not falling down

I was going to write this into something else, but hell, it’s a vaguely embarrassing anecdote, let’s put it in the blog.

The summer after I graduated high school, my sister declared her intention to move into my slightly larger room while I was gone, in Brazil. I was pretty much hapless in this, since I was going to be moving out soon anyway, and so was made a part of the collective clean-and-pack-both-rooms initiative. There was a lot of stuff, because while I’m mildly materialistic, my sister is a voracious packrat.

While getting down to the bottom of her closet, as Caitlan and Mom temporarily went to get something downstairs, I came upon what appeared to be a Magic Eye puzzle. Magic Eyes are (were) stereograms hidden in computer-generated texture patterns; if you stare at them while unfocusing your eyes just right, a 3-d image pops into view.

This one was a mostly purple square, not part of a puzzle book or anything, just lying around. I didn’t feel like working very much, so I started trying to get the image.

I’m normally very good with Magic Eyes, but this one took forever. I’d think I’d caught something, then lose it, then I’d have to start over with the pull-back-from-your-nose strategy. Finally, I siezed something indistinct–a diagonal bar in the left third of the sheet, and some kind of amorphous shape…

“Brendan? What are you doing?” said Caitlan from the doorway.

“I’m trying to get this Magic Eye to come out,” I replied, a little annoyed. “This one’s really tough.”

She said “Brendan. That’s wrapping paper.“

I keep meaning to talk about the reasoning behind this entry, but I’m lame. Okay, so. Monday night, Ken, DC and I drove by secret byways and hidden passes to Centre, a place I swore I would not see for years and have now revisited twice in a five-month span. We were there at the urging of David the Flora, who had cajoled us into making a return appearance at the debut Shenanigans show.

I can’t remember if I’ve talked about Shenanigans before, but it’s Will Johnston’s brainchild, a student-run improv troupe at Centre that he pulled together with spit and spraypaint and which has now been handed on to the aforementioned Flora to carry on. Shenanigans does basically the same things as every other We Play Whose Line Games college improv troupe, but we had a lot of fun with it. I think our peak so far was the second show, when we packed Weisiger and danced onstage through fields of balloons as Meghan Langley thrashed to the electronical strains of Styx.

We started Monday’s show the way we ended the Very Short Short Play Extravaganza, with a few Shenanigans alumni slamming down beer bottles and saying ridiculous things about Will Johnston’s personality and accomplishments. (My beer bottle was filled with water; theirs were not.) The rest of the show was pretty good–it started out really well and maintained that for a while, but Flora tried to include everybody in several games, and with the group swelled by alumni, that meant a very long show. We hit anal sex jokes about forty-five minutes in.

Improv Tip: Anal sex jokes mean your improv show has officially jumped the shark.

My favorite thing about that night was the pre- and post-show hugging of a great, great many undergrads. It felt very good to see that all my froshers (now sophomores, which I will never admit in print) are still alive and happy. Some of them are doing their own student-run production of “The Compleat Works of William Shkspr (Abridged),” and I was happy to hear that’s going well. I’m also glad I got to see everyone then, since I won’t be there for Homecoming this weekend–one oath I will not break.

I also found out that Object A is single again and living next to a libidinous David Flora, who should just understand that certain events may lead to he and I having words.

Danville is strange to me now because it really doesn’t evoke any particular emotion. Being myself, I’d expect homesickness to have swelled in me when we snuck in the back of the Art Barn to steal Lisa for dinner, or chomped chips at our Guadalajaran table, or glanced down the road at the cold doors of Rodes 2, but it didn’t. It was only being in contact with all those humans again that made me want to laugh and yell and kick the walls.

I miss all you guys, more than you know.

MSN:

What’s faster: tuna or a bullet?

Turns out it’s the bullet.