5.30.02
I updated last ten days ago. I was talking about the sickness I had gotten. Well, I’m still sick. I’ve been on antibiotics for the last five days, and while I no longer wish I was dead, I’m still coughing and sniffling pathetically. Becca recognized my cough from inside a classroom this morning before the exam. Sigh. I think I just need more sleep.
I’ve been doing a good deal of reading, but not for any one of my four (now three) exams. But I suppose I might as well start a few days back and get all comprehensive and stuff.
School last week was a mixture between fun and sucky. Fun because, well, it was the last week of classes and no one cared, and sucky because, well, it was the last week of classes and everyone rather needed to care. I’m still behind on a French quiz and an English project…oops. Ah, well, I’ll get it done.
Thursday night was our Pops Concert, yay. Kitz and I threw together a duet in less than twenty-four hours, and I think we impressed a few people. Regardless of that, though we still had fun putting it together, and I didn’t have to leave stage because I was coughing or anything. The CDs should be here shortly, and I can’t wait to hear it.
I worked Friday and Saturday, as is my idiom. Since it was a long weekend, there really weren’t that many people at the gym. I suppose the hardcore climbers were on the real rocks (and I’m jealous), and the kids and such were either having parties outside or being with family. I was supposed to go ‘till eleven both nights; I was done at nine on Friday and six thirty on Saturday. That was a shock. I hung out till eight thirty, though, and looked around the neighborhood for someone to hang out with after that. I went home instead. Bah.
Sunday I finally got around to seeing Clockwork Grace. Well, I suppose ‘got around to’ isn’t how it worked…they’ve not been playing since their bassist’s been at college. But he’s back now, and I saw ‘em play at a local club with Carter. The club was sickeningly humid, there wasn’t an enormous crowd, and they claim that their show was horrible, but I was blown away. More than the music being made (which was, on the whole, very cool) was the close-up image of people I knew clearly having fun doing something they loved. All three of them (four, if you count the singer they borrowed from another band,) are talented, passionate musicians who love what they do. That’s what Collegiate’s music program is lacking. That was what I got so strongly at State. There are, shockingly, people out there that genuinely love to make music, and don’t do it because it fits their schedule or because a friend does it. Morgan’s like that. Susannah is. Kitz is. Heiner is. I think we’re the only ones. It’s almost depressing.
But anyway, that show, I thought, was amazing. Charles classified it as one of the worst they’ve ever done. Stephen said they spent the rest of the day being depressed. I was blown away. Eh, I suppose it’s a matter of knowledge of the music. I bet if I’d known the songs they were playing as well as they did, I’d’ve been less impressed. Or maybe not. Who knows? The point stands that I was impressed with what I saw, and I may play groupie this summer, if nothing else pans out. We’ll see about that, too.
Monday I didn’t study. Same with Tuesday. The only difference was the Tuesday was our last day of school. Oh, how sweet it is. I celebrated by going to Barnes & Noble and buying $40 worth of books. Oops. Then I hung out with Taylor for…an hour or so. I miss talking to that boy. Hopefully, this summer we’ll reconnect and everything will be good.
Ahh, life will be good this summer. I’m going to read and write and sleep and sing and swim and climb and…
Yeah. So that reading I referenced earlier (way earlier. Think second paragraph) was the two-year old internet journal of Stephen (bassist referenced above.) With the amount of time I’ve spent chasing this guy (and, vicariously the whole band) around in the past semester, one would think I’d’ve mentioned them at least once. I haven’t, so I am now. Okay, so it wasn’t that much time, but when I write about what I had for lunch some days, you’d think that this’d make the top ten list of things to write about. Oh well; I perplex me sometimes.
Journal. I keep distracting myself. I probably spent three hours total reading a hundred+ entries about his life from two years ago, about this time. That made him my age, since he’s now just 19. (Math skills, baby.) While he talked about several things I didn’t understand – the people in his life and drum stuff – I got the gist of the journal, and found an interesting thing happening. It was like I was talking to him, or hearing him talk. I had this image of him in my mind, going through the motions of doing what he’d talked about doing. He has a wonderful voice…it’s a different writing style than mine, somehow. It reads differently. Or maybe it was the fact that it was a different aural voice reading it in my head. Whatever. I laughed out loud on several occasions, and felt like I knew him better than I knew myself.
That feeling was odd on several levels. I’d only ever exchanged in-person words with him twice at that point. I’d talked to him on Instant Messenger maybe twice. I didn’t (still don’t) know him as well as I felt I did while I was reading his life. And even if I had, the Stephen I was reading about there was two years younger than the Stephen that is now. So the Stephen that I’d felt like I’d been discoursing with was so far from the actual person…it was just odd. I put way too much thought into that journal and the holographic person I’d built up for myself. So odd.
Anyway, that was all sort of dispelled this afternoon. I’d mentioned to him that I wanted a copy of his solo CD, and he said he’d get in touch with me this week. So today we got together, had lunch, and just sorta hung out for three hours. It was really quite nice, actually. It was a lot more relaxed than our last meeting…back in January. I’d emailed him about possibly singing for Clockwork Grace, and he’d gotten my phone number from Taylor, so he called me that night and we set up a meeting for the next day. So the next day, Taylor walks into our history exam and tells me levelly, “I need to talk to you about Stephen Frost.” Uh-oh. So what? Is he another Evan? God I hope not. I’m still on edge from that. And Stephen is, certainly, unlike anyone I’ve ever met. They don’t breed ‘em like him at Collegiate. I was a little on edge the entire time, and later found out that I didn’t have to be. Eh. I cemented that lack of on-edgeness this afternoon. I feel like we connected fairly well, at least. He did forget my name, but I can forgive that. We stopped at a florist to visit a friend of his, and he went to introduce me and said “I don’t think I’ve ever addressed you directly.” And he hadn’t. And when I’d called to set stuff up for today, I hadn’t identified myself. He just knew who I was. Which, I suppose, is rather cool. And I wasn’t offended in the least…rather, very amused. I am, afterall, the chick who is known at work to most people as ‘Bag of Rocks,’ so I suppose there were worse things I could’ve been called. Nameless isn’t bad, relatively speaking.
Backing up a bit to yesterday, I was quite proud of myself. I worked on my English project from 8-10:30, even though I didn’t have to be at school since I didn’t have an exam. I literally holed up in the J-room for two and a half hours with my Phish and my camera. Yay. I’m far from done, but meh, it’ll work itself out.
I went off to the doctor’s to have my psyche reevaluated like they do every few months. (It’s doing well, by the way.) On the way, though, I stopped at McDonald’s and got me a nutritious combo meal of something or other. I got the offices some ten minutes early, and decided I could afford some Erin time. I turned the car off, left the stereo on, pushed my seat back and had my lunch, listening to music and letting my mind wander. When I got into the shrink’s, I was feeling much better. On my way home, I passed the mall…big oops. I told myself I wasn’t gonna go in, and then realized that hey, maybe Turtle Music has some cheap used CDs. (That’s the only kind I buy anymore – and the price is still inflated.) So I jumped in there and ended up browsing way too long. Bah. Then I happened to look across the mall and noticed that Spencer’s was having a 50% off sale. Of course I couldn’t stay away. I got a really cool candleholder with dragons on it for half price. I didn’t need a candleholder with dragons on it, but it’s just so neat.
So I get home, dork around online some more, and go upstairs to play with my new toys. The Bosstones CD was fun to play loud, because it’s ska. I hunted around downstairs for a taper candle that wasn’t pink or purple (I had some leftover from those spells…) and watched the one I found burn for a solid ten minutes. The flame was about six inches long, and when I breathed, it would flicker, even though I was sitting almost five feet way. It was fascinating to watch, and I let my mind wander as I listened to my music and watched my candle. I’d decided, of course, that I wasn’t going to leave a freestanding candle holder burning in my room, even while I was in the room. I’ve got enough going on right now without having to worry about burning my house down. So I put it on my dragon shelf to collect dust and look terribly gothic until I have time to just stare at a candle and let my mind wander. Ahh, just one more week…
The Precal final was today. I was coughing enough of last night that my parents didn’t want me to go. I didn’t either, but I also didn’t want to have to go in on the make-up day. And I finished Precal. That class has been the bane of my existence all year, and now it’s over. I did a little dance for Lora in the hallways when I finished. I was in really high spirits, until I got a really bitchy email.
Yeah, so the Match staff decided to go to a local pizza place for dinner for the annual Match party. Fine, except that the ‘deal’ they got was $11 per person for pizza. I flipped out…that’s a lot of money, the way I saw it. I’ve since had it explained to me and it makes sense, but I was a little miffed at the outset, and said so in the folder. I got personally attacked, and responded to it before I had a chance to think. I then got a really, really bitchy email from a girl that I’ve always gotten along well with, I thought. She said not only that I had no right to complain, but that, while she was on the subject, I need to stop bitching for attention, shut up, and good luck on exams. I was near-tears upset…which is rare. It was just so rude, I was so sick of being attacked for trying to be a little responsible…and I was frustrated. First someone says that with the amount of money Collegiate girls spend on designer clothes and shoes and handbags, should I be able to budget eleven dollars for dinner? And then this girl says to me that I have all this nice stuff and need to stop complaining because I go to a nice school and have no right to try and be responsible about my cash. It’s nice to have money of my own, I don’t have much, and this double standard pisses me off. It’s unacceptable to be a ‘rich kid’ and spend lots of money on designer clothes, but it’s also unacceptable to be sensible about spending. Fuck that. I’m sorry that I don’t like having to borrow from my parents and friends for dinner. It was a suggestion, and then I responded too brashly. But an attack on my character wasn’t necessary. Dammit, now I’m getting pissed off thinking about it again. I don’t like being attacked.
But whatever. Hanging out with Stephen today did everything I needed to restore my faith in the human race. (I bet he doesn’t expect himself to the kind of person to do that. But it was really nice. I’ve said that already. I suppose I’m just disillusioned with the people I hang out with now. New people are nice. I use that word too much.) I’m going upstairs with Reel Big Fish, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and The Hippos to have a skafest in my room really loud because no one else is home. I’m going to ace Physics tomorrow, dammit, because I really don’t have a choice in the matter. And then it’s just a few short hops to freedom.
I’m going to do a serious revamp this
summer. You won’t even recognize
it. Promise.