We leave early in the morning on our way to Hilton Head Island. A few miles out of town, Conrad stops the car at a gas station to get something to drink. He comes out with an orange juice for me and an energy drink, "Xtreme Shock," for himself. When we're traveling especially, he loves energy drinks. I honestly think the stupider the name, the more interested he is in drinking them. They probably have one called Thunder Cock, and he's probably tried it. I think they're disgusting. Not only are their marketing strategies really obnoxious and retarded, they smell like stinky chemicals, just really unnatural. I always complain when he drinks them.

About 20 miles down the road, Conrad starts scratching himself. First his head, then his stomach, then his back. He turns to me. "Do my ears look really red to you?" he asks. Not really, I say.

"They are burning like they're on fire! I think I have a fever." He scratches some more, and cranks up the A/C. Suspicious, I pull the discarded energy drink bottle out of the bag we have for road trash. I find the label quite illuminating. Bolding my own.

"FEEL THE ENERGY SENSATION DRINK THAT ROCKS!!!" it reads. "Get super-charged with the world's first 'Energy Sensation' drink that amps your body with unlimited energy. Whatever you're doing, you'll do it with more intensity and stamina with Xtreme Shock.

Xtreme Shock, the coolest drink on earth, may provide a temporary flush and/or tingling sensation as it increases your energy level.

Do not use this product if you are pregnant or nursing. Not recommended for children or if you are sensitive to caffeine. Each serving contains 200mg of caffeine, about as much caffeine as 2 cups of coffee. Limit 3 bottles per day. Shake well before use.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."

 I read this to Conrad.

"WHAT?" he screams. "That should be illegal! I feel like I need to take off all my clothes! This feels HORRIBLE!"

Let the record show that I resist the urge to laugh. 

A few years ago, Conrad and I spent an unremarkable evening in our favorite bar, drinking what I recall to be an unremarkable amount of alcohol. Somehow, though, a confluence of factors led to my remarkable intoxication, a wholly unexpected outcome from a relatively chilled-out evening. We were to meet another couple later that night at a dance club, but due to my inebriation, Conrad and I decided to go back to his house (at the time, he was living on Grady Avenue, not far from downtown) and rest before returning to boogieland.

By the time we got to his place, I am told, I was incomprehensible and listless, but soon after we got inside I approached Conrad, overwrought. "I'm Rumpelstiltskin!" I ejaculated, then turned toward the bed, and with a straight leap into the air, swan-dived into the pillow and wasn't heard from until the next morning.

Why I claimed to be Rumpelstiltskin, I'm not sure. Maybe I mixed up my fairy tales and meant I was Rip Van Winkle, which, considering my narcoleptic episode, would be more appropriate. Maybe I was making a veiled warning about the folly of bragging. Maybe I wanted to announce my ability to turn straw to gold. Numerous interpretations have been offered, but none has yet satisfied the mystery of my alcohol-induced insanity.

Last night I made a reprise of that drinking-career-defining role. AthFest was in full effect, and our good friends and irrepressible revelers Amos and Sue-anna were in town from Jackson, Miss. We enjoyed cocktails at our condo, cocktails at Speakeasy, cocktails at 283, at Uncle Ottos, at Georgia Theatre, at 40 Watt. By the time we were watching Cinemechanica perform at 2 a.m., I was pretty pickled. The crowd was packing out 40 Watt, and I was lucky enough to be standing beside some dipshit hippie in a moe. t-shirt, flipping out and spraying his PBR all over the people around him. Now I'm a happy drunk, and unless provoked, am inclined to giggle a lot and avoid drama. But Mr. Patchouli's guitar-fueled fervor reached a fever pitch and he started punching me in the arm, deliberately, over and over. He'd gotten in about four hits while my inner monologue, expectedly altered, went something like this: "Hippie is hitting me. Must kill hippie." Disturbingly, there wasn't a moment of critical thought when I considered not responding to the violence with violence. I just started hitting back, punching the bleachy-haired retard in the head, over and over. Conrad immediately intervened, and as moshers are wont to do, the hippie continued his flipping out elsewhere, seemingly oblivious to the onslaught of punches I had delivered to his skull.

While this sounds fairly dramatic, it was really just a blip on the party radar. Things faded pretty fast after that, and we spent some time talking with friends outside the club before getting a ride home with Floyd. Perhaps misguidedly, I wore my 5-inch platforms for an evening of heavy drinking, and the natural offspring of those factors is a (probably) broken toe I sustained on the walk to Floyd's car.

After we got home safely to the condo, Conrad said I wobbled into the kitchen where he was getting a glass of water with my pants around my ankles and proceeded to remove my chewing gum from my mouth and stick it to the kitchen counter. Conrad helped me out of my clothes and up to bed, where he asked me if I wanted any Aleve for my swollen toe. "No," I answered. "I don't want to get kidney stones."

Can't believe I haven't posted this yet: Trojan Tales. Possibly the funniest overdubbing since Most Extreme Elimination Challenge.

If demolishing Sanford Stadium with a glorious monster-NASCAR-pileup launched from the Sanford Drive bridge would make my dad know just how much I appreciate him, I would try my damndest to orchestrate such a happening. But I don't think even that would ever come close to expressing just what a gem I think he is. I think Hallmark said it best on some ceramic screen-printed coffee mugs they sold from 1991-1993: #1 Dad. Word.

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time: Dad pushing me in a swing that hung from a frame he built himself when we lived in the trailer. My parents didn't have the money to buy a swingset, so Dad set this up in the only patch of shade in the pasture, in the slim shadow of our mobile home. As he would push me, I'd swing out into the sunlight, and we would chant over and over, "in the sun, in the shade, in the sun, in the shade." I'm holding Lionel, my teddy bear that I still have on a shelf in our bedroom, and Dad is wearing a work shirt from Honda--this is right when he started working for Phil Hughes, probably in 1984. The bike to the right is what he rode to work just prior when he worked at my grandparents farm down the road. To me, this photo is pure joy--simplicity, fun and evidence of a man who loves his family more than anything.

A few weeks ago, I officially became a member of the Canopy Studio Repertory Company. Even though I know I deserve it and I've been working very hard to get it for several years, I still feel the need to prove myself. I know that people are asked into the company for different reasons; I suspect that some of the reasons I was asked were my enthusiasm, artistry and work ethic. However, there's a glaring weakness, at least to me, on my aerial dance resume--my physical strength.

I've never been what you would describe as "strong." Never once in my life have I been able to do a pull-up, a feat most of my peers in the company could repeat a dozen or more times, and my body is naturally waifish--thin, willowy, light bone structure--an ectomorph if there ever was one. Though my body has changed a lot since I started doing trapeze in 2004, I have to fight for every ounce of muscle I gain. It's just not how I'm built.

I hired a physical trainer specifically to help me develop strength quickly, since my classes at the studio wouldn't be classified strictly as a workout. But even though I'm trying really hard to gain strength, sometimes I just feel so frustrated and insecure about it. Tonight in my fabrics (which are by far the most strength-based of the aerial apparati) class I had trouble doing a move that I've had trouble with for about six months. It's ridiculous to me. I know I can do it--I've done it many times before, but just as many times I've had such a freaking struggle getting my legs up over my head.

One of the most embarrassing things about this situation to me is that my colleagues in the company are my teachers in the fabrics class. It's really hard to switch from being on a supposedly level playing field one night to taking criticism and instruction from those people the next night. And it's not as if I am delusional enough to think I don't need instruction--far from it! It's just that it is extremely hard to shed that subordinate role when you're trying to work side-by-side with the same people the next day.

Mostly, I just want to show the older members of the company that I deserve a place amongst them; that I have a lot to contribute and that I'll pull my weight (pun intended). Or maybe I just need to be confident in the director's decision to invite me to join. 

Isn't it bizarre how accomplishment can have so little effect on confidence?