Chris's team had the ball. It's passed to another team member. He dribbled it up the field a little bit. He looked tired. The game had been going on for a while now. And the ball had been stolen. They're nimbus clouds. Not for long. Chris had the ball. They'd been playing all afternoon. Channel 7 had said that mine work on the moon was being shut down. And I probably shouldn't have chosen white pants for this day. Those clouds looked dark. They'd called a timeout. Something about avoiding the core collapsing. It's around about halftime that Chris offs his shirt. It's drizzling. They were attempting a new colony on Mars again. An improper attempt at a hanging can mean that you'll need to then wait a full minute and, well, I could never just master my patience to will. Shot on goal. They were playing Soccer. It's pouring now. The mugginess is gone. It's finally cool. There is barely a day where I don't have the thought "I am thinking I'll burn down the world…"

     A pen clicked. "You mentioned once that your parents seemed to direct most of their attention to your younger sister. How did that make you feel?"
     Chrissy cocked one of her eyebrows, trading glances with the potted plant on the window sill. "Indifferent."
     Some papers rustled. "Really? That seems to be a frequent answer of yours."
     If you slump low enough, the nape of your neck becomes perfectly level with the very top of the back of the couch chair. "My first assumption in life is that I'm generally ignored. I have yet to've seen this as a disadvantage."
     There was some scribbling before the setting down of a pen.
     "You know, most people lie through their teeth just for an attempt to get out of here."
     "I think people like to do it; I think they get pleasure from it."
     Chrissy's right arm jumped in its place on the arm rest and her left eye twitched for a second in outrage towards the window sill. She had blinked.

I never liked belts anyway and suspenders wrinkle the shirt 1,000 times less. I'm done with belts for life.

"Maybe you just haven't met the right guy/girl" really isn't all that offensive of a statement.

After all – by all technicality –, this could very well be true. Given all the millions upon millions of people in the world, perhaps you just haven't met the right one to change your mind or the one who might be the exception. I've more than a handful of friends for whom that's been the case.

No, the phrase itself is not offensive. It's the repetition.

While only the truly non-homophobic may react with calm, mom may simply react with surprise upon the first suggestion that what she might really enjoy is the disregard for stopping within the first half-hour and the attention to female pleasure in a lesbian orgy. And dad may be confused when you first note that nothing would be more of a flexing of masculinity than a sausage fest with the guys. But, eh, kids say the darndest things.

But that's just the start; soon you're responding to every time mom mentions that one of the girls in the movie you're watching is so pretty with, "So, you've been considering the option." Or when dad complains about not being able to watch football in peace, you mention – with a smirk – that there's always an alternative.

And maybe there is. Maybe it would work. But maybe dad and mom are happy, in spite of the differences with each other. Or, if your parents are separated, maybe mom and dad are fairly certain that they don't have much interest in the same sex. Or maybe, after a lifetime of dating the opposite sex, they don't want to put such a gigantic effort into simply trying to see if something could work there or if they might happen to find that very small exception out of the mass of people in this world. Or maybe they just want the choice to say, "No, I don't want to and so I won't because I can make decisions about my own life as a free and autonomous person," (note: a verbatim sentence either of your parents might actually say).

Or any other myriad of reasons. And so they're a little irritated by the 200^th time you mention at Thanksgiving dinner in front of grandma that maybe they just haven't found the right guy or gal yet. And, in spite of having little interest in changing what they've always done, they really shouldn't give up so easily on this task.

After all, how the Hell should they know if they've never even been with a girl or guy?

      For the record, no one should ever have to routinely go through the process of carrying two boxes of packing up several flights of apartment stairs: by the second time, I was already regretting my promise to get the work done that day.
      Yes, I wasn't entirely moved in quite yet. It was up and down, over and over, through a spiraling tunnel of cracked yellow paint for every painful step. And, of course, those boxes were far from light. Whatever paint had managed to loosely cling to the sides of the walls was quickly dislodged as I struggled to stay up during my rests. Towards the fifth trip, I just tried sliding all the way up. Seeing how much more yellow the steps got each time I went back for more was an amusing game, though.
     Of course, I also chose to do this task when it was boiling summer. It almost made me wish it was five years ago, back when I actually kept my hair short. As it was now, it ran down to – a little past – half my back. I could only thank God it doesn't frizz all that much.
     With continual distractions like that, the work became continually more fun to dwell upon. There was just so much stuff. I had forgotten that I had actually planned on moving in here – as in permanently. And then I had to actually unpack the boxes.
     I had decided to negate dwelling on that fun little fact by stacking the boxes into a corner. It was neat and, technically, organized that way. Yet, of course, all that would have to come out. In my rush, I hadn't bothered to question whether all of it would actually be able to fit nicely, and neatly, in the room. I could put my socks and under garments in a drawer together; the rest of my shirts I'd likely hang; I'd put the usual pens and such on the desk with my scissors and then a lamp for the corner, my sheets in another drawer,
     food
     plates
     general kitchen cleaning stuff
     my laptop
     my chair
     table covers
     blinds that actually matched the room
     my eraser holders
     –my thoughts were jolted from organizing as I was barreling down my hall before my arms decided to give out. It took me a second to realize that it was actually singing. That is, someone was singing. "Veronica..." it immediately dawned on me, my legs quickly coming upon her room on the way to mine.
     As I was starting to pass by, I glanced in through her open door. The minefield of a mess that littered her floor made me stop: honestly, there was several rooms all uniformly littered with random clothes and miscellaneous items (at first glance, I caught a brush and a bowl of chips towards one of the sofas with her Northface jacket just happily strewn over the lamp nearby).
     Veronica herself was sort of dancing amongst all the items, ringing her hair into a towel. From the looks of it, she had just gotten out of the shower, though she didn't seem to feel the need to make sure both her hair and body was dry seeing as she was already in her usual sweats in spite of her wet hair.
     I stopped and stared for too long, in part from the mess and in part from fatigue. Regardless, she didn't look up. She just kept up that slow dance around the items, her hips swaying beneath the lumpy sweatpants and shirt. As she was finishing up wringing her hair out – passing the dark blue towel a few times through for good measure –, she hit a fervored pitch before going down again softly, her eyes tracing the floor.
     "He took me to his parlor, and coo-oo-ooled me with his fan"—her voice ever so lightly fluctuated in her soft and breathy cadence—"whispered low in his mamma's ear, I luh-uhvvv that gamblin' gal…"