Growing Pains... Or, How I Learned to Keep Worrying and Go Batspit Crazzzzzzy.

I am done with school.

I didn't even make it til spring break of my junior year.

I just keep thinking... maybe... if I leave school...

I will no longer have to do homework. I can be bohemian. I could get a practical job to support part-time vagrancy because I'm smarter than those full-time bohemians who die of tuberculosis because they didn't get a practical job fast enough. Stop writing five-act plays; start waiting tables before you die.

That is my motto. I learned it from La Boheme, Moulin Rouge, and all those movies where someone dies because the writer didn't wait tables so he could get medicine for the girl who dies of tuberculosis.

I will no longer be plagued by unrequited love. I feel like all love is requited once I no longer have the aging, uglifying stresses of homework.

I will no longer have to wait on the stupid #(*w$&%(w$ printers in the computer lab. I'm about to throw something to my left if the stupid Q(#$(&&#(&@(#$%@ printer doesn't start spitting out naked people for my figure drawings. SPIT NOW SPIT NOW SPIT NOW. It's been processing my job for a good fifteen minutes.

Side note: I don't actually mean curse words when I type gibberish; I just find gibberish jarringly pleasing to my aesthetic. It's so decisive and ambiguous and postmodern. Look at me, having an intellectual geekout over gibberish. How pretentious has college made me? I can fix this; I'm flunking out... see you on the flip side.

a. It's happened again; I'm drained.

b. REMINDER TO SELF: YOU HAVE TO SET UP NEXT WEEK'S PROPS SCHEDULE.

Slacker!

c. REMINDER TO SELF: YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY PLAN.

Slacker!

d. The German word for "twelve?" Who knew it was so hard to pronounce? Gee, I'm so glad I'm not fixated on twelve; I'd never get anywhere with my German studies. I've been practicing "zwolf" for days; I'm still not ok with my pronunciation.

e. New shows? Need dramaturgs! I'm not sure people realize this; to their detriment or to mine?

Both!

f. While I may not retain any information relayed electronically in my lab science course (and will probably consequently do really badly) I'm totally fine with the fact that "lab" includes delicious quesadillas, homemade salsa with at least zwolf secret ingredients, an enormous dog, and fermentation.

So, I've been listening to the European version of High School Musical; that is, Romeo et Juliette.

As you might expect from a musical entitled Romeo et Juliette, it is overambitious and cliche-- hey, like HSM! (No... really... it IS overambitious and cliche; just in case you still don't believe me, all the Capulets wear red and all the Montagues wear blue. Romeo and Juliet sing at least three songs with "love" in the title. I warned you.)

And, extending the High School Musical connection... have you ever seen Lukas Perman, who originated the role of Romeo in Vienna, and Lucas Grabeel, who originated the role of Ryan at Disney, at the same place at the same time? (No, you haven't.)

Do you think there could be a reason for that?

Lucas:




























Lukas:






























Despite the cliches, and the Lucases/Lukases... well, ok... Lukas might be a little bit of a girly man, but he's prettier than any American musical theatre star is allowed to be...

(Ok, Lucas might also be a little bit of a girly man, too.)

I love it. It's more cheerful than Romeo and Juliet is allowed to be; it's more spectacle; it's just fun.

Tonight, I'm going to watch Northanger Abbey with Caitlin; I can't wait. Her boyfriend has been warned to stay far, far away. Tonight we will be girls.

It might even involve chocolate and listening to our girly mix CD.

It's like Valentine's Day all over again.

Times "girl/girly" was mentioned in this post: Upwards of five.

Ich habe Angst. J'ai peur. I have--- ****

I'm still working on learning twelve zillion languages; or at least German and French. It's actually fairly easy to learn them both at the same time--the grammar of German is sometimes similar to that of French, and German vocabulary is sometimes similar to that of English. I have hope--j'ai de l'espoir, ich habe Hoffnung--that one day I will achieve conversational competence in both languages.

In other news, I am experiencing the growth of a new idea; it's a secret idea; it's rather dangerous. I haven't told anyone what it is. Like I said. I have a secret. Secrets are powerful. I have to choose--who I tell, when.

It has something to do with the title of this post.

what valentine's day means to me.

I'm going to get a nosebleed.

Possibly tonight.

Maybe it's the weather; maybe I'm ill. But for the past day and a half, I've been on the verge of a bloody nose.

I have a macabre fascination with bloody noses. So much incandescently bright mess and it doesn't really hurt at all, only tickle. My brother gave me a bloody nose once when we were kids and kept each other in line by punching each other in the face; it's a harmless American phenomenon.

Speaking of American phenomenon, it's not long until I leave the continent for the first time. I'm terribly, terribly gauche; I don't know the language--how unpleasantly touristy of me. I dress like someone barfed up a college student. An acquaintance of mine is an au pair in Paris; I've looked with envy at her pictures, all the extremely French people with their black-on-black and the little hats--not berets, that's a stereotype--and wished that my closet was French. I think one day it will be; I think one day I'll get rid of all of my hoodies and t-shirts and jeans, invest in about three trench coats and just be chic for the rest of my life. I'm tempted to keep a pair of overalls, though, because I'm Appalachian at the core.

So, last night I had my first frozen margarita, mango flavor. It was the best slushie I've ever had--it wasn't the tequila; tequila sucks.

My cousin just uploaded a bunch of pictures of us when we were kids onto a facebook photo album.

Funny how surreal my childhood is in photographs.

There's me... five or six... in a pink swimsuit that I don't remember, my mouth open like a wide-mouth frog, posing with jazz hands for a group picture as my brother tries his hardest to escape.

There's pictures I don't remember being taken; pictures of the epoch, the year I was thirteen.

My cousin was there for those pictures, in all his freckled glory, happy, only two years before we would lose him.

My legs were toothpicks--in jorts. I wore jorts that year.

My sister was the blondest she'd ever been.

Bittersweet years, my childhood. There was so much I just never figured out back then.

And now... well, I get older all the time. It's bittersweet and fun and tomorrow it will include some form of alcohol.

So, the theatre festival was a real learning experience.

We usually say that when things suck. Or when people suck at doing their jobs.

Oh, well. It was a learning experience.

But this was a good learning experience. As in, I actually learned a lot, and it was good.

I got to meet some swell people whose talent was a visceral reminder that I've got to get on my A-game if I want to be brilliant by my thirtieth birthday--and I bonded with them over our shared nerd-love for theatre history.

I mean, I went with these people to Super Taco. I met a guy who wears a WWJD bracelet a good nine years after the trend peaked. I met the owner of the highest metabolism known to humanity. I met girls who write better than I do. I met people who almost made me contemplate starting a Fellowship of Christian Theatre/English People chapter at my school.

I got 25$ per diem for food.

So I'd gladly go again next year; I'll probably enter more competitions, dress more nicely for those.

And then I went back to school; it's a little bit of a downer. I've had to do homework.

However--this week something important will happen. I won't become a raging alcoholic; but something important will happen.

Deutsch in Seiben Lessons

So today, I had an epiphany, and it was this:

Maybe I'm supposed to learn German.

The show we're doing now has a lot to say about destiny; it's one of those absurdist shows with a moral, and the moral is that maybe your destiny is eating breakfast or noticing that it's sunny and that Niagara Falls is amazing.

And while I want to say I don't think learning German is part of my destiny, I sort of think that yes, it is.

In any case, I was listening to Der Glockner today, and I thought, "Why don't I just learn German instead of just listening to it?" Because the thing about listening to it, for me anyway, is that I develop an ear for the flow of the language without really comprehending the structure. And German structure is very different from English and French structure. It's intimidating.

So I have been procrastinating, all day, when I could have studied for my chemistry exam. That's what makes me weird; most kids procrastinate and mess around, have fun, surf the internet, watch TV. I learn a Romance language or research 19th century literature instead of whatever I'm supposed to be doing.

Most of the time when I learn something "unnecessary" it's so I can impress people with it later. But it's different with my desire to learn German.

It's not even so I can read Immanuel Kant in his native tongue.

It's so I can go to Germany.

First... Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey. Google him. My dad sent me an email with the sole purpose of informing me of Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey's existence, so it must be important.

Dad said that Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey was akin to Mr. Winkle. I respectfully disagree; Mr. Winkle, that slanted pup to the left, is inherently unique--even alien.

Second... have you ever felt both not secretive enough and too closed off? Because I do. I do, very much.

Third... my Austrian-musical phase continued with a brief flirtation with Elisabeth, which would have been more fun if it was Elisabeth! Das Musical (or included "Wie Wird Man Seinen Schatten Los," which is still my favorite Levay-Kunze song with "schatten" in the title; I think it means shadow).

Oh well; I can't have everything. Oh well; it has Serkan Kaya in a leading role--I'm intrigued by this German actor; the main reason why I'm so intrigued is because I really cannot decide if I like his looks or his voice or his attitude or his acting or not. I really am on the fence. He compared Jesus Christ Superstar to Finding Nemo, so I really WANT to like him.

Fourth... I can definitely recommend reading Les Miserables in the original French. I recommend reading it fifty-eleven times in English beforehand to avoid confusion as well.

Fifth... it's time for the Monk season finale already? I just started watching it again! It's been pretty predictable lately but Tony Shalhoub's characterization just gets better and better. Plus, it's followed by Psych, which is one of the most brightly colored shows on cable. Even if it is pretentious. It's also clever, which has redeemed many a pretentious individual.

You only get one chance to not mess up a first impression.

I've been emailing the regional chair of the National Critics Institute competition in my district with some questions I had, and immediately after sending email #2 or 3, I realized that I had been referring to it as "Critic's Institute" instead of "Critics Institute."

ME. Anal, neurotic, grammar-fascist that I am.

I want to crawl in a hole, take some Excedrin, and DIE.