...that's how long Glenn and I went out. And well worth it, too.
We broke up tonight, mutually. Both of us had been thinking for a while that it should end, but neither of us thought the other would take it very well, so we'd been letting it linger. But tonight we got a few things clear that hadn't been, and it was all right.
Like, really, it was. We didn't hang up straight after the breakup, we kept talking. And it was great. There's some form of pressure off now that's been present since spring break, when this first got brought up, and we can kind of breathe. Or maybe I can kind of breathe. I still don't know how constrained he felt. ...Nearly eight months, but I can't read his feelings and never could. I still guess wrong completely, half the time.
And that's the biggest thing: we just don't understand each other. We don't religiously, whether you feel that's a good breakup reason or not; we don't in terms of normal life, either. This's really more my problem than his. I think he would have tried to work with it. In the beginning, it was okay; I didn't have to understand all the time. ...But after a while I realized that there was a lot I wasn't getting, and that was in large part my fault--but even when he gave answers, lots of times I didn't understand.
Most of this is my fault. To be really blunt, we could've made it work if we put in a lot of effort and chose to ignore what we couldn't fix. I know, I know that you can't break up with everyone who isn't like you. But there's a difference, and I don't really feel like explaining all of it right now, but it was what it was. I wasn't really that good a girlfriend--always paranoid, so easily strung out, so impatient. He did everything right in terms of being comforting and easygoing and able to calm me down--but some things, I just don't calm down about. Some things, he wouldn't fix even if he could.
He deserves to have someone who can understand him and match his free-spiritedness. And I've got to see if I can be in a relationship where I'm not so jumpy, where centers match.
As he points out, there's really not a lot of difference between our going out and our being really good friends, save that we won't, you know, kiss each other. Cut that out, and you've got just about what we had tonight--laughing phone conversations and trying to get online when we're not sleeping.
But we don't feel obligated to stay up for each other anymore. Nor to be certain things, worry about certain things. ::sighs:: Again, more my problem, but still.
It was wonderful, don't get me wrong. A seven months with many sky-high moments. I don't regret for one second going out with him, and he doesn't either, and that's good. The grad party at Bunny's when we watched the stars, the SFE picnic, our first phone conversation (three hours that night), our first date, Six Flags for his birthday, backstage tour for Brigadoon, and everything else, too much to write here...all of it spectacular, all of it worth every moment, worth this ending.
We did it right, mostly. Even though it didn't work out, we did it right. We did our best to start it right and to end it right. We jumped a little quickly from friends to boyfriend/girlfriend. But overall, we did pretty well for ourselves, considering neither of us had ever gone out with anybody before. We didn't die long-distance; that's not the reason we broke off.
And, of a break, I'll go up to school in my car and park way at the end of the lot by the stop sign, and I'll walk in and find him, and we'll go hang out in the nurse's office, kind of like before. And it'll be cool.
Which's not to say we won't miss going out--miss each other. Already I do. But it'll be all right.
-Laurel
3.31.2004
3.30.2004
Via, montiam su la, funiculi, funicula!
Today was a very entertaining day. Watched some scenes in acting class, talked about a weird Nathaniel Hawthorne story in Am-Lit ("My Kinsman, Major Molineux"), talked about deaf people and language acquisition in linguistics (remember that one; it comes up later).
Messed about for a long time making up my schedule for next semester. More on that when things get a little more finalized.
Went to choir. We learned some songs for the Italian dinner this weekend. Highlight was "Funiculi, Funicula", which everybody reading knows, even if the title's not familiar. Ehm...think of the theme on the commercial for the board game "Grape Escape"...or, if you're a VeggieTales fan, of the tune to "Larry's High Silk Hat". Anyway, you know it. And John gets to sing it, and we in the choir back him up. It's re-e-eally fun. *g*
Went from there to dinner. Back to my room to hang round 'til 8. Then to folk dancing.
Folk dancing is simultaneously entertaining and humiliating, 'cause I'm simply awful at most of it, but tonight was awesome: this entire family came, these local people, a man and his wife and their four boys. Several of the family are in Fiddler, but they had a bit of time before they needed to be in rehearsal for their parts.
I actually knew who they were, not simply because I had met one of the boys another week, but because Albert had talked lots about them in linguistics because the mother's deaf; I mentioned the conversation and the father nodded knowingly, translating conversations into sign pretty much automatically. The kids especially are so much fun--the littler two take dance and stuff and are so flexible and hyperactive, and the older two have been in Becky's acting camps and knew the same warmups I do. ...Besides that family, there was the main guy (forget his name) and Tom and, for a while, Gabe and Dani. And, of course, me. ...A lot of the first-semester regulars were busy or in Fiddler rehearsal.
Dani should not creep me out, but she really does. She's just such a severe person. I don't like dancing in front of her.
But we did really fun dances tonight, and some old easy favorites. We need to do Big Step to the Left again, but it's not as fun without Terri there to laugh the whole song through at how Gabe and Tom make faces and how Albert goes scrunchy-shouldered. I've only gotten to witness this spectacle once--the first night I ever came, the same kind of rainy night in October that this March one was, before I knew who Gabe and Albert were and when I barely knew Tom enough to dance with him--but it is a folk-dancing favorite, and I miss it.
I'm going to bed soon 'cause I'm having breakfast with Tom and Kristin tomorrow morning.
-Laurel
Messed about for a long time making up my schedule for next semester. More on that when things get a little more finalized.
Went to choir. We learned some songs for the Italian dinner this weekend. Highlight was "Funiculi, Funicula", which everybody reading knows, even if the title's not familiar. Ehm...think of the theme on the commercial for the board game "Grape Escape"...or, if you're a VeggieTales fan, of the tune to "Larry's High Silk Hat". Anyway, you know it. And John gets to sing it, and we in the choir back him up. It's re-e-eally fun. *g*
Went from there to dinner. Back to my room to hang round 'til 8. Then to folk dancing.
Folk dancing is simultaneously entertaining and humiliating, 'cause I'm simply awful at most of it, but tonight was awesome: this entire family came, these local people, a man and his wife and their four boys. Several of the family are in Fiddler, but they had a bit of time before they needed to be in rehearsal for their parts.
I actually knew who they were, not simply because I had met one of the boys another week, but because Albert had talked lots about them in linguistics because the mother's deaf; I mentioned the conversation and the father nodded knowingly, translating conversations into sign pretty much automatically. The kids especially are so much fun--the littler two take dance and stuff and are so flexible and hyperactive, and the older two have been in Becky's acting camps and knew the same warmups I do. ...Besides that family, there was the main guy (forget his name) and Tom and, for a while, Gabe and Dani. And, of course, me. ...A lot of the first-semester regulars were busy or in Fiddler rehearsal.
Dani should not creep me out, but she really does. She's just such a severe person. I don't like dancing in front of her.
But we did really fun dances tonight, and some old easy favorites. We need to do Big Step to the Left again, but it's not as fun without Terri there to laugh the whole song through at how Gabe and Tom make faces and how Albert goes scrunchy-shouldered. I've only gotten to witness this spectacle once--the first night I ever came, the same kind of rainy night in October that this March one was, before I knew who Gabe and Albert were and when I barely knew Tom enough to dance with him--but it is a folk-dancing favorite, and I miss it.
I'm going to bed soon 'cause I'm having breakfast with Tom and Kristin tomorrow morning.
-Laurel
3.27.2004
Music, music, music...
Brigadoon was spectacular. Oh my goodness gracious me. I wish so badly that I'd seen South Pacific last year. But this was awesome. And anyway, this year I had someone to watch. Glenn was mind-blowingly good, and I say that as impartially as possible. I could hardly take my eyes off him; I've seen how alive he is, but still it was incredible to me. And that boy has some precision going for choreography. I wish I could've been like that in ensemble; maybe I'dve gotten into a high school show, too.
My choir concert tonight was all right. Nothing of the quality of Brigadoon, but a good time was had by all. Our performance of "Dirait-on" was probably the best we've done it, as I'd hoped and prayed it would be (I totally get this feeling of not being worthy to sing that beautiful song), and everyone seemed to love "Down to the Water", though I didn't notice that it was really good.
Maybe more on this and that later. Right now I've still got miles to go before I sleep.
And dozens of acting journals. I will plague myself with reminders until I actually do some.
-Laurel
My choir concert tonight was all right. Nothing of the quality of Brigadoon, but a good time was had by all. Our performance of "Dirait-on" was probably the best we've done it, as I'd hoped and prayed it would be (I totally get this feeling of not being worthy to sing that beautiful song), and everyone seemed to love "Down to the Water", though I didn't notice that it was really good.
Maybe more on this and that later. Right now I've still got miles to go before I sleep.
And dozens of acting journals. I will plague myself with reminders until I actually do some.
-Laurel
3.26.2004
Coupla quizzes'n'things...
Which Plant Are You?
Made by Erin @ Bored Now
...Hm, I've been a little bipolar about this'n lately, but spring is here, so that makes things happier.
Are you British?
Made by Erin @ Bored Now
::laughs:: Okay, then. Whee for overcoming genetics...? I'm actually mildly disappointed. Though, come to think of it, this was the result for 25% British, and that's actually more than I am genetically; I'm really only about an eighth. So not so bad after all.
Has been a busy week over here. And I am twenty-one days behind in acting journals. ::keels over:: Good thing Becky's not collecting them for a while.
Got to see a scrap of the Fiddler rehearsal last night, "Tradition". Envy isn't cool, but I'm feeling it anyway. They look and sound so amazing, and it's one of my two favorite musicals in all the world, and oh, I wish I could be there with them; I don't care how much they complain about rehearsals.
Had some of the most vivid and bizarre dreams last night. I must've been pretty massively REM-deprived. But most of them were pleasant.
Tonight I get to come home and see Brigadoon. :)
-Laurel
3.22.2004
Public Service Announcement
Saturday night, and I was back home with a bunch of APO friends for conference. The university downtown is part of our section, and they were hosting. My own stomping ground, or at least twenty minutes from it, and I was having a blast being home with my friends. Right now we were at the university, though. It was 9:00 at night, and I planned on leaving for my own school at 11:30, taking three chapter-brothers with me, even though we wouldn't get back until one in the morning. But I didn't have enough gas to get home and hadn't remembered to get any beforehand. If I waited until 11:30, probably the gas stations would be closed. So, telling Krystal and Khristina where I was going, I ducked out of the second half of the banquet, intending to run down to the nearest gas station and come back.
"Sure you don't want anyone to come with you?" both of them had asked.
"No, that's all right, I'm fine," I'd said.
I was eager, actually, to do it myself. I was only a week removed from spring break and had spent it getting used to the highway system around the county, especially around the city, because I'd driven myself to appointments. I'd found out how to navigate and take alternate routes, and I liked the feeling. And as much as I love all my brothers from APO, an errand by myself, a little jaunt down and back, sounded like a nice change. I could put on Jars of Clay and go off on my own.
I looked pretty nice at that moment. The banquet was semi-formal, so I'd broken out my dress from the eleventh-grade choir banquet, long with flower print. I'd tried curling my hair, but it hadn't quite worked, so Khristina had wrangled it into a half-ponytail, a small one in the back with the rest of my hair hanging down under it. It looked really kind of good. And my shoes, semi-miraculously, weren't hurting me.
I wasn't wonderful with getting myself in and out of the university, despite the number of times in the past 24 hours that we'd been in and out of there, but I managed to get find my way out and down one of the long streets to a Sunoco station. Parked and got out, ready to pump gas.
That's where I started running into problems. There's a small door that you pop open, and from there you unscrew the gas cap and pump. Well, that door didn't open. I had a quarter-tank, so I could get myself back to the university and, if necessary, home, several times over--but it couldn't get me back to school.
You're not supposed to use cell phones right by the gas pumps, so I took mine to a corner of the parking lot, around the side of the convenience store part of the Sunoco, and called my mom. She'd had the same problem putting gas in my car not long ago (a fact she hadn't mentioned to me until just then) and told me to pull the lever some more, and to call back if it didn't work.
It didn't. I tried sticking things in there, too, and prying the door open, but it always caught, so I took my phone back to the corner and called her again.
While we were discussing the problem, this guy, obviously seedy and perhaps drunk or stoned, came up to me. "You seen my girlfriend, drunk, somewhere around here?" he asked.
"No," I said shortly, a little nervous.
He looked me up and down--me, in my dress, alone and wide-eyed, fresh out of a sports car--and said something that sent me into full-out panic. "Ooh, what's your name?"
"What's going on?" asked my mom, who could hear him talking but couldn't make out what he was saying.
"Guy just asked me my name..." He was still staring at me.
"Get out of there!" my mom said.
I walked quickly past the guy into the convenience store, where there were lights and people, telling my mom that's what I was doing, the guy calling after me, annoyed, that he didn't want me. "I don't like you there, get out of there now," my mom said.
The people inside the store--you ever had this happen, where the people inside the store don't look any better than the ones outside? This was inner city on a Saturday night, a side I'd never seen of it at baseball games. ...This street was far from the baseball games.
The guy came in, glanced at me, started paying for something. I took the opportunity to flash by him and make a break for my car. Told my mom I was by the pumps and had to hang up, but I'd call when I got back to the university. She said okay. I got in, locked my door, started the car, and made a break for it.
I must have turned the wrong way out of the station.
Went far down the street, nothing looked right. Kept to the street because it was the only name I recognized. Finally pulled into a health center. No one around, and I didn't want to go in, but there were cars, and the parking lot was well-lit. Stayed in my car to call my mom this time.
"You back at the school?"
"No," I said, "I can't find it. How do you get there from here?" I told her the street.
"You're where?" And she went into mass panic and actually started crying. "I don't know how to get you back from there! What are you going to do?"
...She told me later that that's one of the worst streets in the city. It's not just the wards. It's also that area. And already I'd gotten hit on, and it was only 9:30ish.
But I didn't know that, which was actually good, because I didn't panic. Luckily, my dad was on the other line at the house, and also heard all this, so he and I talked. "Look," I said, "no matter where I am, if I go far enough, I'll hit one of the highways, and I can get home from there. I'll come home. I'll figure out from there what to do about the people who're supposed to come with me later. And if I'm not back by 10:15, I'll find a place to call again from and tell you where I am."
They agreed to this, so off I went, still playing Jars of Clay's Much Afraid album, which I'd had in when I first left, to drown out the silence. Maybe it's because I've been listening to them since about the seventh grade, but it calmed me down.
...I skipped "Frail", though. That's the only one I couldn't stand to hear.
Somehow--I'm still not sure how--I ended up making a huge circle and coming back to the intersection I'd left from, around ten minutes after leaving the health center. I managed to get back to the school, back to the parking lot, and called my mom from there. I told her I'd be home by 11:30 with everyone with me who was coming, and we'd figure out the gas situation from there.
Adrenaline had finally spiked and run over, and I raced into the building, up the stairs, to the lobby where the banquet had ended, looked around desperately, found Krystal, and pretty much threw myself bodily into her arms. I explained what had happened and got hugged by half the chapter, several times.
And I couldn't let go. This story loses a lot in the telling, but I'd been terrified. By myself, downtown, no ability to get gas, hit on, had made my mother cry, hadn't been sure how to get back, had happened on it by accident, from the opposite side of the intersection as the side I'd left from. I'd never seen the city like that. I've always been so proud of where I'm from--to me I think baseball games, museums, restaurants, science centers when I think of downtown. Downtown--the good sections are so cool. It never occurred to me that the university was in a bad part of town, because it itself is so awesome. We went there in twelfth grade to do research for English. We'd spent conference there.
But, as Mike later pointed out, the university was there before the slums were.
And, as I later realized, it wasn't just the wards that're a bad part of town. And for shootings to appear on the eleven o'clock news, they had to have happened at nine or ten at night.
It was a Saturday night in the city, and I'd gone alone in a dress and a sports car. Twice I'd been offered company and hadn't taken it. I'd gotten through the highways all right last week. I've been dying to learn how to navigate the city. It was supposed to be my little fifteen minutes on my own.
Not at night. Not on a Saturday. Not on that street. The third I didn't know, but the first two I could have, should have guessed.
But in my own defense, it would have been fine if the gas door had opened. I wouldn't have been on the phone, I wouldn't have been in such a frenzy to get out of there because I wouldn't have been there long enough to get hit on. I might have missed the turn anyway, but it would have been from the other direction, and that would've taken me into a different part of the city. It would have been better. But I didn't know. I didn't plan on the gas door sticking. I didn't plan on anything but baseball games on a Saturday night, downtown for the laser light show.
What did I know, such a wide-eyed china-pale suburbanite? Even in the soup kitchens, people downtown had been friendly.
So once I'd grabbed a hold of a familiar person, I couldn't get enough. Krystal to Tom to Tim to Khristina to Becky to Matt, and as soon as I let go I got scared again. Even the tiniest circle of free space around me felt like too much. Felt like I was alone and lost again.
Jess and Pascale and Mike came back with me. I begged Mike to come because the other two, I love them, but they're so quiet, and Jess is so wide-eyed like me. Mike is short and skinny and a little low-key and has no more sense of direction than I do, but he can lead anyway, and, to be blunt, he's a guy.
We got lost again, the four of us, but this time my car was full and I felt like it was okay. It was 10:45 or so now, and now the city streets were noticeably crowded and rowdy, and Mike was more unnerved than I was, but I had the three of them there and I felt okay. The music was off now. Mike had gotten lost nearby just the week before--had come down to the city for a swing-dance event--and said the same thing I did, that if we went far enough, we'd hit a highway. He didn't know how to navigate, either, but I felt like it was okay. We hit a highway that I'd never been on but he had. We managed to avoid the inner city that way, which made me happy. Went through another part of the city, slightly better, and got on the highway I wanted, but in the wrong direction--we knew it was the wrong direction but decided a familiar southbound was better than risking more of the unfamiliar city looking for northbound. It paid off--we hit westbound somehow and got home, right at 11:30, right on time.
My mom was so happy to see me that she didn't ask how our trip back had been, so we decided there'd been enough excitement for one night, and didn't tell her about getting so lost we'd almost hit the public market area (and that's pretty far-flung, from what I can tell). She held my hand for a long time. I didn't mind. Somewhere in there she told me what an awful place that street was. I hadn't known. In a way, I'm glad; in a way, I'm not.
My dad said we weren't going back to school that night, it was too late and I still needed gas, so we crashed at my house again, like the night before, though Friday was supposed to be the only night we stayed. It was fine with me. I slept in the basement with Jess and Pascale. I could've slept in my own bed, but I'dve been alone. In the dark. Everything in me rebelled against that.
In the morning we got up early. My dad had disconnected the part of the car that connected the lever and the door and had gotten both gas and doughnuts. The door swings open at will now; there's no way to close it. So I guess anyone could get to my gas tank, but to me that's infinitely better than the alternative. I drove everyone back, taking the familiar way to the highway, the way that avoids the city entirely. We were back here by 9:30 yesterday morning. I had lunch at eleven-something and then slept from noon to four.
Talking through it with Tom later that night--I had to interview him as part of the pledging process--it didn't sound so bad. It felt awful, though. I've got a lot of thinking to do about where I'm from and about my own naivete--how both things are good and how both are bad.
So, the public service announcement: don't go out alone in a city at night. Daytime, maybe it'd be all right, and more so on a weekday. But don't be stupid, and being stupid is easier than it seems. It never crossed my mind, skipping out of the banquet, what an idiotic thing I was doing. Not until it got me hit on, not until it got me lost. I remembered not to use a cell phone by a gas tank, but I forgot about not going out alone.
This was one of those things that, you know, maybe it was partly divine, maybe it happened so something worse wouldn't. I won't go off alone there anymore, or anyplace similar; maybe someday that'll avert something worse. I still reserve the right to go skipping across my own campus at eleven at night on a Monday to go see Krystal or John. This's a tiny town, a small college, and a completely different set of people. I know there's a chance of trouble, but it's a much smaller one. There are more lights around here, and lots of those danger phones. But my own city--that's different. I know I can't let the fear paralyze me, but maybe I can let it check me.
A thousand points to the buddy system. Use it.
And I am so getting rid of that piece-of-crap car over the summer.
-Laurel
"Sure you don't want anyone to come with you?" both of them had asked.
"No, that's all right, I'm fine," I'd said.
I was eager, actually, to do it myself. I was only a week removed from spring break and had spent it getting used to the highway system around the county, especially around the city, because I'd driven myself to appointments. I'd found out how to navigate and take alternate routes, and I liked the feeling. And as much as I love all my brothers from APO, an errand by myself, a little jaunt down and back, sounded like a nice change. I could put on Jars of Clay and go off on my own.
I looked pretty nice at that moment. The banquet was semi-formal, so I'd broken out my dress from the eleventh-grade choir banquet, long with flower print. I'd tried curling my hair, but it hadn't quite worked, so Khristina had wrangled it into a half-ponytail, a small one in the back with the rest of my hair hanging down under it. It looked really kind of good. And my shoes, semi-miraculously, weren't hurting me.
I wasn't wonderful with getting myself in and out of the university, despite the number of times in the past 24 hours that we'd been in and out of there, but I managed to get find my way out and down one of the long streets to a Sunoco station. Parked and got out, ready to pump gas.
That's where I started running into problems. There's a small door that you pop open, and from there you unscrew the gas cap and pump. Well, that door didn't open. I had a quarter-tank, so I could get myself back to the university and, if necessary, home, several times over--but it couldn't get me back to school.
You're not supposed to use cell phones right by the gas pumps, so I took mine to a corner of the parking lot, around the side of the convenience store part of the Sunoco, and called my mom. She'd had the same problem putting gas in my car not long ago (a fact she hadn't mentioned to me until just then) and told me to pull the lever some more, and to call back if it didn't work.
It didn't. I tried sticking things in there, too, and prying the door open, but it always caught, so I took my phone back to the corner and called her again.
While we were discussing the problem, this guy, obviously seedy and perhaps drunk or stoned, came up to me. "You seen my girlfriend, drunk, somewhere around here?" he asked.
"No," I said shortly, a little nervous.
He looked me up and down--me, in my dress, alone and wide-eyed, fresh out of a sports car--and said something that sent me into full-out panic. "Ooh, what's your name?"
"What's going on?" asked my mom, who could hear him talking but couldn't make out what he was saying.
"Guy just asked me my name..." He was still staring at me.
"Get out of there!" my mom said.
I walked quickly past the guy into the convenience store, where there were lights and people, telling my mom that's what I was doing, the guy calling after me, annoyed, that he didn't want me. "I don't like you there, get out of there now," my mom said.
The people inside the store--you ever had this happen, where the people inside the store don't look any better than the ones outside? This was inner city on a Saturday night, a side I'd never seen of it at baseball games. ...This street was far from the baseball games.
The guy came in, glanced at me, started paying for something. I took the opportunity to flash by him and make a break for my car. Told my mom I was by the pumps and had to hang up, but I'd call when I got back to the university. She said okay. I got in, locked my door, started the car, and made a break for it.
I must have turned the wrong way out of the station.
Went far down the street, nothing looked right. Kept to the street because it was the only name I recognized. Finally pulled into a health center. No one around, and I didn't want to go in, but there were cars, and the parking lot was well-lit. Stayed in my car to call my mom this time.
"You back at the school?"
"No," I said, "I can't find it. How do you get there from here?" I told her the street.
"You're where?" And she went into mass panic and actually started crying. "I don't know how to get you back from there! What are you going to do?"
...She told me later that that's one of the worst streets in the city. It's not just the wards. It's also that area. And already I'd gotten hit on, and it was only 9:30ish.
But I didn't know that, which was actually good, because I didn't panic. Luckily, my dad was on the other line at the house, and also heard all this, so he and I talked. "Look," I said, "no matter where I am, if I go far enough, I'll hit one of the highways, and I can get home from there. I'll come home. I'll figure out from there what to do about the people who're supposed to come with me later. And if I'm not back by 10:15, I'll find a place to call again from and tell you where I am."
They agreed to this, so off I went, still playing Jars of Clay's Much Afraid album, which I'd had in when I first left, to drown out the silence. Maybe it's because I've been listening to them since about the seventh grade, but it calmed me down.
...I skipped "Frail", though. That's the only one I couldn't stand to hear.
Somehow--I'm still not sure how--I ended up making a huge circle and coming back to the intersection I'd left from, around ten minutes after leaving the health center. I managed to get back to the school, back to the parking lot, and called my mom from there. I told her I'd be home by 11:30 with everyone with me who was coming, and we'd figure out the gas situation from there.
Adrenaline had finally spiked and run over, and I raced into the building, up the stairs, to the lobby where the banquet had ended, looked around desperately, found Krystal, and pretty much threw myself bodily into her arms. I explained what had happened and got hugged by half the chapter, several times.
And I couldn't let go. This story loses a lot in the telling, but I'd been terrified. By myself, downtown, no ability to get gas, hit on, had made my mother cry, hadn't been sure how to get back, had happened on it by accident, from the opposite side of the intersection as the side I'd left from. I'd never seen the city like that. I've always been so proud of where I'm from--to me I think baseball games, museums, restaurants, science centers when I think of downtown. Downtown--the good sections are so cool. It never occurred to me that the university was in a bad part of town, because it itself is so awesome. We went there in twelfth grade to do research for English. We'd spent conference there.
But, as Mike later pointed out, the university was there before the slums were.
And, as I later realized, it wasn't just the wards that're a bad part of town. And for shootings to appear on the eleven o'clock news, they had to have happened at nine or ten at night.
It was a Saturday night in the city, and I'd gone alone in a dress and a sports car. Twice I'd been offered company and hadn't taken it. I'd gotten through the highways all right last week. I've been dying to learn how to navigate the city. It was supposed to be my little fifteen minutes on my own.
Not at night. Not on a Saturday. Not on that street. The third I didn't know, but the first two I could have, should have guessed.
But in my own defense, it would have been fine if the gas door had opened. I wouldn't have been on the phone, I wouldn't have been in such a frenzy to get out of there because I wouldn't have been there long enough to get hit on. I might have missed the turn anyway, but it would have been from the other direction, and that would've taken me into a different part of the city. It would have been better. But I didn't know. I didn't plan on the gas door sticking. I didn't plan on anything but baseball games on a Saturday night, downtown for the laser light show.
What did I know, such a wide-eyed china-pale suburbanite? Even in the soup kitchens, people downtown had been friendly.
So once I'd grabbed a hold of a familiar person, I couldn't get enough. Krystal to Tom to Tim to Khristina to Becky to Matt, and as soon as I let go I got scared again. Even the tiniest circle of free space around me felt like too much. Felt like I was alone and lost again.
Jess and Pascale and Mike came back with me. I begged Mike to come because the other two, I love them, but they're so quiet, and Jess is so wide-eyed like me. Mike is short and skinny and a little low-key and has no more sense of direction than I do, but he can lead anyway, and, to be blunt, he's a guy.
We got lost again, the four of us, but this time my car was full and I felt like it was okay. It was 10:45 or so now, and now the city streets were noticeably crowded and rowdy, and Mike was more unnerved than I was, but I had the three of them there and I felt okay. The music was off now. Mike had gotten lost nearby just the week before--had come down to the city for a swing-dance event--and said the same thing I did, that if we went far enough, we'd hit a highway. He didn't know how to navigate, either, but I felt like it was okay. We hit a highway that I'd never been on but he had. We managed to avoid the inner city that way, which made me happy. Went through another part of the city, slightly better, and got on the highway I wanted, but in the wrong direction--we knew it was the wrong direction but decided a familiar southbound was better than risking more of the unfamiliar city looking for northbound. It paid off--we hit westbound somehow and got home, right at 11:30, right on time.
My mom was so happy to see me that she didn't ask how our trip back had been, so we decided there'd been enough excitement for one night, and didn't tell her about getting so lost we'd almost hit the public market area (and that's pretty far-flung, from what I can tell). She held my hand for a long time. I didn't mind. Somewhere in there she told me what an awful place that street was. I hadn't known. In a way, I'm glad; in a way, I'm not.
My dad said we weren't going back to school that night, it was too late and I still needed gas, so we crashed at my house again, like the night before, though Friday was supposed to be the only night we stayed. It was fine with me. I slept in the basement with Jess and Pascale. I could've slept in my own bed, but I'dve been alone. In the dark. Everything in me rebelled against that.
In the morning we got up early. My dad had disconnected the part of the car that connected the lever and the door and had gotten both gas and doughnuts. The door swings open at will now; there's no way to close it. So I guess anyone could get to my gas tank, but to me that's infinitely better than the alternative. I drove everyone back, taking the familiar way to the highway, the way that avoids the city entirely. We were back here by 9:30 yesterday morning. I had lunch at eleven-something and then slept from noon to four.
Talking through it with Tom later that night--I had to interview him as part of the pledging process--it didn't sound so bad. It felt awful, though. I've got a lot of thinking to do about where I'm from and about my own naivete--how both things are good and how both are bad.
So, the public service announcement: don't go out alone in a city at night. Daytime, maybe it'd be all right, and more so on a weekday. But don't be stupid, and being stupid is easier than it seems. It never crossed my mind, skipping out of the banquet, what an idiotic thing I was doing. Not until it got me hit on, not until it got me lost. I remembered not to use a cell phone by a gas tank, but I forgot about not going out alone.
This was one of those things that, you know, maybe it was partly divine, maybe it happened so something worse wouldn't. I won't go off alone there anymore, or anyplace similar; maybe someday that'll avert something worse. I still reserve the right to go skipping across my own campus at eleven at night on a Monday to go see Krystal or John. This's a tiny town, a small college, and a completely different set of people. I know there's a chance of trouble, but it's a much smaller one. There are more lights around here, and lots of those danger phones. But my own city--that's different. I know I can't let the fear paralyze me, but maybe I can let it check me.
A thousand points to the buddy system. Use it.
And I am so getting rid of that piece-of-crap car over the summer.
-Laurel
3.18.2004
All right, Wednesday-night-slash-Thursday-morning entertainment!
Stole this from Megs, who stole it from someone named Joy.
If you call me by my actual full first name (sorry, still not putting it up, I don't care how paranoid I am), you are just about anyone who knows me somewhat.
If you call me by that name, but only the first syllable, you are Ananda, Daf, Lily, Erik, Bethie, Aneya, Calypso, anyone in my immediate family (except maybe my brother, who tends to favor the previous), one of several favorite teachers, or one of various and sundry relatives.
If you call me any of several names that rhymes with my full first name, you're my parents.
If you call me by my full name, first and last, you're Brandon or, on some days, John. Or you're Bitsy, and you're being obnoxious, but that hasn't happened since before graduation.
If you call me Laurel, you're--probably Shamrock.
If you call me Laur, you're Ananda, Daf, Zinni, Calypso, or Megs, or Lily on her blog.
If you call me love (not usually capitalized), you're Glenn, and if I'm calling you love back, you're definitely Glenn.
If you call me Babe or Babes, you're Lily.
If you call me Sweet Pea, you're Lily's mom, my aunt.
If you call me Francese (said fran-CHAY-zee) or Fricashaysee, or if you stick -bean at the end of my full first name, you're John, and I need to come up with a decent nickname for you, 'cause I got nothin', save Finch, and that's old and lame.
If you call me Quesadilla, you were in Inspector General here at school. If you drag the first syllable out ("Que-e-e-esadilla!"), you're Hailley.
If you call me Peaches or Peaches Latour, you were in Arsenic and Old Lace last year in high school, or you're best friends with someone who was.
If you call me Hun, you're Aneya or Kristin, or one of several other aunts.
If you call me Sweetie, you're other aunts besides those.
If you call me Little, you're Khristina, my big for APO.
If you call me Pippin, you're Ananda or Daf, and I'm being either klutzy or hungry.
If you call me Pencil, you're Bethie or Megan, and you're referring to sixth grade.
If you call me Quirky or Rainbow (in reference to the Skittles part of my screen name), you're still Shamrock, and let it be known that you're weird. *g*
If you call me Jellie, you're Evan, but only when you're leaving a message on my wipe-off board.
If you call me Cutie, you're Tom, and you're trying to annoy me.
If you call me Keyla, you're Aneya, and we're throwing it back to middle school.
If you call me La Petite, you're either Mrs. Melnyk or Mr. Herman, and I still promise to dedicate my second book to you two and Mrs. King, assuming there's a second, 'cause there may not be a first.
If you call me anything else I'm forgetting, I'm sorry, but it's like quarter to two in the morning now (Blogger's timestamp system now marks when you start writing an entry, not when you finish), and I need sleep.
'night, all.
-Laurel
If you call me by my actual full first name (sorry, still not putting it up, I don't care how paranoid I am), you are just about anyone who knows me somewhat.
If you call me by that name, but only the first syllable, you are Ananda, Daf, Lily, Erik, Bethie, Aneya, Calypso, anyone in my immediate family (except maybe my brother, who tends to favor the previous), one of several favorite teachers, or one of various and sundry relatives.
If you call me any of several names that rhymes with my full first name, you're my parents.
If you call me by my full name, first and last, you're Brandon or, on some days, John. Or you're Bitsy, and you're being obnoxious, but that hasn't happened since before graduation.
If you call me Laurel, you're--probably Shamrock.
If you call me Laur, you're Ananda, Daf, Zinni, Calypso, or Megs, or Lily on her blog.
If you call me love (not usually capitalized), you're Glenn, and if I'm calling you love back, you're definitely Glenn.
If you call me Babe or Babes, you're Lily.
If you call me Sweet Pea, you're Lily's mom, my aunt.
If you call me Francese (said fran-CHAY-zee) or Fricashaysee, or if you stick -bean at the end of my full first name, you're John, and I need to come up with a decent nickname for you, 'cause I got nothin', save Finch, and that's old and lame.
If you call me Quesadilla, you were in Inspector General here at school. If you drag the first syllable out ("Que-e-e-esadilla!"), you're Hailley.
If you call me Peaches or Peaches Latour, you were in Arsenic and Old Lace last year in high school, or you're best friends with someone who was.
If you call me Hun, you're Aneya or Kristin, or one of several other aunts.
If you call me Sweetie, you're other aunts besides those.
If you call me Little, you're Khristina, my big for APO.
If you call me Pippin, you're Ananda or Daf, and I'm being either klutzy or hungry.
If you call me Pencil, you're Bethie or Megan, and you're referring to sixth grade.
If you call me Quirky or Rainbow (in reference to the Skittles part of my screen name), you're still Shamrock, and let it be known that you're weird. *g*
If you call me Jellie, you're Evan, but only when you're leaving a message on my wipe-off board.
If you call me Cutie, you're Tom, and you're trying to annoy me.
If you call me Keyla, you're Aneya, and we're throwing it back to middle school.
If you call me La Petite, you're either Mrs. Melnyk or Mr. Herman, and I still promise to dedicate my second book to you two and Mrs. King, assuming there's a second, 'cause there may not be a first.
If you call me anything else I'm forgetting, I'm sorry, but it's like quarter to two in the morning now (Blogger's timestamp system now marks when you start writing an entry, not when you finish), and I need sleep.
'night, all.
-Laurel
3.17.2004
There are some things winter can't solve; for everything else, there're snow days.
Yesterday we got so much snow that the University canceled all classes taking place after 5 PM.
Choir got held anyway, on the premise that we didn't have the time to lose. So our director went off on a fifteen-minute tangent to us about how she's so stressed because of the musical and it's making her nasty, but we have to do our part, she's been flexible.
::snorts:: Threatening to barely-pass someone for missing fifteen minutes of rehearsal, that's flexible. And it looks like she was going to have us out by 5 or 5:15 anyway, so what was the point of dressing me down? She'd better not run over, is all I have to say on the matter.
Anyway, all that happened, and then she kept us late through rehearsal (to make up for the time she'd spent yelling at us?), so at dinner Chris and Tim decided that they were going to get something out of this night, so they were going traying.
Traying, as you may have guessed, involves stealing trays out of the dining hall and sledding on them down the hill behind the performing arts center. So Tim stuck two in his coat, hiding the bulge with his backpack, and we all made our getaway. I went back to my room to get my sled (the one I got for Christmas, which I hadn't used yet) and to get Evan.
Somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes later, Matt, Mike, Evan, Tim, Chris, and I stood poised atop the steep, massive hill, armed with two yellow fiberglass trays and a yellow plastic saucer sled. (And here I am thinking, are all the other females in APO too smart to do this? ::laughs::) And we slid down the hill, over and over. It was hysterical. We got snow all over us. And at one point on the hill, there's a bump, so several of us got air as well--with or without our sleds.
And then we had to figure out how to get back up the hill. 'Cause it's seriously a huge hill, and steep. I took the "long" way, going past the athletic field to the long flight of metal stairs, which ended up being the short way. The guys tended to decide to try to climb back up the hill, which tended to take forever and lead to a lot of jokes (such as Matt's: "Day 25: Our supplies are running low--we've already had to eat Williams!"). I passed Chris while I was climbing the stairs and he was struggling up the hill beside me, and we did one of those military-movie-scene parodies: "Hang on, just grab my hand!" "No, I'm lost, go on without me, save yourself!" "I won't leave you behind! Grab on!" "Almost there...almost there...aughhh!" [Chris slips, falls, both of us yell, "No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!" as he slides down the hill.]
From there we went back to our rooms and got into dry clothes, and then had hot chocolate and played DDR. Great fun, and a wonderful way to beat out winter and cranky choir directors. I went to bed tired and happy and got an hour's more sleep than usual.
...but we should figure out what to do with the tray that got broken. ::sheepish grin::
Today looks to be pretty good, too. Happy Go-Irish Day. *g*
-Laurel
Choir got held anyway, on the premise that we didn't have the time to lose. So our director went off on a fifteen-minute tangent to us about how she's so stressed because of the musical and it's making her nasty, but we have to do our part, she's been flexible.
::snorts:: Threatening to barely-pass someone for missing fifteen minutes of rehearsal, that's flexible. And it looks like she was going to have us out by 5 or 5:15 anyway, so what was the point of dressing me down? She'd better not run over, is all I have to say on the matter.
Anyway, all that happened, and then she kept us late through rehearsal (to make up for the time she'd spent yelling at us?), so at dinner Chris and Tim decided that they were going to get something out of this night, so they were going traying.
Traying, as you may have guessed, involves stealing trays out of the dining hall and sledding on them down the hill behind the performing arts center. So Tim stuck two in his coat, hiding the bulge with his backpack, and we all made our getaway. I went back to my room to get my sled (the one I got for Christmas, which I hadn't used yet) and to get Evan.
Somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes later, Matt, Mike, Evan, Tim, Chris, and I stood poised atop the steep, massive hill, armed with two yellow fiberglass trays and a yellow plastic saucer sled. (And here I am thinking, are all the other females in APO too smart to do this? ::laughs::) And we slid down the hill, over and over. It was hysterical. We got snow all over us. And at one point on the hill, there's a bump, so several of us got air as well--with or without our sleds.
And then we had to figure out how to get back up the hill. 'Cause it's seriously a huge hill, and steep. I took the "long" way, going past the athletic field to the long flight of metal stairs, which ended up being the short way. The guys tended to decide to try to climb back up the hill, which tended to take forever and lead to a lot of jokes (such as Matt's: "Day 25: Our supplies are running low--we've already had to eat Williams!"). I passed Chris while I was climbing the stairs and he was struggling up the hill beside me, and we did one of those military-movie-scene parodies: "Hang on, just grab my hand!" "No, I'm lost, go on without me, save yourself!" "I won't leave you behind! Grab on!" "Almost there...almost there...aughhh!" [Chris slips, falls, both of us yell, "No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!" as he slides down the hill.]
From there we went back to our rooms and got into dry clothes, and then had hot chocolate and played DDR. Great fun, and a wonderful way to beat out winter and cranky choir directors. I went to bed tired and happy and got an hour's more sleep than usual.
...but we should figure out what to do with the tray that got broken. ::sheepish grin::
Today looks to be pretty good, too. Happy Go-Irish Day. *g*
-Laurel
3.16.2004
Newbie, newbie, new...
Oh, and I updated the "At the Moment" bit. New quote up at the top bar is courtesy of Jars of Clay's "Boy on a String", to give credit where it's due.
-Laurel
-Laurel
Emerson
So I've been reading Emerson for Am-Lit, and I can't figure out what I think of him. Some of his stuff, I totally connect to, think the guy's brilliant; some of it leaves me going, wait a minute, no!
'Cause for one thing, I don't believe that all fear is a product of ignorance. I think that at least as often, it's knowledge that makes things scary. When a little kid does something really bad and the parent raises his hand, her hand, the flinch and whimper, that's not ignorance. That's a little kid knowing all too well what's coming next. Pain-fear especially is connected to knowledge, everything from guerra to Gethsemane, all of it the problem of choosing to hurt, and it causes the fear because you know what it'll feel like, or at least you know you won't like it.
...but maybe that's not what he meant? I don't know.
Anyway, a thousand points to Animal Crossing on Lily's brand-new GameCube; it's a lot like Harvest Moon, only in a strange and animalic way. That's what I did tonight after honors, played that.
Saw Dr. Strangelove for that class tonight; it's a strange and startling movie, but it does have its moments.
Took the night off of AIM. Was kind of in a bad mood anyway, because my choir professor threw a form of fit at my request to get out just a little bit early from dress rehearsal to go see Brigadoon ('cause I only asked for fifteen minutes to half an hour), and now if she extends practice, I won't get to go at all. As it was, I'd be cutting it close timewise, but if she keeps us past five-thirty, I'm doomed completely.
I'll find out soon enough whether she is or not. I hope. 'Cause if she springs extension on us the night before I go, oh man am I ever going to be ticked off. This isn't some skippy little errand to go see my boyfriend. This is my chance to see what a good and loving boy has been working so hard on, devoted a huge chunk of his time to, endured parental whatever and homework and Saints on top of, and has taken comfort in the fact that I'll be there to see. I don't get to see his choir concerts 'cause I'm never there; the chicken barbeque in June will have to fill in that gap. There's a lot he does that I don't get to see. At the moment, we're not even phone-talking because his non-school hours are supposed to be devoted to homework and sleep. No AIM so far, either.
But I can't tell my professor all that. If she gave me the epithet this is college and informed me that I'd pretty much fail the course if I skipped out of dress rehearsal (I didn't think fifteen minutes out of a two-hour practice was skipping out, okay?!), I don't think I want to tell her all that.
And I love how the first thing out of the mouths of half the people I tell this to is, well, what were you doing telling her what it was? You shouldn't have been specific at all--or better yet, you should've made it a religious thing.
Ri-i-i-i-ight, 'cause invoking faith in the middle of a lie to a professor doesn't smack of hypocrisy in any way. And anyhow, I made the explanation a little fuzzy as it was because I said friends instead of boyfriend. Because I wanted her to take me seriously, instead of seeing it as the aforementioned little skippy ooh-it's-my-boyfriend thing. ::snorts:: A long way that approach got me.
But yeah, tomorrow's back to acting class (Becky said in her e-mail over break that she missed me, which made me feel all happy and loved), not to mention more Emerson goodness in Am-Lit and more semantics in linguistics (finally, an English-geek topic, one I can understand!). Bedtime or something.
-Laurel
'Cause for one thing, I don't believe that all fear is a product of ignorance. I think that at least as often, it's knowledge that makes things scary. When a little kid does something really bad and the parent raises his hand, her hand, the flinch and whimper, that's not ignorance. That's a little kid knowing all too well what's coming next. Pain-fear especially is connected to knowledge, everything from guerra to Gethsemane, all of it the problem of choosing to hurt, and it causes the fear because you know what it'll feel like, or at least you know you won't like it.
...but maybe that's not what he meant? I don't know.
Anyway, a thousand points to Animal Crossing on Lily's brand-new GameCube; it's a lot like Harvest Moon, only in a strange and animalic way. That's what I did tonight after honors, played that.
Saw Dr. Strangelove for that class tonight; it's a strange and startling movie, but it does have its moments.
Took the night off of AIM. Was kind of in a bad mood anyway, because my choir professor threw a form of fit at my request to get out just a little bit early from dress rehearsal to go see Brigadoon ('cause I only asked for fifteen minutes to half an hour), and now if she extends practice, I won't get to go at all. As it was, I'd be cutting it close timewise, but if she keeps us past five-thirty, I'm doomed completely.
I'll find out soon enough whether she is or not. I hope. 'Cause if she springs extension on us the night before I go, oh man am I ever going to be ticked off. This isn't some skippy little errand to go see my boyfriend. This is my chance to see what a good and loving boy has been working so hard on, devoted a huge chunk of his time to, endured parental whatever and homework and Saints on top of, and has taken comfort in the fact that I'll be there to see. I don't get to see his choir concerts 'cause I'm never there; the chicken barbeque in June will have to fill in that gap. There's a lot he does that I don't get to see. At the moment, we're not even phone-talking because his non-school hours are supposed to be devoted to homework and sleep. No AIM so far, either.
But I can't tell my professor all that. If she gave me the epithet this is college and informed me that I'd pretty much fail the course if I skipped out of dress rehearsal (I didn't think fifteen minutes out of a two-hour practice was skipping out, okay?!), I don't think I want to tell her all that.
And I love how the first thing out of the mouths of half the people I tell this to is, well, what were you doing telling her what it was? You shouldn't have been specific at all--or better yet, you should've made it a religious thing.
Ri-i-i-i-ight, 'cause invoking faith in the middle of a lie to a professor doesn't smack of hypocrisy in any way. And anyhow, I made the explanation a little fuzzy as it was because I said friends instead of boyfriend. Because I wanted her to take me seriously, instead of seeing it as the aforementioned little skippy ooh-it's-my-boyfriend thing. ::snorts:: A long way that approach got me.
But yeah, tomorrow's back to acting class (Becky said in her e-mail over break that she missed me, which made me feel all happy and loved), not to mention more Emerson goodness in Am-Lit and more semantics in linguistics (finally, an English-geek topic, one I can understand!). Bedtime or something.
-Laurel
3.13.2004
Lily: "What was that?" Me: "That was the obligatory dream sequence..."
Back to school tomorrow. This's been one of the longest weeks I've had in quite some time. I saw a lot of Glenn and some of Erik, and am seeing 'Nanda tonight, so it hasn't been so bad, but I don't know, break just isn't break without lots of friends to spend it with. I didn't even cook or play DDR--what's wrong with me? (I will probably be doing at least the latter tonight, though.)
Went to Lily's house yesterday, which was fun. You'd think that we'd relish the break from each other, but it turns out that we have more to say than ever, now that we live together. That's been true all year.
We went to see her high school's musical, which was written by her favorite English teacher ever (most of the music wasn't written by him; it was Broadway and other tunes put in). And he's a good guy, I've met him, but sitting there, watching his show play out, I came up with my soon-to-be-copyrighted (or not) Theory of High-School-Student-Centric Musical Quality (or, mercifully counting the hyphenated adjective as one word, THMQ), which reads thusly:
The quality of any musical with a plot centered around high school students will be inversely proportional to how seriously the musical takes itself.
Simply put, if it's attempting to make fun of cheesy portrayals of high school, attempting to make fun of cheesy musicals, or both, the quality of such a musical will be high. If, however, it shoots for My So-Called Life, but comes off looking like the time Whose Line is it Anyway? parodied an after-school special, the quality of the musical will be very low.
Musicals in question will also be given negative ten points for each song exceeding the show's ultimate limit of fifteen (this show: something like eleven over the limit), and several hundred negative points will be awarded for any sentences resembling "she could have asked my hormones; they'd have told her".
However, the male and female leads sang very well, and it really did have its moments. Being only a year removed from high school seniorship myself, I could in fact relate to quite a bit of what was said about college searches and stress levels, not to mention a lot about senior prom. So I say that a Version 2.0 could clean up a lot of what went wrong; just check the dialogue against real life, and stick the songs in around the plot, instead of writing the plot to fit the songs. Tolkien could do the latter (writing Lord of the Rings as an excuse to play with Elvish languages), but he also rewrote the plot over and over until C.S. Lewis was about ready to smack him in the head. So balance, as usual, is key.
(How's that for a concluding sentence that looks wryly intelligent but really says nothing?)
(...Though, come to think of it, it might've been kind of amusing to see C.S. Lewis smack Tolkien in the head in the middle of the seventh draft or whatever, especially when you consider that Tolkien compared Lewis to an Ent, and they're supposed to have that whole thing with patience.)
(Oh, for the love of gracious, I need so much help. I totally have not consumed enough caffeine to be in this state of mind; could it be sleep deprivation? Maybe it's the sleep deprivation.)
...Anyway, Lily's was fun, and it led indirectly to the lending of Lily's mom's newish Alton Brown cookbook, I'm Just Here for the Food, which I get to keep until such time as Lily goes home again. Alton Brown is my favorite cook in the whole wide culinary world (even better than Jeffrey Steingarten, and a heck of a lot more down-to-earth), so this excites me to a high degree. I don't think I'm even making anything out of it for the next, like, two years, but it's enough to read the book and bury myself in food science, finally understanding some key scientific concepts that I'd been missing all this time (difference between convection, conduction, and radiation), not to mention learning some nifty foodie terms ("toy basket" refers to one of those little green baskets they sell berries in at supermarkets).
Tomorrow I go back to school, just as everybody else comes home, but with any luck, I'll be getting some items in the mail soon (one of which is--ready, ready?--another cookbook). New project: buying a Fluxx deck.
As I explained to Ananda, I look at it this way: Ninth grade's obsession was Whose Line; eleventh's was M*A*S*H; I was due for a new one, and cooking is at least potentially healthier than hours of TV-watching.
...Though the DDR fixation was last year, peaking this past summer, and that throws off the schedule. Ah, well.
-Laurel
Went to Lily's house yesterday, which was fun. You'd think that we'd relish the break from each other, but it turns out that we have more to say than ever, now that we live together. That's been true all year.
We went to see her high school's musical, which was written by her favorite English teacher ever (most of the music wasn't written by him; it was Broadway and other tunes put in). And he's a good guy, I've met him, but sitting there, watching his show play out, I came up with my soon-to-be-copyrighted (or not) Theory of High-School-Student-Centric Musical Quality (or, mercifully counting the hyphenated adjective as one word, THMQ), which reads thusly:
The quality of any musical with a plot centered around high school students will be inversely proportional to how seriously the musical takes itself.
Simply put, if it's attempting to make fun of cheesy portrayals of high school, attempting to make fun of cheesy musicals, or both, the quality of such a musical will be high. If, however, it shoots for My So-Called Life, but comes off looking like the time Whose Line is it Anyway? parodied an after-school special, the quality of the musical will be very low.
Musicals in question will also be given negative ten points for each song exceeding the show's ultimate limit of fifteen (this show: something like eleven over the limit), and several hundred negative points will be awarded for any sentences resembling "she could have asked my hormones; they'd have told her".
However, the male and female leads sang very well, and it really did have its moments. Being only a year removed from high school seniorship myself, I could in fact relate to quite a bit of what was said about college searches and stress levels, not to mention a lot about senior prom. So I say that a Version 2.0 could clean up a lot of what went wrong; just check the dialogue against real life, and stick the songs in around the plot, instead of writing the plot to fit the songs. Tolkien could do the latter (writing Lord of the Rings as an excuse to play with Elvish languages), but he also rewrote the plot over and over until C.S. Lewis was about ready to smack him in the head. So balance, as usual, is key.
(How's that for a concluding sentence that looks wryly intelligent but really says nothing?)
(...Though, come to think of it, it might've been kind of amusing to see C.S. Lewis smack Tolkien in the head in the middle of the seventh draft or whatever, especially when you consider that Tolkien compared Lewis to an Ent, and they're supposed to have that whole thing with patience.)
(Oh, for the love of gracious, I need so much help. I totally have not consumed enough caffeine to be in this state of mind; could it be sleep deprivation? Maybe it's the sleep deprivation.)
...Anyway, Lily's was fun, and it led indirectly to the lending of Lily's mom's newish Alton Brown cookbook, I'm Just Here for the Food, which I get to keep until such time as Lily goes home again. Alton Brown is my favorite cook in the whole wide culinary world (even better than Jeffrey Steingarten, and a heck of a lot more down-to-earth), so this excites me to a high degree. I don't think I'm even making anything out of it for the next, like, two years, but it's enough to read the book and bury myself in food science, finally understanding some key scientific concepts that I'd been missing all this time (difference between convection, conduction, and radiation), not to mention learning some nifty foodie terms ("toy basket" refers to one of those little green baskets they sell berries in at supermarkets).
Tomorrow I go back to school, just as everybody else comes home, but with any luck, I'll be getting some items in the mail soon (one of which is--ready, ready?--another cookbook). New project: buying a Fluxx deck.
As I explained to Ananda, I look at it this way: Ninth grade's obsession was Whose Line; eleventh's was M*A*S*H; I was due for a new one, and cooking is at least potentially healthier than hours of TV-watching.
...Though the DDR fixation was last year, peaking this past summer, and that throws off the schedule. Ah, well.
-Laurel
3.11.2004
Bad Scottish accents, Glenn, Mr. Herman, and guys in kilts: what more could you possibly want?
Open invitation to anyone who can make it: I'm coming home just for the night of Friday the 26th to see Brigadoon (which Glenn has a major role in and which MR. HERMAN IS DIRECTING! ::huge grin::, for anyone I forgot to tell!), and anyone's welcome who'd like to tag along. I'm staying at my house overnight, but then driving back earlyish Saturday 'cause I've got a choir concert that night.
The time is 7:30, according to the district calendar (Glenn wasn't sure he remembered); bring $5 and student ID. Or $10, in case the ID doesn't help, 'cause that's adult price.
So come one, come all, and join Bethie and me in supporting our school's finest, bravest, and most chilly-legged members. ::giggles:: And lemme know if you do; we'll all meet and then go in, or something. Yay!
-Laurel
The time is 7:30, according to the district calendar (Glenn wasn't sure he remembered); bring $5 and student ID. Or $10, in case the ID doesn't help, 'cause that's adult price.
So come one, come all, and join Bethie and me in supporting our school's finest, bravest, and most chilly-legged members. ::giggles:: And lemme know if you do; we'll all meet and then go in, or something. Yay!
-Laurel
Pride (In the Name of Love) [it's a U2 song title--get it?]
Say what you will about my boyfriend, but his sympathy is second to none. I don't know how long we'll be together, whether we won't last the summer or whether things'll work out, but it's been an incredible ride.
Told him everything I was frightened of and why I'm not sure how long this'll be, and he said he's proud of me for saying so.
Proud of me.
We're still holding on for now. Today especially was lovely. We'll see where it goes these next days, weeks, months.
...seven months today that we've been together. Well, technically, as of right now, seven months and one day.
-Laurel
Told him everything I was frightened of and why I'm not sure how long this'll be, and he said he's proud of me for saying so.
Proud of me.
We're still holding on for now. Today especially was lovely. We'll see where it goes these next days, weeks, months.
...seven months today that we've been together. Well, technically, as of right now, seven months and one day.
-Laurel
3.09.2004
Back up and running
Wiped the computer; started over. Still, through fluke of MIE, can't get to my school mail except through Netscape, but as long as I can get to it somehow, that's fine.
Have been rereading Mere Christianity, and oh man that's a good book that I have forgotten way too far before now.
The rest of this week looks a bit long and bleak. ...hey, that rhymes. But there're things I'm going to do, I'll see Glenn and Erik and maybe Ananda, and that will be cool.
Appointments today and tomorrow and a hair trim eventually. Wheeee.
-Laurel
Have been rereading Mere Christianity, and oh man that's a good book that I have forgotten way too far before now.
The rest of this week looks a bit long and bleak. ...hey, that rhymes. But there're things I'm going to do, I'll see Glenn and Erik and maybe Ananda, and that will be cool.
Appointments today and tomorrow and a hair trim eventually. Wheeee.
-Laurel
3.06.2004
Darn you, Multidropper and HuntBar, darn you...
Home is where the heart is--and where the computer viruses are.
Dang my brother's Nintendo-emulator-downloading idiocy; now I can't get into either of my main e-mail addresses (a fine thing to happen when you've won your first eBay item, but I found my way around that) and we can't search the computer.
Seriously, we can't search the computer. You go to "Search" in the Start menu and it won't. You put something in the search field and it'll search the internet, but that's it, that's all you get.
We ran every virus scan under the sun, plus PestPatrol, plus all Windows XP could do, and though we are now more-or-less adware free and our trojans have been deleted, the damage is long since done.
I vote for wiping it all and starting again, but my dad won't go for that 'cause he paid to download ZoneAlarm and stuff like that.
Argh argh.
-Laurel
Dang my brother's Nintendo-emulator-downloading idiocy; now I can't get into either of my main e-mail addresses (a fine thing to happen when you've won your first eBay item, but I found my way around that) and we can't search the computer.
Seriously, we can't search the computer. You go to "Search" in the Start menu and it won't. You put something in the search field and it'll search the internet, but that's it, that's all you get.
We ran every virus scan under the sun, plus PestPatrol, plus all Windows XP could do, and though we are now more-or-less adware free and our trojans have been deleted, the damage is long since done.
I vote for wiping it all and starting again, but my dad won't go for that 'cause he paid to download ZoneAlarm and stuff like that.
Argh argh.
-Laurel
"Dear the one with baggy pants, WE'RE ON SPRING BREAK!"
Teen Girl Squad is entirely too much fun.
Anyway, yeah, came home yesterday, brought John and Libby with me so they could catch the train that night. Somebody probably should've reminded me, before I let my mom make meat lasagna, that Fridays for Catholics mean different things--::cheeks warm::--but that's all right.
So yeah, my mom spoiled the two of them 'cause that's what she does, and my brother and I played Super Mario World via emulator and John and Libby played Battleship and then John played with us.
My brother has been pretty cool these days.
So okay, yeah, am gonna get off here now, 'cause I want to, and 'cause there're all kinds of little weird glitches on this computer, and they're gettin' on my nerves. More later. Cheerio!
-Laurel
Anyway, yeah, came home yesterday, brought John and Libby with me so they could catch the train that night. Somebody probably should've reminded me, before I let my mom make meat lasagna, that Fridays for Catholics mean different things--::cheeks warm::--but that's all right.
So yeah, my mom spoiled the two of them 'cause that's what she does, and my brother and I played Super Mario World via emulator and John and Libby played Battleship and then John played with us.
My brother has been pretty cool these days.
So okay, yeah, am gonna get off here now, 'cause I want to, and 'cause there're all kinds of little weird glitches on this computer, and they're gettin' on my nerves. More later. Cheerio!
-Laurel
3.04.2004
Frankie
Wow, I certainly was ambitious last night: a marathon entry and a side-column overhaul. Today's entry is just a quick-bit.
So I redid my monologue today, and that was different. Becky had asked me to revise Frankie's motives for the first part--mine you can kind of separate into part-transition-part-transition-part, and I think what I'm calling "part" is actually called "French scene", but I don't know, so whatever. So I did that, realized that I was playing it too far to an extreme (that part is one of the few times when Frankie's in kind of a neutral state--she's usually either hyperactive or dreamy-pensive), and tried to hit that middle.
Turns out that changed the mood of half the monologue, and it's something I'm still playing with, still haven't quite figured out. The monologue felt stranger this time, especially since I didn't have nervousness to give me energy; I was fighting to keep what little I had.
But in a way, I'm close to doing better. Becky prefaced her review with the warning that it was going to sound weird, but she said I'd taken a step back to take a step forward: my monologue had hit an odd place because I'd realized that I'd have to scrap a lot of what I'd already had and change it to fit what I'd found, and that was making it very close to being a whole lot better--even though she'd said before that I'd done good work.
She said something than that I haven't heard her say to anybody yet--that even though we were only performing these twice, and this was the second time, she wanted me to keep working on it--to use as an audition piece sometime.
When I did my monologue last time, I was bouncing off the walls, hyper-happy. I'd done it and I'd caught my hat when it fell and everyone had said nice work and Becky had said nice work. This time, my hat stayed on, I'd felt strange, unsure of how it'd turned out--but I think this time I've been given the higher praise.
Choir now, then birthday party for Lily's boyfriend Devin.
-Laurel
So I redid my monologue today, and that was different. Becky had asked me to revise Frankie's motives for the first part--mine you can kind of separate into part-transition-part-transition-part, and I think what I'm calling "part" is actually called "French scene", but I don't know, so whatever. So I did that, realized that I was playing it too far to an extreme (that part is one of the few times when Frankie's in kind of a neutral state--she's usually either hyperactive or dreamy-pensive), and tried to hit that middle.
Turns out that changed the mood of half the monologue, and it's something I'm still playing with, still haven't quite figured out. The monologue felt stranger this time, especially since I didn't have nervousness to give me energy; I was fighting to keep what little I had.
But in a way, I'm close to doing better. Becky prefaced her review with the warning that it was going to sound weird, but she said I'd taken a step back to take a step forward: my monologue had hit an odd place because I'd realized that I'd have to scrap a lot of what I'd already had and change it to fit what I'd found, and that was making it very close to being a whole lot better--even though she'd said before that I'd done good work.
She said something than that I haven't heard her say to anybody yet--that even though we were only performing these twice, and this was the second time, she wanted me to keep working on it--to use as an audition piece sometime.
When I did my monologue last time, I was bouncing off the walls, hyper-happy. I'd done it and I'd caught my hat when it fell and everyone had said nice work and Becky had said nice work. This time, my hat stayed on, I'd felt strange, unsure of how it'd turned out--but I think this time I've been given the higher praise.
Choir now, then birthday party for Lily's boyfriend Devin.
-Laurel
La, la, la, je ne l'o, je ne l'o...
Right, having a blog what?
I plead acting journals. I need one for each day, and being perpetually five days behind tends to sap your blogging inspiration, 'cause the due date came up and I was trying to finish those off. I type a lot faster than I write, and it's easier to delete, so handwrittens for that class tend to take a while. And they're certainly whacked-out sometimes. I hope Becky doesn't think I'm crazy.
Things over here've been all right. John and Lily and Chris and I didn't get the honors house, so now I have no idea what to do about housing next year. Dang my lack of female non-senior friends, outside of Lily. Krystal and Kristin and such people won't be here.
Spring break in two short days. Am taking John and Libby with me briefly, because their train to Iowa leaves from near-my-house that night, and they needed a way there. ...Yes, you heard me: train to Iowa. With a stop in Chicago, if you can believe it. They'll be on the Amtrak for something like 22 hours. 'Cause taking a plane was more expensive. They're such crazy-crazies.
Am taking my own boyfriend to the airport sometime this break, because in about three and a half weeks, he takes his first plane--by himself--to NYC--and competes in Math League States--and comes back the same night(!)--to be in Brigadoon's final performance. To NYC and back via plane on the same day, math and music and script lines jumbled together in his head, and he's never been on a plane, hasn't been in an airport since he was little.
If his mother thinks he's grown up enough for that, then he so should be allowed to kiss me. The prosecution rests.
But yeah, as I was saying, we're gonna go down there and walk him through the whole procedure, and when I say we, I mean him and me, unless my mom feels like tagging along. Which she's perfectly welcome to, inasmuch as if she doesn't, it will be the blind leading the blind, both of us together trying to figure it out. I've been on several planes, and much more recently, but I've still always blindly followed my parents around in the airport. I will have to know how to do this stuff myself, because when I go to Peru with choir in May, that's how I'm getting all the way to JFK airport in NYC. Via JetBlue. Hopefully with Heather, a choirmate, but we'll see. I may be flying solo, so to speak.
...I wish I could go with him when he goes. I've got a choir concert here that night. But oh, don't I wish. I think I'm more jumpy about it than he is.
School has been interesting. Have been getting to know Albert and Jess and Chris and Madelaine and Tim better (not all of them are APO, no), and even Kate and Katya a little. John and I've been a little odd--not hanging out for a couple of days at a time and then getting into arguments when we do--but today we straightened that one out and we think we know what we're doing now. Always a good thing, as Evan would have it.
Adults at church have started to introduce themselves, too, a couple more each week. Last week was Joel; this week was Jerry and his passel of children, and then--Robin, I think his name is. And there're the two ladies whose names I don't remember, from a couple weeks before. My own church at home was so big that I never really got that--I remember being a little envious of Megan and her small, comfortable church circle. Now I am getting it, and I'm not used to it, so it makes me a little nervous, kind of shy--but it's also kind of nice.
Tonight I saw "This Property is Condemned", this one-act Tennessee Williams play that Simon was in, that Ryan directed--Ryan was the band's secondary guitarist for a little while. It was good. Simon made a really good Tom, especially, 'cause he in real life and his character in the play...they share this odd kind of insightful bluntness--Simon more insightful, Tom a bit more blunt, but I could see it. Simon's a different breed; he didn't get Perchik in Fiddler by chance.
Oh, that's right, Simon and I got to talking last Wednesday night, when I was practicing my monologue for acting class and he came into the theater by chance. ...I think I'm going ahead with more band-stuff--even though John's dropping out. We had an interesting conversation about things. It was cool.
Linguistics was great while we did phonetics, but now we're applying them to phonology, so class sucks again, but next unit will be better. We have to get into semantics sometime.
To end this rambling...part of the Coldplay song that was in my head today. John doesn't like them. A pity...
I want to live life, and never be cruel
I wanna live life, and be good to you
And I wanna fly
And never come down
And live my life
And have friends around
We never change, do we?
No, no...
We never learn, do we?
So I wanna live in a wooden house
Where making more friends would be easy...
...I wanna live life, and always be true
I wanna live life, and be good to you...
-Laurel
I plead acting journals. I need one for each day, and being perpetually five days behind tends to sap your blogging inspiration, 'cause the due date came up and I was trying to finish those off. I type a lot faster than I write, and it's easier to delete, so handwrittens for that class tend to take a while. And they're certainly whacked-out sometimes. I hope Becky doesn't think I'm crazy.
Things over here've been all right. John and Lily and Chris and I didn't get the honors house, so now I have no idea what to do about housing next year. Dang my lack of female non-senior friends, outside of Lily. Krystal and Kristin and such people won't be here.
Spring break in two short days. Am taking John and Libby with me briefly, because their train to Iowa leaves from near-my-house that night, and they needed a way there. ...Yes, you heard me: train to Iowa. With a stop in Chicago, if you can believe it. They'll be on the Amtrak for something like 22 hours. 'Cause taking a plane was more expensive. They're such crazy-crazies.
Am taking my own boyfriend to the airport sometime this break, because in about three and a half weeks, he takes his first plane--by himself--to NYC--and competes in Math League States--and comes back the same night(!)--to be in Brigadoon's final performance. To NYC and back via plane on the same day, math and music and script lines jumbled together in his head, and he's never been on a plane, hasn't been in an airport since he was little.
If his mother thinks he's grown up enough for that, then he so should be allowed to kiss me. The prosecution rests.
But yeah, as I was saying, we're gonna go down there and walk him through the whole procedure, and when I say we, I mean him and me, unless my mom feels like tagging along. Which she's perfectly welcome to, inasmuch as if she doesn't, it will be the blind leading the blind, both of us together trying to figure it out. I've been on several planes, and much more recently, but I've still always blindly followed my parents around in the airport. I will have to know how to do this stuff myself, because when I go to Peru with choir in May, that's how I'm getting all the way to JFK airport in NYC. Via JetBlue. Hopefully with Heather, a choirmate, but we'll see. I may be flying solo, so to speak.
...I wish I could go with him when he goes. I've got a choir concert here that night. But oh, don't I wish. I think I'm more jumpy about it than he is.
School has been interesting. Have been getting to know Albert and Jess and Chris and Madelaine and Tim better (not all of them are APO, no), and even Kate and Katya a little. John and I've been a little odd--not hanging out for a couple of days at a time and then getting into arguments when we do--but today we straightened that one out and we think we know what we're doing now. Always a good thing, as Evan would have it.
Adults at church have started to introduce themselves, too, a couple more each week. Last week was Joel; this week was Jerry and his passel of children, and then--Robin, I think his name is. And there're the two ladies whose names I don't remember, from a couple weeks before. My own church at home was so big that I never really got that--I remember being a little envious of Megan and her small, comfortable church circle. Now I am getting it, and I'm not used to it, so it makes me a little nervous, kind of shy--but it's also kind of nice.
Tonight I saw "This Property is Condemned", this one-act Tennessee Williams play that Simon was in, that Ryan directed--Ryan was the band's secondary guitarist for a little while. It was good. Simon made a really good Tom, especially, 'cause he in real life and his character in the play...they share this odd kind of insightful bluntness--Simon more insightful, Tom a bit more blunt, but I could see it. Simon's a different breed; he didn't get Perchik in Fiddler by chance.
Oh, that's right, Simon and I got to talking last Wednesday night, when I was practicing my monologue for acting class and he came into the theater by chance. ...I think I'm going ahead with more band-stuff--even though John's dropping out. We had an interesting conversation about things. It was cool.
Linguistics was great while we did phonetics, but now we're applying them to phonology, so class sucks again, but next unit will be better. We have to get into semantics sometime.
To end this rambling...part of the Coldplay song that was in my head today. John doesn't like them. A pity...
I want to live life, and never be cruel
I wanna live life, and be good to you
And I wanna fly
And never come down
And live my life
And have friends around
We never change, do we?
No, no...
We never learn, do we?
So I wanna live in a wooden house
Where making more friends would be easy...
...I wanna live life, and always be true
I wanna live life, and be good to you...
-Laurel