees, but I shouldn’t be surprised. Everything around me is changing: my moods, my hair color, my body weight, my friends, my hubby, my hometown(s), and this blog.

This hour’s sudden mood swing is because of “the move” and the fact that I have absolutely no concept of “hometown” anymore. Yesterday at 5:00 PM EST the last few boxes were packed, the truck was loaded, and destiny was ready to claim my existence. M.Hal’s “home” has now been split down the middle – one half belonging to the hotly conservative metropolis of Houston, Texas (Daddy), and the other half belonging to a family friend’s house in the JAP-y neighborhood of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (Mommy).

To make a long sob-story short, Daddy was laid off last year from his savvy automotive engineering executive position, Mommy made Daddy get a new job, and that new job happened to be in Houston. She’s not leaving her private practice and taking a major pay-cut to work at Baylor Med. You know how the story goes.

They’re still together and making it work, despite the 1,300 mile separation. Words can’t express how much admiration and respect I have for them, as I wouldn’t be able to handle a 500 mile, University of Michigan / Michigan State – Cornell long-distance relationship. They both have infinite grace and class, which goes to show that the apple does fall far from the tree.

I’m not sure why I’m so homosexually sentimental about them selling the house that felt more like a penitentiary than a safe-haven since late-1996. The decision was made without them even notifying me, and I pretended like I was as indifferent as ever. I wasn’t going to be home this summer anyways, and I absolutely hated Michigan – or so I thought – from the very beginning.

Welcome to LUBE325: THE HISTORY OF M.HAL, 1996 – 2006:

I remember being 8-years-old, clutching to a beanie baby, crying, and threatening to run away and join the circus upon hearing the news that we were moving from my little Manhattan to a town by the name of Farmington Hills. ANYTHING that included the words “Farm” and “Hills” spelled out rural disaster, and I was a city boy. I envisioned farmers, pitchforks, and cornbread in place of phallic symbols (AKA skyscrapers), public transit, and friends and family nearby. I wanted to make time stop and forget about my parents’ professions. The day came, however – as unwanted as a few extra pounds in all the wrong places. I boarded the plane at LGA bound for DTW. With my tiny fingers pressed against the window and squinting as the buildings became foggy and obsolete, I knew my life would never be the same.

So began a new school and a new life in the Walled Lake Consolidated School district. The other kids were weird and I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind. I got drilled (no, not like that) in class by my teacher on government the first day, and I was terribly embarrassed when I didn’t know who the governor of Michigan was (why would anyone DO that to a new student?!). Think Elle Woods meets Harvard Law School, but without a Luke Wilson and even uglier classmates. I just didn’t fit. Throughout the years, I never really fit. I hated conformity and hated fake people. Think Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You, except more refined. (I’m going crazy with the pop culture references, let’s try one more?). The Mean Girls drama of middle school and the homophobic and unprogressive nature of high school made me cold, arrogant, egotistical, and always-needing-to-have-my-way.

M.Hal was a social leper. ‘twas tragic.

I direly wanted to return to New York, and was therefore one of the few souls in the 248 who actually took their schoolwork seriously. Rocking my SAT & ACT and graduating salutatorian in a class of 400 led to me being accepted to Cornell University. I felt like my dream had finally come true – even though Ithaca is a far cry from New York City, I was positively ecstatic. The fact that I had never had a relationship or could count the number of friends I had on one hand was unimportant. I had done the unthinkable; I had escaped Michigan.

Therein lies the question: why would I spare a lysozyme when hearing about Mommy and Daddy selling the house in “The Hills”? I had no memories there; no sleep-overs, no mad-crazy sex on kitchen tables, and very little family drama (I rarely fought with my parents)?

Why, you ask? Because those 3600 sq. ft. were familiar to me. The 4200 sq. ft. in Houston (with a pool + 3-car garage) and the other 3700 sq. ft. in Bloomfield Hills are unfamiliar to me. My parents not being together at a time when they need each other’s company the most? That’s unfamiliar to me (& I’m sure to them as well). As living, breathing people, we are inherently terrified of risks and change: going off to college, parental issues, sex, having our hearts broken, being single, being in a relationship, breaking up with a long-time beaux, taking an off-the-wall class (for me it was Art History), choosing a new and radically different career path (think pre-medicine to pre-Cosmo), living a new type of life (commitment-type and not slut-type), and deviating from the norm in every sense of the word all cause lost sleep and graying hairs.

“Change? What’s bad about change? I can adapt to anything” says the naïve New Yorker. I could be a hypocrite and say that I love change, but looking back, it’s painful to admit that when August ’06 rolled around, I was absolutely terrified about going to Cornell. The school’s known as an academic pressure cooker, they seem to recruit an extremely socially awkward student body, and everyone who was familiar to me (I’m not about to call them “friends”) were going to public schools in Michigan. There was a full day when I wished I would have taken the scholarship money and gone to the Honors College @ the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Of course, now I laugh at my nervousness, but I’ve had two years to settle into a groove, get involved, find my niche, and establish incredible friendships.

Whether or not we like change, it’s inevitable and happening all around us. Upon my most recent trip to Manhattan last week, I heard the news that the grandparents have sold their midtown apartment of 30 years – for quite a hefty amount of money – to become full-time Flaw-rida residents. Florida? They move in 2 weeks. This is so unbelievable. That apartment is such a big part of who I am. Thanksgiving, fall break, winter break, the occasional New Years … no more. I’ll now been summoned to the Citrus land, complete with early bird specials and inept drivers.

I feel as if all of the constants in my life are slowly vanishing beneath me. My comfort zone and the little things in life which I had the privilege of calling my own are all shrinking faster than, well, me after thinking about my kindergarten teacher. “Where are you going for Thanksgiving?” Dunno. “Are you ever coming back to Michigan?” No idea. “Texas?!” There’s nothing for me in Texas, and yet there’s everything for me in Michigan.

In case you didn’t catch that; I said it. The three people I consider my true ‘soulmates’ all hail from the same Detroit suburb in Southeast Michigan, and using the word “friend” just doesn’t do our relationships justice. Odd that I’ve only known one of them since 1996; the other two I met nearly 10 years later. Sorry, fab fifteen – and don’t be angry, Kyle. Had these three amazing individuals not been in my life, I don’t think I’d be the M.Hal that I am today.

In conclusion: while I might pride myself on being a New Yorker, there truly is everything for me in Michigan.

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