Recap of graduation weekend (Warning: Long story coming):
I graduated last Saturday with a BA in English and Theatre, summa cum laude and with honors...there was a lot of symbology happening next to my name on grad day. Anywho, so the night before that, we had Bacchalaureate, which sounds like it would be a lot of fun--it sounds kind of like Bacchanalia, and thus I assumed that we were getting together as a class one last time to have a rocking good time and drink. But sadly, this didn't happen. Which is why I'm glad I took a book. Somehow, it ended up with all of us sitting in the gym listening to some guy give a sermon. His sermon lasted exactly the same length of time that it took me to re-read The House of Yes. I picked the perfect book for this occasion.
Post-Bacchalaureate, the senior theatre class went to Los Portales...there ended up being about twenty of us in the party. However, Nick, William, Trey, and I were the first four to arrive. Big mistake to come to this restaurant. I knew that there was a reason that I always stayed at my beloved Los Palmas. This place was a hate crime waiting to happen. We walked in the front door and everyone stopped and started staring at us. The people who were being cashed out at the register started talking amongst themselves, saying they could take us if it came to it. Finally, we were seated...in the middle of the restaurant. So, now we're four queens feeling threatened, and we're getting eyes from all over the place.
You know, I really forget that homophobia exists until I'm confronted with it. Most people are so cool and understanding...wait, no, that's just the world around myself that I've created, but whatever.
So, I hung around this place for about an hour and a half (even their chips and dip were gross), and then I went out and grabbed wings with Catie, Krystin, Paul, and Chris. Ate a ton of wings. Went home. Packed. Watched the Dollhouse finale. Slept.
Graduation. Yes, I'm sitting on the front row between a girl I went to high school with and Amy Goggins. The speaker offended me by preaching prosperity gospel and by saying that we as a class should go out and "sell ourselves." I got my diploma (just one, despite the two degrees...their both BAs, so the degrees would have look the exact same. I get it...I just don't agree). As my mother tells it:
"I was about to start clapping for you when they said 'John McGowan Freeman, summa cum laude,' but before I could, I pulled my hands apart and the room burst into cheers and applause. You have a lot of fans."I spent my time wisely and I'm well-liked (though how the hell that happened, I have no idea). Anywho, at the end of the ceremony, it was raining so they couldn't let us proceed out into the weather. Instead, they circled us around a back way and ended up holding us behind the stage of graduation. To the left of me (seeing as I was like sixth in line) were a line of fire doors that were propped open. I grabbed my regalia to my chest and turned to my friends, "You coming?" and I stormed out the door to look for my family. What were they going to do to me for not following their rules? Not let me graduate? Already done. Take my diploma back? From my cold, dead, rotting fingers. Anywho, I walk up the hill to go find my family...I am literally the only graduate who made it up there for about ten minutes. So, I see all my profs and whatnot.
On her way to get to me, my mother falls down a ravine. I can't say anything to her except, "Did you fall, Dot?" Two black guys help her up. They all go to Gondoliers and I tell them that I'll be there as soon as the theatre grad photo is over. I'm thinking twenty minutes tops.
In the fifty minutes that I was at the Theatre photo, here's what happened:
-I almost lose my hat and robe.
-Stephanie gets a note in a sealed envelope from Audrey. Audrey says read this when you have time. While waiting on people to make it to the green room to get the picture made, Stephanie opens the note, which expresses the general theme that although she has denied it for a while, Audrey does have feelings for Michael (Stephanie's ex-bf from about a year ago). Someone said the word "cheated" and the room lost its shit. I'm not going to weigh in my opinion here (I'm too much of a lady to use that kind of language), but the timing was shit-tastic. Of course one more crisis is how 2009 STD would end its time.
-Got grad gifts from Mr. B and Georgie. Georgie gave me a novel planner...which I'm about to start using. Mr. B gave all the seniors a book about dreams...and he said, as I was hugging him, that he gave me two books. I didn't get two books and I glanced around and saw that Grant had two...no big. I didn't even mention it because I figure that the universe said he needed it more.
-Was an hour late to lunch. My grandmother and Lani were being stoic. They left about ten minutes after I got there because Lani had to be back. My G'ma Dot couldn't stay after the ceremony because her feet were hurting too badly. Extended family was a little low on the gushing pride...which is kind of what I expected and I'm a little whatever about it all. They didn't come to my Capstone show for one reason or another. Which is totally fine...if you didn't want to come, I didn't want you there. But to not understand that that was the night that I graduated and that walking around in the robe was just some pomp and pageantry...you don't get me or what I do at all. So, lunch was okay...I ate a salad and two bites of pasta.
Outside the restaurant, I stopped my family and told them that Trey's family might be at the apartment when we got back. I told them that Trey's family didn't know that Trey was gay. They immediately began laughing. My mother said, "They have to know. Have they met him?" She thought about it for another second and asked, "Where are they from? The moon?" That made my day and has that racheted to the number one spot on quotes from my mother.
We moved me out and I said goodbye to Shorter. Btw, the SM keys got found. Apparently, I gave them to Chris. I must have been drunk or a zombie when this happened, because I have no recollection of this. I mean, they went missing in the middle of my show...if I would have just kept them, I wouldn't have had to take the lid off of the weapons closet to get the gun.
I spent the night with Krystin in the torrential downpour. And that ends this story, because I fear that I'm starting to ramble.
Tomorrow, I promise an honest-to-God reflection on something...today, all I had in me was plot.
Oh, and theatre folken, you might want to take a gander at indiemonos.blogspot.com. I promised you, didn't I?
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