I hate Mas N' Steel | 08/19/04
I guess it's that time again when college students return back to their stench-infested cells and start their re-education in all things worldly. I know this because I had 43 hits today...a number that reminds me of hit counts during last Spring. With schools in Nevada, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Illinois and Florida all contributing. I guess that means it's time to write longer entries again, since after a long day of class and making out with your fellow sorority sisters there's nothing you'd rather do than sit around and hear me bitch. Well, friends (both old and new), I will not let you down today...
2:50am: I finally fall asleep
5:02am: Are my tropical fish fighting?
6:15am: Oh God, I just had the worst dream ever. I was working in an office that was across the street from my parents' house in Naperhell. It was summer but there was about 10' of snow on the ground. I snuck out of work to go home and fell into a huge drift, which was somehow able to lop off my right ear and my nose. Bleeding profusely, I return to my office and beg someone to take me to the hospital. Jamie, who also works in my office, informs me she'd been cheating on me and her new boyfriend won't take me to the hospital. I beg her but she still says no. I return to my office to see it has been cleaned out (poorly) and someone informs me I've been fired (I am still bleeding). All my co-workers from the Department of Education are there and they are too busy making fun of my nose-and-earless-head to help. I return to my office where I run into a former student, Michelle M. who tells me she can't take me to the hospital but she'll give me a yellow scarf to tie around my face to hold my nose and ear against their respective holes. Once I attach the scarf, I discover that I do have limited breathing and hearing abilities. On top of that, no one can really see my face, so I get my job back. >< When the alarm went off I was totally freaking out because I thought someone was going to cut off my nose and ear. It didn't help that I still can't hear very well out of my right here and my left nostril was completely stuffed up. I stumbled into my office and petted Chompy while I checked my empty inboxes online.
8:10am: How am I late to work again? Why is the clock on my work computer about 40 minutes fast? And why don't I have the administrative requirements to change it. Work SUCKED again. The days go by so slowly...I know because there are four clocks around me, none closer than five minutes to another. Naturally with this set-up, it always works to me advantage. "Hey Mike, taking your time this morning?" at either 7:45 or 9:15am. "Nah, you've got plenty of time to finish up these reports" at either 4:45 or 5:30pm. Whatever. Tomorrow we have to send out the invoices for the past two weeks worth of work. I don't know what the hell I'm doing and no one can explain it to me. I was, however, able to do a little bit of good by embedding some graphics into files so they no longer have to use different papers for different print results. My boss was amazed that it only took me a half hour, but when he came out of his office the first time I thought it was because I should have been doing something else (which is true) but instead he just sat behind me and watched as I used the limited resources of MS Paint, Word 97 and WordPerfect 5.1 to get the images snugly inside.
5:10pm: Chris calls to give me the (p)update on what's going on with the steel band for next year. While the news was very disheartening at least now he and I can go back to hating FSU instead of each other. (I never really hated you!) We went to dinner at Ruby Tuesday's and despite not being hungry I ate a small order of beef while watching a two-legged dog on TV walk upright.
7:30pm: Jeff comes to rehearsal to give us the news officially. His quiet demeanor and well-rehearsed lines of Dr. Olsen-isms did not change my opinion of the situation. While he was very polite and outwardly helpful, his body language and underlying tone was that he wanted this crap to pass so he could just get on with his job, which is completely understandable. What irritated me the most about his talking is that he didn't really say anything. Moreover, he never disagreed with anyone and just reshaped their questions into off-hand comments while only elaborating on my poor choice of the word "infidel". Not that it was the wrong word but he seemed to stick on it way too long. I tried to stay on my best behavior but when he suggested leaving some of music behind I might have been a little more curt than I normally would have been.
8:30pm: We finally start rehearsing...our last rehearsal. Maybe it was just that mindset but we played exceptionally well. I was trying my hardest to mentally record our sound to keep in my mind's ear and I have to say that it worked really well...well, sorta. I have Vente Conmigo really clearly, which is good because we'd never played it so cleanly. By 9:30pm Dan and Janine were playing and the original chemistry was gone. Nonetheless, tomorrow is our last gig together in the current format and I'm going to do my damndest to make sure it's one to remember.
10pm: Jamie and I sit in the car quietly yelling. Not really yelling but anyone whose ever been in a relationship over a year knows the voice I'm talking about. This carries over into Instant Messenger later.
The question I really wanted to ask Jeff was this, "We will play the Provost Gig; take that as fact. Give me one good reason why we should after all this bullsh*t?" I just want one good reason...the only thing so far is that I feel like it's owed to Chris and Michael...hell, it's the least we can do. But from FSU's view...one good reason. You take away our instruments, rehearsal space, gigs, music and musicians and now you want us to do a long-ass gig for next to nothing where we will receive 0% of the credit for the infinite time? If Michael wasn't playing and it was just Matt, Jara, Jamie, me and Jeff I'd probably show up and just suck. Just suuuuuuck. The worst playing of my career. Or just not show up at all. But again, that's not an option so I'll have to find less obvious ways of protesting. On another random note, apparently we couldn't use the instruments all summer because we weren't students at the time. Oh wait....I completely forgot until after the meeting that I was a student all summer AND could use whatever the hell I wanted. What kills me Dale, is that you keep lying. Good thing I'm going on TV tomorrow, maybe I could set the record straight and send you a copy. Rest assured I'm going to leave the article from the newspaper under your door. Maybe a few copies for your archives....would it be ok if we posed with the schools' instruments? Or is that not allowed too? You bastard, thanks for helping ruin music.
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