In Which Angie Bustles With Social Activity

That's why I haven't blogged in a week. I've been Doing Stuff, and this being quite uncharacteristic of me, actually talking to people.

Saturday, went to Ruchita's party. I saw a rainbow outside the car window on the way there; I suppose that boded well. We watched Bend It Like Beckham, again. Though personally while I thought it was funny but not worth watching twice, I was gratified that people who were watching it for the first time found exactly the same things I had thought funny to be funny..... See, I had thought I was the only one who thought Tony's way of coming out of the closet was funny... and Jess talking to the wall.. but all that's in my Beckham blog post from a while back. Great food. Brownies, blondies, dumplings, and pizza. Discovered that Andrew is straight and has been dating Erica Fardig for nine months, and then some. This did not surprise me, though I had just previously assumed that the Andrew-Erica thing had not worked out, or that it was just a platonic friendship that people kept joking about. Puffy made up for Andrew's straightness by licking his fingers seductively and making suggestive comments. Andrew noticed that he'd come a long way from the homeschooled little kid in 9th grade. Me and random people noted that he and Andrew would have made such a cute gay couple. Puffy angsted about not being able to get a girlfriend in college (though actually, he angsted not that girls wouldn't like him, but that he wouldn't be able to find one in the physics department to meet his high standards. ^__^).

He said his "finger held up to the moon" quote too.

When I was leaving, Ruchita's mom commented about not recognizing me... which was most likely because she has never met me. "Where are you from?" she said. "Drama? Chorus?" She was being nice but it rather highlighted to me that I don't know Ruchita at all well, though I do read her blog because I feel obliged to know better someone who I end up going to parties with, and on a less socially ritiualistic note, someone who my friends hang out with. I kind of feel bad freeloading from Ruchita's party, but being that we have mutual friends and she wasn't actually offended by my presence there... feh.

Monday was Silvia's birthday party, though I didn't know it was her birthday party so I didn't bring her any gifts... I ended up cooking, which amused me because I made one plate of eggrolls which were obviously burnt (though not enough that they didn't taste good) in relation to Silvia's nicely browned ones. Malex helped with the dumplings (same as those from Ruchita's party, except pan-fried!) in vast quantities in expectation of Nick B's appetite, but he didn't come, because he was waiting for an Important Call, he said. He got it... he now has a job. Jen showed up, with a monkey for Silvia (toy, not real), and Milla (sans Ed) and Lianna showed up. James was already there, putzing around because he didn't know how to cook. To be honest, I don't know how to cook either, but I, unlike James, am unfazed by scorching droplets of hot oil that pop up and burn your arm. It comes from living in a Chinese family.

We watched Shaolin Soccer, which I brought, and which people found funny, to my relief, since I feel somewhat uncomfortable showing ethnic movies to people not of that background. It's like making white people go to a Kwanzaa party... I worry that it makes me seem pretentious and self-important. (My mom later was like, "You showed them a movie... with subtitles?") But it was good humor in general and didn't rely on ethnic jokes and spoofed the Matrix, so it was good.

We watched the Pianist after Malex and Jen left and after Silvia's parents got home to fix the tv, which she had messed up. I thought it would be a bad party movie, but actually, was quite good. I don't mean to be evil, but it wasn't as much as a downer as I'd expected it to be- it was quite hopeful. And anyways, nothing fictional, even a dramaticization of real events, can be as depressing as reading unadulterated academic history in all its objective inhumanity. I am glad I am thoroughly done with that now. Since people more qualified have more profound things to say about The Pianist than I do, I shall say something totally trivial; I had been wondering why Wehrmacht officer Wilm Hosenfeld had been randomly in a ruined Warsaw apartment in such a serendipitous manner. Turns out, thanks to Google, that he was looking for toothpaste. I guess the Wehrmacht has no toothpaste. So now you know. His family has a website, which mostly has nothing to do with him, and parts of his diary are included in the real Pianist's, Wladislaw Szpilman's, memoirs.

Thursday- Graduation rehearsal and senior picnic. Rehearsal was dumb. I felt like a show horse, and not in a good way. Picnic was nice... the weather cleared up, miraculously. The weather was quite beautiful. I argued with Doug about whether reading and enjoying Mercedes Lackey makes him girly. I had a hard time articulating what Jen agreed was an "ineffable girliness" about the books, so just ended up sputtering vast generalizations. I am a very bad debater in person. The best I could do was that since Mercedes Lackey has the strength of her characters lie in empathy and emotional receptiveness, as opposed to aggression, decisiveness, control, and grace under pressure, her novels appeal more to people of a feminine nature, and therefore Doug is of a feminine nature. Bah. But he didn't agree with me. Because I'm a horrible person, I found that I respected Doug a lot less when I realized just how girly he was; I'm not sure why I'm like that but it's probably not pleasant. Not fitting within his gender role felt to me like something of a moral transgression. But that bit of nastiness aside, we had fun playing Manly Aggressive Tetherball, wherein we tried to kill each other with a projectile object attached to a rope. I went on the swings, and we waded in the creek, which was clear and cold (and not unpleasant once you got used to it), and got muddy, and poked a water snake with a stick. We went on top of a hill from which you could see everything, and I rolled down it. Smokey Glen Farm is the sort of place I like, like Clarksburg. It seems that such places are my center of gravity because I am happier when I am near places like that and unhappier the further I am away from my sunny piedmont. I am off balance when I am far away from grassy hills and sunny trees.

Massive yearbook signing too... I had a hard time finding non-generic things to say until I began actually thinking not of 'what should I say in this book?' but 'how do I feel about this person?' which is when the words began to flow of their own accord. So I wasn't so awkward after all. Malex, I should note here that your fake yearbook is a piece of art.

Because it was so nice out, when I got home I took a long walk not knowing where I was going and saw another watersnake in a glade in Rock Creek Park that glided gracefully through the water away from me with surprising speed, and stalked a deer through the woods for 20 minutes, as it tolerated my presence for so long.