10.6.02
My brother just ate ceramics glaze.
Suddenly I feel like anything else I have to say is going to pale in comparison to that fascinating fact.
In other news, Andrew fits in my trunk rather nicely.
He climbed in there after school the other day, and who was I to object? John finally let him out, but it was funny driving around in the parking lot with someone banging from inside my trunk.
Other than that, though, my life’s
still found ways to be interesting and busy.
Well, I think it’s
interesting, at least. I could be
wrong. I’m going to try and go
back and cover the incidents of the last two weeks, and perhaps go back and talk
about school a bit, since the last entry covered mainly the debacle down at
Hampton. Right.
So I’m going to go ahead and structure this entry so I don’t get
lost. 1) School, classes,
social-ness. 2) the other stuff – Match, clubs, the play, pep band, and that.
3) Social-ness. 4) College
shit. 5) Closing arguments. Right.
1) School. Right. I’ve somehow managed to give myself a fairly slack schedule – two Englishes, two APs, chorus, Ethics, free period. Whoopee. I don’t have lunch to days a week because of AP Bio, that that class positively rocks. The teacher – Mrs. Griffin – is the most wonderful woman ever. She’s funny and loving and just awesome. And she’s passionate about what she’s teaching, which just rocks. AP Stat with Mrs. Albright is nice, but I slacked off a little too much in the first weeks of school, so now I have something of a hole to dig myself out of, and my parents have grounded me until the end of the quarter. Bah. Language and Comp is discouraging…it’s basically a creative writing class, and I’ve been getting shot down frequently. I’m not even so sure that I like the class. I mean, I like it, but it’s making me feel like writing shouldn’t just be for fun…I know that you have to think about audience and tone and all that, but I also have come to dread any kind of writing because I get frustrated. When it’s for fun – I’m writing an essay on why I hate sopranos – it’s fine. But when it’s an assignment…something with a title like ‘the one thing I know is true,’ I falter and collapse, unable to find the right words. There’s too much pressure, and it’s a perversion of something that, until recently, I used to love. Now I sit down here and dread it, and I think I might be glad when this class is over.
The Bible Lit class switches back and forth between funny and interesting to boring as sin. (No pun intended, of course.) The stories are cool, and it’s neat to have an excuse to read the Bible without feeling like I should be praying at the same time…and I’ve learned some neat stuff. But still…those block lectures are deadly. Also deadly is Ethics, with a brilliant man who really shouldn’t be lecturing to kids. But whatever…I’ve got a case study on the death penalty to do in a month or so…it should be interesting.
So anyway, school itself isn’t that bad. I start the morning with chorus (Wednesday/Friday), Camerata (Monday/Wednesday) or flute ensemble (Tuesday), which is always a refreshing way to wake up. And at least once a week my free period is at the end of the day, so I can leave early. Alternate weeks I’m done on Tuesdays at 12:55, and Regular weeks I’m done on Wednesdays at 1:45. For the first three weeks of school, I’d book it out of school as soon as I was done to meet up with Trip. The first week we had lunch with Ned at Stuffy’s, the second week it was at Baker’s Crust, and the third week we just hung out at Trip’s. It was great getting to a) get out of school, b) hang out with Trip, c) hang out with Ned, d) get out of school. I got really used to those afternoons in three weeks, and now that Trip’s in Oregon and Ned’s in Seattle, I spent my last free block at school taking a Stat test. That’s depressing…I might make regular dates with Clayton or Dustin or someone who’s not in school all the time. Whatever.
As far as social-ness of school goes, it’s been awkward, a bit. But I’m spending a lot of my free time with Taylor and Danny and Jonny and Brett and Cordie, which is nice…and I’ve always got the usual J-room crowd to hang out with during my study hall. So in general, life is good, and I’m sorta riding it out until things get hellish with the play.
2) The other stuff. Match will be an adventure this year. My parents are still trying to phase me out of the staff, which will never work, thank you very much. I’m digging having my own column, and being able to goof off and still get everything done…I’m not digging some of the things the administration is doing/has talked about doing/isn’t doing, but that’s half the fun of having an administration, right? And we still have the Blowtorch. Sort of.
Clubs around school are sorta working
out…Outdoor Club is being severely restricted because everything we do is
extremely risky and the like, but that’s no surprise, because we want to do
things that people have been killed doing before.
So. Mode Judiciary’s not
really started yet, but our sponsor is the head of the Upper School, so I figure
we have some kind of promise about getting things done.
I should look into that…right.
The play’s an adventure…the leads are doing way better than any of us really expected (well, we expected some of them to do well, others we’re pleasantly surprised by.) As for the actual social dynamics of the cast, it’s kinda sucky…I remember my first play, everyone was friends with everyone else. It was a theatre clique. Now there’s a dozen cliques within the cast, and we’re not friends anymore. They’re not interested in hanging out with each other during the play, and making new friends or any of that. They just wanna gossip with their friends, which sucks. But ah, it’ll all be over in three weeks, and then I can…sleep.
Until swimming starts, at least.
Uhh…yeah, pep band’s good this year, and I wish I had an assistant roadie. Maybe Cush. Rock on.
3) Social-ness. This is going to be an account of all of the fun stuff I’ve done, even if I forget a thing or two. Right.
Aside from lunch with Trip and Ned and sometimes just Trip, I’ve been around the Jennings household frequently since school started. I hung out with Conway one afternoon…we went to Barnes & Noble and then played Mario. It was awesome…he’s a great guy. We went down to Pipeline (it’s a rapid) the first Friday of school and swam around while he and his friends paddled…it was great. Playing in the river is fun.
Then, a few weeks ago, I needed to borrow one of Trip’s videos for the club fair. So I rang him in the middle of the afternoon, asked if I could get one, and said I’d be over to pick it up after play practice. All was good, except that he had to dub the tape because, for some odd reason, in the six hours between when I called and when I showed up, he hadn’t taken the three minutes to put it into the VCR to record. Fine; we got to hang out and talk. The problem arose when we kept talking, and then went out to Bradley to listen to ‘Short People,’ and kept talking. Bad idea. I got home about an hour and a half late, which was just…bad. However, I wasn’t in enough trouble to keep me from seeing the midnight movie that Saturday.
We have this beautiful local theatre down here, the Byrd, which has one screen and seats almost fourteen hundred, and it’s cheap. They get movies about a month after they leave theatres, and they run for a week or so. And every Saturday night, they have a midnight movie…cult classics like Fight Club or Princess Bride…the night I went I saw Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail. It was a sort of pilgrimage for me…it rocked. There were some nuts there, who sang ‘The Lumberjack Song’ before the show to keep us amused…and they were swordfighting before we even got into the theater. $3 for all that entertainment. It was awesome. I love the Byrd.
I think it was that Monday that Trip and I went climbing. I said I’d be back by nine. Fine…except that I didn’t leave Peak until nine thirty, and then got suckered into hanging out with Trip for another long time, damn him. He needs to be less amusing to talk to…I had a great chat with him and Conway, though…something about the benefits of vegetarianism and “you can brush your teeth, but you can’t brush your liver.” To which I added, “you can’t brush your soul, either.” I may someday build an empire on those three simple truths.
So last Friday was the Pep Rally for Homecoming, so I arranged my schedule so I was done with school at 11:45. I had agreed to have lunch with/hang out with Trip before he left to go to the beach, and then back to school (in Oregon.) I left campus as soon as I could, and hung out near his house (at the local Barnes & Noble) and called every half hour or so until three…when I finally got in touch with him. He was heading out, which sucked…but I’m going to (ideally) see him in a week when I’m up there for college stuff. (See section 4.)
So that night, as is tradition, we got together, ‘we’ being Carter and Lora and Elissa and I, and had a great dinner at Pasta Luna, got ice cream at Gelati Celesti, didn’t get hit on quite as much as we did last year, did a bit of harmless vandalism, and ended up at Taylor’s house, with him and Brett and Danny. We walked around the neighborhood…to Owen’s, back to Taylor’s…and then I discovered that I can close Bradley’s doors just by accelerating. It’s fun.
I really don’t think I did much last week…went climbing on Friday, which was fun. But yesterday was awesome.
I had my Honors Choir audition at nine AM at Longwood College, which is rather far away. As a result, I had to be up at six am. On a Saturday. I was bitter about this, but what made me even more bitter was the fact that I kinda think I blew the audition. They took the prepared piece way slower than I’d practiced it, which meant that my breath marks and everything were pretty much worthless, and I floundered. I can only hope everyone else did too. And I have NO idea how the sightreading went. I’ve never not made a chorus that I’ve auditioned for…I kinda hope I make it…but if I don’t, I can go on the AP Bio canoe trip, so I win either way.
I got home from that by around eleven, which meant that I had tons of time until I had…wait, I was grounded. So I read a play, took a three-hour nap, and finished my bio chapter. Go me. I then worked on college stuff for a bit, and still had time to take my brother to his Homecoming that night.
For those of you who don’t know my brother, he’s shy, awkward, and a freshman. Him going to a Homecoming would have been unheard of a year ago…and to make things even more shocking, he almost got a date! I chased him around the house with a phone for a half hour or so, but he finally called…but she wasn’t home. I insisted that if some dude asked me to his homecoming an hour and a half before it started, I’d think it was rad. We never got to see what Taylor would think about it, though, because he never did reach her. Ah, well, next dance.
So as I was pulling into Trinity’s parking lot, I saw a glowing blue light underneath an obscenely large pickup truck. “Jordan’s here!!” I was thrilled – yeah, I saw him two weeks ago, but I love seeing him. And it was unexpected, so it was a pleasant surprise. I sent Matt and his friend Thomas in to find him, and he came out and said hi. He was working lights, and I said that I’d be back at the end of the night to pick my brother up, and we’d hang out for a bit then
I went then to Elissa’s, [briefly] because she was having a party, and I wanted to see everyone. I got to see Brian, which rocked, because we don’t talk nearly as much as I wish we did. He’s one of the coolest people I know…he’s genuine and sweet and funny and reading this, but I’m not just saying all this for him…it’s for me too, because it’s true. He’s awesome.
So we floured each other, and hosed each other, and ended up playing Mario Kart, in which Ben dominated, because he’s Ben, and he’s a nerd. I left somewhat early, with Brian and Carter, and we tried to hunt down Taylor, who was MIA (as usual). So I took Brian home and got to Trinity around 11, when I thought the dance was over. Incorrect – I hung out in the parking lot, feeling totally nerdy (I was wearing PJ pants and a shirt that was caked with flour and water), and eventually heard Matt yelling to me. The dance wasn’t over until 11:30, and they wanted to stay, fine. I got them to get Jordan for me, and he snuck me in the back, and I spent the last half hour of the dance sitting on stage with the DJ and the light nerd. What fun. During the last slow song – ‘Lady in Red’ – Jordan and I danced…it was nice. I really miss being able to see him frequently…but he’s around every two weeks or so, so it’s cool.
Matt and I stayed to help Jordan and the DJs strike their stuff, and then he and Matt and I went to Sheetz for some one-am MTO goodness. We got home absurdly late, but eh, whatever.
Which brings us up to today. I had play practice, and then had to sing at a local hotel, which led me and Lora and Madeline on a cross-city adventure that just wasn’t pretty. The directions said to get off of the Downtown Expressway at the Canal Street exit…nevermind that there isn’t a Canal Street exit. That didn’t bother anyone, I guess.
And now that this thing is almost six
pages long, I think it’s about time I went to bed.
We've come full-circle, chronogically, to my brother eating glaze, and I’ll
talk about colleges later, if I think about it. You, the reader, may not
care. Eh, whatever.
I should write some on TOD too, just ‘cause.
Right. Check back later, and
I’ll make sure to not wait another two weeks – these long entries get boring
to write, and are probably boring to read. So. End.