a depressing week Saturday May 24
this week i had to question the economic viability of my secondary employment, foellinger auditorium. i've enjoyed working at the auditorium this year, but there have been many weeks like this past one: i spend many of the light hours of the day inside a building turning knobs and pressing buttons for people who could care less about me and are generally ignorant to how shows are produced.
i do all of this for a university wage, which is far less than what i could be making if i took my audio skillz elsewhere. or, i could potentially resurrect my restaurant skillz. nathan has assured me that as a busser, i could show up everyone at kennedy's, the restaurant he and ashley work at. moreover, i could make far more serious bank and get good exercise as opposed to my current sit-behind-the-sound-board-for-a-little-over-six-dollars job.
i make it sounds as if i wish to quit. that's not entirely accurate. there are a number of perks; namely, during easier events (like senate meetings), i do approximately twenty minutes of real work. and then the rest of the time i read, study, or work on various websites. and i get a few hours' worth of pay. this benefit cannot be overlooked.
also, being behind that sound board has had some great moments for me. no one else may ever know that i had such moments, but tweaking the knobs on jie's band to try to make them sound as kickass as they really are. that's the fun part, because it's more than pressing play on the five-disc changer. those are the moments that make me like the job.
also, working a number of the campus cultural productions has sharpened my senses about various cultures a little. some cultural stereotypes have been reinforced, others denied. this is part of learning more about the people around you, and it has been healthy for me, even if i have not always enjoyed it.
this week was a dance recital. it wasn't associated with the university at all, and the owner of the studio was selling tickets for twelve dollars per seat. and i've seen the show four times, i'd pay five, tops. it could be that i'm just a student with no money, or it could be that this woman is severely ripping off lots of young parents who already are being ripped off to send their son or daughter to such a prestigious dance studio. it's a shame when the arts come with a price tag. there's tuition, costume costs (which there are many of, and they get used once), recital admission, and then you have to pay to get into the recital even if you are a dance student in the recital: a fee that is supposed to defray costs.
but enough on the filching of champaign-urbana's young parents. i suppose i could turn focus towards less commercial forms of dance and spotlight todd at earthdance, but that'd be excursive at this point in time, and i do have somewhere where i am headed with this.
so, i was bored at work tonight, watching twenty or so six-year-olds dressed in farm animal costumes performing old mcdonald had a farm. everyone was laughing at the children, and funny they were, innocent, and some, even downright cute. i hope you realize that it takes a lot for me to say that a kid is cute. and mean it. anyway.
it seems that people put a lot of stock in the innocence of children, that they are not yet tainted by the world et al...and it was this that i was thinking about when these children entered the stage. i wondered which ones of my friends, fifteen years ago, were standing on stages like this, being gawked at by proud parents and relatives. and then i thought of charlotte, because she always tells me about how she was so perfect and happy and carefree in "her little world" (as she has termed it).
then i reflected on the statistic that one in six women (at least, on the university of illinois campus) will be sexually assaulted in some way in their time at the university. and i looked at the twenty six-year-old girls. and i can't really say why i was thinking about these things, or how they lined up in this way, but i couldn't help but look at the innocence before me onstage and project them fifteen years from now. i looked among their faces and wondered which ones would be the unlucky ones.
when i first heard the statistic that one in six women is assaulted, i thought it was an inflated figure. however, when i learned more about the survey that was conducted, i understand how that number was produced. when you add in women who have been too drunk to say no so their partner assumed yes, rape within relationships, and non-rape sexual assault, it is easy to understand how it is possible. this would be the token sentence where i am disgusted at men for their lack of respect towards women and their inability to stand up for what is right due to their fear of being unmanly. i don't wonder why fraternities have the reputation that they do, i know that when men get together, they tend to not police themselves. to do so would be a buzz kill, to do so would be "taking the joke too seriously".
i looked across the faces of the young girls wearing chicken costumes, dog outfits, and pig tails and asked myself who is going to tell them five, ten, fifteen years from now that everything's going to be okay after it happens to them? five, ten, fifteen years down the line, if god forbid i should ever father, i don't want to think like this. and the only solution i see is education, and openness. if we keep the ugliness of our society hidden, we cannot purge it; we can only hide it.
to loosen the focus back to the original topic for a moment, i'll wrap up by saying that i owe it to foellinger for giving me all these opportunities to let my mind wander. i guess i'll keep my job for now, even if week-long jaunts in the building really dampen my social calender and productivity without bulking up the wallet.
takes you back Sunday May 11
on the walk home tonight, i tried to think of all the ways i could start this post. first, i stepped out of the union into a strong breeze; not the type that carried the feel of an oncoming storm -- more that of a warm summer night, and it instantly made me think of the time i took stock of my life watching the sun set on the surface of the sea of japan. the breeze coming off the ocean that evening felt the same as the breeze that struck my face just tonight. but i disgress.
but then i thought that relating it all back to weather and past experience and nostalgia would be a long endeavor that you'd never finish. so then i considered this jump-cut tell-you-the-ending approach: "caroline blocked the doorway and whispered seductively into my ear: 'let's talk politics,' then a slight brush of her alcohol-stained tongue on my ear lobe, i knew it was time to get out the door."
but then that sounds really bad. and i'm always the guy who builds up to the ending, so i figured that such an approach would spoil my story. so, let's give up the philosophy and the shock-value for now, and i'll just tell you how it happened. with the appropriate seasoning of (excess) detail.
two years ago, there was a guy named david who lived on ground south in allen. he was scottish, and he'd pick up girls at parties simply by asking, in his ever-adorable accent, "is this the queue for the loo?" he was a cool cat, and at the end of the year, some allen folk got together and threw him a going-away party. problem was, as a bunch of dorm kids, where were we going to have it?
every finals period, the illini union advertises that they have rooms available for studying, or just sleeping, or just whatever. they offer a discounted rate, and you can stay there to get work done or just to get away from the standard distractions. however, the allen kids grabbed ahold of this deal and got a room for david's going away party. i wish i had had a blog back then, but the story can be summed up like this: i ended up between nicole and paul, and paul was drunk, and he tried to con christina into using her charms to lure me off the bed so that way he could attempt to move in on nicole. the whole thing backfired, and even if it hadn't, there were about 15 people in that room anyway. there was no way any hanky panky was happening, and he was just too intoxicated to realize it. i cashed out early, and as a result, i earned a spot on the bed. people even slept in the windowsill (which could be curled up in, it has depth). in the end, everyone remembers it as a very successful going-away party. we've always talked about doing it again.
enter our friend megan. she's an RA. and on her floor this year, there is a study-abroad student from england named katy. katy's going away next thursday. so someone's gears started turning...
sarah (from weslyan) and her fiance dan were over today, they left as drew came up the stairs to inform me of katy's going away party. it was yet early, only past 10, and eric, drew, and i headed out to the union. the party was already going when we got there, and like the digital elph maniac i am, i caught the whole night on film. at first, it was a bathroom-turned-wet bar, and a table-turned-snack bar. personally, i laid off on the drinks, but others did not.
megan got out this parcel, which was a gift wrapped in newspaper twenty-odd times. inside each layer, there was a gift, a candy, or some sort of card indicating what the recipient had to do. the parcel was passed around like musical chairs, and when the music stopped, the holder was to unwrap the next layer. it's a fun game, and apparently, it's british.
however, more and more people started stopping by, and three friends of megan's came over that i didn't know. one of them looked very familiar to me, but in a way that i didn't even have an inkling where i had seen her before. it was not even that i could venture to guess that we had had class together or anything like that, it was something beyond that, something more. but i avoided her as i was not introduced, and it sounds really hokey to go up to a girl at a get-together and say, "don't i know you from somewhere?" i didn't need to be giving off those kinds of vibes, you know, i'm always so worried chicks get the wrong impression out of me.
well, guido, drew, and kate went down for a cigarette, and i joined them, not to smoke, but to get fresh air (hah! tobacco and fresh air?) because the room had had about 10 people in it. when i came back up, mystery girl approaches me and says, "do i know you from somewhere?" no joke. verbatim. so i detect a lilt in her voice, realize she's been drinking, and think, "hey, be polite, but make sure to not egg this person on." so i say, "no, i don't think so..."
"isn't your name mark j-something?" she ventures.
"nope..." i smile politely.
"wait, did we go to high school together? i swear you look like this guy i went to high school with named mark j-something," she persists.
my ego is trying to break in. nice guy mark is saying, "hrmm, you must look like this mark guy." but then egomaniac mark is saying, "hah! she wants a piece of the pie. funny, she's willing to use the do-i-know-you as a conversation starter so i'll ask where she went to high school, and then she can ask me, blah blah blah, yeah, i've done this before."
i reiterate that no, my name is mark, but not j-something.
"did you go to hononegah?" she offers.
i most certainly did. shit. now i remember, there was a guy named mark j-something, but she must be confusing the two of us. mark j-something was a lanky dark-haired guy, who looked nothing like me. whatever. it's been at least three years. now what the heck is this girl's name, and how does she know me?
"yes, wait, you did too?" is all i can reply.
"my name's caroline, i know you, you know, uhm, jessie," she continues.
oh man. jessie was my disaster senior prom date. she wasn't so much of a disaster of a person, just more along the lines of a date. she was a scared sophomore on a date with a senior who she liked, too timid to dance, let loose, or even really have a good time. sigh. prom was overrated anyway. point is, the chances are very good that via jessie my name live(s)/(d) on at hononegah far longer than i was there. proof positive: this girl knows me, and even can produce my first name, and all i got was a vague feeling like i had seen her somewhere.
"oh, cool, yeah, jessie..." i respond. by using words like "cool" and "yeah", i merely accept what was said previously without adding anything to the conversation. i was having a good time at this party until this point, there was no need to start talking about high school. or jessie the disaster prom date.
"yeah, jessie really liked you," she says. i have no idea what the point of this statement is, but i just do my uneasy look. she gets the idea, and with a simple smile on my part she continued.
"i played french horn in band."
great, something innocent, clean, fun. and i can try to find out if she knows anyone else on campus:
"oh, my friend danyel played french horn, you know her?"
"uhm, yeah, i know her. she lives above me in the dorm."
at this point, and i can't lie to you here, i wanted to ask if she had the flex meal plan instead. but i knew better:
"oh, so you live in busey-evans then?"
and this drivel about roscoe, rockford, and hononegah continues for a couple of minutes. i'm not kidding, if i detailed the dialogue further, it would sound like i'm justin timberlake, and every girl is a fifteen-year-old fan who has my face posted on her bedroom wall, dreamily staring at it. that's simply not the case. i'm willing to accept that this girl could be attracted to me, but it is far more likely that she is just looking for attention from the opposite sex in general, and i am in no position to give her this attention.
cut scene to a brief game of i've never... and caroline drinking more, being the only person at the entire event who is drunk; all other consumers are tipsy or on their way there, and she is clearly out of her league. but guido's catching up, and when she found out he is italian and spoke spanish, she fell in love with him and spent fifteen minutes trying to pronounce pezzarosi properly. he's attentive, and she's loving it.
i think that i'm off the hook. however, when i start leavetaking about twenty minutes later, i am almost out the door when she comes out of the bathroom (where she had been talking to guido).
she tells me that i can't leave yet, and asks me if i'm interested in joining her discussion with guido. i'm not. i want to go home, and i'm not in the mood to deal with drunk girls hanging on my arm. however, i use my poker face, because i have the hardest time being tough to people to their faces. apparently, my resolve is not clear to her, because she stands in front of the door and throws her arms around me and reiterates that i can't leave.
when this doesn't work on me (surprise), she attempts the seductive approach that i already spoiled earlier:
caroline blocked the doorway and whispered seductively into my ear: 'let's talk politics,' then a slight brush of her alcohol-stained tongue on my ear lobe, i knew it was time to get out the door.
now, i realize that a lot of this story is had-to-be-there humor, and maybe it's not even that funny to y'all. but i wouldn't write at length about it if it hadn't made me think so much on the way home. and here comes that philosophical garbage that you deserve if you've read this far with me.
caroline's obviously a freshman, and i don't mean that in a bad way, but it's clear that she hasn't realized what it took me a long time to realize, and tonight's events provided a nostalgic focal point with which i could look back on how i used to view relationships with how i view them now.
as singles, we're just running around in this world looking for someone to care about us. we try to extract the most interesting facts about ourselves, relate ourselves to others, and we pull a lot of gags to try to prove to the other people that we're someone worth your attention. it's almost like a huge game, it's personal marketing 101, and while there is a bit of that that you need to do to meet people in the first place, i think that playing the peacock isn't necessarily the best way to go about it.
ever since i dated (and subsequently got stomped on by) gina, i've been rather emotionally closed to relationships. after my partial failure in my relationship with heather, i spent the summer alone and being happy as such. however, i knew i wanted to change something, but i didn't know what. esther was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and i hurt her a lot by confusing her by not knowing what i really wanted at all. i tried so hard to sanitize that potential relationship to ensure that i would not be hurt. how lame.
i have been struggling (positively, i believe) in my relationship with cara to change these behaviors. one way in which i always gauge my own behaviors is in the context of others, and that's why i've spent so much time to detail what happened tonight as part of this post. for one, i felt it was entertaining, but moreover, i felt that the behavior of this caroline girl perfectly illustrates where i'm not anymore.
albeit her attractiveness and apparent attraction to me, the only appeal this girl had was one of nostalgia, remembering the days when stories like this would be traded over the table in the allen cafeteria on a sunday mid-day. the days of flippantly meeting girls is over, and this is the new era of the opposite sex: one where pretty faces, musical tastes, and clothing choices are moot, and who that person is at the core is what really matters. before i would have not looked deep enough to see that, i would have settled for a guster-fan girlfriend, and that's simply not the case anymore. but if she doesn't like guster after meeting me, well, shit.
leslie tells me that this is what her lounge usually looks like. and the parents of the kids on the floor can afford to keep paying the high rent to have the janitors clean it all up for them. i hate the world sometimes.
we made it all fit by using the sunroof and my hand to hold onto a rack.
ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present the: