School started up again, and my depression was the worst in recent memory. It was probably the fact that I actually moved into a frat for this semester. Why? I needed something in my life after the relationship that Alyson and I had ground to a halt. After Alyson graduated at the end of my first year at DePauw, the relationship was still decent. I always ran up the phone bill at my house with daily calls, something that my parents still harass me about. In the first month of summer (mid-June), I had been given a job at my father�s place of work, McCombes auto body, under the well-paid guise of menial worker and car detailer. Alyson came up soon after, actually watching me work cleaning up cars for literally hours. When work ended for the day, we trekked over to the local ice cream shoppe (Graeters) and had a yummy desert in the evening heat.

Sleeping together at my house, something that my parents actually allowed (which is pretty liberal, even for the bastions of coolness that are my parents), Alyson and I showered together, packed for the trip, and left the house relatively early. The young morning�s heat was indicative of a 75 degree temperature was something that was ignored with the open windows blowing in air while we sped up to the AMC. The trip was fairly uneventful until we were assaulted by the yellow foam of death. Alyson�s car, being about 155 years old, had acquired a rip in the roof lining, which contained a yellow foam mat that had started to disintegrate. Finally getting into Bowling Green a few hours after that, we had fun going to events and workshops, including the Women Make Movies seminar stuck in a room that caused everyone to fall asleep. The first strains in the relationship were in my honest opinion when Alyson and I started squabbling in her car � a heat-fueled fight, to be sure. Quickly overheating in the killer sun of mid-day, I could not even function. Alyson was gracious enough to take us home, where we chilled out in the darkness and watched Wet Hot American Summer.

Time passed fairly quickly after Alyson went back home, and school started up again. We kept in touch, mainly through yahoo messenger and phone calls, and even got my shit together enough to get up to Lansing, Michigan. Some excellent people in my residence hall actually wasted their time ensuring that I was taken to and from the bus station in Indianapolis, an hour drive. Rolling up to the Lansing bus station in the rapidly encroaching dusk, I saw the weary face of Alyson brighten momentarily. After the hugs and various niceties were exchanged, we piled in her car and I was able to connect with what I had been missing for that period. Again, weirdness entered the equation when Alyson was not really into the tactile connection we had enjoyed throughout the prior months of our relationship. Only having about a day to spend with Alyson, with some of that small amount of time being taken by Alyson�s job (coffeemaker at a local chain called Beaners), the time went all too fast. A sliver of what we had once enjoyed was created again in the sheets of her bed, replaced by all the feelings of longing that bombarded me all the back to Indianapolis and my empty bed in Greencastle.

I ended up getting in touch with Alyson as soon as I got back into Greencastle to ensure that she knew I made it home alright. Time started to pass slowly, a turnaround from the summer months, while the relationship had its fair share of ups and downs. These minor fluctuations turned to wild oscillations as a member of Alyson�s family started a downward spiral that would eventually lead to death. Unsure of how to console Alyson about the passing, I tried to keep a Spartan view of things that would only confuse me more. Instead of being a shoulder to cry on, I ended up ridiculing counseling services, leading to such intense fights that I just said fuck it and stopped calling Alyson. Alyson had to deal with those issues surrounding her family, and have since lost touch with her in the various moves from residence hall to hall. .

Part II : Frat Me Up, Scottie

I was in a funk for weeks, for months when I stopped talking to Alyson. This funk was pretty noticeable to a number of my classmates, including Jerry, who I was with in my African-American history class. A number of times before our break-up, I would talk to Alyson about wanting to re-start a fraternity on DePauw�s campus just for shits and giggles. This inside joke became so funny that Alyson actually went and made me a Lambda Chi Omega (one of the defunct fraternities in question) shirt, which I would proudly wear around campus to stares of amusement and open hatred. One note about being interested in this: if there are still individuals from a defunct chapter of a fraternity or sorority on campus, don�t wear their gear. I had a number of individuals from Alpha Omicron Pi breathing fire down my neck for weeks for just wearing a shirt of theirs.

Anyways, Jerry was always very empathic to what individuals were feeling, and we would end up talking about significant others and such. One day, out of the blue, he asks me in this doped-up, Jim Jones-style tone, whether or not I would like to go to a dinner hosted by his fraternity. Freaking out at being put into this situation, I told Jerry I had another meeting to go to, a tactic that I would end up perfecting the next few times eir would ask me. Aside from the cultist tone that Jerry always got into when ey asked me to go to these dinners, I had recollections of the born-again Christian kids that would always try to get me to go to lock-down or listen to Christian music. One time, before I learned something called tact, I responded to �what do you think of youth groups� with an expletive-bristling explanation of why youth groups were useless�, only to be followed by a muted �I was going to ask if you wanted to come�. And to think I had ruined my chances with that person by just a slipping of my own mouth!

Finally, Jerry informs me about a big dance that the fraternity was having, and that I should stop by. Never one to turn down a party or free alcohol, I get plastered pretty quickly after draining some Wild Turkey from a bottle that was floating around, along with other mixed drinks and beers. Stumbling home, I would start a routine that would last the entirety of my Sophomore year at school.. That long, cold trip filled with paranoia from the fraternity to my residence hall, one in which I was always looking for the local police, was a standard occurrence on weekends. Aside from the copious amounts of alcohol they would give me on a daily basis, what the fraternity did to pull my heartstrings was create this illusion of a familial bond between its members, a bond that they were more than willing to extend to me.

Months passed, and I ended up spending more and more time at the fraternity, forgetting ever-so-slowly about Alyson because of the double team of the more-than-friendship bond of the fraternity and the emotional bond with the new significant other, Ashlee. Looking back at my actions during the entirety of my Sophomore year, I was an individual that was continually on the rebound. Alyson had meant so much to me that I was willing to completely change my life and submit to the first groups that could get a hold of me. Thus, I became an official member of the fraternity, I dated Ashlee for a total of three months, and I threw myself more seriously into my grades. While I can�t really find a fault in having better grades, I now know that I was continually lying to myself, lying to my new-found friends, and as a result, the last few months of that school year seemed like a dream.

Going through the summertime, I had a number of weeks off of work to just pretty much screw around. During these weeks, I pretty much just sat around, worked on my zine, or got together a concert with local bands. The concert, which I had thrown myself into after having hours upon hours of absolutely free time, turned out relatively well, and I did eventually find a job at the local Arbys. Arbys was the most satisfying fast-food job I had ever worked, being that legal-aged workers were always in demand, meaning that I received on average about 35 hours a week. Take that at 6.15, and I threw myself into work completely. As the beginning of school rapidly approached, I began to notice exactly how momentous of a decision I had made in the Springtime to go Greek and live in the fraternity itself. Every night, I would sit awake at the computer or in my room and just wonder how exactly I could let myself make these decisions.

The last few weeks of summer saw my grandmother�s health get rapidly weaker, resulting in a number of accidents and other problems. Pretty much having to come back to school only a few days after something like a stroke attacked her, the whole family was already in pretty low spirits. Trying to look on the bright things of everything, we arrived in Greencastle ready and willing to set up my room, a stressful but always liberating experience for me. Opening up the door to my room, I was surprised to see a large amount of my stuff thrown into the room with tons of the previous owner�s junk littering those places where my stuff wasn�t. Trying not to cry at the shittiness of everything, I became very quiet and tried to make things livable. In fact, the room was in such a horrid state that my mother was actually worried about my health. While the conditions of the room were pretty rough, my mom actually put into words more of what I was thinking than I could ever say.

After about a week of being at the school, I got that dreaded phone call where my mother, choked up by the news, told me that my grandmother was really on her last moments. In a thread common to my life, along with falling into ruts, my ability to cope with important news failed me again. Worrying about whether or not I should come home for the imminent funeral caused me to say something incredibly stupid, and only caused my dear mother more pain. A few days later, my grandmother did pass, and I had to get things together to make the funeral service. The time period after my grandmother passed has me still feeling exactly where I wish to go in life; I made it painfully clear to myself that I will not be staying in the fraternity second semester, and that my future with the fraternity will not be one in which we are going to be together for that much longer. At the beginning of this crazy thing, I had to try to fit all my identities into one individual � Greek, genderqueer, feminist, fetishist, Caucasian, pagan � and see if there were any problems between each of them. It is not like being Greek is exclusive to any of these identities, but my identities have shifted to where I do not feel right being a member of this fraternity.

I�ve got less than two years left at DePauw. I�ve lived the independent life, the Greek life, the resident life, been a member of the GLBT group, the feminist group, the independent group, work study, radio, and a number of other things. No one can criticize me for trying to expand my horizons. While I may not be enjoying this semester as a fraternity member, the key thing to remember is that I can say that I�ve experienced this life. I have this desire to be a deity, in that whenever I pass individual house, I wish to know the people inside, I want to be a part of their lives. Each new thing that I take on, regardless of whether I take it to my heart or eventually cast it away, has made my life richer as a result, and I think my parents, the individuals at DePauw, as well as those at Arbys and my family for giving me this opportunity.