(no subject)

[sanura]

Wandering around this afternoon doing my campus errands (I am now registered to audit Latin III: Propertius, and I have the book I need to write my Ling paper) brought me to the door of the Dean of Undergraduates, so I dropped in to see if they could make me another appointment yet, but the calendar was still down, and the receptionist was a little snippy about it. So I went home and Stephan came and got me and told me two of the most dramatic stories I've ever heard from him (seriously, this boy should be recorded somewhere telling anecdotes about his life) about things that happened between the time he and Ben left me downtown and the time he came to get me. A lot happened.

And then it was time for Ecumenical Sight-Caroling! Gottschalk gathered us all in the lobby of Shepherd and herded us toward the hospital where we were to sing our ecumenical carols at sight (it was basically the Aural Skills final to read carols). Philip Cornell, a nearly universally despised composition major in our class,and to whom the boys refer as "Special Ops" because of his excessive preoccupation with violence and hate, seems to have identified me as the one person in our class who will speak civilly to him. I'm singing his piece for the composers' forum next year, and he's complimented me on my range and skill before, so I figure I may as well deal with his as I do with my obnoxious younger cousin Eric, because their predicaments are basically the same. Everything they do is calculated to provoke a negative reaction in order to garner attention of some kind from the populace; Philip also seems either to promote the misconception that he has no moral center, in order to shock, or to promote the idea that his moral convictions are utterly opposed to everyone else's, also in order to shock and provoke. So, I deal with him the same was I do with Eric, which seems to work (better on him than on Eric, actually, since he's 20 instead of 13 and has a few ideas about social conventions), and he seems fascinated by my ability to withstand his presence and conversation. It was a little more odd than usual, actually; he followed me the entire time, ostensibly to use my book for singing since there weren't enough for everyone. He even made friendly banter (for him) with Stephan and Dan, both of whom in the past he's professed to hate because they're gay. So, that was interesting.

And then the boys and I went to the Eight Seasons concert, back at Shepherd. It was nice; they didn't butcher the piece or anything, and Ferenc Ilenyi the notorious gypsy violinist who hits on a different chorus girl every half-hour was the soloist for the Vivaldi and he's not bad (better at things that are more gypsy and not Vivaldi, I suspect). The tango dancers were rather atrocious and patently distracting from the music, but I could ignore them well enough. I did object to the arrangement of Chiquilin de Bachin they used for an encore; they not only changed the time signature, they rearranged the melody so it held none of the plaintive poignance of the original string quartet; it was just whiny. Pretty, but whiny.

Reggie missed it, and left me a fairly tragic message, so mama and I drove to Memorial to get him out of his hateful house and cheer him up a little. I told him some Stephan stories and some Philip stories, and mama told him some stories about stoners she knew in college, and he seemed to be doing better. I miss him a lot of the time. I want him to live where I can see him all the time and he can be around people who don't attack him every day.

Now I am sleepy. But I will wake up tomorrow and make an appointment, and do... some more things. That I should do. That I will think of tomorrow morning.

Comments

[rachmaninof.livejournal.com]

oh, Special Ops. i can't believe i'd almost forgotten about him.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh special ops. He is filled with just-too-muchery
-Evan