a long-ass entry indeed

I don't really have anything to say, but why should that stop me from writing another entry?

My band teacher lost his already faltering grip on sanity yesterday morning, as we were on stage in an empty auditorium and practicing for the concert that would take place later that night. One minute I was playing the last note of a piece, the next he was screaming, the lights above illuminating the stage and agitating my eyes, and then he cut us off, screaming and screaming and screaming, swear words peppering his sudden rampage.

"What the hell is your problem?" he shouted. And then again.

When the victim attempted to reason with him, he yelled, "I don't give a shit!" He paced around the stage with a maze of veins bulging from his neck and face, declaring that the accused needed to take some responsibility, for Christ's sake.

My teacher said this.

My teacher that must be somewhere in his forties with a wife and children.

I could hardly contain my laughter. Within seconds, a man who had just commanded a boy to take responsibility abandoned all maturity and reason and let loose on a large mass of seated freshmen with musical instruments and folding chairs that could be used as weapons. A man who had once busted me and sent me back into the band room before a concert because I was wearing white socks, a man that had the nerve to expect nothing but perfection from us -- he completely cracked!

And it made my goddamn day.

Especially because of the reason it happened -- during the last note of that piece we played, a trumpet player took his music in one hand and put it back into his band folder.

So, needless to say, I am now afraid to sneeze in front of my band teacher.

At the concert last night, I heard from a few people that it was the best we had ever done, which is admirable considering we don't practice. I made numerous mistakes, but luckily, since I played the bells on every godforsaken song, I had the option of either fading into the distance and pretending that my mistake was a textual effect of the piece. Word on the street is that Mr. Browne sent someone back into the band room before the concert began because they "didn't look perfect." And I can assure you, neither does he.

School was manageable today. Now that there's about two weeks increasingly easy.

Steph and I talked about all the mistakes we had made the previous night at the concert, as we listened to the tape of our performance play and passed music back in.

In biology, I made a point to listen intently and actually retrieve my notebook from the murky depths of my backpack and take notes. We had a fire drill about ten minutes into class. Until yesterday it had been raining constantly for over a week, so I reveled in my chance to meander in little loops all around the parking lot and bathe in the sunlight. And not for tanning purposes.

In between the lull of note-taking and worksheet-completing, I took out a multipurpose notebook and jotted down some fictitious measurements for a lab write-up that's due this Monday, and then passed the notebook along to my partner so she could copy down the same measurements. When she returned my notebook via the rows of folk idly chatting, I flipped the pages to a note I had begun writing Pat the previous day during class, and at that moment Mr. Dockin chose to pace by along with the rain cloud of death hovering over him. He demanded in a quietly threatening voice that I should ditch the notebook, else should he provide me with copious amounts of additional work to complete instead.

"But I was taking notes and listening," I insisted indignantly. I took out a notebook for what had to be ten seconds and out come the shackles.

"I saw the notebook," he repeated, walking onward and continuing to pass out graded papers as if to tell me that anything else I had to say was unimportant.

It was like how they don't retire pack mules until they're too chilly from death to stand up again. As long as I'm in that classroom, it's slave, slave, slave, and if I take the time to yawn I'll be on the floor in seconds with the floodlight glaring upon my quivering form, and they'll be asking me where I hid the Lucky Charms.

During lunch, I was shocked and appalled to discover that Minnesota is the only state that plays "Duck, Duck, Gray Duck," while the rest of the country has stooped to the level of "Duck, Duck, Goose." If you dwell outside of Minnesota, please tell me this horrific travesty is a lie. My economics teacher claimed that the two syllables in "gray duck" don't give the tagger enough of a chance to escape, but that's exactly the point. It's practically impossible to catch the person that's chosen you for "grey duck"/"goose" unless you're given the two-syllable advantage of "gray duck," or you're extremely gifted in the art of pole-vaulting with human beings. Besides, it gives one the opportunity to further exercise their creativity. If you have a gimp leg and are particularly bothered by the two-syllable advantage, you can plug in other adjectives along with the normal "ducks." Like "spotted duck," or "green duck" (this especially fools the person when they immediately assume you're going to say "gray" instead of "green"), or even perhaps "boneless duck with an undefined shape." Thus, I've began "Project: Gray Duck." Leave a note or guestbook signing to express interest, as I'm sure that many are eager to correct such blasphemy. Thank you for your continued support.

We have a newspaper for our pseudo-towns due on Friday in economics, and each member of the group -- five, in the case of my group -- is required to write five articles a piece, which results in a regrettable grand total of twenty-five articles.

Nick questioned Larry as to how many articles he had completed, and his offhand response was, "Nah, didn't do anything in ISS." [ISS stands for "in-school suspension," in case you were unaware.]

I think it's unanimously agreed that we're screwed. I already have five articles of my own to complete now that the article I typed and saved onto Nick's palm pilot was trashed during reformatting, I'd need at least twenty dollars to serve as reimbursement in order to complete the added ten that probably won't be finished come Friday.

I'm not really particularly caught up in money and plan to rid myself of it if I ever happen to have it in bulk, but it's an efficient boot in the ass. If someone knows they have to pay me twenty dollars of their hard-earned money just to save them from doing five articles, they'd rather do it themselves. And even better, if they don't finish it, they'd lose twice as much money, because I'd pretend to be a pygmy monkey long enough to distract them into snatching their wallet and draining all of the beans from it. Bad monkey, no banana.

Oh, and I have a special message for Pat, who will be particularly interested in another finding that I have gathered today during economics. My econ teacher is originally from Arizona, and -- try not to wet your pants in excitement -- she knows the crossing the street song! Not only that, but she knows the corresponding hand motions! Apparently her mom taught it to her as a child, but she only recited it as a chant instead of singing it, so I sang it in its entirety for her.

I am easily tickled, and this news tickled indeed.