4/15/01 - 2:18 PM
What A Night.
Last night was strike for the last NMU Theater Mainstage production of this school year. I showed up and worked to make up the missing hours in my lab card. It wasn't nearly as long as I would have liked, so I'll still have to go into extra lab sessions this week on Tuesday and Thursday to make up, too. *blah*
Last night was also the cast party. The last cast party I went to was for Assassins. It was loud, crowded, hot, smoky (even when the smokers were in the basement) and generally something I wasn't comfortable with. Needless to say, I wasn't planning on showing up at this on. But I caved when Evelyn said to me on MSN "Come to the cast party with me so I won't be lonely." Okay, okay, I'll go.
But I didn't go. After strike, I returned to my room, changed out of my work clothes and into some nicer things, put make up on and walked back across campus to meet her at her room. We putzed around, then went downstairs and ended up saying hi to Matt (of course) who was working on filming something for a class. After talking and he'd asked how we were getting there and we said walking, he offered to drive us and, after much puttering and attempts to say "No, we'll be fine," we gave in and let him drive us.
In the time it took to find the party, I had ridden in the back seat of his car for probably 10 minutes with cassette tapes jammed into my spine. And my brain was engaged, never a good thing but it happens too often to be avoided. I didn't want to go to this party. I knew that. And by the time we found the party, I was even more sure of the fact. I didn't want to go. I wanted to hang around West with Matt and watch him film. I didn't want to go back to my room. So I told them this, apologized for dumping Evelyn, then Matt and I returned to the dorms.
The way things had been originally planned was that he and a bunch of friends were going to be doing some kind of tournament either before or after he finished filming. That didn't happen because the tournament had been cancelled so he snagged a pot and two packages of Ramen that he'd been planning on making and headed to the laundry room, which had stoves. I came with him (in my leopard-print shirt and make-up) and sat on one of the washers while he fixed the Ramen. We talked about Stephen King's "It", which I'm reading and he is trying to work out a way to write it as a through-composed musical. Anyway, we finished making the Ramen, then went down to the TV room and ate it. It was somewhat mooshy and slimy, but I didn't even really think about it until Matt was finished and watching me eating mine. "You don't have to eat all that slimy-ass Ramen if you don't want to," he told me. "You won't hurt my feelings." I just told him I didn't think it was that bad and finished it. I didn't think it was bad, either. *shrug*
So we sat around and talked for a while until Joe, Dan and the other Joe showed up to help him with his film. We relocated to the study room and I holed up with a borrowed notebook and a pen, trying to work out a short story within the "Angel Tripper" world but it was impossible not to watch what was going on. Joe is tall, blond and somewhat outrageous when it comes to conversation and he was singing various oldies at odd pitches until I threatened to stuff the paper toweling they were using for bandage down his throat. The Other Joe was quiet, a nice guy in a wheelchair that I've met a few other times but never really talked to. Dan was the guy who gets to kill Matt in the film and they used a great deal of fake blood to simulate this. Once filming was over, Evelyn had been back for a little while, not even tipsy but feeling better than she had when she'd left. Dan and The Other Joe packed up their things and left while Matt and Joe and Ev and I started talking.
That was probably around 2 AM. It's when things really started to get interesting. It started when Ev and I cornered Joe in the TV room and tried to explain what otherkin means to him. Apparently Matt has done a film involving a dead cat that was roadkill and he didn't want me to know he'd done it. But like a fool, he said to me, "Remind you never to show you -title-." Which only peaked my curiousity. After Joe slipped during filming and asked, "What, you haven't shown her the cat?" and Matt blew a cork, yelling for him to shut the fuck up, Joe asked why and Matt cried, "She's got a CAT fetish, for Chrissake!" I was laughing too hard to really bother correcting him. But that was earlier. When Ev and I were talking to Joe, I did explain the difference between a cat fetish and being otherkin, which managed to confuse the shit out of the poor boy at first until we moved back into the study room and took a good half hour to explain to him.
After that, Matt joined us and we had what was probably a classic college conversation. It rambled from sex (in surprisingly explicit terms from all involved) to spirituality to feminism, women's rights, homosexuality...then back to sex, which seemed to be on of the funnier topics we talked about. I don't know why, but we all seemed to be in a snap-funny mood (except for Matt, who's sense of humor runs a little slower, I think...either that or he censors himself around me, which could be) and more than a few times, Evelyn and I ended up curled in fetal positions, laughing until we were red in the face and hiccuping. Joe's hysterical and some of Matt's reactions were even funnier.
As conversations continued, I took to mocking irritation and walking out, mostly because I'd been sitting in one place for too long and wanted to get up and move around. The first time, I walked out of the room, then turned around and came back, only to have Matt tell me that he was worried I was upset. Mostly, I was trying to pop Joe's ego but I had to calm Matt down and tell him I wasn't mad and that it takes a very great deal to get me mad. The second time I got up, I walked the other direction, outside where it was cooler. Matt, again, sort of freaked and made sure I remembered that I wouldn't be able to get back in that way if I just let the door close. I knew that and told him so, but he got up and followed me anyway. Which prompted "Awwww, ain'they cuuuuuute," comments from both Evelyn (who knows my thoughts and feelings about Matt) and Joe (who could probably see it in both of us).
Anyway, Matt and I walked around the parking lot for a while, then went back in via the TV room, since the study room door doesn't open with West Hall room keys. We ended up sitting together in the TV room, just talking about whatever came to mind, mostly about resturants that had gone under in our home towns and how frustrated we were by it. When Matt started quietly griping about chain resturants like Red Lobster, he sort of trailed off, looking over my shoulder with a puzzled expression on his face. Then, he almost shouted, "What are you guys up to??" I looked and saw Ev and Joe running around outside with gleeful expressions on their faces. Ev did the "awwwww" thing again and I know my face turned bright red. Joe breathed on the cold window and drew a heart before vanishing and Ev continued to dink around outside the window. I turned back in time to see Joe sneaking into the TV room to hide behind the pool table.
So I chased him with one of my black clogs. I was mildly annoyed about this because a) I was embarrassed that they were rubbing this relationship in our faces and b) I was really enjoying just talking with Matt. Talking with just him was different than talking in the group and I don't feel like I get to just TALK with him candidly enough. But I chased Joe with one of my shoes, which he promptly stole and hid. Then, Evelyn came in and it deteriorated into ticklings, mostly of Matt until I hissed at Joe (full-out hissed) and he shrieked over-dramatically and hid behind Evelyn. Evelyn knows me better and knows my hiss is worse than my bite and she just sniggered at me but dammit, I guarded Matt until they turned on me and tried to tickle me. Once we'd all settled down some, I looked at Joe and asked, "Can I have my shoe back?" and he grinned, "No, it's in a safe place."
And I watched Matt take my other shoe as collateral and vanished into the study room to search for the missing clog. Joe said a few times to me, "C'mere and watch this...you're watching a pathetic man, a desperate man." Once he'd found the shoe (which was in his camera bag), they locked him in the study room and it became a race for him to find a way inside. Joe locked him out of the TV room once he was outside. Evelyn locked him out of the regular doors. I just curled up in a little ball on one of the sofas and laughed in embarrassment. Finally, he stalked off with my shoes to find a different door. Joe scrambled to try to stop him, leaving me and Evelyn in the lobby to talk.
And I told her how embarrassed I was. She calmed down enough to apologize a little and said, "If you weren't so enamored, you'd be enjoying this more." She's right, I know that, but it still doesn't change that I was really embarrassed by the whole thing. And that I still didn't know what to do with myself. She told me a few times how obvious it was that Matt liked me, was 'into' me, etc and so forth but it's odd how much my brain refused to comprehend that idea. I'm so used to the idea that I'm going to die alone, an old maid. So I grappled with this idea and was just going to try to explain to her when Matt and Joe came back. Matt returned my shoes and we ended up sitting in the lobby and talking again.
That conversation ended with Joe locked in the women's bathroom with a condom and a tampon while Evelyn and I held the door shut and Matt paced, trying to think of a way to talk us into letting him out. It was about 6 AM then, so none of us were thinking properly, drunk on lack of sleep, adrenaline and fun. Finally, we let Joe out. He had the condom blown up like a balloon and the tampon tied by it's strings to his top shirt button.
Evelyn stole Matt's car, mostly because he offered to drive me back to my dorm but was so tired he could barely walk a straight line. I felt the same, so I wasn't going to argue about getting a ride. We helped him carry his stuff back up to his room, then Ev drove me home and I staggered up to bed. The time when I fell to sleep was probably 7 AM.
It was a DAMN good night. And I'm glad I didn't go to the cast party.
