Holy shit I'm 25!
i am not an angry girl
but it seems like i've got everyone fooled
I went to bush this weekend. As I sit here staring at my already stupid looking tan lines, I can't help but think about how good it feels to be home again. However, as I stood there on Sunday in my tank top and shorts watching the dirt on me turn to mud as the freezing cold rain ran down my body, I couldn't help but think about the things about drum corps that I'm not so fond of. Now, don't confuse what I'm saying here. These are not bushwacker beefs, these are drum corps beefs. I am absolutely confident that there is no better drum corps in the circuit than ours. It has nothing to do with the shows, the equipment, or the location. It's all about the people who go there. The people I've met there over the past seven years have solidified themselves as my extended family. However, it's inevitable that you will run across these specific conditions and stereotypes eventually in this activity no matter where you go, and you will hate them. Well, I do anyway. Shall I?
The Weather. Now, it doesn't matter how many times I check weather.com on Friday, it's still probably going to rain when I forget to pack a hoodie, blaze when I pack my favorite pair of sweatpants, and a tornado will sweep through when I don't have enough dry warm clothes (a la Lewisburg 2003).
The Bugs. Being in the pit, I don't enjoy practicing on grass. It's harder to move our equipment around, and since we don't move much once we're set up, we're standing targets for whatever bugs we wake up as we stomp around on their home all morning. But even when we're in our more familiar paved facilities, those fuckers find us. Be it ticks, mosquitoes, gnats, or the occasional praying mantis that walks its creepy ass out of the truck (this has happened before), those little bastards always find us. Jay told me about one year at some random rehearsal sight, a few minutes into rehearsal, about a million junebugs came flying up out of the dirt and swarmed around them all day. Just this weekend, mid run, something flew right up my nose. In 2000, Dave and I woke up in a tri-chem trailer COVERED in spider bites. I do not like bugs.
Guard Vocals. I should have put this first, as it is easily the fastest way to irritate me. Now, there are guard folks that I think are great, so I hope they don't see this and take it personally. They aren't the only culprits of this act, they are just the ones who do it the most. My personal opinion is that adding guard vocals to a show SCREAMS bando. These are completely unnecessary and do nothing to benefit the ensemble. They're just fun. But so is drinking and having sex, and I'm not about to add either into the show. Whoever came up with guard vocals, along with whoever decided to over use the shit out of them, I'm convinced lacks understanding as to how a musical ensemble works. Yes, we have our lovely drum major to look at, but a great deal of what keeps the ensemble together is the ability to listen to each other. This is especially true for the front ensemble which spends the entire 12 minutes listening back. Not only is it annoying as hell, but it gets in the way of us hearing what we need to hear when after every catch or jump, you hear the obligatory "WOO" or "Fuck" come flying across the field. You are in the guard. You're here to be seen. If you want to be heard, pick up an instrument. Now before I take off my unnecessary bitch hat, I'll extend this invitation to everyone else who throws vocals into the show. You're here to play an instrument. Not to scream shit. Go have yourself some shadey truck sex if you want people to hear you yell things. Or join your church choir. I don't know, just keep it off the field. This goes hand in hand with…
Those Who Count Loudly and Out of Time. Now, I do have a temper in me, but I've never been the type to throw a fit and walk off the field. However, I do stand there at times swallowing my deep rage and desire to dismember those who count loudly and out of time because their inability to keep time and/or shut the hell up interferes with my playing. I get it, you're the hero who wants to help the ensemble when they're falling apart. It comes from a good place. However, you suck, and you need to be quiet. If it gets so bad that simply listening to the drumline or the gock will not keep you in time, beware, because the wrath of the counting Kilian will find its way to you. And it will haunt you in your dreams. There is no need for you to take over and do this for him.
The Diva/Divo. This is not a drum corps exclusive irritation. This is inevitable in ensemble playing. However, at senior corps where you have a wide variety of people, ranging from people who have just learned how to read music to people who have been playing for 20 years, the diva rears its ugly head. The diva feeds on those who are less experienced than itself. The diva usually feels the need to reassure everyone around it just how talented it is. The diva has trouble remembering it is not on staff. The diva is at drum corps only to give the great gift of its own talent. The diva's favorite topic of conversation is the diva. The diva sleeps upside down in a cocoon of its own wings while watching/listening to tapes of it's previous performances. The diva is often greatly admired by…
The Rookie. Now, I believe the irritation that comes with the inexperience of a rookie is fine and natural, because when YOU were a rookie, you were an equal pain in the ass, and if your rookie year was like mine, you were reminded of this whenever it was necessary. Without rookies, corps would die forever, so there's no reason to treat a rookie like shit just because they're a first year member. But lordy, the things a rookie says and does at times… When I first started at bush, it was not as rookie friendly as it is now. I lived in fear of winding up on the horn bus and having to do rookie talent (seven years later, by the way, and I've yet to do a rookie talent). If you aren't patient with a person who is just learning how to do something, then you're basically a dick. However, you do reserve the right to hold your hand over your face as you quietly reflect on whatever dumb shit a member has just done. For example, rookies who come straight from high school marching band and are unaware that there are no band parents to take care of their equipment for them. If you want to play your drum tomorrow, you better get it on the truck tonight. These things bother you because the mistakes of others will affect you. All of this is fine as long as said rookie spends their first year learning. You won't learn anything if you don't make mistakes, but you won't ever stop making mistakes unless you apply what you learn.
"This is my last year" Guy. This person is someone who perhaps should have spent the summer watching the price is right from the sweet air conditioned comfort of their mother's couch. This is a person who made a hasty decision to return to drum corps after they'd planned to take a season off. Then once they're trapped in a commitment they shouldn't have made, they spend the whole season bitching about how this year will be their last, and they wish they could quit mid season. This one sucks because usually it's a person who you want to have back with the corps, but your level or irritation with them grows as their desire to be back dwindles. The lesson here? Don't push people too hard to return!
The Competitor. He/She is the one who can't get enough competition. Weekend shows against other corps are not enough for this one. The competitor is the one who can't accept that drum corps is hard for everyone. Regardless of their position in the corps, the competitor will always have the heaviest instrument, the hardest thing to learn, the most challenging thing to perform with, and undying admiration for him/herself for being able to execute their position so well. No one will ever have it as hard as the competitor.
Suntan Lotion. I hate suntan lotion. It makes all the dirt stick to me a lot faster and it makes my hands gross. Same with bug spray.
But fuck all that. I love drum corps. Even when I hate it.
You're not going to believe this shit...
I wasn't going to write about this, but when people start deleting you from their friend list on myspace, you know things are getting real. Seriously, guys.
Ok, so, I'm going to just stop with this "list of shit that keeps going wrong" and just accept that my life is going to suck for a while.
On top of all that other bullshit, I'm just going to put this whole thing out there since half of it already is anyway. Thanks to a few loser assholes who have nothing better to do than pose as friends and make up stories.
Here we go. There was a time when Rob was a close friend of mine, and a close friend of Jay's. I lost touch with him a while ago for reasons that aren't important, but he stayed, pretty much, Jay's best friend in PA. For the most part, the only friend he saw and talked to on a regular basis. They live together and both teach the drumline at township.
I find out Friday night from Sean that Nate is telling people stories about me and Jay. Parts of it were based on truth, but most of it was embellished. You can imagine why I was a little perplexed since neither me or Jay see Nate often enough to have a conversation with him, let alone are close enough to him to discuss personal issues. So where did this start?
Anyone else make the painfully obvious connection yet?
Rob is the only person in our group of friends who would know anything about me and jay's personal life together. That's not an exaggeration. Neither of us have ever talked about the things that are floating around in this rumor with anyone else in this group of friends. Let that sink in. NO ONE ELSE knew these things. Add in the fact that Rob has a thing for flirting with every girl any of his guy friends are dating, and there's the chain. Rob had to be the start of this because no one else knew enough about us to create a story and start this rumor. Rob has told me that he and Lucy talk online "all the time", so, the smart money says he told Lucy is that's how it got to Nate. The next most likely break down is that a parrot with a huge english library over heard me or Jay talking to Rob, then flew into Nate's house, screeched the story at him, then forced him to tell Dennis and Sean.
Yeah, I'm weeks from being 22 and this is the bullshit I still have to deal with from a group of people who, even if I wasn't close to them, I still considered them friends, and used to have some respect for them.
So Sunday night when I get home, I try to get a hold of Nate. Something Jay had been trying to do all weekend but Nate "thought it would be too awkward to talk to him" so he wouldn't answer. Sorry asshole but when you choose to play with fire, you run the risk of getting burned. A lame cliché, I'm aware, but apparently one that hadn't been thrown his way before. So I send him a myspace message, just basically saying "Hey, what the hell? Why would you say those things about us? Have some fucking respect."
After Jay and I kept calling him and he kept ignoring us, he hopped online. I freaked out a little more, and to his credit, he owned up to what he did and apologized. Couldn't completely redeem himself, though, because he openly told us that he knew how this bullshit started, but refused to tell us who and how. Hm. Because it came from your girlfriend? Maybe? He said he would "Try to get the people involved to come forward" but wouldn't rat them out. Fantastic.
So there's Nate stupidly protecting Rob and what does Rob do in return? He told us that the only explanation of this mess that he could figure was that Nate made the entire thing up as a way to make rob and lucy look bad because he's jealous of how close they are.
The only reason I didn't automatically accuse Rob is because I wanted to give him time to come forward on his own. What a GIANT fucking waste of my time. All I got was rob acting like an ass telling me that he "won't do anything to compromise his living and teaching situation" (OK asshole, how about now selling out your friend's confidence just so you can tell some girl a good story?). He offered to "take the blame so everyone could just be mad at him and get over it." Uh, no one does that unless they're too chicken shit to accept responsibility in full or just covering for someone else, dumb ass.
I feel the need to stop once again to acknowledge the age of everyone involved and the insanity of this situation. People are fucking tools.
Is that the end of this? NO. OF COURSE NOT. I get a pissy IM attack from Lucy telling me to stop harassing her boyfriend. What the fuck?! YOUR BOYFRIEND is only hearing from me because he decided to spread a rumor about me and my boyfriend! And this "harassment" consists of a myspace message saying "hey, why are you doing this to us?" and IM conversation saying "fuck you, asshole" and a second myspace message saying "Hey, sorry for losing my mind last night, but think about what this is like knowing one of your friends sold you out and no one will tell you who." FUCK! SHIT! God. Lord knows I'm the asshole in all this. By the way, since when is Nate incapable of talking to me himself?
So Lucy goes on to tell me not to point fingers or make "false accusations." I guess assuming that the one person who knew anything personal about me and Jay is the person who started these rumors is way out of line. God, fuck everyone. How dare she come to me telling me not to point fingers and falsely accuse when she knows AS WELL AS I DO that the story was concocted by Rob, passed on to her from him, then passed on to Nate from her. People are fucking stupid.
Dare I repeat I'm weeks from turning 22 and all parties involved are at least an entire year older than me? Grow the fuck up, everyone. If you get caught in a lie, own up to it. This whole thing might have some chance of going away if Rob could just come out and say "Look, I'm sorry, I fucked up. I shouldn't have told anyone anything that was told to me in confidence, I shouldn't have added my spin to it to make the story more interesting, I shouldn't have told Lucy, and I didn't know she would tell Nate, who would go on to tell Sean and Dennis." Just a fucking apology would be nice. But instead we get treated like drooling morons who can't put two and two together, and they turn it back on US for "accusing" them of things? HELLO, ASSHOLES, THERE IS NO OTHER WAY THIS BULLSHIT COULD HAVE STARTED. STOP. FUCKING. LYING. You got caught. GROW UP. Shit.
So here we are. I know I've completely lost respect for someone I used to have no problems with. And someone who used to be a close friend to Jay and I not only butchered parts of our personal lives to create a story to tell to one of our friends girlfriends, but is currently lying to our faces as if we couldn't possibly figure out the painfully obvious reality of this situation.
As angered and annoyed I am with the childishness of this whole thing, I know it's hitting Jay worse. He's a very private person, and I'm shocked he shared as much as he did with Rob. The only time he'll turn to a friend with information about his private life is when he's really going through a rough time. Rob took that opportunity to create stories in an attempt to make himself look cool (mission accomplished, shit bag). Lord knows he can't do it on his own with stories from his own life. So Jay lost his closest friend down here. Pretty much the only person in Pennsylvania, besides me, who he talks to on a regular basis. His room mate and the person he teaches with. So what's next? He's stuck in a lease living with two assholes who make his home life hell (he can't even use the kitchen without his shit getting consumed or destroyed). He's going to have to quit his teaching job because honestly, who could fucking look rob in the face after this shit? Grow some balls, asshole.
Oh wait, ok, sorry, here I'm being an asshole. Perhaps I should do what lucy suggested. Just let it go so Rob doesn't have to be inconvenienced. That's a great idea! Poor Rob, after all, he's really the victim in all of this. Not like he could have just KEPT HIS FUCKING MOUTH SHUT. Though Lucy suggests it's our fault for telling anyone, even a close friend, anything about our personal lives. Or, you know, maybe Jay is just lying to me about who he's talked to. She tells me "I'm a girl, I know that guys lie." No shit, kind of like how Rob is lying to us right now? Is that how guys lie?
Man, do you believe this shit? These people are adults! I haven't been in a situation even close to this bad since I was in 11th grade. And this is way worse than what that was!
You know what the worst part is? I hate this shit, obviously. But what's worse is that I just don't want to have people I don't like in my life. So I stay as chill as I can and keep to myself and a few close friends, for the most part. It's a pain in the ass having someone you don't like, so I try to maintain friendships. Now I have to add people to that shit list. Can't I just fucking be? No drama? Please? Can you guys save this shit for other people?
Please, tell me I didn't waste my time writing this whole thing out. Please, god, someone comment with some love. I need to hear from people who are complete lunatics.
I wasn't going to write about this, but when people start deleting you from their friend list on myspace, you know things are getting real. Seriously, guys.
Ok, so, I'm going to just stop with this "list of shit that keeps going wrong" and just accept that my life is going to suck for a while.
On top of all that other bullshit, I'm just going to put this whole thing out there since half of it already is anyway. Thanks to a few loser assholes who have nothing better to do than pose as friends and make up stories.
Here we go. There was a time when Rob was a close friend of mine, and a close friend of Jay's. I lost touch with him a while ago for reasons that aren't important, but he stayed, pretty much, Jay's best friend in PA. For the most part, the only friend he saw and talked to on a regular basis. They live together and both teach the drumline at township.
I find out Friday night from Sean that Nate is telling people stories about me and Jay. Parts of it were based on truth, but most of it was embellished. You can imagine why I was a little perplexed since neither me or Jay see Nate often enough to have a conversation with him, let alone are close enough to him to discuss personal issues. So where did this start?
Anyone else make the painfully obvious connection yet?
Rob is the only person in our group of friends who would know anything about me and jay's personal life together. That's not an exaggeration. Neither of us have ever talked about the things that are floating around in this rumor with anyone else in this group of friends. Let that sink in. NO ONE ELSE knew these things. Add in the fact that Rob has a thing for flirting with every girl any of his guy friends are dating, and there's the chain. Rob had to be the start of this because no one else knew enough about us to create a story and start this rumor. Rob has told me that he and Lucy talk online "all the time", so, the smart money says he told Lucy is that's how it got to Nate. The next most likely break down is that a parrot with a huge english library over heard me or Jay talking to Rob, then flew into Nate's house, screeched the story at him, then forced him to tell Dennis and Sean.
Yeah, I'm weeks from being 22 and this is the bullshit I still have to deal with from a group of people who, even if I wasn't close to them, I still considered them friends, and used to have some respect for them.
So Sunday night when I get home, I try to get a hold of Nate. Something Jay had been trying to do all weekend but Nate "thought it would be too awkward to talk to him" so he wouldn't answer. Sorry asshole but when you choose to play with fire, you run the risk of getting burned. A lame cliché, I'm aware, but apparently one that hadn't been thrown his way before. So I send him a myspace message, just basically saying "Hey, what the hell? Why would you say those things about us? Have some fucking respect."
After Jay and I kept calling him and he kept ignoring us, he hopped online. I freaked out a little more, and to his credit, he owned up to what he did and apologized. Couldn't completely redeem himself, though, because he openly told us that he knew how this bullshit started, but refused to tell us who and how. Hm. Because it came from your girlfriend? Maybe? He said he would "Try to get the people involved to come forward" but wouldn't rat them out. Fantastic.
So there's Nate stupidly protecting Rob and what does Rob do in return? He told us that the only explanation of this mess that he could figure was that Nate made the entire thing up as a way to make rob and lucy look bad because he's jealous of how close they are.
The only reason I didn't automatically accuse Rob is because I wanted to give him time to come forward on his own. What a GIANT fucking waste of my time. All I got was rob acting like an ass telling me that he "won't do anything to compromise his living and teaching situation" (OK asshole, how about now selling out your friend's confidence just so you can tell some girl a good story?). He offered to "take the blame so everyone could just be mad at him and get over it." Uh, no one does that unless they're too chicken shit to accept responsibility in full or just covering for someone else, dumb ass.
I feel the need to stop once again to acknowledge the age of everyone involved and the insanity of this situation. People are fucking tools.
Is that the end of this? NO. OF COURSE NOT. I get a pissy IM attack from Lucy telling me to stop harassing her boyfriend. What the fuck?! YOUR BOYFRIEND is only hearing from me because he decided to spread a rumor about me and my boyfriend! And this "harassment" consists of a myspace message saying "hey, why are you doing this to us?" and IM conversation saying "fuck you, asshole" and a second myspace message saying "Hey, sorry for losing my mind last night, but think about what this is like knowing one of your friends sold you out and no one will tell you who." FUCK! SHIT! God. Lord knows I'm the asshole in all this. By the way, since when is Nate incapable of talking to me himself?
So Lucy goes on to tell me not to point fingers or make "false accusations." I guess assuming that the one person who knew anything personal about me and Jay is the person who started these rumors is way out of line. God, fuck everyone. How dare she come to me telling me not to point fingers and falsely accuse when she knows AS WELL AS I DO that the story was concocted by Rob, passed on to her from him, then passed on to Nate from her. People are fucking stupid.
Dare I repeat I'm weeks from turning 22 and all parties involved are at least an entire year older than me? Grow the fuck up, everyone. If you get caught in a lie, own up to it. This whole thing might have some chance of going away if Rob could just come out and say "Look, I'm sorry, I fucked up. I shouldn't have told anyone anything that was told to me in confidence, I shouldn't have added my spin to it to make the story more interesting, I shouldn't have told Lucy, and I didn't know she would tell Nate, who would go on to tell Sean and Dennis." Just a fucking apology would be nice. But instead we get treated like drooling morons who can't put two and two together, and they turn it back on US for "accusing" them of things? HELLO, ASSHOLES, THERE IS NO OTHER WAY THIS BULLSHIT COULD HAVE STARTED. STOP. FUCKING. LYING. You got caught. GROW UP. Shit.
So here we are. I know I've completely lost respect for someone I used to have no problems with. And someone who used to be a close friend to Jay and I not only butchered parts of our personal lives to create a story to tell to one of our friends girlfriends, but is currently lying to our faces as if we couldn't possibly figure out the painfully obvious reality of this situation.
As angered and annoyed I am with the childishness of this whole thing, I know it's hitting Jay worse. He's a very private person, and I'm shocked he shared as much as he did with Rob. The only time he'll turn to a friend with information about his private life is when he's really going through a rough time. Rob took that opportunity to create stories in an attempt to make himself look cool (mission accomplished, shit bag). Lord knows he can't do it on his own with stories from his own life. So Jay lost his closest friend down here. Pretty much the only person in Pennsylvania, besides me, who he talks to on a regular basis. His room mate and the person he teaches with. So what's next? He's stuck in a lease living with two assholes who make his home life hell (he can't even use the kitchen without his shit getting consumed or destroyed). He's going to have to quit his teaching job because honestly, who could fucking look rob in the face after this shit? Grow some balls, asshole.
Oh wait, ok, sorry, here I'm being an asshole. Perhaps I should do what lucy suggested. Just let it go so Rob doesn't have to be inconvenienced. That's a great idea! Poor Rob, after all, he's really the victim in all of this. Not like he could have just KEPT HIS FUCKING MOUTH SHUT. Though Lucy suggests it's our fault for telling anyone, even a close friend, anything about our personal lives. Or, you know, maybe Jay is just lying to me about who he's talked to. She tells me "I'm a girl, I know that guys lie." No shit, kind of like how Rob is lying to us right now? Is that how guys lie?
Man, do you believe this shit? These people are adults! I haven't been in a situation even close to this bad since I was in 11th grade. And this is way worse than what that was!
You know what the worst part is? I hate this shit, obviously. But what's worse is that I just don't want to have people I don't like in my life. So I stay as chill as I can and keep to myself and a few close friends, for the most part. It's a pain in the ass having someone you don't like, so I try to maintain friendships. Now I have to add people to that shit list. Can't I just fucking be? No drama? Please? Can you guys save this shit for other people?
Please, tell me I didn't waste my time writing this whole thing out. Please, god, someone comment with some love. I need to hear from people who are complete lunatics.
from last year
Posted on 2006.02.14 at 07:27Current Mood:
chipper
Current Music: "I'm gonna keep on hoping" - Raul Midon/Jason Mraz
Originally written by jennsonfire in unsentletters...
Dear everyone,
Stop bitching about Valentine's day, it's just a day on a calendar and the only difference is that couples who hate each other pretend to like each other, and couples who like each other get teddy bears.
Love LOVE love LOVE LOVE EVERYWHERE are you crying yet,
Jenn
Hey ya'll
I'm taking some people off my friends list. It's the people that either aren't active on here anymore or the people that I don't really talk to. If you get taken off and want to stay, leave a comment and I'll bring you back.
I'm taking some people off my friends list. It's the people that either aren't active on here anymore or the people that I don't really talk to. If you get taken off and want to stay, leave a comment and I'll bring you back.
