magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

i'm writing the next morning (the 29th), but i'll try to recall last night's events as best i can.

there was a party at dunnel. this is where jen lives, as well as a few other friends. i got there about 1045, the same time as chris and the barstow girls (aoi, et al). said hello to jen, but she running around being fairly social. talked with molly, dave, yuka, and chris for a while. dave left pretty early with some people i didn't know. yuka was there with some boy, but it wasn't until they were also leaving that i realized she was with this boy. (the rumor is kris was on a date as well.)

talked some more with chris about conceptual artwork, and something else that i've forgotten entirely. played cards for a while with amie and a girl who's name i really should know but don't. and at one point everyone started leaving to check out this other party up the street. and i resisted the trend, until eventually even molly and amie were leaving, and i grabbed my jacket, but didn't even make it to the stairs before people were coming back because it was too crowded and dark, and may have been broken up by the cops.

at this point, amie's room, which had been pretty mellow, became 80s dance party two (that's what they were doing on the third floor as well). luke started playing japanese rap, which i found of more interest than the overabundance of madonna (the same song was playing on the second and third floors at one point), but it seemed to have limited appeal.

and after a fairly short while people started leaving for yet another party, a brown frat party this time. i milled around the halls for a while, and then when amie's room had cleared out, i ended up talking for quite a while with this girl randi who occasionally comes to mixed media meetings.

jen was basically passed out on amie's bed during this, but awake enough to be making music demands. she eventually got up, said something like "don't worry, i'll be right back." as if she had been part of the conversation, but didn't come back.

at about three some of the last hold-outs were heading out to this frat party. randi left to go to bed. and i took to milling around the halls again for a while. i thought i heard jen's voice coming from upstairs, and sure enough she had rejoined the party, and was pretty physically flirting with ryan, the obnoxious boy.

i came back down, molly had put the matrix on (which she watches way too often). i sat and watched that for a while. then felt like i should be writing. and moved out to the stairwell. i was starting to get a headache.

matthew had come back looking to talk to jen. i didn't tell him that i had seen her upstairs. he couldn't find her, and eventually came and sat on the stairs and said he wanted to talk to me. we talked about his first impression of me, that i hated him or something, i said no, it's just that i'm quiet and sometimes people misread that. he also said that he liked jen, which he figured was pretty obvious, and asked my opinion of how he should act.

i said that basically, i had no idea, i have the same sort of problems. part of me wanted to say that i have exactly the same problem. part of me just wanted to laugh at the ironies of the whole situation. he told me that jen only spoke highly of me, and so my opinion mattered.

after a while molly went looking for jen for him. and found her, and they went to her room to talk. molly, amie, ian and i were hanging out in hall/stairwell that is right outside her room, and overhearing snippets of conversation. i really didn't know how to deal with the whole situation. i wanted to write what i was feeling, but there were no words that seemed appropriate.

i wanted to physically expend the nervousness that was building up. this is the point in high school where i would do things like hit my head on walls. i don't do that anymore. i was directing all this energy at my hands, and kept throwing whatever i had in them: my pen and paper, my glasses, and snapping my fingers when there was nothing in my hands.

i started sorting pieces of paper. all the receipts that had built up in my jacket pocket. i stopped talking at this point as well. when i had the papers sorted, i would one by one throw them out in front of me on to the floor. and collect them again. it was during this that jen and matthew came back out into the hall.

i started writing on the scraps of paper. one word per piece, about how sometimes things just get too overwhelming to talk about. and i don't know how to react. jen started picking up the pieces and reading them. i ran out before i had said what i wanted to say. and i was still being silent. and kind of liked not having the opportunity to talk. even if only self-imposed.

amie and molly had gone to bed. jen said that she was going to bed as well, and matthew left. she asked if i was leaving, and eventually i spoke, slowly, haltingly. "sometimes ... words ... are too ... clumsy ... or powerful ..." i'd be very serious and say a little bit. and then there'd be a nervous silence. and then i'd laugh at how silly the whole thing was.

and then about how matthew had come and talked to me before finding her, and how i had wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. and she asked "like what?" and i couldn't. and so a piece of paper, and hands shaking, slowly wrote: "i couldn't very well tell him that i didn't know what he should do because i can't even say aloud that i kinda like her myself." and put my pen away. and stood there. and stood there. and handed her the piece of paper.

and she read it. and a long, nervous silence, where she played with her door frame, and i with my fingers. and then the: "i'm flattered, but." and my: "it's all really very high school."

and we stood there for a long time, and then: "now i'm going to go to bed." and slowly down the stairs and out. not really feeling the cold. hands shaking. heart pounding. my headache almost unbearable at this point. came home. curled up in my clothes on my bed and fell asleep.