because i think everyone should probably document their first kiss.

and also because it is one in the morning and i cannot yet sleep as i have not yet found the strength to stop watching vlogbrothers videos.

and because there was this one vlogbrothers video where hank gives advice on first kisses, among other things, such as pets who eat romance novels and how he made someone decide his college majors for him because he didn't want to.

which led me to reflect on my first kiss.

my first kiss was with a boy named quillan, and while it might actually aid my telling of this story to include a picture of him, i'm not going to do that. if you want a visual, all you really need to know is he had nearly-shoulder-length brown hair which he parted directly down the middle with no bangs and even when it was brushed repeatedly it never looked any less like he only showered every other tuesday of the month.

fortunately, his hair was the only feature of his which at all hinted at uncleanliness.

in seventh grade, which was the time i met him as well as the time of our first kiss, quillan wore pants that never entirely covered his ankles and he had a badminton net in his backyard and his mom was a published poetry writer and his dad made guitars and his brother was a volunteer firefighter and one of his numerous older sisters had dreadlocks and also a teeny son who quillan called "gherkin." quillan's family was, in many respects, quite awesome.

he also had a bedroom which was an entirely separate unit from the house, where his parents never really bothered him and therefore made for an ample place to drink tea and listen to mix tapes. i mean, make out.

the thing was, seeing as quillan and i were both in seventh grade and therefore awkward and blushy, it took months of everyone around us shoving us together (literally - i actually have a memory of being forced to share a chair with him during class at one point, not that i really minded) before we would admit to each other that something might be going on.

of course, upholding the ever-applicable fact that i am a crazy person, half the time while dating quillan, i hated him. we were actually pretty mean to each other. it's sort of like when you're in second grade and your mom tells you that jesse viele from science class is only throwing paperclips at your head because he likes you. (wait, you mean that only happened to me?)

 anyways, quillan tried to convince me to kiss him for a long time, and for a long time i wouldn't, probably almost entirely because i could tell he wanted me to so much. and then one day we were in his little house-room and he was laying down with his eyes closed and probably holding and empty coffee cup which had ten minutes ago contained tea when i just decided to go for it and leaned over and kissed him.

to which he instantly responded, "did i miss?"

which i thought was weird, considering i was the one doing the kissing.

black metal, and other things my boyfriend likes.

this is my first blog post, and therefore i would like to emphasize that not all of my posts will be centered on the subject of my boyfriend, but this one is.

my boyfriend's name is alex, which wouldn't be a problem, if everyone on planet earth wasn't also named alex. this may be a minor exaggeration, but there are enough of them in my life to make it seem this way. for example, it is alex's birthday this weekend, and i bought his gift from my mother's friend, who's husband is also named alex. her husband is our family's realtor, which means he is in frequent contact with our household. this makes for numerous awkward situations in which my mom begins a sentence with, "i was texting alex earlier..." and i am compelled to cut her off with, "no you weren't!"

also named alex: my best friend zach's little brother, my (non-biological) sister's boyfriend, my other best friend rachel's semi-boyfriend. anyways.

for his gift, i got my alex a circular box embellished with a picture of the pagan star pointed upside-down, and a glaring horned skull prominently featured in the star's center. i felt this was appropriate considering one thing my boyfriend loves is black metal, and one thing black metal involves is paganism, or at least ideology based on it.

i honestly don't know very much about black metal, only that it is basically this:

but with more fog and tall dark trees and upside-down crosses and chains and blood and you know, music.

alex is constantly telling me that i am more black metal than i think i am, but i believe this may only be because my mom is a pagan and i live in the forest and there is a lot of fog here in the mornings. the black metal music genre is not one i am a huge fan of, but the sub-culture fascinates me, because it is one full of paradoxes, as i see it. like how alex says that black metal is all about celebrating nature, but in a lot of pictures of guys with corpse paint there are also what i can only assume are animal sacrifices. or how the upside-down star is usually associated with satanism, but alex has explained to me that what he calls "real black metal dudes" understand that to believe in satan means one must also believe in god, which they do not - hence the upside-down crosses.

however, this does not stop my boyfriend from yelling "HAIL SATAN!" in an ironic way at any opportune time. such as out of my car window while i am driving past innocent hipsters on bikes, or religious protesters outside of planned parenthood.

he has also taken me to two black metal shows, which i thoroughly enjoyed, however terrified and self-conscious i was being there. both were at a house owned by three of alex's friends, dubbed "The Witch House", a dwelling plastered with posters of people like Malcolm X, as well as with charming handmade signs like the one over the kitchen sink, which reads, "Anarchy means always washing your own dishes, no matter how stoned you are."

when alex yells "HAIL SATAN!" at the witch house, a dozen other "HAIL SATAN!"s immediately answer him.

i haven't been dating him very long, but i am learning a whole lot being his girlfriend. he is an anarcho-syndicalist, which is sort of complex and maybe scary, but secretly he likes baking lemon bars and watching 16 and pregnant with me on weekends. he is also very happy to answer my endless obnoxious questions about black metal, for which i am thankful.

anyways, if you maybe enjoyed any of this, you should start following my blog. unless your name is alex. i already have enough of those in my life.