Party at Erin's

When I first got there, I was surprised by how few people were there yet, as I came fashionably late.  I wasn't intending to be fashionably late so much as I got talking to Paul, Jimmy, Nate and Sam and then realized I was late.  
Jamie was there, and I decided to sit with her, which immediately Erin made an issue of.  Erin thinks something strange is going to with Jamie and I, which is ridiculous.  I mean, I like her, obviously; we're friends.  But Erin just gets really weird about the two of us talking to each other. 
Last year, the three of us, (Erin, Jamie and I) were in a class, and Jamie was always quiet.  She almost never talked.  Most of the other (predominately girls) were untalkative too, but because I knew Jamie, I spoke to her before class.  Erin did mention once that I was the only person who ever talked to her, which was sort of the point.  Jamie is nice, but shy.  Just because someone is shy doesn't mean they should be ignored.  I make it a special point to try to engage shy people, especially shy girls, because I know how hard it is in a new social setting with people you don't know.  It's easy to let your be unheard. 
I think one of the other problems was that I walked in and there happened not to be any chairs available, which wasn't necessarily a big deal, but a young man (thankfully, sitting next to Jamie) got out of his chair immediately and offered it to me.  I don't need men to always do the chivalric thing, but I try to be appreciative when they do.  I think the fact that I was dressed in a white dress with black curly designs all over it annoyed Erin too, because this wasn't necessarily the sort of party to come dressed up to.  Whatever.  I need more excuses to be dressed up for, and I'm happy to take whatever I can get. 
One of my many frustrations with this party was that I couldn't get a straight answer out of anyone about it.  I was invited, but no one could tell me when it was going to be.  Or where. 
So I was a little annoyed to discover that this party was BYOB, because seriously, no one said anything.  I had to nag Erin just to get her to tell me what was going on.  (And then happened to run into someone who actually did tell me what was up.) 
This is like in March when I went to a party with her and Carrie.  Before I got there, Carrie gave me three different addresses to the place, all of which turned out to be other places.  (I walked in on another concert, and when I asked about the event, the people there thought I was mad.)
Liz, who, for some reason was there, implied that I was stupid not to know better.  I actually could have brought something for myself, as I passed multiple stores in my walk over.
Liz isn't part of this group of friends, though obviously she's friends with Erin.  She's been hanging around a lot lately.  Erin told me in March that Liz had broken up with this guy that she's been with for years.  I felt bad for her because of the circumstances Erin described, which made it sound like this guy freaked out on her.
All that said, sometimes Liz can be really snarky, and I'm not sure how to react.  I always try to be nice, though it's a struggle for me sometimes.
Jamie very sweetly stepped in and offered to me some white wine, which sounded good to me.  We trooped downstairs to borrow glasses.  (I get the distinct impression Erin didn't plan much for this party, as the only thing she mentioned doing was cleaning.  To be fair, the cleaning probably took a long time.)
The basement is where the kitchen is and the huge table everyone eats at.  I'd been down here a couple of times before.  As Jamie and I trooped down there, we found one group of people trying to study.  (Someone later mentioned that Erin had probably pissed her housemates off by having this party at this time of year.)  When we turned into the dining area, there were Marguerite and Virginia.  I said hi to both of them, kind of surprised to see Virginia but not so much to see Marguerite as she lives there.  They both looked like they were working on homework, Virginia with her computer out.  Marguerite was working on an art project.  Part of her project was to illustrate some things, including a poem I had offered to let her use.  I asked her if that part was done, and she said not yet.
"I love that poem!" she gushed.  "You said some very true things and I love that you used a snake!"  (The snake was part of an image in the poem.
I was totally touched that she liked it so much.
Jamie and I got our glasses and headed upstairs.  We cheered and drank.
I got to talk to Anne, who I haven't seen in ages.  Anne was wearing this really tight, really short shorts.  The way her body was shaped and the way the chair was designed made it look at various times like she wasn't wearing anything on the bottom half of her body.  I knew what that felt like because I feel like I have awkward fashion moments all the time. 
Part of the time, I sat outside with Bobby and talked.  Bobby told me about the novel he wrote while he was in high school, which was apparently about unrequited love.  He implied heavily that it was written from personal experience.  Bobby is not physically attractive, but he's so great to talk to that I find it hard to believe some girl would be dumb enough to turn him down. 
While we were sitting outside, some friends coming late to the party came up and said hello.  Mostly they just drank and fooled around, and thinking Cory was done with whatever bad poetry reading he was doing, we headed back inside. 

Awards Night

So, Erin was lucky enough to win an award, so I (with some of her other friends) went to support her.
There were all sorts of awards.  Bobby, for example, won an award for an essay he wrote, though he wasn't there to receive any praise.  Another young woman I occasionally talk to won an award for an essay she wrote on Pacific Islander fiction, which I know nothing about.  I'm particularly proud of Bobby, because he once told me that I had a positive influence on him.  When I first met him, I didn't think anything like I'm going to positively influence this boy, but I guess that's the way life worked out. 
For prizes, in addition to money, they gave away seed packets, which I really liked.  It's almost it's own metaphor: at school, teachers and books plant ideas in you; now you have seeds to literally plant.   
I had classes in this particular building, and at one point, I heard the nearby bell tower chiming, and it reminded me of one class I had.  It was in the morning, and I remember how much I enjoyed the quiet walk there, and how I was usually the first one there.  It was so warm in this room, I would usually go over to the window and open it up, and somehow, this was unintentionally timed to correspond with just about the time that same bell tower would chime. 
Erin got an award for creative writing, and she read a short piece about herself.  It was about how she doesn't like to be touched.  (I need to write on this same topic, now that I'm thinking about it.)  She read really fast, and honestly, I don't think anyone in the audience really got all of it. 
Erin tends to write longer pieces, which aren't really conducive to the format.  (Other winners, including Lia, were reading poetry or performing small pieces from a longer play.)  Erin needs to pick shorter pieces and she seriously needs to slow down.
I did get to see the professor in charge of screenwriting.  Erin had complained, in passing, that he wasn't much of a creative writing teacher but more of a public relations/advertising kind of guy.  The moment I saw him, I whispered to Erin "Seriously?" which made her choke and laugh. 
After the ceremony, Erin revealed that her parents and uncle were in town.  And she hadn't invited them to the awards night.  This surprised me a little and then it made me sad.  I would give anything to have my parents come to something like this, but they wouldn't.  Not that I'm ever going to win an award, but I would never not tell my parents about something like this, especially given that they were here anyway. 
They were at the coffee shop across the street, so a group of us walked over there.  I had never met Erin's parents before, but some of the other friends in the group, like Liz and Jon, had. 
Erin has told me a lot of stories about her parents over the years, so I thought I would know them better than some of my other friend's parents.  And there wasn't anything about them that struck me as a lie on Erin's part, but I had always imagined them differently. 

For example, I had always imagined her Dad to be tall, almost entirely bald, and had little tuffs of white hair, which he wouldn't comb and would stick out all over the place.  I imagined he'd wear glasses.  And be overweight.  Basically, I imagined George Bluth, the Grandpa, from Arrested Development. 
Instead, he was shorter.  And his hair was sandy, and possibly he had a comb-over, because it looked strangely similar to Donald Trump.  His face was wider instead of longer.  He didn't wear glasses.  And there was something Hobbit like about him. 
The other thing about him was that I imagined he would speak like Erin spoke, which is to say, like me.  But he had a distinct accent, something I've heard people refer to as a Yooper accent.  Erin hates that term, and I can understand why.  I would describe his accent as sounding something similar to a Finnish American. 
I imagined her Mom would look almost exactly like her, only older, but she was shorter and very slim and her face was longer than I had imagined.  She actually looked similar in appearance to Erin's brother. 
And her Uncle looked a lot like her Dad, except he had long hair.  Come to think of it, he looked a lot like I imagined Erin's brother would look like, before I had met him.   
This is a good example of why I want to meet people's families.  I want to know everything I possibly can about my friends, and their families are an important part of their lives.  And because my imagination is clearly off. 
Erin introduced us, and her Dad clearly remembered Jon and Liz.  We spoke briefly.  There were some awkward pauses, which I guess I should of expected too, but there was something about having the quirkiness of Erin's family confirmed that made this funny to me.  Erin was right, they were different, but in ways that I hadn't considered.  They were looking for somewhere to eat, and someone suggested one of the local bar and restaurants, so we trooped over there.
It wasn't really that late yet, but the bar at this place was totally full.  We had a big group so we got a long table for ourselves.  I sat near Carrie, Erin's brother, and Erin's Mom.  I ordered a burger and some drinks. 
I tried to make conversation.  Carrie and I talked about future plans.  I tried to talk to Erin's brother about what he was studying and where he lived, since these were some of the few things I knew about him.  He was sort of hard to talk to, not because he was mean, but because he didn't offer much.  I was hoping maybe he would talk about his program, since I had friends who were part of the same thing.  I asked him if he liked where he lived, but he didn't have much to say on the subject. 
I racked my brain for other things to talk about, but I really couldn't come up with much.  I remembered Erin complaining about the Bart Stupak controversy last year, and remembering something she had mentioned about him, I asked her Mom about it.  This turned out to be a mistake because Erin's Mom did not have the same political views as Erin, which I thought she did, because of the way Erin talked about her family's politics. 

The Bar Crawl, part 2

Near the end of the night, I ended up at a bar I was familiar with.  I sat with Carrie, Jonathan, Zack and Erin, who had found her way to us.  It was nice to sit and chat and steal food from Erin, who had made the mistake of ordering curly fries and saying we were welcome to have some. 
A professor I knew was in the bar at the same time, and he came over to say hi.  I think he might have been there with some other students.  (He was sort of holding court with them.) 
As I was leaving, I was having trouble putting on my coat, as I could find the arm hole.  When I finally put it on, I heard a ripping sound, but didn't really think anything of it. 
Carrie was nice enough to walk me back part of the way.  It was colder than I thought it should be, especially for this time of the year.  I shivered and regretted not bringing a warmer coat. 
Carrie and I parted way at a street light, her going on to her house and I turning so I could go back home.
When I got home, I was disheartened to see my coat had ripped in the back.  It had ripped along the seam, so it was fixable, but I was still annoyed.  I love this coat and how I look in it, and I don't really have anything else good to wear right now.  The only positive thing I could think of was that I hadn't paid much for it. 

I Am a Failure at Surprises

One of my old professors was giving a poetry reading, and obviously I wanted to go.  She hadn't seen me in a while, so I decided I should try to surprise her. 
The problem with me trying to surprise someone is that it often gets ruined. 
I decided to go that afternoon to a study room to do some reading and writing.  I frequent this particular study room, and it's usually pretty quiet on weekday afternoons.  At most, I've seen one person in there at this time of day, and even then, it's usually someone who just looks in and then walks away. 
I went in and, for about an hour, worked.  And then Chelsea walked in. 

I hadn't seen Chelsea in a long time either.  I was trying to remember the last conversation I had with her.  I vaguely remembered talking to her about four years ago about a book series we both liked.  I remembered this conversation because I didn't really know a lot of people who read this series; my best friend had introduced me to them years previous to that, and I had only spoken about the series with a man in a library once who read The Dresden Files, which I was also familiar with and was similar.  I think during that conversation Chelsea also mentioned that she was really good at interviewing for jobs and that's why she was always employed.  At the time this had impressed me because I had always felt like my interviewing skills were terrible.  (I am happy to report now that I've learned better interviewing techniques and that I think I've even impressed some people.)
But Chelsea didn't really acknowledge me.  She just sat down and read something.  Oh, I thought.  She must not remember me. 
Not that she really should remember me.  We were really friends of friends and I mean, I'm sure there have been more important people out there. 
We sat in silence for another half hour, I continuing with my work.  Then she looked up at me. 

"Have you ever read Foucault?" she asked. 
I had, but it had been a long time ago.  And because I had found him frustratingly difficult in English, I had looked up a passage in the original French.  It had been easier to understand, but that was all I remembered. 
Chelsea talked to me about some of Foucault's ideas.  She mentioned being in a particular class, which Kristina was also in.  (And had mentioned I should come to just to see what it was like.) 
Chelsea, as a fellow feminist, was not so sure she liked the ideas of Foucault.  He said some problematic things about women. 
"I always interpreted Foucault to be saying simply what is and not how things should be.  I don't think his statements are meant to be interpreted as him endorsing that view, just observing it." 
She nodded her head, looking far away.  "That sounds like something Foucault would say."
I smiled.  Now that was a compliment.  Alex had liked Foucault.  It was one of the things we had talked about in the interview.  Alex had said how beautiful she found his writing. 
I suddenly realized that I had a question for Chelsea.  "Are you one of the people from that feminist organization that recently formed?"
"I'm not really part of it.  That's Bianca." 
That surprised me.  Bianca and I had been in a class together last year.  She had been relatively quiet.  Despite this, it had been obvious to me she was thoughtful and way cooler than I am (though, I would argue pretty much everyone is cooler than me.) 
I made a mental note, if I ran into Bianca anytime soon, that I should tell her how much I had admired her work.  Erin had told me all about it. 
"Are you going to the poetry reading tonight?"  So Chelsea must have known more about me than I anticipated, because she remembered that I worked with that professor. 
"I am, but she doesn't know I'm coming, so don't tell anyone I'm here.  It's a surprise." 
Seeing Chelsea was really nice, but I had to go over to Nate's to get some stuff and to have dinner, so I said goodbye and left.  I was turning the corner on the stairway, thinking merrily of how much I liked Chelsea and how I was going to get to see people tonight at this reading, when I was startled to see Stephanie, three steps down from me, staring up at me.  Her eyes went wide.
And this wasn't just Stephanie my friend.  She was also Stephanie, the assistant to this professor. 
She hadn't seen me in a long time either. 
Oh shit, I thought. 
"Don't tell her I'm here!" I said, slightly loud.  "I don't want her to know I'm coming tonight!  I'm trying to surprise her!"
See what I mean about surprises?  Hours before the surprise, I manage to run into two people who actually could blow it.  This was especially annoying considering how long I'd been planning this. 
Stephanie sort of laughed at me and was happy to see me.  She gave me this great big hug that made me feel great.  (Oh, to have a thousand friend hugs that I could store in a chest somewhere.)  She wanted to hear what I was up to, and we talked briefly before both of us had to be elsewhere. 
I went over to Nate's.  It had been his birthday recently, and he had all sorts of coupons for free food.  That night, he was taking me out for pizza. 

Out with Erin and Carrie

Since I couldn't find Carrie and Erin when I first got there, I just went to watch the band.  The people at this thing were sort of making me wonder about this place.  There was a young girl wearing what looked like a little girl's dress from the 1840's, with vertically stripped tights a la Alice in Wonderland.  She had all of her hair on the sides of her head shaved off, and just the top of her hair was growing down around it asymmetrically on one side, curled and bouncing in a way that indicated it must have been sprayed with massive amounts of hairspray.  And then she had a nose ring to complete the look.  Her boyfriend looked like an Edward Gorey character, but with an emphasis on pedophile-like creepiness.  There was another woman wandering around wearing no shirt but tape X's over her breasts, and then a suit jacket over that, and was carrying a massive, professional camera.
All of this is to say that I was really wondering where the hell Carrie had gotten me to come.  When she told me about this, it sounded fun, but being here now made me wonder what the appeal for Carrie was.  There was not her kind of place at all.
The band played, and the first woman, the one who was rocking the little girl Alice-punk look screamed out occasionally to the band, telling them she loved them.  "It's because we love you!" she yelled them at one point. 
Near the end of the set, Carrie and Erin found me.  They were both surprised to see me.  They tried to talk to me, and I really should have just left, but the band was good, and I really did want to hear them.  Erin and Carrie's loud talking clearly annoyed some of the people around us. 
Once the band finished, we wandered around a bit.  There was art on the walls, and I pretty much hated everything I saw. 
Carrie is rather fearless when it comes to talking to people.  She just went up to this woman, an artist, named Val.  Carrie just talked to her.  When she introduced herself, I made some jokes about Madonna and first-name basis. 
Val's husband, Curtis, was particularly friendly.  We had a nice time talking to him.  He was sort of floppity looking, like Juicebox, but with darker eyelashes and taller, but just as lean.  Unlike Juicebox, he dressed in clothes that showed off how skinny he is, which is the exact opposite of what Juicebox does. 
Val and Curtis had a very attractive friend with them, but he sort of disappeared.  What a disappointment.  After a while, so did Val. 
I get the feeling Curtis was mostly just talking to us to be nice, not because he was genuinely interested in what we had to say.  This struck me as a little embarrassing.  I would rather not be patronized. 
Eventually people sort of dropped away and left, and near the end, Erin and Carrie and I decided to leave.  Carrie got the art she had bought, wrapped up in bubble wrap. 
We wandered around for a while.  The cold was really bothering me, and I wished I had a warmer coat.  Erin wanted to get something to eat, and we ended up at this greasy spoon. 
The waiter was weirdly rude to us.  He was an older man, and asked for separate checks made him said he would only make two separate checks, not three.  We weren't far from a university, and a large one; I'm sure he's been asked to do that before. 
I had a burger and fries and was mostly happy with that.

Spending the Day Doing What I Didn't

Erin, Nori and I were outside, dancing and fooling around.  Erin and Nori were taking pictures of the night.  I had my camera with me, but I didn't feel like getting it out. 
I was too busy dancing.  I dropped my shoulders low, looking down at the ground.  I put my arms out, slightly above my head, making it look like I was pushing walls away that were closing in on me.  Then I moved my legs so that one foot was in front of the other.  When one leg would move, I'd wobble just a little bit.  I did this for a while. 
I turned around.  Both Nori and Erin were staring at me.  "What was that?" Nori asked. 
I really couldn't tell her. 
They both kept taking pictures, including some of me.  "You always make your pictures look nice," Erin scoffed.  So sue me. 

"Post them immediately!" Erin commanded.  Nori told her that she had to go down to Ann Arbor the next day to see Frontier Ruckus, this band I saw a few years back.  I would like to go myself, but more because I took a class with their drummer and admired how smart he was.  Mark later tipped me off that he was in the same band I had liked.  I suspect Ryan, the drummer, wouldn't even remember me, because why would you remember some girl from a class a year ago, even if she was one of the smartest and talkative kids in the class?
While we were dancing and taking pictures, a janitor came out and looked at us weirdly.
"We're not doing anything wrong," Erin said to her as way of explanation.  And we weren't, though she skittered around us oddly. 
"You would think she was used to drunks," I mentioned to Nori, even though we weren't.  Usually when I've had a lot I feel like I'm swimming, but here I just felt like I did when I wake up from an unrestful sleep: tired and wishing for something better. 
"We should try to break into Morrill Hall!" Erin exclaimed.

There's a long story here.  Morrill is where the English department is located, and it has become a tradition for English students to "break in."  By break in, I mean go through the often-unlocked front door or climb up the fire ladder.  Almost ever creative writing kid I know has written a creative nonfiction piece about it.
I always had this weird fantasy of camping out in an office I had the key into.  In this fantasy, there was a particular young man with me.  We'd share a sleeping bag, and get up right before the sun, and watch it rise from the roof, admiring campus at dawn.  This never happened, for a wide variety of reasons. 
In the meantime, I had spent the day doing what I didn't get done when I was actually in school.  I went for a swim with friends.  I went to a co-op party.  I have a long lunch without regarding the time.  I had an evening of being silly with friends, regardless of the rules or time.  Breaking into Morrill Hall, another thing I never got around to doing, seemed right somehow. 
We drove over there, we parked in the nearby ramp.  Several cars passed us.  We stood outside the front door.  A cop car drove by.  Something about it dampened by mood. 
Erin couldn't get the door open. 
"If that door's not open, the rest of them aren't either," she said.  "Let's go home." 

Text Bombing

I spent the evening with Erin and Nori.  Erin recently moved into this new place, so I was unfamiliar with everything.  Earlier in the evening John and Liz had stopped by.  Liz wanted to go to Pinball Pete's, which I had never been to.
One of the few regrets I have about college is that I didn't do as many social things as I wish I had.  I spent a lot of my Saturday's working on homework, which is really sad.  It panned out, I guess, in that I had excellent marks, but now that I have nothing better to do, I find myself wanting to make up for lost time.
Liz said they'd be back soon, so the three of us waited around for her to call us back.  I find myself wanting to go out to the bar and try new drinks and have some nice conversation.
Erin decided she was going to start text bombing people.  What this apparently involves several people texting someone else a nonsense phrase.  Erin first decided to try Matt (which I wished she wouldn't, because I still have to talk to him and have tentative plans to hang out with him in a few days), and then focused her energy on Jonathan, her roommate.
"Where is John?" I asked.
"Luda," Nori said.
What?  "Luda?"

"Ludacris."
Oh, man, I really must be getting old.  I had no idea that Ludacris went by Luda now.
Matt texted back, asking what this was all about.  Then Jonathan, who doesn't even know my number, texted me back some choice phrases.
Then Erin and Nori started telling me stories about their hometown.  I've heard so much about it at this point that I suspect I could talk about it like I lived there.  (Though I think of this as a good thing.)  They started on Hannah Bethel, who I though was a fictional person until they showed me this:

It's not a bad song, per se, but it's not really impressive either.  It just seems to be a rehashing of a bunch of tropes common in country music.  Also, the backroads thing just makes me thing of inappropriate things.
"She's not that good," Nori said.  I agree, but mostly because my favorite music is the stuff that is different from other things I've already seen.
Erin and Nori and I played mop baseball, which is this game we made up where you take a mop and try to hit a bouncy ball.
Then we went up the stairs to Erin and John's room.  It was a mess in a way that reminds me of every picture I've ever seen of Kurt Cobain's homes.  The only nice thing was this beautiful mural on the wall and ceiling of a tree.  Whoever did that did a really nice job.  It looked great.
As we were talking, I was spouting off hilarious zingers after another.  I don't know why but sometimes I get into this mood where everything that comes out of my mouth is funny and strange.  "You don't have to act like you're in a sitcom," Erin commented.  Okay, I guess that's my cue to tone it down a little.
Nori was playing all this cool music.  Nori herself is a musician, and a very talented one.  I love listening to her stuff.  "I wish I was twenty-one," she said.  "So that I could go out dancing."
I feel the exact same way.  I always want to go out and dance. 

Queer Theory

I went over to the Union today to have a meeting with my friend Erin and work on our papers, the one I mentioned yesterday. While I was sitting there waiting for her, I did some reading for the class. We're reading essays on queer theory, which is fine, but whoever had my book beforehand wrote some seriously stupid notes in the margins of this chapter. At one point, she (I'm assuming she, given the handwriting) asked if the open sexuality the queer movement was espousing included pedophilia and necrophilia. Um, no. But really? Did you really need to ask that?
I'm always shocked and saddened with how many people have to ask questions like that. This year especially, I've encounter a lot of people who don't even know the basics on issues like gender, race, and sexuality. If it's not their identity, they're ignorant.
How can people live like that? Do they really believe they are the only version of human out there, or do they just think they're the only kind they should bother knowing about?