The Homeless Hanger Incident

So I had the funniest day of my recent life yesterday.

I'm sitting in one of the many practice rooms adjacent to the band room at the school with Andrew and Claire. Kevin, however, was in the practice room next to ours practicing on the xylophone. Within each of the practice rooms in the well-worn, foam-esque ceiling tiles are large holes that were, at some point in the past, made by a mysterious force. In our room, slightly to the left of the space above my head, is a ceiling tile that had been moved over to one side, allowing access to the empty, attic-like space that all the practice rooms share.
So everyone in my room was bored. I was numbering measures in ED's music out of boredom, Andrew was reading, and Claire was chilling. The tiny guard room was filled with awkward silence for several minutes, until, suddenly, Andrew looked up from his book and muttered, "I'm gonna throw something at Kevin."
Claire and I smiled and Claire suggested some small, light object to be chucked through the ceiling. Andrew stands on his chair and gives it a toss. The projectile makes it through the hole in our ceiling, but thumps on the inside of the adjacent room's ceiling tiles. "Missed," I mumbled, not particularly interested in the pastime that has been the undisputed favorite of band students since the ceiling-holes were brought into existence (which was probably around twenty years ago or so).
In search of another projectile, Andrew looks up to the rack of color guard flags and finds a row of empty hangers. He grabs a hanger and Claire and I become a little more interested. Andrew flings the hanger and it bounces off the edge of our ceiling-hole and smacks me in the face. After a small burst of laughter from our group, Andrew picked the hanger back up, and mounted the chair for another attempt.
The hanger disappeared through the ceiling-hole and we heard a thump on the other side, and I assumed it was another miss...until, almost instantaneously with the landing-thump of the hanger, Kevin's xylophone notes stopped dead. Devious smiles appeared on the three pairs of lips in the guard room, and then came the familiar Southern drawl of our band director.
"Kevin, did you see that?!"
Kevin's high-pitched, hysterical laughter rose through the ceiling-hole in his room and into the guard room through ours.
The three pairs of eyes in the guard room widened. Andrew leaped down from the chair and spun to sit in it, grabbing his book. Claire stood up and began spinning a rifle as I began numbering measures again. After a few moments our band director (who, in his cooler moments, we call KoopDawg) enters the room with Kevin trailing behind. Kevin looked like he was about to burst into more laughter if he opened his mouth. KoopDawg stared at the hole in our ceiling.
"Is there anyone up there?"
We answered meekly, "No..."
"Doubt it-"
"No sir..."
KoopDawg pointed from the hanger rack to the hole in the ceiling. "One of those hangers...fell through the ceiling..."
The room was silent as we all sat and waited to get yelled at. All the evidence was on the table; we were sitting beneath a hole in the ceiling that quite obviously connected with the hole in the ceiling of the xylophone room, there was an entire rack of hangers directly above Andrew's head, there was no one more fun to prank than Kevin, and no group of kids looked guiltier than us.
The next words our director spoke shocked us to the core.
"Y'all, my wife works at the library and they had these homeless people hiding in their ceilings. They'd been stepping up on the bathroom sinks and climbing into the ceiling...I think there may be homeless people in our ceilings, walking around on the cinder blocks...I need to call somebody about that and see if they'll come check our ceilings..."
So he leaves and goes to his office to get on the phone.

Really?

Like, seriously?

I've been laughing for two solid days.

KoopDawg, we salute you and thank you for the entire class period of stifled, hysterical laughter.

Life is good.

"Laughter is the spice of life"
Peace out,
~W.V.~

You Shouldn't Say "Macbeth" in the Theatre...

Or anywhere around me, because I may randomly punch you and start swearing at the heavens like an ancient Greek with Taurette's (meaning I'd swear in Latin).

Anyway, I have a great respect for that play, but I hate reading it. I wish I could just go see the show, just to get the full creepiness out of it.

I am so completely, utterly, irrevocably in love with my David. And he's officially joining the Marines. And I am SO NERVOUS. But, I think I may have partially convinced him into having a ceremony, which I look forward to. Of course I have no idea how we'll afford it (not getting any financial support), but I think we can manage something nice. All of this thought about the military is terribly exciting, but there's constantly something lingering in the back of my mind, echoing after every hope, telling me that somehow he'll die and I'll be left all alone. I guess it's the fact that I'm used to everything beautiful in my life falling out from under me the moment I start expecting it to last. Family, friends, guys, my personal stability among others...the moment I get comfortable with any of it, all of it falls apart.

But, thinking back, D showed up in this town when things were getting really bad, and he loved me then, and he's never let me fall, even when it wasn't expected of his and wasn't his job. David's never abandoned me, and I believe he never will...but his willingness to be with me and protect me can't deflect a bullet, and neither can all my worries and highest hopes. I could pray until I passed out, but if it's supposed to happen it will happen...and though my belief in fate should make me more comfortable, it doesn't.

I'm the happiest I've ever been when I'm making him happy, and I can't see myself without him, ever. I've lost family and friends to many things, including death, but to this day I cannot comprehend how people cope with the lose of their mate. The very thought of it makes me cry.

So. Analysis.

10 Things I Don't Love About Myself:
1.) I eat too much
2.) I'm often indecisive
3.) I worry too much
4.) I should let my guard down more often
5.) I let people walk all over me
6.) I ignore my own needs in order to tend to others'
7.) I'm a bit too comfortable with the idea of my own death
8.) I tend to take lots of time to accept changes about myself
9.) I remember too much
10.) I forget too much

10 Things I Love About Myself:
1.) I'm tall
2.) Someone loves me for exactly who I am
3.) I find humor in negative situations
4.) I don't take myself too seriously
5.) I'm aware of how I sound, but also of what I mean
6.) I can be quite eloquent, with a little effort
7.) I have a small group of amazing friends
8.) I comfort people
9.) I know who I am
10.) I understand what I am

I always feel better about life after I analyze myself. I'm not entirely sure why.

So it's December 5th, and getting ever-closer to Christmas. As I get older I hate winter more and like the holidays a fraction more, but I can't say that it's the family-oriented part of the holiday that I like. Most of my family hates the rest of it, and in some cases just me, so I avoid conflict and contact like the plague. The coziness of Christmas is nice, but my favorite part is gift-giving. Just buying and making gifts for other people. It makes me feel awesome, and the acts of shopping and creating are relaxing to me.

All my stories are coming along nicely. I sustain my high hopes for them.

I heard a great joke the other day.

A burglar breaks into a house and starts looking around for valuables. After a few minutes he hears a voice that says, "Jesus knows you're here and he knows what you're doing."
The burglar snaps his flashlight on and looks around, but doesn't see anyone, so he moves on to another room and continues looking for valuables. After a few more minutes, the thief hears the voice again, closer this time, "Jesus sees you and he doesn't like what you're doing."
The thief turns his flashlight on again and sweeps the room, and this time the beam passes over a parrot. The burglar laughs and says,
"Was that you, little guy?"
"Yes, it was." The parrot answered.
"What's your name?"
"Moses." Says the parrot.
"Ha!" The burglar laughed, "Who would name a parrot Moses?"
The parrot squawked and replied, "The same person who would name a rottweiler Jesus."

~W.V.~

"I cannot fathom that."

The best epic fail to date.

Courtney McCurly, in the middle of Devin's line about how his character's family in The Crucible populated the entire community.

Devin: "The Putnam seed has populated this entire province! I-"

Courtney: "I cannot fathom that."

Not only was her line early, but sounded completely hilarious. I mean EPIC fail. It was great...

Well, that's all for now folks. There is a puppy begging at my leg.

Adios,
~W.V.~

The Day of Silence

I have so much respect for the mute now.

I decided this morning that, under the pretense that I had lost my voice, I decided to attempt to not say a word all day. So, from six fory am to about four pm, I said four words..."Puppies," to Ms. McCurlyl, and "Put this there?" to Mrs. Barett. Both people I spoke to were in on it, of course, and my littl esocial experiment was very successful thanks to their secrecy. I originally got the idea from a guy who actually avoided verbal communication for an entire year, but derinitely couldn't do that in my line of work. Then I realized that I could observe those around me and peg their reactions to someone with a "handicap", so I decided to give it a go.

The first thing I discovered is that being made temporarily mute is very amusing and somewhat comical to both the subject and those being observed. Other people found it unique and funny, and I found it amusing.

I never realized how cool nonverbal communication is. I could mouth or mime most things and most people, and EDdi to an especially shocking extint, could understand me with very little effort. Of course I did have to write my thoughts out for some, but that's to be expected. Still, humanity is awesome for being able to communicate so well in different ways.

I also now have a much higher respect for the deaf/mute community, and a particular gratefulness for my voice, which sounded really odd when I finally spoke to Grandma and David this afternoon. It was a nifty experience, and I greatly appreciate the patience and cooperation of all those involved, rather they knew they were or not ;) Wolfie out ~W.V.~

Chronicles of the Sixth Period Art Class: Episode I; Consecration

So Ms. McCurly and I are if the same art class with a crew of trouble-making fools. Well, at some point a certain person,whose name shall not be revealed, invited a few of the wilder people in our class over to our table and asked them to join us in Te Penis Game. Said game involves each member of a class taking a turn saying the word "penis", the first person muttering it out in the slightest whisper. The volume of the word increases until the teacher notices...which, with our particular instructor's apparent hearing/attention problems, could mean that The Penis Game may have actually continued until someone on the other side of the room from where it began may actually have to scream, "PEEEENIIIIIIIIIS!" in order to end the game. I was the suggested starter of the game, and was considering actually participating when someone at our table began to use an ethnic accent that was quite obviously not their own Caucasion one to say, "Hey, you wanna get me a Rice Crispy Creat?" (inside joke).

This got the ethnic-accent-impressions going, and pretty soon it began,

"Man, we been readin' this book on da Holocaust and dem concecration camps..."

A ripple of laughter.

"Man, shut up, I gotsta consecrate on my work!"

"All y'all shut up, I'm tryin' to consecrate on this book!"

"You better not consecrate on my book!"

"But seriously, all the shoveling those poor people in the consecration camps had to do...I mean, they were probably having to consecrate on each other..."

"Hey man, can I consecrate on you?"

Finally, among the constant eruptions of laughter at our own immaturity and at the compulsive and unquenchable fit of giggles we'd been thrown into, Ms. McCurly returns to her normal speaking voice and asks, "Gah, why would you ever wanna consecrate on someone..."

I realized the slight irrelevancy of the quip, but I couldn't resist, and immediately responded with, "Well, if you're R Kelly..."

I don't think any of us stopped laughing until after the bell rang to move to seventh period. Eventually everybody was lost in a hopeless fit of giggling over everyone else's giggling. It was pretty hilarious.

"DEAD SQUIRRELS WALK THE EARTH!!!!"

Or so says Caroline, my bestest fwiend from kindergarden up. She is also the first to report to me the existence of zombie squirrels. Apparently, the story goes like this...

Care and a friend of hers were playing around in among the network of planks and foundation pieces that made up a house that was just going up. The crews weren't there for some reason, so the girls had free reign of the unfinished property. While adventuring among the building materials they came across a dead squirrel, which they buried in an empty box they found under some extra sand. They wrote something in the sand, "R.I.P. SQUIRREL" and whatnot, but were a bit freaked out because the squirrel wasn't buried quite deep enough and one of his little back feet was sticking out of the sand between the letters. They decided not to mess with it, so they went about their playing and eventually left.
A few days later the girls came back and came across the rodent's sandbox tomb again...only this time, no tiny foot sticking up. The lettering was undisturbed, and the girls figured maybe the very dead squirrel had somehow gone further inside the box, since he obviously hadn't come out of it. They emptied the box...nothing inside remotely small, dead, and furry. So they ran screaming, "DEAD SQUIRRELS WALK THE EARTH!!!!" for amusement. A funny story, but I still wanna know where the damn squirrel went...

Anyway, that dinner was amazing. Shells & cheese, homemade mashed potatoes, fried chicken, fried okra, ketchup, and Coke. There aren't many more enjoyable ways to spiral oneself comfortably closer to pericardium doom.
God, I pray that women lives forever or teaches me to cook...preferably both.

Well, that's all for now. On to my beast of a research paper. *curtsy* ~W.V.~

Abusive language...

And by that, I literally mean that we are abusing the English language...and deliciously so. A half-hour fit of uncontrollable giggles seized my table in art class today by the first accidental and then intentional misuse of the word "consecrate." We joked about everything from "consecration camps" to consecrating on our work to R Kelly. But I'll save my art class for Ms. McCurly to blog about. Her comic genius (and wonderfully contagious laughter) never ceases to amaze me. She's terribly interesting for a self-proclaimed boring person.

So while waiting for yet another of my grandmother's wonderful home-cooked meals, I shall blog about random crappola. I heard a phrase in my English class the other day that I took great offense to...and though I was, at that moment, terribly tempted to turn a few preps into pretzels, I held my tongue. I didn't hear the context of the phrase, but I doubt I will soon forget it's wording: "Stupid faggot, dicks are for chicks."

What on earth gives these people the right to say that?! My own surrogate brother, whom I love like on one else, is a homosexual. If they had known that, would they have blurted such an ignorant, prejudiced thing out right next to me in the middle of a fugging English class? I highly doubt it. Why? Cowardice. Their so-called beliefs are only important enough to them to voice them when their audience is in full agreement. What are we raising our children to become, here? I could have as easily said, "Hey cheerleader, go learn how to read!" or "Wow, those roids really become you," but to what end? Folks, tact is something people are sorely lacking these days...and the awe striking factor about it is that these people actually believe they have a right to impose the harassment of their prejudices on other people. They actually believe it. It's insane, but they just cannot comprehend that there are situations in which they are not and cannot be right. It's laughable...and if that particular slander hadn't hit so close to home with me, I would have laughed out loud. I want to say, "Let it go, they'll have a fire lit under their ass when they have to handle the world without their parents," but then I realize, sadly, that some of these kids will ride mommy and daddy's coattails into the grave without ever realizing how ignorant they are. But oh well...what else is there to say about it?

I have almost finished Looking for Alaska. It managed to drag up some memories of a friend of mine, and I cried a lot after school today, then managed to lock myself out of my van and get stuck at school until four forty-seven. Ain't that some luck? But anywhoo, I'm all comfy at home in my brother's room and I've got the book open while I'm typing...it's quite wonderfully written.

I suppose I should explain my situation. I toggle between my grandparents' house, in which I was raised, and my parents' (meaning my mother and stepfather) house. I developed a lot of knowledge of religion from attending churches with my mom and stepdad, along with my full brother, Nathan. I also adopted spiritualist views from the respect of nature and imperfect beauty that my grandmother taught me. As I've matured, I've theorized various things that involve different religions, and have my own thing...I found that one of my "surrogate brothers", Angel, also shares many of my views, which is insanely coincidental. So here's a quick summary of people you'll probably hear mentioned in my posts...

DAVID-the absolute love of my life (my Jacob, for you Twilight fans...Edward sucks :p )
GRANDMA, MAMA JO, GRANNY- mi abuela (my grandmother)
POP- my grandfather
NATHAN, NATER, NATE- my little, currently 13 year-old, blood brother
MS. MCCURLY- good buddy from my English and Art I classes, also hilarious and severely awesome.
SOTA- my closest "surrogate brother", meaning I consider him family in all senses.
ANGEL- a friend of mine that I look up to and who's been a sort of spiritual mentor to me, and, though his stoicism prevents me from knowing rather he returns the love, I consider him another brother.
TODD- my mother's brother, therefore my uncle, who is fifteen years older than me but acts about Angel's age, so he's always felt like another brother. He lives here too, with my grandparents, so we see each other a lot.

So okay. Just to open this up for comment, here is a rundown of my spiritual beliefs. There's some theory and some science in this, so those easily lost may wanna skim it.

I support, in modesty, the Buddhist belief that the energy that is the life of a person gets recycled and used over, based on the Law of Conservation of Energy. Since some die inexplicably, the only thing separating the living and the dead must be some sort of kinetic energy. This, I believe, may be separated from the soul (which I believe to be, for the most part, immortal) when a person kicks it, and that the energy may carry personality traits, memories, aptitudes, etc. with it into another living being (my homage to the theory of reincarnation). However, I do not believe any one human lives more than one life. I'm also very free-thinking, obviously, though I do put stock in most major Biblical standards. I also acknowledge and accept that we are animals, and though religion may enlighten the mind, the soul needs room to grow and discover on its own.

So I suppose you could call me a nondenominational Christian.



I have an odd knack for seeing really weird things in public places that no one seems to notice. Like honest-to-God cowboys walking out of a Mexican restaurant. Or sixty-something year-old Amish women congregating in glee in Victoria's Secret. Or a woman eating a burrito in the passenger seat of a standard Honda that drove itself...seriously. That Honda was possessed. And Chanting Black Man, a strange man who I first met many years ago chanting with a staff in hand on a street corner, and have since thusly referred to as such with affection. I'm also pretty sure squirrels can afford to be so retarded because they have an uncanny ability to return from the dead. But I'll save that for after dinner. *wink* L8r.