orange jubilee pt 2

about two people in the world already know what this entry is going to be about... and they're 2 of the 5 people who read my blog.

let's take a trip back to 1993. or was it 92. i don't remember. the point is, it was a long time ago when i was a little kid..... i went to my friend's birthday party at some giant field in the country. we played capture the flag, which was the greatest game ever, and threw water balloons around and generally had an amazing time.

it was mid afternoon when we got our party favors and began to head out to our parents' cars to go home. but a few of us wanted to keep the good times rollin. luckily for us, the yearly orange jubilee festival was kicking off that night, and that was a guaranteed good time. the orange jubilee was like the state fair - complete with rides, rigged games, elephant ears and weird carneys - except in our high school parking lot. during the day, they had live bands play (aside: my debut band in high school, every girl's dream, played at the orange jubilee) and "pie the teacher" charity events. at night, everyone packed into the football stadium for a brilliant fireworks display, followed by the inevitable precipitation of ashy, post-firework carcinogens.

i'm kind of beating around the bush cuz i'm leading up to an embarrassing moment. so as we were leaving the birthday party, i suggested to a few of my "friends" that we should meet up at the orange jubilee later that night. they agreed to meet me by the entrance at 6pm. when i got home, i nonchalantly told my family my plans, cuz hey, i'm a hip 10 year old with places to be. yes, i can eat 5 hot dogs, cook em up. anyway, i told my mom to drop me off at the high school at 6, and that i'd call her to get picked up.

another aside... i don't remember saying i'd call her to pick me up, and back then we didn't have cell phones. i have no idea how we coordinated things like that... yea.

so i got to the entrance, but it's a pretty big entrance... and actually there were several entrances to the jubilee, so that was pretty dumb of me to say i'd meet my friends there.... i mean, how was i gonna find them? i walked by the elephant ears stand, over to the parking lot entrance. nope, no one there. i meandered past the spider ride, trying to look like i knew what i was doing, but i probably looked like a lost little boy that had no friends... because that's kind of what i was.

by the time i got back to the high school entrance, the truth set in and i realized that my friends weren't showing up. my mom had just left 15 minutes earlier so i didn't want to call her just yet to come get me. but at the same time, what kind of loser hands out at the orange jubilee by himself? i ended up running into a few people i knew. "oh yeah, i'm on my way to meet seth," i think i said. i should have just swallowed my pride and hung out with them, but for those of u too old to remember, your rep meant a lot back then. welllll ok maybe not so much in 3rd grade, but it just wasn't cool to hang out by yourself. not to mention, i just got totally ditched. let's not forget that part of the story. [edit: i left like 10 minutes later. no fireworks for me.]

so fast forward 14 years to this moment. replace "birthday party" with a really long meeting with my major professor and a few hours in the computer lab getting nowhere with my data. change out "orange jubilee" with an already postponed but promising outing with a new friend. and replace "running into a few people i knew" to chatting with people online and updating my once-defunct blog.

hm. the parallels don't stop:

fireworks and then cancer --> getting trashed with a pretty girl and then getting banned from her bf's cool bar
meandering through the jubilee trying to look cool --> pretending to do work but watching ESPN gamecast in the ag econ computer lab
"i'm on my way to meet seth" --> "well i am pretty tired... i held four office hours today"
i just got ditched --> i just got ditched

but the thing about the orange jubilee story that also falls in line with today's incident is that back then, i kinda shrugged it off. maybe i am just the master of rationalizing things, but in the end i didn't care. i mean i didn't want to explain the situation to the people i ran into and force an awkward convo, but as for the guys that ditched me, whatevz.

and as for tonite, i realize my pathetic night makes for great blog fodder, but in the end i don't really care. the details of my orange jubilee day were far more memorable than the moment i got ditched. and today, tomorrow and the next day are so full to the brim that anything potentially good can only add to it.

i'll stop myself here before i turn into milan kundera.. or dmitri.