This wheel's on fire, goin' down the road...

Last Friday I went to Madison's with Alice, Mats, and Greg. We hung out and lamented about childhoods gone by and looked at Madison's fairly impressive collection of old anime. We discussed how at some point, we were all into anime and Pokémon except for Greg, who seemed to take a massive amount of offense at us even thinking about this topic. He got kind of progressively annoying because eventually, we decided to watch old Pokémon videos because of how truly hilarious they are and for the nostalgia factor and he flipped. I have yet to figure out what the deal is there, but apparently while we were wasting away watching Pokémon and anime, he was "reading books and getting smarter." We watched Mean Girls, which turned into most of the people present making fun of the way the movie stereotypes Africa. I found this kind of humorous, but can you really expect a movie to completely accurately depict Africa and then still use it for comic relief? I think I'm still getting used to this concept of spending five minutes thinking about who I might offend by saying something before I say it..

Monday I had to take the bus home. I don't really remember much about it at all. Tuesday we rehearsed for jazz on the stage, which was fun. Took a bio test and a lit test, the former amazingly easy and the latter not so much. That night was the show itself. All the jazz people hung out in Kate's room until it was time to go, which was fun. Everybody was playing each others' instruments and nobody really knew how to play them. Roby pretty much blew out everyone's eardrums with Will's trombone. We then had to go to the theater, and I was following the freshmen into the main entrance when Norman convinced me to go backstage from behind MG. This turned out to be infinitely more fun. I hung out with Kiera and Jeffrey and Rachael and then discussed how fucked up Woodward can be with Roby and Jeffrey. The jazz people are more or less really cool and while it's not a marching band there is still some feeling of communality.

The show itself. Don't Get Sassy sounded awesome from what I heard, which was not much because my top button would literally not button. I eventually got it, choking myself in the process. I played A-Train like shit except the solos that I don't think I'm even supposed to have. When I Fall in Love is supposed to be the song I'm really good at, and I got lost in thought and lost my place during it. I eventually figured out where I was but I really hated that I screwed it up like that. Perdido sounded fine and it was over. I hung out in the lobby with people briefly and then left.

Wednesday was fun. Drug and Alcohol Awareness was not bad hanging out with Madison and Hal throughout. We took a test and so hopefully (more than likely) I did well enough to get the certificate I have to have to get my driver's license. Everyone left for Pi League at lunch so I hung out with Madison, Mary Martha, Cameron, and Nancy because they were basically the only people left. I left at 12:50, avoiding the horrible movies in the Theater because Mom had to go home to do stuff from the home office.

Today. Got my teeth cleaned, and hopefully I will be working on something with the house later. I feel kind of indifferent. A couple of undertones at work.

Have you been screening your smokes?

This week is sucking. I have had no time to spend with anyone and it is upsetting me a lot. Monday I had a math test at lunch, and I had to go right to the bus after school. Tuesday I had a math team meeting at lunch which I didn't even want to attend but advanced math is required to come to a meeting or two. Same situation with the bus in the afternoon. My classes are okay but I can hardly focus lately and there are all these writing assignments piling up on me.

Today we're going to see Othello which should at least be interesting, and since the whole freshman class is going I can hang out with various people at various times. We are missing Pi Bites, though. Thursday I have to go to this planning committee for the freshman/sophomore dance at lunch (another missed lunch...) which is all fine and good, but I just found out that the dance itself is going to make me miss the Decemberists at the Tabernacle. This seriously pisses me off because everyone is saying The Crane Wife is amazing and they'll probably do old stuff too. Friday I have to go to debate because I have basically promised Liz since the beginning of the year that I would. So net net it's just a week to get through but it seems like it's taking way too long to happen.

Sometimes we walk on your horses...

Friday. The jazz show was really awesome. I completely fucked up Night in Tunisia the first time because I had really never played my instrument (much less Ethan's with its crazy action) in front of people and I've only been playing since January anyway. But then I owned Satin Doll and was infinitely more pleased. When I Fall in Love went way too fast and I felt like my chord movements suffered from this but I still played it well. I really owned Autumn Leaves, got the solo, etc. and then totally missed my ending. But hey, guitar is the least important instrument in jazz ensemble. I am an unecessary person in a large body of musical greatness which is really just the way I like it. It is not life or death if I fuck something up but if I do it right I am really proud of myself. We went to the new restaurant at the Club which is basically just a slightly larger, differently furnished version of the old one. But farfalle is on the menu again (!!!!)

Saturday. I don't really remember what happened early in the day except we went to Publix. We looked at houses all over Druid Hills, Virginia-Highland, Lake Claire, and a little of Candler Park. The whole area is just really awesome and my parents are finally motivated to move. I really like the area near Emory Village with all the university streets. So eventually we got to the barbeque at Paideia and everyone like, attacked me because they'd been calling me forever and had no clue where I was. I didn't have my cell with my because we'd rushed out of the house so quick. The next portion of the night was a whirlwind of people. I seem to remember thus:

I hung out with Greg, Madison, and Mats by some of the benches. Molly and Julia were there and so was Jake, and so were Alex and Jack at various intervals. I think Tyler might have been there. We got bored after awhile watching junior high kids think they were hot shit riding their Razr scooters. Alice and Charlotte showed up again, and Greg and I took Alice's hat. We went into the gym and got a whole bunch of cookies and tried to ditch Alice's hat with Tyler because we had decided we didn't want it. He threw it back to me and so eventually we stuck it on Madison and ran before she could catch us.

Peter showed up somewhere in here and we went down to the park in front of the school and threw a frisbee around with a whole bunch of people in a circle. At one point Peter chucked it directly at Alice and I as we were talking to each other and we dove out of the way at the very last second, and we landed in opposite ditches. Which was really funny albeit painful. At this point Alice discovered a football and we pretended to be Woodward football players but more importantly pretended to play football. This was really funny because neither of us could throw or punt or do shit and we pegged Thomas for fun. More Vintage Eagle humor. Mats then showed up with dinner but accidentally dropped his chicken which ended up becoming a sexual euphemism. We don't really know what for but "dropping your chicken" totally sounds like a sexual euphemism.

We went back to the Goose at this point because the cops didn't want us playing in the park. It was me, Greg, Mats, Madison, Alice, and Peter for awhile just shooting the shit and it was really fun. Eventually Madison was attacked from behind like three times by Alex and Co. because she really just sets herself up when she sits on the benches on the Goose patio.

We then went to the last Square Dance because apparently it is the largest and most fun. By this time it was just Mats, Alice, Madison, and I. Paul announced the quilt winners and then this guy tried to make the Square Dance of like, 400 people into this incredibly professional thing. I have never seen an event MC this anal about anything but this guy was crazy. He was trying to get all these little kids to do this perfectly choreographed dance and the whole thing was just supposed to be fun. The band at one point tried to hijack the crowd into having fun by playing but the guy like, charged up and tried to turn off their mics and screamed, etc. Madison and I attempted swing dancing, 17th century-related dancing, and all this other weird shit but net-net we had a lot of fun. We then went back to the Goose again and talked for a while and then I had to leave. I really didn't want it to end but my distance from school is a pretty constant presence.

I made my mom clean the guest room today. This is progress!

One for the money, two for the show?

So I'm doing this for really real this time. Because everything is all wonderful and stuff now so I have things to post about. So apart from Paideia being the most amazing school ever, there is shit to report about.

I went to the Fall Festival yesterday with Jessica and it was really fun. I have not been in two years and the last time was fun but there were really weird undertones that I didn't totally figure out until afterwards. So anyway. I got there and met all the Duluth people and they were really nice and cool. We wandered over to the Chick-fil-a tent, which was open because it was Saturday and not Sunday!, and got some food. We ran into all these various band geeks because the Duluth people were all in MB, and this was cool. I chatted them up with my Mandy-obtained MB knowledge and considering I have no first-hand experience, I did pretty well with the terms and such. Our group progressively gained and lost people but I got to know Courtney and Michelle pretty well and they are awesome people. I kind of feel bad that now we're more or less moving because these guys are pretty awesome. Eventually I'll just tag along with Jess to stuff like she's doing right now anyway so it's cool.

So at one point we saw a kind of awkward-looking guy with a wheelbarrow and Jess goes "I like your wheelbarrow!" and the kid was obviously kind of freaked by this in a "omg gurlz" sort of way. And so we walked along and laughed and then we saw a really tall guy with his girlfriend. He must have been upwards of seven feet tall. Jess suddenly blurts out "You're tall!" and the guy is totally taken back and mutters something like "I know." We all laugh and then his girlfriend suddenly wheels around and says to Jess, "You're a bitch!" So now "You're tall" and "You're a bitch" are our huge humorous inside joke. We mainly just wandered around and never really looked at anything but Jess briefly wanted to do the pony rides and then realized she was pretty much the only person above the age of 5 who wanted to. So eventually it ws 3 and I had to go to the wedding.

The wedding is not totally worth mentioning. It was semi-fun for the most part but a lot of it was drunk people dancing in a loud room. Gary (my brother) has been coming over a lot lately to help fix up the house and get everything ready. Maybe things will get off the ground soon enough for us to be in a new house by the spring? I reaaaaally hope.