Two Hundred, Another List of Memories

• First season of Cylons with a friend
  
• Hearing the tuba again
  
• Spontaneous late-night table discussions with new people and old people
  
• Couch-crashing
  
• Baseball games
  
• Guacamole and taco salad
  
• Brownies
  
• Baking a cake
• Jesus loves this guy!
• A cave
  
• A museum and a shut-down factory
  
• Local eats
  
• Southern drawls
  
• A splinter in a little girl's hand
  
• Extremely thankful patients
  
• Gangrene
  
• Exploration of an old but new town
  
• One skittish dog
  
• One wonderful vegetarian restaurant
  
• Being reminded that time doesn't stop
• Writing that reminds me of my friend
  

One Hundred and Ninety-nine, 1812 Overture

I had a really bad weekend a long time ago.  September 7th - September 9th, 2001: I first got caught for going 30 over the speed limit in a residential zone--a mandatory court date--and then I proceeded to twist my ankle on a putt putt green.  Of course, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that big a deal with the following Tuesday to come but at that point in my life, it sucked.  My ankle healed well enough.  I learned that I really did NOT have the upper body strength to walk all the way across campus on crutches without stopping for a break every hundred feet.  But as the week wore on, I began building up some strength and I managed to go two hundred feet without stopping by the time I finished with them the following week.  The anxiety from the speeding ticket, however, did not cease.  The court date was set for Oct 22nd or 23rd--somewhere around there.  Court was in my hometown, school was over an hour away, I had no car.  Oh, and I never told my dad who pays my car insurance.  Yeah, I was freaking out.  I turned then to those who I go to when I'm in trouble--the Beatnik, Lord Chaos, and the Engineer.  They helped me crack a plan where Beatnik and Lord Chaos' older brother came down Sunday night, took Monday off to drive me to my hometown and court, and then return me to my schooltown later that day.  

The elder brother--Politico for short--and I really grew close that day.  He helped coach me on dress as well as making sure to show the proper respect to the judge.  On the way up north he had classical music playing to help relax me.  It didn't really work.  I was a nervous wreck all the way up.  Getting to the courthouse, we went in and sat down--us in our suits, everone else in their everyday clothing.  I might have been self-conscious about it except again, I was a nervous wreck.  Then he called me up...incorrectly saying my name.  My brain went into auto-pilot as I stood up and walked to the front; I corrected the judge on the pronunciation.  Part of me cringed as did Politico back in the benches (I learned that later).  He spoke the offenses then reduced them on the basis of it being my first one.  I believe I said guilty when he was done talking and he then told me I had the choice of points on my license or driving school to rescind them.  The rest is a blur in the courthouse except for the stop at the payment desk where I shelled out court costs of around $76 from my carefully collected rainy day fund.  Then Politico and I began our trip back to schooltown.

The Beatnik is the English major, but storytelling runs in their entire family.  For some reason, Politico began the story during the start of a Tchaikovsky piece.  Both the story and the music began softly enough up to the point of the cop pulling me over.  There a major musical announcement came forth.  Again the music quieted down and proceeded along with the story in much the same fashion that I simultaneously ignored the situation with moments of utter terror for the next month.  Then the planning stages of the court date were upon me.  Slowly all the pieces began fitting into place as odd as they might have seemed and the situation promised to move forward as smoothly as we could manage.  The drive up to the courthouse was a tense, advice-filled time and proceeded up to the entry into the courtroom.  Then the great battle (ok, this part was slightly off between the story and the music) during which the decisions for my mistakes were made.  Then, as we left, great relief!  Wave after Wave, Bombardment after Bombardment, everything was finishing up and the pounding noise massaged my relaxed self having survived the ordeal.  That song is now forever associated with that event and with the Politico in my mind.  In the grand scheme of things, not a big deal, but to me at the time, it was my world crashing down.

I realized then that if I ever got a chance to do something similar for someone else, I wouldn't hesitate.  The world gave me the company of people I needed at the time and I wouldn't hold myself back for my friends if such a time came for them.

Thank you my friends.

One Hundred and Seventy-four, Day 4

The following is an excerpt that I can apply to various people I know who are going through this power outage.

"I still don't have power but it's OK [cue hysterical laughter] because who needs power? Not me. I don't need power at all. I'll just read by candlelight for the rest of my life UNTIL I GO BLIND IN FIVE DAYS BECAUSE DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO READ BY CANDLELIGHT? IT'S HARD THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

Ahem. At least people I know have power. If I couldn't get out of our dark apartment, I'd have jumped off the balcony by now, which wouldn't have even killed me. I'd have just broken my leg or something and sat there in the dark crying about my stupid, broken leg. Wah wah waaaaaaaaah."

For those who do have power, enjoy the music at this MySpace site!

One Hundred and Seventy-one, Dr. Horrible

I finally watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog. Doogie Howser (yeah yeah, Neil Patrick Harris) can SING! Go watch it. Pretty please.

One Hundred and Sixty, Contra

Dancing something called the Contra - Free on first go, $3 for each subsequent visit.

Seeing one of the Kids - whatever a tank of gasoline costs to drive an hour and half.

Wearing yourself out and then getting only three hours of sleep before your 7:30 surgery the following day? Priceless

One Hundred and Fourty-one, Surrounded Yet Alone

Back in October the Engineer celebrated his birthday far away from us all by himself in Texas. In February, the Beatnik looked like he would end up celebrating his birthday in Louisiana far away from us, but the Engineer went up to see him that night. Today I went out in the evening with Roommate, Amish Girl, and another classmate to dinner and dessert.

I didn't realize until today how awesome it was that the Engineer and Beatnik were able to hang out together over something as simple as marking the day one of them popped into this world. I didn't realize until today what it meant to be able to spend part of that day hanging out with each other. I didn't realize until today some part of what it might have felt like to celebrate your birthday on your own. I realized today that we've been celebrating birthdays together since late elementary school. This is the first year where we couldn't all be together for each of our days. I've been receiving endless phone calls today, but only four uplifted me: Valiben, Engineer, Beatnik, and Lord Chaos with the family singing Happy Birthday.

I'm surrounded by great people, but I can't change the fact that I miss the people I've known for most of my life.

One Hundred and Fourty, Dazed and Not Confused

I love moving my body to music. But having had little experience in unknown crowds with it, I get a bit apprehensive about it. Amongst people I know and care about it's much easier and if they happen to be dancing as strangely as I manage, even better. The Beatnik has a saying, "Indians dance whiter than white guys." I think that says it all. Yet whenever I'm with him and the others that comprise my companionship and we're all being goofy, I don't care as much; and it's awesome.

One Hundred and Thirty-three, The Antigloaming

I went to bed at a reasonable time last night and while I had some trouble getting up, it was nothing like what I've had to deal with when I'm running on less than two hours of sleep. Today I ended up snoozing for only 45 minutes and then was functioning properly. I even noticed the water deposited overnight on the window next to my bed.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, the sky had that look of starting to brighten. I noticed a junkyard's electromagnet crane which looked like it was illuminated with sunshine but in reality it was a set of bright lights set upon it (so the operators could see the junk they were moving easily?). The drive in was to Wax Fang's "At Sea" and I just floated into the parking lot. The walk to school was to the start of the Nurse Duckett chapter of Catch-22 (and me humming "At Sea"). I put my jacket away in my locker trying to recall which lecture I had this morning at 8:00 AM. If I recall correctly, it was CNS - Reading Time. Oh... I guess I don't have class for an hour. My head's personal April Fool's joke.

To Blog!

One Hundred and Ten, Music Movement

"Every now and then I wonder where it went. It used to be all golden and lovely and now it's some sort of decaying mess. No, that's wrong, there's nothing wrong with it, rather I'm the one who screwed it up, went off the deep end. They always said I involved myself too much, I never learned to stay out of things I couldn't comprehend. Yeah, it's true. But you know what? I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Despite the breakdown that inevitably occurs, the vitality the intervening experiences bring rejuvenates me. Make me who I am and I won't deny myself that pleasure even at the expense of the great letdown at the end. Such is my life and I will bear with it."

Sounds like an idealistic martyr, doesn't it? Or a junkie.

I attended my fifth concert ever last night! It was some band I'd never heard of (surprise) and they were pretty good! I watched the people there moving with the music and liked seeing other people who felt the same way I did about the music. I don't have fancy moves to music, just the simple head/body bob and the foot tap. But closing your eyes and making those simple movements to the music is quite relaxing. In reality I guess the compressed sound hits upon my eardrum activating pathways to the brain which simultaneously spits out tons of dopamine if my body moves to the beat. And because of that chemical substance, it's wonderful. Oh yeah, I get high on music, don't you?

In other news, today is the Beatnik's 24th birthday. The Engineer drove up with plans on getting him sloshed tonight. [raises non-alcoholic glass] Here's to you two and good times!

Seventy-five, Bagpipes

Something about pre-thunderstorm conditions (heavy wind, the scent of coming rain, the warm humidity brushing past your cheeks) and a song done with bagpipes just makes me smile. if you're wondering, go to this Orb page where if I have my server up, you can listen to it.