Beautiful Misfits
So, despite the fact that I have eight dozen things to deal with before I actually go on this trip to Ireland, I am finding that I am spending all of my free time reading and researching... what? Yes. Ireland. I love planning trips. Love, love, love, love it. And I haven't done it in so long.
I am also spending time gathering our troops for the Bouncing Ball contribution to the Page-to-stage festival. But more on that to come.
While in Ireland I hope to visit my childhood friend Ray. He lives in Dublin (near Dublin?) with his French wife and new-born babe. I haven't seen him in, maybe ten years? At least ten years.
Thinking about seeing him has caused an onslaught of middle and high-school memories.
Ray was, Ray is, Ray now and forever will be--a truly unique and indescribable individual. Any stories I try to tell about that time would be completely lost in the translation. But when has that ever stopped me before?
Ray and I met in seventh grade. His last name started with an "Si", mine with an "Se" so I think we were in homeroom together? Funny how little random things like that can determine so much. He and my brother became friends--Ray did choir and was involved in the theater department--though I don't remember when we all transitioned from being acquaintances to being friends. Another friend of mine, Kim ("Sv") had an intense crush on him. I think she was in our homeroom too.
In eighth grade Ray was in my Global Studies class with Ms. Mclean (why do I remember these things when I can't remember the name of an actor I worked with three months ago??!!!) He sat behind me and would clicker spit on my back for an entire class period. Little tiny spit balls that he would launch through his teeth with his tongue. I never could figure out how to do it myself.
I remember leaving class one day and looking at my back in the girl's bathroom mirror. Little spit spots all over. I can picture the exact shade of yellow of that embroidered Gap shirt, and what it felt like against my skin. I was so angry at him.
In retrospect I realize that this was probably a playing out of very unrefined 12-year-old flirtations, but at the time I was just really pissed off.
The real heart of the Ray stories came during high school, emerging from the pressure cooker of friendship that was our High school Theater Department and Show Choir. Yeah, I said it. Show Choir.
When we were juniors Ray started this, like, club? Society? I think? Called the "Jerk-Nerds". Again, remembering this all it baffles me--what did our parents think? What did other student think? What did our teachers think? We literally gave our little clique of theater dorks and beautiful misfits a name, a password, a theme song (lyrics included: "Do you walk to work, or carry, a lunch?"--is that from something?), and an accessory (these big plastic rings, I'm not kidding you). And then we were shocked when people said we were being exclusive. The Mormon guy in choir felt like we were shutting him out. The techies thought we were excluding them so they started their own clique-with-a-name. I think we really thought "Only the group of us really GET each other, why would anyone else WANT to be included?"
But it seems they did.
Very, very funny to remember all of this.
Incidentally--at the end of the night of my Junior Prom it was Ray that I made out with, not my date. I'd gone with Paul the trumpet player who I really liked but who was very shy. Ray was with Sarah M., sister of the first boy I ever kissed, Scotty M. (my parents ran into him a few years ago and reported back with some glee that his wife was kind of dumpy) and we had all been drinking red wine at Kim's house (see above, Kim "Sv"). Ray and I somehow ended up on the sidewalk in front of her house kissing.
Hmmm.
The next year he dated my best friend Beth. I was jealous, not happy, for them. I was not very happy at all that year. Things kind of fell apart.
In the midst of everything falling apart I took a trip with Beth and her family to Myrtle Beach. The second or third day we were there a car pulled up in front of our hotel and Ray and our friend Brian (my senior-year-gay-prom date) rolled out, exhausted and sweaty and smiling. They'd driven down from Rochester to hang out with us. Their parents didn't know they were there. I wonder if they ever found out.
It was a time in my life when I felt completely incapable of any bold or meaningful action. I had lost my sense of the grand gesture. And I thought "Brian and Ray can do anything. They can just appear and make things better." I was so glad to know them.
Brian has since vanished, I'm afraid. But now I think I will get to see Ray again.
And in Dublin of all places.
I am also spending time gathering our troops for the Bouncing Ball contribution to the Page-to-stage festival. But more on that to come.
While in Ireland I hope to visit my childhood friend Ray. He lives in Dublin (near Dublin?) with his French wife and new-born babe. I haven't seen him in, maybe ten years? At least ten years.
Thinking about seeing him has caused an onslaught of middle and high-school memories.
Ray was, Ray is, Ray now and forever will be--a truly unique and indescribable individual. Any stories I try to tell about that time would be completely lost in the translation. But when has that ever stopped me before?
Ray and I met in seventh grade. His last name started with an "Si", mine with an "Se" so I think we were in homeroom together? Funny how little random things like that can determine so much. He and my brother became friends--Ray did choir and was involved in the theater department--though I don't remember when we all transitioned from being acquaintances to being friends. Another friend of mine, Kim ("Sv") had an intense crush on him. I think she was in our homeroom too.
In eighth grade Ray was in my Global Studies class with Ms. Mclean (why do I remember these things when I can't remember the name of an actor I worked with three months ago??!!!) He sat behind me and would clicker spit on my back for an entire class period. Little tiny spit balls that he would launch through his teeth with his tongue. I never could figure out how to do it myself.
I remember leaving class one day and looking at my back in the girl's bathroom mirror. Little spit spots all over. I can picture the exact shade of yellow of that embroidered Gap shirt, and what it felt like against my skin. I was so angry at him.
In retrospect I realize that this was probably a playing out of very unrefined 12-year-old flirtations, but at the time I was just really pissed off.
The real heart of the Ray stories came during high school, emerging from the pressure cooker of friendship that was our High school Theater Department and Show Choir. Yeah, I said it. Show Choir.
When we were juniors Ray started this, like, club? Society? I think? Called the "Jerk-Nerds". Again, remembering this all it baffles me--what did our parents think? What did other student think? What did our teachers think? We literally gave our little clique of theater dorks and beautiful misfits a name, a password, a theme song (lyrics included: "Do you walk to work, or carry, a lunch?"--is that from something?), and an accessory (these big plastic rings, I'm not kidding you). And then we were shocked when people said we were being exclusive. The Mormon guy in choir felt like we were shutting him out. The techies thought we were excluding them so they started their own clique-with-a-name. I think we really thought "Only the group of us really GET each other, why would anyone else WANT to be included?"
But it seems they did.
Very, very funny to remember all of this.
Incidentally--at the end of the night of my Junior Prom it was Ray that I made out with, not my date. I'd gone with Paul the trumpet player who I really liked but who was very shy. Ray was with Sarah M., sister of the first boy I ever kissed, Scotty M. (my parents ran into him a few years ago and reported back with some glee that his wife was kind of dumpy) and we had all been drinking red wine at Kim's house (see above, Kim "Sv"). Ray and I somehow ended up on the sidewalk in front of her house kissing.
Hmmm.
The next year he dated my best friend Beth. I was jealous, not happy, for them. I was not very happy at all that year. Things kind of fell apart.
In the midst of everything falling apart I took a trip with Beth and her family to Myrtle Beach. The second or third day we were there a car pulled up in front of our hotel and Ray and our friend Brian (my senior-year-gay-prom date) rolled out, exhausted and sweaty and smiling. They'd driven down from Rochester to hang out with us. Their parents didn't know they were there. I wonder if they ever found out.
It was a time in my life when I felt completely incapable of any bold or meaningful action. I had lost my sense of the grand gesture. And I thought "Brian and Ray can do anything. They can just appear and make things better." I was so glad to know them.
Brian has since vanished, I'm afraid. But now I think I will get to see Ray again.
And in Dublin of all places.
posted by SAS @ 4:50 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Some things never change, do they?
How interesting~
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