10 Happy Moments of Varying Goofiness
Take my hand. We’re going on an adventure through ten moments of personal joy. Some of them are huge, some of them are tiny. Many of them are so ridiculous I have no choice but to regale the tale, like an old fisherman on a creaky boat.
So crack open a cold one (or warm yourself a spicy one), sit back, and enjoy.
CW: Mental health and some discussion of depression
1. Starting a rave with my best friend
Otakon 2022. I and the rest of my seven-person party had finally arrived at the biggest convention on the East coast. My legs ached and my giant bunny ears kept trying to slide off my face. Moreover, I was sad. Our two-hour drive had become a six-hour hell-journey that caused me to miss the deadline to register for the Masquerade, a talent show for cosplayers. My partner and I had practiced our routine for five months; it was a huge romantic dance paired to the opening of the anime “Beastars.” It had meant everything to me.
Worse? I had planned to propose to my boyfriend on stage or immediately backstage after said big romantic dance. The ring box in my pocket had the very next day’s date engraved on it, the day we were supposed to compete.
Suffice to say, I was stressed. At the convention, our party waddled in and out of panels, all of which I regarded with vague disinterest. I could only think about that six-hour car drive and all the work I had put into my proposal. All of it was gone.
Around nine, my boyfriend found an advertisement for a convention party at a nearby club. He could tell I was disappointed and he knew from experience that nothing cheered me up like a good, loud, party. So, we grabbed the rest of our group and walked a mile through DC.
The cover charge was $20 per person, and we were ushered down into the basement bar. It was beautiful. It had all white furnishings and giant screens that projected clips of nostalgic media set to old-school club music. The dance floor was empty, but the tables were full of cosplayers.
Our party took a seat at the empty bar. And the vibe was…off. It was too quiet. I caught so many wistful glances at the dance floor and heard so much soft, awkward conversation that I was reminded of Junior Prom.
That was it. My proposal had been ruined. I had no intention of adding insult to injury and repeating Prom.
“I’m going out there. Wanna come?” I asked, to which my boyfriend responded by turning a little pink and guzzling down his drink. Though I was sure I’d look a little dumb dancing on the giant floor alone, I knew I’d be angry with myself if I didn’t try. I turned to one of my best friends, a guy I’d gone to middle school with and graduated beside. We’d been each other’s right-hand men for years. When I asked him the same question I got a very different response.
“Heck yeah!” He threw down his virgin drink, and together, we made a strategy.
Every movement starts with one person, but psychologists (or at least guys on Brain Teaser) say that they need three people to be viable. My buddy was bobbing along to the music, feeling out the vibe. I was electric with adrenaline, bouncing around like a kid with a sugar rush. Two down.
We just needed a third. A legend.
A Sword Guy.
Neither of us knew who Sword Guy was cosplaying. To us, he was just a guy in a snap-back hat carrying a giant, fuck-off plastic sword. He approached us with a silent nod and started pumping his fists in the air, using the sword as a dance partner.
We played limbo with it, and quickly, people sidled up from their tables to join. Now with a line of limbo-ers to keep up the momentum, my buddy and I circled the dance floor, gleefully shouting, “It’s time to mosh and slosh, bro!” It was cringe, but it was fun. I couldn’t stop laughing. As more cosplayers joined, we had a rush of joyful people jump in to play limbo and terribly twerk with us.
By the time we left to get shakes, the floor was packed. People nodded and fist-bumped us on the way out. My friend and I babbled excitedly, howling when we reached the street.
“You started that!”
“We started that!”
“A rave!”
“A rave!”
“Guys, guys, we started a rave!”
“Uh-huh. We know. We were there.”
We looked wild. We felt wild. We were alive, and the pain of the day was wiped away.
Throughout the convention, we would see our new friend here and there, and to us he would forever be ‘Sword Guy.’
My party even helped salvage the proposal, but that is a story for another essay.
2. Rolling down a hill with a White Claw
A summer night with a giant, milk-white moon hanging overhead. It was hot despite the breeze, and though a party raged in the farmhouse, I needed to run. I tore through the screened porch with a White Claw in hand, kicked my shoes off, and raced through the dirt.
The night wrapped me up in the smell of freshly cut grass. Somewhere in the distance, coyotes howled. I was so present with my body and with the dirt between my toes, so happy just to be there, that I chugged the rest of the White Claw and rolled down the nearest hill. It hurt a little, lots of bits of dirt and pebbles stung my skin, and the next day, I was covered in bug bites.
It was worth it.
I returned to the party after, my clothes an entirely different color from what they were before. Now, any time I’m partying out in the countryside, I make sure to step outside and enjoy the beauty around me. And maybe roll down a hill or two.
3. The insanity that is Strip Monopoly
Strip Monopoly sounds like a good idea. At least, I did at the time. To me.
I love sexy games, both for their intended purpose and as a funny experience to share with friends (I suppose we have a weird sense of humor). A lot of them are rarely up to snuff, however. The dice often end up with very odd combinations like “Lick, Elbow” or “Suck, Nose.” The board games are either paced too quickly or drag on painfully slow. In my infinite wisdom, I proposed “Strip Monopoly.” One piece of clothing for every opposing player’s hotel bought.
It soon just became bros playing very intense Monopoly. Naked. We sloshed back wine and Midori Sours while I dominated the board. Whatever intentions I had with Strip Monopoly fell away as I became Monopoly God King, cackling loudly as I built my evil rent traps. I was beaming. The sheer absurdity of the moment only compounded my happiness as I slurped down my sour candy of a drink.
4. Finishing my first novel
It was five in the morning, I was fifteen. I typed the words “THE END” in a font size so big it almost took over the whole page. I collapsed back against my bed, clutching my laptop to my chest, and I cried. Small, happy tears. This novel had taken everything from me, at over 100,000 words. I’d started it on my winter break in my freshman year of high school, and through my childish attempts at networking, it had become somewhat popular on Wattpad. Though I had finished NanoWrimo that November, I had never attempted something so big. Finally, it was done, and I had done it all by myself. Every word, every keystroke.
I was filled with life and light, because not only had I completed such a massive project for a kid, but I knew that I could do it again. And I did.
5. Loitering at various Spencer’s Gifts
To most, a Spencer’s needs no introduction, whether it be because of teenage memories or the reputation it has blazed. It and the neighboring Hot Topic, two black holes in your local mall, sucking up youths and spitting out Pickle Rick tee shirts in their place.
To those who do require an introduction, however, a Spencer’s is a novelty store, specializing in gag gifts, edgy apparel, and the infamous Back Wall.
To me, Spencer’s is no longer the mystical place it used to be. My last few times walking in the store were the very first ones where I wasn’t tempted to buy everything I saw. My fiance’s eyes glaze over when he’s dragged inside, but I’m always excited, despite how nothing there ever seems to change.
The first time I went, it was like walking into another dimension. I rushed around the store, absorbing every edgy garment that had the word “Fuck!” proudly emblazoned on it. I snatched up various chokers and pressed them to my neck, a kind of excited confusion running through me. I could just buy these? Take them home? Now?
I could sneak them past my parents. I grew up in a fundamentalist household. My mind was irrevocably blown.
And then there was the back wall. I and my party of giddy teens crossed the store like we were adventurers vaulting across an arctic terrain. When it came into view, we all started laughing. Just this instinctual childish response. Sex stuff? Sex stuff!
Ever since, all through senior year and our early adulthood, this is where we’d go. We’d grab a pretzel and then, giggling, rush into the Spencer’s to stare at lava lamps and peek at the back wall. Now, Spencer’s is still one of my happy places. I go there alone often, and though the novelty of the, well, novelty store has worn off, to loiter at a Spencer’s fills me with a simple kind of joy.
6. Mullet
It’s been years since I began my transition. Sometimes I feel like the person before ‘Damian’ no longer exists. That kid was drowning in pain; he could barely keep his head above the surface. Now, that pain is no longer suffocating. It runs through me like a thread, something I’ve been forged by, but something I can finally look beyond.
And it all began with ‘Mullet.’
Five years ago. A good friend, we’ll call them W, knew I was trans. They were the first to come out as non-binary in a friend group made up of mostly shitty anti-SJW boys. I was so proud of W, and so envious of their bravery. I wished I could own myself like they did, and they knew it. They knew it every time I laughed painfully and dodged the pronouns question. They knew it every time they asked me if I was trans and I sputtered like a stalled car. They admined a Discord Server with over a thousand people in it, mostly people my age, and after I saw screenshots of the crazy shenanigans they got up to, I wanted in.
It was my first time on Discord. I wanted to be someone entirely different. I wanted to be the goofy guy I idolized in all of my media, the playful second-in-command that cracks-wise and is fun to bring on adventures.
I picked the name “Mullet,” mostly at random, and jumped in. W asked, for the millionth time, what pronouns I wanted to use, and for the first time I responded with a resounding ‘he/him.’ The first night on the server, feeling brave enough to crack puns that I never would have offline, reaching out to people and starting conversations, I was in heaven. I was in totally uncharted territory.
My friend was surprised and delighted to finally meet the person they always knew was in there. I was too. That summer, I spent every night in the server, being Mullet. Being my attempt at “cool.”
Before that summer, I had been in the worst place of my life. I’d spent so much of the year thrashing against daily waves of pain, and those nights being Mullet held me above those dark waters. Those nights taught me that I could become whoever I wanted to be. Those nights stamped out the pain around my gender and replaced it with joy.
7. My official Name Change
It’s been over two years since I’ve legally become Damian. I’ll never forget the moment I opened the letter from the courthouse. I’d been searching through the mailbox almost every day since I first sent the request form. My mom and her boyfriend had left, and I was alone with my friend who was living with us at the time. I ran upstairs, cast my friend a nervous glance, and tore the envelope open.
What I saw tore a happy squeal from my mouth.
It was only a page long. My old name juxtaposed against my new one. I was finally, legally, Damian. We were nineteen and my mother didn’t drink. I found one beer she used for cooking and cast it into two glasses, sharing it with my friend as if it were champagne.
8. Pocky with a Stranger
When I enlisted, I was sent to MEPS. It was an all-day process where military and civilian doctors inspected every crevice of me to see if I was fit for service. I went through it twice, first when I signed the contract at seventeen, and then, the day before I shipped out for basic. My attempt at enlistment went very awry and I was separated for health-related reasons, but the night before I was sent to MEPS a second time, I was put up in a nearby hotel with about a few dozen other people. I shared my room with a woman about a year older than me who had just enlisted in the army.
I don’t remember much about her. I don’t remember her name and I barely remember what she looked like. I just remember that we decided to be friends, if only for that night. There was a mall, about a mile away over a few busy roads. We decided to make the walk together.
I don’t even remember what we talked about, aside from her offering me a hit off of her vape and me being totally bewildered by it. I remember that it was cloudy and about to rain. I remember it feeling as if we’d been friends for a while. I know she told me about her family, and that we went to a Box Lunch and split a box of Pocky.
We knew we would never see each other again, but it wasn’t sad. It was like looking at a snapshot of someone else’s life. We even went swimming together at the hotel pool, enjoying our last few hours of civilian life. It’s one of my favorite memories.
I learned that I enjoyed meeting new people, just for the heck of it. For as long as I could remember, I was a known “people hater.” I loathed social situations and saw the world as ‘Me vs People.’ ‘People’ to me was this big and nebulous concept, something to be constantly annoyed or angry at. This experience taught me that they’re more than that. Seeking connections with people, even those I knew I’d never meet again, could lead to something beautiful.
Ever since, it almost always has.
9. Pizza Hut pizza with extra pepperoni and cheese
I’ve written before about struggling with mental health. As a teen and throughout most of my early adulthood, my battle with despair felt crushing and unbeatable. Panic attacks choked me nearly every night and often I’d lie in bed unable to move. This night in particular was brutal. I wanted to be anywhere else, anywhere but in my body, in my mom’s apartment, anywhere but existing in that moment.
Also, I was hungry. This was a little unusual; I rarely had an appetite.
My mom could see that I was unhappy. We got two pizzas in a big box, hers was layered in peppers and mine was simple: I wanted as much goodness as I could have. Extra cheese. Extra pepperoni. It arrived steaming hot and everything about it was perfect. The square crust was extra buttery. The cheese was thick and tangy. The pepperoni was so savory and so salty, and I got so much in every bite. While I was eating my perfect pizza, everything else stopped. It was just me and pizza and bliss.
To this day, an extra-cheese-extra-pepperoni Pizza Hut pizza is my emergency food. My fiance gets a kick out of it every time I tell the story, because in my words, “I could live for that pizza.” In that night, that pizza was a beacon of light. It taught me that no matter how I was feeling, there would always be something good I could turn to. A hot shower with vanilla soap. My favorite book.
A delicious pizza.
10. A Ride in my friend’s truck
Night started falling. A good buddy from work and a few of our other friends, including my roommate, drove to the giant Halloween store at the local mall. It was as cinematic a night you could get; the wind was brusk and I had to put on the first sweater of the season. Perfect for enjoying a Halloween store.
Growing up, my family didn’t allow me to celebrate Halloween, so Halloween as a concept was an exciting thing that I got to discover as a young adult. Our party wandered around the store as if it were a museum, taking in everything. We tripped the animatronics on and played with the plastic pitchforks in the most polite, quiet ways we could.
It was a good time, but it was getting late. The mall was closing, and now the night sky was black and studded with stars. My buddy J waved his goodbyes to us and opened the door of his giant black diesel truck. That’s when my roommate glanced at him, glanced back at me, and asked, “Can we ride in the bed?”
J was a very quiet guy, and his expressions were always very small. In all the years I’ve known in him, at the heights of joy, the most he would give was a grin.
His mouth shifted into a very small smile. “Okay,” he said. And that was all.
He popped the back open, and the two of us jumped in. I pressed up as far as I could against the truck and my roommate squished in against me. When he closed the truck bed, the smile on his face was still faintly visible.
J put the truck in drive. Fast. I jostled up against my roommate and bit back a yell. J circled the empty parking lot, increasing his speed with each turn. Little pebbles and dust kicked up, and the two of us were screaming, laughing. “He’s trying to kill us!” I yelled. “It’s karma!”
And true, we badgered and antagonized J, mostly out of love. I worked with him; I had demanded him to become friends with me, instating “mandatory J night” on Wednesdays for dinner with him and my household.
The first time he met my roommate, she forced him to watch about three hours of My Little Pony content. He did not enjoy it.
We whooped, laughed, screamed, and that’s when a mall security car cut its lights on behind us. J very quickly slowed and the two of us in the back pressed down against the truck bed. We shot each other flushed looks. I was filled with adrenaline. I felt alive.
After a few scary moments, the car left and J parked. My roommate and I laid flat and stared up at the moon, laughing, happy. Even J chuckled, a very quiet, very small sound.
***
I guess this begs the question, did I learn anything from writing all this? (Aside from that I write about my life in the same voice I would if writing a fan-fiction.)
Well, I suppose a common theme is that I have a very childish sense of humor. The absurd fills me with joy.
I also love all the little things that bring me back from the dead. I love the night sky, the endorphins that rush through my body when I dance, and I love being me. Using my name, enjoying my body. I love wild, goofy moments, big ones that spark long tales and rushes of laughter, but I also love the small ones, too. Anything that makes me feel present in the moment.
I guess writing this taught me how much there is that I love.
It also strikes me how much of an extravert I’ve become. As a surly teenager, I would skip school just so I wouldn’t have to interact with anyone. I would say things like, “Who needs friends when you have fictional characters?” I would scoff at the thought of enjoying a stranger’s company. I would shiver even thinking about going to a club.
But here I am. My favorite thing in the world is a party. Whodathunk.
***
A big thanks to KP_the_writer and the Queerly Trans newsletter for the prompt! It can be so easy for me to write about pain and so hard for me to write about joy sometimes. I doubt I would’ve written something like this without the prompt, and I’d love to write more like it.