The Young Adult Issue

editor in chief ISABEL ZACHARIAS art director HALLIE FROST managing editor EMMA BURKE publisher CELIA EASTON KOEHLER multimedia director DEREK CHESNUT front cover art SENIOR STAFF back cover art MATISSE COXEN centerfold MATISSE COXEN content page art EMMA HASKINS writers EMMA HENDERSON, HENRY KORMAN, MILES SHEPARD, JESSICA JOHNSON, SHELBY MARTHALLER, EMMA BURKE, ERIN SATTERTHWAITE, JOHN MULCARE, DEREK CHESNUT, HALLIE FROST, KATIE NOCK, ANNALEE NOCK, ISABEL ZACHARIAS, CELIA EASTON KOEHLER artists HANNAH MARKOVIC, DEREK CHESNUT, REYN HIROSHI YEAGER, EMMA HASKINS, TED HAMILTON, SAGE LISKEY, MATISSE COXEN board of directors LUCY OHLSEN, CARA MEREDINO, SCOT BRASWELL, SARA BRICKNER, KOREY SCHULTZ, SCOTT E. CARVER, HALEY A. LOVETT, JENNIFER HILL, RYAN BORNHEIMER, RACHEL M. SIMS, BRIAN A. BOONE, SARAH AICHINGER-MANGERSON, ROBERT K. ELDER, AUTUMN MADRANO, SAM PARKS, MIKE RUSSELL, CLIFF PENNING

EDITOR’S NOTE There’s not a lot to say, except that all of us are exactly the way we used to be and exactly the way we always were, and we will always be that way (see hot babe, pictured right). But I’m sure you didn’t need any of this to tell you that.

The nostalgia capitalized on and blown up to college student size in this issue comes less from a place of not wanting to grow up than from sort of admitting that none of us have, at least not yet. One of the things I love about the OV is that making a magazine is pretty hard, and a lot of our work is done with those underdeveloped, email signature-y Big Kid muscles — but all of us choose to work in a way that’s good-spirited, collaborative and, above all, really fun. Listening to that joy-filled version of you from before you knew what should and shouldn’t be taken seriously has always been a central part of the tradition of this magazine, and I’d like to argue (with as much certainty as 22 years can afford) that it is also the key to living sanely on this big serious planet.

To periods! To dances! To drinking! To our motherfucking youth!

Keep killin it,

Emma Burke Most Likely to Take Over the Whole World

Derek Chesnut Best Team Spirit

Celia Easton Koehler Best Hair By Quite a Lot

Hallie Frost Most Likely to Commit Murder and Feel No Remorse

young adult books you wish existed

TOTALLY TRUE, MORTIFYING TEEN TALES OF HORROR

12

BLOOD, GUTS and PROM

24

TUNES TO ANGST TO IF MY MUSIC IS TOO LOUD YOU ARE TOO OLD

ANIMORPHS Mark Ruffalo and penguins as you’ve never seen them before

CONTENTS

d

8

FICTIONAL YOUNG ADULT FICTION We write the

OFFICIAL STUFF OREGON VOICE is published as many times as we want per academic year. Any and all official or unofficial or superficial nonsense can be directed to 1228 Erb Memorial Union, Suite 4, Eugene OR 97401 or to publisher@oregonvoice.com. Copyright 2014, all rights reserved by OREGON VOICE. Reproduction without permission is prohibited, but the thought is really flattering! OREGON VOICE is an arts and culture publication that strives to genuinely and eccentrically express the University of Oregon’s voice and its relationship to the Universe. The program, founded in 1989 and re-established in 2001, provides an opportunity for students to publish works of journalism, art, prose, poetry, and multimedia. Administration of the program is handled entirely by students.

through the ins and outs of everyday life, the OREGON VOICE asks

: WTF?

TEENS LOVE GETTING DRUNK IN PARKS words JOHN MULCARE

If you went to high school in Portland, you know that once the weather is nice enough, it’s time to trade your Friday night house party for a Friday night juicer. The upperclassmen buy a couple half gallons of cheap vodka, cut it with the cheapest chaser possible, and then charge five dollars a cup (including refills). You send a text telling everyone cool enough to meet in the local park and golf course that night, and boom, you got a juicer.

Depending how you look at it, a juicer is either a great entrepreneurial venture, or just a bunch of high schoolers getting shit-faced in a park. Regardless, good things generally don’t happen when kids like this drink 90% Fleischmann’s Vodka and 10% punch in the dark. Sure, juicers were great for seeing the know-it-all from your geometry class belligerently drunk. But, for the most part, the things that happened at juicers were the epitome of adolescent uh-ohs.

There always seems to be a mob of mad-eyed eighteen-year-olds sloshing jungle juice on each other, egging on a fight that was probably sparked by someone getting ripped off for a dime bag.

There is always some poor soul on all fours, crawling around the 18th hole looking for their phone. And of course, what’s a juicer without some kid being bullied into giving up their wallet?

What the fuck even is a juicer? The carnival of adolescent mistakes, belligerence, breakdowns, breakups and fights — in most cases, all before an 11:30 P.M. curfew.

ACTUALLY, TOE SOCKS ARE TIGHT words EMMA BURKE

There are some things that don’t need to exist. Pure, man-made, socially constructed, unnecessary trash. Examples include everything advertised on infomercials, John Travolta’s face and those plastic clapper things they hand out to people at basketball games. But some man-made trash is only useless until you actually use it. With me? A prime example: toe socks.

When they’re hanging limp at the Claire’s checkout it’s easy to disregard them as just another Snuggie. But for those lucky enough to have been 12 year old girls in 2007, their purpose has been long understood. They’re hella comfy. Each toe is cradled in a warm, wool womb. You’re able to rock your favorite flip-flops WHILE having warm tootsies. The anomaly of the toe sock is the backlash received.

WTF toe sock haters? Just because one cannot appreciate the rainbowed toe sock aesthetic doesn’t mean that hate needs to be so aggressively unleashed! Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that the goofiness of the toe sock is hefty, but if you’re anti-toe sock I feel comfortable also believing that you’re anti-fun, anti-woman and probably anti-America.

The WTF-ness of the toe sock (where did it come from? Who knew how badly tweens across the world would need this beautiful item?) only heightens the coolness. So fuck off with your negativity, it’s useless. Toe sock wearers are immune to bad vibes.

RETAINERS ARE SATANʼS HANDIWORK words HENRY KORMAN

When my adult chompers grew in, I looked on in horror as my two front teeth developed with a profound gap that I called “the grand canyon.” Disappointing name, but I was only 9 years old, and I couldn’t come up with a better, punnier title for my pearly crevice.

Then came the years of braces, and once Dr. Licht, my orthodontist, finally took them off, he informed me that I’d need to be fitted for a retainer. I knew this was coming, but I was murky on the details.

Apparently, I was to wear them all day, every day, only to be taken out for eating, brushing my teeth, and occasionally for Bar Mitzvahs or school dances. When I asked how long I’d need to wear them, he told me that he’d call me in for another appointment a few months down the road and we’d see what we could do with the retainers.

It’s now five years later, and I’m still waiting for that appointment to be made.

When conferring with other post-brace faces, I discovered that orthodontists never called anyone in for that retainer appointment.

What the fuck? Am I supposed to wear this shit forever? This godforsaken lisp machine is supposed to “retain” my teeth ad infinitum?

I assume that the plan is for young teenagers to just gradually stop using their retainers over time as their teeth settle, but then why lie? I definitely stopped using my retainer too soon and now my teeth are back to being crooked, so why the fuck did Dr. Licht lie to me? I TRUSTED YOU!

RELAX, ENGLISH TEACHERS words EMMA HENDERSON

Senior year English teachers are the worst. They go out of their way to be dicks because they probably get turned on by having the power to ruin your last year of high school.

My senior year English teacher said the exact same T.S. Eliot quote every day before class started. There was no clear reason as to why he was always saying the same quote, but he loved saying it in a particularly creepy voice and making everyone uncomfortable.

This seemed to be the highlight of his day because after this point the sparkle in his eye would fade as he would become increasingly bitter and angry. He would pass out assignments then would practice Japanese calligraphy at his desk while we did them, insisting the room stay silent so he could concentrate.

If you attempted to interrupt his practicing to ask a question he would only respond with his own unhelpful vague question.

English teachers are the worst part of your last year of high school. Their goals of being as unapproachable as possible, having the worst hair of all the school faculty, and saying as many cryptic and vague things as they can make me wonder, what the fuck senior year English teachers?

art HANNAH MARKOVIC

THE OREGON VOICE STAFF REVEALS

STUFF OUR PARENTS STILL DON’T KNOW I smoke cigarettes

I still steal your vodka

I was high every time we went to church my entire senior year of high school I hate your sibilings I’ve done meth

I used to be an alcoholic When we said the car tail light was broken because we kicked a soccer ball into it, we actually broke it by backing the car into a tree

I burnt a hole in the carpet with a hookah coal, but exacto-knifed a piece of carpet from under the chair in the living room to cover the burn up

I blamed your missing alcohol on our alcoholic neighbor when I had actually just thrown a party

You were a single mom and you did the best that you could and I wish I had cut you some slack sooner

There are still nail polish stains under the bath mat I smashed my little brother’s toys

I did DMT at prom

I’m naked on the internet

NOTES TO MYSELF

words & illustration KATIE NOCK

5

FICTION There is no time to think. If there were, it would have been at the beginning of all this.

The falling is brief and loud, so when the landing renders the world silent, I feel relief. Behind my eyelids I see Mother’s shiftless form tending to the first fire of the day. In our cement capsule surrounded and stacked on 100

words HALLIE FROST art SAGE LISKEY

DYSTOPIAN YA NOVEL

“Once you hit the ground, you’ll be out of range until you meet up with Rebellion waiting outside the North Gate to City.” Fleece’s shouts in my left ear are picked up and carried away by the wind ripping through the levitation spokes, so they slip their amulet around my slender neck and our eyes meet. Checking my Cog’s antigravity setting and grasping Aquarium’s hand, we step off the platform.

more exactly like it, the noises of Test Site 47 reach our small wall hole. I pull a loose tunic over my head; it’s imbued with the smell of bread and tar. Moss lies still on the pallet beside mine, his cheeks pink from sleep and the Rash ravaging his tiny body. Mother crosses the room in padded steps to wet his brow with an herb poultice. The thin bones of her hands are barely concealed under skin weathered from lye and hot water. Her days in the Washrooms have lengthened since the bedding of the many afflicted must be laundered. I imagine her there, elbow deep in the tubs surrounded by walls of white sheets animated by steam or the boys’ ghosts. I reach to help her but I am being pulled from the room, from this time before and the relative comforts of this home.

Resolve replaces the dread. Regardless of Prophecy I am here for that little bundle in the corner and all the mothers delivering sheets to the wash.

The dull throbbing in my head begins to register just as sunspots needle my eyes.

Green swims and forms into individual leaves... ferns. More brilliant than any leaking industrial waste I’ve ever seen. I fumble for my Cog, screen cracked but ever faithfully connecting to Core in the North. I check for Warbles but Cog is silent.

We are alone.

I reach for him and Aquarium stirs, his face that of a younger boy when in the land of Dreams. To pull him from there seems almost cruel, but I need a love interest in this otherwise depressing saga. It could just be us in this world for the way he looks at me when he first wakes. He is the only boy I have ever loved and the only one in our Test Site who does not have Rash because of Affliction.

“Iona...liquid” he gasps, white collects in the corners of his mouth marking the depth of his slumber. Squeezing the last drops from my pouch onto his lips, I suddenly feel the need to keep things more casual. Nothing is certain in Rebellion and distractions could end in death. Even those with olive skin yet piercing blue eyes.

“Locate your Cog,” I stand surveying our surroundings.

“We have to make it to City by dark” We walk briskly. Aquarium

marvels at trees. He says he once held a dead, tattooed tree named Book but could not detect a use or taste. My eyes never waiver from Cog’s northern arrow. I will not consider Trees or Books until Moss is well.

After hours due north the skin at the back of my neck prickles. I stop and in the dim forest light My sharp eyesight detects a face in one of the trees.

“I am Iona of Test Site 47. Reveal yourself.”

The wood of the tree begins to unfold and the face seems to grin.

“For who would call themselves to Rebellion and not recognize the face of Prophecy.” A human of Mother’s years and tunic stained in the colors of the forest comes to stand in our path. “Iona, we have been waiting for you.

Welcome to the North Gate.”

This human guides us through the thick foliage until we come to a camp of more hardened humans on the top of a ridge. City stretches out before us her veins lit seemingly by stars.

Her roads spider web thin, a luminescent net tracing the contours of Land. Somewhere in this maze is the palace of Authoritarian Regime. They rose to power by promising to end Affliction but priced Cure at 14 goats a vial; an impossible sum for the inhabitants of Test Sites that only grow ash and crumbling cement.

The humans here wearily search my face and Aquarium’s until a human older than any in Test Site hobbles out from under a tent flap.

“Help them to Soup,” Her voice commanding yet soft. “Their work begins in earnest at first morning light. We can not afford more time wasted waiting for the children of myths” Around the evening fires of Rebellion humans eat with the quiet ease of comradeship and fatigue. When they do speak of the new order it is with painted words of children with round bellies and enfranchised men wearing new shoes. Between spoonfuls of Soup, they imagine freedom and justice, dignified work and wealth. I don’t know what this Democracy would look like but humans keep using it interchangeably with this obviously fallible concept Capitalism.

My eyes droop, leaning into Aquarium’s corse shirt his callused hands easily engulf me but my mind still works tirelessly. Retracing every twist of strange City our team must navigate.

The faces of dead side characters whose names I can’t really remember still haunt me.

We won’t sleep, neither of us, until this is over.

Which should be sometime next week.

FICTION Tuesdays, after lunch, the boys and the girls of 6 th grade are separated for Sex Ed. I wipe sweat from my palms onto my pant leg and anxiously scan the class—I need to find a way to bring up the issue that I’ve been dealing with in my bedroom.

“Okay class, so, for the last part of our lesson I will be passing out these strips of paper.”

Coach Anderson walks between the rows of seats. “I want you all to write down a question, and I’ll pick a couple at random and read them out anonymously.”

I write feverishly, hunching over my tiny strip so no one can see. I write small, but the size of the paper still hardly allows for me to jot down the entirety of my crisis.

Give me an effing break! No one we know has AIDS! We’re twelve! Pick mine!

“Okay, last one. When you finish masturbating, if a tiny baby grows out of the fluid, what do you do with the baby?”

The students break out into high-pitched squeals of laughter and simian finger pointing.

Coach Anderson becomes red and furiously blows his whistle until all that’s left is the sound of his dry lips smacking against themselves.

I walk home from school and find my father

I don’t have time for trite small talk. I need to get to my room and see how the embryo has evolved! I go upstairs, lift off the sheets to my bed, and there, covered in a layer of Vaselinelike scum: a green and blue fetus. It has grown since I last saw it this morning—its facial features have developed too, now resembling a hairless, mucus-covered smurf. It begins to cry.

At first, all I saw was translucent blue. Then there was a beating heart pumping blood through veins, lungs that expanded with each breath, and a tiny brain with folds and pockets.

Everything about it seemed human, except for its eyes, which were completely clear with thin red streaks. Soon after exposing the fetus outside of the boxers, it developed a blue skin pigment and a sticky patina.

“Frick! Crap! Stop crying please! My dad will hear you!”

The fetus continues crying desperately. I hear my dad coming up the stairs.

What am I supposed to do with this thing?

Raise it? I’d really prefer losing my virginity before tackling the task of fatherhood.

All I did was jerk off—one time! I had no idea this would be the consequence. I’ve been running the scene through my head on repeat ever since: I was lying awake in bed and had an intense vision of floating in the ocean, but I was incorporeal, a fragment of light leaking into the deep. My eyes rolled back and I became enveloped in complete, blissful darkness. I felt at peace, and my penis got really hard. The seafloor was teeming with coral structures like so many fingers reaching, feeling upwards, dusted luminescent purple.

My mouth was foaming, and I started touching myself. The coral released a colony of spores. I came immediately.

When getting dressed for school the next day, I noticed my wet boxers were softly, almost imperceptibly moving on the floor. I avoided the boxers throughout the week, afraid of what I might find. In that time the bulge grew

“Robbie? Buddy? You OK in there?” he asks.

“Give me a minute!” I shake the fetus, only making the crying worse.

“I’m coming in, Robbie.” He turns the doorknob.

“For the love of God, Dad! A little privacy!” I throw my covers over myself and the fetus.

My dad enters the room and puts his hands on his hips.

BUDDIES

“Can you get AIDS from hugging?”

“Hey Robbie, how was school?”

to the size of a golf ball. I could no longer pretend; I lifted up the boxers, somehow knowing what I’d find.

words DEREK CHESNUT art EMMA HASKINS

We pass our papers forward. Coach Anderson puts them in a bowl, shuffles them around, picks one up, and reads it.

watching TV in his Lay-Z- Boy.

“What in the heck are you up to? What have you got under those covers, Robbie?” He hurries to the bed and pulls the covers off me and my progeny.

He picks it up from the bed.

“Have you named him?” he asks.

“No.” “Good, makes it easier.” He drops the fetus on the ground, and stamps it out with the heel of his shoe. Like a cigarette butt. There is a soft crunch and the crying stops. I am aghast.

“Sorry son, I just couldn’t watch you make the same mistake I did by keeping it. Oh, and Robbie…could ya clean this up?” He points to the splatter left on the carpet. “And wash your hands before coming down for dinner.”

He leaves and closes the door. I find that I have more questions than I did before our talk, before this whole thing. I guess that’s all part of growing up.

7

to go out with Michael because I shattered his bong a week ago.

Maybe I should go out more, maybe I’ll meet someone.

I probably won’t. I really wanted a night of solitude.

Maybe I could stay in and learn some constellations.

But then I remembered the look in Michael’s eyes as his bong crashed into pieces as it impacted the floor. I had to go.

I walked up to the porch steps of Jessica’s house.

Michael was sitting on a couch, surrounded by girls wearing ripped tights and Doc Martens, taking hits from his blunt. He was wearing a tie-dye tee shirt and Birkenstocks. He spotted me immediately.

“Bro! it’s almost 11:30 pm! Where’ve you been?”

Michael inquired.

“I was dreaming of the ocean waves of Florence, Oregon crashing on the rocks. So beautiful, yet so chaotic. I lost track of time,” I replied.

It felt like we were moving in slow motion as Michael led me through the crowd. I saw the cheerful faces as they drank their beer and smoked their cigarettes.

They laughed. They swayed to the music. They felt so much. I didn’t feel anything. I wish I were good at sports.

We approached Jessica, who was holding a red cup and chatting with friends. She wore a loose-fitting red dress that gently brushed just above her knees.

I started to feel out of place for just wearing my old flannel and jeans.

“Have you guys watched Game of Thrones yet? Oh my god! Can you believe what they did to Jon Snow?!”

Jessica exclaimed.

“I know! Also did you see House of Cards? Kevin Spacey!” Michael said.

by John Green

Jessica and Michael kept gabbing about their TV watching, and I started to space out. I can’t relate to most people. The room was full of people, but I felt so alone.

I don’t know what conflagration in the universe brought our lonely “What did you think?” Jessica said, interrupting my thoughts.

souls together, all I know that it was undoubtedly the greatest night of “Oh, I really don’t watch much TV. I’ve been reading a lot of Kurt my life.

Vonnegut, though. I guess I’m more of a man of books.”

It was a Friday, and I had just finished the most strenuous lecture ever. I “Oh. Uh, cool,” Jessica said with a confused look. collapsed on my stiff bed and stared at the celling. The glow-in-the-dark stars plastered above me reminded me of the infinite galaxy and the I took a large gulp of shitty beer. mystery of the cosmos. It also reminded me that I am very, very, very small. I am insignificant. I am uninspired. And I am going to listen to my I began to wander around the party. I didn’t Elliot Smith record all night. I knew I had to be alone. really want to talk to anyone. I went back to the now-empty porch and pulled out a cigarette.

As I let out a sigh and began to let my heavy eyelids lower I heard my iPhone 5™ I leaned against the railing gazing at the stars. aggressively ding. My hazy eyes made out the message from Michael: The night sky gave me solace but also filled me with despair. Maybe I’ll drink myself to sleep BRO awesome RAD Sickk ASS party 2nite!!!! Its at Jessica’s your gonna tonight. have 2 b my WING MAN!!! LETS DO THIS!!!

I rolled my eyes. It’s you’re*, I thought and let out a sigh. But I knew I had

“Do you need a light?” a voice interrupted.

FICTION I quickly turned around to see who it was. I was in awe as I laid eyes on the beautiful girl. She held up the lighter with a flame that illuminated her face. Her light brown hair fell just at her chin. Her eyes were brown and her ample lips revealed a small smile. She was wearing a light purple crop top and leather pants. I was so astounded by the girl who stood before me that I opened my mouth to try to speak, but I couldn’t

“I was in love and she could solve all of my emotional problems. This was her responsibility.” say anything, and the cigarette fell from my mouth.

“I guess you won’t be needing that light.” She giggled, “But you really shouldn’t be smoking anyways.”

Her voiced rang through my ears like music. I couldn’t find any words.

She walked up to the railing and stood beside me. She smelled nice.

“Are you looking at the stars?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess, yes… ” I said, stammering like an idiot.

“I love looking at the stars. Look! There’s the big dipper! Constellations always… kind of make me feel content. The universe is so sporadic, but there’s a certain harmony to it. These stars and planets come together to create something beautiful. Like no matter how discombobulated life gets there’s always something beautiful within the mess. You know?”

from this love.

We stopped by the river.

“Life is so beautiful and strange, and I love it,” Megan said with a laugh.

“I’m starting to see it that way too…” I said softly.

She put her hand over my hand and we kissed. The stars aligned as we embraced each other. I was complete. She was all I needed. And that night we sank into each other’s souls. I wanted to feel this way forever, but I knew I couldn’t.

I awoke the next morning to the sun rising.

I turned to say something beautiful about the sunrise to Megan, but she was gone.

I knew it: a free spirit like that couldn’t be chained to the constraints of society. We were two wandering souls looking for purpose in this endless abyss, and last night we found each other.

Oh Megan, how I am thankful for our fleeting coexistence and—wait, where is my wallet? I felt my back pocket where it was supposed to be.

Fuck. She robbed me.

I’d like to smoke a joint and drink half a bottle of wine now until I pass out. the only two things that can take away my pain now; leave me numb, but, by definition, painless.

I am grateful for our fleeting coexistence.

“I’ve never looked at it that way…” I said. My heart was pounding.

Who was this girl? I stared at her as she looked at the stars with a dreamy expression. I was in love and she could solve all of my emotional problems. This was her responsibility.

“Wh…what is your name?” I stammered once again.

She turned to me and a lock of hair fell over her right eye as she smiled.

“Megan,” she said, but it sounded like a whisper, like she was revealing a deep, dark secret.

She didn’t ask for my name.

“Wanna go for a walk?” Megan asked with a smile.

“Uh, yes, I’d love to!” I said. “Where are we going?”

“Who knows…” she said, still looking up to the stars Megan suddenly began running down the street.

“TIME’S A WASTIN’!” She yelled.

“Haha! Megan! You’re crazy!” I yelled back and ran.

I looked at Megan as she smiled back at me with her hair blowing in the wind. It had only been 15 minutes, but there was no turning back

words ERIN SATTERTHWAITE cover TED HAMILTON doodles SAGE LISKEY

Drunk Book Club The Oregon Voice staff comes together over a luxurious assortment of wines and tequilas to passionately discuss The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. words CELIA EASTON KOEHLER, EMMA BURKE, HENRY KORMAN, MILES SHEPARD, KATIE NOCK What was your favorite part of the text?

Henry: The car that goes without saying. I’m not saying why.

Celia: When Milo gets thrown in a jail cell with the woman who used to get to choose what words could be uttered within the kingdom. She took “brevity is the soul of wit” to an extreme and she made people feel like the words they had weren’t good enough. She stifled them. It’s my favorite part because I think it’s a subtle counter to the “education and the academy are key to fulfillment” narrative in the story. What does it mean that one the characters most keen on standardizing speech and regulating knowledge ends up in jail, and more importantly, ends up in jail and remorseful?

Katie: I loved that all the different letters grew on different trees and had characteristics associated with that letter. Like how the “I’s” are icy and refreshing, and the “C’s” are crunchy and crisp. Oh, and especially how buying a bag of “happy’s” was seen as a very practical decision.

Miles: My favorite part is how at the end the toy car gets sent to somebody else who needs it, since that Milo has learned everything he can from it.

art HANNAH MARKOVIC

What was your least favorite part?

Henry: That I left the book at Hallie’s house and forgot to pick it up because I want to finish it BAD. Celia: The book or of our discussion? My least favorite part of the discussion was that it began to resemble a small-seminar class where everyone just wants to toot their own academic horn. I kept wanting to tell people to build off each others comments and ideas or look to the text for grounding and then I started feeling like a jackass for wanting to facilitate.

Because, duh, drunk book club, and of course people are gonna get silly.

Katie Nock: In the Kingdom of Wisdom there’s Dictionopolis (the land of words) and Digitopolis (the land of numbers)...but where the heck is Artopolis? Where’s Creativeexpressionopolis?!?!

Miles Sheppy Shep Ship: In general, I feel like the book teaches values that might ignore the fact that being determined as an individual isn’t always enough to grant access to things like education. But at the same time, the wealth of knowledge out there that most people can access by going to a library is incredible!

Want another drink?

Henry: I’ve asked how it ends like six times but no one really is answering me.

Celia: I wish we’d read it out loud to each other!

Katie: I feel like this book is here to get kids stoked about learning and shouldn’t be seen as an insensitive narrative on access to education around the world.

It’s not Milo’s fault that he’s naive, I mean he doesn’t even know what the word “upholstery” means after all. It’s definitely important to point out, but I still think this book is creative genius.

“If you want to make sense, you’ll have to make it yourself.”

art TED HAMILTON

Miles: I love the illustrations.

Conclusion Celia: I feel like an butthead for my comment, it is an exaggeration, not meant to wound, and mostly just written to simulate book club politics....You know like we are all already 57 and book club is where we get our kicks Henry: This book is classist.

Katie Nock: Book club keeps me young!

Miles: Champagne’s affects the color of my face.

Favorite Passage?

Henry: “‘How are you going to make it [the wagon] move? It doesn’t have a – ‘ ‘Be very quiet,’ advised the duke, ‘for it goes without saying.’ And, sure enough, as soon as they were all quite still, it began to move quickly through the streets, and in a very short time they arrived at the royal palace.”

Celia: “I’m afraid of everything. That’s why I’m so ferocious. If the others found out, I’d just die. Now do be quiet while I eat my breakfast.”

Katie: “‘In this box are all the words I know,”’he said. ‘Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions that have never been answered, and all the questions that have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn is to use them well and in all the right places.’”

Miles: “If you want to make sense, you’ll have to make it yourself.”

FIRST TIMERS & SCHOOL DANCERS

Me—gawky, sunburned 16 year old in a rented suit. Stoned beyond reason. You— regional track star with a strict catholic father who asks me if I know geometry.

“Hardly.” I respond.

My First Bloody Hookup She politely asked, “Hey, um, do you think that maybe, um, you have a bloody nose?” I had stopped and looked up for a moment, thinking, before stupidly saying, “Um, no. No, I don’t think so.”

I quickly retraced all that had happened earlier that day. It was a snow day, and we spent it all sledding with our friends and throwing snowballs at stop signs.

Then I remembered when I took off my gloves to feel the warm, irontasting liquid on my upper lip. I pictured the red droplets pooling in the snow next to my boots. After thinking about it, yes, I definitely did have a bloody nose, and even worse, I had just bled all over her vagina.

After the long silence it took me to retrace everything, and what was

happening now, I shyly admitted, “Yeah. I have a bloody nose.” We sat there in momentary silence before both springing to action. The sheets came off quickly, and we fumbled around in the dark looking for our clothes. What made matters worse, was that we were at a party, and the distance from the bathroom to the bedroom felt daunting.

We slipped out of the bedroom, and started banging on the bathroom door down the hall. Two of our friends were hooking up in the bathroom and were reluctant to open the door.

“It’s an emergency!” we insisted, as I pounded on the door. When they finally opened the door, they looked at me as if I had killed someone and immediately started laughing. When I saw myself in the mirror, I looked like a hyena who had just eaten a gazelle. As I washed my face with cold water, I couldn’t help but laugh.

words JOHN MULCARE

I can’t sleep so I waddle to the kitchen for an orange. Stop at the toilet on the way to pee. I eat the orange in bed and I don’t turn on the light. It fills the room, the orange does, with spritz and its film that sticks to my fingertips. Filmy strands like bug spit, or spit bugs. I eat curled up facing the great North and leave the peels at my pillow.

When I breathe in I smell citrus, and for a bit fool myself into thinking I am sharing the bed with someone. Sleeping with someone! He’s wearing citrus cologne.

The first thing my mom does in the morning is brew green tea and peel an orange. I used to have an ex-boyfriend (I used to have a boyfriend, I guess he will always be an ex-boyfriend) who would eat an orange at midday. We were usually walking. It feels good to eat one still. To be still! I am not counting but it’s now 3:18 a.m. I am not counting but I noticed you had two more beers then me and you didn’t seem drunk.

Not fair cause I feel dizzy, still. Do you go to Mazzy’s often? I hope so. What a pudgy orange, love-y like a breast, covered in flesh. I don’t and have never owned q-tips. The orange pith on my hands reminds me of earwax: soft filters for ears and oranges.

Sometimes, I stick my pinky in there, in my ear, and swipe—like you might pick a lock if you were an amateur. Earwax smells rank. No wonder, all that dust caught, condensed. It’s dumb, but I think if I cleaned my ears with Q-tips I would wipe away that extra filter and it would make enough of a difference that I would hear the couple I share a wall with having sex clearer. That I am counting.

Monday: yes. Tuesday: yes. Wednesday: yes, yes, yes. Thursday: no. Friday: Yes, yes.

Saturday: Yes. Sunday: yes, yea, yes, yes.

So yes, I will keep my earwax to protect me from early morning neighbor sex. By now, Mama is probably standing at the kitchen counter, digging her fingers into bitter pith. I did it first, mom!

words CELIA EASTON-KOEHLER 12

“Well how about this, I want my daughter to go from point A to point B. Straight line, got it?”

He takes our photo. ¥our mother drives us in an SUV to prom.

We sit in the trunk. You begin talking in a high pitched baby voice and tell me you love rabbits. I realize I’ve made a terrible mistake. I know no one here, my suit itches. I pull out a flask from my coat pocket. “Oohhh yum!” you say in your toddler voice. I offer you none and drink egregiously.

We get to the dance. Teens sweat and rub against one another. Room spins. Warm spit floods mouth. I vomit onto rental suit and walk home.

words DEREK CHESNUT

d e t h d

e t

words ANNALEE KNOCK This is a sweet story. It’s a one-forthe-kids story. It’s not indicative of my other “first-time” anecdotes — characterized by mental anguish and the scent of juvenile body sprays. I had a crush in my chemistry class my freshman year of high school. More specifically on the back of his head. It was those flannel collars and lack-ofhair-cut. Somehow, six months into this crush I was getting ready for my first date with the back-of-the-head-of-my-dreams and I wasn’t even nervous when his mom’s minivan pulled up to my house and his tousled head shuffled to my front door. I was having a massive allergic reaction and my mom was out of Benadryl, so as Oskar walked up my front steps, I was dry swallowing two tablets of NyQuil. For the rest of the night, instances that would have made my hands sweat barely registered, like when he sat in the middle seat so our legs

were touching. Anytime he talked to me I was able to maintain an external serene aloofness, as my primary focus remained moving my limbs through air that had turned to pudding. He talked about track and field, I yawned with the force of 4,000 mg of doxylamine succinate and also because track is boring. He really loved Math Rock and the band Minus the Bear, I agreed by smiling weakly in his general direction and missing my mouth with my cone of gelato. He woke me from gently snoring on his shoulder for the intermission of The Importance of Being Earnest and a single string of drool led from my mouth to his corduroy jacket. We were girlfriend and boyfriend for two weeks after he tried to kiss me outside of the minivan and I ignored him because my bed was at this point 25 feet away.

I went to prom with my best friend and he bled all over the place. There was an incident with a pin. It was gross for a little bit, but he sweat it all out and the rental company didn’t even notice, tbh it wasn’t even the most memorable bit of the night.

Tom had this girlfriend at the time who was evil.

They were going through some drama at the time and the point is she spent the night making out with another boy in the middle of the dancefloor.

It was super rude. On the way home I put on the Pinkprint, as one does, and around Bed of Lies I heard some soft sobbing. This was it. The picture of a broken man. My prom date, sitting in my passenger seat, crying over another girl, prompted by Nicki Minaj.

words HALLIE FROST words HENRY KORMAN

Valentine’s Day 2012. I had my girlfriend over for dinner. This was a big night. This was the day that my lady’s best friend told me that I would lose my virginity.

We were both 15 and awkward, and the sexual tension was still insurmountable, since we’d never actually done the deed.

Sam, as I will call her, was from a very conservative Jewish family, and her father constantly threatened to kill me with his gun when confronted with the reality that his daughter was doing dirty things.

After our heart-shaped steaks were in our stomachs, we began the make-out walk to the guest bedroom (you know the make-out walk). Once there, I lit the candles that I had put out in attempt to really set the mood.

Things got heavy, and we ran the bases up until I was receiving a wonderful blow-jibber.

All of the sudden, a loud, piercing “EEEEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEE-EEEEEEE” rang throughout my house. After a quick pull-back from Sam, I realized that the candles I lit had triggered the fire alarm. I turned to the bedside table and attempted to blow out the candle, only to blow too hard and splash hot liquid wax all over my young, naked body. I’d always been interested in wax play, but this was not how I imagined it. After finally extinguishing the candles, I ran, naked and dripping, to the front hall to deactivate the alarm. A team of fire-fighters arriving at my door is certainly not a way to rebuild the quickly dying mood.

When I returned to the guest bedroom, Sam was not happy. “I don’t think I’m feeling it anymore, let’s just go watch TV,” she said.

Believe it or not, we didn’t have sex until our two-year anniversary.

art HANNAH MARKOVIC 13

Q&A: Matt Sterner

interview ISABEL ZACHARIAS

Program Supervisor at MLK Education Center for Adjudicaated Youth What types of students do you work with?

productive. Only really intervening when you have to.

Mainly with high risk to re-offend youth. This program, Youth Services, receives around 2000 referrals from local law enforcement every year.

Out of those 2000 referrals…about twenty percent will go through an assessment and be deemed “high risk to reoffend” — which means, if you did nothing with them over the course of a year, the chances of them committing a crime are significantly high. We can’t work with all of the kids, because we don’t have that many resources, so we concentrate our efforts on the high risk to reoffend kids. There are nine risk factors, that can also be protective factors, depending on how you answer the question. But a lot of it has to do with…attitude, values and beliefs.

Those are things that we can work on cognitively, to try to change — if you feel like it’s okay to break the law, or you feel like it’s okay to be antisocial, if you feel like it’s okay to take advantage of society rather than give to society. Some of the things you can’t change: if they had or have a family member that has been incarcerated or is currently incarcerated, that’s a risk factor.

The way that I think we are unique, other than the fact that we work specifically with high risk to reoffend youth, is that we have a very robust vocational program. There are two tracks currently. One of them is culinary arts, where the kids work in the industrial kitchen that serves all the food for the detention program, they serve all the food for the Phoenix program, and they serve lunch at MLK every day. So those kids learn what it looks like to work in an industrial kitchen with adults that can train them in that vocation. And they also have a catering program, and it’s mostly self-sustainable, reimbursed from the contracts that they have with their catering partners.

How do students get referred to you?

And then we have a horticulture program — so, the campus that you’re walking on is about twenty-six acres, and we do all the landscaping for the campus. We’re going to walk through a one-acre native garden that’s right in front of you, and then we’ll walk past a one-acre organic vegetable garden, and that supplies a good amount of produce to the kitchen and the culinary arts program.

And then we also have contracts with the City of Eugene — we resurface all the trailheads in Eugene, and do a lot of their rough landscaping in the parks. We have contracts with Lane Management, the Forest Service, the Army Corps of Engineers… the list goes on and on. But that is completely sustainable. The two things that I try to drive home for people who don’t know much about our program is that, number one, we’re a transitional program. You’re not going to graduate from MLK. Our goal is not to take students from districts and keep them; our goal is to intervene, give them some wraparound services on this campus. There are juvenile counselors on campus, mental health support at Lane County Behavioral health, contracts out with Looking Glass as well as Children and Family Services to come in and give therapy to our kids, and there’s alcohol and drug awareness education and programming for our kids as well.

RAP [Recovery and Progress] Court, which is a program that keeps kids off of formal probation if they can go through some skill-building and show that they have enough responsibility to move on. It’s a program that is really designed to keep kids from furthering into the system and keep them out of detention, out of long-term residential programs, and return them to the community as soon as possible. One to two semesters is about the length that MLK will serve a kid. The second thing that I would point out is that we are not general funded by the county tax system whatsoever. It’s funded through grants and the contracts we have with providers.

“We provide really safe, healthy “Iʼm not super into guns, I donʼt own any opportunities for kids to be a part guns, and I donʼt think I really need to of rather than apart from their own any guns. “ community.”

The reason that the MLK Ed Center exists is because there’s a risk or protective factor on them that asks if they’re engaged currently in educational or vocational programming. We work with kids who are either asked or are not appropriate currently for their home school district. They could be expelled, they could be suspended long-term, it could be that they’ve just been terribly truant, it could be that they’ve entered that district from somewhere else and the district just doesn’t have the resources available. A lot of our rural areas have very limited programming. They do great with the traditional student, but when it comes to a certain type of individual or a certain type of IEP [individual education plan], which most of our kids are on, they struggle with that placement. We get referrals from what is traditionally referred to as a probation officer.

We call them juvenile counselors here. We feel like language is pretty powerful. We work with those kids to give them the skills necessary to be successful at work, in school, and in the community.

How would you describe the MLK Center’s programming and techniques for working with this population?

Two ways that it’s most similar to other academic programs is that we have core curriculum. In the mornings, the kids go to language arts, social studies, and math. And we’ve got basic expectations. They’re easy to remember, but sometimes really hard to follow: be safe, be respectful, and be responsible. It’s a PBIS [Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports] model that was developed by folks at the University of Oregon. What we try to do is focus on and reinforce positive behavior, work and give attention to those who are doing what they’re supposed to, and ignore as much as possible people and behaviors that aren’t 14

For kids who move through this program, does re-integrating into society usually look like more education or something vocational?

I think it varies greatly, but I would hazard to say that over fifty — or probably over seventy percent of kids are going to go back into a traditional school placement or an alternative school placement. But most of our kids are not getting their GED or graduating while they’re with us. And most of the time it’s pretty traditional.

How has the programming changed or developed over the years into what it is now?

It was initially referred to as Court School, and we had one office building down the road, with one teacher, serving five or six students.

This year we’ll serve over 200. We’ve got three licensed teachers, two juvenile justice specialists, one employment specialist, an Americorps member, a handful of juvenile justice specialists that are cooks, and a culinary arts program supervisor. And in the past it was really GEDspecific. Now it’s mostly credit recovery, and I would say that about eight years ago we combined all of our vocational programs into MLK and integrated the curriculum so kids can get high school credit for when they’re working in this garden that you’re looking at right now, in the kitchen, or when they’re working out in the community doing service learning projects.

Eighty percent of our kids are basic skills deficient by the time they get to us, which means they are two grade levels below where they should be, based on their age. Lane Workforce Partnership works with some of our older, out of school kids to give them vocational programming.

Years ago we had LCC provide an instructor for the GED, but again, it’s not as prevalent to get your GED as it was in the past.

How would you like to see the programming developing in the coming years?

I think one of the things that we can continue to improve on is to be more of a community center. Right now we’re at pretty traditional hours for the academic. Our vocational programming runs through the weekends, but it would be nice to expand the amount of opportunities we have for kids, including evening opportunities, and to incorporate families into that piece is really important. When you’re returning kids back to the community, you need to have those supports built in, or they’ll return to past behaviors. I think parenting classes, more competency group classes, things around responsible decision making, thinking for a change, options to anger.

But, like most social service and certainly county programs, we’ve gotten cut fifteen out of the last eighteen years. So to say that you’re wanting growth is a bit unrealistic. What I would be happy with is maintaining and continuing to serve really what is the most vulnerable portion of our youth population in the county. These are kids who would not otherwise have access to education. And it’s not as if they’ve been removed from their programs for poor reasoning. There’s a reason they’re difficult — they’re at the top of the pyramid as far as behaviors.

But these are kids that, when you think about ACEs, which are adverse childhood experiences, normally score out really high at how many adverse childhood experiences they’ve had before the age of ten. We want to reduce that, we want to educate, we want to tell people what that looks like, we want to increase resiliency in our youth. We want to give them skills, so they have options to make different decisions in their lives. They haven’t had sometimes the greatest modeling or the greatest support, either from the community or from within, and if we can give them a little bit of that in the time that they’re with us, we’re planting a seed.

What I can tell you is that in the time the kids are with us, based on the metrics that we use, the most important one, for juvenile justice, at any rate, would be recitivism. That’s the amount that kids are going to commit a new law violation within a year or three, and we see about a 74% reduction, and you look for around a 68% to a 70% when you’re applying for a grant and want it to be successful.

What drew you to this kind of work and what do you find fulfilling and/or difficult about it?

I think that what continues to draw me to the work is the opportunity to create change within my community. I believe in public safety. I believe this is a program that contributes to the safety and well-being of our most vulnerable population, and that we provide really safe, healthy opportunities for kids to be a part of rather than apart from their community. Folks that I work with are champions of this population; they’re champions of public safety, and I think they work really hard.

It’s a very difficult job, so if you’re willing to do this type of work for any amount of time, it takes a special type of person. Or a different type of person.

What do you feel you’ve learned from working directly with a population like this as opposed to a more removed, office type of job?

I think that I have a greater appreciation for how challenging the work can be for the teachers and the line staff that work with our population every day. What I’ll say is that 90% of the time, our kids are the traditional teenager. Most teenagers are at risk. It’s when things get difficult or a little bit squirrely that they at times do not have the skills to respond in a way that we consider to be traditionally appropriate. So what I’ve learned is to not take anything personally, to try to have empathy for where they’re coming from, try not to assume anything, and also make sure that I’m doing the greatest good for the greatest number, while at the same time remaining as individualistic as possible.

Are there any stories of individual students that you find particularly interesting or worth sharing?

Every week we have a staff meeting, and almost every week somebody brings up a kid that they used to work with and saw in the community.

I don’t even remember a time when somebody said, “Oh, I saw this kid in the community and they threatened me” or “they were mortified that they saw me.” It’s always, “Guess who I saw?” And the kid was so happy to see them. We are in the business of sometimes highlighting what the most difficult or challenging experience for a youth has been. And we put a flashlight on it, and we investigate it, and we work through it. It’s not easy for them, so when you can turn that into a positive and you can have them see you as an ally rather than an obstacle, that’s really powerful. Just the other day, we had a youth that came from Oregon Youth Authority, long-term residential incarceration at McClaren, and this is a youth that would refuse to get out of their cell for days at a time, and this is a youth who would refuse any type of personal hygiene.

Deep depression, highly criminal, and really lacking motivation to make any positive strides whatsoever. They went through our program, they became a leader in the culinary arts program, and while this isn’t a big deal for most people, they’re working at a Carl’s Junior. And they’re going to work every single day, forty hours a week, and they’re paying bills at an apartment with a roommate. That’s a huge step.

pete and pete is really good words EMMA BURKE Sometimes, when you’re so bored you want to die, or you’re so overwhelmed with the trillions of things you gotta do that you want to die, or when you’re so sad you feel like you might actually, for real, die— your brain digs up a tiny, long forgotten memory. These tiny memories exist in a Hyper Happy Brain Trust™. They’re things you used to love that are pushed back by other things you’ve loved since or adult thoughts (like taxes or rent, not boobs or dicks…but maybe also thoughts of boobs and dicks). Recently my brain threw me The Adventures of Pete and Pete, a television show I once loved so dearly and had forgotten about somewhere between puberty and learning that I should be afraid of ISIS. It wasn’t until recently, amidst a stressful study session, that I realized, yes, Pete and Pete may have been a show intended for goofy babies, but I am still very much a goofy baby.

For those of you who may have also repressed this golden nugget of pop culture history, let me recap: The Adventures of Pete and Pete is a show about two brothers (both named Pete, duh) who get up to a whole bunch o’ goofy shit with a goofy gang of friends, enemies, parents and neighbors. Iggy Pop was on the show, and so were Debbie Harry (of Blondie), Steve Buscemi, Patty Hearst, Gordon Gano (of The Violent Femmes), and a handful of other alt celebs. Hip as fuck for 1992, right? In addition, of course, to the subversive, surreal jokes: Petes’ mom had a metal plate in her head that not only made the opening credits but was a major plot point, 9 year old Little Pete had a tattoo that went unexplained. These went over my head when I was initially absorbed by the charming, red-headed Petes, but getting to revisit something at age 21 and be like, “Daaang, this is awesome” is an exciting feeling.

Most of the things you like as a young adult are speed bumps to figuring yourself and the world out—objectively shitty tokens that keep you from getting too cool too fast (not having an awkward phase guarantees being a lame-ass, turd-like adult). I loved MySpace, that ain’t a thing no more, Sesame Street is cool but pretty boring now that I’m literate, contrary to my 7th grade diary The Killers are not actually the best band ever (at least IMO) and basically every dude I wanted to kiss between the ages of 11 through 18 is now a total eff-boy. But Pete and Pete has avoided the creepy, wrinkly hand of time. It did so by being hella cool from the get go. It wasn’t until I started rewatching and Googling that I realized just how freaking tight the dudes behind the show were/are.

Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi created a handful of cool-ahead-of-thetimes stuff for kids, almost all of which I was totally stoked on in the early 2000s and lost appreciation for because kids are dumb and forget about stuff once they start doing drugs and making out with each other.

The Ren and Stimpy Show, Snowday, Doug, KaBlam!—any of those sound familiar? If not I’m guessing you didn’t have cable TV and I’m sorry for that, but it’s in your best interest to get on YouTube NOW and watch this shizz. All their productions are endearing and kind and weird and don’t talk down to their viewers, something that all these new fangled kid shows tend to do—hone in on loud noises and bright colors and terrible acting with the expectation that kids are mindless little zombies ready to suckle the TV teat regardless of quality. Which, yeah, is true, but shows like Pete and Pete create cool, smart kids by treating kids like they’re cool and smart.

I recently asked a friend if he remembered or ever watched Pete and Pete.

“Dude, fuck yeah, that show made me realize that power pop is cool.

When I first heard Dinosaur Jr. I was like ‘this isn’t weird, this is tight’ because I grew up listening to that kind of music on Pete and Pete!” of 18

art DEREK CHESNUT the friends who recalled the show this was a common memory: the music being a defining characteristic for the show and the viewer. A band called Polaris, a group of in-house power pop musicians who only created music for the show, scored the shenanigans of Big and Little Pete. None of the songs literally address any of the characters or plot points, but instead capture the vibe of the show: precocious, down to earth and poetic. McRobb and Viscardi commissioned “Polaris” to create music for the show. Or, more accurately, they commissioned Mark Mulcahey of a band they both loved called Miracle Legion to score the show…but Miracle Legion was disbanding, and Mulcahey used this Nickelodeon show as a platform to create an all new band dedicated to writing songs that kids would like but wouldn’t be “kid songs.” In addition to Polaris, Stephen Merritt (known for being the ringleader and lead singer of The Magnetic Fields) had a couple heavily featured songs on the soundtrack, something that makes me feel weird when I recall memories of kissing boys to those same songs years after first hearing them on the freaking Adventures of Pete and Pete.

Michael Stipe (the guy from R.E.M.) didn’t contribute any music but he did contribute his silly mug and played an ice cream man while being a vocal supporter of the show. Little Pete and Pete watchers may not have been cognizant of it at the time, but I feel confident saying that Pete and Pete gave birth to an entire generation of indie kids with killer music taste.

Thank god for stuff like The Adventures of Pete and Pete. It’s easy to forget what being a little baby thing feels and sounds like, but shows like Pete and Pete manage to tap into the weird, fun, universal things that make child to teen-hood so important. As your brain starts to turn more square and grown up I urge you to revisit some of the stuff that used to make you wanna cry and scream with dopeness. It might suck but it might not! And I swear it’ll give you some perspective on past, present and future happiness.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THE TWIN PARADOX? words KATIE NOCK art EMMA HASKINS

So ya don’t wanna grow up, do ya? Shoulda been sent up to outer space as a wee lil’ lad! Just another thing your parents could’ve done to set you up for a brighter future, but didn’t.... like teaching you a foreign language when you were in elementary school, or listening to classical music while your mom was pregnant with you. But how might traveling around the universe in a rocket ship benefit those who want to slow down the process of growing up, one might ask? It’s all thanks to a little something called the twin paradox.

Here’s how this would hypothetically work: Okay, so there are these two twins. Separated at birth, obviously, classic scenario. But here’s where it gets whack: one twin, let’s name him “earth-twin,” comes home from the hospital, eats Cheerios, goes to kindergarten, learns to drive, loses his virginity, becomes a vegetarian, drops out of college to go to art school, drops out of art school to go back to college, gets married, quits smoking pot and recovers from a gambling addiction, and then turns thirty.

But here’s the thing...when earth-twin was driven home from the hospital to cry and shit at home, “space-twin” was put in a rocket ship to cry and shit in outer space. While earth-twin was Netflix and chilling, space-twin was flying through the galaxy at half the speed of light (which happens to be 300,000 km per second.). When earth-twin turned thirty, space-twin’s rocket ship landed back on earth in order to have a joint birthday/reunion party. But when they were putting candles on a cake, they got in a huge fight because even though earth-twin had invited his brother for their thirtieth birthday, turns out space-twin was only 26 years old!! ` What the fuck!!? How is that possible??! Well it’s real, I wouldn’t lie to ya!

Credit for this, of course, goes to good, ol’ fashion “special relativity,” which is the fact that time and space are both principles based on relativity (woooooah maaan), that the speed of light is constant, and that the so-called “laws” of physics are the same for every object/being in uniform motion. Sorry that was so text-booky, but poor Einstein spent so much time thinking about this shit that I felt he deserved that.

For this to make any sense at all, you have to first acknowledge that this whole paradox is occurring from the perspective from earth-twin.

Thanks to a little something Einstein liked to call an “inertial frame of reference,” when each twin looks at their iPhone, regardless of if they are in space or on the ground, time seems to be moving at the normal rate because each of them is seeing their surroundings from a perspective of uniform motion. Kind of like how when you’re in an airplane, it doesn’t feel like you’re moving.

Since we’re watching this happen from earth — space-twin is only moving in relation to earth-twin viewing himself as being stationary.

Saying that “time is relative” is pretty much the same as saying “time

passes in relation to how fast an object is moving.” This is also called time dilation... if you ever need a fun buzzword to drop at a party.

Basically, all this means is that time can tick faster or slower depending on the way you are moving.

Even though to each twin, within their individual inertial frame of reference, time seems to be passing normally, the difference is only observable when earth-twin sees space-twin’s clock and realizes that in the past second, he hasn’t moved at all, but his twin in space has traveled almost 150,000 km. This makes it appear to earth-twin that the space clock is ticking slower.

If you’re confused, it’s chill, so am I. It’s called a paradox for a reason, after all. Basically, the closer to the speed of light you travel, the slower your inner-clock runs in comparison to the way time passes here on earth. If you weren’t confused already, this next part really oughta do it...

Technically, through space-twin’s eyes, earth-twin would be the one aging more slowly, so how do we figure out who’s actually younger?

The answer lies in the specific path of the rocket ship. When space-twin decided to turn around to come home from outer space for the birthday party, the rocket would have had to accelerate as it headed home. This would shatter the inertial frame of reference, allowing space-twin to experience an increase in speed. Without this acceleration, each twin would think that it was the other twin who was moving, while they were staying still.

We know that time runs slower within a “frame of accelerated reference” (a.k.a. when the rocket accelerated back toward earth) thanks to “general relativity.” For our twins, this means that in the period that space-twin is accelerating back to our planet, earth-twin would see space-twin’s clock slowing down, and space-twin would see earth-twin’s speeding up. It’s that moment of acceleration that solves the paradox and makes space-twin “age slower.”

Unfortunately, for those trying to escape adulthood, this only manifests if you’re traveling close to the speed of light — which you definitely aren’t...sucka. We also haven’t factored gravity into the equation yet, which would lead us to a similar mind-fucked state that Interstellar did (and for very similar reasons).

Also, keep in mind that this is coming from a botanist who has be trying to understand this since I took Astronomy 122 freshman year. But, long story short, Peter Pan might have been on to something when he told Wendy that the second star to the right could keep you from growing up.

OV

the swipe effect * statistics from 2015 study by Indiana University.

Left. Very left. Even lefter. Right.

“I’d get on Tinder and create these rules for the swipes,” says UO grad Cristina Reese, recalling the first time she used the app. “If they had a picture with their mom, it was an automatic yes. If they had a picture with a dead animal, it was an automatic no…if they had a really bro-y picture in the mirror, it was either no or yes, depending how funny it was.”

This would soon devolve into “frantic laughter” at the scene’s recognizable absurdity. In that mysterious space between pursuing dates and reveling in singleness, she treated the app as most of its users do: a game.

As of January 2016, Tinder boasts an estimated 55 million active users, 10 million of which are active daily. In 24 different languages, those people sift through photos of potential mates at a rate of over one billion swipes a day. Tinder’s not alone, either: JSwipe, its Jewish-only counterpart, was launched in February 2015, joining the ilk of other swipe dating spinoffs like Down, Clover, Tingle and Hinge.

Whether a passing fad or here to stay, yes-or-no swipe dating apps have revolutionized digital dating.

The concept itself is hardly original. Hotor-Not, the premier side-by-side photo comparison web application, has been around since 2000 — and snap-judgment games involving potential mates had existed long before that (think Marry-F*ck-Kill).

The difference is, with Tinder, it’s not just haha, hypothetical. Not only are the people you’re judging real, but they’re accessible — the app only displays “matches” within close enough physical proximity to meet up.

Ross Rosenberg, codependency counselor and author of The Human Magnet Syndrome, says that Tinder’s instant gratification “connects to part of our pleasure center. If you go to Las Vegas and you see a slot machine… the idea is that you can put a quarter in and then get a million-dollar jackpot.” He likens the sensation to that of an addictive drug.

To Tinder’s credit, its intuitive system is emulative of the way people meet in real life —see Chris Brown’s hit single “Yo (Excuse Me Miss)” — but Ross says Tinder only stimulates parts of the brain associated with fantasy and physical attraction.

NONFICTION

Though there’s an evolutionary basis for these instincts, Ross argues that the increasingly social nature of the modern human makes the process of attraction just as dependent on love, respect and care — LRC needs, in psychologist speak — as on physical desire.

When downloading Tinder, “I think the majority of people our age don’t actually know what they want,” says Cristina.

“People want physical — but also, physical isn’t that awesome with someone who you don’t have the emotion with.”

words ISABEL ZACHARIAS art DEREK CHESNUT more, so there is still that level of respect and care.”

It never goes farther than amicability, though: “It’s the same play-by-play,” he says. “We’ll meet at a location — get a meal, get some yogurt, get some tea.” Then it’s either hooking up then or hanging out a few more times, but that’s it.

She suspects many of her peers use Tinder to assuage all sorts of personal issues — not just romantic woes, but dissatisfaction with friendships or personal growth.

The worst Tinder date John’s ever been on was a one-time sexual encounter with a woman he’d been chatting with hours before.

“I realized that was not what I’m into,” he says.

“Yes, this app is a good way to meet people, but I don’t need to use it for things like that.”

What is Tinder good for, then? Why keep coming back?

Perhaps the outlier, Cristina says she downloaded Tinder as an experiment at a time when she was thoroughly happy being single.

“Swipe dating apps are not going to go away, because there’s a part of the human condition where people want to self-medicate,” says Ross.

“For me, it’s a really great way to not put a lot of effort or energy or time into finding any kind of connection,” she says, clarifying that she’s only used it to find casual sex partners and that those who use it to find friends are, she thinks, denying something.

It’s easy to blame apps like Tinder for robbing dating culture of its human element, but what’s closer to the truth is that “there are certain things we want as a society, so we have people invent them,” says Ross.

Swipe dating apps are a reflection of us — not the other way around.

“You are using an app that is specifically for the intention of meeting someone to either date or fuck, and that’s how you’re trying to find your friends? No.” On the spectrum’s other end, there’s twenty-three-year-old John Paul, a UO senior, who says he initially downloaded Tinder because he was “bored.”

He’d just ended a relationship and was visiting a few new cities; he saw the app as one way to start building new communities.

John’s best Tinder date outcomes are “cases where I have remained friends with the people, even though we don’t hook up any

Their place in the future, though, is by no means certain. Tinder’s recent monetization, including limited free “yes” swipes, payment for swiping outside of one’s area, and the ability to pay to “superlike” someone to shift your profile to the top of their slush pile, may make users start to question the app — or maybe, like MySpace, it’ll just get uncool and phase out.

“I don’t know how long I’ll have it this time,” says John, who deletes the app in frustration and re-acquires it cyclically. “Probably a day, until I download it again.”

NONFICTION Jumping Off the Bandwagon words EMMA HENDERSON The party was starting to get crowded, and I needed some fresh air. I stumbled outside onto the front porch where three people were standing around talking. There was a short girl with frizzy brown hair and two tall, lanky boys. One of the boys started talking to me; he had red hair and a nerdy cute grin on his face.

“Hello! What are you doing out here?” He asked me.

I was surprised that he started talking to me. I excitedly started befriending these strangers, telling them about myself. I completely forgot about my friends dancing inside as I kept talking to these people.

Turns out they were all in the UO band and I was unknowingly at a band party. Band kids stopped being people I interacted with once I started college, despite my four years of marching band in high school. These people reminded me of my band friends from back home, so I instantly liked them.

“Wow, you’re sooo pretty,” a dark haired boy kept saying, while the nerdy redhead kepttouching my hair. “What’s your name?”

I was shocked by these strangers’ interest in me but I couldn’t help but like their friendly personalities. The girl started drunkenly telling me about how I should respect my body, while I stood there very confused. Her drunken rant continued until the two guys interrupted her and insisted we have a group hug. Which, for some unknown reason, I was way too excited to partake in.

Although the strangers were weird, I liked the attention so I kept talking to them.

“Let’s go inside,” one of them suggested, so I followed them back into the party, where they led me into a bedroom. I had no idea what was happening but I felt very calm about the whole thing. There was something about these people that just seemed so trustworthy. Their personas seemed familiar and the band kid I will always be at heart felt comforted that they were in the band. So despite being a little concerned, I just went with it.

I somehow ended up on the bed and before he could miss a beat the redhead started

kissing me. After about 4 seconds of really gross kissing he stopped and said “Switch.”

Red flags. My mind went fuzzy as alarms went off in my head. Did I hear him right? Did he say “switch”? Before I had time to process what was happening, the dorky redhead was making out with the other guy, and the girl had her tongue down my throat. Of course, each to their own, but being bombarded with an unexpected orgy is not my thing.

“Are you ready to do this?” the guy asked me as he pressed his hand on my back. I could not believe what was happening. I was horrified and quickly stood up and left.

As I was leaving the room I heard the girl yell, “I’m straight!”

somewhat cute. He had nice hair and a cute smile, his arms weren’t half bad either, plus I wanted matches, so I swiped right.

He messaged me immediately after we matched, asking me questions that at least seemed like he was trying, so we decided to meet up at Common Grounds, the coolest place to get dorm food on campus. Every alarm in my mind was saying bad idea, but my roommate did this stuff all the time. What is the worst that could happen?

When we met, I could tell from his facial expression that I must have looked nothing like my pictures, and my facial expression probably said the same thing. I started asking him friendly questions, but everything he said was painfully weird.

Tinder Date Dash

“What’s your favorite type of music?” I asked.

Three weeks into college I decided to make a Tinder. My roommate was really into Tinder, meeting up with her matches all the time, so it seemed like a good idea. I liked the idea of people telling me I am pretty and having an app specifically for judging people, one of my favorite hobbies.

Everything? Your favorite type of music is everything? What kind of response is that?

words EMMA HENDERSON

I carefully selected photos of myself (Hm my hair looks better in this one, but this one has more cleavage… Oh but this one makes me look way cooler than I actually am.) and spent way too long trying to think of a bio.

“Just looking to meet new people! I love the outdoors, music, and dogs!” Wow I sound so fake. “Take me on an adventure.” That sounds sexual… delete, delete! “I have better taste in music than you.” Whoa that’s too sassy. “New to Eugene, trying to make friends! I love dogs and music.” Eh good enough.

I started swiping though my potential matches. Pretty much every guy seemed incredibly creepy or like a huge tool but I was having fun getting matches and making fun of strangers.

I came across a particularly douchey boy in a tank top. He was posing dramatically and looking into the distance, pretending like he thinks of more meaningful stuff than naked girls. He looked exactly like the kind of guy I would avoid at all costs, but he was

“Everything.”

“Have you heard of the band Jack’s the Man?” I asked.

“Oh yeah I know them. I love them,” he responded like he obviously knew them because he knows everything.

Jack’s The Man? Completely made up. The band name was just a combination of Jack’s Mannequin and Portugal. The Man, the names of my two favorite bands.

I started panicking. How do I get out of this?

How do I find an excuse to leave? I did not know what to do so I kept making awkward small talk while we waited for our food. He started going on and on about the parties he gets invited too, because obviously he is the coolest guy ever.

Then suddenly, in the middle of our conversation, my tank top wearing Tinder date that loves every type of music and goes to so many parties stood up. I looked at him, puzzled by his sudden jolt. He gave me a look of pure terror as he bolted out the back door.

He literally ran out of Common Grounds, while I was mid-sentence, before we even got our food. I deleted my Tinder right then and have not been on a Tinder date since.

O V 21

MORMONS STorming the Shelves words MILES SHEPARD art DEREK CHESNUT What did I know about the joy of literature before I knew that Edward was a vamp, that there was a part of him that thirsted for my blood, and that I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him? I remember buying the first Twilight book, Twilight. It was 2007; the sleek black cover blinded my eleven-year-old eyes, and in that moment it chose me as its reader. On it, two hands clasped an apple, never to be mentioned in the text. I ran home and read the book as slowly as I could, relishing each moment with the characters who seemed to lead lives so shockingly similar to my own. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, it was the greatest book I’dever beheld to grace the “On Sale” stack in the short-lived Fred Meyer YA section.

As I read about Bella, Stephenie Meyer was indoctrinating me with some real Mormon values. Some of the injections of ideology are glaringly obvious: that Edward and Bella are in it “forever,” the dedication to the straight edge life, that when she isn’t actively being romanced on she is most likely spotted cooking and cleaning. While these aspects of the story range from outdated to quasi-oppressive, some of the darkest messages are the ones beneath the surface. Meyers herself said that the cover of Twilight is supposed to be a reference to the Garden of Eden to draw a comparison between Bella and Eve. Likewise, the poster for Eclipse says, “It begins with a choice.” Without getting too 9/11wasaninsidejob.org, some of these similarities are hard to ignore.

While Meyers has not made very many comments about Twilight’s implied Mormonism, other Mormons have. According to the treasure trove of all things Mormon, mormonwiki.org, Twilight is a book about sexual tension; “sexual tension is just that—tension. It is desire combined with restraint.” Could it be that the brand of sensuality explored in Twilight exemplifies the excitement of a healthy Mormon relationship? Who knew good moral hygiene could be portrayed with such steam.

As it turns out, many of the important popular culture texts from my formative years have taken content inspo from Joseph Smith. In addition to the aforementioned Twilight saga, Napoleon Dynamite, the only early-2000s film of cinematic merit, owes a good deal to Joseph Smith & crew.

First of all, though never explicitly stated in the film, Napoleon Dynamite is about the goings-on of a Mormon town. The most obvious Mormon element is the infamous lack of plot, which is most likely poking fun at the lack of excitement in devout religious communities. The film doesn’t seem to have the same obvious religious messages as seen in Twilight, because it doesn’t come off as trying to indoctrinate the viewer so aggressively. I would say that Napoleon Dynamite seems a little less vindictive, and a little more like a comedic critique of the traditional Mormon lifestyle. Indeed, Jon Heder, who plays Napoleon, is open about his active involvement in the Church of Latter Day Saints. In general he seems to adhere closely to his faith, often turning down roles that seem too raunchy (nobody’s perfect, exceptions: Bench Warmers, Blades Of Glory). Keeping this in mind, certain aspects of the movie that allowed for its crossover to the mainstream come to light. It’s definitely possible that the lighthearted

22

angst is speaking to young Mormons’ frustration with age-old customs?.

Take, for example, the iconic “Happy Hands Club” performance of “Love Is A River”. On one level, Napoleon’s somehow tone-deaf use of sign language makes it funny, but on another it pokes fun at the boredom of ten plus years in Sunday school. By appealing to both LDS and non-LDS audiences, the film presents itself as pretty much universally appealing for American viewers, regardless of identity.

A lot of Mormons criticize the emergence of the alleged “Mormon genre” as being a false perception of what Mormon films are trying to do.

They argue that popular books and movies like Twilight and Napoleon Dynamite, as well as the less popular, but better titled examples (Church Ball, Baptists At Our Barbeque) are seen as almost on par with “normal” movies, but a little bit worse due to their religious affiliations. Rather than existing as a Mormon alternative version of a normative narrative, these creative projects are produced for young Mormons to revitalize their culture in a way that works for the contemporary generation. While the portrayal of teen sexuality in Twilight isn’t perfect by any means, the importance of making a space where young people can think about those aspects of their lives, particularly young people who might not come from backgrounds where such discussions are traditionally welcomed, can hardly be overstated. Stephenie Meyer has planned four more Twilight books, and you know I’ll be the first to see how she plans on making a relationship between a twenty-year-old man and a threeyear-old girl “morally hygienic.”

THINKING INK words SHELBY MARTHALLER

art EMMA HASKINS

Netflix and chill, concerts, social media, parties, “adventuring”: all recognizably common experiences of today’s young adults. Recently, though, they’ve also been showing interest in getting tattoos. Though not yet as mainstream as said activities, tattoos are slowly being normalized.

Almost four in ten Americans age 18-29 have at least one tattoo, according to a Pew research poll conducted in 2010. Other research has found that at least one in five U.S adults now have tattoo(s), according the PRNewswire. And I see these growing statistics in my everyday life; many of my friends celebrated their 18th birthdays by going to a tattoo parlor, and a majority of my friends already have at least one tattoo, while others are deciding what they want to get for their first.

This shift is largely generational. Tattoos weren’t as popular in my parents’ young adult time as they are in mine. My father would always tell me, “Don’t put holes or ink on your spacesuit.” On the other hand, my mother got her first tattoo with her high school best friend when she was 17 years old. Back then, she was considered a minority for having a tattoo and had to hide her tattoo from her grandparents until she was well into her twenties.

Non-supporters argue that tattoos are unprofessional or even trashy, while people who support tattooing believe it is artful self-expression.

There continues to be a lot of controversy around tattoos, so I decided to interview people at the University of Oregon about their tattoos to answer some recurring questions the un-tattooed (and tattooed alike) may have.

Interviewees: Zoey Neville, Erin Casini & Avalon Chaffer 1) What is your tattoo? Does it have a meaning and if so what does it mean?

Zoey: A small Aquarius sign behind my right ear — it looks like two zigzag lines.

Erin: I have two tattoos. One is on the outside of my left foot and says “this too shall pass” with birds flying away. The other is on the inside of my ring finger on my right hand and is a cross. The quote reminds me of the obstacles in my life that I have overcome. It also symbolizes my ability to deal with adversity. The birds flying away symbolize moving on. My cross was an impulse tattoo with my best friend, but I am Catholic so it somewhat symbolizes my religion and a big part of my life, seeing as I went to Catholic school from kindergarten to senior year.

Avalon: It is an eagle. To me it represents freedom while still remembering home (my grandfather has an eagle tattoo as well).

2) How old were you when you got a tattoo?

Zoey: I got it on my 18th birthday.

Erin: I was 18 when I got both tattoos.

Avalon: I was 18.

3) Why did you get a tattoo?

Zoey:I basically just got it because I wanted to celebrate being 18, I think tattoos look cool, and I really connect with being an Aquarius, so I thought it’d make for a good thing to permanently have on my body.

And now I really want to get more tattoos!

Erin: I got a tattoo because of its permanence. I wanted to remember forever that I can overcome anything. I put it on my foot so I could constantly see it and be reminded.

Avalon: So, this is kind of like my answer to #1, but in my home, my parents were very strict, and when I went to college, it was my

freedom — so the eagle represents freedom from my home but still remembering where I came from (my grandfather).

4) Do you feel like you have been judged for your tattoos by your peers or discriminated against for jobs because of them?

Zoey: No, especially since most people can’t see it!

Erin: I don’t ever feel judged or discriminated.

Avalon: My tattoo is in a hidden spot, more or less, so not many people have seen it, and I haven’t been judged on it.

5) How many of your peers are getting tattoos?

Zoey: I have a handful of friends with one or more tattoos, but I definitely have more friends that don’t have any tattoos. I don’t know exactly how many though.

Erin: A good amount of my peers have tattoos or are getting them or want to get them.

Avalon: There are close to 10 of my peers who have tattoos or are thinking about one in the near future.

6) How do you think your parents feel about tattoos in contrast to how our generation thinks about them?

Zoey: My parents are with the generation on tattoos. No negative stigma; my mom even came with me to get my tattoo! They have never been concerned about me not getting hired somewhere due to a tattoo, even if I had more on other places of my body. I think they would only feel a little questionable about it if I wanted one on my face.

Erin: My parents aren’t too keen on tattoos. Their opinions are completely different than our generation. They tend to see them as unnecessary, reckless, and unprofessional.

Avalon: My parents are very much against tattoos, and I feel like the older generations are more into the traditional ways, and prefer to keep their bodies pure (“your body is your temple”).

Personally, I plan on getting a matching one with my mom’s high school best friend’s daughter. We want to get the same Care Bear heart that our mothers have and start a tradition. I hope this trend in getting tattooed continues to grow as a symbol of freedom and expression.

Long live tattoos.

ULTIMATE YOUNG ADULT PLAYLIST words MILES SHEPARD art HANNAH MARKOVIC

1. “Kiss The Bottle” - Jawbreaker Everything by Jawbreaker was important when I was sixteen (and now), but this was probably the most important one; it felt good to find a band that seemed more bummed out than I was.

2. “M” - The Cure This album, Seventeen Seconds, really meant a lot to me when I was a sophomore in high school. I even put it on a mix cd that I never gave to the person I made it for.

3. “Isabelle Of Castille” - Starfucker Portland 2011, laserlights and rosary-clad Josh Hodges.

4. “Shawtie is a 10” - The Dream Early on weekday mornings, MTV used to play music videos. I was too young to seek it out myself, but I would hang out with my sister before school and watch them.

5. “Reed To Hillsborough” - Duster Duster was the soundtrack for skipping math class to walk around in the rain.

6. “Dopesmoker” - Sleep <3 <3 <3 A distant, post-weed (all the dispensaries turn into empty strip malls) reality where everything is flat but has the illusion of texture.

7. “After Hours” - The Velvet Underground Really everything by the Velvets could go on here but this always seemed to be in the background especially.

8. “Just A Lil Bit”- 50 Cent Another one from the MTV before-school music video show. Not a lot, just a little bit.

9. “Soon”- My Bloody Valentine By this point the walls were melting and we had only a single box of Oreos, the magic seeing eye book, and this album to make it out of the night alive.

10. “Fuck You For Fucking Me” - Brian Jonestown Massacre I thought that Dig!, which is the movie about the Brian Jonestown Massacre, was kind of like Portland before I was born.

11. “Chill Yourself” - White Fang “I don’t need pills to get my chills!” Mantra of health, unity, and grease.

12. “When I Get Mad” - The Reatards I love(d) Jay Reatard so much that I thought I knew him, or even was him in some way.

13. “High School Lover” - Air In a minivan getting lost in Ladd’s Addition with only this song on repeat.

14. “lonely boy goes to a rave” - Teen Suicide I think that this song captures that integral young feeling of being in a crowded room totally on your own, wondering if everybody else is also alone too.

Advice From Why does my heart hurt?

Dear Hurt Heart, Have you thought about pouring yourself a big bowl of Cheerios? I heard they are good for the heart.

I’m sorry if you didn’t think that was funny. I only started that way because hurt hearts hurt and hurt is hefty, like the Heinz ketchup bottle you hesitate to turn over and bonk because you fear it will all come splatting out—a big, vinegary mess. Cheerios and capitalism seemed lighter, somehow. But here I go, because what is life without condiments.

The last time my heart hurt I was on a bus. My heart hurt because the bus was driving North and I was leaving a farm and a donkey and a boy I loved and I didn’t know when, or if, I would see them again. And it sucked. My heart hurt. It ached. It felt tight.

The heart is a big, burly muscle (so close to making a hamburger metaphor) and when we make it work hard, of course, like any other muscle, it gets sore.

So good news, I bet your heart hurts because you have been using it. Soreness is evidence of use. And use is evidence of living, and living well. But you gotta care for the tender muscle. So here is my advice: give your heart some good stretches. And then some serious rest.

Wallow, swallow.

Seriously.

Neruda wrote “I can write the saddest poem of all tonight” and then he wrote, like, fifty-five pretty darn sad poems. You are not Neruda but I believe you have a poet or a prince or a punk in you that might proliferate if showered in enough hurt. Let your hurt, hurt. Don’t pressure it to go away, don’t tweeze out all the splinters or ask it to be pretty when it doesn’t want to be.

Much love, The Real Seal.

THE REAL SEAL. I’m in love with a girl who lives in Portland. She has no idea probably but I really want to drive up and confess my feelings and ask her out. The problem here is that I’ve met her once and we interact pretty frequently on social media and such, but I really, really like her.

I obviously don’t plan on hitting her with “I’m in love with you, let’s get coffee,” but is a confession even a good idea? Is any of this a good idea? I recently got out of a long distance-relationship with a girl on the Eastern seaboard, and that was rough. To me, this Portland girl doesn’t seem all that distant, but realistically she is, especially since I don’t have a car. I would love for this girl to be my girlfriend, but I just don’t know how to go about it, or if I even should. Thank you, Long-Distance Mess.

dumb—because, what’s anything without wonder? Fantasizing is a fun and healthy exercise and a heck of a lot of creativity comes from those kinds of headspaces (listen to Daydreaming by Middlebrother if you doubt me).

But I do think it’s a good idea to at least spend some time tasting before making the leap to love, flavor or human. Hasty confessions have a tendency to convolute interactions; I mean, how do you know this gal sounds the same in person as she does over social media? Is part of the draw to this person in the drama of drafting responses to her social media queries? Or wondering about why she did or did not like something you posted? How can you be sure you even want to date her if you don’t know if she’s

Have a problem? Send it to The Real Seal @ theoregonvoice@gmail.com

Dear Long-Distance Mess, Buy a bus ticket to Portland for next weekend. But don’t do it for the sake of confessions. Do it to hang out with this person. Do it to discover a new taco shop and see a show that you might not get to see in Eugene. It’s pretty easy to build relationships in our heads and you sound like you have a case of the daydreams. Your openness to vulnerability and to loving is admirable, seriously.

But I have a question for you: When you are at fro-yo and they set out those tiny, dixie cups for samples, what do you do? Do you try cake batter, coffeebuzzbuzz, and bananablast and then finally fill up your real cup with original tart? I do. Sample cups exist for a reason. They exist so we can be sure of things. I am not trying to say that we should always feel 120% sure of the relationships we are in, we shouldn’t, that’s

the kind of person who is down to sneak beers into movies or would put your oxygen mask on before her own on an airplane? So buy a bus ticket to Portland. Refrain from the free wi-fi and instead enjoy the two-hour tour in your head (dream, dude!), and arrive in PDX prepared to hang out with a rad person. Stay dreamy, The Real Seal.

All my friends want to go out to the bars and restaurants all the time and always want me to go but I can’t afford it and i dont know how to say no to them without sounding rude. if I keep this though up I won’t be able to pay my rent.

What should I say?

Dear Empty Pocket Penelope, Be honest. I would guess that you are not the only one of your friends with financial frets. Tell them you are broke (not broken)

and that you still really want to hang out. I don’t think they will feel slighted, in fact, I would guess they will react with compassion.

Maybe suggest an alternative— —a use-what’s-in-your-fridge potluck instead of a $20 mealwith-drink-extravaganza. Those kinds of shindigs end up being more fun, anyway. Scale down your habit, maybe give yourself one ‘treat’ a week or something.

And when you go out, be wise with your wallet: track down the best deals and happy hours round town. Ain’t no shame in a three p.m. brewskee.

Cheers, The Real Seal.

I am in this little relationship thing whatever and I want to end it. How bad would it be to just send them a text?

Dear Unclear, I told my roommate about your question, and she told me a great story I think I’ll share with you. Post big-booming breakup her sophomore year she launched herself into a light fling. They mostly hung out at night and were not really into “I feel” statements, but were, to her knowledge, having a whole lotta fun together. One day he asked her to lunch via text, which she thought was a little odd given the nocturnal nature of their hangouts. They “broke up” over lunch. And she says it was one of the nicest things someone has ever done for her. This guy had the courage and consideration to say “I no longer really want to kiss you or whatever in the dark” during THE DAY. He went out of his way to be tender and I think you should to. So go get sandwiches and tell this person whatever it is that you need to say to end it.

Goodluck, The Real Seal

OV 25

THAT CAMPUS HOMIE

taylor goodman Favorite crime show star: Elliot Stabler (Law and Order: SVU). A ton of moms probably think about him during sex. I know my mom does.

Favorite Snapchat filter: The time because it reminds me of my impending mortality.

Ugliest celebrity you’d date: Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank. In a second.

Conspiracy theory you most believe: I don’t think the president actually does anything. That’s not even a conspiracy theory that’s how much I believe it.

“Hating on the Kardashians is just internalized misogyny. But see, I’m going to sound vapid because I think about this stuff.” Taylor Goodman, this issue’s kick-ass campus homie, expresses her homie-ness through an acute sense of what it means to be a girl raging against the machine.

Between starting a candle company, dominating the journalism school with ad campaigns revered by Wieden + Kennedy, having a sick resume filled with crazy impressive stuff like references from The Wall Street Journal and checking dudes on their dude privilege (“it sucks that women are almost exclusively called ‘basic’…you see more basic men than nonbasic men but nobody ever calls them that!”), Taylor The Homie is most def burning the wick at both ends. You gotta have cultural clout to be a successful journalist AND a successful homie and Taylor’s got it: an ex-cinema studies major with a penchant for K-pop — “K pop is awesome. ‘Hello Bitches’ is my anthem. I once almost threw up Cheez-Its because I was practicing the dance to it for so long. CL is my feminist icon because she shows you can be hot and bad-ass outside of the male gaze.” No doubt Taylor will have something to say about any piece o’ pop culture your brain can muster. Catch this homie working on her next business venture somewhere on campus, coffee in hand, subverting the patriarchy every step of the way.

YOUNG ADULT FOUND POEM The stars understood quiet and brave boys they cried once the dark feel asleep the horizon moved fast, a child awake a bright trail across the sky, a figure with limb of various altitudes, the wind descending across the reef among the blue flowers 26

from Lord of the Flies by William Golding words & photo JESSICA JOHNSON

OV OV: Who was your first crush?

In all seriousness, my first crush was Anne Frank, and it was a hard crush. My second was Kristi Yamaguchi.

OV: Which Harry Potter Character are you?

Lando Calrissian OV: What is a Teenager?

A teenager is a suspended state of phantasmagoria situated between idealism and realism.

z met Jay Stein

OV: Hovercraft of Hoverboard?

Marty McFly hoverboard analysis?

OV

OV: Which Harry Potter Character are you?

Daniel Radcliffe’s personal assistant? According to a Buzzfeed quiz, two parts Moaning Myrtle and one part Bill Weasley OV: What is a Teenager?

A good version of you to collect things for future you

ler Quinn Mil

art REYN YEAGER

IAL FFIC ICE O THE N VO GO L ORE ILLENIA GE M PA ING R O COL

PROFESSOR TRADING KARDZ ™ oh yeah!

OVERHEARDS!

PROFESSOR TRADING collect ‘em all!

KARDZ ™

Hey guys!

LOVE the tie-dye.

zy It’s like cra y b t n e b s straw f fate o s d n a h the

OV

ler Quinn Mil

One t i robbe me I got d and had t o giv all I cond e was oms

OV

I haven’t had a boner in a week

My mother is a head and I’m a clove

(doesn’t really like getting his picture taken)

9/11...that w as a big thing

metz Jay Stein

Old m been en have LONG looking INGL Y at me

this I thought but it is was a rat o a sh e.

GRINDING PLAGIARIZING AD CAMPAIGNS

MINT FLAVORED TUMS SANDY COHEN’S BAGEL GUILLOTINE

NO RESPECT

MATING IN CAPTIVITY RIP LING LING THE PANDA BEAR

respectrum (mini!)

MAD RESPECT

MARKET OF CHOICE IS IN GENERAL FAIRLY EXPENSIVE BERNIE’S GLOVES COMING OFF STARBUCKS WATER

28

art HANNAH MARKOVIC

OREGON VOICE STAFF APPLICATION Please return this form along with any work samples to our email, oregonvoice@gmail.com or at a weekly meeting (Wednesdays at 6:30 in PLC 627). Classwork is acceptable for work samples. Oregon Voice abides by University non-discrimination policies. Your responses can be typed or handwritten on this page.

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