Month: April 2003

April 26, 2003 /

Two hours of sleep last night, as I stupidly stayed up until three before I even realized that I still had to do my homework. I say “stupidly” because I wasn’t even staying up for any specific purpose–I just hung out with Michelle and Jessica and David, beatboxing and rhapsodizing about the Neptunes. That’s college, I guess, but then I thought I was supposed to get good at time management someday. Ha ha ha!

That wasn’t exactly the best night to skimp on sleep, either, as today was a big day: not only our biggest crowd at Chalk Circle, but my first ever show as the drummer for Grandma’s Genius! And it rocked! We’d practiced together on exactly one song, which we didn’t end up playing, and the PA was crap, which made for a frustrating beginning. As it turns out, though, once we got started we had a pretty flawless forty minutes. We’re good at this!

Then, just as we finished our last song (BNL, “Brian Wilson,” where I get to go crazy thundergod at the end), the first drops of rain started to fall… all over the band that had earlier refused to swap us time slots.

That’s right. God loves Grandma’s Genius more.

(Also, found while searching for Neptunes sites: Conch is their specialty!)

April 24, 2003 /

Last night was the least stressful opening night I’ve ever been through, thanks largely to the way the stage is set up, I think. The musicians play behind what’s called a scrim at the back of the stage–a very loosely woven canvas that’s semitransparent straight onbut opaque from an angle. Because it makes the audience look fuzzy, it fosters the illusion that we’re behind some kind of two-way mirror and don’t have to worry about being watched. Even though I know consciously that the audience can see us just as well as we can see them, that still put me at ease enough to play as well as I ever have. This is neat!

It seemed to work pretty well for everyone else, too, and the music really sounded great. More credit for that goes to the writer than to us, but hey, he gets his bow too.

This is the big crunch week, in that I have no more free evenings to work until Sunday, and I’ve been struggling to keep up. I did finally get in an appointment to see my career counselor about a resume critique; we’d been having a little difficulty finding a time because, and I quote, “she’s got a mare due.” Only in Kentucky.

Anyway, she seemed to like my resume and my cover letter (the first one I’ve ever written!), so that felt good. It still bemuses me, though, how little one’s qualifications matter compared to the monumental importance of making them all fit on one page. My counselor’s a nice lady, but I honestly think she knows as much about line spacing and margins as she does about, y’know, jobs.

Another thing I’m behind on: sending out graduation announcements. Eek. I went to the library yesterday to copy pages out of my mother’s address book, which is kind of like a library in itself. There are sheaves of apocryphal driving directions, notes and updates, about five different styles of handwriting, and some entries that take up half a page alone because they’ve been crossed out and corrected so many times. It’s a fascinating object, and I feel like I should get a grant and do an archaeological dig on it.

Too many things on my head. Why is everyone getting sick? Should I bleach my hair again? And how the hell am I supposed to wrap up this entry?

April 13, 2003 /

There’s a way to be roundabout and poetic about this, and I often am, but honestly, fuck that. I broke up with Audrey today. It hurts.

I did it because I was part of something beautiful that was torn apart by time and distance, once, and I won’t be again. Because I’m going away in the fall. Because I have to do the right thing this time. Because I have to believe.

April 9, 2003 /

Entry 255! I have almost a whole byte’s worth of journal!

Every time I start to get uppity about something I’m doing at school, dramatic irony thwops me on the forehead. Like, for example, the past couple of weeks have been the beginning of music rehearsals for the spring production of Chalk Circle. That means, thanks to the grand tradition of Brendan’s Roommates Letting Him Pretend He’s A Musician, I’ve been actually reading things on sheets of music and playing them on congas with a band of real musicians. This honestly gives me the shivers.

Then, just as I’m starting to believe something like “hey! this stuff can be learned,” along comes Wynton Marsalis.

I only got to watch the first third of the show (two hours), but everything I saw was… well, pretty much what you’d expect from Wynton Marsalis’s band, assuming you know who Wynton Marsalis is. I don’t even think I enjoyed it as much as some of the other people watching it up on the catwalk with me, because I honestly don’t have a developed taste for jazz. I was still in awe. The talent and skill those guys put on display was ineffable.

That said, today was the first day I ran my whole route–what I guess now is around three miles–without stopping to walk. I haven’t done that since high school, and I did both on rainy days, and there’s really no dramatic irony possible there. No matter how many people run better than me, the fact is that right now I can run as fast as I ever have in my life.

April 7, 2003 /

I went with Jon, Amanda, Amanda’s sister Kelly and the one and only Artdrey to a Legends game on Friday, then to see Spirited Away on Sunday, and in between…

There are apparently a lot of Beaux Arts Balls thrown by architecture departments all over the country, but the one in Lexington is the biggest, or so they tell me. People put on costumes and go underground and get physically rearranged by the music, and then there’s girls in fashion… things, and after that there are guys who are pretending to be girls.

I’d never been to a drag show before (although I have watched To Wong Foo several times), but I wasn’t really surprised. There were a couple of ladies who were definitely men, and then there was one who was fairly androgynous, and then… there was Jenna.

Jenna was beautiful.

Jenna is my soulmate.

Jenna, if you’re out there, know that I’m out here too, and no, I’m not single, but dammit I could be.

Next topic! I should emphasize more that this was a costume party, as in Halloween costumes, only in April, so with more skin. There were some intricate and pretty ones there, and then the size-over-intricacy ones (meet Mister Pez Dispenser!) and then there were just people out to make their fetishes public.

I came to the conclusion, that night, that costume parties exist to let people show off the way they really want other people to see them. The dude with the tux and the wolf mask wants to sweep you away; the girl with the angel wings and garter belt wants to be touched and untouchable; the guy with that much metal in his face… he’s just doin’ his thing, man.

So if this is the case, I find it terribly appropriate that Audrey and I wore brightly colored rayon old-person jogging suits. They were worth more than a few compliments from other partygoers, and they were the most comfortable things I’ve ever had the eye-grinding displeasure of wearing–the Secret of the Mallwalkers! They were also two terribly comfortable outfits on two terribly comfortable personalities. Even if, um, they did hurt to look at. The analogy breaks down there, I guess.

Part of me wanted to come back in jewelry and a big hat and my soon-to-be patchy pants, sure, but mostly I just had a great time in an elastic waistband, hovering next to my girl and being lifted bodily by the bass. Times that great in pants that swishy are few and far between.

(I’d like to cap off this entry by talking about Spirited Away, but really, can I say anything that hasn’t been said?)