My pseu-called life

You're incredibly contemptuous of your school in "Please Don't Kill the Freshman." What kind of student were you?

I got good grades, I'd turn in the homework, I participated. [My problem] was more the administration and counselors, because I wanted to form this gay club, which they thought was really inappropriate, and I had political collages on my locker that they thought weren't appropriate, clippings from Mother Jones and the Progressive magazine. They weren't like, "Kill your government," but the headlines were very provocative. I had a little tiny hemp ad on there with a marijuana leaf, and they didn't like that. Because it was political, they were uncomfortable with it. I just really got the message that thinking outside the box was very unwelcome at my school.

Have you always hated school?

I never liked the experience of public school or the structure of it. It always seemed very totalitarian. In school they make it seem like nothing's applicable. It's very hard for them to relate what you're doing in class with any real-world experiences. It always really bothered me that they referred to life after high school as "the real world," because it seemed to completely invalidate whatever you were doing at the time. So I always worked really hard at making sure I had a life. I went to school but it never really consumed me. I had the chapbook, and I could try and get a life outside this realm of football games and high school plays. Kevin would tell me about readings that were going on. I had different groups of people that I'd hang out with, and we'd do things that were away from school, like going downtown or going shopping. Even at home, I could get online and talk to people. I had pen pals, people I would e-mail back and forth with. I just wasn't so consumed by all the drama at school.

School was never first priority. My parents told me for years that public school and high school is bullshit. They keep you in there to keep you out of the workforce. They want you there because they need a tax revenue.

So more of your educational growth happened at home?

Neither of my parents graduated from college. My mom's a high school dropout. But they're both very, very bright people. They have incredible common sense, and they're very open. My mom reads voraciously. I think I got that from her. If I didn't know something I could ask them, and they wouldn't treat me like I was stupid.

It sounds like they're the kind of parents who treat teenagers more like adults than kids.

Yeah, they've always treated me like a person. We used to have this thing in our house where we were like, We're family, but we're different people and we have to learn how to get along together. They've always been so completely sensible, laid back, relaxed. My mom reads a lot of cookbooks and my dad falls asleep in his recliner. They're just people. I'm really, really grateful to have them as parents. I don't know how any other parents would deal with what I'm doing now.

Have they read your book?

My dad hasn't read all of it yet. My mom's read it at least twice. I don't think my mom was particularly shocked. I was kind of worried that she'd punish me retroactively for some of the stuff, but again, they're so painfully logical. They're like, We realize that you don't always tell us everything and that sometimes you probably even lie to us. They're freakishly honest with themselves and each other and I guess that's where I got it. They so clearly remember what they did as teenagers that nothing shocks them. I think they have a certain amount of trust in me that they raised me to make smart decisions and live my life in a responsible way.

What about the blatant discussions of your sexuality in PDKTF? Did it make them uncomfortable to read about their daughter's sexuality and sex life? Did they know that you read lesbian erotica, for example?

They're very cognizant of what teenagers are like, in terms of experimenting with sexuality or drugs. When I was reading a lot of erotica in middle school, I brought home so many books from the library anyway -- my mom never snooped; she respects my privacy so much -- and unless I pointed a book out to her specifically or she saw me reading it, she might not have even noticed. And if she had, literature is so accepted in my family that it wouldn't have been a big deal. To her, reading is a much safer way of experimenting with something rather than going out and doing it. If I was curious about something, my parents always encouraged me to read about it. When I took my mom to [the Portland bookstore] Powell's for the first time, she found some paperback collection of Penthouse letters, and she was like, Oh, this is great! Sexuality is not a taboo thing in my family at all. My parents grew up in Southern California in the '60s and '70s and they've seen a lot of stuff. They're very accepting of other people's lifestyles.

You're incredibly emotional in PDKTF when describing your friends -- you're always falling in love with one friend or another -- but, at the same time, you're detached from them, observant and analytical.

I've always felt five to 10 years older than everyone else. I get tired of waiting for everyone else to catch up. And sometimes what I'm doing now doesn't help with those kinds of feelings. I have friends who are in high school and getting really stressed out about grades or college or whatever, and it seems so boring to me. I'm not interested in that environment or mindset anymore; I never have been.

Your friends are so frank about sex, and are so willing to explore their sexuality.

Sexuality in high school is more open than a lot of people realize. I don't think it's more accepting -- I have friends who've been spit on; it can still be very hateful -- but among groups of friends it's like, Yeah, he's gay, so what. You're dealing with a lot of people with a lot of raging hormones and a lot of curiosity. The people I hung out with -- I can't remember anyone being particularly concerned with anyone else's sexuality. People thought my girlfriend was interesting because she was so butch. When she became a boy that took a lot of explaining.

It's interesting how you're able to see so many sexual or erotic possibilities in the people around you. Most teenagers -- well, most people -- have a kind of mental list of what they are and aren't attracted to. You don't really seem to have that.

I'm naturally hyper-observant. I'm really good at watching people. I notice these incredibly tiny details about people, something I think is so slight that other people don't see, so I guess that will make me attracted to people more than the generic, Oh, he has a nice ass. I'm like, Didn't you notice the way he writes? He holds his pencil in his left hand and he crosses his T's a certain way and when he's thinking his tongue kind of sticks out of his mouth. I can write, like, whole papers about people after watching them for five minutes. I guess that's how it's so easy for me to be attracted to people.

Had you come out to your parents by the time the book was published?

More or less. It's not a really big deal. Harder than just talking about it is dealing with people's reactions to it, people's spin on it, and trying to explain it. It's very confusing in my book, and it's still confusing to me now. I say that I'm gay a lot, but I use the word "gay" the way other people use the word "queer," just to mean that my sexuality deviates from the norm, so I think I'm probably losing a lot of dates that way -- like, she's only into girls. No, I'm into people. Gender doesn't matter if I'm attracted to you.

I haven't had a date in seven months, which is pathetic. My friends always tell me -- and maybe they're just trying to be nice, but I think it also has some validity -- that people are probably rightfully intimidated by me or think I'm unapproachable.

When you edited the book, was there anything you were tempted to delete -- anything that seemed embarrassing? You seem so OK with the fact that anyone who reads PDKTF will know tons of intimate details about your evolution as a teenager.

Being 16 and editing this diary I'd written when I was 14, I had to learn to respect what I'd written. There are some things I would cringe at, but I would think, I can't cut this. This is who I was. I think that's the only reason I got through the editing process. At a certain point I just learned to suck it up. I can't completely erase this picture of who I was.

Can you explain all the cheerleader imagery on the cover?

I just think it's a cute shtick. It's ironic, almost, because the book is so not like, Yay, high school! It's also the iconography of high school -- you think of high school, you think football and cheerleaders. I think it takes that stereotype and skews it.

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