Monthly Archives: December 2000

Strange Things Told

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Well, this entry marks one year of the writ­ing of this jour­nal. I hope it has been enter­tain­ing. *smirk*

I can't help but thank God that this year is behind me. While filled with sev­eral won­der­ful expe­ri­ences, it had an equal if not more than its share of not-so-wonderful expe­ri­ences. And unfor­tu­nately, it is the lat­ter that will have a pro­found affect on me for a long time to come. (If you don't know what I'm talk­ing about, visit the archives.)

I do have hope for the new year. That's one good thing that Jan­u­ary 1st always offers: a feel­ing of renewal. Whether that feel­ing has any merit to it or not remains to be seen, but at least it's there.

My life through­out the past year is a barage of strange things that seem to just hap­pen to me. (I'm sure that I'm not the first per­son to think this.) That's not to say that I don't take respon­si­bil­ity for many of the events in my life, because I do. But this last year really makes me won­der how much of it is planned and how much is coin­ci­dence. That said, I offer the fol­low­ing quote to sum up my out­look on the pass­ing of this year and the promise of a new one …

There are sto­ries of coin­ci­dence and chance and inter­sec­tions and strange things told, and which is which and who only knows. And we gen­er­ally say, "Well, if that was in a movie, I wouldn't believe it." Someone's so-and-so met some­one else's so-and-so and so on. And… it is in the hum­ble opin­ion of this nar­ra­tor that strange things hap­pen all the time. And so it goes, and so it goes. And the book says, "we may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.
– Mag­no­lia (1999)

Nighttime Encounter

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So I've been talk­ing with [name omit­ted] on the phone for the past few nights. We've been talk­ing about the pos­si­bil­ity of a rela­tion­ship between us … a con­ver­sa­tion we've had too often before.

I told her that I wanted to see her. So, after some more talk­ing, she came over. I had been think­ing about tak­ing advan­tage of my unique sit­u­a­tion before, but I didn't think I had the gall to do it.

Any­way, when she came over, we sat together on the couch and watched the movie Jail­bait on MTV. We just sat there for a while, and after the movie was over, we started to do stuff. With her, there was never any talk­ing or stuff like that, but it has always scared me.

Even­tu­ally, we moved to the bed­room. Things moved pretty fast, but we didn't have sex. I don't know whether I would've done it or not, because I did my best not to think about it.

After we were done, we talked some more — exchang­ing hor­ri­ble moments in our lives. I think it goes with­out say­ing, but this wasn't exactly the best sub­ject for a roman­tic mood. We started talk­ing about us again. We basi­cally came to the con­clu­sion that we were both too busy for a rela­tion­ship. This was, as I saw it, easy excuses for a sit­u­a­tion that nei­ther of us really wanted, but couldn't admit to each other.

She left at about 4am. I was pretty tired, but for some rea­son, I couldn't go to sleep. So I had some Hot Pock­ets and watched TV. By about 6, I was ready to col­lapse — con­tent and con­fused at the same time (which, if you've been fol­low­ing along for the past year, seems to hap­pen to me on a fairly reg­u­lar basis.)

Some­times I just don't know …

Ho Ho Ho…

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For the past week, I've been hous­esit­ting for a friend. For the most part, it's been great. I've enjoyed my time alone. This is the first Christ­mas where I've waken up alone in a house that wasn't mine.

It's been a strange expe­ri­ence. But I have to say that I don't rel­ish the posi­tion of the rest of my fam­ily — run­ning around, try­ing to "plan" as best they can, shop­ping for peo­ple they see approx­i­mately once a year.

We attempted to cram the entire fam­ily as well as some friends into our house. It wasn't that hard to do, but the com­mo­tion of every­thing that was going on was a bit unset­tling. I tried my best to restrict my con­ver­sa­tions and activism to a min­imun. I don't know why, but I really just wanted to get every­thing over with. So after we opened presents and every­thing else sup­pos­edly asso­ci­ated with Christ's birth­day. Then I drove back to Charlotte's and went about my business.

About the only cool thing about Christ­mas this year was that it actu­ally snowed on Christ­mas for the first time in … well, years. Oh well. Guess I just wasn't in the spirit this year.

All Wrapped Up in Stockings

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7am — 10pm non-stop.

Non Stop.

Tonight was the Hol­i­day Stock­ing con­cert. My final Stock­ing (at least as a stu­dent). I also had the honor of serv­ing as Tech­ni­cal Direc­tor. It was a lot of fun, but I'm exhausted …

As was stated pre­vi­ously, I came to the Lin­coln Cen­ter at about 7am. Mr. John­son and I ran over the script, and then he intro­duced me to the LC staff. These were an awe­some group of peo­ple! I had a lot of fun work­ing with them …

Any­way, in the morn­ing, we ran through the pro­gram with the choirs. I had no idea what I was doing, and I think it showed through, unfor­tu­nately. Luck­ily, I had lunch to recover …

Almost every­one left for lunch or to go back to Rocky. The only peo­ple left at the Lin­coln Cen­ter were Nick Val­cho and myself. We had a rather friendly dis­cus­sion, talk­ing about home­work and other things. And then Sharon came back from lunch.

We talked for a lit­tle bit. I end­lessly teased her about her new glasses. She told me that she had been diag­nosed with a "stress-induced ulcer­ated cornea," and that she couldn't wear con­tacts because her eye was sen­si­tive. I found this laugh­able. It was fun to flirt with her again … fuckin' Sharon …

Round Two: We ran through the pro­gram again, this time with the bands and orches­tra. I felt a lit­tle bit more com­fort­able this time, all the time see­ing her. Oh well. It was time for the 4:30 show …

I was both excited and scared — mostly scared. But it went fairly well. We only had one glitch in the show, which I con­sider a real fuckin' achieve­ment, con­sid­er­ing the amount of shit I had to deal with …

Din­ner was a nice change of pace. Until then, I hadn't been off of my feet at all, and I was already really exhausted. But the show must go on …

The Big Finale: the 7:30 show. This was where me, and all of my fel­low seniors would make our mark. Once again, we only expe­ri­enced one snag, and I was ecstatic!

By the final song, "Oh Holy Night," many of the seniors were already cry­ing — myself included. It was a very emo­tional time, and I loved every minute of it. At the end of the con­cert, Mr. Cropp came to the podium and thanked the LC staff and every­body else. By this time, the entire audi­ence was stand­ing and applaud­ing. After his thanks, Mr. Cropp did some­thing I never thought he would do — he thanked me! It really was too much for me. I was cry­ing. Sev­eral oth­ers around me were cry­ing too. It was such a spe­cial time. I don't think that I've ever been so honored …

After the Stock­ing, Buffy, Kris­tine, and I went to Perkins. Kris­tine had to leave sud­denly, so Buff and I stayed and talked for a lit­tle while. It was a nice way to end the night …

The Ruse

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Well, this has come way the fuck out of left field and hit me in the face. Maybe I should explain …

I found out today that every­thing with Lizzy … from the flirt­ing to the kiss to the ques­tion of my … uh … skills, was STAGED! It seems as if she and "her" — mostly her, decided that a good way to "get me back" for all of the hor­ri­ble things I've done to her would be to pre­tend that Lizzy liked me!

Well, I have to say it worked! It worked really well. Con­grat­u­la­tions. This took me com­pletely by sur­prise. Nor­mally, I would be extremely upset, and I prob­a­bly will be at some point, but the Stock­ing is tomor­row. I sim­ply don't have the time to think about this right now …

[The Shadow Box] ER — Live!

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Clos­ing Night: Five Min­utes to Cur­tain. We're all excited for the show, based on the reac­tion of last night. The green room is filled with commotion.

At the last minute, Carly, Chres and I go to per­form a pre-show rit­ual. Being as I am, I treat stu­pid things as if they're the most impor­tant thing in the world, so in my haste, I ran through the room — in the dark. I attempted to show off by jump­ing over a chair. Unfor­tu­nately, since it was dark, I couldn't see the frame of the door I was jump­ing through … or toward.

This won­der­ful maneu­ver caused me to hit my head on said frame, whip­ping my neck, and falling down on my back. There was a fair amount of blood all over the floor. What's funny is that it didn't feel that bad! Every­one was crowded around me, try­ing to see if I was okay. But see­ing as we had about 30 sec­onds before the show was sup­posed to start, I told every­one I was fine and rushed them out.

Mrs. Parker sent me to the hos­pi­tal. Chres drove me. All in all, it wasn't that bad. I received five stitches as a reward for my exploits and then they sent me on my way.

When we arrived at the cast party, it felt like the room stopped. After answer­ing sev­eral ques­tions and jok­ing about this fan­tas­tic mishap, things returned to nor­mal. After the cast party, a few of us went to Perkins. What fun. Ha!