Odd
You know the strangest thing about all those old home movies that I’ve been watching/editing?
The fact that I used to have friends.
Like…that concept seems so foreign to me now. I had people who wanted to come to my birthday parties. I had people I hung out with and stood next to during all our Christmas and spring concerts in elementary school.
I mean, I guess if you go through six years of schooling with approximately the same group of 23 or so people, you’re bound to bond with some of them. But it’s just interesting to see that I used to actually be able to maintain friendships. I don’t remember when that lost priority for me, but at some point it certainly did.
Odd news.
I miss you, Sean
You’ll probably never see this, but I’ve really been missing you lately. I was reading over our old MSN Messenger chat archives the other day and was feeling super nostalgic. You were the first friend I made in college outside of the marching band group and you made those psych classes so much more tolerable. And living with you and Aaron and the other guys that last year of college was super fun.
Anyway, if you ever do see this, I miss you and I hope you’re doing something that makes you happy.
And that it’s not nearly as cold wherever you are as it is in Calgary right now.
(Also, happy birthday!)
I miss my friendies.
I am extra lonely tonight for some really weird reason. So I’ve been thinking of friends of the past (since I don’t really have any friends right now).
I’ve had three main groups of friends in my life (I don’t count elementary school, ‘cause all those “friends” I had in first and second grade were quick to abandon me once I was deemed “uncool”): my high school group, the band geek group in college, and the guys at the house in college.
Things that remind me of my high school friends:
- Being hooligans in the hallway during lunchtime.
- That one lady (I don’t know if she was a teacher’s aide or what) who thought our shenanigans were hilarious.
- That one guy who thought our shenanigans were blasphemous.
- Harassing Alan.
- Harassing Aneel.
- Those stupid cardboard stilts that almost killed me in the bathroom.
- Going to the Co-Op, buying a loaf of bread, and then just sharing that amongst us for our lunch.
- Zach and those “Emergen-C” pouches. He would just chug those.
- That time I accidentally* threw the loaf of bread at Aneel and almost got detention.
- Stalking Lead around. All the time.
- That stupid “porn” reading of “To Kill a Mockingbird” that I did that had everyone cackling.
- Prom dress shopping at Ross!
- Being hooligans in that field across from the university.
- MSN conversations!
Things that remind me of my band geek group:
- Band (duh).
- Playing at the football games while paying zero attention to the game itself.
- “Please touch my butt…please touch my butt!”
- Being hooligans at Shari’s.
- Being hooligans at Denny’s.
- Drag shows!
- Rock Band basement parties at my dad’s.
- That basement party that was basically an orgy, let’s not lie.
- That time we all drove out to Idler’s Rest and spent half the night crying/venting about how our lives were not what we wanted at the time.
- R O B D R A M A
- The nerd-fest that was the band table in the Commons. Oh my god, that table was fun.
Things that remind me of the guys in the house:
- NOODLE FRIDAYS.
- Incessant Rock Band playing.
- Quoting pretty much every viral YouTube video from 2008.
- All the weird relationships in that house.
- Getting impulse piercings in Missoula.
- Late night conversations with Sean (he got off work after midnight and I was always the only one still up).
- Reliving our childhoods via movies on Netflix (and making fun of said movies).
- Being hooligans in Shari’s.
- Otter Pops!
I miss having friends.
*It really was an accident. I was swinging the bread bag around like a nun chuck and the bread launched through the bottom seam and nailed him in the face. Right in front of our security guard.
Stop, drop, and ROCK ‘N’ ROLL!
Playing Rock Band with Nate keeps bringing up all these memories of when my roommates and I would spend hours and hours and hours playing Rock Band back in the house. We took it seriously, yo. Examples of said seriousness:
- Playing for 14 hours straight. This happened a few times.
- Busting through the tour mode as fast as possible to earn tons of money, and then spending all evening customizing the outfits of our band members.
- That time the Xbox red-ringed on us and we spent approximately one hour Xbox-less before we NEEDED to go get a new one to play Rock Band.
- Sean getting drunk and trying to sing Ballroom Blitz in a Scottish accent.
- Lanky singing Metallica’s “Blackened.”
- Sean and I quoting relevant Metalocalypse quotes as we play (“I have musics dyslexkia…you know that…I…don’t likes to talk about it.”).
- Michael getting drunk and falling off the drumming chair.
- Rabbi Jeff, Aaron’s burly, mountain man-esque character who was (obviously) Jewish.
- Aaron making up random lyrics on the fly as he sang.
- Our “cutoff” system. At one point or another, I said that anything less than a 97% on a song was not good enough, so we set 97% to “cutoff.” We had a bunch of other things for other percentages as well. 100% earned a high five, 99% earned a limp fist bump (because you just didn’t try hard enough to get a 100%), 98% was an actual fist bump, 96% was “not even cutoff,” 95% was “not even not even cutoff,” a 69% meant that you had to kiss everyone else in the room (this never happened), and a score of 1% meant you had to have sex with someone in the room (also never happened). There were others, but I can’t remember them.
- Calling the drummer and singer the “drummist” and “singist,” respectively.
- Calling the guitarist and bassist the “guitarer” and “basser,” respectively.
- Lanky wailing “MARYANNE!!!” in an overdrive section of More Than a Feeling and us all subsequently failing out because we were laughing so hard.
- How FREAKING EXCITED we were when my parents got me Rock Band 2.
- Sean rocking out so hard with the guitar that he tipped the couch over (this happened several times).
- Breaking at least three of Michael’s chairs.
- All of us playing Metallica’s “Blackened” on expert and just barely making it through the song. I’d actually failed out three times, but the last time was right before the end, so we still made it.
- All of us giving very serious consideration to making a documentary about our fake band.
- Putting those little plastic bendable glow stick things all over the instruments and then rocking out in the dark.
So much fun.
Goodnight Aneel
Back when I used to think I was both talented and hilarious, I made a little parody of “Goodnight Moon” for my high school friend Aneel. Considering all the drawings were in MS Paint, I’d say it’s not too bad.
Check it:
Reunited (would it feel so good?)
Lawl. My 2006 high school graduating class is planning a 10-year reunion. I have basically zero interest in seeing any of those people again (except maybe my little gaggle of weirdo friends; those guys were great), but it would be interesting to see where everyone is in their lives 10 years after high school. Are they where they thought they’d be? I know I’m sure as hell not.
If this was going on when I was “scheduled” to be in Moscow (early May…hopefully), I might go, but it’s in the middle of July and I don’t really have much of an urge to fly all the way to Moscow to see people I hardly remember and hardly cared about.
The only reason I’d like to go is to see the old gang of friends. I still care about them. I have a good picture of us all outside the Palouse mall taken sometime in our senior year (or maybe even that summer after); it’d be pretty cool if we could re-do that photo ten years later, eh?
More Spookiness – 2008 Version
So remember on Monday when I said I didn’t want to talk about the Idler’s Rest thing ‘cause it was too freaky?
I want to talk about the Idler’s Rest thing.
Actually, my original post on it way back in 2008 was pretty short and crappy, mainly because when I posted it I was still freaked out by the whole thing. But given that it’s been awhile (and given that I’m still thinking about those Reddit posts, haha), let’s relive some trauma, okay?
ALRIGHTY!
So this happened in the summer of 2008. Rob and I usually took my mom’s car on the weekend—either Saturday or Sunday—to go on our little “dates” because we didn’t want to go to my dad’s house and we couldn’t go to his house because…yeah.
Anyway, on this particular day we decided to drive out to Idler’s Rest and just hang out there for the day. I think we brought a tent and camped out until it got dark, and then just sat in the car.
Actually, we put the back seats down and just laid in the very back looking up at the stars through the moon roof. And no, there was no perversion; what we were actually doing was debating free will and determinism, haha. I remember our debate lasted for like 5 hours and by the time it had mostly worn down it was near midnight.
Anyway, we kept talking for awhile until all of a sudden we both got really quiet. I’d gotten this extremely unsettling feeling—like our lives were in immediate danger. I look over at Rob and he whispered the same thing—that he suddenly felt like something was really wrong.
It felt like there was something right outside the car. It felt like it—and we were both feeling like if we were to get up off the back floor the thing, whatever it was, would see us and attack.
I am not exaggerating; I know it sounds super dumb, but we were both actually shaking because we really, really felt like we were in danger. I don’t know if it was an animal or a human, but I’ve never felt so scared in my entire life. It’s hard to describe exactly what it was like, but it was almost as if we could sense it trying to look into the car to see if there were people in it.
(I’m getting serious chills writing about this even though it’s been like six years.)
So we stayed as still as we could for like ten minutes and the feeling never passed, so eventually we decided that we’d motor to the front seats, chuck the keys in the ignition as fast as we could, and gun it out of there.
Which is what we did.
Even on the ride back into Moscow that unsettling feeling didn’t go away for either of us. Later, after I’d dropped Rob off at his house, he messaged me asking if I’d gotten home okay. We still were both feeling really, really scared. I actually checked the newspaper the next morning to see if there had been anyone killed out at Idler’s Rest (or in Moscow itself)—that’s how strong the feeling was.
It did finally go away by that next morning and neither of us could ever offer an explanation of why we’d felt that way, but we’d both felt it very, very strongly.
It’s still the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me, even though nothing really happened. It wouldn’t have been so scary, I think, if only one of us had felt so unsettled, but we both felt it and we’d both started feeling it at the same time.
Blaughghghg. I’m freaked out just thinking about it again.
Haha, happy early Halloween I guess.
Let’s relive some humiliation, shall we?
Hahaha, so this might seem like a totally random thing to post (isn’t everything I post like that, though?), but I was reminded of this incident a few nights ago and I still think it’s hilarious, so I want to actually write it down somewhere so that if I ever forget about it, I can have a good laugh upon rediscovering it.
Alright. So. Matt (and Maggie, if you read this), you guys might remember our first Band Camp for Marching Band back in 2006. Recall that, at the end of that week, the sousas handed out little flyers to all of us, urging us to attend the “band seminar” in the evening. It wasn’t required, they said, but attendance was recommended.
As you also probably recall, the “seminar” was basically a drinking party held at one of the sousa’s apartments (I think the “distinguished speaker” was Dr. Winehard or something).
And everyone who got the flyer pretty much knew that this was just a party in disguise, right?
Well…wrong.
I distinctly remember Beau walking over to me and going, “I don’t really want to go, but we probably should, ‘cause it’d make us look good.” And with my matching level of naivety about college, I agreed and said that we should walk over together.
So later that night, with our freaking backpacks and notebooks, we head over to the address on the flyer, fully expecting an hour-long seminar where we would have to take notes (I’m not even kidding, oh my god, we were dumb).
We get like two houses away from the address and all we can hear is this booming music an a lot of people singing/shouting/being rowdy. And Beau looks at me and says, “I think it’s a party.” I agree. We slink back to the dorms, ashamed of our inability to have figured it out beforehand like EVERYONE ELSE.
I brought this story up to Beau the semester I graduated (fall 2008, so like two years later) and he totally denied it ever happening. But it did! He’s so embarrassed by it still I bet, haha.
So yeah. Just a funny little “we were stupid and didn’t know what college was” anecdote.
I still think it’s hilarious.
:(
Goodbyes suck.
That is all.
More Blatherning
(This isn’t a poem I hate poems this is just me rambling sorry I’ll shut up I haven’t slept since Thursday.)
(I’m also super emotional ‘cause someone I’ve connected to very strongly over the past few weeks just left Moscow forever.)
I am the friend that helps you move. Right after the last final of the semester or at 3:30 in the morning, I am the one unfolding empty boxes and asking you what you want to pack first.
I am the friend that cleans the kitchen. You pack the stuff in the pantry and last of the cutlery and I scrub the counters, cabinets, and fridge until everything is as clean as the day you moved in.
I am the friend who distracts you. You need a break and so do I, so I suggest we watch a few YouTube videos and we sit on the warm pile of freshly-dried laundry and watch clips of Disney movies for half an hour.
I am the friend that buys the packing tape. It’s 9 PM and you’re panicking because you’ve got an empty tape dispenser but three more boxes still and I run to the gas station down the road while you continue to prioritize your possessions in anticipation for my return with more tape.
I am the friend that folds your clothes. It’s your least favorite thing to do, but you don’t want to just throw your clothes into boxes. So I fold each item for you to pack neatly away. Yes, even the underwear.
I am the friend who makes space in your car. I play Tetris with your boxes and appliances and manage to fit in the sleeping bag and toolkit that you were sure you’d have to leave behind.
I am the friend that drives you around. You need to take your unused U-Haul boxes back but there’s not enough room in your car, so we load them into mine and I take you to return them. I remind you that you need to stop at the post office and request a permanent change of address.
I am the friend who sees you last. The apartment is clean and the car is packed and you’re ready to leave. We don’t know how to say goodbye, so we just hug again and again until it’s finally time for you to go. I wave from the sidewalk and you wave from your open car window until we can no longer see each other.
And even though I am the friend you have known for the least amount of time, I am also the friend who will miss you the most.
Facebook Stalking for DATA!
Here’s more “Claudia is bored” random thingies.
I have 111 friends on Facebook. I wanted to see the distribution of birthdays across the months (and the zodiac signs, because why not?). So I Facebook stalked everyone and found that 97 of my 111 friends had their birthdays listed (at least month and day). Here’s the distribution by month:
I knew I had a lot of February, May, and November, but I didn’t know I had so many April and July. Haha, look at August and September. Very interesting, especially in comparison to this.
And here’s some zodiac just ‘cause:
MY FRIENDS KNOW ME SO WELL
Look at this ridiculously adorable thing.
This was the “surprise” Nick sent me awhile back: a standard normal distribution plushie!! I told him about this Etsy shop like three years ago and then this dude shows up in the mail.
He is my new favorite little buddy.
LOOK AT HIM SMILING LIKE “YEAH I KNOW I’VE GOT A MEAN OF ZERO AND A STANDARD DEVIATION OF ONE AND I KNOW YOU WANT MY BOD”
He is so freaking adorable I can’t even stand it.
Right now he’s chilling with all my stats books, but I might bring him to my office to chill there.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou, Nick!
Friends! Followers! Random passers-by! Lend me your eyes!
So I had this idea and I think it would be fun.
This year sucks ‘cause Halloween is in the freaking middle of the week. But I was thinking that the old gang could get together either the weekend before or the weekend after, get all Halloween dressed up, crash Shari’s, then come back to the basement for a good old fashioned basement party. Preferably still in costume. Or OUT of costume, if you know what I mean.
Heh.
I have no idea why I’m randomly thinking about Halloween.
Thoughts?
P.S. Happy birthday, Matt!
Exactly six years ago…
…was the very first day of college for myself and at least two of my readers.
Exactly six years ago we became official college students, taking our very first classes and having our very first college-level grade-related panic attacks.
(Maybe that last part was just me)
It’s crazy what six years can do, eh? We’re all in very separate places but still in the same town.
I often think the same things of my high school friends as well. I wonder about the different paths we’ve all taken to get us to where we are now.
Life is a weird, weird thing.
Six years ago, I didn’t even want to go to college. I thought it was the next unavoidable step in life, so I just went. I wanted nothing to do with math/stats/anything quantitative and was a psychology/music/theatre triple major (hahahaha).
Now I’m teaching a freaking statistics class.
What about the rest of you guys? How much has changed for you in the last six years? What’s stayed the same?
The top 5 reasons Nick and I should not be allowed to use Hero Machine:
$5 to the person who correctly guesses which two are mine and which three are Nick’s.
Dr. Leg
Captain Crotchley
Shoak (Shark Oak), the Overzealous Jesus Freak
Levy Jones McBones Jr.: Astronaut (yes, that’s a fish in his helmet)
HIPPOTRON
Despite this silliness, Hero Machine is a pretty fantastic website. Give it a try! Make a super hero. Or a disembodied anthropomorphic leg.
Whichever.
I’ve got no internet!
So we’ll do what I always do for blog posts when there’s no internet access: post random old MSN Messenger quotes! These are like from 2007/2008.
>> You can want all you want, but if you can’t, you can’t
>> Jesus is indeed environmentally friendly
>> I AM CAPTIAN PHALLUS
>> My cat seems to enjoy following me around when I’m naked
>> Start chewing rocks!
>> Aneel, why do people suck?
>> So I’m making little Leibniz/Kant political posters, ’cause I’m bored and they’re cool
>> “Leibniz Kant”
>> Haha. Well. That’s not so positive, is it?
>> I think stress makes me awesome at statistics
>> Well, it’s my own fault, I’ve never masturbated
>> I’m sure all the great philosophers debated free will and determinism half-naked, it just makes more sense
>> oh, and can you think of some random household items, or really any random items… non-electric
>> You mean like spatulas and stuff?
>> God, I picked a phallic symbol…
>> “Where are my 25 credits? WHERE ARE THEY?!?”
>> College is fun except for this Locke paper
>> I feel empty inside
>> But now I have 2.90 GB of free space
>> Boobs are the first image results I get for the search “tubular” in Google Images
>> That’s awesome
>> What would be even more awesome would be a site like http://www.checkoutthisgirlscaboose.com and then have full of pictures of female heads and torsos attached to real cabooses or something
>> Now I’m trying to resist finding a picture of a naked girl, a picture of a caboose, and opening Photoshop
>> We were walking to Shari’s and he goes completely out of the blue, “it would be so cool to just embed glitter into the pavement on the street”
>> And I go, “what if there was a wind storm and all the glitter got picked up?”
>> Then, “what if an F5 tornado ripped through a Midwestern glitter factory and killed a bunch of people with glitter shards?”
>> And, “wait, what the hell is glitter really made of?”
>> So we decided it was made of chopped up Midwestern hicks
>> Wow, this DVD player hates life
>> It likes to sound like it’s eating the DVDs
>> *nom nom nom* “Where’s your director’s cut now?!” *nom nom nom*
>> Hit him with the STICK, you BASTARD!”
>> I’m just so excited I can spell “vagina” using the elements
>> Oh god…it’s…it’s German country music…
>> If I had three puppets and Lil’ Jon in my window, I’d be hyper, too
Also, it feels good to walk (for exercise) again. Tucson’s too ungodly hot for walking now, plus now that I have a job I can’t spend 6+ hours a day walking around the city. My cardio exercise has been confined to gunning it on the stationary bike at the Y as of late. Not that that’s bad, but I have butt calluses from it and for some reason I can’t zone out biking like I can when I walk. So today I went 18 miles and it felt fantastic (except for my little toes which are covered in blisters).
SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
Ah. Socialness.
I miss having friends. Not like you guys aren’t still my friends…I guess I mean I miss having friends I can physically hang out with. Screw around town in the car with. Get naked with.
Well, I’m back in Moscow until Saturday. Hope to see you sillies at some point!
And until then, I leave you this, courtesy of Sean:
Tell me you didn’t at least smile. We laughed for like 15 minutes.
What proportion of praying mantises are atheists?
SCREW YOU depression, I’m trying to be a functioning adult.
Didn’t go work out this morning. Instead, curled up in bed and cried for two hours.
I wonder how many calories despair burns.
I also forgot to pack my broccoli/hummus for snackies at work, though, so maybe that’ll balance some of it out.
Stupid.
Not even watching the new Metalocalypse episode (once I finally dragged myself out of bed) cheered me up, even though it had the most badass ending ever.
Blah.
Maybe posting old recently-discovered pictures from senior prom would cheer me up?
(Me, Amy, E’raina, Tanna, and Aneel, left to right, on my back porch)
(Amy had so many wardrobe issues that night)
(I lost approximately 10 pounds of glitter off that dress while dancing that night and yet it still sheds excessively)
Meh. Aneel in a martini apron is still pretty awesome.
P-p-p-post!
Hi ladies and gents!
So good news (or bad news…depending on if you miss me, haha): I’m coming back for a visit!
There’s actually a reason for my coming back this time, it’s not just me being a slacker/loser/regressive pittance of a human being, but it’s private.
Anyway.
I’ll be back for a week (!), from May 19th until the 26th. We need to naked party. My dad’ll be gone or a few nights, so LOUDNESS IS ACCEPTABLE AND ENCOURAGED!
INTERNET SHOUTING!
Okay bye.
For once, I am *legitimately* upset.
Well, hell.
Just got some pretty crappy news from one of my best friends ever.
Not their fault, of course, but still pretty crappy, considering…well, a lot of things.
Blughrsfhrhgehrhghhh.
Sadness is so much worse when it’s coming from outside your own self-misery, eh?
(Haha, wow, emo)
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