Unknowing
It's not the characters I'm infatuated with. It's not Jim, it's not Stephen, and it's not Lelio. Jim's goofiness, Stephen's charm, Lelio's sweetness- those aren't the reasons I look forward to seeing him so much. No, it's the way he leans forward in his chair when he's focusing, and how even though he's from a different school he immediately understood the dynamic necessary for dealing with Sarah. It's how when I smiled at him just before we performed our composition he smiled back, and the way he held me up in a manner that told me for certain he wasn't going to drop me on the stage, no matter how long he had to carry me.
There are other things, too, things that aren't just him. When he's talking to the rest of the group, sharing an idea, I give him my full attention, as I do for everyone. He acknowledges this, making eye contact with me. When we talk, he isn't as derogatory as Ben is- if I laugh, he doesn't tell me to stop. He laughs with me.
It's a crush, though, I can see that clearly. The last time I was this infatuated, I didn't get my head out of it for two years. Or so. I say that, but I think this particular time may have started farther back than I'd care to admit- back when I still had that emotional baggage I really had no right to.
I still can't help wondering if he has a girlfriend, or what he thinks of me, or what he and Michelle said about me after I left, or if they even talked about me at all. Seeing as we talked about Sarah after she left, and Ben for a moment after he left, I think it's safe to guess they talked about me.
I just wish I knew what they said.
Playing Second Fiddle
My school's variety show is coming up. As in, May 23-26. As in, three weeks. For said variety show, every section in the arts program- theatre, film, art, dance, music- does something, and people are divided into groups within their discipline. I found out who was in my group Monday of last week, and I was told our first rehearsal would be that Wednesday at five. All right, so I had a Butoh class off-campus that didn't end until five, but there was nothing I could do about it. No worries, right?
So Wednesday afternoon, we showed up. All our director wanted was our names and phone numbers. He said we'll start rehearsals next week. All the other groups were starting/had started, but hey. He was doing lights for the dance show, he had an excuse. I went with it.
Day before yesterday, I asked the head of our theatre department if he'd heard anything from my group's director. He hadn't; I ended up calling our director myself. Said director said he thought we'd have our first rehearsal Wednesday, from five to eight. I should have mentioned that three of us had a class off-campus that ended at five, but I didn't. First mistake. Second mistake- I told the rest of the people in our group what he had said (all save one, whom I forgot to tell and whom I don't particularly like. I also managed to use my "Business Voice"- that is, the voice I used on the phone since I was talking to someone I hardly knew and needed something from- on one guy in my group, who is very nice and who doesn't deserve such a curt voice and who I might even sort of kind of like.)
Today, I was looking forward to our first rehearsal. All the other groups at this point have rehearsed and know what they're doing, but I was fairly confident we would get to work and get on track. Then, at four o'clock, right in the middle of Butoh, my phone started to ring. Humiliation struck, I snatched the phone and turned it off, and all was well. Or so I thought. It was not even a minute before another phone rang- this time, it's Michelle, also in my group. He does the same. And then, even another phone rang- Ben's. And guess what? He's in my group.
It wasn't until ten after five that Ben got the message left on his phone: we'd been cancelled. I didn't catch the reason, but I was mad. Fists-clenching, eyes-narrowing, jaw-tensing mad. But of course, there was nothing I could do.
With a New Semester
....comes a lot of changes. I knew Global Issues was going to end and I wasn't going to see Conor for so long every day anymore. I didn't know (a) he would start dating a junior (?!) or (b) we'd only have one Academy class together or (c) he'd simply stop talking to me altogether.
I knew I'd be taking different Academy classes. I went from "advanced acting", "movement for the actor", and a workshop with the Actors' Gang to Butoh, "directing and scene study", and, well, the same Actors' Gang workshop. I am endlessly grateful for that, at least, staying the same.
I've known for a long while that something had to change, because I knew that Conor Did Not Like Me Like That. I knew I was wasting my time. And I made a decision- it was no longer allowed. No more glancing over at him in English. No more deliberately taking routes that would allow me to pass him in the halls and smile at him. No more hating the girl he is dating despite the fact she is perfectly nice and I'm being unfair. It's tough, though. The scary thing is, I know that if he broke up with his girlfriend tomorrow, my heart would catch in my throat.
So I now have a goal- I need to find someone else to crush on, someone else's name to doodle on my Biology notes. Really, though, I'm not particularly attracted to anyone I see on a daily basis. Perhaps I'll have to broaden my search to guys I see on a weekly basis.
And then, maybe, if Conor breaks up with his girlfriend, I won't go all to pieces all over again.
Dabbling
I've always wanted to be good at things. Not just average, but really truly
good. Excellent, even. In school, that's easy. School doesn't require talent. School requires motivation, and that's really all.
Other things, though, have prerequisites, and if you don't have said prerequisites, there's nothing you can do about it, not really.
Ever since I was really little- for as long as I can remember- there were two things I wanted to do, and become famous for. Act, and sing. Singing, though, was the thing that I always loved most.
Just because you love something, though, doesn't mean you're any good at it.
All through elementary school and middle school, I ignored my music producer/recording engineer/guitar player dad telling me I was tone deaf. In eighth grade, I ignored the people who said I didn't deserve to make it into the Variety Show- our version of a talent show- even though I had indeed made it in. I ignored people telling me I was singing flat; I, after all, being tone deaf as my dad had said, couldn't tell.
Then, a few weeks into high school, I found myself just singing. Quite randomly of course; I tend to do that. I was getting odd looks, and for a moment I wondered why.
I haven't sung with anyone nearby since.
Then, earlier tonight, I was alone in the house, lonely, bored. I opened up GarageBand- oh, how I love having an Apple- and just for the heck of it, I recorded my voice. Singing. Speaking. Reading aloud from a book.
I played it back over and over again.
And I have to say, I didn't sound half bad.
Semantic Quibbling
There's a difference between being in love and loving someone.
You see, if you're in love with someone, they love you too. Thus the
with.
That's worlds apart from loving someone. That, then, means that you love them- but they don't love you, or at least you don't know if they do.
You can't say you're in love if that's the case. All you can say is you love someone.
A Sense of Direction
My mother has no sense of direction. Period. Once, when I was about eight, she was taking my younger brother and me to a Chuck E. Cheese's, not too far away; half an hour at most. Somehow, she ended up on the freeway. Could be worse. She could have been on the freeway to
San Francisco.I suspect this is hereditary. I have, you see, inherited this lack of an inner compass.
This morning, from nine to ten, my school's theatre company was having a flyer/poster/postcard distribution. (I was out until half past one last night at a concert, but I came anyway.) Basically, we were given a route, a map, a stack of posters, and the advice that it's illegal to put anything completely inside a person's mailbox (it's soliciting.) I myself have lived in this city practically my entire life, but I am not exactly capable of navigating through it myself- this is mainly because I'm not really allowed to walk anywhere. Well, fine. I joined a group with three other people, one of whom knew his way around
basically, one who was new to the city, and one who actually attends another school but is a member of the theatre company.
Not exactly an intelligent group choice, I know. Still, safety in numbers. That in mind, we set off. We were hardly a block away when we first got lost.
On our maps- courtesy of Mapquest- there was something that was slightly unclear. There are two streets of the same name (actually it's the same street, but it stops and then starts again three blocks away) in the area, and most of the second part was cut off; it was, however, the more obvious part, as it was right on the edge of the map. It also happened to be a few blocks away from where we were supposed to be.
So there we are, staring at our maps- we had four copies of the same thing- and staring at entirely the wrong part of it. Somehow, we had convinced ourselves that we were somewhere we were not. Deciding to be adventurous, I suggest we begin marching off in a random direction, hoping to somehow get an idea of where we were. Brilliant idea, I know.
And then, all of a sudden, my friend Lexa looks up from her maps and comments "There are two Garfields."
Transcendent Moments
They don't come often, in my experience- granted, that isn't much. I've only ever had one. Yesterday.
There are moments when you are not within yourself; when you are
connected to something greater. These are moments you will always remember, because how could you ever forget anything so amazing? They are rare; there aren't many ways they occur. Maybe it's through religion. Or from being in love.
For me, it was through the arts; through acting. Maybe a part of it was love. I don't know.
It was in Movement class. We were doing an exercise entitled viewpoints, of which the essential element is kinesthetic response- your body's impulsive reaction to your surroundings. Other elements are tempo, duration, architecture, gestures, light...
The most important thing, really though, is the other people.
Yesterday, I had a headache. All through class, I was out of it, I was unable to focus.
Then, all of a sudden, there I was, leaning on the table, and straight in front of me was a friend of mine, whom I've liked for as long as I've known him. There was someone halfway between us, actually, facing a direction perpendicular to our plane, and so I could only actually see one of his eyes, and yet it was as if I could see both, there was such a connection. All of a sudden, everything snapped into focus and I was part of the group. I couldn't tell where I ended and everyone else began.
I've had two moments that I will always remember. That was one.
On Christmas and Christianity
I'm fairly undecided, religiously speaking. I like the idea of reincarnation, but aside from that, all I know is this- I'm not a Christian. I have some Christian values, certainly, but I do not believe in God as he is presented by believers in Christianity. It's certainly not a product of how I was raised; my family says grace every night. I am always uncomfortable when
I'm asked to say grace. It feels like some sick version of lying, where it's hugely important- to my mother especially- and I can't tell the truth. All my relatives, both sides of the family, are devout Christians. My grandmother is Episcopalian; both of my aunts on my dad's side are Born-Again Christians, as are their immediate families.
I've simply never bought into it. If my cousins knew this, they'd consider me hellbent on going to hell. If my favorite aunt knew this, she would attempt to "save" me. Excuse me; does that mean I need saving? I have morals. I've never stolen anything; I've never pirated music; I've never cheated on a test and the only lying I do is about my religion.
Needless to say, I've never killed anyone. Anything.
Is it wrong, somehow, to celebrate Christmas and not be a Christian? Of course, I do not follow the religion of which it is a holy day; I merely appreciate that has, admittedly, been molded into what it is today by retailers and Hallmark.
Still, is this so terrible? After all, what fourteen-year-old girl with limited funds could despise two weeks off from school and free stuff from the people who know her best?
When I'm Feeling Sad...
...I simply remember my favorite things
and then I don't feel so bad!The Sound of Music is my mom's favorite musical. A few of my favorite things-
--Roller coasters. Any roller coaster. I swear I will not throw up. I can't say the same for dragging everyone who's with me straight back into line.
--Heath bar ice cream. Toffee, chocolate bits, caramel, all in vanilla ice cream. Frozen heaven.
--Bath and Body Works lotion. Warm vanilla sugar.
--My sixth period class. My fastest-closest friend and the guy friend I've liked as long as I've known him are in that class (he is completely oblivious as to how I feel about him. She is always laughing at how transparent I am.)
--Crowded House. Especially especially especially the song
Mansion in the Slums.
--Kittens. Especially black ones.
--My red silk flats. I bought them in Chinatown for five bucks. They ran a size large- I wear them in a nine and everything else in a ten. That makes me happy.
--Cute motivational posters, the cheesier the better.
--Bags. Not handbags (well, them too.) Shopping bags. Especially really pretty ones. Like the Topshop bag my dad brought me from England.
--Udon noodles with tofu.
Even though it's strange to eat them with the beef flavoring with tofu.
Gratuitous Violence...?
I want to play laser tag. Maybe even paintball. I'm feeling adventurous.
My little brother turned ten today. He invited over a few friends and they played Nerf Dart Tag. I invited over my next-door-neighbor/best-friend-for-a-decade/virtual-sister and we watched/collected darts/helped out. She commented on how we hadn't ever had these things- Nerf projectile guns, I mean- when we were younger.
I commented that we should go play paintball. She pointed out how scary
Failure to Launch made it look. (Neither of us much appreciated that movie; it took us a good five minutes to come up with its title.)
So we decided on laser tag. If we ever get around to it...
Well, we probably won't.
Mouth-Breathing
Grrr. I hate being sick. Last year, I missed ten days of school by the time I was halfway through the first semester. This year, I hadn't missed a single day. I was feeling very pleased with myself. Until this morning. See, the thing about having moderate asthma is that your parents decide the combination of a sore throat and a stuffy nose means you need to stay home.
I really wouldn't have minded- I really did feel sick this morning- if not for the fact that today is a Wednesday, meaning I would have had my favorite acting class, which takes place on Mondays and Wednesdays, today. Sadly, said class was missed by me today.
Monday seems a long way off.
Wondering, Wandering, Wanting
What's it like to love someone?
I wonder.
Is it when you've adored someone for as long as you've known them, since you first met them, and it hurts every day because they don't know and have never known?
And can never know?Is it that feeling when you want nothing more than to be with them, all the time you've got in this life, talking or not, and you're longing for what you can't have?
In other words, them?Is it when you're bored to tears, but then you catch a glimpse of their hands and you can get through the rest of your day?
Or the rest of your week or month or year or life?I wonder.
Is it possible to fall in love at fourteen?
Is it possible to really, truly love someone and have them be totally oblivious?
I wonder.
I've been wondering for a long time.
I think I'll be wondering for a long time yet.
Go Team!
I love volleyball. I play with a league instead of at school, for various reasons- main reason being my classes every day after school- and today we had a tournament-ish-thing against teams from another site. We only played three games (we had one by), because there's only three thirteen-fourteen teams, and we lost our first game by two points- we probably would have won if we hadn't run out of time. The second game we won by a
lot; that was against a different team. Then we had a by.
The third game was against the same team as the first game, and the thing about that team was that they had a habit of hitting the ball right back over. Our team is pretty focused on getting in three hits before getting the ball over, so we're used to having at least a few seconds to regroup. But this time we won, and it was really awesome because I served first, and then from then on whenever I served that ushered in the era of a streak of points. We won that game thirty-twenty-four (although I'm not entirely certain why we played to thirty.)
After that, the second team wanted to play against us again. At that point, we were way upbeat, having won the last two games. And so, of course, we beat them again. It was kind of funny, actually- every time I served to this one girl, she tried to hit it, hit it
way out of bounds, and screeched "Holy crap!" Every time.
After something like three hours of playing- we didn't even stop during the one game when we had a by; instead we practiced- the entire team went to a nearby coffeehouse and we were there for ages. I didn't get back until about one.
