When I was in sixth grade, my family moved to a town composed of four stoplights and air perpetually tinged with the smell of chicken shit.  With the subjective delicacy of a middle school worldview, I adjusted to my new surroundings like a Harvard Ph.D. candidate dining in a Waffle House at 3 a.m. That is, with mere anthropological interest trimmed in judgment.  Burgeoning teenage angst coupled with a superiority complex along with being new to a cohort of kids together since kindergarten lead to the inevitable: I made only one friend.

Her name was Tyler, and she hated it because it sounded too masculine.  She tried adding her middle name “Anne,” which to me made her sound more like television redneck heroine Roseanne and less like a delicate feminine flower, but it never caught on anyway.  

The first time I went to Tyler’s house, we were dropping her off after she had dinner with my family.  Tyler and I sat in the back seat with my little brother, a second grader high on ADD medications.   Continue reading