Skeet Shooting and Canoeing (AKA This Past Weekend)

So, as I’m writing this post, I’m sitting up in what has been termed the “G-loft.” The G-Loft is the loft above the main lodge room where four of the girls in our group live, hence the name. It’s marginally quieter than the rest of the house. Scratch that, someone turned the TV back on. Forget this, I’m going outside even though it’s hot, because there is no quiet in this house…

Well that plan didn’t really work very well. I got onto the porch and the second I got there, one of the two golden retrievers that live at the house with us decided that he was very keen on getting at the chocolate-chip pumpkin-spice muffin that I was trying to eat, so I had to nix the porch, and now I’m sitting in my bed regrettably typing while my roommate tries to take a nap…

The past few days have been very full of stuff to do, which is strange for a weekend here, but it was a required weekend for everyone in my scholarship group, which meant that all 14 of us were here for the weekend. We had a few planned activities throughout the weekend, and they were all pretty fun.

On Friday night, our landlord DW made us Chicken Bog for dinner, the official dish of the Pee Dee region. While the name sounds disgusting, the dish itself is quite good. It’s sort of a less dressed-up version of jambalaya; which is to say that it’s basically chicken and rice with sausage in it. After chicken bog, DW took us all skeet shooting at the range that he has on his property.

As a devout liberal, a proponent of strict gun control laws, and a public enemy of the second amendment, it pains me to say that it was really, really fun. I love skeet shooting. Also, I’m apparently not too bad at it. I hit one on my second try, and overall hit two of the six skeet that I shot at. So if you ever run into me with a 12-gauge shotgun, you better watch out, ‘cause I’m good with it. Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure:

Friday night was an experiment of sorts for me. As you can see from the photos, I wore an outfit that was pretty flamboyant, but no one commented on it, except for the cowboy boots. One of the guys who was helping us shoot asked me if I rode horses or if I just liked the boots, at which point I had to admit that I just liked the boots. But he didn’t ask the question in a menacing way, he was simply making conversation, and no one was rude to me all night, no one said anything, and no one even seemed to be treating me any differently. It’s starting to make me think that maybe this place isn’t really going to be hostile towards me at all. I doubt that the politeness is based in a genuine affirmation of my identity, but it is politeness nonetheless. Also, I’m enjoying more and more how much of a contradiction I’m becoming this summer. I blast the pounding beats of Lady Gaga on my way to work at the farm, I eye cute boys while I’m at the hardware store getting parts to repair a combine, and I write up policy goals for LGBT groups on campus for the upcoming year after a night of skeet shooting. I am a contradiction, and I’m starting to love it.

On Saturday, we went on a four and a half hour group canoe trip down the Little Pee Dee River. It was awesome. Naturally, I didn’t want to take my camera for fear of tipping my canoe, but you can just imagine a bunch of us paddling, floating, and paddling some more down a lazy, lazy river.

That night, we went to a random Thai restaurant in Florence and went to see the new X-Men movie. Sometimes I forget how much I love X-Men; it’s just the best allegorical representation of minority politics ever. My favorite scene was when Mystique was trying to seduce Magneto and he walks into his bedroom to find her laying naked in bed in her human transformed persona. He’s not into it, and she transforms into a pin-up girl, at which point Magneto says, “No, I like the real you better.” So Mystique transforms back into her human persona, and Magneto still isn’t satisfied, saying “No, the real you.” Then Mystique transforms back into her normal blue-skinned scaly self and Magneto says, “this is the beautiful you I know.” or something like that. And then they make out. There were so many parallels with what I struggle with in my gender performance, it’s pretty rad. But that’s another blog post altogether…

-Jacob