Epiphany in Baltimore

2001-12-10

Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com

Oh my gosh. What a long weekend. I feel like I didn't sit down once, it was so jam-packed. I've become a social butterfly of sorts, and it's catching up with me a bit. I'm tired, did no grading or planning this weekend, and in general just wish I wasn't here right now. Here's the blow by blow:

Friday - coworker's party

First of all, I don't think I got to write about this yet, but a co-worker gave me the phone number and e-mail address of a girl new to the area who is looking to meet other folks. Her name is Monica, and she's apparently a grad student at Hopkins and is really nice. That's all I know about her. And she's 5'7", because the only thing she made sure about me was that I was taller than her. So, I now have gone on one date and acquired two phone numbers in the last few days. Go, me. I haven't called either of them yet, because I've been so incredibly busy, but I will in the next couple of days. I wrote it, so it will be true.

I had a party of a colleague's to go to on Friday night, and I went. She's in her late fifties, and the party was pretty much what you'd expect from a 58-year old. Guests sitting down, drinking wine, and chatting. It was nice. I got to know some of my co-workers better. My favorite moment was a story told from a boisterous co-worker across the hall. I'll try to recount it here. Now, remember this is coming from a 40-something woman:

"Yeah, I think my worst time in teaching was my one year I taught in (the county). I had taught for four years at (tough city school in the city), and thought I could handle it. But they had me teaching drama without a classroom to forty students per class, most of whom did not want to take drama. It was middle school, which made it worse, and I got absolutely no support. One day, this kid was giving me attitude - he was one of the worst kids I ever had in terms of behavior. So, one day, I tried one of the tactics that always seemed to work really well at the old high school. I took him out into the hallway and said, 'Ameer, you have to stop fucking with me.' (She let the shock sink in a bit in the story.) This always seemed to work well at the school, but this kid went home and told his parents. So we were in the principal's office having a meeting with him and his parents, and he said, 'Mrs. so-and-so said the f-word to me,' so of course I said, 'Oh, I would never say that. I'm so sorry he understood it as that. I would never say that to a student. My apologies, but I said, 'Stop messing with me,' and not the f-word!' The kid kept swearing I was lying, but I didn't budge. Then, we walked down the hallway back to class. After we were out of earshot, I bent down and whispered in his ear, 'I could fucking teach you how to act if you would listen in my drama class.'"

Sorry for recounting that whole story here, but I thought it was both disturbing and funny, so I had to.

Neil, a co-worker who is one of the few other young single teachers in the school, and who I'd been trying to forge a friendship with all year, had asked me earlier on Friday if I wanted to go out for a beer on Friday night. So I left the party at around 8pm and awaited his call at home - Jason and Mike were going to go, too. He never called, despite his assurances he would. Oh well. That teaches me to count on people. I was actually really looking forward to it, because he's a really cool kid, or seems to be - really nice and funny every time I talk to him - plus, he is from the area and knows it well, so I figured he'd take us to a cool place. Besides, I really want to make a good friend here at work - one that is unmarried and can go out to bars over the summer. But I'll stop bitching, because, really, by the time I got back (8:30 or so), the two glasses of wine and general lack of sleep for the week had made me quite tired. Mike had a friend up for the Weezer concert on Sunday, and we all had some beers and played pingpong. I went to bed at, like, 10:30 - exhausted and feeling pretty good.

Saturday - Christmas shopping, Jason's friend's party, getting a breathalizer test

I woke up early (8:45am), and went to the farmer's market I'd been hearing about the runs on Saturday mornings. It was cool - lots of good, cheap vegetables. It was kind of cold, rainy, and crummy out, but it was still packed. I bet it's awesome in the summer. I then went Christmas shopping all day, and got a lot accomplished. I got gifts for my grandparents, my Aunt Tonja, Eleanor, Gale, my sister, and my dad, and ended up dropping a few hundred dollars. I spent over two hours in Barnes & Noble alone, then went to Besy Buy, Target, Michael's, and Dick's Sporting Goods. I accomplished a lot, and it wasn't too bad because I was out pretty early. It was crowded by the time I got out, though.

While I was shopping, I began to contemplate just how much I love this holiday. At the party on Friday night, someone said something about how much they love Christmas, on every level - the commercial level, the spiritual level, the family level. And I think I do, too. Even though it's cool to criticize Christmas for its commercialism, there's something about the bustle of Christmas shopping that I find really nice - all these people are expressing their love through purchasing gifts that they think the givees will enjoy. I think that's nice. So sue me. I love giving gifts. I love getting gifts. I enjoy adding up all the puchases to make sure my mother and dad get equal amounts, and my grandparents, and so on. I think my family spends more on Christmas than most. I don't come from a rich family, and as a teacher, I'm certainly not rich. But I'll probably end up spending about $250 on my parents this year, another $100 or so on my sister, I already spent about $70 on my grandparents, and around $20 each on close friends.

Anyhow, long story short, my Christmas spirit prompted me to buy my first two Christmas CDs this season. I bought A Very Special Christmas - Vol.5, and I now have all five of the series. This fifth version is probably the worst of the series, but it still has some cool moments - Macy Gray singing "This Christmas," Wyclef Jean singing "Little Drummer Boy," and City High singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" in a cool hip-hop/gospelized style. I also bought the TRL Christmas Album, basically because it's got Weezer, Bif Naked, Jimmy Fallon, and a few other cool artists singing Christmas songs. There are also a lot of bad pop artists on it, but I'm a sucker for cheesy Christmas music. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.

Anyhow, I got back from the shopping opus at around 4pm, and wrapped the presents and got ready to go to a party hosted by a friend of Jason's down in Rockland (near D.C., about an hour away). We got to the party at around 7:30, and started off by playing euchre. I started the night drinking and was planning on getting drunk. At around 9:30pm, howeve, Jason informed me that he would not be driving home. He wanted to spend the night. No way in hell was I going to do that. So I stopped drinking, and started drinking coffee. I had had two drinks, but they were both vodka based, so I knew I had to get sober quickly. It turns out that it didn't need to be that quick. We didn't leave until around 1:50am. Ugh.

It was a boring party for me. I didn't know anyone, most of the folks were coupled up, the euchre game only occupied about four of the twelve people at the party, and everyone else pretty much was drunk. I ended up watching a football game (a sport I don't like), then watching Saturday Night Live. During SNL, someone came up to me (and Mike, who was also watching the show) and asked if we were really watching it, so they could put in a CD. We said yes, we were really watching it, but they put in a CD anyway and asked us to turn down the TV. Lovely.

We were finally able to pry Jason away at around 1:30, and after twenty minutes of drunken goodbyes from him, we were off. He drank a lot, and was really drunk - he had four shots of tequila, probably five or six beers, and chugged a beer on a dare right before we left. He was funny. It'd been a while since I took care of him and not vice versa, so I'm not complaining.

Okay, here's the interesting story: I got a breathalizer test. We stopped at a 7-11 to get directions out of the city and back onto the highway. There was an officer there in the store. I didn't think too much of it, since I was sure I was sober enough to drive and hadn't drank in over four hours. So I walked past him, and asked the cashier for directions. He didn't know, and the officer overheard. He started giving me directions, then he looked at me closer. "Are you sure you should be driving?," he asked. I explained to him that I hadn't drank in four hours and had only two drinks that night. He insisted, and asked me if I wanted to get a breathalizer test just to be sure. I wouldn't be in trouble at all, since he hadn't pulled me over, he assured me. I still wasn't very comfortable with it, but he kept insisting, and I thought my constant denials sounded guilty. So I followed him out to his car, and he had me take the test. I blew a 0.02, which was well below the 0.10 legal limit. He genially gave me directions, and I was on my way. It still blows my mind that I got a breathalizer test.

We arrived back to Baltimore at 3:15am, but not before Jason had puked out the window and all over the side of the car on the way home. Yuck.

Sunday - Trader Joes, Ocean 11, running, and the Weezer concert

Sunday was a good day. I woke up early again, going to Trader Joe's for some grocery shopping and getting back before 11. I then spent a couple of hours cleaning the house while everyone else was in hangover-induced stupors. One of Mike's friends, Josh I think his name is, stayed with us all weekend. He was a nice guy.

Okay, back to my narrative. The whole time I was cleaning, I was thinking about going to see Ocean 11 that afternoon as a reward to myself for a productive weekend. I made put my mind that even if I couldn't convince my fellow housemates to go, I would go myself. And I couldn't talk them into it. But I went anyway. I know it's weird that I now have a couple of girls' phone numbers and to be going to a movie alone, but I just really wanted to see it, and I'm okay with going to the movies alone, at least for a matinee. And I'd been frustrated lately that I've been falling behind in movie viewing, and have been missing a lot movies. With movies like Vanilla Sky, Lord of the Rings, Not Another Teen Movie, Tape, and others coming out or out already, I didn't want to fall behind anymore.

Ocean 11 was terrific - funny, fast-paced, intricately plotted. I had a lot of fun watching it, and didn't want it to end. That's high praise indeed, coming from me.

When I returned, I immediately went for a beautiful four-mile run with Holden. It was glorious - it was a little cold out, but the sun was shining. I ran around the nearby lake and explored the river trails near my house. I'm a bit sore today, but it was well worth it.

Afterwards, it was time for the Weezer concert with Mike and his friend. It was good. They played with Jimmy Eat World, who were decent, and Tenacious D, who were awful. The latter made me angry, because I was really looking forward to seeing them, and figured from their rabid cult audience that they must be good. They weren't. A comedic, acoustic duo with actor Jack Black, it was the type of band that only has any sort of notoriety because it has a famous member in it. There were a few laughs, but if they wanted a witty folk act to put in there, there would have been a lot better choices (Wally Pleasant, Jill Sobule, etc). They reminded me of a poor man's They Might Be Giants. They didn't even have any fully-formed songs - everything they performed were basically psuedo-improvisational halfsongs that weren't very funny.

Weezer made it worth it, though. They were good. Not earth-shattering, but good. They played most of the good songs off of the blue album (except "No One Else"), only one song from Pinkerton ("Tired of Sex"), and all of the good songs from the green album. They played for an hour before the encore, and the encore last another fifteen minutes. The highlights were marvelous renditions of "Say It Ain't So" and "The Sweater Song," a blustery version of "Tired of Sex," and terrific performances of "Photograph" and "Hash Pipe" from the new album. There was also an extended riff on "Only In Dreams" with smoke and crunching guitar solos that really gave me goosebumps. Disappointments included the lack of songs from my favorite album of theirs, Pinkerton and the general lack of charisma and banter from the group. Wezer playing in an arena just seems wrong on some level. They didn't grow into the place until the last few songs - they just seemed uncomfortable for the first half of the concert. Part of the appeal of recent Weezer songs is the juxtaposition between their nerdy personas and their thrashing rock songs like "Hash Pipe" - Nerd Boys Go Bad! But this juxtaposition doesn't work as well for the non-"Hash Pipe" material, as most of their work is dark, lonely, and lyric-based. I'd rather they play in a smaller club-type of atmosphere. It'd sell out in a second, but it'd be funner for those who got tickets. But I'll stop my bitching. It was a good show.

Today, back at school

I'm still not sure what I'm doing for the rest of the day today. Right now, the thought most prominent in my mind is how I don't want to pay $129 to go the New Years celebration we're going to. It is just so much money. I feel bad trying to change my friends' minds about it, so I'll probably just keep quiet. I wish there were a different option. $129 is a lot of freaking money - and it's money that I don't really have during the holidays. Maybe if I wait a while to buy the ticket, it'll be sold out. I think that's Kelly and Paul's plan.

I have no idea how out of all the choices, we chose something so expensive. I have no idea how it could have been in my mind that it's a good idea. Ugh.