They call me Mister Doug

So it's been, like, three months. I've been wrestling with whether or not to delete this blog. I might, I haven't really made a decision yet. I just don't have the focus for it.

A lot has happened, of course. I graduated high school and spoke at my graduation. I got a car and my driver's license. I went on vacation and got my first real job. Then I got my first second job.

Two weeks from today is move-in day at my college. This summer has sped past much faster than I wanted it to, but for once I feel like I really got hold of the summer. The difference really was being able to get myself around.

My job this summer was an interesting experience. I worked for three weeks as a counselor at an art camp, working with 6-10 year-olds. I was one of three male staff members, and the only one who worked directly with the kids. That's where the title of this post comes from.

I'd write more about it, but I just don't want to. That's the main reason I've wanted to delete this blog. I have lots of things to write about, but something is holding me back. I don't know if it would help to move to Wordpress, or if I found a new application to post from, or what. The novelty of blogging wore off, and now there's just not much attraction.

The one possibility I can see is if really worthwhile stuff starts happening to me in college. That might be motivation enough - this could be a reasonable communication tool to keep me in touch with my friends who are going other places.

So I guess we'll see what happens. I'd like to get back into the habit, but I just don't know.

Getting things on track

Things have been happening recently. Good, life-affirming things. I finally got my high school transcript together and sent off to colleges, and as part of working to do that, I got reenrolled at school. I'll be finishing the year out there, not so much for the last credits I need to graduate, but just to keep me from stagnating alone in my room.

The school's changed from when I was there last year. There are a lot of new kids, way more than usual, and a lot of the pivotal people graduated last year. Maybe it's just me, but the atmosphere is just different. More closed, somehow. It could just be me; but I'm having a harder time feeling like I belong. I've still got friends and all, but they don't seem to be around like they used to.

That's not to say it isn't a great feeling being back. This place has been a second home to me, and I'm getting to play music with people a little bit again. I don't know if it would be different if I had been here from the beginning of the year. Maybe I could have helped keep things awesome. But I probably would have just changed with everyone else.

Aside from school, the other good thing that happened is that I got my voter registration card. I wanted to register Independent, since that would have been honest, but more than that I wanted to vote in the primary this year. Thus it is that I am a registered democrat.

The new dilemma in my life, or at least more prominent that it was, is that my driver's permit expires on Friday. I've certainly clocked enough experience to pass a driver's test, except that I've never parallel parked. I also feel like it's a little pointless getting licensed, because even if I do, I still won't have a car of my own to get around in. But I will renew my permit next week, as I am reluctant to relinquish the small amount of liberty it bestowed.

In like a lion

March has started off all right.

Footloose was pretty good. It dragged a bit at the beginning but picked up pretty hard and was down right impressive. Not as good as last year's production, but definitely worth the price of admission. The problem was just that it's not that great of a musical. But they did an amazing job with it.

The Gogol Bordello concert was, well... Mixed. The opening band, some shitfest called Skin Dred, was bad enough that it made me consider just leaving then. I'm also not much of a fan of the mosh pit. I'm just not okay with people touching me without advance notice and me being able to see them. It was okay at first, people shoved, I shoved back.

When GB finally took the stage, it was a different story. They are really good live. It's obvious enough that everyone in the band is up there playing because they love doing it. Eugene is one hell of a showman.

Sunday I went into the city with Rachel. She's got a huge school project coming up, and being the stand up fellow I am I volunteered to help. The project is to do a (condensed) claymation version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I didn't do much of the actual sculpting, but I helped take photos and some other grunt work. It was a surprising amount of fun.

Not much has happened this week. Just sorting some stuff out with college apps, making sure colleges have everything they need. I can't wait to be able to move on from this stuff.

Leap day

It's the last day of February, thank goodness. I've hated this month for a good many years, and it seems this year it's been especially bad. Not even just for me, but also for those around me. I guess that's why it had to be a day longer this year.

Last weekend I hung out with Rachel and on Sunday went over to Gus' to hang out with him and Ben. We had planned to play some music and some D&D, but we ended up just playing D&D. It was a lot of fun though, it's been about nine months since the last time I played. I'm out of practice, but my velociraptor-riding halfling ranger is getting me reacquainted.

I've been in a bit of a slump this week. Just feeling pretty tired and lackluster all the time. General symptoms of depression, they'll get better as I get back into actually doing stuff. I've been too idle. I did hang out at Chris' yesterday and had a very nice time, it helped a lot to lift the monotony.

Hopefully, today should break the streak. I'm going to go see Rach's school's production of Footloose with her. It should be a good experience, even if it can't hope to match the awesomeness of last year's performance of Sweeney Todd. Tomorrow we're going to get to see Gogol Bordello at the Electric Factory, which should just be super awesome.

Valentine's Day was okay. I meant to blog sooner afterwards, but never did. Rachel was feeling pretty under the weather and traffic was terrible so it wasn't all that it could have been. Better than last year, but there's some room left for improvement. I'm just glad I got to spend it with her. We saw Atonement which I thought was just terrible but Rachel seemed to like it.

I recently picked up Super Mario Galaxy and Guitar Hero III. Both have been affording decent entertainment, and it's good to be actually playing my Wii after about a year of disuse. I am just getting more and more excited for Super Smash Brothers: Brawl. I preordered it through Amazon, I don't know what that means vis à vis delivery times but it'll be good enough for me.

Weird things

So in the time between my last post and this my attitude towards where I go to college has changed a bit. That is to say, I'm now constantly worrying about where I'm getting in. Every college I applied to I did so because I want to go there, but what if I just don't get accepted? I know at least one place is a sure thing, but still.

A couple weeks ago I had to update GmailThis! to reflect some changes that Google made. While I was at it, I had some time to waste and added a PayPal donation button. To my immense surprise, somebody actually gave me $5. Man, if I had added that three years ago, maybe I'd actually have some cash. So I just wanted to thank that awesome dude who did that.

The weekend wasn't amazing. Friday didn't turn out really like I would have liked. Rachel and I went over to Gabo's to model for her. We went out afterwards to see some live music that wasn't terrible but wasn't stunning either. It could have been a decent enough time but the timing of the whole thing was terrible. Personal stuff that it's not my business to go into. I definitely feel responsible since I sort of planned it.

The painting came out pretty nicely though.

Saturday was okay. I spent some of the day in a Starbucks that I'm starting to have weird feelings about. I always run into people there. I didn't mind this time because it was a pretty cool person to bump into. Still, given that I never seem to bump into people I know, I feel like that place is some sort of odd nexus in my life.

Sunday was also not so great. Rachel got sick and felt pretty terrible all day. I was happy that I got to be there for her and fetch water and so on, but I hope she gets better soon. Her mom's having a party Wednesday that we're going to be waiter-ing at, and I certainly don't want to be carrying around those plates of shrimp-on-a-stick by myself.

I got my voter registration mailed recently. I wanted to register Independent, since that would be honest, but I ended up registering Democrat so I can vote in the primary. I had been previously supporting Edwards because I thought he was just adorable, but with him dropped out I guess I'm an Obama man. Truthfully I get more nauseated by Hillary every time I see her. She unsettles me on an Uncanny Valley sort of level.

Valentine's Day is coming up and I'm feeling a bit hesitant about it. I think right now my official policy is going to be "I don't need a greeting card holiday to mandate when I express affection to my significant other" but I've got a few tentative things planned that would make that seem marginally hypocritical. Shh, don't tell.

Year's End

2007 has been a most messed up year. Probably the most, at least personally. Here's hoping 2008 is a little more stable. Seems unlikely, but it would be nice.

My mom turned up a week and a bit ago. She still hasn't given me the story on what happened, and I'm a little hesitant to ask. I'll find out sooner or later though. I'm glad that she's back, even if I'm mad about other things.

Christmas was mixed. I spent the morning with Rachel and her family, and that was very classic and nice. Then I went with my dad and visited my grandmother in the hospital. I saw my sister and mom there and then we went back to my dad's place.

It was the kind of Christmas it's supposed to be, I guess. Not much emphasis on presents, more stress put on "hey at least the family's together." Aunt Patty and Uncle Chris were there too. Our tree was a series of wreathes hung on the skeleton of a dead potted plant.

I mostly got a lot of books. That works for me; I love books, and I always need more. I also got two mugs, caffeinated chapstick and soap, and a super-awesome guitar that promises to be very good for rock.

My mom also tried to give me her iPhone, and I'm probably the only person who's ever turned away one. It's not that they aren't awesome or fantastic. Partly it's because I'm really happy with my phone, and I'm not ready to move on. Partly it's because I have issues with taking people's old electronics. I actually put my SIM card in it and got it to work and tried it out for a day. The iPhone just isn't for me, not yet.

Feature-wise my w810i is comparable. Opera Mini is completely fantastic and the iPhone can't even run Java apps. I'm also faster with the keypad, data-entry-wise, than with the virtual keyboard. My phone can take video. Maybe after a generation or two I'll be wetting myself to get one.

Yesterday I went to see Juno with Ben and Lindsay. I'd already seen it a week or two prior with Rach, but it's such a good movie I didn't mind seeing it again at all. I felt a little like a third wheel, but it wasn't as awkward as it could have been. It was good to get out of the house, especially with people I enjoy seeing.

Tomorrow I'm going to go play as bassist with Tigers in the Sun (Evan, Ben, and Gus). I've been hoping to get in on the band for a while - my old band replaced me pretty fast, and went Celtic fusion without me to hold them back. I'm hoping for a more rock atmosphere.

New Year's Eve I'll spend with Rachel in some capacity. No definite plan yet, we might go to some party or another. It should be good.

So?vember

October seems to have just flown by. I'm not going to be over-specific on what I've done, because my memory's not that good and figuring what happened when would require a fair amount of effort, but: Good things about October in some particular disorder.

• Spending the night at Gus', meeting his new niece, meeting his girlfriend, and hot-tubbing.
• Going to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire with Rachel and Chris. Was a little worried, since they'd be meeting for the first time and they come from totally different parts of my life, but we had a good time and they seemed to get along.
• Finally seeing Superbad with Rachel, Gus, and Ben. Brilliant, truly the representative movie of my generation.
• Getting my new passport. Sure, the photo is terrifying but it's already making my life easier.
• Hanging out at Chris' and playing Soul Calibur 3 and Mario Kart: Double Dash with him and his brother until two in the morning.
• Went to Rachel's homecoming. I thought it was much better than last year, I was more comfortable and confident and let myself have more fun.

In general terms, things have been pretty good. I seem to be rocking most of classes with Bs and As. Greek has taken over my life and I wake up conjugating verbs. Getting home weekends has been hard and tiring but almost always worth it.

I didn't really have anything planned for Halloween, but when I woke up I had an unexpected burst of spirit and did my best to make myself look like Mr. Rogers in time for school. Unfortunately, I realized that I had no idea if Canadians ever had Mr. Rogers on TV. I sure hope they did. My costume was pretty decent though. We only got two trick-or-treaters, one of whom was our 20-something neighbor dressed up as King Leonidas. It was pretty awesome. It was a decent Halloween.

Right now I'm sitting in the international terminal of Ottawa Int'l Airport, waiting for my flight to Philadelphia. Today's Rachel's birthday, so I'm flying down so I can have a bit more time with her than usual. We don't have anything in particular planned for the weekend but I think it'll be pretty good.

Daytripping

The bus ride was indeed an adventure! No worries, everything ended up just fine, but it was a memorable experience. Getting down to Philly was not much trouble at all, I rarely had to ask for help and when I did people were generally helpful.

As soon as I got into Philly, I had to get on a train to see my grandmother. Luckily, the surgery went really well, and now all the trickiness is left up to the post-op care. Making sure she doesn't get pneumonia and whatnot. She was happy to see me, it was nice. I also saw my mom, which made me feel guilty, since I got her sick with whatever it was I had a week and a half ago.

Then I got back on the train to go back into Philly to hang out with Rachel. We played around with a polaroid camera, had a paper airplane-building competition with her parents after dinner (I won! I spent first grade wisely, what can I say), then went to draw in the park. After that we went to see RJ's one-act play being put on at Temple. It was really good, the script was obviously quality but the actors did a great job with it. We see two other one-act plays there, one was pretty generic, the other was really good.

Early the next morning I had to get on a bus to go back up to Canada. I got out of Philly fine, the trouble started in NYC. First thing was that I had no idea where I was supposed to be for my bus, and none of the information booths seemed to be manned. I finally found one person who was surprisingly and fantastically competent who helped me.

I was supposed to get out of there on the 11:45, so I guess my first mistake was getting in line only twenty minutes early. The bus got there, twenty minutes or so late because they couldn't find a driver for it, and I was the fifth person too many for its occupancy limit. I had gotten talking with the man behind me, who was also headed to Ottawa, and he talked to the person who seemed to be in charge. She said they were trying to arrange a second bus for us.

Needless to say, the second bus never came. It finally came time for the next bus to arrive, the 1:30, but we weren't even able to get onto that until 45 minutes later. Then they found a second bus, for the people who would have been bumped from the 1:30. I thought, okay, this is a small setback, and everything was fine. We hit Albany all right, I got a tasty ice cream snack, and we switched buses because the other one could hold eight more people or something strange.

We drove and everything was fine. My seatmate was a little creepy, but whatever. I was rocking out to Gogol Bordello's fantastic new album, Super Taranta!, and reviling Iron & Wine's new album, The Shepherd's Dog. It's customary (ahaha look at the pun) to hit the big duty free before crossing the border, so the tourists, dolts, and smokers can buy their related paraphernalia. Keep in mind that when we finally stopped we were literally in sight of the border.

I got off the bus, wandered through the duty free, and got very depressed by the schlock. I got back onto the bus and the bus driver announced that the bus was broken. Some sort of electrical malfunction. He was going to call and get a mechanic, but it would take at least an hour and a half for one to get there. I got back off the bus and bought a large bag of mini-Twix and an orange soda.

Things got a little confused. We drove from the duty free to a gas station, then back to the duty free, and actually went back and forth like that a couple more times. I never found out why. Amidst the conflicting information and the angry protests of my stomach, I decided there wasn't anything productive I could be doing, and fell asleep.

Two hours later I woke up and everyone was getting off the bus. After a moment's panic I deduced that someone had sent us a new bus to get on and that's why people were on the move. I grabbed my stuff and went with them. We finally were over the border at around midnight. Customs had gone fine, way smoother than one would expect, and we arrived in Montreal around 1:30 AM.

It's a popular bus route, the one from and to Ottawa, so a bus runs every hour - before midnight. The next bus to Ottawa wasn't until 5:30. Thus it was that I slept for the first but I'm certain not the last time in a bus station. Luckily the man (he said he had majored in philosophy but worked in pensions) that I had befriended back in NYC was in the same boat, or, well, bus, as me, so I was fairly confident that he would prevent anyone from stabbing me and/or stealing my bag while I was asleep.

I got the 5:30 no trouble, and ended up getting back to the house at around 8:30 - only slightly over 24 hours after I had left Philadelphia. I showered, threw stuff out of my bag and other stuff into it, and went to class.

I'm going back down to Philly this weekend. What are the odds that the bus I'm on would break down again? No really, I'd like to know.

Classes this week have been going all right. Notable things:

Monday, Rabbi Ely Braun came to my religion class to do a lecture on Sukkot and to do a bit of a Q&A thing too. He was awesome. It was great.

Tuesday, I had a philosophy test. It took me 24 minutes to finish it, then I spent the same time over again checking it three times. Then I left.

Tuesday, after Greek, I finally got to see parts of Ottawa that aren't part of the university campus. I had some time before my ride back, and I spent it on a fun and informative walk around the city with Katie. I picked up the new Spoon album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, which I am enjoying so far, from one of the many record stores that seem to be around. I appreciated getting the inside scoop on Ottawa, I'll have to provide a similar service for Philly if she ever visits.

Tomorrow, I have a test in Greek. I've been keeping up pretty well in class and getting decent enough marks on all the homework and quizzes so I'm not too worried. I have a guilty hope that the test will go quite badly for some my classmates, just because there are some people in there that I'd rather not have to see three times a week. We'll see.

The wheels on the bus

Yesterday a whole bunch more drama got dropped into life. My grandmother fell and broke her hip and went to the hospital. The doctors wanted to operate, but she's an extremely poor candidate due to various things. My mom had to drive down immediately to over see things, and I'm getting around thanks to my godmother and her family.

Luckily, it seems things aren't as serious as it first seemed with my grandmother. So now, of course, I'm just worried with how it affects my weekend plans. I had wanted to get home this weekend, but my mom took with her all my documentation, which makes getting across the border tricky. Through a wonderful coincidence, my dad had to fly up to Vancouver, so he's FedExing me my birth certificate, which, with what ID I have on me, should be enough to get me in.

The only hitch is whether or not it'll get here in time tomorrow for me to catch a bus, first to Montreal, then to New York or something (I'm not totally clear on the details yet). It's a heinous bus ride, 14.5-16.5 hours, that I'm not much looking forward to at all, but what can I say. It's important for me to get home.

Classes are going all right. Some of my professors are great, some of them not very. For some reason, though, I always seem to get terrible English professors. My last one spelled "greatest" with an i. My current one told us about the theme of "solopsism" in the story we read. She then told us not to worry, that big words like that wouldn't be on the exam. Criminy.

I'm starting to enjoy Greek more. For whatever reason, I've always gotten a lot of pleasure out of translating English into Latin, and now that we've gotten far enough in Greek to do some translation, I'm finally getting interested. It also helps that I'm more getting the hang of the crazy accents and suchlike.

I'm just hoping this weekend goes off all right. And that I don't get stranded in New York or something. It should be an adventure.

Changes

Things are going all right up here. My classes are rolling along, I'm doing what I can to stay in touch with people - I don't think my phone's ever seen so much action. Even this weekend passed by pretty easily.

Last weekend was much better, of course. I went down to grab some stuff (just the essential: clothes, a guitar, a bass, and my speaker set) and to see Rachel. Over the next weekends that I go down I plan on diversifying my time so that I don't spend all of it with on person, but this weekend I spent what time I had with Rachel.

Unfortunately, Rachel was sick. I felt really bad for her, since I knew she would have cancelled in other circumstances. As it was, I has a good weekend. We went to the Adventure Aquarium, where I haven't been in many years, and we saw Mirrormask, which was good. It was really good to see her again. Too short a time later I had to go, but I did take something away with me: whatever mild seasonal illness it was that Rachel had.

A question I seem to get a lot is: What do I do up here? The answer is a little disappointing. It's just not that different. My weekends are pretty much the same as they were before I had a girlfriend. There's about as much happening in my neighborhood as there was where I moved from.

The loneliness does get to me, of course. After two full weeks of classes, I've had a total of three conversations. (I think here is where I give a shout-out to Katie, whom I had the longest and most quality of those conversations with). Here's the weird thing: A similar phenomenon seems to be happening to all of the people who I'm closest to.

All of my best friends have told me that this year is feeling really lonely. Obviously, there's a common thread in that for all of them, a good friend moved to Canada, but I think it's larger than that. Maybe part of it is thinking about college. This is the year before the biggest separation most people will know.

Given how senior year has been hyped up since as far back as I can remember, I don't know if people have been grossly misleading, or if things will get better, or if I'm just weird and have weird friends. I'm banking on the things will get better theory. Personally, of course, I am regretful that I'll probably not know what it's like to be a senior. Instead, I'll get to be a college freshman twice. That's not exactly a fair trade, to my mind.

One of the biggest things this has done is made me appreciate what I had and have. It's so very cliche, of course, but nevertheless. Even stranger, and one thing I certainly wasn't expecting, is the feelings of patriotism that have been awakened within me. Here's how that happened.

I'm taking Greek I. I didn't know this, but Greek is a completely insane language. I could rant about that for quite some time so just take me on my word. In one of the more introductory classes my professor was talking about how the accent of spoken Greek changed. He said that the same thing had happened in Canada, too; that if you go to the film archives and dig back a few decades, you'll find that the Canadian accent used to be much stronger. My professor said that it's been highly Americanized. And for the first time, I felt proud, really proud to be an American.

How sick is that?

To recap

In as few words as possible. Old stuff, and some new.

Over the summer, my mom applied for and got an internship doing some work at some museum in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She also secretly got my school shit together and applied me to the University of Ottawa, where I was accepted as a full-time student. However, my parents gave me the choice of going or staying.

Obviously, I chose to stay.

However, I was kind of, not really, kidnapped by my mom and was told that I had made the wrong decision so I don't get to decide. Last week I started going to classes.

Yeah, I'm not sure I've ever been as pissed off. But I'm trying to make the best of the situation. I get to go home at least twice a month, maybe more if I do well in my classes. And I've been told that in mid-to-late December, when the semester ends, I can go back home and finish things up there. Which is, again obviously, what I want to do.

So things got ridiculous super-fast and unexpectedly.

I'm going home this weekend but I'm going to be splitting my time up between packing up my stuff, since I've got none of it since I wasn't expecting to be up here, and spending time with Rachel. This has been really hard on her too, but we're trying to make things work.

I guess I can start filling this blog with witty observations on what it's like to be an American in Canada. Maybe.

Decision/vacation

Two Fridays ago I went down to Washington D.C. to get my student visa and maybe do a little sightseeing. As it turned out, both my mom and I forgot a couple of crucial documents that rendered the trip impractical. However, we did get to go on an insider's tour of the Capitol Building, and that was very cool.

The day after that we went to the Philadelphia Zoo. It was a little more boring than when Rachel and I went, it was hotter out and the animals seemed more lethargic and depressed. The good thing is that I had brought my real camera along and was able to take many pictures. I did go up in the Zoo Balloon for the first time. Normally I have problems with height, but I seem to be able to deal with that in most situations. Overall it was a pretty good day.

Then the next day I was coerced into going up to Canada to my mom's new place to supposedly help her move some books. The drive up was pretty heinous, we left about seven hours after we were supposed to and didn't get in to our hotel until four in the morning. The days we spent in Ottawa I mostly spent on my own walking around the city, mostly on the Trans Canada trail.

Sometime within these days I finally came to a decision on whether or not to go to Canada for school and attend the University of Ottawa. It wasn't an easy decision to come to, as one can imagine, and I really did put a lot of thought into it, and talked to all my closest friends about it. In the end, I came to the conclusion that yes, UOttawa would be a great academic opportunity, but in every other way it would be bad for me.

So, I'm not going.

We're still figuring out exactly what my options are for staying here. I'll probably move in with my dad, but school-wise, things are still hazy. I might do what I did last year, or I might go into a traditional school to finish out senior year, or maybe something else. It's an ongoing discussion.

I had to decide against going, though, and after I did I was amazed that I considered going to be a serious possibility. Yeah, UOttawa would be good, academically, and probably look good on a college application, but I'd be in another country, eight hours from everything I knew. Rightly or wrongly, I've always placed a huge importance on personal relationships. Being socially isolated in another country, living in an area where a large part of the population is not English-speaking, would be horrific.

Going to Canada would have been, in many ways, the easy decision for me. I'd know exactly what I was doing and what I had to do and where I'd live and all of that. By choosing against that, I've complicated things for myself. I guess I'm really just hoping that I did the right thing. I do feel confident that no matter what, things will work out for me.

Anyway.

Before we left Canada, we went to this place called Parc Omega, this awesome drive-through nature reserve where the various animals actually wander up to your car and you can feed them carrots. It was mostly ruminants, but there were some fenced off bears and wolves too. It was awesome.

Last Thursday I went over to Gabo's to celebrate her birthday. It wasn't a real party, she's going to have a big one next week. This was just so we could hang out. I was a little confused, just because of how my mom had been haranguing me about having to get a lot of work done, but I'm not really complaining. We had a good time.

The next day I got in the car with Ben and began heading down to the Outer Banks. We picked up Gus in Virginia and stayed in a motel over night. The next afternoon we arrived. I think we should be getting back Saturday night, so I suppose I'll try to have a trip post up sometime after that.

Parties

Saturday morning I made sandwiches and went on a picnic with Rachel in Valley Forge. Even though I think I've always lived less than an hour away from there, I've never spent more time around it than it takes to drive past it. It's beautiful, although it was bothersome when we were looking for picnic spots and half the place seemed to have "Danger: Buried Asbestos" signs. I don't know what the deal is with that. We ended up finding a nice spot not too far from the Welcome Center, so we'd hear the occasional cannon-fire in the background.

Afterwards, we drove out and picked up Gabo to go to a concert/party held at an acquaintance's mansion. And I do mean mansion -- this place was big enough to hold all of the places I've ever lived. Walking up to it you could have thought you were walking up to a town hall. It was huge. We really only came to Meat Rainbow, and even though we showed up about an hour after the show was scheduled to start, we got to see them setting up.

It was not a very big audience. It was me, Rachel, Gabo, and the drummer's girlfriend most of the time. It was sort of depressing, but kind of cool, too. It made it a much more private affair. We got to talk with the band and they said that next show we show up to, they'll let us in free if they can, since we're such good fans. Their set was good, but after they were done, there wasn't much for us to hang around for. We ran into a friend we made at the last Meat Rainbow show and ended up following her into West Chester.

We hung out at a coffee shop for a while and then somehow ended up at the top of a parking garage. By some freak coincidence, we ran into some friends of mine from school -- Pat, Sharif, and Eric. They were there just chilling with some of their friends, and we all hung out for a while. Eventually we headed back to the party, but we took Sharif and Eric with us, and dropped Gabo off on our way. It was a pretty good party, I didn't know many people there but they all seemed pretty cool. When it was time Rachel dropped me off and gave Sharif and Eric a ride into Philly with her.

Sunday was Father's Day. My sister and I went out to brunch with him. We gave him his presents -- DVDs of Good Night, and Good Luck and For Your Consideration, and a picture of something that we got for him on eBay but it hadn't arrived yet. Afterwards we went to the movies. I wanted to see Knocked Up but they seemed against it so we ended up seeing Ocean's 13. It was actually really good the second time, a lot of things that didn't make sense the first time were clearer this time around.

Monday I went to the birthday party of Sam S., a friend of Rachel's. I'm pretty terrible at parties, doubly so at pool parties, so the first half or so of the time that I was there wasn't great. I resent being called anti-social; I'm just not social. I didn't go out of my way to strike up a conversation with anyone, and, to be fair, none of them tried to talk to me either. Not that I can blame them. I knew I had a problem when I realized that I was narrating current events in my head from third-person perspective. The second half was better. I ended up talking to two people I didn't know. In the end I was glad I went.

Today I've got my place to myself. The rest of the folks are on a train going somewhere. I'm taking a train tomorrow out near to Quiggy's. I'm going with his family to Stone Harbor for a week. It's going to be pretty great. I was hoping that the Nintendo DS Browser that I ordered would have been shipped by then, but I'll still have my laptop and cellphone. I'll be taking the chance to test out the Opera Mini 4 beta. I'm sure I'll be Twittering while I'm gone.

Return to summer

Wednesday before last was the official last day of school. It was technically a half day, although most everyone stayed the whole time since there was a picnic afterwards. I took the opportunity to pick myself up a yearbook and get signatures and so on. It was really a pretty boring day. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, saying goodbye to people. Mostly that was because a lot of them I knew I was going to see that Friday at graduation.

Graduation was good. I picked up the Sonic Yearbook (a compilation of audio recordings -- mostly songs and such -- that's been recorded throughout the year. I appear twice: playing guitar on one jam session and singing in the background for an impromptu a cappella rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'") and a t-shirt. Not all of my friends showed up, but most of them did. In general there were a lot more people there than I was expecting, and more than I think there were last year.

It was harder this time. Most of my friends I knew I wouldn't see again until next year, and I had a few friends in the graduating class, too. It's nice how easy it is to keep in touch with people these. I got a couple of phone numbers and email addresses that I hadn't had before, and I might be bassist for a new musical project. But it always seems to be the case that things tend to fall through and time gets wasted and things get pushed back. But at least there will be next year, and phone calls and instant messaging and facebook to get me through until then.

Gus and Rachel came over Wednesday to catch a ride with me to Gabo's movie night. I took the opportunity to give Gus The Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords as a belated birthday present. We listened to music and played around before heading over to Gabo's. It was just us until Gabo's friend Max came over. Evan was going to be there but he didn't show up. We watched Snatch, which Max brought. IT was a little hard to follow but I enjoyed it. After that we watched part of A Mighty Wind before it was time to go.

Gus and Rachel stayed at my place for the night. We watched V for Vendetta, which I liked even more this time around, and then went to bed. The other slept in late, but I woke up at the usual time. That was good because I was able to take care of some chores and such before they got up but it was bad because I was operating on very little sleep for the rest of the day. We ended up going to see Ocean's 13. It was loads better than 12 but not quite as good as 11. We hung out at the mall for a little bit and made shopkeepers nervous, then went back to my place and watched a few episodes of The Venture Bros. before everyone had to go.

The summer's gotten off to a pretty good start. I don't have much planned for the rest of it but I think it'll shape itself out nicely.

End of the year stress

There have been a couple of busy days recently. I had to pull an all-nighter Thursday/Friday to get the last bit of my end-of-year school work done. It was my fault for being dumb and procrastinating some things for literally months, but I managed to get five four-page papers and four one-page papers done before I had to leave in the morning. They aren't my best work, obviously, since I didn't spend more time on them then it took to write them, so their structure is off and there's probably some mistakes in them.

Three of the papers were for my American Law & Government class. I wasn't sure what to write them on (we're allowed to do anything, so long as there's some tangential connection to legal matters) until I realized it would be easy if I just picked something I could get worked up about. Thus I ended up writing about the current internet radio debacle, all those proposed smoking bans, and (I hate myself for this one) how people are getting fired from work and suspended from school for having blogs.

The other two papers were for my Modern Mythology class, and were a nice diversion as they were much more light-hearted. One I did on Kingdom Come, the comic book, regarding other possible endings and their ramifications, and the other I did on possible scientific explanations for Hiro Nakamura's (character from the television series Heroes) time-travelling. (This is the point at which I'm going to plug Primatech Paper Podcast, a Heroes-themed podcast. It's stunningly insightful and humorous, and that it's done by someone I know is entirely incidental.)

I did my best to get a good night's sleep Friday night, as I had the SATs the next day. I managed to get to the testing center on time and find my seat without too much trouble. I was amazed to run into a friend from school there, but it was nice to have some kind of connection there. I was also smart to have brought an extra, long-sleeved shirt to wear as the gym we were in got progressively colder as time passed.

The actual test was okay. The essay wasn't bad; I managed to dot my final period with 24 seconds left on the clock, which unfortunately left no time for proof-reading and revising. I'm not going to say what I had to write about, since I'd rather not have to deal with any college nerd thugs. The reading comprehension was about the same as it's always been for me. The math was much easier than the last time I took it. I was able to answer more questions than before and feel better about those answers. Overall I think I did decently.

Afterwards I went home and took care of a few things, then took a train into Philly to hang out with Rachel. We made sandwiches for dinner and a peach cobbler for dessert. After that we listened to some music, I had brought over my copy of Belle & Sebastian's The Life Pursuit for her to rip. I felt bad because I wasn't much fun to be around. After dinner I really just kind of crashed. Between staying up all night recently and expending a vast amount of energy via hyper-focusing on the SATs, I was exhausted. I was doing the whole almost-falling-asleep-and-speaking-in-a-monotone thing, which does not make for good company.

Then nothing really happened the next day. I had the place to myself for most of the day, and so I got to just relax and do nothing much. It was a nice change. I always push myself at the end of a school year, which is why I usually start out the summer sick. It seems to just be what I have to do each time.

Memorial Day

Sunday was Ben's family's annual Memorial Day picnic. I took a train out to Philly so I could get a ride there with Rachel. My mom was picking up a friend of hers from the airport, so if I hadn't been able to get a ride I would have gotten there about three hours late. It was a good crowd. Aside from us, Gus, Lindsay, and Evan were there, and Gabo showed up later on.

We started out swimming. Then we got food and went inside and played "Tumbling Towers" (Jenga rip-off) and Pictionary. Rachel and I probably would have won because we're awesome. The three teams (Ben and Lindsay, Evan and Gus and Gabo were the other two) were pretty balanced at least in that each had at least one real artist. We were going to go back in the pool, but there was a thunderstorm coming on and we (that is, the adults) thought it prudent not to.

I went back into Philly with Rachel because it was easier for my mom to pick me up from there on her way back from the airport. We hung out, and then when my mom and her friend got there, rather than going home they just talked forever. Which was cool, since it meant I got to stick around for longer.

Monday I started preparing for the SATs, which I'm taking this Saturday. It'll be the first time I've taken them in three and a half years. I'm not that concerned, except for the essay. When I last took them it wasn't on there, so it's a bit of an unknown quantity. Later on I took a train into Philly so I could hang out with Rachel for a bit. We had dinner and wandered around South Street.

I'd have included pictures with the post, but I forgot my camera at Ben's place. Gus has it in his position, and I ought to be able to get it back this weekend. I'll put them up then.

Andrew Bird, Prom, Field Day

Friday morning I was supposed to go to my middle school's version of field day. They call it the Greek and Roman Games. At the beginning of their career at the school, a child is assigned as either a Greek or a Roman. At the end of the year, the two clans compete in a variety of events. It's also a time for alumni to come and visit and see how things are doing. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was less than ideal, and it was postponed until Monday. I was already in Philadelphia that morning when I found out, since I was going to get a ride with Rachel, so we ended up just going to the art museum.

The art museum is pretty awesome. The last time I was there was with Gabo to see the special Andrew Wyeth exhibit. The last time I went there to just see things was probably over a decade ago, which is rather criminal. It really is a fabulous institution, although we had the misfortune of visiting while the entire museum facade was covered in scaffolding for some reason. The interior remained as fabulous as ever, and it was a great way to spend some time until lunch.

After lunch we went and picked Gabo up from the train station. We wandered around South Street for a while. Gabo hasn't spent that much time on it, and it was fun getting to show her around. It was only recently that I've spent much time there, so I can remember what it was like. Fun stuff. I also got a new watch resized but managed to misjudge it so it's still slightly too big. Frustrating, but that's okay.

That night was the much anticipated Andrew Bird concert. I've been looking forward to it since it was first announced, 2+ months ago. I've also been holding on to my tickets for about the same length of time. I only learned the name of the opening band the day before the concert -- Joan as Police Woman. We briefly checked out her myspace page and found it to be pretty indistinctive.

Finally the time came to go and stand in line for the doors to open. We were around fifteenth in line, we only got there half an hour early. We saw Evan and one of his friends standing in line. After the doors opened and we got standing room (reasonably close to the stage), we gathered into a clump and talked. Joan as Police Woman came on and was pretty unimpressive. People didn't stop talking during her set and she got obviously progressively more upset, until Evan said that she looked like she was going to shoot lasers out of her eyes. She did, too.

Then Andrew Bird came on.

Honestly?

Effing amazing.

He's one of the most attractive men I've ever seen and is a ridiculously talented musician. He played about an equal mix of songs from Armchair Apocrypha and Mysterious Production of Eggs. He also played one cover (not sure what of), Dr. Strings, and one new song that he forgot midway through but was still awesome. The only disappointing part of the concert was when the bass gave out and somehow they were only traveling with one bass. The bassist ended up spending the rest of the concert playing guitar or keyboard. Oh, the lighting was pretty bad too. But everything else? Awesome.

Gabo and I slept over at Rachel's place. The next day we took Gabo to the train station and then got on the train later that day ourselves. We went back to my place, hung around for a while, and got ready for my prom. We missed Rachel's prom to go to the Andrew Bird concert, which I do still feel bad about, but I'd feel worse about if it wasn't tied for most amazing concert ever. After we got ready and it was time to go we discovered my mom lost the car. After half an hour or so of wandering around the parking lot it turned out she had left it at the train station somehow. We ended up getting to prom an hour late.

My school has a pretty relaxed prom, luckily. The theme this year was "Blacklight Fantasy," which was pretty cool. The DJ didn't suck that much, and was reasonable about taking requests. I was even able to get him to hook my iPod up so we could play "Piano Man" and yell along. I was surprised to find out later on that this year had the greatest turn-out for a prom yet, because there were still very few people there. I had a lot of fun, because a bunch of my friends were there and I do better not in huge crowds and all that. I think Rachel was able to enjoy it too, albeit it not as much. The best music was played in the last half-hour or so, apparently because some students over-ran the DJ and I had forgotten my iPod back there. (I had been wondering who had such good taste in music, and apparently it's me, though I suppose I was just an enabler.)

The next day we hung around and went to see Spider-Man 3. My feelings about it can be summed up as: They did the best they could. There were just too many elements for them to work with. Something would happen and then not be followed up on for ten or so minutes. They shouldn't have had that many villains. Also: Emo-Spidey? Ridiculous. Topher Grace's voice for Venom? Also ridiculous. I enjoyed it, but it was no Spider-Man 1.

Monday I went to the Greek and Roman Games. Rachel couldn't go because she had surgery (wisdom teeth). But Ben and Gus and Gabo were there and some other people too. It was pretty fun. The score got tied at 12-12, and then the dirty Romans won the last event. The Greeks had a moral victory, I say. Afterwards I went home with Ben and Gus. I'm crashing at Ben's place for some undefined number of days for undefined reasons.

Tuesday I went with Ben's mom to pick him up from school and so I got a chance to wander around my old high school's campus a little bit. The only student to recognize me was a girl who I never had a class with or really even spoke to for more than 45 seconds, but had a crush on me freshman year. I went to drop in on my old advisor and had a nice talk with him. It was pretty weird being back there and also kind of stressful.

That's about it. I've been writing ridiculously long posts, but it all seems to be necessary. In case you missed it, I did publish my NCACS post.

The trip post is coming

I have written 1600+ words so far on the trip and there is yet more to go. I will have it done! I am not just slacking. All of my photos are online, so you can look at those in the meantime - NCACS 07 Flickr photoset. I did end up moblogging via my Twitter account, so there's that too. I'm going to be pretty busy over the next few days (Andrew Bird concert! Prom!), but I'll try and get everything done.

I got my braces off yesterday after having them on for a bit under two years. I have one of those clear plastic retainers now but life is just incomparably better. I just need to master saying my esses.

Going to Indiana

Wednesday was good. I went into Philly with Rachel and studied a bit more before my philosophy final exam. I think I did okay. Thursday I left to go north, to visit colleges and to pick my sister up. I'm not actually going to write about any of the colleges I visit in case an admissions officer finds this blog (hi, guys). Monday I came home. Today is my mom's birthday (happy birthday!). Rachel came over and hung out and helped me shop for presents.

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving with my school to go to the annual NCACS conference. I'll be gone until Monday. I might moblog on the road, I don't know. I'll still be checking my email every now and then and obviously I'll have my phone, so I won't be totally unreachable. I got a new camera a few days ago (Canon SD1000 -- totally sweet) so I'm going to take lots of photos.

Sorry for the short post (I guess). I'm going to take notes on what I do while I'm gone so expect an ultra-post.

May Day

Last Monday I had an orthodontist appointment. I ought to be getting my braces off in two weeks -- just in time for prom. I'm extremely excited. It took a lot longer than they initially said it would, but it's worth it to have my teeth be nice and straight.

On Friday I took Rachel to my school's Evening of the Arts. It's their annual shindig where they hang up or otherwise display people's visual arts and erect a stage for visual and aural performances. It runs the gamut; there's the usual traditional, stunning artwork mixed in with the lower-schoolers' crayon drawings, a suit of chain mail, a motorcycle, paper-craft, there's just all kinds of things.

It's much the same with the live performances. There's the lower-school performances, the occasional spoken word or interpretive dance (neither of those this year, thank the gods), and then all the singers and bands play. There's the misinformed singers (they were informed they could sing and that anyone liked the songs they did), the amazing singers, and then all the bands where you just know they could have been good if maybe they had rehearsed (that's where I fit in). Anger Core performed again, and sure enough, they had improved.

On Saturday, after we dropped Rachel off at the train, I went to see my friend Chris. We chilled out at his place for a while and ate dinner, and then we went to see his old school's production of High School Musical. To be fair, I can't really fault the performance based on their choice of a terrible musical. I never saw the movie but I'm judging it anyway. The performance itself was underwhelming. The lead female role was pretty good, she could sing well. The male lead was adequate, although a little perturbing since his voice was higher than the lady's. There was one other female part with a good singer, and the rest was not really where it should have been. Prop-wise and so on it was good. Great stage-crew, too. It was awesome seeing Chris again.

On Sunday my sister and I went out and had lunch with my dad. It was good and then afterwards we went to the nearby Eckerd and I got some awesome dart guns and some better juggling balls. It's great because they're much better than the tennis balls I've been using. I can actually juggle better with them. There's stuff that I couldn't do at all well before that I'm doing now. So that's promising.

Spring broken

I realize it’s actually been closer to two weeks since my last post. No worries, not a whole lot has actually happened since then. Nothing happened the rest of that week or over the weekend. Easter was pretty tame. The only things to differentiate it from any other day is that I ate a lot of chocolate and candy, and was thus more disgusted with myself than usual, and dinner was a more formal affair. My sister and I also had lunch with my dad at one of the few places that was open. It was nice place, more so for not being as crowded as usual.

Wednesday was my dad’s birthday. I don’t even get home until eleven on Wednesdays, so I wasn’t able to see him. I called him up of course. So a shout-out to him, I guess.

On Friday I went into Philly after school. I hung out with Rachel. We were going to maybe check out something showing at the Film Festival but either there wasn’t anything particularly captivating or what was started too late before I had to leave. Instead I introduced her to the magic of Transmetropolitan, the best comic book I’ve ever read, with some of the best art I’ve seen, and just plain one of the best books I’ve read. As a Friday the Thirteenth it wasn’t any more unlucky than any other day in my life. I missed my van in the morning so I had to walk an extra mile. But then I almost missed my train out of Philly because I screwed up the times, and it was pretty damned lucky I was there in time.

Saturday night Gabrielle, Rachel, Mike, and I all went to see Anger Core and Meat Rainbow play. A few other bands were playing, too, but we weren’t there to see them. Anger Core was good but not great. It was their first performance and they hadn’t rehearsed much, but it’s clear enough that they’re headed for greatness. Meat Rainbow was on usual good form. Of the other bands, Space Jams blew, When Cars Ascend had good instrumentals but a terrible singer, and Univox was just all around good. I bought an exclusive, one-of-a-kind Anger Core shirt that I’m going to treasure for years. We also ran into Tucker which was pretty weird but for whatever reason not as awkward as what I would have imagined.

On Sunday my sister and I went out and had lunch with my dad. We wished him a happy birthday and distributed material goods and suchlike. It was good.

A pox upon me

The past week has not been very eventful. Last Tuesday (not yesterday) I woke up itchy, with what appeared to be bug-bites littered around my body. I looked at myself and thought, wow, I know the weather turned warmer recently but I didn't think bugs would have hatched that quickly. I didn't think much of it and just tried to avoid scratching. The next day at school, I overheard a kid mention how he'd been absent for chickenpox. And I thought, oh, damn.

Sure enough, I had contracted the 'pox. I had supposedly been immunized against it when I was younger, but it's evidently not a 100% thing. I was fortunate in that I got it very mildly. Benedryl helped a whole lot with the itchiness, Tylenol helped with the feverishness and headaches, so I really just had to deal with feeling really tired and generally kind of gross. Today will be the first time I've left the property in a week. Luckily it's spring break so I haven't missed much school.

I passed the majority of the time watching movies, playing video games (really just Soul Calibur III), and reading. So here's a few movie micro-reviews.

• Lethal Weapons 1 & 2 - Mediocre. Maybe I would have liked them better if I had watched less Law & Order as a lad and wasn't taking a law class in school. So little respect for protocol or due process, to such an unbelievable extent.
• Total Recall - The best, and only, movie I've watched with a main character named Doug. That made it kind of weird for me when I was watching it. I enjoyed it though, really decent sfx given when it came out.
• Office Space - A classic. The third time I've seen it, and it's just as good.
• Andy Barker, P.I. - Not actually a movie, but a new TV show. It's good though. I like Andy Richter and Tony Hale, the actors are good, and the writing is too.

I have also listened enough to the new Modest Mouse album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, to pass judgment upon it. I don't like it as much as their last two albums, but it's still pretty good, and I think it's worth picking up if you like them. I don't find the melodies in it as compelling, and the vocal style is more often of the kind that I disliked in their older stuff, but that's really a taste thing. Of any song on it, I'd recommend "Missed the Boat" to listen to.

On Monday Rachel came by and dropped off some headphones I had left by accident at her house last time I was over. We walked around a bit before she had to go. Then yesterday she came over again for a little bit. We would have gone out, but there were circumstances preventing me (I wasn't feeling very good and it was part of my punishment from last week). It was a nice day so we sat outside on my balcony and talked. It was last week or the week before but she asked me to escort her to her prom this year and I agreed. So I've got that to look forward to.

Monday night my mom, sister, and I attempted to have a Passover Seder. It wasn't flawless, but we tried. We got the food more or less right, we did what of the readings we could, and although the whole thing was pretty jerry-rigged, it was a nice night. If any of us had taken it more seriously, there would have been some serious disappointment and/or offense taken. But we didn't, so it was good.

I've also spent a lot of time working on my iBook, which I finally had fixed and got back after it broke in whatever, December. I backed up the hard drive, properly this time, wiped it, and tried to reinstall Mac OS 10.4. Unfortunately, at some point my install DVD got scratched up and so I kept getting errors during install. I bought a disk repair kit, and used it repeatedly, but it didn't help. I eventually managed to get it to work by only choosing to install the absolute basics. I'm still working on getting all of my applications and settings and such on it. It's running really nicely, especially given it's going on six years old.

I've also been working on going through and adding labels to some posts. Given the 200+ posts on this blog, I can't imagine I'll finish that task for quite some time. I'm just waiting until I find myself with a hunk of time, nothing better to do, and I'm in a nice, OCD mood.

Start of spring

I'm posting at a more or less consistent once-per-month pace, but I've noticed that the posts in question are just hideously long. I think I'm going to try and institute a once-per-week policy instead. With any luck I can squeeze enough out of a week to make a post.

Monday I got the new Andrew Bird album, Armchair Apocrypha, in the mail. I've listened to it 10+ times since then. Yeah it's pretty amazing. I wouldn't say it's as good as & the Mysterious Production of Eggs, but given that that was a pretty much perfect album, you've got to be willing to cut some slack. There's a good interview with Andrew Bird over at the Onion's A.V. Club.

There's an interesting atmospheric difference between the two albums. I don't know the proper language to describe it, but I'll give it a shot. In Eggs, when I listen to it, I pretty much picture my head as a dark parlor room with me standing in the middle and Andrew Bird playing in my ear. It's a contained, private sort of feeling. In Apocrypha, it's different. Rather than there being that sort of contained feeling, it's like I'm in that same parlor room, but the roof's been taken off and the universe is pouring in. It's something in the acoustics of the album, I can tell, that make it sound open-air somehow. It makes me almost agoraphobic.

It's an amazing album, though. It's crazy, so many bands that I like have already released albums or are releasing them later on this year. Air, the Apples in Stereo, Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, the Shins, all have new albums out. Once I've listened to them a bunch more I'll probably post up some kind of review.

On Tuesday I finally got my learner's permit. I'm not sure what I would have done if there had been another set-back or if I had failed the test or something. Amazingly, things worked out and I walked out of the DMV triumphantly. It was made all the sweeter by the knowledge that Ben had failed his permit test earlier that day (although he got it the next).

Wednesday was the official first day of spring. I didn't get to enjoy really anything seasonal about it, but it was just a good day in general. Good things happened at school and after school and all that. Thursday was also pretty great. The weather was just beautiful and I had my first driving lesson. My mom took us over to a parking lot and I drove around it for a while and familiarized myself with the controls and habits and suchlike. This driving thing doesn't seem like it's as hard as maybe I thought it would be. Except for parallel parking, that would appear to be as heinous as I ever imagined. Then again, it was my first time actually driving, so I don't suppose I should expect too much.

Friday I went to school and hung out with Rachel for a bit afterwards. On Saturday I went over to Gabo's house to model for an oil painting. Unfortunately, I was oppressed into remaining clothed. Gabrielle is doing it for an art class but she said after the semester's over she'll give it to me. Were I to have a fireplace, I would hang it over it. I suppose I'll settle with hanging it over my bed, or across from it so I see it first thing in the morning.

After I got home from Gabo's I did some philosophy work. Fun stuff. After concentrating on that for a while, Rachel came over. We were going to watch Little Miss Sunshine with my mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend, but while we were waiting one of Rachel's friends called up and said they were going to be seeing 300 at the local multiplex. I'd watched LMS pretty recently and heard a lot of hype about 300, plus I've been fascinated with Sparta since I was taught about the Battle of Thermopylae in fifth grade. So we drove out and saw it.

I thought it was a pretty decent flick. I haven't read the graphic novel, so I can't really compare the movie to it. Nevertheless, I thought the cinematography was pretty cool. The acting was good. And it's awesome because Spartans really were as bad-ass as they were in the movie. Obviously, there were a load of historical inaccuracies, but none that I couldn't really accept as cinematic exaggerations. I did have some trouble with the gore. Not with the quantity so much as the inconsistency. There was a lot of it, but they didn't take it all the way re: decapitation etc. Not that I'm complaining, exactly.

Unfortunately, while I honestly felt it wasn't such a big deal for me to skip the pseudo-family gathering, my mom felt otherwise. I was planning on seeing Chris on Sunday but found myself grounded. I feel it's a little unfair to be punished when I hadn't knowledgeably been disobedient, but my appeal was rejected.

I've been doing some mechanical work on the blog and I've been trying to update it for all the New Blogger fanciness but I'm running into some difficulties. Bear with me, please.
Edit: Turns out Blogger is just giving the shaft to its users who publish by FTP. Nice.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I know it was yesterday, but nevertheless.

Two weeks ago I went to see a production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as done by Rachel's school (she was stage manager). They did a fantastic job, it was way beyond any high school dramatic performance that I'd ever seen before. Everything was well done, the acting, the singing, the music. Top-notch all around. So good I couldn't shave for the whole week afterwards.

Later that week Rachel broke up with me. I had been half expecting it for a week or so, so I wasn't that surprised. It's a little more complicated than that. We're still on amicable terms and we're still hanging out. It did bring me low but I'm getting back to myself all right. I'm either just really persistent(ly stupid) or maybe there's still something there, I'm not much in a position to say.

The Friday after that I went to see a couple of bands perform, because some of them were comprised of my friends. I invited Gabo and Rachel along, and Rachel brought her friend Mike, because he's also friends with someone I know in one of the bands. I went principally to see The Raging Pucie