Hairy Harry Haircut

I entered the cafeteria this morning entirely unsuspecting of the great change that had occurred. Cammie called me over to a well-populated table.

"Ohmigod, ohmigod, Teaaaaaaaa."

I dumped my stuff and joined her jumping. "Ohmigod, whattt?"

"Harry cut his hair and-"

I squealed, cutting her off. "WHAT?!?"

"Harry cut his hair and I-"

"Oh my goddd!" I bounced more.

"I know! I saw him during gym, and I was like, woah. Woah. Woah. I totally understand what you were talking about!"

"I know!"

"I mean, he looks hot!"

"I know!"

"I told you so!" added Ali.

"We are so smart," I said, and high-fived her.

"I called in in seventh grade, baby."

"Sixth!" I was triumphant.

"I didn't know him in sixth grade!"

"Your loss."

"Hmph," said Ali. "Well, I think he has this lunch."

Cammie craned her neck to see over Ali. "He does. I see him. Look!"

"I'm not going to look," I said. "It's weird."

"I'm looking," said Ali. "Damn."

"I know!" said Cammie.

Feeling left out, I turned to look as well. "I can't see anything. I don't have my glasses on."

"Well, put them on," advised Cammie.

"Okay, that is just too creepy," I said, and sat down. Further Harry observations will have to wait until tomorrow.

Days for Dreaming

Last night was the second in a row that was full of oddly vivid dreams. I'm still trying to figure out what, if anything, they mean.

Dream 1:

I walked into Spanish class, late, per usual. Gretchen was already there. There were laptops from the cows on all of the desks, and Tom sat behind me in Rae's desk, which I find strange, since I'd never noticed that he was in our class. I shrugged it off and logged into facebook on my laptop (which should have tipped me off that this was a dream, but, alas, it did not). I went to Tom's page, because I couldn't figure out why he had spontaneously showed up in my Spanish class. I started flipping through his profile pictures, and for some reason, I had the ability to change which photo was his profile picture, so I did. Then Gretchen started coughing violently and gesturing towards Tom, who could see over my shoulder at my screen and had turned bright red. I turned around to apologize, and his eyes got all huge and he looked the way he did in fifth grade that time he told my my braces looked nice, which is really the only old memory I have of him. The bell rang and Gretchen and I left class. I was still flipping out about what Tom thought of me.

I went up to physics on the third floor. The only faces I can remember are those of Tybalt, Genevieve (British, not in my physics class or any A.P. English) and Leda (in my gov class, used to be going to counties with Sergio but now has a boyfriend). Right before class ended, Tybalt kissed Leda and then confessed to having a massive crush on Genevieve.

We left class, and Tybalt, Gretchen and I were suddenly walking out of the cafeteria into the music wing. We all realized that we were going to miss our buses. Tybalt and Gretchen took off, speed demons that they are, and I tried to keep up, but these large crowds of Players and Orphenians, fully costumed, kept getting in my way. By the time I reached the orchestra room, Tybalt was long gone, and Gretchen had emerged out of the farther door and taken off running. By the time I reached the front entrance, I was the only one there, and the buses were gone.

End Dream 1.

Dream 2 is weirder. Much, much weirder. I promise you, it is nowhere near as inappropriate as the beginning makes it sound.

Dream 2:

Harry and I were both doing pit orchestra for Little Shop of Horrors, and for some reason still unknown to me, this entailed him staying in my room. I woke up in the morning and he was in the other bed and I started flipping out because I thought that I'd forgotten and gone to sleep naked for some reason. I stood up out of bed, panicked, but discovered that I was wearing cute green pj pants and a blue tank. However, the tank was kind of see through, so I decided I needed a different one. A newer, brighter blue tank top with conveniently built in bra was located on the foot of my bed, where I had presumably dumped it at some earlier time. After I took off the first tank top to swap, I looked into the TV on wheels like they had at the middle school that had been set up where my keyboard usually lives. I could say Harry reflected in it, standing behind me, frozen in place and staring at my reflection in the TV. He had slept in the same clothes that he always wears, a white t-shirt and somewhat too-short cargo pants. He decided that if I was changing, he should to, and by the time I had my arms lined up in the second tank, he'd swapped from a plain white t-shirt to one with these blueish glowing peacock feathers on it.

As I was putting on the second tank top, it turned into a dress and I got stuck, the entire skirt of the dress facing upside down around my head like a pathetically limp dog cone. I attempted to maneuver myself into it, but was unsuccessful. "Harry? Could you, uh, help?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure," he said, and pulled the tank down over my arms and torso. He didn't let go of my wrists. I looked up at him, confused, and his eyes had gone all brownish greenish, and they were swirling in a weirdly hypnotic manner. He said something unintelligible, containing the phrases "can't let go," "God," "Jesus," and something about loving arm muscles, which is absurd, because I hardly even have arm muscles. He started to back away, still clinging to me, and I followed him, entranced. He stopped after a step and leaned forward, closer and closer. When we were about two inches apart, I leaned forward and kissed him, a sloppy sort of first kiss in which all that happens are squished noses and lips pressed together, and for some reason I could feel the imprint of my braces on the inside of my lips, which is absurd, since I haven't had braces in years. I pulled back after an instant, and his eyes had turned pale blue and he looked like he was about to pass out. "Was that nice?" he asked.

"I don't know yet," I answered, and the entire dream shifted. Harry was gone, but I was still standing in my room, and I knew, somehow, that he would be back, and that I just had to kiss him again and we'd get further than that stupid clashing of metal on teeth. I opened the door and walked down the hall to the basement. There was a window that doesn't actually exist, and through it I could see Corbin Bleu's hair as he walked through the jungle that had sprung up behind my house. I had an abrupt fear that the Harry here had turned into Zac Efron, and I was very worried. I decided that I'd have to wait and see and I walked down the stairs. Sparky (Aqua's dog) and Rufus came running up the stairs as I descended. Purdy (she advised Becky to temporarily break up with her boyfriend to show him what was important) was down there. I asked her what I should do about Harry, she said she'd get back to me later, since she had an appointment.

Elaine (Julie's friend who is fond of lolita dresses) came down with a girl who was about ten years old; I assumed the girl was her daughter. The daughter and I tried to play chess, but none of the pieces were actual pieces, so I decided to transfigure them and pulled out my wand to do so. I tapped each in turn, but the bishops stubbornly refused to do anything, and the pawns remained little pieces of trash.

I woke up in a cold sweat, the only thought in my head that I had to find Harry.

A Payson Develops a Sense of Loss

The show is finally over. Guys and Dolls is kaput. All the free time on my hands may send me into shock. I played the guitar for the first time in two months today. Of course, I could only play for about two minutes, cause my calluses had disappeared and my fingers were tired and it just plain hurt. I also played piano for about an hour, but not Guys and Dolls stuff. Just Debussey sight-reading. It was glorious.

The final show went fabulously. The only snag was that one of the sax's light went out, but it was between numbers, and I passed him a bulb to replace it, because the bulbs are under the grand, but the fixture was too hot, so I just passed him an entirely new light set-up, and he managed to get the whole thing up and running by the time Havana started. Which is good, because the band teacher plays cowbells instead of her sax during that song, so he's doing double duty. He actually used to play maracas, but the band teacher took them away because she thought he was being overenthusiastic. This is coming from the woman who badly bangs the cowbells for the entire song while her facial expression resembles that of a child who has just discovered Christmas. Or Hanukka, if you want to roll that way.

When we got to the pit party, and it was just the two random saxes and Joanne and Cammie and I, we overcame the general awkwardness by dissolving into hysterics over the cowbells. When Ida showed up to the party at her house, she was incredibly confused by how much we were laughing.

We spent a good amount of time gossiping. (Why is Harry so grumpy? Nobody knows, but Morgan thinks his looks would be much improved if we attacked his hair with a weed-wacker. Why the hell is Emily still all over Spencer? He's out and proud, but they still hook up, even though she has a boyfriend. What fabulous flutist has a bit of a thing for a different fabulous flutist? The world may never know.) Anita and Richard tickled each other extensively. Cammie and I interrupted each other constantly. I begin to understand why Vicky thinks she talks a lot.

Also, there are photocopies of Eccentrius's face on the floor of the band room. I, for one, am simply thankful that he didn't go the traditional route and photocopy his ass. Or arse, as Joanne and her mum would say.

A final conversation with Harry:

Tea: I put your music with your bag.

Harry: Huh?

Tea: You left it in the pit.

Harry: Yeah

Tea: By the way good job on the second act

Harry: Yeah

Grumpy Bastard

Harry sits in the band room, glaring angrily at absolutely nothing, as the pit orchestra returns from playing the second act.

Tea sits down and looks at him, concerned. "Did you move that entire time?"

"Yeah. I played for a while." He nods towards the old upright with no high C and a permanently out of tune low F.

"Oh." Tea pauses, giving him a chance to continue, which Harry, being Harry, doesn't take. "It's just, it seems like every time I see you you're staring moodily into the distance."

"Yeah." He pauses. "I do that a lot."

Another pause.

"A hobby," says Tea.

"What?"

"It's like a hobby."

"Yeah."

Late Nights

I just got home, and I've barely even started my homework. So much for knocking out 5.1 during rehearsal.

That was, I think, the longest rehearsal of my life. Havana is my new worst enemy. And the entire thing just felt futile, since Harry and I are really only the backup pianos anyways. I won't even have to stay for the second act tomorrow.

Speaking of Harry, for some reason, he looks really, really cute in the light of those little music-reader thingies we use. I think it's because it highlights bone structure while rendering his greasy hair virtually invisible.

At least I've been getting on well with the clarinets behind me, Eccentrius and whats-his-name. Unfortunately, I probably won't get to sit with them again. Instead, the electric is front, center, right near the drum set, and not really good for conversation. Damn.

The Breakfast Club

Today in health, Ms. Martie unsuccessfully attempted to get the class to do yoga. She ended up getting so fed up that she had as do coloring book pages of mandalas. It was surprisingly fun, but all of the quiet and time to think made Kathrya really grumpy, to the point where she actually snapped at Nia.

Last year in health, we watched The Breakfast Club. Here are some highlights from my write-up about it.

• Andrew got detention because he attacked another boy and taped his butt together.
• Socially, I am a follower. When I’m with a group of friends, I rarely come up with ideas of what we should do. I’ll trail along after people rather than forging my own path. Also, even when I do want to try something on my own, I feel that need to bring a friend along with me, so that I don’t feel like I am exposing myself in any way.
• I think that although you could never find exact replicas of the students, I could definitely find basic outlines. I know plenty of brains, myself included. I know a kid who devotes hours of time to playing football despite the fact that he says he doesn’t even know why. I know a girl, slightly messed up, like Allison, who hates her parents. I’ve heard about a boy whose parents are awful and who has been smoking pot since sixth grade, and in a town with this much money, princesses are not difficult to locate. However, all of these students have their own depths and thoughts, as well as their own personal reasons for being the way they are. Also, there are plenty of students at Paperclip who, while fitting archetypes, would not click directly into those of the movie.

In other news, Harry has reached an acceptable level of conversation. He seems to have become acclimated to my general awkwardness, extreme paranoia, and tendency to fall over. We even managed to bond over out inability to remember the names of freshmen. However, Harry will probably continue to avoid all eye contact in the hallway. Weird dude, I guess.

Late Nights

I haven't posted for the past two days because I didn't get home until after midnight, at which point I figured there really wasn't much point, since it was actually tomorrow.

As far as Friday goes, Harry and I had a lovely conversation about celeste cues during rehearsal. I think he's finally gotten the hang of standard speech. Now, I just have to work up enough guts to have a serious discussion about his excessive pedaling, which I really probably shouldn't, it's just that it doesn't sound good! The Fugue for Tin Horns is supposed to be bouncy! After all, it's a fugue, not a dirge.

Dirge was, by the way, an SAT word that I learned over the summer that was actually on the PSAT. It made me extremely happy.

Then, yesterday was Halloween. I went to Nyx's house and participated in delightful activities like "Soda Pong," which is, really, quite quaint. Then we went trick-or-treating, because, really, you can never be too old for that. At one point, Kathrya and Cammie were singing "He Had It Coming," or whatever it's called, from Caberet, as we approached a group of skankily dressed teens. Then, right when they finished, Chelsea and Selena attacked them with silly string and the entire group bolted.

Ginny, Lysander and I had been lagging, but we did our best to keep up. I went sprinting after Samurai Nyx, who was in front of me. The group we'd attacked made a good chase.

"Who are you? Wanna fight?" they called.

"Sure," I yelled over my shoulder. "We have one sword. What've you got."

They were silent for a moment before someone yelled, "Nothing. Nice pants, though!"

"Thanks!"

Could use some volt right about now

I'm so busy practicing for Guys and Dolls at the moment that I really don't have time to write a coherent post. So, I'll leave you with a paragraph I wrote freshman year about just how loverly piano playing is.

There is also power in the music I create myself. I play the piano constantly. I am currently learning Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C# minor. It starts with three low fff triple octaves, then changes to ppp chords, each one with six notes, played by two hands with overlapping thumbs. The song stays quiet, switching between overlaps and octaves. It then shifts into a stream of triplets, twelve per measure. It is extraordinarily difficult, but even with my limited ability, I can still feel the melancholy tone as I play. Sharps, double sharps, and minor chords create a sadness that is reversed with a measure in D major before descending back into minor notes. No matter how jumpy I feel at its start, the song calms me as it plods along. I like the way the piece sounds, but I mostly enjoy the feeling it inspires within me.

That's the prelude I stopped playing last year after Harry got into orchestra for playing it. After that, I just felt inferior every time I practiced, and it was causing issues, so I moved onto brighter pastures, like Beethoven.

Sighting

Now that OFM is over, I am going to have to continuously struggle to prevent myself from simply using this blog as a medium to record Mario sightings and the various short, pointless conversations that ensue.

In fabulous news, I made pit orchestra for Guys and Dolls! I'm so excited. I'm sharing the piano part with Harry (I'd apparently nicknamed him already. Who knew?). I'll have to talk with him to decide who gets to play what. Getting him to talk should be interesting to say the least. He isn't exactly gregarious. The whole "I'm now going to have to talk to this guy I don't know" situation reminds me of last year, when I first started taking the train with Mario and was regularly freaking out over how awkward it was.

Also, I've begun studying SAT words. My word for today is disparage, which means belittle. For instance, after hearing that Rachel was going to the dance with Mario, I made many disparaging comments about her, trying to make her seem less important.

My funny story is actually from a few days ago. Actually, I lied, it was only yesterday. I was walking with Avon and someone else (I think it was Red, but that doesn't really make sense, since she isn't in Spanish, so it may have actually been someone else, but I really think that it wasn't Julie or Gretchen, and I'm not sure who else I would have been walking with, since it was definitely a girl) after Spanish. We were headed towards the bridge. I had my weird Mario-is-nearby sensor go off a little bit, but I assumed it was a false positive (considering the fact that it hasn't been wrong yet, I should probably stop doing that). Then I realized that I had a physics test next period and was walking in the wrong direction. I did a 180 and headed back towards the stairs and lo and behold, Mario was actually behind me. We both said hi, I passed him, and then about a millisecond later, I ran head on into a senior girl who gave me a very dirty look.

Busy Me

I've been writing my butt off for the U.S. portfolio, so I don't really have a full post in me. Instead, you can have a few messed up quotes from last year's theater homework. First is my writing about Beauty and the Beast, which I only viewed from the pit orchestra, where I was playing. However, I was still required to write a lengthy analysis of the production.

The first question, required a summary. I wrote most of it, then added "At that point, the show segues into 40 pages of constant music. I was unable to see much else until right at the end, when Belle tells the beast she loves him, and the spell is broken, reverting him and the others to their natural forms."

• "In my corner, I could only really hear strings, the drum set, and the louder brass notes. However, I could tell that we improved greatly during the rehearsal process, and complemented the actors by the end of it. However, we could have been quieter." (this is a reference to the brass section in particular, who enjoyed blowing my eardrums when I sat over there)
  
• "The spotlights on the speaking characters on the wraparound that caused sun spots on my eyes if I happened to look up were undoubtably bright enough to draw the audiences attention."
  
• "The pit orchestra was often unconcentrated" (we had too much pulp, apparently)
  
• In response to a question asking who I admired in the production. "As a member of the pit, I saw very little of the actors or the technicians. However, I did admire some my fellow pit people. The one I was able to see the most was Harry, the keyboard II, who sat directly in front of me. I admired how focused he was. He talked very little, instead concentrating on his music. When my keyboard was unplugged by an overzealous cellist, and I accidently flipped off his trying to turn it back on, he managed to continue playing and not get lost, unlike me, who missed the entirety of Be Our Guest trying to catch up."
  
• "My least favorite moment in the play was in the Gaston reprise. I had to play octave As with my right hand extremely quietly, while staying on tempo. Unfortunately, my amp was far about 6 feet away from me, and I couldn’t hear myself. This made it immensely difficult to stay on the same tempo as the bases, who were right next to me, and I ended up not playing the As at all."
  
• "The fog during the transformation smelled bad."
  

From Romeo and Juliet, which I wrote a second paper on, later in the year, I leave you with one quote

"Forming styrofoam bricks using a cheese grater is surprisingly time consuming."