Came back from what I term Homecoming Dinner at Tara Asia, since I didn't have a ticket to go to actual homecoming. Everyone looked spectacularly nice. I remember what the girls were wearing, and since the guys probably didn't notice and girls spent so much time "primping" I ought to give them credit. Basically the first half of this blog entry is fashion commentary. Not very detailed though, for which I apologize.

-Elissa: Dark blue dress with black lace and a black necklace thingy, similar to those loopy tattoo necklaces but not.

-Janis: Black strapless dress that people kept commenting about and black gloves.

-Silvia: Red dress.. of some sort. Her hair was down, like in her senior photos that she showed me. She was sitting at the end of the table so I didn't really see her really closely.

-Lizzie: High waisted red dress with beading on the bodice, spaghetti straps.

-Cathy: Red dress, darker than Lizzie's, no beading on the bodice. It was sleeveless with a scooped neckline. I think. Nick B said that the two dresses looked exactly the same. Fool. It's not like the red dress pairing was planned.. apparently Cathy and Lizzie had both undeliberately both worn blue dresses to prom too. I say it's not a big deal- there are only so many colors in the world.

-Sharon: V neck sleeveless black dress, and she put her hair up, which is something I actually have not seen before.

-Dena: Black dress with silver stitching going diagonally down across the waist. She curled her hair, which made people comment that she looked like a female Tadzio. In a good way.

-Ranwa: Black shawl and a black dress.

-Ruchita: Lavender dress, which Sarah commented really complimented her complexion.

-Sarah (Gordon): It was black.. all the black dresses are running together in my head. She had curled her hair, and was commenting how much she felt like Emma.


We got 17 people... poor Alex left his ticket at home and had to get it, but he came back. The restaurant was rather crowded with .. everyone else going to homecoming (but presumably not the freshmen, who were rumored to be eating at.. Taco Bell), so we encountered craploads of people we know, like Carmel (in a short dress that looks black but actually turned out to be very very dark blue) and Lili (Sarah said she'd cut her hair so that when she put it in a bun it'd be small enough to fit into the metal spiral thing) and Polomma (purple dress with a high neck) so it took a while to get seats and we were scattered across this long table. My food was weird.. seafood (scallops, mussels, squid or something) in coconut milk.. it's the weirdest thing I've ever eaten, and Alex agreed when he tried some. I have notoriously bad luck randomly picking things off menus. I stole Nick B's bowl of rice and his cashews since he wasn't eating them. Um.. anyhow. Plentiful jokes about Nick B's lack of masculinity, which he tried to rectify by wearing sunglasses (which just functioned to make him blind indoors), and other bold women tried to rectify by attempting to attack him with lipstick, and threats of eyeliner and mascara. People made sexual comments about Alex "tying Nick's tie." Nick S moved to our end of the table to counter the overwhelming female ratio.

People were frightened by the prospect of red bean ice cream or green tea ice cream for dessert, so we relocated to Ben and Jerry's after trying to get Puffy to divide the check for us in his head, but he'd forgotten all arithmatic. We ended up dividing it wrong and Nick B ended up padding the bill by paying a twenty, but he generously declined offers by us to pay him back when we realized our math errors, saying that it was his parents' money anyways. How cavalier.

I should note that the Nicks were hella dashing tonight, possibly because Nick B didn't have stubble. Nick S was our resident photographer and Nick B gets brownie points for giving his jacket to Lizzie when she was cold. (It wasn't really cold, as it still feels like summer in Rockville, but rather windy, making me glad I was I had sleeves.) See.. I have this theory that modern fashion has it so that men wear jackets with their suits and women wear evening gowns with low necklines so that men are obligated to give their coats to the women. (Edit: Nick B says the jacket was Lizzie's to begin with. Well hell, I still stand by my 'jackets and evening gowns' fashion theory.)

We went walking to.. uh.. the homecoming place, singing really loudly (Nick B, anyways) but since there weren't many songs all 17 of us knew, we ended up singing the Star Spangled Banner spontaneously until we cracked up laughing when people who passed us, like cops, gave us funny looks. I must say we actually sounded good though. Ranwa suggested "Onward Christian Soldiers" but none of us knew that and none of us were Christian. Puffy and Nick B broke into "Hava Nagila" and Puffy sung three verses of Battle Hymn of the Republic (he knows all five, but he stopped, mercifully). Barry was prancing around clicking his heels together. When we got to the homecoming place, most of the girls pleaded fatigue due to walking around in heels and went inside, while a handful of us continued wandering around the block singing loudly and badly. I think we did that again until we came back around in a circle. So.. me and Puffy went around the block.

Again.

It's actually a lot more fun than my blog is making it sound. We encountered Josh going to homecoming with his date, who advised us on his devious ways of getting into the previous homecoming dances without a ticket, but Puffy declined because of moral issues and I declined because I wasn't dressed for the occasion (Brutal but true.) J Ro argued that since Puffy was already using stolen chopsticks from Tara Asia as afro picks, he was corrupted already, but Puffy didn't buy it, so we went on our way. Puffy later imitated being a geisha. I walked him to the Metro. I was being picked up at 9 and we still had 15 minutes left, so he walked me back to Rockville Town Center. And then he went back to the Metro.

Yeaah. So that's my story.

Went to the UM open house, bumped into a lot of Eastern people. Like Rob... and Amy Price. And Eric Shansby, Stephan (something), and David Einstein all sitting at one table. Some girl from RM was there cuz she was wearing her senior shirt, but she's just some girl I see in the halls.

College open-houses are mind-numbing.

It was sort of funny seeing RM on the news last night... they were covering our homecoming game and float, and they interviewed Tyler as a sort of representative for our school (!) and had Amy and Kristen and other people on, you know, doing "normal" stuff. It was sort of funny. You know, sort of as a "Montgomery County conducts business of usual in the face of roaming murderers with high powered rifles." Walt Whitman was on too, but during a different (but similarly-themed) subject.

The news people have been consistantly mispronouncing "Montgomery," much to my annoyance. Everyone knows you pronounce it "Mungummery" and sort of mumble it, not "Mont-gom-er-y." That's just silly.

Today's Title:

Smells Like School Spirit

No prep rally today. I was sort of disappointed, because unlike other people, I actually like them. We get shortened periods and I'm also a shameless sucker for pagentry. Yay! Brass instruments! Crowds and people yelling! Whee! Anyhow.

Finally auditioned for lunch bunch. It was sort of a spur of the moment thing. I'm in concert choir as an alto. I come on.. Wednesdays and Thursdays. I'll have such a hard time remembering.

Some news person was filming our school as we were let out. And I'm like.. why?

Today's Title:

Youth of the Nation

On a lighter note, I must say that Andrew Durfor is duct tape GOD!

I never thought of him as a really spirited type of guy- I just think he's using School Spirit days as an excuse to wear duct tape. Yesterday he was a Monty Python knight with duct tape armor and complete with clonky coconut shells. Today he was a duct tape lobster. Don't ask me how that works.

Homecoming dance tickets are sold out, to both my disappointment and relief, since I won't need to toss away $19 and then search for a date and clothes. I am, however, still coming to Tara Asia, much to your collective disappointment.

I never thought we'd actually need Code Blue at school. It's not that I usually leave the building at lunch or stay after school anyhow, but just having security standing grimly around the doors and herding us around was intimidating. Who'd shoot people up at Leisure World??? I won't be so melodramatic as to say that the black shadow of violence lurks wherever I go. More like a smudgy grey chiaroscuro. I go to the Togo's (sandwich place) right next to the Aspen Hill gas station every day for lunch in the summer, and my mom was like, "Nooo! Don't go to there! It's dangerous!" and I was like "Yeah right, it's a gas station." Well guess who was wrong. These places aren't so geographically close to me, but I go to them on a regular basis it still feels like people are being murdered in my backyard, and my backyard is all over the news with caution tape around it and bullet holes and flowers in memorium. I wonder how first graders feel that seemingly every year they start school, there's always some Annual Random Act of Senseless Violence.

Needless to say, Spirited Away at White Flint is cancelled.

I suppose I don't have much to complain about in comparison to a good deal of other people.

As it is, I don't suppose anyone except people in this local vicinity really care very much.

Today's Title:

Children of Abraham

Is Mr. Baron Jewish? I keep thinking he is, even though there's actually nothing to indicate it. It's just that he "looks Jewish" to me, which is absurd, because Jewdom is a religion, not a race. But nonetheless, I keep catching myself thinking that he looks Jewish.

Physics has become the highlight of my day with Puffy, Hank, and Josh.

"Coulomb! Coulomb! NAAAANOOOCCCOOOULOMB!! Microcoulomb! Coloumb, coloumb!" -Josh imitating a flock of coulombs and other related imaginary avians nexting in Puffy's hair.

And also hearing them improvise beat rhythms by banging on the desks and harmonizing to this tuner thing Mr. Martz had. It had something to do with electricity and magnetism, but I wasn't paying attention. Another thing. Mr. Martz doesn't really care if we pay attention.

Madrigals sounded obscenely good in English for the creative part of Madame Bovary presentations... I think this is one of the reasons why music remains so popular.. there's so much you can do with just the human voice. It makes me wish I'd sing with other people. Maybe I could audition for lunch bunch after the next concert, since it seems sort of late now. Or not.

Today's Title:

Philadelphia

This is the story of my life, so it's hardly a new thing.

I thought in middle school I'd be happy if I could just find a group in the cafeteria that wouldn't get pissed if I sat down with them.

Sometimes, (and when the subject comes up in my mind, all of the time), I think Nick is growing distant from me which is not frightening or surprising, but a little bit sad, because he's my best friend and doesn't know it. We hardly talk, and when we do talk there's not much to talk about. I know I'm not pretty or smart or very interesting or unique because somewhere else there's someone else who has everything I have but packaged in a sparklier way. I wonder what happened to our original group of friends, because it seems I can never spend time with people and be untouched by a distant sort of loneliness. Nick and Alex have newer, ever-expanding circles, Andrew is more social than ever, and even Puffy has his core of.. um.. mates. With me, I still rely on the same people, still talk to the same people. But they don't talk to me. I live in a snow globe and watch everyone else's life go by, and watch everyone drift into new affiliations and relationships overnight or over years (mostly over years), and watch Nick date various dark-haired girls whose names start with A.

Piled into Alex's hippie van with Alex, Nick B, Nick S, and Josh, and went to Josh's house to watch Gallipoli afterschool, not because I'd intended on going, but because I had rushed to hand in my EE to the IB office and missed the bus. Sarah G and Christine came in a seperate car. I've been testing out a theory that when guys are together they seem to like talking about dicks a lot, though this is a bit hard to observe because of a Schroedinger's Cat thing.. guys are simultaneously talking and not talking about dicks until you observe them. But the theory seems to hold water even when I hide on MUDs and people think I'm male. Nick B got markedly cruder once he stepped into Alex's van. We got fairly unperverted as we entered Josh's house, and after we started eating pizza and the brownies Mrs. R had baked us (yay!) we got into a discussion on post-modernism and moral relativity...

The movie was all right. I dunno. Certainly not what I was expecting.... it wasn't really a war movie, but more about a group of people who're in a war, if that makes any sense. The battle scenes didn't start until fairly near the end- Sarah and Christine actually left before the battles started because Sarah had to leave by 4:30 and Sarah was Christine's ride. Alex kept pointing out 'gay' scenes. It didn't help that the movie starts out with two men yelling, "Deeper! Faster!"

Christine and Sarah were confused as to why we were all cracking up. And I personally noticed that there were a lot of gratuitous crotch shots where the camera would just linger on a guy's crotch. And also, lots of bad 80's synthasizer music instead of a sweeping orchestral score you would've expected. And campy pre-war idealism that got on my nerves because I didn't think anybody would be that stupid... as someone said, "Do you know why they're so eager to join the war?" "To get out of Australia!" Me and Alex got to yelling, "COO-EE!" a lot, which is actually a lot of fun once you get over the cheesiness of yelling something like that. Took Alex some time to realize which character was the younger, handsomer, 1981 Mel Gibson.

Came back from Maggie's surprise birthday party, with all the usual people like her, Dong, Stella, Jonathan, Snow and the rest of the bridesmaids from her wedding, and Mr. and Mrs. Tea. It was amusing how Dong tricked her into going into the community center that we'd decorated and everything- he said he had a stomach ache and REALLY had to use a bathroom.

The decor was actually really nice for a community center. It was a nice shade of pink inside, with elegant fan lights over the bay doors, and it had a wooden dance floor where Jonathan's younger brother was being the DJ, and a kitchen over by the side. And there were long tables set up each with a bowl of real white, pink-edged roses, and around the room, a table with the potluck food, and tables with plates of fingerfoods, which Snow emphatically kept her babies from eating. Stella, having had come back to the house earlier to get some photos of Maggie, had put them on display as a collage on a white ribbon-covered board, where everyone got to look at semi-embarrassing pictures of Maggie as an elementary school kid in Hong Kong, and as a teenager with 80's hair, and my dad in the 70's, and Stella with bangs. There was a turtle pinata with a carnation on it, and there were "Happy Birthday" balloons (just normal baloons with happy birthday written on them, not the foil type balloons) floating against the ceiling, and when someone tall would grab one down, the kids would end up playing with them.

There was some really good food, and I had a Margaritaville Tequila, though I don't quite understand whether it's actually a margarita or actually a tequila. It was actually pretty good- I was getting worried that I wouldn't, by the time I'm 21, find an alcoholic beverage I'd actually like. We had Maggie go at the turtle pinata blindfolded with a broom handle, but she'd end up like hitting the ceiling, and Dong goaded her into thwacking a roll of paper towels he held up, then pretended she'd hit him by screaming when she hit the roll. It was pretty hard to aim because the pinata kept swinging around after each hit, so it's not like she could necessarily have hit it even if she swung in the same place each time. She actually did manage to hit the turtle after a bit but she never did break it, though she broke the string that attached it to the ceiling so that it fell the the ground, and ended up stepping on it. In the end she just ended up tearing it open with her hands.

It was a really cute turtle. The bad things about pinatas is that you have to break them.

All the kids there got the candy. It's really weird.. I think of my sister as being relatively young and with it.. early 30s.. but a good deal of her friends had brought toddlers with them to the party. It's a bit freaky seeing that all your sister's friends are parents.

Thre was some obligatory dancing on the dance floor with some really loud techno music that annoyed my mom, she being the oldest one in the room. My dad had left earlier because he was going out to dinner, and Mr. and Mrs. Tea had left because Mr. Tea had had major surgery a few weeks back and didn't like staying out late. There was some older stuff too like Song Sung Blue, From This Moment On, and Truly Mad ("I want to stand with you on a mountain.. I want to bathe with you in the sea.. I want to lay like this forever.. until the sky falls down on me.."). I got involved in the macarena and the YMCA song, and I coerced my mom into dancing to something. Can't remember what. When we left, they were doing The Hokey Pokey.