Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Thursday: Ken got into Chicago a little after 5 AM and he called me around quarter to 6. I met him near the Sedgewick L stop and we proceeded to Mitchell's/Michael's for breakfast. Imagine Mitchell's as a more expensive Denny's, and you've got it. I think we had a really pleasant chat and breakfast. A general nervousness over the next few days was the overall theme, but it's always nice to be able to catch up with someone face-to-face. After our breakfast, we headed back to my apartment and warmed up for the weekend with a little Halo. We're still as awesome a team as we ever were... he runs head-first into danger and I stand around and pick off the distracted enemies one-by-one. That's f--king teamwork! After Halo, we watched some TV and waited for Best Buy to open (at 10). We then proceeded to Best Buy to buy ourselves lots of electronic stuff that we don't really need: Ken got Conflict Desert Storm and a RHH CD, and I got a GCN Sonic collection (it's like 9 old Sonic the Hedgehog games on one disc. Awesome!), Prince of Persia (which I hear is an awesome platform/adventure game for only $20), and NCAA Football 2005! >sigh< I'll be buying those games for the rest of my life. We then drove out to CostCo, the most magical place on the planet. Ken and I walked around for a while and I eventually bought some socks (how lame am I?) and some workout pants. Then it was back to my place for some Conflict: Desert Storm action! I was plesantly surprised. For a tactical shooting game (which I don't really like) it played very accessibly. It reminded me a lot of Brute Force, in that every member of the four-person team has a special job and specific abilities... but there was some added fun in that it was very realistic AND that if a member of your team was "knocked unconscious" you had to get to them with a med-pack to continue the mission. Every member of the team has to survive. It was a pretty cool game. Unfortunately, I think it'll be too boring and long, like Brute Force, to play with just one player. So it's a fun game for me and Ken to play together, but I don't think I'd buy it just for me. I then went to work out with Thad (Ken stayed and took a nap)... and I had one of the hardest workouts so far. Thad keeps increasing weights... and I was already SUPER-tired when I got there, so it was a hard workout. When I came back to the apartment, Ken and I went out to Lou Malnati's for pizza. It's a fun-tacular place... and I was starving by the time we got our pizza at like 8:30 or 9. It was good... and we were about to head back to my place when I texted my boss, and Andrea called back. Ken, being the stupid bastard that he is, wanted to meet her so we did. We went to Cobbler Square and hung out on the benches outside the building. We talked for over an hour... and I think everyone enjoyed the conversation. And Ken's probably in love with my boss... but who can blame him, really?
Friday: Ken and I woke up at 6 AM, and got ready to leave for BR. Then it was to the Crazy Mobile and off on a four hour fun filled drive! We listened to the radio for a bit... both hesitant to start practicing the songs, probably because we were both really worried about them. When we did start singing the songs, I realized very quickly that I should have warmed up my voice first. I strained my voice while we were practicing, and he and I didn't get the amount of time we would have liked. No matter... we got to BR around Noon and each had lunch at our respective houses until we got back together about 2:30 for rehearsal. Ken and I drove out to Nate's and rehearsed for a couple hours. Then Ken and I went back to our respective houses to change for the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal dinner was slightly weird, as I had to wait until they were done rehearsing before I was allowed to practice with the accompanist, Lois. Lois told me that she was going to stick to me "like glue" and that she's be "right behind" me. And she didn't disappoint. Unfortunately for me, she was consistently half a beat or more behind me. Ergo, I basically felt unsupported by the accompanist whilst I was singing. I then went into the gym where everyone else was having dinner and was given a Packer's mug with my name on it (I know!) as a gift for singing in the wedding. After dinner, Karen and I headed back to our house to change, and then it was off to Jean's grandparents' house for the "traditional" bonfire. I don't know who has this tradition, but it's apparently traditional. I got to sit by the campfire for about five minutes before Jean said "Anyone who wants to consider themselves my friend in the morning is going on the hayride right now". She then proceeded to pull me out of my chair, probably because she knew that threatening to lose a friend will never make me do anything (as I don't care about people). I walked Katie down to the tractor, hitting on her the whole way. Katie's fun to hit on... know why? Because she's hot, that's why. And she laughs at me being stupid and hitting on her. That's a good feeling. I love hitting on someone all cheesily and having them laugh. I don't care if it's "working" or not... all I need is the laugh. Anyway, so the hayride happened... and it rained on us. I turned to Ken and said something to the effect of "You know those times in your life where you don't look back with fondness, and you don't look back with sadness, you just look back and remember? This is one of those times". That's only partially true, I'm already looking back on it with a sense of fondness... as how many more times will Ken, Nate, and I be on one vehicle at one time? >shrug< Your guess is as good as mine. But the hayride in the rain was pretty much the end of the day.
Saturday: Ken, Nate, and I went to the VFW first thing in the morning (11 instead of 6 today). We ran through the songs a few more times and got used to the acoustics of the room. There's lots of video of us walking around talking about the music (just lots of video of us in general)... but since there was no one there yet, Bridget got some footage of us rehearsing. After we rehearsed for about an hour and a half, I drove Ken home and I went home to shower, shave, and get ready for the wedding. I then picked Nate and Ken up and went to the church. We were pretty much the first non-wedding party people there. I think we got there before the Reverend. So Nate and I had lots of time to talk and goof around. I'm sure he could sense how nervous I was about singing in the actual wedding... so he kept me in good spirits and thinking about other things. He's an amazing friend. The wedding started and was finished before I knew it. It was a short ceremony (only about 22 minutes), and almost 20% of the time was me singing. Afterwards I asked everyone who would give it to me straight how they thought it went. Nate seemed to be the only one to really be honest. It wasn't the worst singing of a song in the history of man-kind, but the higher notes were out of my range. Everyone else I talked to said I did a great job, etc. I think that they were all just so happy it wasn't them singing, that I did a great job in comparison... that or the emotions of the moment kept them so involved in the wedding, that they didn't really remember, they only couldn't remember it being BAD. This is why taping the wedding is going to kill the memory of that song. The more people listen to it outside of the emotions of the ceremony, the worse I'm sure it will be. In short: don't watch the tape. Nate and I snuck out right after the ceremony ended because we wanted to get a mic check with the DJs equipment and the VFW Hall. Unfortunately, the DJ wasn't there... so we just talked for a while longer. I also had some kegged root beer which was unbelievably good. I guess root beer belongs in kegs. Who knew? It seemed like it took a very long time for Ken and the rest of the wedding party to get there, but they eventually did. When they did, we talked to the DJ about mics and sound check. Basically, we couldn't do a sound check at the time, so we had to do it on the fly. This made Ken totally uneasy... but I really didn't care. I had already ruined the wedding once that day, this wasn't a big deal to me. At any rate, the Nervous Band and I ate, watched the first dance, watched the wedding party dance, and danced in the "short set" before we played. Then it was time... finally. We started with Almost Paradise, which we had changed a bit because I wasn't able to sing very high. It went well enough, and the crowd (read: Jean) looked like they were having a good time. Then we played Kelly's Girl... which was just a lot of fun. Every young lady in the wedding party seemed to be into it. I'm almost sure some of the choruses were off-key, but that is because I had to drop them down an octave, and I'm not very good at singing something unless I've heard it exactly the way I'm singing it. Regardless, Jean loved it and Kelly was very cool about the lyrics, he played along and that was awesome. That was it... I danced provocatively with many many young ladies, and went home with Nate, Allison, and Ken and we all talked for a while. That's really it for the wedding and reception. I may have teared up a little when Jean walked down the aisle, as it had finally hit me... seeing her in THE dress. I was too worried about the singing to really pay attention to the ceremony after that. Then the reception was fun... I was able to hit on Katie, both before and after her boyfriend showed up. And I was able to dance with everyone I wanted to dance with, including Kelly (during the $1 dance). I also watched Kelly and Jean dance together from up close (I was dancing with Rhea), and I could sense a lot of love... it made me happy to see them just so in love. It was nice, I promise.
Sunday: I woke up from a very very odd dream. I'm not sure how this worked, but I'm pretty sure that I was LeBron James in my dream... and my team was playing against: Cleveland and LeBron James. I don't know how that works, but I know my team was down by four with only a few seconds left and I got a full-court pass to me wide open under the basket and I fumbled the ball out of bounds. My team eventually lost... and I felt very responsible. Another weird part of the dream was that women still wanted to sleep with me, and I was disgusted by the thought, after having just lost the game for my team. I'm weird. I then had breakfast with my family. It was really the only time I was able to spend with them the entire weekend, and it went incredibly quickly. Before I knew it, I was rushing out the door to be able to make it to Chicago on time for my Writing 5 rehearsal. The drive back to Chicago always seems longer than the drive to BR... which I blame on the speed limits. It's 70 in MI, 65 through Indiana, and a ridiculous 55 near Chicago; so as I get closer, I have to go slower. Or perhaps it's because I'd rather be staying in Michigan with my family than here in Chicago by myself. Regardless, I got into Chicago with just enough time to run to play rehearsal (I ended up being about five minutes late). Rehearsal was long, and very tiring... but I got through it, and the lines are still coming along 'famously'. After play rehearsal, I called a few people (including Andrea) to catch up on what I had missed the past four days. My voice had gotten progressively worse after play practice and almost all of my energy was gone due to the rehearsal... so it was interesting to hear people asking me if I was sick or if I had died. Wait... only one of those things happened. And, they were disappointed as I hadn't died. I then relaxed and watched the Bourne Identity (my father lent it to me) before bed.
Monday: I spent most of the morning writing my scene for class. It was a deconstruction scene... and it turned out fairly well. I turned it in tonight and  got good feedback on it. I am going to be able to move on to the Writing 4 class... which means sometime in December, they will be performing stuff that I wrote. Neat, huh?
Wanna see why Jackson, Michigan is full of idiots? Go here: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Midwest/07/19/sticky.situation.ap/index.html.