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| ...And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry. |
| 02.26.04 (9:06 pm) [edit] |
I betrayed myself today. I did the unthinkable, something I promised myself many times I would never, ever do.
I visited my high school.
Now, in my defense, it wasn't quite as bad as the usual college-freshman meet-and-greats, where you go in with a big cheesy grin and a Devil-may-care attitude to smugly say hello to old teachers and underclassman friends and, if you're lucky, be hoisted upon the shoulders of the adoring throngs and carried back to the college of your choice. I did go for a reason--to get the yearbook I ordered more than a year ago and still have not collected--and my plan was to slip in unnoticed, strike quickly and escape. Even this, however, is a little tough for me to live down, and the fact that things didn't go as planned makes it even worse.
I made it past the office, that much I can be proud of. At this point I was a little smug; I'd already passed by at least half a dozen people I recognized, some of which I may have even been able to refer to by name, and hadn't gotten so much as a wave. Maybe my disguise (short, black hair and horn rims--I looked like a young Elvis Costello, or a skinny Clark Kent) worked and no one recognized me. Then I heard my name. I whirled around. It was Ben...I'd been cornered. I gestured wildly to get him to stop saying my name, and he laughed at me. "Zach, you're like seven feet tall," he said. "Everybody saw you coming in and you know it." This kind of took the wind out of my sails, but no matter; Ben and Callie (I'd just picked her up from middle school, which kind of spurred the whole high school idea since they're right next door to eachother) in tow, I continued my beeline to the library and successfully made it there without being caught again. Then things REALLY got out of hand. The librarian was gone for the day, I was stranded in the very heart of Williamston High School, and I had to make my way all the way back out without being caught. I was doomed.
My first mistake was standing around to talk to Ben out in the open. Right away, a girl I used to know from marching band walked by giving me a funny look. I gestured "no" to her and she kept walking. It was a close call. After that, things were deceptively quiet for a while; my smug "they don't recognize" me attitude faded and I began to suspect that I wasn't being approached simply because nobody cared about me in the first place. But when Ben and I took our conversation to the cafeteria, that all changed. Out of the blue, I was accosted by another girl I knew, this one flinging upon me, hugging me, and starting an actual conversation! This had me distracted and confused; I was like a scared animal. Wild thoughts of killing both Torey and Ben with my bare hands and making a break for the nearest exit loping on all fours raced through my mind. Then, just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, my former video production teacher, Mr. Lutzke, literally attacked me, saying something about Jack White and proceeded to throw stage punches in my face and grab me about the sides!
Lutzke detained me for a little while, but I managed to break free. He, Torey and Ben all left, leaving me alone with Callie and, more importantly, another chance to escape. But like an idiot, I squandered this chance by walking back to the library to check one more time and see whether the librarian was back. I didn't find her. What I did find was Renato, the tiny Filipino who had been my frequent video production sidekick last year. He looked at me long and hard, then suddenly leapt into my arms (he does that). Another schmooze session. He said he might be going to Michigan next year and we should party together if he does; I politely declined, saying I'm afraid of being beat up at parties. He liked that joke and for a second I thought that was what got rid of him...then I realized that some sophomore girls had just walked by, and remembered that Renato has one real weakness and that is girls who are younger, blonder and thinner than he is. I couldn't have gotten his attention again if I'd wanted to.
After the Renato encounter, I resisted a few crazy urges to drop in on ex-English teachers and escaped at last from the belly of the beast, in one piece by the grace of God alone. I was still a little shaken, though, and here's why (at this point I'm starting to be serious again): I didn't actually hate the visit as much as I wanted to think I did. In fact, I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed the attention. Walking back into a place in which I had rarely felt anything but awkward, insignificant and unwanted and being greeted with open arms felt good. And it sickens me that I'm that kind of person, who wants to go back for the attention and the good feelings. I feel like such a whore, because I could have and should have done the whole visit way more low-key than I did. Instead, I paraded around in a subconscious attempt to be noticed. Maybe I just wanted to prove (to myself, at least) that I wasn't the total non-entity in high school I often suspected myself of being. Maybe I was suffering an unsightly bout of nostalgia. I don't know. But I don't have a lot of respect for what I did this afternoon, and worse still, I'm coming back tomorrow. I need that yearbook before they set it on fire or something.
As a kind of conclusion (oh, let's face it, more like a total non-sequitur), I watched the second [i]Lord of the Rings [/i] extended edition for the first time today--yeah, I know, I'm behind the times, you bunch of dorks, but some of us have GIRLFRIENDS and don't have time to watch a three and a half hour movie at college, and besides, I was a nerd before it was fucking COOL to be a nerd, so stick that in your pocket protector and...do whatever it is you do with a pocket protector. Anyway, though, watching the extended edition just reinforced for me my belief that [i]Return of the King[/i] is the worst of the series by a longshot. The first two movies are so damn GOOD. I mean, sure, the special effects are occasionally a little cheesy (every time a character overlooks a CG battle scene it looks like he's doing foreign correspondance via bluescreen for the [i]Daily Show[/i]), but the drama can be so human and so real, much more so than in the books from what I've read. And that's one problem with the third movie: the character development is practically nil. Sure, there was the thing with Faromir and his dad, but that felt like it wasn't given enough attention to really establish it as part of the story. I thought the entire Rohan side plot of [i]Two Towers[/i] was much better; the drama between Wyrmtongue and Eowyn and Aragorn and Theowyn (or whatever the king's name is) was riveting. In fact, it felt like almost everything in [i]ROTK[/i] had already been done in [i]Two Towers[/i]; I remember watching the big climactic battle sequence, yawning and going, "I liked it better back when it was called the battle of Helm's Deep." Sad but true. The first two movies are leaps and bounds better, as far as I'm concerned, and I think so even more after watching the second one (which I think may be my favorite) again.
I think my main problem might be this: of the three movies, [i]Two Towers[/i] is the darkest. It's the one where the future is least certain. That to me makes it by far the most interesting. But even by the end of the movie, things are taking a turn for the better: Isengard falls, Rohan is saved, Aragorn seems to be pretty high in the opinion polls, Sam gives Frodo that big rousing inspirational speech...the whole trilogy has climaxed, and already there's a sense that everything is going to be okay. Which gives the third movie no suspense whatsoever; it's just three of hours of, "All right, destroy the fucking ring already!" It's a damn shame. Then again, maybe my opinion will change after I see the [i]Return of the King[/i] extended edition, since the trend seems to be that I prefer the flow of the longer versions overall. I guess we'll see in November (or knowing me, late next February). Until then, though, I remain disappointed in [i]The Return of the King[/i], Oscars be damned.
Listening to: fuck it, the whole second disc of the [i]Beatles Anthology 1[/i] (hence this post's title)
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posted by: rocketboots522 (reply)
post date: 02.26.04 (10:15 pm)
I have never at any time held you back from watching lord of the rings.
posted by: churchofmadlove (reply)
post date: 02.26.04 (10:24 pm)
I was being sarcastic...the implication was that those of us with girlfriends have "better things to do" than watch Lord of the Rings. Better things to do. Get it? Better things to DO.
But yeah, actually you would probably even watch those movies with me, wouldn't you? In fact, I know you would, and most likely enjoy them more than I do. But it was a joke, dear.
posted by: Dan (reply)
post date: 02.26.04 (10:32 pm)
Did my eyes decieve, or did I just get through that entire LOTR section without a single reference to Frodo and Sam being gay?
posted by: churchofmadlove (reply)
post date: 02.26.04 (10:40 pm)
Well, that's just it: the whole homoerotic thing was not as "to the fore" in the first two movies, which believe it or not is one of the things I liked about them. I don't like when movies I'm supposed to take seriously make me giggle unintentionally...although yes, that whole frolicking-in-bed-with-Frodo thing was more than priceless and my (ironic, of course) favorite part of the otherwise lackluster Return of the King. But yeah, you got me. I'm not really on my homoerotica game tonight, I guess.
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