Non-Sexual Fantasies, etc. - 4/3/2007 in 2005 - 2007: High School

We are reading l'Etranger in French. Madame Bellakanovski gives us massive packets to fill out on it, which go page by page and ask questions like, "How long does Mersault wait for the bus?" and "Does he read on the bus?" and "Does he talk to anyone on the bus? Who?" Of course, not that there is really that much else in l'Etranger to ask questions about. I asked my father, who majored in French literature, if anything actually happens in l'Etranger. He said, "Yes. About halfway through, the reader falls asleep."

Anyway, one of the questions in one of the massive packets was, "Do you know anyone like Mersault?" Mersault has no emotions. I have this paranoid egotistical fantasy that this question was directed specifically at me, about Julian. When this fantasy is allowed to fully play out in my mind, Madame Bellakanovski asks me the question aloud when we are going over the massive packet in class and I say, "Non. Personne."

"Personne? Vraiment?"

And perhaps I redden a little bit and say, "Ce n'est pas juste. Il n'est pas ici pour se defendre. Et au plus, ce n'est pas vrai." And it is noble.

It should be noted that very few of my fantasies are about sex. For example, in one of my favorites, it is jazz night, and after I go up to the mic and thank everyone in the band for being fairly awesome, they thank me too, for starting it. Julian is their representative. He volunteered because he is grateful that someone gave him the opportunity to play trumpet in something. He says something generic and nice about me into the mic, and then he gives me some flowers. Then while the audience claps, I say, so that only he can hear me, "If I give you a hug, will you freak out?"

He considers it, and shrugs, and says, alternately, "No, I think that would be okay" or "Eh, what the hell" or "Yeah."

Then in every scenario except the one where he says "yeah," I give him a hug. He is warm and bony. And that's it. We do not have a tender moment later backstage or sneak onto the catwalk after the concert and have sex or anything. I think that if we did, it would ruin the fantasy.

I also have a fantasy where Kurt Vonnegut comes into Brueggers and I get to shake his hand. In this fantasy Kurt Vonnegut is pleasantly surprised to find an avid fan in the form of the teenager making his bagel. But he doesn't really talk to me much, because he has enough avid fans, probably.

Jazz night is a week from today. Tomorrow is my jazz band's last practice. So I am writing everyone an individual thank you note. I am almost done. None of them were hard. Everyone was pretty awesome in one way or another. Julian's was probably one of the hardest, even though I had a lot to say. This is probably because some part of me wanted to find a way to say "thank you for being in my band" while actually meaning "thank you for gracing my life with your existence." I sort of succeeded, but It's not as good as that part of me wanted, and it might freak him out anyway. It ended up going like this:

Julian, Thank you so much for being in my band. [This is how they all start.] You have really been unreasonably supportive. I'm very grateful for all the times you helped out Andy (I'm sure Andy is too)* and it even seems like a few times when things got emotionally tense you were able to keep the peace just by being present and rational. This is of course not even to mention the way you play, which I have always admired. You really sound good on trumpet, man. I hope I'll be able to hear you at some point after highschool. - Aidan

Also because my senior project is drawing to a close, I had a conversation with Laura Euphonium that went like this:

"So, I don't really know when to have this conversation with you, so I guess I'll have it now. I was wondering if you wanted to take over the band next year."

She smiled. "Yeah, yeah, definately. I was actually going to talk to you about that."

"Oh. Good."

"So... Everyone's happy. Yay! Except... me, because I'm really scared that we won't be able to pull of Muzikawi Silt."

Muzikawi Silt is the peice that she directs.

"We'll be able to pull it off. It's in good shape."

I had another conversation with Laura today about my hair. She said she liked it. She has a similar, also lesbiany haircut. If I were to take a guess, I would say that she is, in fact, a lesbian. But then, how would I know? I hate it when people are overly speculative about those things.

(Fun fact: Did you know that fully one third of A band is of highly questionable sexuality? I wonder if that is just a coincidence or what.)

I keep thinkng that my hair is up, but really it's just gone.

That is all. I have to do work now so that I do not get kicked out of college.