I was tired when I wrote that last post and didn't really say what I meant to say.

What I meant to say was that I'm just extraordinarily lazy. I feel guilty fucking up the whole band thing with my laziness mostly because I respect my directors so much, but if I went into anything else, I would be even worse. I could never force myself to work in sales. I definitely don't have the talent or the work ethic to be a performing musician. I'm too small and require too much mental stimulation to work in manual labor. I could teach English, except I cut more corners in my English classes than I do in music. My point is that I know that I could never be a Mrs. Pappas or a Mrs. Page, so I feel like there's nothing I could do properly. And I know there's no NEED for me to be as good as they are, but I've been so indoctrinated into this whole "shoot for perfection" mindset that I feel there's something downright evil about settling for something less than the best. The one thing I want more than anything else in the world is to have children, which is why I want to teach middle school - middle school teachers go home at 3:00. But the more I talk to Mrs. Pappas (who has no children) the guiltier I feel for not wanting to make my career my life. If family - not work - is going to be my priority, how could I even be so disrespectful as to sully the professional world with my presence?

Anyway.

I've had a busy weekend.


Thurday I went to Shilpa's house to work on our project for Spanish class. She lives in a huge house with no furniture in it. There's one room with nothing in it except a statue of some Hindu god. I've heard this is fairly common - not the Hindu thing, but moderately well-off suburbanites buying big houses and not putting anything in them. Why do people spend so much money on houses they that they can't afford to furnish them? What is the point of having a big house if it isn't attractive or comfortable? Do they really think that people will think more highly of them just because their house is large?

I hate the suburbs.

At any rate, it was a lot of fun watching Kabbi Kutchi Kabbi Gham and making curried rice with Shilpa. And the next morning, I was late to early bird, and it was raining really hard, so I was running up the path to the gym doors and there were trees blossoming on either side of the path and blossoms were scattered all over the sidewalk and I was running through the rain and it was like I was in a Bollywood movie. It was quite pretty.

I saw Braveheart with Jewish Boyfriend on Friday, and I didn't watch most of it because I can't really handle violence. Speaking of Jewish Boyfriend, Passover started last night at sundown. So Happy Passover, everybody. I was going to keep Kosher, but it was mostly just so I could have an opportunity to make good with Jewish Parents and since I'm no longer invited to Sater (sp?) with Jewish Parents, I've decided to say "screw it" and I'm currently eating a vegan ice cream sandwich which is just full of corn syrup.

Yesterday was my audition at U of I. I had the day all planned out. I got directions and put all of my clothes in a garment bag. I had to go down to Champaign for my audition at 11, then leave immediately and go to Plainfield for a Wind Symphony thing, then go straight from Plainfield to Shilpa's parents' anniversary party somewhere near St. Charles. It would be roughly five hours of driving, but for whatever reason I felt confident that I could handle it.

So I go down to Champaign, and I arrived almost a full hour early. An hour! I've never been early for anything in my life. So I bummed around and had a leisurely warm-up and met some of the other players and then did fairly well on the audition and then grabbed some lunch and left Champaign for Plainfield. The way I figured it, I would actually arrive about a half an hour before the rest of the band did. Sweet! I'm totally responsible. So I get to Dwight, and my gas is running a little low, so I stop at a BP. I put my card in and I remove the nozzle and I TRY to begin fueling, but nothing comes out. So I pull around to another pump, and the same thing happens. So I'm really pissed, and I leave to find the next gas station. I stop at a Casey's General Store and the EXACT SAME THING HAPPENS. So I'm super pissed now and I pull into this "24 hour gas" place, but I'd have to pay inside, so I say, "Screw it, I'll just pull into the next station," which was only just across the street. I pull into the Sucoco, and it won't accept my debit card. I pull into the BP NEXT to the Sunoco, and it also won't accept my card. The gas light isn't on yet, so I figure I'll just get on I-55 and keep going until I find another gas station. Now, you see, when I'm driving the shaggin' wagon, I can feel when I'm starting to run out of gas. The response slows down a little, and I can feel that I've only got a couple more miles until I have to get gas. My mom's car, on the other hand, keep going strong until the SECOND it runs out of gas. So I was thinking I still had some time, when suddenly the car just STOPS GOING. I was right by an exit, so I pull off thinking I could just coast into a gas station, but in my panic I failed to notice that it was the exit onto I-80. Fuck. So I park on the side of the ramp, turn the car off, and try to restart it. It won't. Fuck. Shit. I flip open my phone - intending to call someone who could give me a number I could call to get local help so I could still get to Plainfield on time. And what does my phone do? It runs out of batteries. Just then. At the most ideal time. So I get out and start walking to the nearest gas station, when this dude pulls over and offers me a ride/cell phone. I accept the cell phone. I call my mom, and she says that she will bring me gas. Thing is, I'm very far away from home at this point, so it takes her about an hour to get to me. When I ran out of gas, it was about 2:05. I was about twenty minutes away from Plainfield High School, and the rest of the band was going to arrive at 2:30, warm up at 3, and perform at 3:30. My mom didn't get there until about 3:00. So everyone was all prepared to play without me when I burst in JUST at 3:30. I think this might have been during my blogging hiatus, but I did something very similar with a jazz band competition in March. So pretty much everybody in the band department thinks I'm extremely irresponsible. But I played really well. Better than during any of the rehearsals, anyway.

I was really shaken up, though, and I told Shilpa I couldn't come to her party. I felt bad, because it was going to be really cool. Maybe.

See pictures of my adventures at http://jumpsturdy.buzznet.com

posted at 1:37 PM by Alison

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