Success - 12/18/2006 in 2005 - 2007: High School

Thursday absolutely sucked up until five o'clock. In fact, the closer five o'clock came, the more things sucked. From about four to about four thirty, I looked at the clock about twenty-five times. At four thirty I took a shower just to use up thirty minutes. Then, shaking, I put on a t-shirt and pajama pants, and I went into the computer room at five-o-two. I had to walk around my father, who was sitting on the step leading down to the room, staring at the computer and looking anxious. He had been looking anxious all afternoon, and had told me to check my email several times, just in case they were going to send stuff out before five. It really made things a lot worse.

"I'm going to check my email now," I stated.

"Okay."

I did. There was nothing there, and the fact that my short term anticipation had led up to nothing made my stomach do something weird. I just wanted it to be over. "Okay. So I guess I'll log onto the website and see if anything is there."

I did. And I read aloud, without feeling anything in particular, "...Congratulations on your acceptance into Graham University."

I think my father laughed or something. Then he started crying. He asked if he could have a hug. So I gave him a hug. He kept saying "You're a Grahamian! You're a Grahamian!" (Do all nicknames for people who go to colleges sound silly? I feel like they do.) Then my mother came upstairs and said something else that didn't really register.

"Wait, but this isn't..." I said, "I mean, do you know you can pay for it? I thought it depended on that."

"Look at your father," said my mother. "He'll sell his soul."

Then I stood in the room for a few minutes, not really feeling anything but "weird," and then I said, "Shit, now I have to go to a concert."

Once I got into my room I felt it for a few seconds, during which I did what I think was intended to be a cartwheel. Then it went away again and I just felt weird. I had to talk myself through the rest of the preparation. Like, "Okay, now I am going to put on this shirt." "Now I am going to pick up this music so that I can take it with me." Then I ate dinner with my mother at the sub shop across the street and fretted about the concert. My dad came in later, still crying, and didn't say anything. I arrived at the band room really very awkwardly early. The only people there were Mr. Thomas and his very timid new student teacher. I didn't get much of a chance to talk to my band before the concert started, but I managed to get the message to everyone to meet in the band room while the group before us was performing. Everyone except for Julian. I couldn't find him. I went around begging for a cell phone, finally obtained Barry's, and called his house.

"Hello?"

"Hi, uh... Is Julian there?" I said, realizing that this was kind of a stupid question - that he'd better not be there, and that I didn't want to talk to him anyway, just know his whereabouts.

"Uh, no... Is this Aidan?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, I'm actually trying to figure out how to get him there right now... He has a [something] at the [mumble] and I'm not sure... What time is your band performing?"

This made me very nervous. "Well uh... I'd say try to get him here as soon as possible..."

"Well yes, but when..."

"I guess the answer to that is 'I don't know.'"

"Oh. Well I'll try to get him there."

"Okay, thanks."

Click.

I fretted through the orchestra's performance. At the beginning of the next group I went into the band room. Julian was there.

"Oh! Hey!" It was a happy hey. (On a side note, I've noticed that greetings between me and Julian tend to convey a lot more meaning than most greetings do. Like, if someone wanted to know exactly what our relationship was to each other, I could take ten minutes and explain it to them, or they could just listen to us say "hey" in the hallway.)

"Hey. Sorry for showing up so late..."

"As long as you're here now, it's fine," I said, and I meant it. I was relieved. Everyone showed up within a few minutes. I called them all together.

"Alright, so a few things: Remember we're getting rid of the glissando up in Latin Jam. Order of solos in Latin Jam is Speedy, Nicole. Order of solos in Everybody Solo is Kim, Barry, Aaron, Jack, Julian and Malcolm, Dave and Allie. Speedy, you're soloing over the last fermata. Other than that, just have fun. Go out there and pretend that the audience isn't there, and the more nervous you get the more intense you should get, especially if you're soloing." I made eye contact with Nicole, who was obviously nervous. "Uh... I don't really know what's going on in terms of setting up, but I think we're all taking our own chairs and stands out on stage. I guess we'll have to play it by ear." This was not a particularly well delivered pre-performance pep talk, and it was made worse by the fact that I had to ask people to shut up several times in the middle. "Does anybody have any questions?"

"Yeah," said Eric. "Did you opt for pass fail on your senior exhibition, or are you getting a letter grade?"

"Uh... I think I'm getting a letter grade? Why do you -"

"So if we suck, do you like, fail?" said Nicole, wide-eyed.

"No."

"Are you nervous?" said Molly.

"Yes."

"Did you get into Graham?" said Dave.

"Yes. Okay does anyone have any questions related to this concert right now?"

There was silence.

"Okay cool. So just hang out in here. And try to keep it down, there are people performing."

After people dissolved into several small, circlular groups, Bonnie came up to me and hugged me. She took me by surprise and I kind of jumped. "You should have said something," she said. "I was nervous."

"Oh," I said. "Well I don't want to go around being all, 'I got into Graham.'"

"You should."

I paced around, a little frantically, reciting the Bene Gesserit fear mantra.

Mr. Thomas announced me.

"This next band is a response to the question that comes up every year, 'why can't my kid be in the jazz band just because she plays the flute or the clarinet or the violin?' And the answer to that has always been 'well, the arrangements aren't written for those instruments and you wouldn't be able to play all the time and it'd be a lot of extra work' and so on, and usually the argument ends right there. But we have a student this year, a senior, who has managed to come up with a solution to just about all of those problems. She's run this whole thing herself and... I think what you're going to hear tonight is all original composition on her part... Uh, so I'd like to present now the Alternative Jazz Band under the direction of Miss Aidan O'Connor."

Obviously ad-libbed. But better than I would have done.

I walked out on stage. People clapped. I was surprisingly calm. I snapped the tempo of the first song while making eye contact with Malcolm. He started earlier than he was supposed to and surprised me. But he's alone at the beginning, so it's okay. And then Noah joined in and then the horns did, and the song went fine. The only thing that went wrong is that Speedy's solo was too long. Then other people followed suit, and their solos were too long too. But they were good long solos. The second song went better than it normally does. The order of solos got a little screwed up, but we fixed it. And people clapped. I motioned for people to stand up, and they did. I tried to get them to bow, and they didn't. (Probably should have gone over that ahead of time.) Then I bowed. Then I told everyone to leave the stage. On my way off, Mr. Thomas gave me a high five.

The band room was full of laughter after we performed. Everybody seemed to agree that we did pretty well. Everybody seemed to be pleasantly surprised. At one point while I was talking to Laura, Julian got my attention and pointed to the door to the outside. My dad was sticking his head in. Presumably he had just gone out to smoke. He gave me a thumbs up. He was still crying, or maybe crying again. I had no idea my father cared this much about me going to Graham. I didn't even think he was that proud of his alma mater. He's not involved with it and he doesn't talk about it much. I feel like I need to figure out my father a little more than I already have.

After standing around dumbstruck for a few minutes, I finally realized that I was the last one left in the band room and said, "Now I'm going to go back in and watch the chorus." I did. The chorus sang a medly from Les Mis. It was absolutely beautiful. During "I dreamed a dream" I got a little teary, and it just got worse and worse until I was outright sobbing during "On my own."

On my own Pretending he's beside me All alone I walk with him till morning Without him I feel his arms around me And when I lose my way I close my eyes and he has found me

It was beautiful, and I cried, fairly hard.

It was weird. I think maybe crying then was my way of having some sort of emotional reaction to something when a lot of things were happening that I couldn't really process. Eric was sitting right next to me and we were pretty far away from anyone else, so I felt kind of awkward crying. When the chorus finished I wiped my eyes and said to him, "Look uh... I'm just feeling sort of weird and emotional, I'm not upset..."

"...What?"

"Oh you didn't... Uh, nevermind."

"Oh, you mean how I kept making jokes to you, and you would just be like, 'shut up I'm pretending I didn't hear you'?"

"Yeah."

Because I was feeling weird and emotional, I assaulted the chorus when they came offstage and told them that they had been freaking amazing. I think maybe I sounded like I was being sarcastic. I wasn't at all. I feel bad about that.

At the end of the concert in the band room, everyone was congratulating me for something. Eventually, still feeling a little sobby from Les Mis, I said, "I'm feeling way too emotional, I have to get out of here," to no one in particular.

"Aww," said Laura Euphonium, who was within earshot. "Do you want a hug?"

"No. No, I have had too many hugs today."

I tried to go to bed when I got home, but I couldn't sleep. I ended up in my kitchen at midnight eating stuff. My dad ran into me there.

"Is something wrong?"

"I'm hungry."

"Oh."

"I think that there have been too many emotions in this day for me to handle."

"Tell me about it." He went to bed.