March 1993--School Scandal; the Power Goes Out
Crystal Pepsi came out around this time, and I tried it. I believe it was much like Pepsi--but I didn't like Pepsi. I drank it just to find out if it truly tasted the same, despite being clear. It soon disappeared.
During one of my counseling sessions, I said Shawn always tried to change me, but I wouldn't change unless I felt it was necessary. The counselor called that a healthy attitude.
I now read Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, which I found in the Campus Shop. This book was a great help. I read it late at night, while Alternative Nation was on, the room was darkened, and my roommate slept without her hearing aid. Sometimes, the window was open. This late-night setting and the book itself took me to a place where boy trouble and other problems didn't matter. One character, Goldmund, made observations about life that I'd made myself, or agreed with. I kept seeing myself in Goldmund, a budding artist looking for himself. He wandered the German landscape, a metaphor for restlessness and wandering the landscape of life and self. The book was set around the year of the Black Death, so Sting's new video, "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You," was timely. (This video was set in medieval times.)
Goldmund's passion sounded like mine: He loved to draw things, such as people's heads, and make up animals, just as I liked to draw heads and make up alien languages. Like me, he thought love was more important than anything else. The swarming fish on page 186, poking their heads up to eat a piece of bread, reminded me of the fish at Indiana Beach. (Those fish would eat anything you tossed at them--even spit.) On page 195, his tendency to forget everything about the world while engrossed by his drawing and endless walking, reminded me of myself when I was deep into reading, writing, or thinking.
After one of these late-night readings, I wrote this poem:
The music of the night
drifts through my window,
The gentle wind and soft, earthy smells,
the warmth and the insomniac birds' songs.
Each note carries a hint of oneness
with everything.
The song of the ages,
the melting together of all experience,
The one song all romantics hear.
We often found chalk drawings and messages on the sidewalks, advertising campus events or put there as pledge pranks. Once, the Zetas made chalk outlines showing some pretty horrific things: heads removed, limbs removed, hands or feet removed. They were also pretty comical, since it was obviously a joke. One of these chalk drawings was of Paul and Maizie.
The college now had a young social sciences teacher named Craig. One day, we found chalk protests written all over the sidewalks: "Save Craig!" The college had decided not to allow him back the next year. I didn't know Craig or the reasons for his dismissal, so I didn't get involved. I heard rumors, but they weren't confirmed for me until 2006. Rachel knew a senior who got involved with Craig. He was single, she was about to graduate, and he was fresh out of graduate school (therefore, they were close in age), but the college refused to relent.
Darryl decided to leave the Zetas over problems he had with them. I don't remember now what all they were, but he was upset that minors at parties would be given alcohol. It was a big surprise, and even my sorority friends were glad.
Spring Break was Saturday, March 20 through Sunday, March 28. I had a lot of homework over the break, including a paper for my Space presentation. But I also had time to start reading First Love by Turgenev and The Italian by Ann Radcliffe, the same woman who had written Mysteries of Udolpho. I drew pictures of the characters. I based Vivaldi on pictures I found in an encyclopedia article on Italy, and I based Ellena's nose on a picture of a Grecian nose. (This matched her description.) A friend saw the picture of Ellena and said she looked just like Eleni Andros Cooper, a beautiful, Greek character on the soap opera Guiding Light. I had never seen this woman before. (Cooper, by the way, became the main character on Providence.)
I didn't want to go back to school. I didn't know why. Maybe I was just tired, and one week was not enough rest. I was sick of my problems. I wanted a guy, but at the same time I didn't. I wanted James, but at the same time I wanted to wait for things with Shawn to work themselves out. Since Peter and I could now say "hi" to each other again, that wasn't the spirit-zapper. The culprit was probably the whole Shawn-situation, from start to present. Part of the problem was his judgmental attitude about me, which disgusted my friends as well as me. The other part was the way he'd ask me over, talk for a while, start kissing me, act like he wanted me, then stop, say he didn't want me, and blame me for starting things. I finally got furious, and cried out to God for help and comfort.
I didn't want to do much of anything, except escape to the world of books. Except for music, videos and probably writing, no other worlds appealed to me now. I wished I could put studying and working on hold for a while.
But back to school I had to go.
It was time to apply for a work-study job for junior year. To apply, you checked off the jobs you wanted out of a list on a form. I did not check off Food Service. I preferred the library, but had to apply for two other things as well. I interviewed for all three. The two clerical jobs didn't interest me as much after the interviews. I interviewed for the library job on April 27. I was one of the first people to interview, if not the first. The head librarian said she usually gave the job to the first six people who showed up. So I was in, and of course, I took it. It was just what I wanted: a job with my beloved books, where I could do homework when nothing was going on. When I did have something to do, it usually involved books, magazines or newspapers. And I could wear whatever I wanted to, even shorts.
One night in late March or early April, there was an ice storm. At about 9:30 and right in the middle of the latest episode of Star Trek, most of the power went out, leaving on only our two desk lights. Then even they went out. Soon after that, the water went out because it was somehow hooked up to the electric. The rooms grew cold.
We all gathered into the suite lounge. I brought my afghan and can of pop, put away the bag of M&M's I was eating, and sat on the couch with my rechargeable flashlight ready for use. Our suitemates put on coats and snuggled into blankets.
Daphne, the RA, got freaked out all alone in her suite, and came over to ours. My suitemates lit candles, contraband but useful. A couple of guys dropped by and kept going in and out of the suite. Some guy we didn't know looked in the window and said something. Daphne told Clarissa to shine her flashlight in his face and ask what he wanted. Clarissa did; he said something else and left. It was funny.
I've mentioned before that Georgina, a sweet and beautiful girl with a gorgeous soprano, was unfortunately still hung up on her ex-boyfriend, the brother of my pledge sister Jennifer. He called and told her about a tornado warning, so we searched for information on the radio. We found none, so we assumed there wasn't one.
This was Hell Week; the fraternity and sorority pledges kept shouting their little chants and making noise. Somebody probably yelled at them to shut up, a common thing.
The ice storm had trampled down a wire, and a transformer blew up. Only the emergency lights in a few buildings were on. We were told the transformer probably wouldn't be fixed until three or four the next afternoon! We prepared for a night and morning of no electricity or water. At least Clarissa had two milk jugs of spring water, so we could wash our hands after using the toilets. The toilets started filling up and getting really nasty.
We played a game called Outburst, then went to bed, Daphne staying over. I went to bed a little after 12, and had been asleep for about half an hour or more when light woke me up. Was it morning already? I looked at my watch--it was only 12:56! The power had come back on, after all. I went and flushed one of the toilets, Clarissa and I plugged a few things in, and we went back to bed.
We expected our classes to be cancelled, the same as for the local public schools, but they weren't.
MTV came out with a new cartoon, Beavis and Butthead. Ren and Stimpy became more of a kids' show, and was soon supplanted. At first, I didn't like Beavis and Butthead, especially after they executed a grasshopper with a chainsaw and sliced up Beavis' hand. I saw the infamous "fire" episode, which supposedly inspired some kid to set fire to his house, and was never aired again. It was funny to hear the fire-obsessed Beavis say, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" In a later episode, he watched a video of a fire-engulfed guy running down a street. He could only sit there in convulsions and say, "We're not supposed to say that word."
The show drew lots of criticism, even though it wasn't meant for kids.
One day, in an 80s flashback show, MTV showed the Police video "Don't Stand so Close to Me." Now I was old enough to understand it, and even knew that "the famous book by Nabokov" was Lolita. The VJ said that when the song came out, there had been a big controversy about whether or not students should date teachers. The final decision was that it's okay if the teacher doesn't have that student in a class.
This was only one warning sign against pursuing Wesley. Along with what happened to Craig, there was another: An episode or two of Class of ‘96 showed the slutty character sleeping with her teacher and getting in trouble for it. I don’t know when my friend dated Wesley–it could have been fall semester–but it’s funny to think I had so many warning signs, while she just went ahead and dated him.
On Friday, February 12, I wrote in my Media journal about a new video Clarissa and I had just seen: "Funky Ceili" by Black 47. VJ's said the song was popular with young people, though I only heard it on MTV and Chicago's Q101. Clarissa and I loved it because Black 47 was an Irish band. Here we'd just been learning about Irish culture, and this video comes on using words like "da," "porter," "stout," and "jigs and reels." The music mixed traditional Celtic folk instruments with modern rock stylings. And the song was funny. Clarissa and I got to watch the video quite a bit over the next few months. The song was about the lead singer's ex-girlfriend. He lost his job, found out she was pregnant, and had to tell her "da." The da gave him two choices: stay in Ireland and get castrated, or go to New York. (What about a third option: marrying Bridie?) The singer lamented over losing Bridie and wanted her to come to New York. I thought it was sweet; I hoped the video would get them back together; I wondered if Bridie was the girl in the video. Years later, though, I picked up another CD by Black 47, and read in the lyrics that "Bridie" got the singer into deep trouble with Bridie and her family.