The past is a strange thing.
It's nearly a year since Leslie and I got together, and as of yesterday, a year since the night that (narratively!) really started it. We watched the first episode of Torchwood: Children of Earth in my room with Emma and Kasey -- who left, bored, after the first half-hour. Less than a minute before the first childrens' chorus of 'We are coming.' I'm pretty sure it started less than ten seconds after Emma closed the door.
Five minutes later, we'd watched three episodes, sat up giggling at each other a bit, checked the time, and read, "3:30am". A lot happened in five minutes.
A year before that, I was in Paris, spending my days at the Zigzag Cafe and drafting scenes for my novel while dad visited the Tower, the Arc, and the art galleries. I managed to do some of my most important development work in that time; at home, I was distracted. At Zigzag, on pen and paper, I was churning it out for hours on end without trouble, shotting une cafe every half hour or so, and -- freshly single -- asking myself if I'd ever work up the courage to chat up the waitress. (I didn't - I did manage a two-minute conversation about some American tourists who'd just passed through, though; "C'est pas que je ne parle pas l'anglais," she said, "Mais, quelquefois ils parlent trop vite" -- "C'est la meme pour moi, en francais!" I'd laughed; "Mais, contre leurs accents -- c'est plus facile pour moi, peut-etre --" We trailed off, and it was back to the awkward "'lu!" each day.) I returned to Australia just in time for Jen's birthday.
In 2006, I'd just come out of an intense (toxic?) relationship that'd only lasted a month, with only a little of my pride left, my friendships and my Year 12 studies in disrepair, and about to leave high school behind forever. I remember repairing things with Jen at Galactic Circus, somehow -- too late for me to catch up on our French study group stuff, though. I'm pretty sure it was at about this time that I took down the Deadjournal I'd been maintaining since September 2003. I archived it on the portable hard drive I took everywhere with me -- that hard drive has since been lost.
In 2002 -- October 17th, I think? -- two weeks before a move at the start of November, I first brought the Bluehawk mantle to SoaH City and fashioned it as a character. Based on -- well, it's what one does in those places. It started with sprite comics, and then I came up with a story I thought I could only do justice to in a different medium: the Stormeye Saga was born (its title hasn't changed since 2003, though nearly everything else has). I was still whining about being rejected by a girl four months before, and little snot that I was, I thought that meant I could empathize with people older than me who were digging deeper trenches into hell. I'm sure you were stupid too, when you were 14.
And that's -- as far back as I recall, really. That's weird to think of. That I barely recall anything before Year 8 (2002). Well, I barely recall anything in terms of chronology, anyway. I'm sure it'd come to me if I really thought about it.
Now to remember today.
1: We met up in Sam's room to organize Emma's (belated) birthday present. And wrapped it in a dozen rolls of sticky tape. By the time Emma cut it open, the layer of interwoven tape was thicker than cardboard.
2: Kristin and I spent about fifteen minutes waiting outside the noodle shop before our orders finally came through. They were doing the best they could -- but it was freakishly crowded, for a Wednesday. We'd walked in thinking there were two or three people ahead of us. Turned out there were about a dozen who'd gone off to play a game of Street Fighter or to buy a drink; kill ten minutes, then come back.
3: Jenny appeared out of nowhere to ask if I knew where Fez's room at Chisholm was. The answer was no, I didn't -- well, I did, but only vaguely. She'd gotten a message from Nate, earlier, that someone had to collect the keyboard -- Kristin reckoned she hadn't realized he sends those en masse.
4: We knocked on the door to Fez's floor. Waited. Heard a door close further in -- then a thud, more movement. We knocked again, the door burst open -- Fez, fezless, holding his keyboard, looking at us in surprise. He pushed the door open, and we heard a loud snap -- part of the keyboard had gotten caught on the door handle and gotten prised open.
5: We're doing a song (in choir) from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. A couple of the others are excited about doing a song from Final Fantasy VII. I pointed out the "Advent Children" part and scoffed, "glorified fanfic". Pretty sure I lost approval points.
6: I went to the shops and tried to remember what it was I'd come for; bought cereal, milk, juice, honey -- remembered after I got home that I'd been meaning to buy a powerboard for days.
I like what you did with this one! It's a cool idea. And honestly I'm impressed you remember that many specific Octobers, cuz I have no idea what I was doing for most of them, aside from the usual school stuff. And Halloween. It'd be cool to find my old planners and see what I did on some specific date in the past... but that requires finding/having them. Hmm, I probably still do. I remember being really bummed when I thought my mom threw out the one from 6th grade, when Sept 11 happened, cuz that was like, my journal for experiencing that bit of history. But we found it again.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you've made what I was going to post (just a comic) look super lame by comparison. :-P I'll probably post it tomorrow, since I really ought to be heading to bed. But first, I has a thing to email you... assuming it works.
I do remember more Octobers than that. :P They're less interesting, though, on paper. 2008 was when Nate and I were rushing out a script for the Chisholm Play over the course of three weeks -- and starting rehearsals for each scene as we pumped it out. I dropped the ball on my assignments, swearing to myself that I'd make it up when it mattered. I didn't.
ReplyDelete2007 I was just about to hit six months with my girlfriend-at-the-time, Erin. It was my first "stable" relationship, and I figured I should have been happy. But I wasn't, and I couldn't reconcile that. I never explicitly dumped her, but when I said, "I haven't felt anything at all in the last couple of weeks," it was taken as such. A few months later I wrote the concept for "GUILLAUME" as my means of dealing with that and the things that had happened soon afterward.
2005, I think I was in the middle of production of "Gasoline" (also translated as "The Fire Raisers", I think?) for Year 11 Theatre Studies. I played Beelzebub, which basically meant I had a huge monologue and a circus trick in the second half (riding a bike with two people on it, whoo). I also nearly broke my wrist punching a brick wall.
2004...I actually don't remember what was happening in October! I remember things that happened in September and at the start of November. October's a blank. Maybe Shaun of the Dead came out that month? I went twice to see it in the cinemas. The first time around, we got about ten minutes in before there was a town-wide blackout for two hours. The second time around I went with Beau, Ben and Amy. I was the only one who actually liked it.
It might have been around that time that I started really hanging out with Ryan, too; I met up with him in town, telling my parents I'd be back around five, and then -- on a whim -- went to his house and watched the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring. My parents called his house at about 8pm, furious with me for not having updated them on my whereabouts. They'd had to track down his number with only his first name to go by, along with the knowledge that he was a friend from the Old Drouin Butter Factory. Turns out parents get worried, sometimes!
I have vague stuff from '03, but I think that might've happened in September.
Expect me to post more random "memory lane" stories later, though, as a regular thing. Sometimes I'll remember dates and times, other times I won't.