not falling down

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.

Once upon a time there was a king, and his name was David the Flora.

And King David WAS a good king, and his minions, they DIDST love upon him; and David the Flora was well pleased with them.

And his minions did ENJOY his presence; such that at certain times they WERE unable to keep from WRESTING him to the floor; and that at others they DIDST pile themselves upon him.

And there was among these minions ONE whose name was Alison.

And it CAME to pass that on a night in Virginia, David Flora DID bring himself unto Alison; and she held in her hand a long, flexible plastic lily, which she HAD stolen from a restaurant.

And Alison said unto David Flora, in a calm voice: “I’m gonna hit you with this.”

And David Flora DID smile, so that his eyes SEEMED almost to disappear.

And Alison said unto David Flora: “It’s probably gonna hurt.”

And David Flora SMILED again; for he WAS drunk on whiskey.

And Alison DID hit him with the flower, which was like unto a whip; and David Flora FELT greatly hurt.

And Alison DID hit him a second time; and both of these were in the top part of his breast.

And David Flora WAS in incredible pain, and he wept, and he was like unto a woman. And yea, Brendan Adkins did laugh so hard he almost WET himself.

Lord. That WAS so goddamn funny.

The End.

Strother informs me that he and Michelle are not at Shenandoah Shakespeare, but at the Summer Music Festival at Shenandoah University. My bad, Strother. But not my Corn Pops!

A 24-exposure roll of film lasts me about a year, not because I take about two pictures a month, but because I take about eleven pictures in two spurts ten months apart. The roll I just got developed ends with pictures of the Chicago trip, and begins with pictures from the end of GSP last summer. In between are a couple of great shots from SETC, which I’ll have to post soon.

The one I want to put up right now, though, is a special treat for a few proud conspirators. Remember, those who understand this, that we are sentinels, templars, proud emperors of an age gone by. Remember what we did. Remember what we were. Remember, and treasure this in your secret minds, the single hallmark I left behind me in Rodes 2.

Hey, remember back at SETC when I talked about how amazing my director Michelle was? And remember when I talked about Strother, expert in Matrix dollies and frightening photography? Well guess what! Through a distinct lack of coincidence, Strother from Kentucky and Michelle from Alabama are working together as tech interns at the Shenandoah University Summer Music Theatre. This is not a coincidence because they were at SETC for the same reason, after all, and apparently Shenandoah has excellent taste in interns.

Anyway, I’ve spent the past week bugging Mr. G____ for visual proof that the two of them coexist, and last night he gave in. For your further mental-image referencing, please find pics below! (Strother is the large hairy one, and Michelle is the smaller one with the headset. And Strother is wearing a purple shirt. With the scary eyes. No, on the left.)

• S & M: Nice
• S & M: Naughty

Also last night, I finally met Kim’s dogs, and finally saw Chamber of Secrets, and Ian finally came over to hang out for a while. He brought along Yale, so DC was terrified of us, and that was good. I think there should be some gradual way to introduce people to the experience that is Yale, like the way you’re supposed to immunize yourself to electricity or rabid dogs.* Just meeting him straight away, or even going to his web page (which now appears to be gone), tends to cause sensory overload in humans.

So last night I went to bed all peppy, and then woke up this morning and there wasn’t any hot water so I took a cold shower and it stabbed my children in the face, and I hate you.

* Yeah, I think I made that up.

Today is the day I plug Mindy in the blog. Mindy Mindy Mindy! Mindy is a frosher, only she’s not because the year is over, only she still IS because that’s who she is in my head. And yes, Mindy reads this and wanted to be name-checked like Emily and Strother and whoever else. Congratulations, Mindy: approximately five more people have now read your name.

What I really (still) want is for all my friends to get blogs, or Livejournals, or their own sites, or something. The presence of my crew on the interweb is disappointingly low. I want to check in on them and read about their love lives and be fascinated by the way they think, especially when I’m exiled to Richmond, but they stubbornly persist in their absence. Get blogs, all of you! I promise to link you if you do!

Oh, that means I should talk about Sara. Sara is a (former) frosher with a blog! You could all take a page from her cyber-book, other friends.

I’m still going through the sum of all my belongings, sorting and repacking things for the great exodus to Louisville, and yesterday I found three items of interest. The first is a piece of paper from last summer, on which is scrawled the following:

If I die, and somebody goes to a vanity press or something and has a posthumous collection of my work published, and it’s not called Destroy the Evidence, I shall be very angry and want an explanation.

And you know, it’s still true.

The second was the package of pictures I took in Brazil, all twelve of them. It’s very strange to me that it’s been four years since I was there. I slept on a mattress one inch thick in the same room as Tiago, the world’s biggest Goons and Hoses fan, and ate a lot of beans and rice and lost probably thirty pounds. I started watching Dawson’s Creek for the first time, and was surprised to find that I liked it, and pined for home and Erika too much.

I had an incredibly sweet host sister named Joana, who tried to reach out to me any way she could: we played Quake II together, and she introduced me to cocoa in condensed milk. I saw a giant Jesus and many, many streetside orange vendors. I went to Mass with my host grandmother, who spoke no English at all but who smiled and patted my hand the way my own grandmother would have. I took showers that froze me, burned me and gave me some nasty electric shocks.

Along with the blue acrylic painting I bought at an art fair (still one of my favorite possessions), those pictures are the only souvenirs I still have from Brazil. The Rio pin I used to have was lost with my first bucket hat, fall term of my first year at Centre; I think the futbol calendar Tiago gave me is packed away somewhere in the attic, probably for a long time. It was a very self-centered time for me, and I wish now that it had been otherwise. I should have learned some Portuguese, I should have thrown myself into life there instead of trying to live here in my head, and I should definitely have played less Pokemon.

No regrets, though. I Went There, and I Came Back.

The third thing will have to wait, probably for quite a while, as I want to make it a part of this site and I’m going to have to write some code to do it. Right now I have to lug bags of potato chips over to Emily R’s house for a pre-Chicago Trip meeting. My life is filled with travel.

I want the last two shots to be the last Idiotcams© from in Rodes 2, but there’s a problem: apparently I spent all of senior week adding to the Plastic Mullet Series.

Yes, I am aware that thanks to the Fox network, mullets themselves have jumped the shark, but I still find the plastic mullet itself (which turns out to have belonged to Lisa all along, and which she ended up donating to me) a singularly baroque object. It possesses a level of absurdity above and beyond that of the standard mullet picture. It is, in short, a higher calling.

That I might better answer its siren song, I present to you Plastic Mullet Extravalooza 2K3! This unprecedented collection not only the mighty Darren at last, but new inanimate objects and the only girl who’s ever seemed happy to be wrangled into the headdress. If you order now, you’ll also get Jon’s whole entire dang family, not to mention a couple of Lallys (elder and younger). To top it all off, this one-time-only special captures the elusive Evan and–yes!–my own sister!

Back to bittersweet angst soon, I promise, but right now I’m going to have to glory in the possession of this much dirt on so many people. I hope none of you ever want to run for office, guys. I own you.

This is how I graduate: the only Centre commencement in living memory on which it has rained, in alphabetical order yet in the middle of the pack, ending up shivering in the library halfway to the auditorium, which was in neither the sunny nor rainy day plans. Our baccalaureate speaker was a fervent liberal and our keynote speaker a stolid conservative; hackles were raised at each and both. I tried to dry the rain off my glasses and found that polyester robes don’t soak up much.

My apartment has been messily slaughtered, furniture shoved and stolen and hidden mold revealed. One more time I’m the last one to move out. The walls are bare, and most of what I own is in piles on the floor. I’ll never live with Jon or Amanda or David again.

I said goodbye and soon to many, many people, and went to my uncle’s house to see Ken, Jon and Emily one more time and to be astounded by the generosity of my family. I fell asleep sitting up before we came back here. I’m going to pack all night and leave in the morning, which I was explicitly told not to do.

Those of you who know me from my first Governor’s Scholars Program will be gratified to know, I hope, that I brought an umbrella onstage with me at the ceremony. As we were leaving, I ended up facing the wrong way and didn’t notice I was supposed to be moving for several long seconds after the rest of my row had gone. I jumped and cursed onstage (at my own commencement) and scrambled out. I was so flustered I forgot the umbrella.

On my way out to meet my family I stood for a few minutes on the stage in Weisiger. That was the first place I found myself on the first day of GSP, here at Centre; I stood in the dark, having come in out of the rain, and wrote about quiet stages on a chalkboard. Later that night, Milton Reigelman would point it out in his opening convo speech, and I would feel a strange mix of shame and pride at having something I’d written read.

This is how I graduate: I am bone-deep nothing-left weary, and I have miles to go before I sleep. I know my time here is done and I am satisfied with it, and I’m ready and willing and glad to go. I’m hurt and hollow, childish and scared. I want desperately to put off the deep wrench I’m feeling, because it means I’m really leaving home.

“It’s going to be damp and smoky, and it’s certainly going to be crowded and loud, and I’ll be the one cold glass in the middle of all the hot fuzzy overmedicated haze. Last time I was introduced to Lucky Boys Confusion and Manu Chao, and my hat smelled like campfire smoke for months. I don’t know where I’m going to sleep.

Once I went into cold water. Once I went to the farm. Tonight I’m going in again, and I don’t know if I can articulate why.”

I wrote that, earlier tonight, and didn’t post it. I didn’t go. I stayed here and played video games with Lisa and Flora, hung out with Eric and Emily and Ian and Adam, talked to Maria for a long time, and was generally very happy with everything. Very glad.

I could maybe have been happy at the farm party tonight, in a reckless lost uncertain kind of way. I could also have been miserable, and I would have been breaking plans with someone who matters to me more and more as the end of college grows in my mirrors. But I made the right choice. As it turns out, I’ve got angels everywhere.

Strother brought me a graduation present tonight: a floating crane-kick Trinity doll. Remind me to put it up on the cam when I’m done beatboxing.

Strother is a friend and a frosher, which of course makes him somewhat subhuman, but he’s really grown on me this term. I think he’s the only talented actor I’ve seen come into the drama program here without a chip on his shoulder, and I think that’s terribly admirable. He’s also, like Sumana, someone I was surprised to find brilliant at Dance Dance Revolution (at which, I discovered last night, I am exactly as good as you would expect).

So. A graduation gift (and Lisa got me another one–remind me to talk about that too), and tomorrow morning is my very last final, and tonight I wandered around this campus in the half-light and thought about how very small it was. I am leaving it in a week, more or less for good. This evening it felt like the quiet part in the suite, where the flute is playing, right before the timpani come back in.

Ender had been so long without sunlight that the light nearly blinded him. He squinted and sneezed and wanted to get back indoors. Everything was far away and flat; the ground seemed to fall away, so that on level ground Ender felt as though he were on a pinnacle. The pull of real gravity felt different and he scuffed his feet when he walked. He hated it. He wanted to go back home, back to the Battle School, the only place in the universe where he belonged.

–Ender’s Game