I had a whole long entry here, and then I accidentally hit the escape key, which somehow erased my entry. Really freaking annoying configuration. I want my computer, not this pathetic thing in the student union, even if it does have a T1 line.

Okay. Calm. DAMMIT! ::breathe breathe breathe:: Calm...

I have miraculously obtained computer access here. And even more miraculously, I have decided to update.

I'm at a three-week drama program at Lyon College. Our performance will be Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I, thankfully, am not acting. (The acting coach is a jackass!) I am the properties manager. Supposedly there are two managers, but the other one hasn't done a single thing regarding props. I have: read the play and compiled a prop list from it, rummaged through the storage room gathering possible props, called my parents and obtained props from them, priced prop items at the local Wal-Mart, and bought eight plastic gold-colored rings and a small spiral notepad at my own personal expense of $2.80. Not that I mind any of this; it's great fun. I just don't think I should have to share my title with someone who hasn't done anything.

Just as a general technical person, I have used power saws and drills (yea! it gives me great pleasure to use objects that could potentially kill someone) to build and place platforms in the theater, and I have hung exactly one light from the catwalk. The catwalks make me happy. I have devised a method to get to them by climbing up the wall when the door to the stairway is locked. This tends to freak people out, especially the actors.

And this is just the first week!

So yeah, I'm really enjoying myself. My roommate is the star of the play. She denies this, but as far as there is a star in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck is it. He's the one everyone remembers. He was the even the character that the kid who killed himself played in Dead Poet's Society.

I have a literature class in the mornings, where we watch lots of cool film clips from different versions of the play and discuss the different interpretations. We also talk about sex a lot. Shakespeare was apparently a major pervert.

On Wednesday night we had a Rocky Horror Picture Show party. Everyone who went either cross-dressed or dressed like a slut. I went for the slut path. A billion people worked on my hair, gathering little bunches in rubber bands. The end result was that my hair looked a great deal like those suction balls. I borrowed a pair of tight, shiny red pants from the girl across the hall and wore my tie-dyed low brass t-shirt, the bottom pulled up between my breasts so that it looked like a bikini top with sleeves. I also got my "skanky" four inch heel black sandals from home and wore them. And I put on way too much eye makeup and bright red lipstick and nail polish. Fun!

The movie was, of course, terrible, but that's the point. I had never seen it before but had wanted to due to its cult status. After watching it, I'm mildly surprised the counselors were in favor of this. It's very definitely rated R.

Tomorrow we're watching Shakespeare in Love, which is also rated R. I've already seen it. I liked it, but there's no way it deserved a Best Picture Oscar.

Tonight we're having a talent show. I found an awesome outfit in the theater to wear -- a short, tight, sequined black dress; fishnet pantyhose (currently worn on my head); go-go boots; and an extremely realistic long blonde wig. All of this to play "The Music of the Night" on my clarinet. If I only I'd brought a camera...

The counselors are largely irresponsible, which is fun. They only sporadically enforce curfew, and they let us run around in dorm rooms of the opposite sex. And show us R-rated movies.

But they're also sadistic. On our first night here, they ran down the halls at 1:30 a.m. banging on the doors and yelling for us to get out. Once we were assembled in the quad, they told us that security had called and told them to get us out of the dorms, but that they didn't know what was wrong. Also, two of the counselors were missing, and no one seemed to know where they were. The remaining counselors led us around the campus, "looking for the others," until we came up on this old wooden cabin by the lake. Then the two missing counselors jumped out of the shadows and attempted to scare us. Unfortunately for them, I and several others had figured out was going on all the way back at the quad. And I wasn't wearing any underwear. We got back to the dorms around 2:00, and we still had to show up at breakfast at the normal time. "It's a tradition," the counselors said.

I wrote a letter to Jonathan (see the last entry...) on my second day here, so he will have gotten it by now. It was an important sort of letter, in which I finally, after two years, was completely honest with him. And I told him everything. I told him I knew that he liked me, as more than a friend, and had for a long time. I told him it was pretty damn obvious. I told him that he shouldn't have led me on for so long. I told him that I didn't understand why he never let anything happen, when we could have had something great, but that I do finally accept his decision. And I told him that I love him, and I always will. And then I said goodbye.

Goodbye...