The Airing of Grievances: The Wrong Man for the Job

From a young age there were many careers I knew my albinism precluded me from performing. There isn't much demand for legally blind brain surgeons, for example. Or microbiologists. Crafting dollhouse miniatures wasn't going to be a hobby which eventually became a career for me. I didn't see flying jets or working with microchips in my future. While my albinism would obviously hinder my ability to perform these jobs, there were unexpected ways my albinism limited my career choices. In the spirit of Festivus, here is an airing of those grievances.

In sixth grade I was really interested in comedy and wrote a paper about stand-up in Washington DC, the closest city to where I grew up in Northern Virginia. For research, I went to a performance with my Mom and sister. My Mom had gotten the tickets and was really excited for me to see the show because one of the comedians on the bill had cerebral palsy and she wanted me to see having a disability didn't mean a person couldn't be a successful comedian. (Sidebar: upon finishing that sentence I instantly regretted every negative thought I've ever had about my Mother). I sat near the front so I could see better. One of the opening comedians decided to do some crowd work. Maybe it had been a long week and he needed some easy laughs or maybe he was just an asshole. Whatever the reasons, the dude picked me, an 11 year-old fat kid with albinism, as the person to make the subject of his fun. He asked who I was and what I did – real groundbreaking material. I said I went to school. He asked, “What do they teach you there, how to be whiter/” The audience laughed at me. I replied, “Actually it's a school for the gifted and talented,” thinking I could fall back on my smarts. The audience chuckled at my remark, but not as hard as they'd laughed at ME. The dickhead comedian - whose name I can't remember or I already would've found and heckled - moved on and I felt terrible. The whole room was laughing at me, but not in a way I wanted or controlled. An already shy kid, I was scared off doing stand-up or comedic performance for the rest of my life.

In seventh grade I was excited because I supposedly had one of the best mathematics teachers in all of the County. To this point in my life, math was my strongest subject and I'd imagined I'd use it in my career eventually, as much as I thought about a career in seventh grade. (See: The Eggshell Egghead) Math was great because my poor eyesight was rarely a problem. Back then a lot of the books I needed to read for class were still not available in large print, so English and reading were actually exceptionally difficult. (See Large Print Books Vs. Kindle). But in math, the size of the print rarely mattered. As long as I could see the numbers I could get the right answer. Nonetheless, in spite of having “one of the best mathematics teachers in the County” my progress in mathematics ground to a screeching halt in seventh grade for two major reasons. First, the teacher wrote illegibly and very, very small when he wrote on the board. At the time, I used a monocular telescope to see things teachers wrote but even with this accommodation, I could barely make out his chicken scratch. I absolutely could have done more to help myself. I could've worked harder. I could've harped on the teacher more often about the smallness of his writing. I could've stayed late. I could have done a lot of things were it not for the second thing keeping me from progressing in math. In seventh grade in Virginia, we switched schools. So, my best friends from elementary school, who had no problem being buddies with the albino kid in sixth grade, suddenly had a whole new group of girls to try to impress. Hanging out with me wasn't cool and that year a few of my closest friends hung me out to dry. This rejection lead to daily migraines and severe depression at the uniqueness of my fate; but, time has taught me getting shitty treatment from seventh graders is actually pretty standard. As I grew older, I made new friends who didn't have albinism and I learned even they had a hard time in middle school. Maybe I should thank the assholes who ditched me or invited me to their parties just to make fun of me in front of their new friends. At least their rejection allowed me to have a conventionally painful developmental experience. It's probably why I'm so fucking well-adjusted today. What heroes they were for giving me the privilege of adversity! But they didn't feel like heroes at the time. They just felt like a bunch of jerks. And I felt like an idiotic piece of garbage who nobody would ever love, which I guess is just another way of saying I was in Seventh Grade. Math being a cumulative subject, these setbacks impacted my progress for the rest of my life. I'm still insanely good at math but I'll never add up to my full potential and in some ways my albinism is responsible.

Once I got to high school, all I cared about was money because I foolishly thought it brought happiness and friendship, so my career aspirations were on Wall Street for a long, long time. Then I went to college to study business and the classes were insanely easy. Plus, I realized all my classmates were the same superficial douches who had rejected me in seventh grade. I was more interested in pursuing writing, so I changed my major to English, which one could argue diminished my career prospects as much as my albinism. The Christmas after I graduated UVA, I still hadn't found steady work and my Mom was honestly suggesting I try my hand at being a mall Santa. (Sidebar: upon finishing that sentence I instantly regretted regretting every negative thought I've ever had about my Mother). Pursuing a career in the arts proved frustrating for a person who likes making money. About 18 months after September 11, 2001 when I was living in New York, wholly out of love, unable to sell either of the novels I'd written and with my writing career and personal life in worse shape than the Twin Towers, the US was invading Iraq and I figured the Army could use my services. So I went to an Army Recruiting Office in Manhattan. I was in great shape, college-educated and thought myself an ideal candidate for Officer Training School. But I was told my eyesight was too poor to serve in any capacity. I got blind drunk that night because I felt so useless but I realize now, had I gone into the Army at that time, I would've probably been one of those guys who offs himself in Basic. I'm probably not front lines material, so it's entirely possible my albinism saved my life in this instance.



For a a couple years after the failed attempt in the Army I worked for my Dad, which sounds like a Ben Folds song and made about as much sense as volunteering for the Army in a time of war. My Dad owns and runs a very successful landscape maintenance company in Northern Virginia, one of the biggest markets for commercial landscape maintenance in the country. They mow lawns, do flower installations and tree planting. They do snow removal in the winter and generally work to maintain the aesthetic of their properties, though neither my Dad nor anyone in any of his offices or on any of his many crews colloquially throws around the word “aesthetic.” (Or ''colloquially” for that matter). As he's the kind of guy who loves being outside, being active and focuses on appearance, this work is ideal for my Father. His career in landscape maintenance has been lucrative and rewarding for him. However, while I respect his entrepreneurial spirit, work ethic and I'm incredibly proud my Dad has built a multi-million dollar company up from nothing, the work is completely wrong for me as a person with albinism. Driving around looking at the performance of crews, assessing the visual appeal of flowerbeds isn't exactly ideal work for a person who is legally blind. Running a mowing crew, blowing leaves or digging a ditch in the hot sun isn't the kind of work a pale-skinned man who is easily sunburned ought to be performing. I did HR, administrative tasks, marketing and accounting in my time there, but it was not intellectually or creatively rewarding. Maybe it's arrogant to think a job needs to be those things, but I'm of the belief that if I'm going to spend 40-60 hours a week working on something, I ought to get more out of it than just a paycheck.



So, I went to graduate school and pursued work as a Screenwriter. In my career as a Screenwriter, my albinism has not been a factor which has limited my success, the erratic nature and competitiveness of the field has done that. The biggest frustration associated with being a person with albinism who is also a Screenwriter is that, despite the liberal and inclusive nature of Hollywood, my albinism isn't worth anything in the entertainment industry. See, there are many programs which seek to bring diverse and disabled writers to the fore. As a person who is both legally blind and has a condition which occurs in 1 in 10,000 Americans, one might assume I counted as both disabled and diverse because objectively speaking I am absolutely both. However, as far as these diverse hiring initiatives are concerned, I don't count as either. I even wrote a dynamite feature film script in which there are magical albino characters, hoping the many meetings I took off the script would spark a conversation about my albinism as diversity. But nobody I met with was smart enough to know I had albinism, they just thought I was from Norway. It seems my albinism can get me publicly ridiculed in a room full of strangers, make driving difficult (See: Driver/ Driver), prevent me from serving my country and keep me out of the family business, but in the one instance in which this burden I've carried my whole goddamn life might be able to help me, it's utterly worthless. Then again, maybe I should count my blessings, remember my happiness and success are no one's responsibility but my own and accept the fact no human being can participate in society without feeling at least a little marginalized.

Hungover on a Thursday on an LA City bus, I was doing some soul searching related to these Screenwriting frustrations when the opportunity to teach college presented itself in the form of an email from a former classmate and friend who needed me to over one Screenwriting course. I took the chance, expecting to only teach for three months. I've now been here over five years. As a Screenwriting and Media Studies Professor, I have found a profession in which my albinism is rarely, if ever, a setback. My only professorial grievances related to my albinism are that my disability and diversity don't count in academia the same way they don't count in Hollywood and I'm often confused with another professor who is 20 years older than me. But, on the whole, I'm not derided any more than your average college professor. And I always make sure to write really big on the board.

Further Reading: My Hollywood Romance

At My Smartest, I'm An Idiot

I graduated with a BA in English from the University of Virginia on May 19, 2002. I will always carry a sense of pride for having received the Honor of Honors by graduating from Mr. Jefferson's University. But I don't remember Graduation Day because it was the culmination of my undergraduate academic career and definitively marked the end of a carefree time in my life when there had been no real responsibilities or repercussions; no, I remember it because it was the day I got the worst sunburn of my life.

It requires little or no intelligence to avoid getting a sunburn, it only requires sunscreen. Granted, sunscreen is goopy and greasy, it feels gross and it stings when it gets in your eyes. But avoiding a sunburn is not rocket science. Case in point, after Finals were over, between Beach Week, graduation parties, barbecues and going out to bars, I'd literally been drunk and often outside for three straight weeks but still had not gotten a sunburn. I don't mean “literally” in the contemporary misuse of the word, either. I actually mean it. Assuming the human body can process about one drink per hour, by my calculations I'd consumed more alcohol in that three week span than it is biologically possible for my body to have processed in that amount of time. Thus, I was literally drunk for three weeks, just like everybody else, and I still didn't get sunburned. Because of these weeks spent partying, on the morning of graduation, it didn't seem dumb or odd or alcoholic to wake up at 6am to go drink screwdrivers.

I wore jeans and a button down under my graduation gown. It meant I had limited space in my pants to carry necessities like keys, a wallet, cigarettes, a lighter, my cell phone and sunscreen. I wasn't willing to wear cargo shorts because there was a young lady I was hoping to impress and somehow I thought it mattered what I wore under my gown. (See The Fairest One of All). To that end, I wore my Diesel jeans, so the pockets were as slim as the cut and space was at a premium. It came down to choosing between sunglasses, cigarettes and sunscreen. I realized I probably wasn't going to be doing much reading at the bar, so I could just wear the sunglasses and leave my regular lenses at home. That meant I had to choose between sunscreen and cigarettes. With sunscreen, I would protect my skin and my lungs, avoiding two kinds of cancer with one good decision. In fact, two years prior, I'd been faced with a similar dilemma, chose to bring my cigarettes and ended up getting sunburned. So, the correct choice was obvious.

A couple hours later the sun was really cooking when I pulled a cigarette from the pack bulging in my pocket. It was one of those days that's too cold in the shade and too hot in the sun: all day long I felt clammy and flu-ish. I may have felt sick because of the nauseated uncertainty of life after college, or maybe it was all the cigarettes I smoked and the fact I'd been drunk for 21 days. Either way, I didn't care because I had a cool buzz on and dinner plans the next night with the young lady I impressed.

There is much pomp and circumstance involved with commencement ceremonies at the University of Virginia. Graduates congregate at Mr. Jefferson's Rotunda, then walk the Lawn before taking their seats outside and listening to a speech. That year the speaker was Virginia Governor Mark Warner. I don't remember a word he said; however, during the speech, two Honorable Men in front of me shared the following exchange, which has always stayed with me:

“Dude, what's wrong with you?”
“Two 40s and a pint of Scotch.”

After the university-wide ceremony, the English Department held another ceremony, where we sat outside and listened to a significantly more articulate and meaningful speech about the importance of communication and authenticity in the 21^st Century, then received the pieces of paper we'd worked so hard to achieve. All told I probably spent six or eight hours in direct sunlight, sipping from a flask, smoking cigarettes, generally being awesome.

That night people remarked my face was red and I told them it was because I'd been drunk for three weeks and regaled them with mathematical proof of this statement. Then I woke up and saw the blister forming on my forehead, right below the spot that had been covered by my graduation cap. This wasn't my first second-degree sunburn, (see Fun With Balls and Sticks) but it was the first one on my face. By the time the young lady I connected with knocked on my door to pick me up for dinner, a blister covered half of my forehead, another was forming on my nose, a third was forming on my chin and my ears and neck were swollen and on the verge of blistering. I looked like some kind of monster. Halfway through the date, the young lady I'd disappoint immensely months later let me know the blister on my nose had sprung a leak. She gave me her cocktail napkin, “for the pus” and I felt as monstrous as I must have looked.

I'm happy to report that was the last time I got sunburned. It was also the only time in my entire life I've ever honestly thought 'I shoulda worn cargo shorts.'

The Eggshell Egghead: On My Education and Albinism

In first grade at my geograhically assigned elementary school we were taking a spelling test and another student was obviously having trouble. He asked the teacher to repeat the word three times before I got frustrated and blurted out the correct pronunciation of the word, then spelled it out letter by letter for my feeble-minded classmate. In second grade, after I raised my hand and successfully answered every single math question my teacher asked, she, without a trace of irony or malice, asked if I wanted to get up and teach the subject. Later that year, I was doing math with the Sixth Graders. I needed a better school.

Louise Archer Elementary School was established as a school for African-American children in Vienna, Virginia in 1939. The African-American woman after whom the school was named established high standards of learning. When I arrived in 1988, long after her passing, Louise Archer was one of the few elementary schools in Fairfax County which had an accelerated academic program known as Gifted and Talented. Smart students like me were bussed to Louise Archer from all over the county for “GT.” I wasn't the smartest person in the room anymore but that's only because I was in an extremely intelligent room. I studied French in fourth grade and advanced mathematics throughout elementary school. Being around smart people made it easier to be accepted as a person with albinism. Every September at the start of the school year, I gave a brief presentation on my condition in order to educate my classmates. I was teased about my albinism by Louise Archer students who were not in the GT program, but none of my smart classmates ever really gave me shit about it. My obesity and ridiculous personality provided them plenty of other reasons to tease me.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Middle School was not my assigned middle school by geography, but it had a GT curriculum and was a feeder school for The Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology, a magnet science and tech high school which is nationally renowned. Since I'd been studying advanced mathematics, it seemed like a great fit for me. Instead, Middle School was hell. It's hard to remember how much of my torment was really caused by other people and how much of it was teenage insecurity, fear and radical chemical changes taking place in my body and brain. I don't remember getting teased about my albinism much, but then again, most of those years are blocked out of my memory. The vague snippets I can piece together are unpleasant, socially and academically. For reasons I'll elaborate on in a coming essay, I didn't even apply to The Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology and I hated math by the end of eighth grade. I've also never in my life read a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and I never fucking will.

George C. Marshall High School was named after Five Star US General George C. Marshall, who worked to rebuild Europe after World War II by instituting The Marshall Plan. It was also where I hoped to repair the burned out ruins of my social and academic life. High school was remarkably easy, which is not the same as saying I got good grades. While I could tackle any concept, I hated doing my homework, especially in English but ESPECIALLY in math. In tenth grade, my math teacher tried to motivate me, saying she would only sign the form allowing me to continue in accelerated math courses if I did 100% of the homework. Well, when the year ended I had a 100% quiz and test average and a 0% homework average. Fortunately, I also scored in the upper 99^th percentile on the Standards of Learning Test, which meant I could take the most advanced mathematics courses the school offered, no matter what the teacher thought. Even with this ability, to pad my GPA, I stopped taking advanced math. In regular math, I aced all the tests and did none of the homework but there was extra credit so I got A-s instead of B+s. I graduated with a 3.3 and some decent if not disparate extracurriculars, including being in the Jazz Band and Future Business Leaders of America. Aside from knowing that I wanted to make a lot of money, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with myself, who I was, or what I really believed. I was a conservative Republican and my future was on Wall Street.

I couldn't decide where to go to college. I didn't get into my reach schools of UVA or NYU, but I did get into both Boston University and Northeastern University. In hindsight, BU was the obvious choice and it shouldn't have even been close. However, because I was a conservative Republican who thought his future was on Wall Street, Northeastern had appeal. At NU, which was also in Boston, they offered a co-op program, mixing work and study. It meant I'd be able to work on Wall Street by the time I was 20, applying my studies as a Finance major. I couldn't choose between the two schools and ended up driving to IHOP at 3am, chain smoking cigareetes and poring over the materials from each university before I flipped a coin and landed on Northeastern.

Northeastern was a joke. My courses were simple and my classmates were dim. The business curriculum felt rudimentary, students learned what I considered to be mostly common sense and teachers assigned homework every single week! At the time, I thought so much homework was tedious but I now recognize the workload was meant to teach us accountability, a subject in which I had little interest during college. I obliterated Calculus for Business, Physics and Astronomy, getting As in all three, even with a 0% homework average. I eviscerated specious arguments from my ignoramus classmates in discussion sections of Sociology, Existentialism and American Ideology. I did so well on my Microeconomics Final, the Professor learned a thing or two. (Sidebar: The most valuable experience of studying business was taking micro and macroeconomics, both of which should be mandatory courses for anyone attending college, regardless of their field of study). Bored in my business classes, I got into creative writing and people thought my work was funny and they passed copies of a story I wrote for class around the dorms. I changed my major to English, which was smart because if I'd gone on to Wall Street I'd have ended up strung out on blow and in prison for securities fraud. Once I was an English major, school was even easier. All I really remember learning at Northeastern is how to drink even though I was underage, talk my way out of getting arrested, buy weed on the street, smoke weed on the street, carry on a socratic discussion while stoned to the gills, eat mushrooms, buy acid, jump across rooftops, get kicked out of rockabilly shows and not get laid. One day after I'd dominated a class discussion about the mass shooting at Columbine, a friend asked me, “Why aren't you at Dartmouth or something?”

The University of Virginia was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and is known for its beautiful grounds, a student-run Honor Code and a tradition of academic excellence. When I went to visit my friend in Charlottesville for a weekend and decided to transfer, it ranked as the best public university in the country with one of the best English Departments in the world. Every single person I met while visiting UVA reflected Virginia's tradition of excellence. These people were intelligent, interesting and articulate and I felt I had found my place. After tansferring, I found the academics intense, competitive and my classmates were as bright as I'd hoped. I stopped smoking pot or doing drugs because I had to focus, so I just smoked cigarettes and got drunk six nights a week. The challenges of the academic workload and the adroitness of my classmates at Virginia forced me to take myself and the expansion and development of my brain more seriously than I ever had in the past Since everyone was intelligent, I was rarely singled out for my albinism, except drunk people would say, “Hey, there's albino guy!” Sometimes I'd ignore it, sometimes it would bother me, depending on my mood and own level of intoxication. I graduated UVA with the same 3.3 GPA I had in high school but my diploma from Virginia also came with a feeling of Honor, a ton of pride and a genuine sense of intellectual superiority, all of which are common among UVA grads.

My favorite UVA joke goes:
How many UVA grads does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
It only takes one to hold the lightbulb in place while the world revolves around him.

I didn't have any real plans for my life after college and later essays will expand on what a disaster this lack of planning turned out to be; but, by the time I was 24, I needed out of my rut and Graduate School felt like a smart move. Because of my experiences at Northeastern, I was not willing to attend a middle-of-the-pack graduate school.

The School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California was established in 1929 in a joint venture with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, it has produced some of the most influential filmmakers in the history of the medium and USC is widely and rightfully regarded as the best film school in the world. I got wait-listed for their MFA in Writing for Screen and Television Program, which has an acceptance rate lower than that of Harvard Medical School. Though, that's a dubious statistic because only a select few excellent students apply to Harvard Medical School while every asshole in the country thinks he can get into USC Film School. That said, I can still remember how loud I screamed when I found out I was a Trojan. At the time, it was everything I ever wanted.

My favorite USC joke goes:
You know what they give you if you drive through USC's campus in a BMW?
A diploma.

From an academic perspective, USC was not particularly challenging; though it certainly broadened my perspective and artistic horizons. Creatively, it was the most amazing and challenging two years of my life. I was exposed to a whole new industry, medium and world in Hollywood. I was surrounded by passionate writers with similar goals, more talent, comparable work ethic and narcissistic personalities just like me. The lax academics of film school left most of us with a great deal of free time and I used this time to write and 'network,' which was just a euphamism for partying. I should have spent more of my time learning editing or more about physical production; but, even with a two-year hangover, I did a lot of great work in graduate school and am incredibly proud to be a member of the USC Mafia. Fight on! Write on! I think part of why I partied so much in graduate school stemmed from the fact my albinism became my most defining characteristic. My classmates were adults in their 20s, most of whom had never met a person with albinism before, so being Albino was my Thing. In a future essay I'll talk about this idea more, but I've never been so aware of my albinism as when I lived among the tan and image-obsessed people of Los Angeles.

From elementary school through graduate school, I had the privilege of learning at some of the finest educational institutions on the planet. The quality of these institutions was most evident in the teachers I encountered at each. At Louise Archer, Longfellow, Marshall, UVA, USC and yes even Northeastern, my teachers were extraordinary. Though I was... let's say unique and my vision offered many obstacles, my hardworking and patient instructors, teachers and professors gave me knowledge, which remains the best way to equip a person to mitigate life's many challenges. The education I received has been integral to my success as a person with albinism. Today, in my work as a Professor, I try to pay it forward. It is funny to me, though, that after an academic career spent avoiding homework, I've landed work as a professor, a vocation in which, because I have to grade assignments, I have homework every single night for the rest of my career.

My education now thoroughly vaunted, I have to admit the most important lesson I've learned in my life did not come from any of these renowned schools. Being smart and well-educated meant I was often right and being a white man in American meant I thought I could and should be extremely arrogant and vocal about how right I was, especially since I was right All The Time. However, getting older and wiser, failing A LOT and working as a freelance writer and Professor has taught me how to admit when I am wrong, which is the single most valuable lesson I have ever learned. Many of the problems the world faces today stem from people being unable to admit their mistakes, errors in judgement, misinterpretations of the facts or flawed views about the world or themselves. Experiencing setbacks and interacting with my students has forced me to remember what it feels like not to know something, which has taught me to look past my ego to see the truth, even when that truth is counter to what I believe or even what I think I know.  It's okay if I'm wrong. 
As such, here's a partial list of things I've been wrong about:
I was wrong. I shouldn't have flipped a coin to decide where to go to college.
I was wrong. Ben Franklin was never a president.
I was wrong. “Reeling in the Years” is not performed by Thin Lizzy, it's Steely Dan's best song.
I was wrong. SNAKES ON A PLANE did not make more money than PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN at the box office like I thought it would.
I was wrong. Dating a woman off and on for three years and never meeting her parents was a mistake.
I was wrong. My friend's wife really could name all 50 states in under five minutes.
I was wrong about every choice I ever made in Las Vegas.
I was wrong. Moving to New York to follow a girl who didn't want to be my girlfriend was an error in judgement.
I was wrong to turn down a career opportunity to become a suit at NBC because I'm “an artist.”
I was wrong. I once submitted a resume with two typos on it. They were both Headings. One read “PROFFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE.” The other read “EDUCTATION.”
I've probably misheard my wife 300 times this month alone.
I was wrong. I didn't wear earplugs when playing the drums.
I was wrong about nearly every financial decision I made between 2002 and 2012.
I was wrong. That story about how NASA spent millions to make a space pen that would work in zero gravity and Russia didn't spend a dime and just used a pencil is completely bogus.
I was wrong. I should have done more squats and less bench presses.
I was wrong. Internet dating turned out to not be beneath me, it's how I met my wife.
I was wrong. I should have started yoga when I was 18.
I was wrong. I believed Jackie.
I was wrong. I should not have quit playing the guitar even though I was not instantly good at it.
I was wrong. Elvis Costello is awesome.
I was wrong. I should not have quit doing Tae Kwon Do even though I was instantly good at it.
I was wrong. Regularly sleeping with and then moving in with a girl who kept insisting she didn't want to date me was a mistake.
I was wrong. I canNOT do a flip.
I was wrong. Ted Nugent was never in Bad Company.
Putting a knife through my finger while making a salad was a mistake but I wasn't “wrong” about it. I was wrong about taking an ambulance to the hospital instead of a taxi was and I should've flown to my insurance company's home coverage area for the subsequent nerve repair surgery I needed.
I was wrong. Pursuing a career in the arts in 21^st Century America has proven harder than I thought it would be.
I was wrong to sell my car before moving to New York City.
Being a Conservative was mostly wrong, (but probably not as wrong as you think).
I was wrong. I overestimated Rob Gronkowski's fantasy output in the 2016 season.
I was wrong. There's no giant moment coming where all the pain and suffering of life feels worth it. The moments the suffering feels worth it are fleeting and far between, but they are there and I can see them when I'm not too busy waiting for the giant moments that never come.
I was wrong. Fleetwood Mac is not a terrible band.
I was wrong. Nobody owes me anything, ever, at any time and not for any reason.
I was wrong. One time, I confused uterus and womb and claimed a woman's uterus forms during gestation in front of a graduate level class I was teaching.
I was wrong. I am decidedly not a genius.
Nothing in life will go as I think or the way I imagine and I was wrong to think this lack of predictability is a bad thing.
Updating daily...

Further Reading: The Wrong Man for the Job

Albinism and Aging: A Case Study by the Numbers

It was Monday and I had a meeting so instead of sleeping until 10 or 11, I woke up at 8, which was still considered early back when I was 29. I went for a jog, showered, shaved and went to the bodega up the street to buy cigarettes, where I was carded, so I had to run back to my place and get my ID to prove I was over 18.

My meeting was the last of a series of general meetings I took off a pilot script I'd written about drugged out Wall Street psychopaths. I went to Lionsgate Television and I remember the woman I met with being really condescending, which at the time was a great way to trigger me becoming The Biggest Asshole on Earth. After telling her the Mad Men pilot put me to sleep and that maybe watching television shouldn't feel like AP English homework, I drove home and decided I needed a drink. I met a friend at Fred 62 where I ordered a 16 ounce beer and was asked to show my license, indicating I was older than 21. When I spoke to my (former) Manager and (former) Agent, they explained the woman I met with had been condescending because I looked like I was 22 and she didn't respect people right out of college. I told him I guess I have good genes.

I don't really remember much about the rest of that particular week. I was freelance writing and writing scripts at the time and didn't need a day job yet. All those weeks sort of blur together into an awesome haze of immense hope and utter and complete panic. By the numbers, my week was probably 10 hours in the gym, 36 sugar free popsicles, 25 pages of writing, between 5 and 48 beers, 9 holes of par 3 golf, 64 ounces of SPF 45 Sunscreen, 2 to 15 grams of AK-47, 60 pieces of sushi, 5 beautiful LA sunsets and 0 shaves.

While I don't remember all the details of that particular week, I'm sure there were 0 shaves because on Friday I met a friend for lunch. When the bill came, I noticed on the check that'd I'd been given an unsolicited Senior Citizen Discount. The waitress didn't even ask to see my ID. Evidently, with a week's worth of stubbly white beard, I looked considerably older than 65. And that was the week I aged 47 years.

Further Reading: The Eggshell Egghead: On my Education and Albinism

The Fairest One of All

“People kill for hair this color.” Every time I get my haircut, the stylist remarks about it. But I haven't always been comfortable with my appearance because white hair and pale skin have meant people have stared at me my whole life. It's hard to remember a time when I didn't feel like I was on display. As a child, I remember this unwarranted gawking bothering my mother quite a bit. We'd be out at the mall, at the movies or maybe out to eat and her face would tighten into a scowl, “They're staring at you,” she'd hiss, remarking about a group of people I, in most instances, didn't even notice. 

Sometime in eighth grade I started to say, “If people are going to stare at me, I at least want to control why they stare.” I figured if I dyed my hair a shocking color, people would stare because of a choice I made about my appearance and not because of a mathematically improbable genetic shortcoming; so, I dyed my hair blue using food coloring. I thought this was taking ownership. Unfortunately, school administration wasn't on board with my self-expression. I was called into the office even though, Eleanor, a really popular girl whose hair was dyed in really cool sparkly streaks, was never in trouble for her hairstyle. The Vice Principal was named Mr. Lynch and he was a short, fat bald man with a mustache and an ego as fragile as those of the pubescent pupils he patrolled. He said my dyed hair was disturbing classes, but he was probably just jealous I had any hair to dye. My mom was called in from work and, according to her, she yelled at Mr. Lynch but I was still sent home, which was a much easier way to make sure nobody stared at me. I wanted to believe “If people are going to stare at me, I at least want to control why they stare” was my philosophy, but the truth is I just wanted to fit in. I wanted people who were ballsy and cool to think of me that way. I hoped dyeing my hair would gain me a social group and someday, just maybe, the affection of a woman. I'd love to tell you getting sent home from school solidified my reputation as a dangerous rebel, got Eleanor's attention and we became fast friends who fell in love, but the truth is I was a ghost with acne and poor hygiene and Eleanor and I never even spoke to one another. 

Freshman year of high school I couldn't figure out how to take care of myself because I couldn't figure out who I thought I was supposed to be. I'd expected to play football but when the doctors wouldn't let me because of my eyesight (See Fun with Balls and Sticks), the dickhead jock persona I probably would've cultivated was out the window and I had to find a different identity entirely. As a result, Freshmen year was basically a return to seventh grade levels of depression and an abandonment of all self-care. I grew my hair long, I didn't bathe, wash my clothes regularly or care about my appearance. I hated myself too much to even overcompensate for the fact I hated myself. One day two Persian girls with really hairy necks came up to me in the hallway and told me I needed to wear deodorant because I stunk. I tried to dye my hair red and it turned out peach. By sophomore year I was bathing because I liked a girl but I got way into punk rock so nobody stopped staring; though, now they stared because I had a green mohawk or a shaved head and a bomber jacket with patches for bands they'd never heard of. They probably stared because they thought I was a neo-nazi. My Junior year, I was a fairly well groomed weirdo musician and people stared at me all the time, but it was partially because my closest friends were two really good-looking twin brothers, a guy who resembled a handsome Quentin Tarantino, a guy who looked exactly like John Travolta on steroids and my best friend was a dead ringer for Timothy McVeigh, the man who blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995. 

Besides my albinism and friends, there are 100 other reasons people might have stared. Until I was 18, I was also morbidly obese. On July 27, 1997, a month away from starting Senior Year of high school, I was just under six feet tall and I weighed 290 pounds. Over the course of the next year, thanks to cultivating some discipline related to what I shoved in my mouth and late night jog sessions every single night regardless of weather, by July 27, 1998, a month away from starting college, I was just under six feet tall and weighed 190 pounds. Losing a small person and keeping most of it off has been one of the hardest things I've ever done and you know what's frustrating about it? I've now been in shape so long many of my friends from back then don't even remember that I lost 100 pounds in 12 months 18 years ago. 

Because I went to college in Boston and then transferred to UVA, many of the people around me were from wealthy families; as such, they dressed really well. I also had some kinda superficial, Seinfeldian friends, so I started to take a real interest in my appearance.  I wore jeans and a black t-shirt nearly all the time to try and look dangerous, except when I'd dress up to go out drinking. Now that I wore a 36 waist, I could shop at Lord & Taylor or J Crew. I took care of my face, shaving with a multi-bladed razor, nice shave cream and using an aftershave balm with no alcohol so as not to damage my skin. I became quite vain. By the end of college, my friend Lexi would describe me saying, “I mean, you have albinism. But if people can get over that, you're really hot.” But I couldn't 'get over that' because people still stared at me all the time. While I now recognize maybe people were staring at me in college because they liked what they saw, at no point did I feel good about their prowling eyes because at no point did I like the man staring back at me in the mirror. 

A misunderstanding of Bret Easton Ellis' fiction, led me to a period during which I really cared about clothes. In my 20s, I became a brand whore, only wearing Diesel jeans or other designer labels. I cared about some guy's name in my shoes or how much my watch cost. My value was reflected in what my sweater was made of or that people knew I had cool socks. I told myself a new version of the same old lie as I overpaid for haircuts. “If people are going to stare at me, I at least want them to like what they see.” Staring down and seeing “Hugo Boss” written on the inside of my coat momentarily made me hate myself less after someone called me “Grandpa,” “Frosty the Snowman” or remarked about “Powder.” Sure, I didn't know my value or values, in any sense of the word, but at least I knew my jacket was expensive. I could always tell you the total cost of everything I was wearing, right down to the Calvin Klein boxer briefs. A designer wardrobe was my costume. Diesel jeans, Cole Haan shoes and a Gucci sweater were the disguise I wore to convince myself and everybody else I was no longer that scared, stinky freshmen who hated himself so much he couldn't even bring himself to bathe. I'd come to like myself just enough to overcompensate for how much I hated myself. 

When I started riding my bike around Los Angeles instead of driving, (See Driver/ Driver) I became far less concerned about wearing designer clothes because anything I wore ended up drenched in sweat. Biking also demanded I focus on the world around me in ways I hadn't before. It didn't matter how much my underwear cost as I pedaled and swerved around BMWs on Melrose trying not to die. My actions mattered in a whole new way and having to stay focused on real world obstacles forced me to get out of my head. I also dropped 20 more pounds. 

It took 30 years for me to have an ass small enough to fit into a pair of Levi's jeans, but they looked great. And you know what? My cheap new jeans didn't matter. In fact, I got more attention in the Levi's than I ever got in Diesel jeans. Turned out nobody really noticed what I wore. Then my apartment got robbed and my nice watches were stolen. I used my cell phone to tell time and nobody noticed that either. I came to realize, nobody had noticed any of it. Nobody but me cared who made my clothes, nobody but me obsessed over my watch or my socks or my undershirt or that I used shaving balm without alcohol or put white strips on my teeth. Like a Bret Easton Ellis novel, most of the people I was trying to impress were too self-absorbed to notice anyone else's choices. And worse, I was too self-absorbed to notice they weren't noticing. It was eighth grade all over again: I wanted people to think I was cool, but nobody was paying attention. Even when they stared, nobody saw me. 

Or maybe my friends just saw through my costume to a version of me that I couldn't see yet. 

By paying more attention to my actions, words and deeds than the costume I'm wearing, I found a way to be more comfortable in my own skin. Today, I don't care about brands but I do take pride in my appearance. I remain very aware of how I dress because, while clothes aren't as important as I thought, costume still matters. Like anyone, my appearance and the effort I put into it send cues which inform other people how I treat myself and thus, how they ought to treat me. Three years ago, I started wearing a tie and jacket when I lecture. I was instantly taken more seriously by students at the colleges where I teach and by the staff members at the Chipotles near those colleges. Nobody really stares at me if I dress well now, they just treat me with respect. Because of my white hair, I think I just look like every other well put together middle-aged doofus. The anonymity is mostly liberating. And if I ever want to feel completely on display, I can always dye my hair or stop bathing.

Further Reading: Albinism and Aging: A Case Study by the Numbers

Super Summer Camp

When I was seven or eight I first went to a camp for legally blind kids called Super Summer Camp. They gave us shirts emblazoned with a big Superman S. The camp offered all the hallmarks of any summer camp. There were cabins full of lizards, a swimming pool which was freezing except when it was full of pee, rusted canoes we could paddle in a circle around a placid lake and a ropes course with neutering harnesses. The camp was in the rocky foothills of the Southwest Mountains outside Charlottesville, Virginia and the terrain was sometimes precarious, even for the normally sighted. Super Summer Campers had a broad spectrum of vision impairments from colorblindness to total blindness. Whenever we went anywhere, legally blind campers were asked to lead totally blind campers, it was the blind leading the blinder over loose gravel trails with steep pitches. There were even other kids with albinism there, too. I wish I could say there'd been some nice connection between all of us. Now that I'm older, I see it would have been nice if we had all talked about our obstacles and come to reasonable solutions about how to better cope in the world. (Hence this blog). But we were kids away from our parents for a week, so all I remember is swearing as goddamn much as humanly fucking possible, drinking too much chocolate milk in the mess hall and, as a legally blind kid at a camp full of totally blind kids, I remember feeling like a superhero. 

I was a big, athletic child and my Dad had raised me to believe I could play professional sports because he almost played pro baseball and has no real understanding about the poorness of my eyesight. As such, I was far more coordinated and physically capable than many of the kids camp, whose parents had raised them to have rational understanding of their physical limitations. I was James Bond when I got to Scuba dive in the swimming pool or shoot a 22 caliber rifle. Climbing up the rock wall, I felt like the old Adam West Batman when they'd turn the camera sideways to make it look like he was climbing up the side of a building in Gotham. While I don't fully understand the logic of giving blind kids bows and arrows, reasonable accommodations were even made for us to practice archery. Counselors put beeping beacons on top of the archery targets so we knew where to shoot. Hearing the beeping, I drew back my string, lined up my shot and let go of the arrow. The beacon squealed out a last, distorted beep, then went silent forever. I'd put an arrow right through it, like some kind of albino Robin Hood. The only thing I couldn't do was one specific challenge on the Ropes Course in which the fact I could see was a detriment. We were asked to climb a telephone pole, jump off and try to grab a trapeze which was supposedly hanging in the trees. Well, when I got to the top of the pole, I could not see the trapeze I was supposed to jump for, but I could very clearly see the ground 35 feet below. Batman might've jumped; but I climbed down, feeling anything but heroic.

The camp moved from Charlottesville to Roanoke, Virginia and lost some of its appeal. The new camp was less rustic because it was a facility which could accommodate all manner of persons with disabilities. The terrain was flat and there was far more pavement. I was closer to the ages of the counselors and trying really hard not to be defined by my albinism, so all I wanted to do was crack jokes and smoke cigarettes with the college-aged Counselors instead of doing dumb boring camp activities for stupid blind babies. I was funny, so most of the Counselors were cool, but now I recognize what a nuisance I must have been. These Counselors were college sophomores, I'm sure they wanted time away from the loudmouth albino teenager asking them for cigarettes and generally making their downtime hell.

Looking back now, being frustrated the camp was too accommodating for people with disabilities and bothering the Counselors all the time doesn't sound very heroic. Superman probably wouldn't break the beeping beacon so blind kids couldn't enjoy archery. Maybe I wasn't such a hero after all. I guess The Dark Night was right, you can die and be a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain at blind camp.

Fun with Balls and Sticks

From the ages of 6-10 I was a dominant soccer player. I played fullback and sweeper and got to take all our goal kicks. My nickname was Big Foot. The teams on which I played were consistently competitive for the league championship, winning one, and I was widely (and rightfully) regarded as the best defensive player on the team, if not in the entire league. When I broke my foot helping a drunk asshole build a deck in fourth grade I stopped playing soccer and started playing basketball. In one game, I scored 16 of my team's 32 points like an 11 year-old albino Charles Barkley. That season our team came in second place in the league and I was voted an All-Star by the coaches of the other teams. I also used to play my neighbor at tennis. He went on to play in college, but I remember owning him when we were eight. Then everybody hit puberty and I was suddenly the blind kid.

It seemed like it happened overnight. Elementary school ended, and with it recess sessions dominating tag football, soccer or three-on-three basketball. I still played in club leagues, but suddenly the kids in these leagues were as strong as me or stronger, and balls were flying at my face way faster than before. I got through the horrors of eighth grade imagining myself becoming a lineman on the football team in high school, but when I went to my doctor to get the mandatory physical, she wouldn't sign the form. She thought my vision was too much of a liability and I'd get myself killed. I remember storming out of her office and sitting in my mother's car, sobbing. It was the first time I can remember feeling what it's like to know I would not get something I really, really wanted. At that point I realized the car was running.  My mom had inadvertently left the keys in the ignition with the car turned on the entire time we were at the doctor. If I wasn't gonna get brain damage from football, I'd inherit it. While I remember being disappointed at the time, in hindsight, which is 20/20 even though I'm legally blind, the doctor was totally right: football would have been way too dangerous. Plus I don't think my high school football team won a single game in the four years I attended, so it was probably better I was left out.

The primary dynamic of most competitive sports involves balls coming at you, so I thought maybe I could play a sport without a ball, like wrestling. But even that involved balls coming at me, so I considered a sport where at least the ball stood still. My grandfather took me golfing when I was six. We were near the green and I had a wedge. He asked me to put the ball as close to the hole as I could. I chipped within an inch and Pop told me to grab my putter and put it in the hole. I looked at him, furious, and said, “If you wanted the ball in the hole, why didn't you just ask me to do that the first time?” When I was eight we went to the Greenbriar resort for a family vacation and I stepped out onto the driving range and bombed a 3 wood dead straight, 180 yards consistently. Or, at least that's what people told me. While the ball isn't coming at you in golf, it really helps if you can see where it goes. Unless I'm in close pitching, as soon as the ball leaves the face of the club, I lose sight of it completely. Still, golf was a sport much safer than soccer, basketball or football. Or so I thought.

I was 15 and at an age when my dad and I were struggling to connect. He had recently started a landscape maintenance company and was on his way to becoming an extremely successful businessman. I was really into punk rock and the fact I smoked cigarettes and nobody in my family knew. We went out to play a round of 18, the first full round in my life. I don't know who was supposed to remember to remind me to put on sunscreen, but it didn't happen. For five hours we played in the scorching Virginia August heat. If I remember right, I shot pretty well. But that didn't matter. When I got home and looked in the mirror, I realized something was very, very wrong because my face was redder than the surface of Mars. When I woke up, I had second degree sunburns on my arms, neck and ears. With these blisters oozing and aching, I went to a dermatologist who prescribed this stuff called Silvadane. I smeared the white paste onto the burns and it turned purple-black as it soothed the damaged skin. It smelled terrible, rotten but also metallic. It seemed to help, though. My mom said she wanted to bring my dad up on child abuse charges; instead, she just reminded me of this sunburn every single time I saw my dad for the next two years.

After that, my interest in playing sports became largely passive. (Admittedly, the secret smoking may have played a role in this). I'd play basketball with my friends, I played IM soccer in college and I played par 3 golf when I lived in LA, but I'm much less engaged in athletics today. Instead, I got really into playing music. Sophomore year of high school I started playing the drums, which ended up being perfect, since drums are the most athletic instrument around. The movements were most like basketball, the way I had to use all four limbs and stay in sync with the other players; but it also took hand strength like a big league pitcher, toughness like a hockey player and the ferocity of an outside linebacker to practice and become a solid drummer. Senior year of high school, I played in the school Jazz ensemble and received a varsity letter for achievement in band. We even won second place in a band competition. Granted, we won second place in a contest involving three total bands, but that's still more than the football team ever won. Playing the drums, I got to be sweaty and coordinated and strong and I almost never had to worry about sunburn or balls flying at my face. (Almost never).

Context is Everything and You're Not You

Context is Everything

Most people only have to meet me once and they remember me forever. I guess as a whip smart, handsome, foulmouth albino dude whose temperament falls dead center between that of a sensitive, delicate artist and a drunken frat bro I'm somewhat of an oddity. Or maybe folks just remember my shocking white hair and how good I talk. Either way, people have always had an easy time remembering me. On the contrary, I don't recognize anyone because I can't remember what anybody looks like. Although, that's a bit of a misrepresentation. The truth is: I can't remember what anyone looks like because I never knew in the first place. 

In college, I had a reputation as a world class snubber. I never said hello to anyone I passed on campus or saw at bars or parties and I think people just thought I was a jerk, which I was; but I didn't mean to snub everybody! It's nothing personal, I just don't recognize faces. Given my eyesight, most people look about the same to me, or similar enough to be cast into groups. Blonde Girls, Brown Haired Dudes, Gingers, Hot Girls, Dudes I Could Fight and Win, Dudes I Could Fight and Lose, Dudes I Probably Shouldn't Fight – you don't need to know all the intricacies of my system. The point is, once I know the type of person you are, I'm generally able to recognize you, but only in context. So, the Tall Guy at work is Brad, the Tall friend of my friends is Ryan and the Beautiful Woman I'm married to is Amanda. The problem comes when I see people out of context. 

After I finished grad school I was working at a liquor store in LA, which I know is a very weird and kind of depressing sentence. One day a man came up to me and asked about Scotch. I took him over to the Scotch case, thinking his voice seemed somewhat familiar. I helped him pick out a Scotch aged in port barrels and he introduced himself to me as Jeff Melvoin. Well, introduced isn't the right word because we'd known each other for three years. Jeff had been my Professor at USC, one of the best Professors I ever had and the Professor I most try to emulate when I teach writing courses. What's worse, Jeff had been my Mentor after USC, I'd gone to his house in Brentwood where we drank bourbon and talked TV and guitars and he gave me notes on a pilot script I was writing. This man was a personal role model, friend and one-time colleague, one of the most influential people in my adult life and I looked at him like a stranger. I was as humiliated in the moment as I am remembering it now, and not just because I had an MFA and a job at a liquor store. 

Now, as a Professor myself, I teach between 100 and 150 new students every quarter. Every 12 weeks or so, I meet hundreds of new faces I'll never recognize but who will be able to spot me ten blocks away for the rest of our lives. When I'm at school, I can share a smile with these people and at least think the Girl With Glasses I'm smiling at in the halls is the same Girl With Glasses from my classes, but outside of school, things are different. On five separate occasions, current or former students have seen me out in the wild and said hello and I have greeted each of them as if I were seeing a purple unicorn walking on a lake of frozen green fire. I wish I could apologize to these students individually, but I don't know who any of them were. 

"You're Not You"  

This has probably happened to you. You're walking down the street when you see someone you think you know. This person starts waving. You smile, become sure you know this person and convinced they must be waving at you. You wave back, only to approach the person and have him or her walk right past you, at which point you realize the person was actually waving at someone behind you. You don't know them at all. Red faced, you probably walk on a bit faster, embarrassment quickening your steps. Because of my poor eyesight, this false recognition happens to me all the time and in way more embarrassing ways than just waving at the wrong stranger. 

In High school, I was friends with a Vietnamese kid named Ha, which probably sounds a little made up. Ha often wore a red Polo and baggy jeans. As most high school boys, we had a relationship built on dick jokes, basketball and belittling each others mothers. The first day of sophomore year I saw Ha at his locker, red Polo and all, so I walked up to him and greeted him as was customary for high school sophomores: I smacked him in the back of the head. It was at this point I realized it wasn't Ha. I had just smacked Stanley, who played football and wrestled. If I had been a smaller dude in high school I probably would have gotten my ass kicked, but I was a big fat hulking monster and Stanley was more confused than anything about why the Stay Puff Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters had just smacked him upside the head. I remember him asking, calm and plain as day, “Hey, man, why you smacking me?” 

“Sorry, you're not you,” is all I could think to mutter before stomping away and wanting to kill myself even more than was customary in tenth grade. 

My problem of mistaken identity would follow me through my 20s, when it was complicated by the fact I Drank. I'd go out, get lit, get a girl's number and call her a few days later. We'd agree to meet for drinks and I'd always have to get there early because I would never, ever remember what the woman looked like. A few times I was quite surprised, as I'd been expecting a blond and a brunette showed up; or I thought I'd chatted up a hippie chick and my date turned out to be a punk, or I thought it was a girl I'd never met before and it turned out to be someone from a writing workshop in college. That last one was probably more to due with the Drinking than the eyesight. Once the world starting dating online, things only got worse for me. I'd stand in front of the bar where the girl I'd picked based on her best thumbnail had agreed to meet me and look desperately at every woman who even remotely resembled the picture I'd squinted to see online. I'd smile at a super cute girl, hoping, praying she was my date, only to have her walk right past me just before my uglier actual date showed up, covered in acne, cat hair and claiming to be a nerd even though she sure seemed like an idiot. 

Now that I've successfully tricked a woman into marrying me by being charming and awesome, there are still many other social situations impacted by this false recognition. One time in my 30s I thought I recognized my friend's girlfriend at Starbucks. I knew she worked in the same building as the Starbucks, so I thought this proximity raised the probability that the blond woman I was staring at was, in fact, Erin. Well, when I walked up to this woman and said, “Hey Erin, what's up?” she just looked at me like I was crazy and slinked away. Admittedly, running away upon seeing me didn't necessarily mean this girl wasn't my friend's girlfriend, but something in this other blond woman's eye roll was unfamiliar, so I'm sure it wasn't Erin. I've also subsequently asked Erin about it and she insists this wasn't her. 

That experience with Anti-Erin taught me a lot. I no longer go up to people in Starbucks and say hello. Even when I'm 99% sure I recognize someone now, I'm way too shy and scared of humiliating myself. In that same Starbucks where Erin wasn't Erin, I often think I see colleagues because one of the colleges where I teach is right across the street. But I never, ever say hello to anyone because I'm too afraid of being wrong. Instead, I wait for them to say hello to me. It's a good, safe policy which keeps me from being humiliated and sometimes means I get to cut the line when colleagues call me over. But it also might be hurting my career. See, sometimes I think I see the Dean of my college in that same Starbucks and I worry he sees me and thinks I'm snubbing him. But it could just as easily be any smart looking, middle aged white dude. Guess one of these days I'll have to smack him on the back of the head to find out if it's the Dean.

My Life on the H List

The most identifiable characteristics of people with albinism are our light skin and white hair. This aspect of our appearance is known as hypopigmentation. Because of my hypopigmentation, I'm very easily recognizable in crowds and I'm pretty unforgettable, for many reasons. The unique pleasure people get from looking at me often makes me feel like I'm a famous person, plus people often stare at me in crowds and a couple times strangers have asked to take my picture. In many ways, because of my albinism, specifically my hypopigmentation, I think of myself as an H List Celebrity.

In high school, I spent my life on the run from imagined paparazzi, trying to stay out of the limelight as I snuck deep into the woods near my house to smoke cigarettes, the same way I imagine celebrities have to hide their cocaine use. One time I let my guard down and smoked outside the mall. Some lady I couldn't recognize but who knew me said she was gonna tell my mom. I masterfully covered with a bulletproof lie, saying I was holding the cigarette for someone else. Another time, on a break at my video store job, I was smoking a cigarette and my math teacher drove by and yelled at me, “Put that fucking thing out!” I didn't recognize him, but I knew his voice and his car. I didn't listen, though, because he had a reputation for showing up so hungover he bumped into desks and hitting on Juniors. Another time, my friend Gary and I had gotten drunk and walked to 7-11 in our boxers at 2am, just to get Gatorade and cigarettes, because the suburbs were so boring there was literally nothing else we could find to do. Weeks later, the cashier who begrudgingly helped us on that drunken 7-11 trip recognized me when I went in there with my Mom. Fortunately, he didn't speak English well enough to explain how he knew me and I was drugged out, having just had my wisdom teeth pulled, so I think maybe he thought I was mentally challenged. Either way, I got out of there without him telling my mom I was drunk, in my boxers in a 7-11 at 2am. It wasn't until college my H List Celebrity status really started to work for me.

With my white hair, broad shoulders and giant brass balls, it was a no-brainer that I should be the first among my friends to get a fake ID. I soon discovered a huge benefit to being recognizable. Once a liquor store, gas station or grocery store accepted my fake ID, they usually remembered me, so I never had to show my fake ID more than a couple of times. This significantly mitigated the risks of me being arrested. Being 18 and able to comfortably and consistently buy beer really helped my social life in college. There was even this liquor store in Boston where they mistook me for someone else. The first time I went, I approached the cashier with my 30 pack of Red Dog. He asked for my ID, then his manager walked around the corner with a huge smile. “You don't need to ID him, that's Jeff!” They then engaged in a debate about whether or not I was Jeff. I interjected, finally, “I'm Jeff's brother, Nathan.” They told me to tell my brother hello and sold me the beer. Every time I walked into that liquor store, which in college was basically daily, they always asked me about my brother. I'd always say he was doing well. To this day I don't know who the fuck they thought I was. Admittedly, there was one kid in Boston who looked exactly like me, but his name wasn't Jeff, it was Lars.

Lars went to Berklee College of Music, had white hair, smoked cigarettes and, though we never met, we wore the exact same leather jacket and boots. Because I had a friend who went to Berklee and became friendly with some folks who sold drugs there, I'd often be out front smoking and people would come up to me, assuming I was Lars. “You'll be at practice later,” stoned musician types would ask me until I glared at them and they realized I wasn't the man they thought I was. Lars and I only ever had one interaction; after all, the same matter can't occupy the same space. I walked by him one day, coming back from Tower Records as Lars stood out front of Berklee, smoking with some friends. As I walked by, I heard him say “We don't even look that much alike.” I couldn't help myself, I turned, stood right next to him and said, “Yeah, dude, we kinda do.” When I left Boston, I thought I was done with Lars, but after college I moved to New York City for a year to try to sell a novel. One drunken night I thought I saw Lars stumbling around the Village. I convinced myself it was my imagination until I got to graduate school in LA and was hanging out with a girl from the East Coast who said she knew this guy in New York who looked just like me. She said his name was Lars. I guess even on the H List, there are celebrity look-a-likes.

As a kid, other kids would always call me Santa Claus, which they meant as an insult but, given my round belly, white hair and generous spirit, I can't really deny the resemblance. My mom always told me I looked like Ralphie from A CHRISTMAS STORY but I think this was just a ploy to never buy me a BB gun. A drunk guy at a New Year's Eve Party once told me I look like John Lithgow, which is a horribly derogatory thing to hear as a 19 year old aspiring handsome person and the pains of this micro-aggression still limit my self esteem to this day. As I got older, I sometimes was told I looked like Phillip Seymour Hoffman and I even have a student now who tells me I sound just like him, though I gotta think these days I have a slightly better voice than him. A junkie on my old street in Chicago used to speak to me as if I were Elton John, asking me specific questions about the setlist from a show he attended in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1978. A girl in college once earnestly asked me if I was Gunther from FRIENDS. The most common celebrities I am told I resemble are Steve Martin and Jim Gaffigan, which actually functions as a great barometer for my own personal fitness level. When people tell me I look like Steve Martin, I know I'm exercising enough because they think of me as trim. When people tell me I look like Jim Gaffigan I know I need to drop the biscuits and get my fat ass on a treadmill ASAP. When I worked a wine shop, a woman approached me and quietly asked, “You're jIm Gaffigan, what are you doing here?” I told her I was researching a role. Only one time have people insisted I was someone they knew from movies. We were drunk at a party in LA and the conversation went like, “You're him, right?” “Who?” “The O Face Guy from OFFICE SPACE.” “No.” “Come on. You're him.” It took me a minute to know who they even meant, since OFFICE SPACE had come out like 8 years prior to this conversation and is totally overrated. Finally I said they were right and told them Jennifer Aniston is very nice and smokes a lot of weed.

I often wonder if I actually look like these people, or if it's sort of like how some people think all African-Americans or all Asian-Americans look the same. My most distinguishing characteristics are my hair, eyes and skin, so conceivably, if someone else had the distinguishing characteristics of pale hair, light eyes and clear, pale skin, he could reasonably be said to look a lot like me. Now that I'm just a middle aged white guy though, my star is predictably fading. Like so many famous people, I'm not as recognizable as I once was. On the whole, a little more anonymity is probably a good thing, but I do miss sneaking into the woods to smoke cigarettes.

Further Reading: The Fairest One of All