Wherein Angie's Inner High School Girl Tries Pathetically to Compensate For Being a Dork
Jeremy gave me two rules for clubbing: Have fun, and Don't Do Anything You'd Regret Telling Me.
Lori had come over Erickson North at 10 last night to help me pick out clubbing clothes and apply makeup. Being that all my clothes (and duplicate copies of my toiletries) are in Jeremy's room, it was logically the best place to do it. I pressed my mouth to tissue paper. I thought I'd leave it on Jeremy's bed as a souvenier but didn't know if he'd recognize a (admittedly very blurry) lipstick mark if he saw one. Feeling girly, we clonked down three flights of stairs in dressy calf boots and out the door.
---
Went clubbing yesterday at Mint Baltimore with Lori, setting out with an air of vague excitement as we pulled onto the highway in a school bus loud and dark and crowded, lit by the cool blue of cell phone displays and the bobbing embers of lit cigarettes. I don't understand why it was so necessary that lighting up couldn't be done either in the parking lot or at the club, but I digress. The girl sitting in front of us sprayed fireflies of flaming paper over everyone in her proximity, and guys talked in low jock voices ("Dude.. yeah.. huh huh huh") and I missed Jeremy for being articulate. There's something subversive about riding a full school bus at night, something that screams, "Hey mom, I'm not in elementary school anymore!" We were all happy in a very stupid way.
The thing about going to college and having to walk everywhere is that car rides of any sort now make me ridiculously happy, as if I'd spent all my childhood only riding donkeys. We flew into Baltimore proper over those marvelous soaring skyway ramps and I gaped like a little kid at the horizon that seemed to be a massive floating disk of orange lights and illuminated skyline.
Mint Baltimore is not that far from the Inner Harbor. We stood in line for a while, laughing at the people who weren't wearing jackets. I think it's stupid; girls may feel they look ugly in jackets but they look like morons anyway, shivering like plucked chickens with their hands stuck in their armpits. Be that as it may, they got to laugh at us in return because in the club, for some demented reason, the coat check "wasn't open" so we had to lug our jackets around for a while before giving up and setting them down on a chair. We bumped into Kristin T who was very happy to see us. Lori commented (discreetly) that she was slightly drunk; I never noticed and will stick to the term "sociable."
Griping aside. The Mint used to be a bank (hence the name), so inside Corinthian columns lit up in orange and purple extend to a high paneled ceiling, and above us, a balcony of ironwork tracery that overlooks the dance floor. I got the impression of those places I dream about that make no sense in a jumble of the classical and modern, like a hyperactive masquerade (with really skanky people). I went onto the dance floor and looked up and a flurry of soapy snow caught in the smoky beams of spotlights came down and settled on everyone's hair and shoulders, and strobe lights cast everyone in a state of stop-motion animation. Girls orbiting the dance floor managed to dance and serve shooters from a tray balanced on one hand, which, I admit, takes talent.
It was Ladies' Night. It is no fun unless there are boys to do erotic things with, and I regreted not taking Jeremy because he would've liked it, introvert or no. He needs to unwind. In any case, all the other guys were lame. Lori got groped and ground (past tense of grind) by a stoner (I think so; his eyes were out of focus), and got beer spilled on her. We got bored/tired/headaches and decided there were better ways of meeting single boys. We left, were accosted by panhandlers, and hailed a cab at the harbor.
It was an experience nonetheless, and fun if you suspend your cynicism. We promise to return to Baltimore again sometime for something social and girly, but probably to the Gallery on Calvert street for some high class shopping.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
A good day, I think. Worth noting because of anything extraordinary but because there are so few of those around. I am happy at times of course, but it hardly lasts. Sleep and the muzziness of mornings are an escape where there is warmth and softness and peace.
Learned binds in fencing. Still suck at it, of course. Both binds and fencing. I wonder when I'll ever be good, and if it'll feel different.
Had honeydew bubble tea this morning. Going clubbing with Lori on Thursday. Possibly going to Costco with Kay and Jeremy, which is cool because that means going off campus, and good sushi. Possibly visiting Janis over the weekend, possibly going to the Walter Reed Art Museum for a lecture on Athenian friezes. I have too much to do ex potentia, but in a good way. ^__^
Learned binds in fencing. Still suck at it, of course. Both binds and fencing. I wonder when I'll ever be good, and if it'll feel different.
Had honeydew bubble tea this morning. Going clubbing with Lori on Thursday. Possibly going to Costco with Kay and Jeremy, which is cool because that means going off campus, and good sushi. Possibly visiting Janis over the weekend, possibly going to the Walter Reed Art Museum for a lecture on Athenian friezes. I have too much to do ex potentia, but in a good way. ^__^
Monday, October 20, 2003
Outside the Loop
On Friday morning, I was on my way to class, cutting across Erickson field when I noticed two people standing there staring at the sky. Of course I did the same after asking what they were looking at, and it was a black balloon disappearing into the low white clouds. We watched it become proportionally smaller as the wind took it, until the ribbon dangling from it was no longer visible, and then it was only a pinprick as if someone had poked a hole in the sky, and then if you looked away you had a hard time finding it. A friend of the onlookers came to see what they were doing. I turned to greet him and when I turned back the balloon was gone, though I continued staring into the sky all the same and pointing, like the rest of them. I wonder if we made anyone curious.
Perhaps it is not a conventional accomplishment, but one of those things in life worth noting.
I, Angela C, have seen a balloon disappear.
Friday afternoon after biology was spent looking for cool and shiny rocks.
On Friday night, me and Jeremy ate dinner with and played Apples to Apples with Tanya (one of Jose's numerous female acquaintances) and Sam, an eccentric cloaked figure I'd seen around campus and had accosted, since I figured that anyone who wears a velvet cloak to school is interesting enough to introduce myself to.
Saturday was boring because everyone in Jeremy's suite was gone, as was basically everyone in fencing since they'd all gone away to College Park or something for a tournament. I spent the day contriving to find Friends With Cars, which involved me dragging Jeremy along and forcing him to socialize with various people in my dorm. In short, no one had a car available. I talked to Lori, who was in Rockville, for like an hour on the phone about issues that Jeremy found to be totally mystifying (such as the impossibility, among the female gender as a whole, to go into a store and buy pants that fit, boys and their strange minds, tendencies to gain fifty pounds after eating like a carrot, and the seductive evilness that is Late Night* at UMBC; so on so forth). Great conversation; no car. We vowed to be girlfriends and go clubbing sometime.
*Late Night is the after hours meal thing at the dining hall, with pizza, subs, chips, soft pretzels, soda, etc.
Me and Jeremy went to dinner, with Will and Melissa, and found out that we'd missed the shuttle bus to Baltimore, which set me in a very cranky mood. Andrew, the Terry Goodkind fan who lives downstairs, had a term paper to do, and so couldn't do anything that night.
I needed to go off campus or I would go crazy. I wanted to find Sam, but Jeremy was looking wilted from having met so many people. We (me and Jeremy) got a map to Patapsco State Park, and we started walking.
Yes, state parks close at sunset, but the point is to have a place to go, not to actually get there.
We left the enclosing loop of asphalt around UMBC and begin walking along places not overlit, where you could actually see stars once in a while, and I recognized Cassiopeia as I had that clear night at Rocky Gap. The roads had no sidewalks and we walked along the shoulder by the woods silhouetted by purple sky. In the distance we could see the blinking radio tower that marked our secret hill on campus (which has a dewy grassy dip behind it where no one ever goes except for us). Strings of cars would come over the curves of the road and occasionally blinded us with their halogens. We walked through the outskirts of Catonsville through the brisk cold and the smell of woodsmoke and dinner, through the leafy streets with porched houses, that looked like Takoma Park and in that way seemed not very far away from home.
It was good to be moving, beyond that binding circle around campus, and though we never did find the entrance to the park (maybe our directions were wrong or we missed the entrance in the dark) it is the thought that counts.
When we came back on campus Jeremy went inside the Fine Arts building for some reason. I thought he wanted to take a shortcut out of the cold or something since he didn't have a jacket. (I wasn't quite sure how the Fine Arts building could be a short cut to anywhere, but Jeremy had, on one occasion, to escape the driving rain after fencing, shown me some convoluted secret basement passageway leading from the social sciences building through the math building through the biology building to just outside of Erickson dorm. So I pretty much took his word for it.) At the door to Fine Arts, I was distracted by a large gaggle of laughing people getting out of a car in the parking lot, because I wondered what could possibly be so interesting at this time of night at UMBC of all places. They were well dressed. "That's nice," I said, and went into the FA building lobby, where Jeremy wasn't.
"Hello," I called up the stairwell. No response. I thought maybe he was outside looking for me.
I went back outside again and stood next to the FA building on the stairs that go down from the parking lot to the main street where all the academic buildings are. I waited for a while.
There was a group of people descending the grand stairway from the parking lot, girls with dark smooth hair combed back. They shivered in airy saris that swished behind them every time they dropped down a step and mirrored pieces glittered from the obiquitous lamps lining the stairway, and they clung to tall and groomed boys on their arms, and asked me, a ressie girl in jeans and a boy's jacket with nothing better to do on a Saturday night than wander around on a dead campus and had lost her boyfriend, the direction to the UC Ballroom.
"Go down these stairs and take a left," I said.
They thanked me, and continued downward.
"Uh, I mean right," I said.
They were gone, and the campus fell dead again.
I stood on the steps some more. More shiny people came down. "Go down these stairs and take a right," I said. They thanked me, and went. I followed them down the stairs to the UC Ballroom, where they were waiting in line to buy tickets to something. At the side of the ballroom I could hear music coming through the emergency exits. I went down the stairs some more, to the main street. Shiny people were coming up it.
"Up the stairs and to your left," I said, before they asked. They asked me how I knew. I told them to follow the crowd of shiny people.
Jeremy was neither up nor down the stairs and I stood on them for a while like Cinderella.
I went back to Erickson to see if he was there. He wasn't. I watched some crap tv in the lounge for a while. Some shiny people came down the elevator, and went outside, and left for the ballroom. I followed them partially, then went up the stairs again to the FA building, which Jeremy was standing outside of. He said he'd gone to the bathroom, and I felt like a moron for having left.
I asked him if he wanted to go to the ball. He said no, loud music and people weren't his thing. I shouldn't blame Jeremy for having no money and no car and no inclination for social gatherings but sometimes I do a little and I'm wrong. In any case we didn't go, and I sat around in my dorm room with him, watching video clips of people fighting with longswords and looking at John Howe's bright and misty oil paintings that take my mind places beyond the binding circle.
On Friday morning, I was on my way to class, cutting across Erickson field when I noticed two people standing there staring at the sky. Of course I did the same after asking what they were looking at, and it was a black balloon disappearing into the low white clouds. We watched it become proportionally smaller as the wind took it, until the ribbon dangling from it was no longer visible, and then it was only a pinprick as if someone had poked a hole in the sky, and then if you looked away you had a hard time finding it. A friend of the onlookers came to see what they were doing. I turned to greet him and when I turned back the balloon was gone, though I continued staring into the sky all the same and pointing, like the rest of them. I wonder if we made anyone curious.
Perhaps it is not a conventional accomplishment, but one of those things in life worth noting.
I, Angela C, have seen a balloon disappear.
Friday afternoon after biology was spent looking for cool and shiny rocks.
On Friday night, me and Jeremy ate dinner with and played Apples to Apples with Tanya (one of Jose's numerous female acquaintances) and Sam, an eccentric cloaked figure I'd seen around campus and had accosted, since I figured that anyone who wears a velvet cloak to school is interesting enough to introduce myself to.
Saturday was boring because everyone in Jeremy's suite was gone, as was basically everyone in fencing since they'd all gone away to College Park or something for a tournament. I spent the day contriving to find Friends With Cars, which involved me dragging Jeremy along and forcing him to socialize with various people in my dorm. In short, no one had a car available. I talked to Lori, who was in Rockville, for like an hour on the phone about issues that Jeremy found to be totally mystifying (such as the impossibility, among the female gender as a whole, to go into a store and buy pants that fit, boys and their strange minds, tendencies to gain fifty pounds after eating like a carrot, and the seductive evilness that is Late Night* at UMBC; so on so forth). Great conversation; no car. We vowed to be girlfriends and go clubbing sometime.
*Late Night is the after hours meal thing at the dining hall, with pizza, subs, chips, soft pretzels, soda, etc.
Me and Jeremy went to dinner, with Will and Melissa, and found out that we'd missed the shuttle bus to Baltimore, which set me in a very cranky mood. Andrew, the Terry Goodkind fan who lives downstairs, had a term paper to do, and so couldn't do anything that night.
I needed to go off campus or I would go crazy. I wanted to find Sam, but Jeremy was looking wilted from having met so many people. We (me and Jeremy) got a map to Patapsco State Park, and we started walking.
Yes, state parks close at sunset, but the point is to have a place to go, not to actually get there.
We left the enclosing loop of asphalt around UMBC and begin walking along places not overlit, where you could actually see stars once in a while, and I recognized Cassiopeia as I had that clear night at Rocky Gap. The roads had no sidewalks and we walked along the shoulder by the woods silhouetted by purple sky. In the distance we could see the blinking radio tower that marked our secret hill on campus (which has a dewy grassy dip behind it where no one ever goes except for us). Strings of cars would come over the curves of the road and occasionally blinded us with their halogens. We walked through the outskirts of Catonsville through the brisk cold and the smell of woodsmoke and dinner, through the leafy streets with porched houses, that looked like Takoma Park and in that way seemed not very far away from home.
It was good to be moving, beyond that binding circle around campus, and though we never did find the entrance to the park (maybe our directions were wrong or we missed the entrance in the dark) it is the thought that counts.
When we came back on campus Jeremy went inside the Fine Arts building for some reason. I thought he wanted to take a shortcut out of the cold or something since he didn't have a jacket. (I wasn't quite sure how the Fine Arts building could be a short cut to anywhere, but Jeremy had, on one occasion, to escape the driving rain after fencing, shown me some convoluted secret basement passageway leading from the social sciences building through the math building through the biology building to just outside of Erickson dorm. So I pretty much took his word for it.) At the door to Fine Arts, I was distracted by a large gaggle of laughing people getting out of a car in the parking lot, because I wondered what could possibly be so interesting at this time of night at UMBC of all places. They were well dressed. "That's nice," I said, and went into the FA building lobby, where Jeremy wasn't.
"Hello," I called up the stairwell. No response. I thought maybe he was outside looking for me.
I went back outside again and stood next to the FA building on the stairs that go down from the parking lot to the main street where all the academic buildings are. I waited for a while.
There was a group of people descending the grand stairway from the parking lot, girls with dark smooth hair combed back. They shivered in airy saris that swished behind them every time they dropped down a step and mirrored pieces glittered from the obiquitous lamps lining the stairway, and they clung to tall and groomed boys on their arms, and asked me, a ressie girl in jeans and a boy's jacket with nothing better to do on a Saturday night than wander around on a dead campus and had lost her boyfriend, the direction to the UC Ballroom.
"Go down these stairs and take a left," I said.
They thanked me, and continued downward.
"Uh, I mean right," I said.
They were gone, and the campus fell dead again.
I stood on the steps some more. More shiny people came down. "Go down these stairs and take a right," I said. They thanked me, and went. I followed them down the stairs to the UC Ballroom, where they were waiting in line to buy tickets to something. At the side of the ballroom I could hear music coming through the emergency exits. I went down the stairs some more, to the main street. Shiny people were coming up it.
"Up the stairs and to your left," I said, before they asked. They asked me how I knew. I told them to follow the crowd of shiny people.
Jeremy was neither up nor down the stairs and I stood on them for a while like Cinderella.
I went back to Erickson to see if he was there. He wasn't. I watched some crap tv in the lounge for a while. Some shiny people came down the elevator, and went outside, and left for the ballroom. I followed them partially, then went up the stairs again to the FA building, which Jeremy was standing outside of. He said he'd gone to the bathroom, and I felt like a moron for having left.
I asked him if he wanted to go to the ball. He said no, loud music and people weren't his thing. I shouldn't blame Jeremy for having no money and no car and no inclination for social gatherings but sometimes I do a little and I'm wrong. In any case we didn't go, and I sat around in my dorm room with him, watching video clips of people fighting with longswords and looking at John Howe's bright and misty oil paintings that take my mind places beyond the binding circle.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
I played All Flesh Must Be Eaten, a zombie role playing game. Quality RPing all around with Niall GMing, Jeremy as Mr. Brown, a normal Joe who works at a recording studio and is easily freaked out, and Kay as an easy-going and witty cop. Jose was playing too, but had three hours of sleep the night before and was fairly out of it.
Quotes:
"You just killed your friend! How do you feel about that?" -Kay's character, after grabbing a clone's gun arm and shooting another clone with the gun.
"I boing him!" Kay, describing his character's action. The proper word here should be "pistolwhip."
"Do you have genitalia?" -Kay's character to Niall's NPC who said, on two seperate occasions, that 1) the clones created in a lab have no genitalia and 2) that he was created in a lab.
"Look, all I know about aliens are the ones that come across the border... oh, and Bette Midler." -Niall's NPC, about aliens.
"Do... you... speak.... English....? Parlez vous English??? *nasal voice* Huh huh huh!" -Jose's character, attempting, badly, to communicate with a French NPC.
"He opens a box of Altoids, eats one, and is dead immediately." "Altoids... the curiously strong mint!" "Mentos, the Deathmaker!" -Niall, describing an NPC who poisons himself with a cyanide tablet.
"I shoot until I run out of bullets and then continue pulling the trigger" "You're like, 'AH! AHHHH!!!!' BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM CLICK CLICK CLICK!' " Jeremy describing the action of his panicking character, emptying clips into a zombie who won't stay dead, and Niall the GM, embellishing.
----
Also of quality; Jeremy demonstrating combat actions on me.
"I knee him in his back and push him up and away from me, while still holding onto his arm."
"What?"
"Like this!"
"Oh..."
Quotes:
"You just killed your friend! How do you feel about that?" -Kay's character, after grabbing a clone's gun arm and shooting another clone with the gun.
"I boing him!" Kay, describing his character's action. The proper word here should be "pistolwhip."
"Do you have genitalia?" -Kay's character to Niall's NPC who said, on two seperate occasions, that 1) the clones created in a lab have no genitalia and 2) that he was created in a lab.
"Look, all I know about aliens are the ones that come across the border... oh, and Bette Midler." -Niall's NPC, about aliens.
"Do... you... speak.... English....? Parlez vous English??? *nasal voice* Huh huh huh!" -Jose's character, attempting, badly, to communicate with a French NPC.
"He opens a box of Altoids, eats one, and is dead immediately." "Altoids... the curiously strong mint!" "Mentos, the Deathmaker!" -Niall, describing an NPC who poisons himself with a cyanide tablet.
"I shoot until I run out of bullets and then continue pulling the trigger" "You're like, 'AH! AHHHH!!!!' BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM CLICK CLICK CLICK!' " Jeremy describing the action of his panicking character, emptying clips into a zombie who won't stay dead, and Niall the GM, embellishing.
----
Also of quality; Jeremy demonstrating combat actions on me.
"I knee him in his back and push him up and away from me, while still holding onto his arm."
"What?"
"Like this!"
"Oh..."
Monday, October 13, 2003
Me and Jeremy had an argument, about To the Lighthouse. He doesn't like it.
That's the extent of our arguments, up to this point. It's not like we're assessing the status of our relationship, but it isn't very profound. We hang out and touch each other, and Jose gives our kisses a 6 out of 10 when we let him judge. "More romance!" he says.
Jose also said that Jeremy has an oblong head, at which point Jeremy quite playfully threatened him with a knife. Which proves that one should not listen to anything Jose says.
That's the extent of our arguments, up to this point. It's not like we're assessing the status of our relationship, but it isn't very profound. We hang out and touch each other, and Jose gives our kisses a 6 out of 10 when we let him judge. "More romance!" he says.
Jose also said that Jeremy has an oblong head, at which point Jeremy quite playfully threatened him with a knife. Which proves that one should not listen to anything Jose says.
Go Back to Rockville
I went home for the weekend, and everything looked strange, as if I'd been gone a year and had grown taller or something, and of course it smells different. At first I didn't know how to talk to my parents either, but it got easier. On the drive home we drove down Emory in the depths of autumn and I was reminded of in 9th grade when I'd first walked by myself to Malex's house for D&D, and the weather had turned slightly cold, and I thought about visiting him, and wondered how he would've felt, in his 90 degree California weather, looking back on his old familiar road, but of course he wasn't there and won't be there until December. The leaves in Rockville have changed colors, while the ones up here seem mostly green still, and while I was home I took a walk through the golden afternoon, and was reminded of how beautiful the place was that I left.
We went out to dinner at Fortune Star because I don't miss home cooking at all (and feel only slightly guilty about it) and I haven't had good sushi in forever. There, my mom was talking about how a family friend's daughter at Penn State had no boyfriend, and asked my dad if he knew of any acquaintances with nice Chinese sons who could be introduced to her, or, since they were on the subject, any nice Chinese sons who could be introduced to me. I coughed and said it really wasn't necessary. My dad said, "She's so smart and pretty I'm sure she'll do just fine by herself." ^___^ I feel the same way about nice Chinese boys that Malex feels about boys in general. It would be nice to have one, but being that Asians are 3% of the US population (as, coincidentally, are gay men), me and Malex face about the same odds. I used to not understand why Malex said he'd probably end up dating girls and not guys, but when I think of it in the same way I think of Asian guys, I think we understand one another. So I opened myself up to the other 97%, and I couldn't be happier. It's not like Jeremy (who is white like Wonder Bread) is a last resort; he makes me happier than 99.9% of all other guys; black, white, or purple.
At the end of dinner, a woman who was sitting a table away from us fell unconscious, a crowd of people gathered around her, a man held her head up, cradling her neck with his hand and in a professional manner asked her husband about her medical condition, someone yelled, "Call 911!", everyone in the restaurant craned their necks to see what was going on, and someone did on a cell: "...Someone's on the floor, send an ambulance to Fortune Star Restaurant on Nicholson Lane..." The person on the phone was given reassurance that an ambulance was coming shortly, and all the spectators went back to eating and casual conversation with each other. I thought it was a strange change of tone; someone's (possibly) having a heart attack like ten feet away from you, and in the meantime, how about that weather? We were done eating anyways and just left, but I'm not sure if I wouldn't have acted like everyone else were I not done; after all, you'd paid for food, there's nothing you can do, and panicking or continued staring does nothing except hamper people who are actually there to help. My dad said that the more people were clustered around anyways, the worse it would be. Still, I thought it something of an exercise in human apathy.
My dad said there was a doctor and nurse there, and that he'd heard them give their registration numbers to 911 over the phone before applying care. When I got back to school, I asked Kay (who has EMS training and is going to med school) about this, and he said that it was true, and that any doctor who treated someone on the scene of an accident was obligated by law to tend to the victim until he or she was fully recovered, and it'd happened to his dad more than once, coming across accidents on highways or medical emergencies in airports. ("My vacation was ruined.")
Kay is great, by the way. He's one of Jeremy's suitemates, and serves as a big brother of sorts to me, in real life (comforting me on me missing my econ exam) as well as in D&D where he's the other halfling, and ends up saving me more often than not after I fail my reflex save or fall unconscious. He's a big Italian dude also, so it ended up that while we were eating dinner with him at the dining hall on Friday, half of the time, as always, he talked about how how he'd cook back home in Italy ("Nothing's a real meal without tomatoes"), and the other half of the time he told gruesome EMS stories.. ("The first time I dissected a corpse I was on a field trip, and I made bets on which of the other guys would puke and faint first, and I made like $20...*imitates vomiting sounds* 'There goes Bob!' " ... "So we dumped a packet of red Kool-Aid into the machine that pumps embalming fluid into the bodies, and I reached my hand into a kidney and squeezed it and the Kool-Aid went qqqqqssshhh! And I yelled, 'Look, it's bleeding!!!!' ") It makes for interesting contrast. He's a genius too, and is having a paper about the 100 or so mutations of e. coli (or something) in the Netherlands since 1990 published in a medical journal. You guessed it... Blair Magnet alum ^___^. He denies his genius though, claiming that anyone who can put on a pair of clean underwear is as smart as he is, but don't you believe it. Once he gets out of med school for neurosurgery (at like age 30 though), his starting salary will be something around $500,000.... Me and Jeremy were good-naturedly sickened. Hey, you know how much of a starting salary an Ancient Studies major will command? ... I think like $35,000 for a teaching job..
Anyway, the point of that long and rambling paragraph is that I suppose more people go kaput in public than I'd formerly thought.
I got a haircut, and now my head looks round like a lolipop. Also, I saw the cover of TV Guide.. apparently there's some tv movie about the Snipers. It's that time of year when they're going to exploit the hell out of it. We'll see how this goes. I want to see how they portray Rockville, seeing as that this was filmed in British Columbia.
I went home for the weekend, and everything looked strange, as if I'd been gone a year and had grown taller or something, and of course it smells different. At first I didn't know how to talk to my parents either, but it got easier. On the drive home we drove down Emory in the depths of autumn and I was reminded of in 9th grade when I'd first walked by myself to Malex's house for D&D, and the weather had turned slightly cold, and I thought about visiting him, and wondered how he would've felt, in his 90 degree California weather, looking back on his old familiar road, but of course he wasn't there and won't be there until December. The leaves in Rockville have changed colors, while the ones up here seem mostly green still, and while I was home I took a walk through the golden afternoon, and was reminded of how beautiful the place was that I left.
We went out to dinner at Fortune Star because I don't miss home cooking at all (and feel only slightly guilty about it) and I haven't had good sushi in forever. There, my mom was talking about how a family friend's daughter at Penn State had no boyfriend, and asked my dad if he knew of any acquaintances with nice Chinese sons who could be introduced to her, or, since they were on the subject, any nice Chinese sons who could be introduced to me. I coughed and said it really wasn't necessary. My dad said, "She's so smart and pretty I'm sure she'll do just fine by herself." ^___^ I feel the same way about nice Chinese boys that Malex feels about boys in general. It would be nice to have one, but being that Asians are 3% of the US population (as, coincidentally, are gay men), me and Malex face about the same odds. I used to not understand why Malex said he'd probably end up dating girls and not guys, but when I think of it in the same way I think of Asian guys, I think we understand one another. So I opened myself up to the other 97%, and I couldn't be happier. It's not like Jeremy (who is white like Wonder Bread) is a last resort; he makes me happier than 99.9% of all other guys; black, white, or purple.
At the end of dinner, a woman who was sitting a table away from us fell unconscious, a crowd of people gathered around her, a man held her head up, cradling her neck with his hand and in a professional manner asked her husband about her medical condition, someone yelled, "Call 911!", everyone in the restaurant craned their necks to see what was going on, and someone did on a cell: "...Someone's on the floor, send an ambulance to Fortune Star Restaurant on Nicholson Lane..." The person on the phone was given reassurance that an ambulance was coming shortly, and all the spectators went back to eating and casual conversation with each other. I thought it was a strange change of tone; someone's (possibly) having a heart attack like ten feet away from you, and in the meantime, how about that weather? We were done eating anyways and just left, but I'm not sure if I wouldn't have acted like everyone else were I not done; after all, you'd paid for food, there's nothing you can do, and panicking or continued staring does nothing except hamper people who are actually there to help. My dad said that the more people were clustered around anyways, the worse it would be. Still, I thought it something of an exercise in human apathy.
My dad said there was a doctor and nurse there, and that he'd heard them give their registration numbers to 911 over the phone before applying care. When I got back to school, I asked Kay (who has EMS training and is going to med school) about this, and he said that it was true, and that any doctor who treated someone on the scene of an accident was obligated by law to tend to the victim until he or she was fully recovered, and it'd happened to his dad more than once, coming across accidents on highways or medical emergencies in airports. ("My vacation was ruined.")
Kay is great, by the way. He's one of Jeremy's suitemates, and serves as a big brother of sorts to me, in real life (comforting me on me missing my econ exam) as well as in D&D where he's the other halfling, and ends up saving me more often than not after I fail my reflex save or fall unconscious. He's a big Italian dude also, so it ended up that while we were eating dinner with him at the dining hall on Friday, half of the time, as always, he talked about how how he'd cook back home in Italy ("Nothing's a real meal without tomatoes"), and the other half of the time he told gruesome EMS stories.. ("The first time I dissected a corpse I was on a field trip, and I made bets on which of the other guys would puke and faint first, and I made like $20...*imitates vomiting sounds* 'There goes Bob!' " ... "So we dumped a packet of red Kool-Aid into the machine that pumps embalming fluid into the bodies, and I reached my hand into a kidney and squeezed it and the Kool-Aid went qqqqqssshhh! And I yelled, 'Look, it's bleeding!!!!' ") It makes for interesting contrast. He's a genius too, and is having a paper about the 100 or so mutations of e. coli (or something) in the Netherlands since 1990 published in a medical journal. You guessed it... Blair Magnet alum ^___^. He denies his genius though, claiming that anyone who can put on a pair of clean underwear is as smart as he is, but don't you believe it. Once he gets out of med school for neurosurgery (at like age 30 though), his starting salary will be something around $500,000.... Me and Jeremy were good-naturedly sickened. Hey, you know how much of a starting salary an Ancient Studies major will command? ... I think like $35,000 for a teaching job..
Anyway, the point of that long and rambling paragraph is that I suppose more people go kaput in public than I'd formerly thought.
I got a haircut, and now my head looks round like a lolipop. Also, I saw the cover of TV Guide.. apparently there's some tv movie about the Snipers. It's that time of year when they're going to exploit the hell out of it. We'll see how this goes. I want to see how they portray Rockville, seeing as that this was filmed in British Columbia.
Friday, October 10, 2003
Come Again
I asked Jeremy once why he was so good to me, because he has asked the same question of me. I have not been able to answer that question to my satisfaction, so I really should not demand the same of him, especially when it gets so close to that infamous, tricky, "Why do you love me?" patch of thorns that girls present to their men so often. I could not resist the temptation once and asked anyway.
He said, "Because you're you," which I think is a logically unsound statement. Of course I am myself.... A is A, and therefore cannot be Not A. If his answer were "Because you're me," then I would be concerned.
I asked Jeremy once why he was so good to me, because he has asked the same question of me. I have not been able to answer that question to my satisfaction, so I really should not demand the same of him, especially when it gets so close to that infamous, tricky, "Why do you love me?" patch of thorns that girls present to their men so often. I could not resist the temptation once and asked anyway.
He said, "Because you're you," which I think is a logically unsound statement. Of course I am myself.... A is A, and therefore cannot be Not A. If his answer were "Because you're me," then I would be concerned.
The Men in the White Coats Have Come to Take Me Away
Epee is beautiful.
Jeremy is beautiful when he fences epee.
Good fencers, when they fence, have conversations with each other through their actions. Jeremy is quiet. He is low on bravado and spare in his movements. When he moves he does it with a great degree of precision, which in its own way can be described as beauty.
Epee is beautiful.
Jeremy is beautiful when he fences epee.
Good fencers, when they fence, have conversations with each other through their actions. Jeremy is quiet. He is low on bravado and spare in his movements. When he moves he does it with a great degree of precision, which in its own way can be described as beauty.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Monday, October 06, 2003
Went to Rennfest yesterday, and had shitloads of fun though I was less impressed this year. I think last year, when I went for the first time, I had this "Ooh, look at all these people putting so much time into so much stuff" feeling that wore off this year, but it was still pretty cool. Basically spent the time watching really campy stage fighting (fencing has really ruined that kind of stuff for me though since I get to see real bouts twice a week) and dragging Jeremy around, trying on ridiculous clothing.
He got four hours of watching me struggle to breathe and having my ribs crushed by metal girders in different corsets/bodices (fun) and I got to drag a jerkin over his head and also doll him up in various big floppy (pink, feathered) cavalier hats. Plus, he got to play with swords and bought a pair of psi's.
Some strange episode to tell about: for some reason, we both knelt when they announced, "God save the Queen!" as "Anne Boleyn" passed, after watching the entire entourage as one get on their knees. I wasn't in garb and I wasn't being paid so I don't see why I, for no reason at all, got on my knees for someone who is, if you think about it, most likely a middle-aged English teacher living with her husband, two kids and a dog in suburban Maryland. Afterwards I was a bit bewildered and asked Jeremy, "Why did we just bow?" and he said, "Because she's the queen" and I said, "The queen of the Renaissance Festival!!" and felt a bit stupid. Jeremy said that is what you're supposed to do, but I felt a bit weird about bowing to a theme park princess. I suppose people will go to any lengths to find leader figures to bow to just because they appeal to something romantic and reassuring. People want to be led, and though roleplaying is just for entertainment of course and requires some degree of suspension of disbelief, it did make me wonder about how easily my knees were willing to give.
He got four hours of watching me struggle to breathe and having my ribs crushed by metal girders in different corsets/bodices (fun) and I got to drag a jerkin over his head and also doll him up in various big floppy (pink, feathered) cavalier hats. Plus, he got to play with swords and bought a pair of psi's.
Some strange episode to tell about: for some reason, we both knelt when they announced, "God save the Queen!" as "Anne Boleyn" passed, after watching the entire entourage as one get on their knees. I wasn't in garb and I wasn't being paid so I don't see why I, for no reason at all, got on my knees for someone who is, if you think about it, most likely a middle-aged English teacher living with her husband, two kids and a dog in suburban Maryland. Afterwards I was a bit bewildered and asked Jeremy, "Why did we just bow?" and he said, "Because she's the queen" and I said, "The queen of the Renaissance Festival!!" and felt a bit stupid. Jeremy said that is what you're supposed to do, but I felt a bit weird about bowing to a theme park princess. I suppose people will go to any lengths to find leader figures to bow to just because they appeal to something romantic and reassuring. People want to be led, and though roleplaying is just for entertainment of course and requires some degree of suspension of disbelief, it did make me wonder about how easily my knees were willing to give.
Friday, October 03, 2003
You know...
when your mom says, "You and I grew up in different worlds; you have to realize that you can't just stop doing things because you don't like them. No matter what you do you have to work hard. You don't realize how lucky you are! You're young and have to take your future into account. What kind of job are you going to get? You'll see how the world really is when you're struggling to pay the bills and the taxes and can't find a job, and then you'll see how much you "enjoy" your field! But fine, do whatever you like. We'll support you no matter what you do" is not very supportive.
You know, mom, why I never call you? Because I already know what you're going to say to me ahead of time! You say you want me to call so I can tell you about my life but if you want me to talk to you so much how come you never listen?
-_-
Anyway.
Plans for the future.. getting feedback in young fantasy writer's workshop, going to edit, revise, put in standard manuscript form, and send my short story to various fantasy magazines, wait for 8-12 weeks, and no doubt get rejected. Teehee... me vs. "Realms of Fantasy" (competitive as hell!) Five cents per word, baby! It will be comical how I get thrown out on my butt. ("You expect us to pay $200 for this shit???") Still, should be good experience. I think I'm good enough to get into small press and webzines though, and other things that pay like 1 cent a word, or less, or a flat rate. That's what.. $40... and recognition, and things to put on my cover sheet next time I submit.
More plans for the future; Hey, dudes. I live what... a Metro ride away from the Smithsonian? That's like.. the best collection of prestigious museums in this country. I'm sure at least one of them can have a use for unskilled/semi-skilled labor this summer. I figure that "two years American archaeology with Maryland Park Service" could look pretty okay on a resume (though this is just BS for "RM Archaeology club") as well as whatever courses, including "Introduction to Greek Archaeology" that I'll have taken this year. I could realistically get a job filing and cataloguing some old shit, or moving it, or setting stuff up, or taking it down. I figure that if I get some job experience during college it'll help me with the infamously difficult search for jobs by Ancient Studies majors..
when your mom says, "You and I grew up in different worlds; you have to realize that you can't just stop doing things because you don't like them. No matter what you do you have to work hard. You don't realize how lucky you are! You're young and have to take your future into account. What kind of job are you going to get? You'll see how the world really is when you're struggling to pay the bills and the taxes and can't find a job, and then you'll see how much you "enjoy" your field! But fine, do whatever you like. We'll support you no matter what you do" is not very supportive.
You know, mom, why I never call you? Because I already know what you're going to say to me ahead of time! You say you want me to call so I can tell you about my life but if you want me to talk to you so much how come you never listen?
-_-
Anyway.
Plans for the future.. getting feedback in young fantasy writer's workshop, going to edit, revise, put in standard manuscript form, and send my short story to various fantasy magazines, wait for 8-12 weeks, and no doubt get rejected. Teehee... me vs. "Realms of Fantasy" (competitive as hell!) Five cents per word, baby! It will be comical how I get thrown out on my butt. ("You expect us to pay $200 for this shit???") Still, should be good experience. I think I'm good enough to get into small press and webzines though, and other things that pay like 1 cent a word, or less, or a flat rate. That's what.. $40... and recognition, and things to put on my cover sheet next time I submit.
More plans for the future; Hey, dudes. I live what... a Metro ride away from the Smithsonian? That's like.. the best collection of prestigious museums in this country. I'm sure at least one of them can have a use for unskilled/semi-skilled labor this summer. I figure that "two years American archaeology with Maryland Park Service" could look pretty okay on a resume (though this is just BS for "RM Archaeology club") as well as whatever courses, including "Introduction to Greek Archaeology" that I'll have taken this year. I could realistically get a job filing and cataloguing some old shit, or moving it, or setting stuff up, or taking it down. I figure that if I get some job experience during college it'll help me with the infamously difficult search for jobs by Ancient Studies majors..
Thursday, October 02, 2003
Grandiose acts of stupidity
You know that I never go to econ. Why? Because I took it last year, and this year all we do is listen to the professor lecture from the powerpoint slides, which are online anyways. Since I took econ already, it's not like I need an hour and fifteen minutes of him explaining the slides, especially after math on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He never gives regular homework, the syllabus doesn't even say what we're doing each day... so I never went, especially with other things going on.
You can see where this is leading.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I missed my exam.
Bravo.
I get to make it up, thankfully, but I'm really pissed off at myself.
I need a 3.25 GPA to keep my scholarship. What is that? Two A's and three B's, with all five classes? I, thankfully, can do this thing called "audit" in which I have one class count for credit but not count for GPA or graduation requirements, and that'll work well for econ if I should need it, considering that I've already placed out of it with my AP exams anyway. Kay says, in a supportive manner, that audit just means, "I'm here at this class to listen, but don't want it to count against me." But still, other classes won't be as forgiving. Look a biology which is easy but where I lose points over stupid things (anti A serum means it has no A blood cells,... absence of midigital hair is recessive.. shit.. fuckers.. ) and accounting where my accounts never seem to balance and linear algebra for which the homework is graded on correctness not completeness so that so far my grade (with two homework assignments each worth 30 points) is a very non-A, non-B, 70% (and what will I do on tests where I'm timed and can't use the book hm?) and unlike calculus I have no idea in hell what any of this is used for. The only thing I'm doing well in is Archaeology which I'm acing with nearly 100% I believe. It's a scholarship for everything, and I suddenly realized how desperately I don't want to lose it. My family is knee deep in debt; I'm not sure I could afford to go here without it and even if I could they'd never forgive me.
I don't want to go.
This is my home I don't want to be evicted I don't want to leave and even if I go back to Rockville (don't go back) what would be left for me there except for a family whose disappointment in me would be worse than anger?
But what's left for me here the way I'm going except for a mediocre life? I have been fortunate enough to know people who love econ with a passion, who dream up demand curves and tear through the Wall Street Journal like the latest Harry Potter, who read Wealth of Nations for fun. I have known you and I am not you. I'm just a mediocre mind. Someday I'm going to wake up at my desk in my cubicle at my 9 to five job with my mug of coffee with a stack of ledgers on my desk going What the hell did I do in the last twenty years?
I know what I want.
I want to major in Ancient Studies, I want to write.
English classes of course make me puke, so the latter is basically out of question, except maybe if I can find some writing workshop courses or something to pad my schedule when I find the time.
Reasoning for the former is very simple: I enjoy it; it excites me, it makes me want to get up in the morning. Additonally I'm good at it, I have experience in it. While I'll only be a pretty shitty economist, I think as a.. um.. Ancient Studyist I'll be damn good. When Jeremy studies for his test I already know all the answers without having taken the course. I've (all for fun, btw): been to Greece, taken a college level etymologies course, done archaeology with the Maryland Park Service (okay, school... but technically it still is MPS, Andrew ^__^) for the last two years, read the Illiad, Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy, her Theseus duology, the Nature of Alexander, literally every article in Electronic Library about Alexander the Great, gone through every single National Geographic since 1990 for articles on Greece/Egypt, and just read a ton of nonfiction books in general.
So what if I can't get a job? I won't be able to get a job if I keep sucking wang like this in econ and lose my scholarship anyway.
You know that I never go to econ. Why? Because I took it last year, and this year all we do is listen to the professor lecture from the powerpoint slides, which are online anyways. Since I took econ already, it's not like I need an hour and fifteen minutes of him explaining the slides, especially after math on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He never gives regular homework, the syllabus doesn't even say what we're doing each day... so I never went, especially with other things going on.
You can see where this is leading.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I missed my exam.
Bravo.
I get to make it up, thankfully, but I'm really pissed off at myself.
I need a 3.25 GPA to keep my scholarship. What is that? Two A's and three B's, with all five classes? I, thankfully, can do this thing called "audit" in which I have one class count for credit but not count for GPA or graduation requirements, and that'll work well for econ if I should need it, considering that I've already placed out of it with my AP exams anyway. Kay says, in a supportive manner, that audit just means, "I'm here at this class to listen, but don't want it to count against me." But still, other classes won't be as forgiving. Look a biology which is easy but where I lose points over stupid things (anti A serum means it has no A blood cells,... absence of midigital hair is recessive.. shit.. fuckers.. ) and accounting where my accounts never seem to balance and linear algebra for which the homework is graded on correctness not completeness so that so far my grade (with two homework assignments each worth 30 points) is a very non-A, non-B, 70% (and what will I do on tests where I'm timed and can't use the book hm?) and unlike calculus I have no idea in hell what any of this is used for. The only thing I'm doing well in is Archaeology which I'm acing with nearly 100% I believe. It's a scholarship for everything, and I suddenly realized how desperately I don't want to lose it. My family is knee deep in debt; I'm not sure I could afford to go here without it and even if I could they'd never forgive me.
I don't want to go.
This is my home I don't want to be evicted I don't want to leave and even if I go back to Rockville (don't go back) what would be left for me there except for a family whose disappointment in me would be worse than anger?
But what's left for me here the way I'm going except for a mediocre life? I have been fortunate enough to know people who love econ with a passion, who dream up demand curves and tear through the Wall Street Journal like the latest Harry Potter, who read Wealth of Nations for fun. I have known you and I am not you. I'm just a mediocre mind. Someday I'm going to wake up at my desk in my cubicle at my 9 to five job with my mug of coffee with a stack of ledgers on my desk going What the hell did I do in the last twenty years?
I know what I want.
I want to major in Ancient Studies, I want to write.
English classes of course make me puke, so the latter is basically out of question, except maybe if I can find some writing workshop courses or something to pad my schedule when I find the time.
Reasoning for the former is very simple: I enjoy it; it excites me, it makes me want to get up in the morning. Additonally I'm good at it, I have experience in it. While I'll only be a pretty shitty economist, I think as a.. um.. Ancient Studyist I'll be damn good. When Jeremy studies for his test I already know all the answers without having taken the course. I've (all for fun, btw): been to Greece, taken a college level etymologies course, done archaeology with the Maryland Park Service (okay, school... but technically it still is MPS, Andrew ^__^) for the last two years, read the Illiad, Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy, her Theseus duology, the Nature of Alexander, literally every article in Electronic Library about Alexander the Great, gone through every single National Geographic since 1990 for articles on Greece/Egypt, and just read a ton of nonfiction books in general.
So what if I can't get a job? I won't be able to get a job if I keep sucking wang like this in econ and lose my scholarship anyway.
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
Girl (and Boy) Interrupted
Me and Jeremy have been interrupted in the middle of things by:
-Ryan ... Quote Upon Entering: "I'm leaving. You can have the room to yourselves."
-Niall ... Quote Upon Entering: "Oh my God! I'm sorry!"/ "I just walked in on the act of procreation!"
-Kay .... Quote Upon Entering: "Jeremy, are you okay- I'm sorry! I thought you were sick!"
-Casey ... Quote Upon Entering: "Are you decent? I can come back later!"
-Jeremy's parents via phone .... Quote Upon Entering: "Hello? We're downstairs."
-Chesapeake dorm, fire alarm
Like cowboys with quickdraw, I have developed the skill of putting on my clothes really really fast.
Me and Jeremy have been interrupted in the middle of things by:
-Ryan ... Quote Upon Entering: "I'm leaving. You can have the room to yourselves."
-Niall ... Quote Upon Entering: "Oh my God! I'm sorry!"/ "I just walked in on the act of procreation!"
-Kay .... Quote Upon Entering: "Jeremy, are you okay- I'm sorry! I thought you were sick!"
-Casey ... Quote Upon Entering: "Are you decent? I can come back later!"
-Jeremy's parents via phone .... Quote Upon Entering: "Hello? We're downstairs."
-Chesapeake dorm, fire alarm
Like cowboys with quickdraw, I have developed the skill of putting on my clothes really really fast.
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Please Be Gentle
So Friday was D&D. Jeremy's character kicked the bucket. It didn't matter very much; he just made another one. Tabletop RPing is kind of weird to me in how easy it is to just be like, "Oh, my character's dead, whatever." I would think I'd get attached to them.
The majority of Saturday was spent doing things that are none of your business. The other part was spent watching Jeremy play Warcraft III, which of course invites a bunch of Malex-esque jokes like, "Your momma was on reduced difficulty last night!" Talked, kind of, to Lori, and Andrew D and Will visiting from William and Mary, and Caitlin B, the face that launched a thousand minivans. Apparently her face launched Will's thousand minivans, because she always seems to dress up for him, and he is falling for her like a brick.
Also watched Jose and his roommate Brian lose badly at Jedi Knight, while reading a short story Jose wrote in high school for English class. He is, self-admittedly, an engineer and not a good writer, but wants to adapt his story into a White Wolf campaign. It has very good concepts, but in execution reminded me of the type of cringe-worthy story I used to write in middle and high school. I instantaneously generated a piece of advice for future English students. Never ever ever write anything in the epic fantasy/horror genre for a short story assignment. Write a happy story about the first time you learned to bike, or some other sentimental life-is-short style tripe. If I ever become an English teacher, which I will not, and I have to end up reading some student's appendicied Gothica or anything like what I used to churn out in seventh grade, I am going to shoot myself, with a blunt spoon.
Jose's story, however, provides such unintentionally comical lines as, "Kali threw her throwing knives at the demon" and "The demon looked like a dog with ivory horns" (... a dog.. with.. ivory?? ... *headexplodey*) which make me crack up at totally wrong moments just thinking about them. Something else that cracks me up is, "Hello, fallows, I'm Mr. Shmallow!" which is not in the story but is funny for no reason whatsoever. It's something Jeremy's friends quote all the time, most probably from Homestar Runner though I wouldn't know. I'm getting on with Jeremy's friends okay, though I don't know what they think of me. I'd introduce them all by name here but I'm lazy. Anyway, I have a suspicion that Jose was annoyed with me bursting out in fits of laughter over his story at inappropriate parts, but (he said, anyway) he was glad I enjoyed it.
Jose, I'm sorry.
It's still funny.
I ran back to my dorm to grab my toothbrush and play Zelda Ocarina of Time for literally 15 minutes, if only on the principle that I should not live with Jeremy 24/7.. therefore he gets 23:45/7. I stayed with Jeremy overnight. It was a really bizarre thing to wake up to. I opened my eyes and I was in his possessed Dionysian deathgrip holding me to him rather convulsively. Some hand was up my shirt or trying to get up it, a window was open and letting in an autumn draft and insect sounds, and I was like where the hell am I? (No, he was not drunk. No, we did not fuck. I give these disclaimers not because I imminently expect these things to happen, but because I expect that some of the nosier of you will feel like asking.)
Anyway, I was a bit disturbed and woke Jeremy from his demonic half-sleep. We got out of bed, got back into bed, spent the rest of the morning in an aura of warm and sunny entropy in a cocoon of green bedsheets. We were interrupted via the phone when Jeremy's parents said they were downstairs, so we put our clothes back on and went to meet them, and it was passing strange. You know that feeling you get being the only outsider in someone else's family? Well, that was that, literally. It was.. Jeremy's mom, dad, sister, dog.. and then me. They were like, "So, Jeremy, who's your friend?" and "Are you from China?" and I kept getting (not really appropriately since it was nothing like that) flashbacks of Ian's family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Jeremy, I imagine, has this little invisible knob attached to maybe the back of his neck or something, like a tuning peg. When he is in the same room as his family, something turns that little knob, and, visible only to me, his composure becomes just a little tighter, a little closed, a little more cold and a little more controlled.
But around me he is different.
So Friday was D&D. Jeremy's character kicked the bucket. It didn't matter very much; he just made another one. Tabletop RPing is kind of weird to me in how easy it is to just be like, "Oh, my character's dead, whatever." I would think I'd get attached to them.
The majority of Saturday was spent doing things that are none of your business. The other part was spent watching Jeremy play Warcraft III, which of course invites a bunch of Malex-esque jokes like, "Your momma was on reduced difficulty last night!" Talked, kind of, to Lori, and Andrew D and Will visiting from William and Mary, and Caitlin B, the face that launched a thousand minivans. Apparently her face launched Will's thousand minivans, because she always seems to dress up for him, and he is falling for her like a brick.
Also watched Jose and his roommate Brian lose badly at Jedi Knight, while reading a short story Jose wrote in high school for English class. He is, self-admittedly, an engineer and not a good writer, but wants to adapt his story into a White Wolf campaign. It has very good concepts, but in execution reminded me of the type of cringe-worthy story I used to write in middle and high school. I instantaneously generated a piece of advice for future English students. Never ever ever write anything in the epic fantasy/horror genre for a short story assignment. Write a happy story about the first time you learned to bike, or some other sentimental life-is-short style tripe. If I ever become an English teacher, which I will not, and I have to end up reading some student's appendicied Gothica or anything like what I used to churn out in seventh grade, I am going to shoot myself, with a blunt spoon.
Jose's story, however, provides such unintentionally comical lines as, "Kali threw her throwing knives at the demon" and "The demon looked like a dog with ivory horns" (... a dog.. with.. ivory?? ... *headexplodey*) which make me crack up at totally wrong moments just thinking about them. Something else that cracks me up is, "Hello, fallows, I'm Mr. Shmallow!" which is not in the story but is funny for no reason whatsoever. It's something Jeremy's friends quote all the time, most probably from Homestar Runner though I wouldn't know. I'm getting on with Jeremy's friends okay, though I don't know what they think of me. I'd introduce them all by name here but I'm lazy. Anyway, I have a suspicion that Jose was annoyed with me bursting out in fits of laughter over his story at inappropriate parts, but (he said, anyway) he was glad I enjoyed it.
Jose, I'm sorry.
It's still funny.
I ran back to my dorm to grab my toothbrush and play Zelda Ocarina of Time for literally 15 minutes, if only on the principle that I should not live with Jeremy 24/7.. therefore he gets 23:45/7. I stayed with Jeremy overnight. It was a really bizarre thing to wake up to. I opened my eyes and I was in his possessed Dionysian deathgrip holding me to him rather convulsively. Some hand was up my shirt or trying to get up it, a window was open and letting in an autumn draft and insect sounds, and I was like where the hell am I? (No, he was not drunk. No, we did not fuck. I give these disclaimers not because I imminently expect these things to happen, but because I expect that some of the nosier of you will feel like asking.)
Anyway, I was a bit disturbed and woke Jeremy from his demonic half-sleep. We got out of bed, got back into bed, spent the rest of the morning in an aura of warm and sunny entropy in a cocoon of green bedsheets. We were interrupted via the phone when Jeremy's parents said they were downstairs, so we put our clothes back on and went to meet them, and it was passing strange. You know that feeling you get being the only outsider in someone else's family? Well, that was that, literally. It was.. Jeremy's mom, dad, sister, dog.. and then me. They were like, "So, Jeremy, who's your friend?" and "Are you from China?" and I kept getting (not really appropriately since it was nothing like that) flashbacks of Ian's family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Jeremy, I imagine, has this little invisible knob attached to maybe the back of his neck or something, like a tuning peg. When he is in the same room as his family, something turns that little knob, and, visible only to me, his composure becomes just a little tighter, a little closed, a little more cold and a little more controlled.
But around me he is different.
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