Monday, January 05, 2004
Aaaannnd... I'm back at school. The roommate still isn't back yet, so my insanity is still relatively intact, but unless I get some miraculous sort of good luck, that's soon going to not be the case. Curses.
So I've got a massive headache, and I'm very tired, and I need to get up very early tomorrow for class. And there's a massive blog backup, because I haven't blogged in a long while. Sorry. Hopefully I'll be able to get everything in before I knock off for the night. And hopefully it'll be coherent. So this will probably be a long blog, and you probably ought to read it all the way through, because it's probably chock full of goodness.
My family succeeded in visiting the triumvirate of cool museums. I believe I already mentioned the ICA. We also went to the DeCordova, which has the kick-assingest sculpture garden in Massachusetts. Probably in New England. Possibly in the country. Anyways, you visit the site, you can see what we saw, good stuff. Especially the Pat Keck exhibit with the creepy wooden doll things. That was a fine exhibit because you could play with it. Some of the sculptures would have little cranks and you could go up and turn them and all sorts of merriment would occur. Yes. Anywho, we got lost coming home, and ended up navigating by the setting sun (OK, that direction is west, so we wanna go this way). My family could have been sailors in the days of yore.
We also went to Mass MoCA, which just might be the single coolest museum in the entire history of museumdom. My mother's approximation of the time needed to get there turned out to be quite optimistic, and instead of two hours it took something more along the lines of three. Some of those three were spent high in the mountains, driving through an actual cloud, which meant that visibility did not extend past 2 feet in front of the windshield. Fun! But worth it.
If you visit the site you can check out 'corpus', which is the new big gallery thing at Mass MoCA. There was a lot more paper on the ground when we went than there is in the picture there. It's essentially a huge room with onionskin paper falling from the ceiling and all over the floor. There are also big pendant speakers that rise all the way to the ceiling and descend all the to the floor and made cryptic announcements throughout. Very, very cool, and very impressive when you're actually there. Joyously interactive, too. All the little kids were running around and playing in the paper like it was snow (except for one who stood on the stairs and refused to move, staring at the room with a look on his face that plainly said 'what the heck is that?'), and people were trying to catch the paper as it fell from the ceiling. I made a paper crane out of a sheet and stuck its tail through a hole in the top of one of the speakers when it was low, so I have contributed to the artwork. Ooo la freaking la.
There were a bunch of other exhibits, of course, including some pleasantly weird photography that bothered my brother, whirly things in a dark room that made noise and looked like they were about to hit you in the head, and a temple made out of pink seran wrap. Good stuff. If you've ever got the time/inclination to go to North Adams, you really ought to. The museum is greatness wrapped in more greatness. And the bathrooms are wicked cool too.
The night before New Years was rather bizarre. Noah dragged me along to Dave's house at first, where I watched Dave, Noah, and Brian play car video games (I did not play because I suck at those kinds of games). Then we drove off to pick up Jason, and then we went to 7-11. Brian and Noah ate beef jerky. I was openly appalled. In the parking lot we met up with Maura, Kate, Corey, and Helene. For lack of anything better to do, we went to a happening at Brie's (sp?) house. Yes, Brie. Like the cheese. Only, you know, a girl from Marblehead.
delicious brie
Anyways, it was an odd and uncomfortable group of people there. We were there, and Rebecca and Elana were there, so that's alright. But there were also a slew of Marblehead high school seniors who were surreptitiously asking each other who the heck we were, just as we were surreptitiouly asking each other who the heck they were. Then some random people from our grade showed up, like Chandra and Eugene and Noam. Cue awkward standing around.
At one point Jason and Dave were conversing about something or other, and Dave made an amusing remark about Jason's mother (all in good fun, mind you). Upon hearing this remark, Jason let fly with a kick that hit the surprised Dave squarely in the tenders. Dave went sort of bug-eyed and collapsed onto the floor. Helene, Kate and I laughed. Oh, how we laughed. In a sort of damn-we're-sure-that-hurts-but-isn't-it-funny-how-his-knees-just-gave-out-like-that? kind of way.
I ended up having to drive Noah's car out of Marblehead, since that was the safest course of action. I don't like driving his car. The gas pedal decides to give you an extra burst of energy at random times, and it made me nervous. I'm a fan of my mother's (soon to be my) good ol' Toyota station wagon. Cars just don't get much better than that sweet little automotive.
Then we went to Jason's house and played the new Mario Kart, which is OK, but not half so good as Crash Bandicoot Racing. That game gets in your blood, and stays there, lurking ominously, waiting for the right moment to leap out and attack. Erm. Yes. Anyways, apparently I suck at Mario Kart.
And then it was New Years.
New Years was held at Amanda V.'s house. Her parents were present, since they had adopted the policy that it's better to supervise kids drinking than to let them drink and roam about without any supervision at all. Whatever, nice of them, irresponsible of them, it mattered little to me, as I was/always am filled with the mighty power of Sobriety. This mighty power would lead me to drive Noah and an ill Mae home around 1:30ish, and then it would lead me to return at 3, 3:30ish to transport Maddie, Dave, and Jason. This second trip in the wee hours (after I had already gone home) caused Mr. V. to declare that I was 'an ace' and deserved 'a gold star' for my troubles. We're going to assume that that's a good thing.
New Years was actually pretty good. It was a good group of people, which is key. There were some unknowns from Methuen who had come with Meredith, but we outnumbered them, so all was well. All the usual crew was there, with the exception of Maura. This was overlooked until late in the night, when a couple of heavily inebriated folks had a loud discussion about how disgusted they were that she hadn't showed up. I laughed. Ah, alcohol. People who are not usual crew were there, but it was good because they're what could be considered auxiliary crew. That is, they're not dorky enough to be our bestest buddies, but we're on quite friendly terms with them nonetheless.
Pretty much everyone got stonkered, except for me (I don't drink), Corey (he don't drink), Elana (I don't know what her usual operating procedure is, but she wasn't drinking that I could see that night), Amanda L. (she had gotten very drunk the previous evening), and Jess (she has the stopping power of a magical genie, and as such was more-or-less sober the entire night).
Helene and Kate both got loud and giggly drunk, and then entered comatose states at the end of the night. Helene spent a good, solid 10 minutes laughing hysterically at Corey and his, um, unfortunate adornment. Kate asked me 12 times if people were making fun of her, and then launched in a very serious and long explanation of why she didn't like being made fun of.
Helene also derived way too much enjoyment from my descriptions of my cameras. See, I had both the digital and nondigital cameras on me, so I referred to them as my digital and 'hard' cameras. Hard, as in, hardware. As in, film. As opposed to software, which is what the digital is. Anyways, Helene found this absolutely hilarious for some obscure reason of her own.
Jason drank himself into insanity, which is evidenced by the pictures from that night. Noah got all maudlin on us, and when I drove him home he got angry that Wendy's wasn't open. Brian didn't seem that drunk to me, but I heard from people after I had left (the first time) that he was. Dave got very happy, and said 'that ish' about 20 million times. As in, "What's up with that ish?", "I didn't know you were into that ish," etc. He also had a very earnest, very rambling conversation with me about a new kind of Chevy truck. I do believe that Maddie had entered a state of drunkenness, but Maddie holds her liquor so well that it's kind of hard to tell sometimes. The only slightly untoward thing she did was cuddle Dave a disproportionate amount. Again, this was evidenced by the pictures.
Stephanie... ah, yes. Stephanie went a little over the top and got very loud (as is her wont when in such a state) and very crazed. The entire party seemed to make an unspoken agreement and left her in the care of Greg, who was very tolerant of his charge. At one point Danielle was trying to mop up the kitchen floor, and every ten seconds Stephanie would knock over a cup. She did this maybe five times. Much giggling was involved.
Cigars were smoked right after New Years. This may become a tradition, as it happened last year. I got some pictures of it, but it was so dark out that I couldn't see what I was shooting until it was already shot, and this caused some problems. Oh well.
So, pictures! I took many. I have posted some online, for your perusal and enjoyment. They may be found here. I suggest you double click on the first one and go through them all. They're tolerably good. All captioned, For Your Enjoyment. After you've looked through them, if you want any of them, email me and let me know. I've already got them all resized, so I can email them out with relative celerity.
New Years Day was the Rose Bowl. Hrmph. We lost. Well, we shouldn't have had to play USC in the first place. Jess came over after the game to console me. I was rather in need of consolation at that point. But later in the night Leno did an 'American Idol' talent show kind of deal with USC football players versus Michigan football players. When he asked the crowd who liked USC, there was some mild cheering. When he asked who liked Michigan, there was insane cheering. And then Michigan went on to win. Which just goes to show that, irregardless of football, you still can't spell SUCKS without USC.
Chanukah was good (this is going way back, huh?). My mother did a splendiferous job, and I got all manner of wonderful things. Both X-Men DVDs, a whole slew of awesome CDs (including two by Paris Combo, which is my new addiction), a spare battery for my digital camera, a Tom Brady jersey (a great Patriots quarterback, a U. of M. alum, and a very attractive man), delectable candy, and other varied goodness. Everyone seemed to like the Michigan gear I got them, which is good, because I like giving people things that do not suck.
I redyed my hair, by the by. The streak is now dark purple. According to Helena, it goes very well with my glasses, which I hadn't even considered. This means my towels are all going to get extremely purpley until it's done bleeding out, which may take a bit, as this one is proving itself to be a very pervasive color.
So, I'm back at school. The flight in was OK. I was sitting across the aisle from Dean, as it happens, and we did converse a little, but not much, since I was sleeping most of the time. Thank cats for the iPod. They changed the carousel for the luggage several times, making me run back and forth across the baggage claim in a state of extreme irritation. Then the shuttle I was supposed to take back to campus ended up being a complicated mess, and I had to make all sorts of phone calls and ended up transfering vehicles in a gas station. So I got back to my 80ยบ dorm room in a rather anguished mood.
Not two minutes after I get in, who should come a-knockin' but Helena. I let her in and she stayed and chatted whilst I unpacked. It made me feel a little bit better about having to come back here. Of course, it's also nice that my roommate hasn't shown up yet, so I'm still riding the joy of not having her around. I intend to savor it while I can.
Anyways, vacation is over, and that's that. I've been seeing people walk by my room with large bags from the bookstore, which worries me, since I haven't got any of my books/art supplies yet. I don't even know what I need. How do all these people know what books they need already? But that's besides the point.
After this vacation we have learned that My Family Frelling Rocks, Cats are the Best Creatures Ever, Massachusetts Has Great Museums, and I Already Miss All You Folks From Home. Well, some of you. You probably know who you are. Some of you I actually live better without.
Mwah ha ha ha ha.
Stephanie: What band is this, Horizontal Horizon?
*Me, Jess, and Helene all look at each other and burst out laughing*
7:10 PM
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