Well, fuck. I'm not going to State.

I knew I wasn't going to. Last year, when I did my "gay marriage should be legal" speech, all of my praise was followed up with the statement that my topic was very prescient, topic topic topic. It was the right speech at the right time. Unfortunately, though, it's never the right time to get up in front of an audience and tell them that eating meat - a practice which is indelibly engrained in our culture - is wrong, and that animals - for whom many people have the utmost distain, for some reason - actually deserve respect. People just don't want to hear that stuff.

I kind of broke down on the bus ride home. Not necessarily because I didn't make it to State (I was well-prepared for that), but more because it was my last speech meet. It's impossible to describe to anyone who's never experienced it the feeling of being at a speech meet. It's a strange combination of the fun of being with your friends, and the quiet of being alone. You're all dressed up in your Sunday best, walking down a dark, unfamiliar, spotless linoleum hallway. All you can hear is the click of you heels. It's like crystal. That's the only way I can really describe it. It's a crystalline experience. One that I'll never have again.

There was a good deal of embarassment and disappointment involved. This year is the first year in roughly a thousand years that OHS hasn't sent anyone to State. I blogged about this a few weeks ago, after losing at yet another meet. I was hoping the illustrious Sarah Watts would pick up the slack I left when I chose such an unwise topic, but the judges were retarded and didn't advance her either. Donna B. was visibly upset. She didn't take it out on us, though. She knows how hard we tried.

Both of my final round performances were the best performances I've ever given. That's why I refused to read my critiques. I happened to catch a phrase from one - "just didn't measure up to the others" - and I decided I just wouldn't find out why. Last year, I went home from State feeling depressed. I didn't place because I had fucked up. But I didn't fuck up yesterday. My final performance was flawless, and I want it to stay that way in my mind.

I almost made it to State for verse. I got fourth in the hardest sectional in the state. I'm not sure how I did for Oratory. I'm not sure I want to know.

The girls who got first and third in Oratory did their entire speeches out of the corners of their mouths. It's a bizarre idiosyncracy that bad speakers like to affect to give the illusion of casualness, of sincerity. It doesn't work on me. My speaking style really is casual and sincere, and that will serve me much better in life. While those girls were training themselves to get up in front of an audience and pander, I was training myself to get up in front of an audience and speak honestly about a subject I believe in. My arch nemesis - Sara Wilbur from York high school, who is an incredible speaker, but has a cocky-ass attitude and acts very unprofessionally - also didn't make it to State. So there.

I sobbed the whole way home. It started off as crying about the loss of one of my favorite pastimes, but it turned into something more. Almost no one I know agrees with my views on animal rights. Sarah comforted me, for which I am forever grateful, but I still can't shake the feeling the if THAT MANY people disagree with me, I must be wrong. Maybe animals are just commodities for human use.

However, I was soon drowning my woe and self-doubt in green tea and Egyptian tobacco. As part one in the two-part series that is my eighteenth birthday bash, I and four of my eighteen-year-old girlyfriends went to Mr. Sheesha's in Naperville to smoke the hookah. Becky and Katie were all prude about it and would only take one puff, but Jessi, Diana, and I smoked the hell out of that thing. I'm such a good girl, and I've never really done anything subversive, so I figured that at least ONCE I should do something for which I had to show ID. Before you get all sanctimonious on my ass, let me assure you that this was a ONE-TIME thing, and that I would never make smoking a habit. Sheesha is much milder than cigarette tobacco, so in two hours I only smoked about the equivalent of a quarter of a cigarette. I also stuffed my face with some of the best hummous this side of Maza and this greasy Egyptian bread called "fatira."

Part two of the two-part series will be a vegan feast next Saturday night. It will be grand. I'll have to work all week on cleaning the house.

So I'm not going to EYSO this week because I just woke up and I have a crapload of homework. Sue me.

posted at 6:52 PM by Alison

|