The big Masters of the Universe party is tomorrow night. I'm kind of weirdly nervous and excited, I guess just because we haven't thrown very many big parties this semester/year. Now that I think about it, I s'pose the last big one was my birthday party. Guess that whole writing a thesis thing really did kind of suck the life out of us for a while. Ah well, it was worth it. All three of us sort of buzzed around the apartment tonight, putting away all the random things we've managed to collect, cleaning, and making certain areas of the apt somewhat more "professor-proof." Guess I don't really have anything interesting to say, just feeling a bit restless, not ready for bed yet, don't feel like doing anything else...

As my life calms down a bit, I have more time to start being prematurely nostalgic about leaving Cleveland. I started looking around campus today, thinking about all the "lasts" that I have coming up, and I started thinking about the last day of my freshman year. A day that is still one of the most perfect days I can remember. The dining halls closed a couple of days before most of us were moving out, so all the Smithies and a few other random friends pooled our money and bought a ton of food and beer and had a barbacue. We played frisbee and chased each other around with water guns and drank right out on the sidewalk, since half of res. life had moved out already and the other half didn't care. Later that night I remember sitting out on the balcony, watching the sun go down behind that one lone tree behind Smith house, trying so hard to memorize everything about how that moment felt and smelled and sounded. Since we (our little group) were practically the only ones left in the dorm, naturally we wandered the empty halls getting drunk. Towards the middle of the night we wandered down to the quad to pee in the phallic fountain, then I chased (stumbled after) Sudiptya when he took a picture of me with my pants down, peeing in the fountain. On the way back to Smith Josh, Adina, and I stopped to talk on the spirally sculpture, which is currently beside the Peter B. Lewis building, but back then it was beside a big empty field. Back then Josh, Adina, and I were like the three musketeers. After finally making our way back to the dorm and washing the dingy fountain water off of me, I spent the entire night on the phone with Dan. After a little less than two hours of sleep I woke up to say goodbye to Adina and pack up my room. It's probably a good thing that I spent the bulk of my last 48 hours as a freshman either drunk or sleep-deprived because it meant that I didn't have to deal with the emotional reality of leaving. Probably not the healthiest way to deal, but by the time I got home to WV I was just happy to sleep for 12 hours straight.

I guess in black and white, the details don't really sum up to a perfect day. But it was.

When I think back on the past 5 years, I feel like I've led two separate lives here at Case. The first half, with the dorms and the DUs and the emotional upheavels (good and bad). And the second half, with the apartment and theater (and slightly more stability?). Funny, you practically could separate out the two lives by where I lived - the first two years in Smith, the past two years on Belmar, with the one year in between in Clark as a transition.

Well, Kate is bored and demanding that someone post something before she is forced to turn to fark, so who am I but to oblige? Anyway, this thing just happened and as I am the only one home and thinking about it, might as well toss it up here for pondering. So my roommies and I are throwing this big graduation party for ourselves (the Masters of the Universe Party, because we're all graduating with Master's degrees...aren't we clever?) and it turns out that one group of my friends has a previous engagement. Cool, no problem there. But (and I don't know why I'm bothering to try to make this anonymous since it will be completely obvious what group of friends I'm talking about, but it just somehow seems rude otherwise...whatever, don't care) for whatever reason the friend who told me they would be otherwise engaged sort of hurt my feelings. I know that wasn't his intention, but he wrote off their absence as unimportant, claiming that not many of them knew me anymore anyway. Which is sort of true and sort of untrue. But mostly just seems beside the point to me. This group of people played a huge role in my life, once upon a time, and even if they don't anymore, it seems logical that I would want them at my big send-off before moving away. Now, this is not an attempt to guilt anyone into coming to my party. And of course, I completely understand that this group of people has somewhere else to be. I'm just saying that claiming that their absence will barely be noticed is unfair to the friendship we once had. And hurts a little.

Spent a lovely, although somewhat tiring, Easter weekend at home in WV. The tiring part was worth it, since I got to spend Saturday night in good conversation with Jess, Kelly, Topher, and Matt. Except that at one point Jess said something rather tactless about my parents. It simply struck me as odd at the moment, but after noticing the looks on Kelly's and Chris's faces, it occurred to me that she'd said something rather...inappropriate. It still doesn't really bother me all that much, mostly because a) I've already spent so much time and energy thinking and worrying about my parents' relationship that I think I've just used up most of my ability to be concerned with their relationship and b) I don't really live there anymore, so although their relationship still certainly affects me, it's to a much lesser degree. Nevertheless, what Jess said was just sort of weird, and the way that she felt compelled to bring it up was even weirder. Ah well.

Also this weekend, went to see The Quiet American with the parents. Very enjoyable. There's this one really striking scene, during which Brendan Fraser (the "quiet American") pulls out a handkerchief and wipes blood from the cuff of his pants. I won't explain any further for those who don't know the story (and might one day be compelled to read the book or see the movie), but it provides a moving symbol of America and how (I think) America may be viewed by many other countries.

Ok, back to work...