7.31.02

from 7.25
It rained today.  It was that annoying little drizzle that is really only an issue if you’re driving.  It makes the day grey and hazy, and when you’re on the highway, the other cars kick the spray onto your windshield, and you have to decide which setting on the wipers will best clear away the nebulous spray.

On the upshot, it got the bug guts off the windshield.

No, really.  The bug guts had been blocking my vision for weeks…I’d just not gotten around to actually cleaning my car, so I let the rain do it for me.  The rest of ‘im is a dirty mess, but I’ll get to that later.
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Yeah, I started that last week and never got around to finishing it.  Bad Erin , very bad.

Life goes on.  I finished up at Peak last Friday, yet I’m on the schedule for two more Saturdays.  Go figure.  It’s nice, though, that they still love me over there.  Because I really love working there.  I mean, the kids can be annoying, and I really hate cleaning toilets, but hanging out with the staff, the random employee goof-off time, and working with people who genuinely love climbing is fun and rewarding.

When did I become a poster-child?  Ew.

The new Red Hot Chili Peppers CD is really quite good.  Like, it’s not left my sight in the two weeks I’ve had it.  I got it one afternoon when I went out with Lee for lunch.  We just sorta hung out, and wound up playing at Best Buy.  It was fun; no matter how distanced we may get, Lee and I will always be good friends.  He is like a big brother to me, and I really love having his friendship.

I really couldn’t tell ya what all I’ve been up to, because it’s summer and it’s not my job to keep you posted.  Still, I suppose there are people who are genuinely interested in what’s going on, so I might as well talk about what’s most forward in my mind.

First of all, a shout out to Brian, who has been pestering me to update since around noon today.  It’s now almost eleven.  He needs to learn some patience, and I need to learn how to get motivated to update.  Once I get going, I’m fine…it’s just a matter of going.

Incidentally, I climbed with sed Brian for a few hours this morning, and I think there’s something wrong with my left wrist.  I was having trouble holding on to a lot of holds, and now that I’ve been typing for a bit, it’s rather…er…painful. 

And besides that, I’m getting distracted talking to the guy.  C’mon, you know that’s not fair.

So anyway, I haven’t done anything thrilling except for Champs on Sunday, I suppose.  Rather than risk them being outside in the rain like we had last year (for those of you who didn’t know me then, they cancelled the championship meet last year because of rain.  I’m still pissed.)  So this year we drove the two hours to George Mason’s Freedom center for the meet.  It was odd: Danny and Andrew and Anne and Susan and all were there; it felt like it shoulda been a winter league meet.  I kept looking for Stott; he wasn’t there.  (Sad.)  I did reasonably well; I medaled in all but one relay, since they medaled through tenth place.  A second in 50-back, fourth in 50-breast and 100-free, eighth in 50-free, and ninth medley relay.  Our free relay got eleventh; that was frustrating, but whatever.  I was thrilled with how I did…I dropped some three seconds in my hundred free (which felt really slow), a full second on fifty back, and a half-second on 50-breast.  I forget how I did in free, but the fact that I medaled was a shock; I was just barely Senior Varsity, which was unfortunate.

So the season’s over.  Matt hurt his wrist a few weeks ago so he was out for the rest of the season, but he still came to the dinner at the Herm afterwards.  It was really nice to see him; we’re sort of friends-when-we’re-together, and we both like it that way.  He’s a really funny person; I laughed the whole way home, and then he hung out here for a bit.  I don’t know when I’ll see him again; he goes back to school soon, and then I’ll think of him fondly on occasion and talk to him on occasion, see him when he’s in town.  It’s a good relationship. 

Hmm…what else?  I tried to see Goldfinger with Grahm and Alex on Friday night, but by the time we all got there, it was sold out.  So we got ice cream and chatted for a bit, and I still got home earlier than I’d expected (I’d come straight from work.)  Grahm’s a really fun guy. We’re both pretty competitive, and make everything into a contest.  We have fun together; I enjoy his company.  Just another one of those people that I love working with. 

Saturday I saw Once Upon a Mattress with a few random people.  Oddly enough, we also saw H, Ms. P, and Mrs. Bottoms, taking notes and thinking ahead to our show.  It should be an adventure, to say the least.  But some of the music is cool, and the dances look like fun.  I’m excited about it.  And I know all of y’all are coming, so.

After the play, I stopped by Peak to get some stuff before my employee discount ran out.  I hung out with Robert and Brian and Jimmy for a bit, because they’re all fun people, and Brian suggested we go out with some other team kids to see Austin Powers.  I was into that, since what could be better for me before my meet than sitting in a movie theatre?  But dad decided it would be a bad thing, told me I had to come home to a house without power (we’d had a thunderstorm that afternoon: incidentally, that would’ve been US in that storm if champs’d been outside…) and that he knew better than me what I needed to do before my meet.

I don’t know exactly why, but I snapped.  I was just pissed, and I didn’t kill anyone.  It was partially because I don’t appreciate being told what I need to do, and I don’t appreciate my dad hanging up on me, and I don’t appreciate losing my composure at work, but they didn’t point and laugh at anything, so it was almost all good.  Still, I felt a little foolish and more than a little frustrated.  So I went home, read until it got dark, and then went to bed at NINE THIRTY .  That’s what you do when you don’t have power and your parents are being stupid.

Speaking of my parents, I’m getting rather pissed at them for their treatment of my social life.  I was going to go out with Brian and Andrew and Aaron and some folk from team tonight; they’re all really great people and I count them among casual friends because they’re always at Peak.  So I mentioned this to mom, and she started railing on me because they’re all younger than me.  Yeah, it’s true; Brian’s 15, Andrew’s 14, and I dunno how old Aaron is, but I don’t care.  They’re good people, mature people, I relate to them well, and I take my friends were I can get them, thank you.  Not to mention the fact that mom seems to be really fond of pointing out to me that I’m always the one that makes the calls, makes the plans; barring Simon and Carter and Kim, very rarely do people ask me to do things.  Grahm did on Friday, Brian did on Saturday.  And beyond that, I’m the one that sorta pulls things together.  And it never bothered me until mom started giving me crap about it, and now I mind.  It makes me rather insecure and self-conscious, especially around Jeff.  But I’m not going to go into that now, because I don’t feel like it.

What else has been up?  Well, I had a not-fight with Stephen that basically put him out of my life for the immediate future, which is frustrating.  Yeah, he has a complex social life that existed before he met me.  And I don’t expect to be immediately integrated into everyone’s life.  But it doesn’t help my insecurity issue when someone that I thought I was getting along with really well doesn’t even take the effort to say hello, or to let me know that he doesn’t hate me.  I’ll see him when our priorities line us up, or our paths cross, or something; basically, when he gets his life straightened out, he might say hello.  Me?  I won’t hold my breath. And there’s another rant that needs to go in here about him that I’m too tired to embark upon tonight, because I don’t feel like it.  This serves as a reminder to myself that I need to cover that. 

I went college shopping Monday and Tuesday; it sucked.  I looked at Davidson, Wake Forest , and Guilford , and barring the oppressive heat, I could be happy at any of those places.  Davidson doing your laundry for you was phenomenal, though.  But the thing about college is that I will be happy wherever I go.  Some places might be easier than others, some places might have different opportunities than others, but in the long run, the kinds of schools I’ll apply to are the kinds of places where I know I’ll be happy.  My grades probably aren’t good enough to get me into a lot of places, but I’ll bet’cha I can get into Trinity, and y’know what?  I’ll be happy there. 

I got in last night, after spending three days in my dad’s car taking a variety of road trips, and headed, literally, straight out to Peak.  I hung out with Brian and Tracy and Perto for a while; bouldered with the latter (even tho I wasn’t dressed for it and came in swearing that I wouldn’t climb; it was fun).  I agreed to meet Brian for lunch and climbing today, which we did.  I hung out, waited for him, we had lunch, and I waited for him, and then we climbed, which hurt my wrist.  But at least I got to hang out with him, which was fun.  And as he put it, we had so much fun that I can justify being as tired as I am.  The cool thing about Brian is that he’s closer to my brother’s age he is to me…but he, like the rest of people at Peak, is an equal.  I don’t look at him like he’s fifteen because he doesn’t act fifteen.  I disagree with his ratings, but he’s genuine, and funny, and a great person to be around.  So fuck my parents and their ideals about age.  Age is just a number, and Brian is my friend, so there.

Sigh.  That sounded a lot more indignant than it was.  I’m too tired to get indignant.  But, for some odd reason, this all made me remember that I worked with Steven last week.  I’d not seen him since…March, I don’t think; he’s been around, but not at the gym.  It was nice to see him again, even nicer to do the long slew of hanging out at the gym that I did that day.  I worked, mom dropped Matt off, I took him home, returned and climbed with Brian for a while, then said goodbye to Pete. 

How odd.  Pete’s almost been an institution for me…he’s just sorta always been there, always grinning and always cracking jokes.  He’s one of the people that I’m always really glad to see and talk to, and he always seems glad to see me.  And tomorrow he leaves for Asheville; I don’t know when I’ll see him again.

But such is life, I suppose.  Jeff goes to Ecuador for a semester in a few weeks.  Wow I’ll miss him.  I’ll miss Pete.  I miss Dave.  And Pat, and Amy.  It’s not like I’m constantly conscious that they’re not there, but every now and then something will happen and I’ll just have to tell the story about the time when Pete said…or Dave was talking about…or Amy and I decided…yeah.  But in a year, I’ll be saying goodbye to everyone, the gym...everyone in it…swimming…and the school I’ve been a student at since I was five.  Sweet.  Yeah, I’ll miss everyone.  But the problem I have with Pete and Jeff and them going away is that their lives are moving on; I’m losing people important to me and I’m really not meeting anyone else.  But when I head off to college, it’s finally me that’s moving on, meeting new people, and starting a new part of my life.  And that’s exciting.  Sure, I’ll miss everyone, but I’ll probably (ideally) have other stuff going on, instead of being bored like I am now.

Anyway, I am, for whatever reason, tired.  Senior pictures are tomorrow; I’ll be glad to get those over with.  I finished Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy…really, really good stuff.  And I started on a collection of short stories by Phillip K. Dick.  Different genre, but still riveting and fun.  I might want to get started on my summer reading…oops.  Ah, well, they’ll understand.  I’m taking two English classes; that means I have twice as much reading, which means twice as much procrastinating.  I should get working on that.

Instead, I’ll go to bed.  I’m having an ‘I-hate-boys’ night on Friday with Mo an Carter and Bex and Kim, provided they’re all in town.  I’m looking forward to it.  And I’m working Passages Friday, and then for the next two weeks.  That’ll be fun, even if I’m not getting paid. 

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