PRICE: I went to college there for a semester, at the College of Eastern Utah, I studied Theatre. During which time my family was in Wisconsin, so I had no contact with them. I learned a lot about theatre: the business side, how to get a job, where to get a job, how to do your job well, makeup, lighting, sound design, set design and painting, and a lot about Stage Management. That was all just from Grady. Grady McEvoy is a short man with a thin grey goatee, a high pitched, very unique voice, a black equestrian/newsboy style hat, and a very intimidating personality. He taught all of those things and he was very good. He was... is... a very serious person. Corey, on the other hand is much less rule-abiding. He is, and tries hard to stay, one of the students. He hangs out with them on campus, in the theater, at rehearsal and jokes with them in class and anywhere he may see them. He taught acting and script analysis. He was also the man I talked to about my not learning what I wanted to. He told me that they weren’t allowed to teach a lot of it, because the Universities do. Anyhow. Price. I learned to think at a higher level and also think a different way. Plus I miss just being able to leave my room at three in the morning to buy Mc.donalds, or being able to walk around campus at three cause I want to. I miss being in such close proximity to such a close knit group of people, the theatre department. Because even if I didn’t want to, I had to be surrounded by them every day. And by the end of the semester, everyone could stand me, and most even liked me. I miss the ‘freedom’ or as much freedom as price can give. I miss my own space, I miss feeling like I was doing things on my own, for me, rather than because I have to, or I need to do it to get to some other thing that I am obligated to do. Now, that’s not to say that everything I do, I do because I feel obligated to do so, but just that when I was there, I felt... I dunno, like an adult. I was treated like one, and was around other people who were treated as such. And I could think on the same level as them, and not only that but discuss how we thought. As opposed to in high school, trying to force my way into conversations with Mr. Bauer that didn’t involve farts, poop or a childish song parody. And those conversations were few and far between. While in price however, I could look in the student center or Corey’s office or the theater itself, any of those places I could find intelligent discussion, even if I couldn’t involve myself in it.
So I suppose that is the main part that I miss about price. The being an adult. And I think it is especially hard because I had that adult-ness, and then it was just taken away from me, you know? I had to go back and live with my family, be home at a certain time, live exactly like I did in high school, and was treated as such. Not that, that is bad, it was just kind of a step backward to me. I am just filled with a renewed vigor to be grown up again. Because now I know I can, and I know I have, and I know I like it and I know I have been ready to do so for a long time. But now I can’t, and it is annoying. It’s like you see everybody else eating this delicious, endless sausage. And you think to yourself, man, I’m glad I’m not forced to eat that sausage, it would get tiring after a while. I mean, sure it tastes good, but now I can eat whatever I want and stop whenever I want. But then, you take a bite of the sausage, and you realize that despite you not being able to ever stop, or eat anything else, it is so yum that you don’t care. And then it gets taken away form you and you go back to eating crap. That is kind of how I feel. Now, I also know that everyone has a desire to get out of the house and stand on their own two feet at this stage in their life, I’m not trying to say my experience is unique, I’m just giving you my perspective on it in a less vague, general and stereotypical way.
PAST: The past, I realize, was mostly captures in that last part, about Price, but there are a few things I didn’t mention. One, I wish I hadn’t dumped my past girlfriends the way I did. I felt really bad and they never knew. And I’m sure they wouldn’t believe me if I told them. Now, that’s not to say I should have stayed with them, because both of us were better people in the long run, but I shouldn’t have just shut off my feelings and let it all just float by me while I’m encircled in my bubble of numbness that will just pop a few months down the road and I will feel all the cold, hard, hurtful feelings that I should have felt, and they had been feeling, all at once. Now, my pain isn’t the reason I’m saying I should have done it another way though, it’s because I really think that how I did it was incredibly immature and inconsiderate and impersonal and heartless. And I literally had to make myself heartless so I couldn’t feel how bad I was hurting them. Because if I acknowledge how badly I hurt them, I would just feel awful and go back to them and make them feel all better.
The second thin I failed to mention was that the past goes by much too quickly, and I feel like I need to capture as much of it as I can. Not necessarily a literal diary of daily events, but kind of a general mood that relates to an age or period in my life. So I bound up everything I have ever written into five volumes( plays, CEU chronicles, my blue notebook of thoughts during high-school, PROSE v1 gradaes 5- 10, and PROSE v2 grades 11 -Freshman year at CEU) and I intend to add to that. Everyone I’ve talked to has wanted to leave a mark somewhere on this earth. And I’m no exception. I realized yesterday. I want my children to know who I was as a teen, and a young adult, and as their father. I want them to know me even after I’m dead. Or, if thats not in the cards, I just want one student of mine to remember me fondly and tell someone else just a single thing they learned from me, and thus, my memory will be spread, albeit not very widely. But I don’t need wide-spread remembrance. Just a fond memory by someone. And if I can do that every day, I will just be rooting myself deeper into the history of the earth. I’ve heard stories and talks about people I don’t know, but afterward, I feel slightly closer to them, like I could talk to them on the street. That feeling I have is a part of that person, reaching through time and space and embedding themselves in me. That good memory could be me.
There was this couple that Erika waited on at Gloria’s Little Italy and the man didn’t know what he wanted, so he said he wanted to eat a creature. So I recommended to Erika to recommend the Dante sandwich. Meatballs, etc. So after they were through, I went and talked to them. Then months later, I saw them at Zupas where I work now, and vaguely recognized them, then it hit me who they were, the ‘I want to eat a creature’ couple. So I asked them if they were indeed they, and they replied they were. We had a good laugh. But it got me thinking about all this.
APOLOGY:
Basil, I apologize for the negative light I cast upon you in my first blog. You are a lovely, friendly cat who was just born differently than other cats. I’m sorry.
Thank you for reading this readership.
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