"Are you okay?"

Middle school was one of the more unpleasant times in my life. I don't think anyone came out of middle school unscathed, but I had the adjectives fat, ugly, pimply, and awkward working against me. Trust me, it was awful. And now that I'm a well adjusted adult, I can look upon those years with a sort of Thank fuck I'm not 12 anymore.

When I jello wrestled on Sunday at Henrietta Hudson, I couldn't help but feel that I was 12 again and that I had been magically transported back to 7th grade gym class (paging Farquhar Middle School). The irony is that this event was in honor of Pride -- a time when we all give ourselves big gay pats on the back.

See, the people who run jello wrestling and those who regularly participate can only be described as being of my tribe -- you know, the artists, the iconoclasts, the different. Normally jello wrestling is a lot of fun with its emphasis on fake moves and costumes. But when I suddenly found myself on the other side of the kiddie pool from a tall, muscled, bikini clad, fake tanned Amazon, I had the realization that perhaps I was going to get my ass kicked.

Middle school style.

Guess who won the match? Hint . . . it wasn't me. I was flat on my back in 15 seconds with the Amazon on top of me. For some reason this wasn't sexy at all.
Ms. Amazon failed the read the memo that this jello wrestling lark is (a) meant to be fun and (b) not at all serious. The viciousness of my beat down and the viciousness of her friends, who spent the evening hurling invectives, reminded me that some people never really leave middle school.