March 26-27, 2001 — I know it seems that I don't care

I promised myself last night that I wouldn't go to sleep until I finished this journal. At 5:00AM, I still hadn't started. So I went to bed. I am a huge success in life.

Monday.

I basically treated Monday as another day of the weekend. I didn't go to any of my classes, and the day didn't really begin until Andrew arrived and we learned that Nathan would be joining us for the AFI show. (Nathan didn't think he'd be able to afford to go, but he managed to get a ticket for $10 from a girl who couldn't go to the show.) They'd been discussing the fun they'd have forcing me to rodeo. I wasn't too worried since that would at worst involve looking like a moron while holding onto Andrew's back for dear life. Little did I know...

Once we got to the show, we found a nice rail to lean on and stayed there while most of the opening bands played. Lindsay found us and ended up staying with us for almost the entire night -- it turned into quite the BME get together. We stayed by our rail until Catch 22 started. I think we could have probably stayed in our comfortable position above the merchandise booth for awhile longer, but the urge to skank was just too great.

In reality, I didn't do anything to get my heart rate up until AFI. And if we're really going to be specific about it, I didn't actually do anything then to get my heart rate up, either; it was more the fact that Andrew and Nathan took it upon themselves to grab me by the legs and toss me onto the crowd. Twice.

The first time didn't work out so well because I wasn't ready for it at all. I was very worried about my wallet falling out, and I ended up resisting security's attempts to push me back out into the crowd by curling myself up into the fetal position and giving my, "For the love of God, no," look once I'd reached the barrier in front of the stage.

Back on solid ground, I was safe for about... one song. Shortly after I found myself back with Andrew, Lindsay, and Nathan, I also found myself being launched back on top of the crowd. This time I managed to get my wallet out of my pocket so that I wouldn't have to worry about it falling into the crowd. This was both a good and a bad idea: on the one hand, it was more obvious when people tried to take my wallet from me (and oh, they tried), but on the other hand, I had fewer resources to dedicate to keeping people from stealing my shoes (they tried that, too). When I finally found myself back on the ground, it was Jeff (no, not that Jeff), another Middle House resident, helping me up. The left side of my face still hurts a bit from making violent contact with someone's skull, and my left industrial was bleeding a little, but I guess it could have been worse.

Nathan and Andrew were finished throwing me onto the crowd against my will at this point, but I still hadn't been forced to rodeo, so the night wasn't complete for them yet. For those not in the know, rodeoing entails riding around on someone's back through the "mosh" area. This is often misinterpreted by Toronto kids as an attempt to go crowd surfing. Or as an attempt to injure the person on your back -- while Nathan was rodeoing with Lindsay, a person in the crowd grabbed him and yelled, "You could hurt her!" The most ridiculous part about the rodeoing experience, though, was that Lindsay had given me her baby blue shoulder bag to hold while she and Nathan were rodeoing; Andrew forced me onto his back moments later, effeminate shoulder bag and all. People stayed out of my way, let me tell you.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. AFI were great even if I only knew about half of the songs they played, and it was the first show with that much energy that I hadn't gone to alone.

And Tuesday.

I had to set my alarm for 9:00AM so that I could write the paper and prepare the oral presentation that were both due at 2:00PM and that I hadn't started yet. They'd given us six weeks to work on it, but I still think my time management skills are right where they ought to be. I quoted the Bloodhound Gang in my introduction and described the death of Stuart Little in my discussion of the teaching of evolution in schools. It could have gone worse, I guess.

I'm also happy to note that my campaign to be elected social convener has not ended yet. It turns out that last week was just hoodie distribution and that the elections are this weekend. So I may yet be able to deliver a speech and to look like a complete asshole in the process.

Because Erika only went to the second night of SnoJam while I only went to the first, we haven't been able to talk all that much these last two days. Jeff had announced on Monday that Erika would be the death of me; he then told me on Tuesday (after reading a post she'd made on BME) that I was driving her insane. At least there are predictions of psychological damage all around. Not that this will slow our plans to meet in April...

Jeff has been jeering at me to finish this so that he can teach me to play euchre, undoubtedly while yelling at me a lot. The hope is that if I take a really long time, he'll no longer be interested in playing once I'm done. I'll let you know how that turns out.