So Saturday we had a band competition. Oh man. I'd almost forgotten how much I love competitions. First of all, our performance was pretty awesome. I mean, there were definately things we could have done better, but you could tell that the audience really liked it. They literally went "ooh!" and "ah!" at different points during Big Yellow Taxi, and they went nuts after our closer. I personally did better than usual. Joe and Chris also suddenly fixed mistakes that they've been making since the beginning of the year. We got two stars and were all disappointed, but I guess they just score really hard, because two stars was the highest anyone got. We did better than most of the bands there.
Anyway, what I really like about competitions is mostly just getting to hang around with the bandies for a long time. This time it was a total of fourteen hours. Each bus ride was two hours long. I also spent a long time sitting around on the grass watching other bands with Dave, Molly, Eric, Alice, Valerie, and various others. This led to three social-type developments:
Code Cobalt, otherwise known as AADA or the Anti Adam as Drum major Alliance. This came into existance because we've started to realize that, as much as we'd like him to be, Adam is not the kind of competition you can just dismiss. He has several advantages over Eric and me, namely his intrument (next year, not counting rookies, there will be three or four trumpets, three or four trombones, and nine clarinets) and seniority. There is a distinct possibility that because of this, he is the best candidate in Mr. Thomas' eyes. However, WE CANNOT ALLOW HIM TO BECOME DRUM MAJOR. HE IS A POWER HUNGRY, ATTENTION SEEKING JERK WHO NO ONE LIKES. So far, AADA doesn't actually do anything. But we do have lots of members. grin
Molly, Dave and I were all so tired on the busride home that we started acting completely stoned. Seriously. So... We were talking about dreams, and I wanted to make them laugh, so I said, "Okay, let's play, 'interpret this dream.' Ready? Julian was beating me up with a colorguard flag." (I actually had this dream, just for the record. I did not make it up.) It worked - they laughed. But then I realized, "Oh crap, there's a bad way to interpret that."
And then, "Oh crap, and it's valid."
"Well, according to Freud..." said Dave. We laughed again. "Ah, you can make anything awkward with Freud."
There was a pause.
"I interpretted your dream in my head," said Molly.
"I know you did." I think we looked conspirital. Dave kind of looked at us funny.
So I'm not sure whether he picked up on anything. I take comfort in the fact that when it comes to social cues, Dave doesn't pick up on much. Either way though, I felt like an idiot.
- After we had been sitting on the grass for a while, Alice left to put on her uniform for awards. Pretty soon afterwards, Eric said to me, kind of out of the corner of his mouth, "Hey Aidan... Do you want to... Go over there?"
Thinking that there was someone in the group he wanted to ditch, I said, "Um... Not really."
"Uh, then, do you want to come throw this out with me?"
"No."
He stood up. "You're totally missing the hint here."
So I finally stood up and followed him away from the group, over by the concession stand, behind, and a significant distance from, a crowd of people. He looked nervous.
"So... Normally this is something I would talk to Alice about, but seeing as how this directly concerns Alice, I figured, 'What the hell, I'll talk to Aidan.'"
"Ok."
"So... You may or may not have noticed, but Alice asked me out."
"Oh."
"And... I kind of said yes, because I kind of have a thing with saying no."
"What do you mean you 'kind of' said yes?"
"Ok, I said yes. But the thing is, it's really awkward, because she's my best friend, and I'm just not attracted to her. Like, I'm used to calling her a loser and a skank all the time - I can't imagine doing anything..." He made a face and wiggled his fingers around. "Girlfriendy with her. But the thing is, It'll probably be even more awkward if I say no now. And I kind of feel like I need to be on the drum major's good side at this point in time..."
"Um, if you go out with the drum major to be on her good side, you do know what that makes you, right?"
"A whore?"
"Pretty much."
"Well, it's not exactly that I want to be on her good side..."
"...You just don't want to be on her bad side."
"Exactly!"
At this point I thought, Hm. I should probably actually offer some advice now. So I said, "Well, I guess you just have to wiegh your options. How awkward will it be if you keep going out with her versus how awkward it'll be if you stop going out with her. I doubt it'll be that awkward if you break up with her. I mean, Alice seems like the kind of person who would be mature about that, especially where you guys are so close."
"I think we're too close. I think that's the problem." He looked slightly more uncomfortable. "Yeah, and as long as I'm telling you all this awkward stuff... There's a whole nother level of awkward to this, since I was fully planning on asking Jenn out after I found out that Sam broke up with her. You know, before she started going out with Pete. And then there's another level of akward to this, since I totally did like Alice last year."
"Oh. Well do you still like Jenn?"
"Yeah kind of."
"Oh. That is a whole nother level of awkward."
"Okay, and this same thing happenned with Natalie last year. So I seriously think that it's a problem how attractive I am. I mean, it's making life hard for me."
"Don't push it Eric," I said. Then I said, "Yeah... I'm kind of always afraid that something like this will come up with me and Dave."
He looked over to where everyone was sitting. "Yeah, I kind of always wondered whether there was something going on there..."
"Maybe with him, but not with me. And I mean, I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings if that ever happenned, because he is one of my best friends, but I'm just not attracted to him." We speculated on different ways to deal with the awkwardness for a while, and then we talked about the drum major thing. (neither of us care if the other gets it, as long as Code Cobalt is successful) Then I said, "...Soooo we should probably go back now. This is like, the longest trash trip ever."
Eric seemed to think that talking to me helped, but I'm not sure what he's going to do. The last time I saw him, he was still going out with Alice and still acting happy about it.
And of couse, this complicates matters further. The whole thing has made me notice some stuff I didn't before. For example, I used to be flattered and feel cool when Alice hung out with me. It used to be like "I'm fitting in with seniors? Wow." But now I'm getting the impression that it's Alice who really wants to fit in with us. We're Eric's "other friends" - the ones he knew before he knew her. When Alice hangs out with us, she's usually following him, and I can usually pick up on a little nervousness in her smile...
I also picked up on the fact that Eric accidentally called Alice "Molly" at the football game yesterday. Hm.
Okay, this entry is getting unreasonably long. More later.
Loading comments...