How dorky am I?
Yesterday they made an announcement that Jay's rock opera is Sunday, not Friday.
"Julian! Julian!" said Dave when we ran into him after second block. "Sunday is not the same day as Friday!"
"I know!"
"That means that people will actually come to battle of the bands!"
"I know!"
Oh man, this is such a relief. Now I get to see Jay's rock opera and have an audience for my performance.
Yesterday there was an informational meeting for 8th graders who might want to join marching band. There were quite a few new people there, although as always, we (the veterans who showed up) outnumbered them. It was mostly just another excuse to hang out with bandies. But I did get to meet two potential trombone players and a potential floutist. One of the trombone players is enormous - like, six four - rather menacing looking, and nicknamed "Moose." Molly, however, knows him and describes him as "a pretty good musician and an absolute sweetheart." The other potential trombone player is one of identical twins - the other one plays trumpet - and is about five one. The potential flute player is a very small black girl with glasses who shyed away from everyone else as soon as people started mingling.
I didn't want to go up and talk to her because she was so far away from everyone else, so I asked a bunch of the colorguard if they knew what she played. "Who, the chocolate one?" said Alicia. (I suppose Alicia requires an introduction. She's from Cleveland. She goes to our school because she's part of a program that moves black and hispanic kids from inner cities to rich suburban towns. I know her because Molly's family is her host family during the year. She's quite loud and quite funny, and I like her for the most part, although her preoccupation with race freaks me out sometimes.)
"Uh... yeah."
"I dunno. I'm hoping she's colorguard. We're losing five next year, and no new people, that I know of."
"Yeah, well if she plays the flute, and I play the flute, there'll be four of us."
"No! She's mine!" she laughed. "Besides, we don't have enough chocolate people in the band. What are there, like, two in this whole town?"
"Does Lydia count?"
She made a face. "Lydia? She's like... caramel."
None of the other colorguard knew either, so as soon as I could find Mr. Thomas, I asked him.
"Emily? She plays the flute. Quite the talented player too."
"Oh. I didn't see her raise her hand when you asked who played woodwinds..."
"She raised her hand, just not high enough for people to see it. She's extremely quiet." He looked around. "Carbon copy of Bonnie. We've got a flute coming in from the other middle school too. If you stay with flute there'll be five of you."
"Wow." I looked over at Emily. I had been so excited, before, about finally getting my trombone Thursday. I thought I was leaning towards switching. But when I looked at her, a little voice in my head went, "But... My section... My section leadership... I don't want to leave the flutes. I am a flute."
Throughout the meeting, Dave talked about how I have to switch - how it'll be so awesome once I switch - how we will be the trombone section with Chris and Moose and we'll teach them how to be bandies and we'll all make sound effects with the slide during football games and the entire low brass section will roll down the hill when we win. (Smitty swore that this ritual is what kept the team winning last year.) "It's just gonna be so cool. Join the dark side. You know you want to."
"...Jesus. I might just end up flipping the coin. This is hard."
Dave took out a coin and flipped it. I came up heads. "George Washington commands you to join the dark side!" he said, waving the coin in my face.
"Dude - I didn't even call it. And I should at least wait until I start playing trombone."
"Yeah, you've got a point there."
Sigh. Well, it was a good time, despite the fact that I'm having a musical identity crisis.
To make things even more interesting, Molly and Alicia took the bus home today, and as soon as I got on, Alicia said, "Aidan! Make The Blond join colorguard!"
Molly looked at me. "I've been considering it."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously."
"Oh my God, that's so exciting!" I sat down next to her. "I thought you were joking those times that you mentioned it..."
"No, I like, really want to do it now. Because... All my friends are in band, and hearing you guys talk about it - like, band camp, and just hanging out and stuff - It sounds fun. I'm like... 'I want to do that.' And I already know figure eights and flourishes and some other stuff, and I think I'd be good at it because of ballet..."
"Yeah, I always thought you would be too."
"Yeah, but the thing is, I'd have to quit ballet. And even though I've wanted to quit ballet for a while now... I feel bad. I'd feel like I was abandoning them. It's such a small studio that I'm like, a good percentage of the students. And I don't know if my parents would let me anyway... but I really want to do colorguard! Oh man."
"Molly," said Alicia. "There are going to be five colorguard next year if you don't join. Maybe even four, because we don't know about Toby."
"Oh man. Now you're trying to guilt trip me into it. There are so many guilt layers to this..."
"No, I understand that," I said. "I won't try to pressure you, I understand the ballet thing... But it would be so cool if you joined!" I was seriously very excited. Band season with Molly? I couldn't have asked for a better rookie. We'd joked about it, but I never even dared hope that she'd join for real.
"Yeah, and the thing is, I think it'll help me be more social. I'm not social enough. And it seems like if you're in band..."
"...You can automatically hang out with anyone else in the band. And you do, all the time."
"Exactly! It looks like so much fun... Oh man. I feel like I'm just setting myself up for disappointment when my parents say no."
"They won't nessescarily say no." God, I hope they won't say no.
So there's the preview. There are a lot of uncertainties in there, but overall, looks promising. (Except for the fact that we're going to have a ridiculous number of clarinets.) We're getting so many cool rookies. By the way, Ivy is definately quitting, but Adam is definately not. Looks like he's still a candidate for drum major senior year. Hm.
I might be more decided to one side or another after my trombone lesson tomorrow. I'll update.
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