Does This Count As Senior Slide? - 11/7/2006 in 2005 - 2007: High School

Lately I have been just sick enough to be less conscious. I don't really experience. I just sort of exist. I existed through marching band finals Sunday, feeling tired and nauseous and not quite there. I forced my brain to concentrate, to just do it, but I wasn't really feeling it. I suppose I felt it a little bit when I was conducting. I got this flash of, "Woah, it's finals. And I am sort of a drum major. And I am performing at finals. This is it. Conducting at finals. Woah." But then it went away and I went back to not being that conscious.

I felt it a little bit when I was standing on the feild with Eric and Schultz and they announced our scores: "Visual: Four stars! Music: Three stars! Colorguard: Five stars! Percussion: Three stars! General effect: Three stars! Overall band: A silver medal!" Our first silver medal since freshman year, and when so many things went wrong and so many of us thought we were going to crash and burn. Silver is hard to come by, especially for small bands. No one in our division got gold. We were among three or four bands who got silver. Five or six got bronze, and five or six got nothing. Everyone was absolutely elated after they announced the scores. Perople were jumping up and down, cheering and laughing and giving hugs to the puny but apparantly excellent colorguard who saved us. Mr. Thomas was grinning for quite a while. I saw him give Eric a hug. It only made me a little jealous.

I existed through my first two blocks Monday, but as I was walking down the hallway to third block, the hallway started to disappear and be replaced by TV static. Things started to spin a little bit and I felt like I was moving in ways which I don't think I was moving. So I went to the nurse, and then I went home and sat around and felt shitty.

Tuesday the same thing happened, and it happened again Wednesday and Thursday. Every time, I went to the nurse, and every time, she sent me back to class in about ten minutes after I told her that I couldn't go home because of pit/marching band/my jazz band. I would then continue to feel weird and dizzy for the rest of the day. Thursday I went to the doctor. He asked me some questions, and then said that everything looked pretty okay, and that he's had ten sixteen and seventeen year olds come in in the past week all complaining of dizziness and fatigue, and that I could get bloodwork done if I really wanted to, but it was probably just that I'm a senior in highschool and that I need to chill out and sleep.

I have been sleeping. But I have weird stressful dreams and wake up anxious, with my heart racing, feeling like I haven't slept at all.

Friday the marching band went on a recruiting tour of the middle schools during the day. Then Molly and Dave and I hung around and grabbed dinner before the football game two hours later. I didn't go home and I spent all day, except for those two hours, in uniform. I kind of go into a different mode when I spend that much time away from home, moving around and working. I don't hesitate to get comfortable in the corner of some random auditorium and eat whatever is given to me whenever I have the opportunity. I feel tired and maybe a little miserable, but I'm ready for anything. I think differently. My mind escapes a little bit from the doing stuff and goes somewhere else. And I cling tightly to my pack. I become a pack animal. Molly and Dave are my pack. So are Bonnie and Eric. To the point where I don't exactly decide to hang out with them because I enjoy it anymore. It's not that I don't enjoy it, it's just that it's instinctual. We stick together because that's what we do. We protect each other. I don't even know from what.

The human race is weird.

"Jazz band lists are up," said Speedy to me, in his complete monotone, when I returned to the band room before the football game. "Congratulations, you made it."

I cracked up laughing. That made me think of the time Rob cracked up laughing after he made a similar joke about himself my sophomore year. I remember that he seemed arrogant, but I didn't hold it against him because he also seemed very powerful.

I stopped laughing after I thought this. "You're in A band, right?" He nodded. "Cool. Where's the list?"

"Out in the hallway." We went out to look, and were joined by several other people within a few seconds.

A Band:

Saxophone: Julian, Speedy, Mike, Schultz, and a tenor who was in B band last year.

Trombone: Me, Dave, and Laura Euphonium

Trumpet: Eric, Craig, Evan Desmond, and Chris' silent twin brother

Rhythm: Noah, Captain Mojo, and three freshmen from B band who apparantly are all musical geniuses.

B band is huge, and includes me, Dave, Chris, and T.K, but not Laura.

"Chris and T.K. don't get to be in both bands, even though there's an extra space in varsity? That hurts."

"Yeah, they split up Chris and his brother too."

"Ouch."

"I suppose T.K. doesn't actually play the trombone."

"Yeah, but neither does Laura and she's in varsity."

"And Chris does play the trombone, and he got beaten out by someone who's never touched one. Ouch."

"Is Laura just going to play baritone, or actually learn the trombone specifically for this purpose?"

"I dunno."

"Well, at least I'm not the only girl."

"Eric, didn't you not even audition?"

"Yeah, I never auditioned."

"Are you first trumpet anyway?"

"No, I'm third trumpet. Supposedly. But it's not like any of us care."

We went back into the band room and put our uniforms back on.

Speedy is becoming part of my pack. Just because he is around all the time. He continues to be strangely fascinating. And he continues to be a weird greasy sophomore with a big nose.

Saturday, after not sleeping, severely freaking out, acting a little crazy and throwing up, I decided that maybe I'd be able to go through with the SAT2s. I took them at the prep school, and it was unfamiliar and chaotic. The proctors didn't know what they were doing, and it took us two and a half hours to take a one hour test. I was supposed to take two of them, but after those two and a half hours, I decided that five hours in that unfamiliar and chaotic place would be virtually impossible. So I left. Again. At least this time I got a score that counted.

I spent the weekend actively doing nothing. Playing The Sims 2 and eating and reading Dune for the third or fourth time. Sunday night, I was sad that I had to stop. I like doing nothing. I don't like work. Why do I have to do work? I went to bed Sunday night with a profound sense of not giving a fuck.

And I woke up Monday morning naturally, without an alarm. I went through the following thought process:

"Huh, that's weird. I wonder why I woke up before my alarm, and feeling so rested. Oh, I bet it's late. Is it the weekend? No. Maybe it's a snow day. No, that's highly unlikely in early November." I opened my eyes and saw that my clock read 8:47.

I opened my bedroom door and said down the stairs, "Mom?"

I checked my alarm clock. It had been set, but not turned on.

"Oh," I said aloud. "Well... I guess I should probably go to school anyway."

So I got dressed and ate breakfast, and then I walked to school, where no one yelled at me. I signed in and they gave me a pass and I went to my second block class.

It should be noted that there wasn't a moment of, "Oh shit" anywhere in there. I didn't care that much. Once I got to school, I did nothing.

This is why I should never become a stoner.

Things with Molly got... not resolved, but aknowledged. She said "you've been being bitchy lately," and I said, "so have you," and we had a short conversation about it, and I'm pretty sure we both still think that the other person is in the wrong. I still can't think of a single instance where I initiated it. I know I sometimes responded to bitchiness with bitchiness, but I never meant her any offense, and I can't remember showing any. I try very hard not to be, and don't think I am, a bitch. Bitchiness to me implies a sort of hormone driven irrationality. Sometimes I am grouchy. Sometimes I am unfriendly, and sometimes I am even a jerk. But I do not snap. I am not passive aggressive. I do not project the attitude "what is wrong with you?" These are all emotional, feminine things to do. They are all things that I hate, and they are all things that Molly does. What I do clearly has to do with how I am feeling and not with the other person. I withdraw more than anything. What she does makes me feel like shit in a very direct way. I have been making entries favorites only because I don't know what's going on between us. Whatever it is, it's not much. We are obviously still friends. We still hang out all the time without even having to think about, and most of the time it's fine. But there is some level of closeness that this is killing. Perhaps the one that lets us read each other's diaries. And whatever the thing is, it seems to be based on fundamental personality traits, and I doubt very much that it can be resolved.

The Dave factor probably adds to it too. I don't know what the Dave factor is, but I know it exists.

That is all. More later... When I have the time and motivation.