An Incoherent, Questionably Cathartic Series of Old Dreams

This will be the most absurd thing I'll post in a while, but I want to put it here in order to make it appear as if I've had the urge to post more than I actually have.  There's been quite a bit to post about in my life, but there wouldn't be that much to read... as in, "this kid is a tremendous dung heap of emo."

So instead I'll share with you some of the dreams I've had in the past month or so, both of which I remember fairly well, which is an oddity.  I feel that the fact that I remember them means that they have some sort of significance regarding my recent outlooks on the world.

Dream 1:  Last summer in DCI there was a school in Florida where we stayed for a little while.  I remember it because it had a roof similar to that of a pizza hut.  Anyway, next to the school was the field where about everybody but us rehearsed, which was miserable because it was saturated with mud.  We went down there (it was on a gigantic hill, which was also a problem) and played for about 15 minutes before ominous storm clouds rolled in.  We were left with just enough time to push everything back up the hill and cover our equipment under a tarp and head inside to practice on the floor.  Almost immediately after entering the school, the rain started coming down, quickly and heavily.  Eventually it built into a monsoon-like storm (in the eyes of a Michigander) and started leaking into the building - we were incredibly worried about our equipment.  It was mostly fine, but we were still awed.

Anyway, that was the real-life experience.  In my dream, it was cold and the mud was frozen.  I associated it with what approximates to a Michigan November.  Me and a couple band kids (not drum corps kids) were randomly horsing around and shouting and laughing when another kid I know randomly whips out a pistol and shoots a girl in the shoulder.  Everyone instantly falls silent in shock.  The kid with the gun expresses regret and attempts to explain his action with, "I thought it would be funny."  Yeah, my dreams are weird.  But that's the last sound that I hear other than the sound of my own voice.  I take the girl up to my car, except she gets in the driver's seat and I'm in the passenger's seat.  I'm urging her to let me drive to the hospital, although I'm clearly making no attempts to do so.  She sits there crying silently, when suddenly she changes into another guy I know in the blink of an eye.  I continue to urge him to let me drive, but everything else around me is still completely silent and it's weird.  That's the point where I can't remember anything else.

Dreams 2-4: These happened in rapid succession, and due to the vague lines that distinguish dreams this may or may not have actually been the same dream.  The first thing I remember is that I was in a completely white room with these weird pod-type small rooms cut into the sides of the wall.  Each of these pods is like a half-shell, lined with a round bench - and the walls and seat are completely covered in red velvet.  It looks like a space-age jazz club.  Anyway, in each of these pods is one woman who I can't remember, but I remember that I had made them upset or had hurt them all at one point in my life.  And I sing songs to them in my dream.  I can't remember which ones.  But I can play the guitar in this dream, which is kind of cool.

After this, I end up somehow on a train to "South Bend" which is an overnight train ride in my dream logic, even though South Bend, Indiana is a little over an hour from my city by car.  My entire family is on this train for some reason.  My grandpa spends much of the time playing Freecell and I watch him.  There's more but my memory of it is a bit too vague.

This is the point where things start getting "significant-feeling."  We all get off at "South Bend" which is a disgusting 19th-century backwater farming community.  After wandering around in dusty trails through the woods for a bit, I come across a farmyard completely filled with hundreds of Great Danes.  I have to cross from one end of this yard to the other, which is on a downward slope.  The dogs mostly keep to themselves though, and I get through without any issues.  At the bottom of the yard/hill is a shed, and around the other side of this shed is sort of a flat circus ring (without the ring) and a set of bleachers full of teenage girls.  They're all wearing the same clothes (which was a white t-shirt, black shorts and roller skates) and frantically trying to grab crows and other random birds out of the air as they fly above them.  Naturally, I am confused.  I ask one of them what they are doing, and suddenly the entire troupe runs down the bleachers into the "ring" and, out of nowhere, perform this elaborately choreographed disco rollerskating routine.  When the song ends and they finish dramatically, I begin clapping (it was quite an impressive feat) only to be startled by the sound of an adult woman's voice yelling, "MOVE OUT" to the group of girls.  Suddenly, they all sink into the dirt, and they begin moving down a short little trail through the woods.  I can see them because I'm following their tracks in the dirt.  As I round the last bend of this trail, I end up following them onto the beach of the North Shore of South Haven, Michigan.  The sun is setting.  I run ahead of them on the beach, which I remember being a difficult task because I was suddenly wearing hiking boots.  When I finally reach the head of the group, they all suddenly climb out of the sand and congratulate me for getting ahead of them.  I spend the rest of the walk down to South Haven's pier talking to and befriending these girls.  When we get there, there is a gigantic floating tour bus waiting for them to leave on.  I am very sad about this for some reason.  They all skate another routine to the one song I remember being present in these dreams: "What If God Was One Of Us."  It was also pretty good.  We all give each other our goodbyes and they pile into the bus and float down the remainder of the Black River which dumps out into Lake Michigan from the pier(s).  I chase them all the way down the pier, waving at them as they wave back at me.  I wait at the end, watching them float off onto the horizon as the sun sets.  It's sort of beautiful.  I remember it being really bittersweet, mostly because I was going to miss them a lot for a reason that can only be explained as dream logic.  By the end they are floating right in front of the sun as the last sliver slips below the surface of the water.  As this happens, everything goes dark and I startle awake.  I was crying when I woke up.

I've already recited this story to the people I feel are most capable of making a legitimate stab at its meaning.  Since it's my own mind, of course, I am the least capable interpreter of my dreams.  They may end up meaning that in my dreams I am a crazy person, but I can't help but feel that all of these dreams reflect something important in my life of which I'm not very aware.

The Movies

Recently my passion for movies has been ignited ferociously.  I don't know what triggered it, but if I had to guess it would be nostalgia.  Anyway, I've decided to compile a list of some of the best movies that I've never seen before and watch one a day in the month of June.  I'll probably create a spin-off blog or something.  This list is also subject to change at my whim, so stay tuned.

Anyway, here is the list of movies that I am required to see but somewhat amazingly have not (or not, I'm updating this for new releases/discoveries):

American Beauty
Lost in Translation
Requiem for a Dream
Groundhog Day
Grizzly Man
Say Anything
Ghost World
Half Nelson
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Rushmore
Dancer in the Dark 
Attack the Gas Station
Kick-Ass
Pulp Fiction
There Will Be Blood
The Godfather (any of them)
The Silence of the Lambs
The Truman Show
In Bruges
Platoon
Citizen Kane
The Thing
Annie Hall
A Clockwork Orange
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (I've seen every single one but this.  I don't know why either.  But it is one of the only real sci-fi movies on here other than...)
Blade Runner (and...)
Plan 9 from Outer Space (notoriously terrible movie created by...)
Ed Wood (starring Johnny Depp, who was also in...)
Chocolat
Apocalypto never watched it but currently boycotting Mel Gibson
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Almost Famous
Raising Arizona 
Metropolis 
The Room  This movie has fucking changed my life.

Oldboy
Solaris
Fargo
Brazil
Labyrinth
Defending Your Life
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
A Scanner Darkly
High Fidelity
The New World
Dark City
Grave of the Fireflies
Y tu mamá también 
Gentlemen Broncos
(Untitled) 
Vanilla Sky
127 Hours
Blue Valentine
Eyes Wide Shut
Fearless 
Mulholland Drive
21 Grams
25th Hour

College Balls

It's getting pretty close to the time when I have to decide which college to go to.  Actually, it is that time - I'm just slower than everyone else.  It seems like the only people who ever want to talk about college are those who aren't actually at the point where they are choosing which one to go to, like me.  This includes everybody that isn't a senior in high school, and, to a greater extent, those people who have been dead-set on going to a certain school for their whole lives, or at least since they first visited that school.  I don't even know what I want to do in college, just that I want to go there - it's where I belong.  I wasn't even sure what type of college I would like, so I applied to six very different ones.

Right now, my choice is basically between two - and one choice is much easier to make than the other.  The University of Michigan is the easiest choice for me - I have a fair amount of scholarship money on that one, too.  The Colorado School of Mines is the other choice, because I have much more money in scholarships to go there than U of M, and it's in Colorado (far superior to Michigan), and I think the people there are nicer/better too.  The only problem is that it's really far away, and I also noticed upon visiting that everybody in the state of Colorado is really extreme.  You know, the let's-go-mountain-biking-off-cliffs-and-whitewater-raft-off-cliffs-and-shoot-animals-off-cliffs-and-have-sex-off-cliffs-and-battle-Nazis-off-cliffs type of people.  They really like their cliffs out there - trust me, I know.   They have plenty.  Purdue University is essentially a more-expensive version of Michigan, which is why I won't be going there.  The Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology was alright, but I am almost certain that I wouldn't care for the people there - they are all nerds, but I'm discovering that - despite being a nerd myself - I don't really care for most other nerdy people.  Being in close proximity to uber-intellectuals for most of my life, the majority of them are either a bit too socially awkward or have had their ego inflated to the size of a titanic zeppelin.  I think that the atmosphere would be a bit too uncomfortable for my liking.  Northwestern wait-listed me, and I don't care to be on that wait-list, so I won't be going there.  But for the record, getting on the wait-list was a bigger accomplishment than I expected to achieve.  Finally, Michigan Tech.  This is a little tragic.  I actually think that I genuinely would have liked that school, potentially more than all the others, but I never got the chance to visit it.  Since distance would be one of the main reasons against going there, it would have been crucial for me to make the drive there and back to determine if I would want to go there, and I never did.  So that gets crossed off the list.

My guidance counselor will not be happy with me for being so wish-washy on this important decision, but frankly, I'm just happy that I eliminated four options.  I'll have to decide immediately upon visiting U of M on the 16th whether or not I can go there.

@@@@@

And upon having done so, I'm attending the University of Michigan next fall.  Stereotype fulfillment?  Maybe.  But it feels good to have all that college balls out of the way.

Why I am Michael Cera in every movie ever

I've written and rewritten this post many times, for fear of revealing to much or not revealing enough about my personal life and opinions.  But doing so has basically left me emotionally drained, so I've decided to just tell it like it is without any of the supplementary information that my subconscious has tied to this whole situation. 

Long story short: I got turned down to go to my school's prom, and then I realized that I didn't actually want to go to prom - just to go with the girl that I asked.

My inner 1930s-schoolboy is weeping.

"Why the hell are you bitching about this?  Usually your posts are usually so culturally relevant and interesting to read!" (For the record, the last books I've read were written in 1995 and 2002)

I honestly don't know, person-whose-contribution-to-the-message-of-this-post-is-not-relevant-but-nonetheless-provides-some-degree-of-self-deprecating-humor-and-okay-i'll-stop-now... maybe because I feel like it's important or something?  This is the long-hinted-at Girl A who's flung me up and down a roller coaster of limerent joy and despair for three years.  I decided earlier this year that the getting-over-you phase is both futile and cowardly.  Prior to last year, I hadn't known anybody else with the sort of long-standing attraction that had characterized my high school years, but now I know plenty of those people, so I don't feel alone in that respect.  Since this is my last year of knowing her, as well, I realized that I had nothing to lose - that otherwise I'd spend who-knows-how-long in college regretting not having done anything to win her.

Conveniently for me, as the time for going, "Oh shit, school's almost out, what do I do now?" approached, so did prom.  I put two and two together, and made four.  After that, I realized that I could ask girl A to prom.  Then I smacked myself for not realizing it soon enough.  Anyway, I made several failed attempts to ask her, and after my third, I consulted some friends on finding a way to ask her in a way that she can't ignore, but isn't ridiculously over-the-top (because I was fairly confident that I would be rejected).  Then the idea came to me: macaroni art.  This is the result:

Pretty good, eh?  Suddenly I was confident that she would say yes - you would, wouldn't you (assuming you are feminine in nature)?  So I made a last minute check with her friend to see if she had a date, which I didn't think she did.  Her friend said that she didn't know for sure, and mentioned another guy who might be interested.  But I wasn't worried.  Anyway, I asked her the next morning and she said "no" because she was going with somebody else.  I did get brownie points for asking her so fantastically though.

I followed up by asking her who she was going with, and suddenly became (in my opinion, understandably) paranoid when she refused to tell me.  There are only two reasons that I can think of as to why she would do this. 

1. Bitch is lyin'.
2. She ain't lyin', but she doesn't want to hurt my feelings.  Which means she thinks I'm a gigantic pussy.

I doubt one, which means two is probably true.  Anyway, the rest of my day was spent moping and half-heartedly trying to figure out who she was going with.  Then - surprises abound!  A girl told me that she heard some kid who I shall call Choch talking the previous day about how I was planning on asking her.  But here's the thing: I haven't talked to Choch since 8th grade, and between the time when I asked my friends for advice on asking her and actually asking her, I didn't return to that school at all.  Word had clearly gotten out that I was planning on asking her, and the only explanation is that she had figured it out beforehand (which wouldn't have been that hard, since I tried to ask her and gotten blown off multiple times before finally figuring out the "master plan").  This also meant that whoever asked her did just before I did, and probably did so knowing that they were screwing me over.  Which I suppose is the work of my bad karma from trying to screw over the guy her friend knew about.

So yeah, that's confusing.  If you weren't there for it, don't worry about it - the short story is that I got paranoid over who was taking her.  Why should I blog that in great detail?  Because later, I realized the pointlessness of worrying over such tripe, and carried my worry over into finding another prom date.  I hastily asked another girl, and was again rejected because it was shitty and because this other girl also had a date.  That's around the time that I realized that I didn't want to go to prom all that much anymore.

The Promenade has become such a heavily romanticized night of possibilities and success stories that my hopelessly romantic teenage brain latched onto it as the ultimate opportunity to finally accomplish my goal of "getting the girl."  But because I had spent so long both doting over girl A and fantasizing about how my night with her would go, nothing else would have met my expectations.  Sure, I could go on a date with a friend and just have a good time, but that makes me question whether spending so much goddamn money on one night is justifiable when I've got nothing at stake.  So ultimately, I decided that it was in my best interest to not go to prom.  Oh, and don't worry - I realize that I look like a tremendous loser by doing so.

Simultaneously, I realized that oh god I still have ridiculously strong feelings for Girl A.  What do I do now?  Well, hopefully I can try to scrounge up a few dates and (my expectations are way too high, once again) potentially even coax her into coming with me and a few other mutual friends to a concert in Chi-town at the end of April.  But, as I mentioned in the beginning, thinking about it has made me totally apathetic.  I really could go on for days, but I figure that anything other than what I've said here is subject to change at the whim of my emotional state.

Gee Bill, how come your mom lets you eat TWO weiners?

A not-so-brief summary of my trip to Indianapolis with my high school band that took place before the events of my last post:

Each year our band performs at a high school in Indianapolis for a panel of judges consisting of university music professors and such.  We then get critiqued for about an hour and then leave.  The real purpose of this trip is to have a trip, though, so there is a lot of shopping.  First we go to downtown Indianapolis and then to our hotel, where we usually don't sleep and take advantage of their pool/exercise equipment.  Then, in the morning, we get up, immediately go to the symposium and unload our equipment, play for approximately 5 people sitting in the audience, get critiqued, and leave for yet another mall that is incredibly overpriced.  This was my third year attending the symposium with the band, and this year was definitely the best of the three.  The first year was plagued by not knowing anyone and meandering about the various malls by myself, and the second year was better with the exception that I was placed in the room full of (too many) people that nobody liked.

However, this year was surprisingly awesome.  I only had to play two pieces ("The Dream of Oenghus" by Rolf Rudin and "The Gum-Suckers March" by Percy Aldridge Grainger), and managed to avoid playing during the critique for the third year in a row.  Which is excellent.  On the 4-ish hour trip there, we watched Season 2 of "The Big Bang Theory" and me and T-Rad watched "I Love You, Man" on my computer, which inspired us to nickname each other "Tycho Brohe" (which was in the film) and "Brohannes Kepler" (which was my own idea [so that one is me {and the other one is him (clearly)}]). At the first mall I bought a sweet hat and ate dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory with some sweet people.  I also got to try out one of those gigantic jawbreakers, which actually sucked and was not worth my fifty cents.  After that, I taught various folks in the band the amazingness and splendor of getting your head rubbed for long periods of time, which is the only sensation that is better than orgasm.  I even managed to make one girl fall asleep, which was more cute than creepy as I realize it sounds in a textual format.  I felt good about that.  The hotel part of the trip was not that great, but definitely better than the year before.  Usually I work out until we are forced to go back to our rooms, but since I have a stress fracture in my foot, I could only use the elliptical for about 20 minutes, and I'm too self-conscious about lifting weights to have done so.  Afterward, I went through a girl's /b/ folder which made me lol, and went back to the room for the rest of the night.  We tried to go on chat roulette, but the internet was too slow there to use it very well.  I can't even remember what we did until 2:00 am, but it must have been good, because we stayed up until 2:00 am doing it.  The next day after the symposium, we went to the highly overpriced mall, where I immediately went to a Border's nearby only to discover that they too were overpriced.  Shit.  So instead we meandered about the mall until we found a Brookstone, sat in the massage chairs for a really long time, and then went to the Cheesecake Factory, where I ate until I died.  The ride home was mostly head massages (this time I managed to fall asleep while getting one) and then dying because the air conditioning was not working and the bus was about 90 degrees. It was pretty fun.

That story was a cool friend.